There had been fewer Younglings in the beginning, but their reputation brought recruits. The added numbers would be helpful; no recruit was allowed out of Tar Valon until he was up to standard. It was not that he expected fighting this day more than any other, but he had learned it came most often when unexpected. Only Aes Sedai would wait until the last minute to tell a man about a thing like what was to happen today.
"Is everything well?" he said, stopping beside a group of swordsmen. In spite of the heat, some wore their green cloaks so that Gawyn’s white charging boar showed, embroidered on the breast.
Jisao Hamora was the youngest, still with a boy’s grin, but he was also the only one of the five with the small silver tower on his collar, marking him a veteran of the fighting in the White Tower. He answered. "All is well, my Lord."
The Younglings deserved their name. Gawyn himself, a few years past twenty, was among the oldest. It was a rule that they accepted none who had served in any army, or borne arms for any lord or lady, or even worked as a merchant’s guard. The first Younglings had gone to the Tower as boys and young men to be trained by the Warders, the finest swordsmen, the finest fighters, in the world, and they continued part of that tradition, at least, though Warders no longer trained them. Youth was no detriment. They had held a small ceremony only a week past for the first whiskers Benji Dalfor had ever shaved that were not fuzz, and he bore a scar across his cheek from the Tower fighting. The Aes Sedai had been too busy for Healing in the days right after Siuan Sanche was deposed as Amyrlin. She might still be Amyrlin if the Younglings had not faced many of their former teachers and bested them in the halls of the Tower.
"Is there any point to this, my Lord?" Hal Moir asked. He was two years older than Jisao, and like many who did not wear the silver tower, he regretted not having been there. He would learn. "There isn’t a glimmer of Aielmen."
"You think not?" Without any hefting to give warning, Gawyn hurled the rock as hard as he could at the only bush close enough to hit, a scraggly thing. The rustle of dead leaves was the only sound, but the bush shook just a bit more than it should have, as though a man somehow hidden behind it had been struck in a tender place. Exclamations rose from the newer men; Jisao only eased his sword. "An Aiel, Hal, can hide in a fold in the ground you wouldn’t even stumble over." Not that Gawyn knew any more of Aiel than he read in books, but he had read every book he could find in the White Tower’s library by any man who had actually fought them, every book by any soldier who seemed to know what he was talking about. A man had to ready himself for the future, and it seemed the world’s future was war. "But if the Light pleases, there won’t be any fighting today."
"My Lord!" came a hail from up the hill as the lookout spotted what he just had: three women emerging from a small thicket a few hundred paces west, coming toward the hill. West; a surprise. But Aiel always liked surprise.
He had read about Aiel women fighting alongside the men, but these women could never fight in those dark bulky skirts and white blouses. They carried shawls looped over their arms despite the heat. On the other hand, how had they reached that thicket unseen? "Keep your eyes open, and not on them," he said, and then disobeyed himself by watching the three Wise Ones, the emissaries from the Shaido Aiel, with interest. They could be no other, out here.
They came on at a stately pace, not at all as if approaching a large party of armed men. Their hair was long, to the waist — he had read that Aiel kept it cut short — and held back by folded kerchiefs. They wore so many bracelets and long necklaces of gold and silver and ivory that the glitter should have given them away at a mile.
Straight-backed and proud-faced, the three women strode past the swordsmen with hardly a glance and started up the hill. Their leader was a golden-haired woman, her loose blouse unlaced to show considerable tanned cleavage. The other two were gray, with leathery faces; she had to be less than half their age.
"I wouldn’t mind asking that one to dance," one of the Younglings said admiringly when the women had gone past. He was a good ten years younger than the golden-haired woman.
"I wouldn’t if I were you, Arwin," Gawyn said dryly. "It might be misunderstood." He had read that Aiel called battle "the dance." "Besides, she’d have your liver for dinner." He had caught a glimpse of her pale green eyes, and he had never seen harder.
He watched the Wise Ones until they had climbed the hill to where half a dozen Aes Sedai waited with their Warders. Those who had Warders; two were Red Ajah, and Reds did not. When the women disappeared into one of the tall white tents, and the five Warders had taken up guard around it, he went on with his circuit of the hill.
The Younglings were alert since word of the Aiel’s arrival had spread, which did not please him. They should have been this alert before. Even most who did not wear the silver tower had seen fighting around Tar Valon. Eamon Valda, the Whitecloak Lord Captain in command, had pulled nearly all his men out to the west more than a month ago, but the handful he left behind tried to keep together the brigands and bullyboys Valda had gathered. The Younglings had dispersed those, at least. Gawyn wished he could think they had driven Valda off, too — the Tower had certainly kept its own soldiers far from the skirmishing, for all that the Whitecloaks’ only reason for being there had been to see what harm they could do the Tower — but he suspected that Valda had his own reasons. Likely orders from Pedron Niall, and Gawyn would have given much to know what they were. Light, but he hated not knowing. It was like fumbling your way in the dark.
The truth was, he admitted, that he was irritated. Not only about the Aiel, about not being told of this meeting until this morning. He had not been told where they were going, either, until he was taken aside by Coiren Sedai, the Gray sister who led the Aes Sedai. Elaida had been closemouthed and imperious when she was his mother’s advisor in Caemlyn; since being raised to the Amyrlin Seat she made the old Elaida seem open and warm. No doubt she had pressured him to form this escort as much to get him away from Tar Valon as for any other reason.
The Younglings had sided with her in the fighting — the old Amyrlin was stripped of Staff and Stole by the Hall, the attempt to free her rebellion against the law, clear and simple — but Gawyn had had his doubts about all Aes Sedai long before he heard the charges against Siuan Sanche read. That they pulled strings and made thrones dance was a thing said so often that he had hardly paid it any mind, but then he saw the strings being pulled. The effects at least, and his sister Elayne was the one who danced, danced right out of his sight, out of existence for all he knew. Her, and another. He had fought to keep Siuan imprisoned, then turned around and let her escape. If Elaida ever discovered that, his mother’s crown would not keep him alive.
Even with that, Gawyn had chosen to stay, because his mother had always supported the Tower, because his sister wanted to be Aes Sedai. And because another woman wanted to. Egwene al’Vere. He had no right to even think of her, but abandoning the Tower would be abandoning her. For such flimsy reasons did a man choose his fate. Knowing they were flimsy did not change them, though.
He glared at the sere, windswept grasslands as he strode from one position to the next. So here he was, hoping the Aiel did not decide to attack despite — or because of — whatever it was the Shaido Wise Ones were talking over with Coiren and the others. He suspected there might be enough out there to overrun him even with Aes Sedai help. He was on his way to Cairhien, and he did not know how he felt about that. Coiren had made him swear to hold his mission secret, and even then seemed afraid of what she was saying. Well she might be. It was always best to examine carefully what an Aes Sedai said — they could not lie, but they could spin truth like a top — yet even so, he found no hidden meanings. The six Aes Sedai were going to ask the Dragon Reborn to accompany them to the Tower, with the Younglings, commanded by the son of the Queen of Andor, for an escort of honor. There could be only one reason, one that plainly shocked Coiren enough that she only hinted at it. It shocked Gawyn. Elaida intended to announce to
the world that the White Tower supported the Dragon Reborn.
It was almost unbelievable. Elaida had been a Red before she became Amyrlin. Reds hated the very idea of men channeling; they did not think much of men in general, for that matter. Yet the fall of the once-invincible Stone of Tear, fulfilling prophecy, said Rand al’Thor was the Dragon Reborn, and even Elaida said the Last Battle was coming. Gawyn could hardly reconcile the frightened farmboy who had literally fallen into the Royal Palace in Caemlyn with the man in the rumors that drifted up the River Erinin to Tar Valon. It was said he had hanged Tairen High Lords and let Aiel loot the Stone. He had certainly brought the Aiel across the Spine of the World, for only the second time since the Breaking, to ravage Cairhien. Perhaps it was the madness. Gawyn had rather liked Rand al’Thor; he regretted that the man had turned out to be what he was.
By the time he came back to Jisao’s group, someone else was in sight coming from the west, a peddler in a floppy hat, leading a slab-sided pack mule. Straight toward the hill; he had seen them.
Jisao shifted, then went still again when Gawyn touched his arm. Gawyn knew what the younger man was thinking, but if the Aiel decided to kill this fellow, there was nothing they could do. Coiren would be less than pleased if he started a battle with the people she was talking to.
The peddler shambled along unconcernedly, right by the bush Gawyn had disturbed with his rock. The mule started cropping desultorily at the brown grass as the man pulled off his hat, sketched a bow that took them all in and began mopping his grizzled face with a grimy neckerchief. "The Light shine on you, my Lords. You’re well set up for traveling in these parlous times, as any man can see, but if there’s any small thing you need, like as not old Mil Tesen’s got it in his packs. Ain’t no better prices in ten miles, my Lords."
Gawyn doubted there was as much as a farm within ten miles. "Parlous times indeed, Master Tesen. Aren’t you afraid of Aiel?"
"Aiel, my Lord? They’s all down to Cairhien. Old Mil can smell Aiel, he can. Truth, he wishes there was some here. Fine trading with Aiel. They got lots of gold. From Cairhien. And they don’t bother peddlers. Everybody knows that."
Gawyn forbore asking why, if the Aiel in Cairhien made such good trading, the man was not heading south. "What news of the world, Master Tesen? We’re from the north, and you may know what hasn’t caught up to us yet from the south."
"Oh, big doings southward, my Lord. You’ll have heard of Cairhien? Him that calls himself Dragon and all?" Gawyn nodded, and he went on. "Well, now he’s taken Andor. Most of it, anyway. Their queen’s dead. Some say he’ll take the whole world before —" The man cut off with a strangled yelp before Gawyn realized he had seized the fellow’s lapels.
"Queen Morgase is dead? Speak, man! Quickly!"
Tesen rolled his eyes looking for help, but he spoke, and quickly. "That’s what they say, my Lord. Old Mil don’t know, but he thinks it so. Everybody says it, my Lord. Everybody says this Dragon did it. My Lord? Old Mil’s neck, my Lord! My Lord!"
Gawyn jerked his hands away as though burned. He felt on fire inside. It had been another neck he wanted in his hands. "The Daughter-Heir." His voice sounded far off. "Is there any word of the Daughter-Heir, Elayne?"
Tesen backed away a long pace as soon as he was free. "Not as old Mil knows, my Lord. Some says she’s dead, too. Some says he killed her, but old Mil don’t know for sure."
Gawyn nodded slowly. Thought seemed to be drifting up from the bottom of a well. My blood shed before hers; my life given before hers. "Thank you, Master Tesen. I…" My blood shed before hers… That was the oath he had taken when barely tall enough to peer into Elayne’s cradle. "You may trade with… Some of my men may need…" Gareth Bryne had had to explain to him what it meant, but even then he had known he had to keep that oath if he failed at everything else in his life. Jisao and the others were looking at him worriedly. "Take care of the peddler," he told Jisao roughly, and turned away.
His mother dead, and Elayne. Only a rumor, but rumors on everyone’s lips sometimes had a way of turning out true. He climbed half a dozen paces toward the Aes Sedai camp before he knew it. His hands hurt. He had to look to realize they were cramping from the grip he had on his sword hilt, and he had to force them to let go. Coiren and the others meant to take Rand al’Thor to Tar Valon, but if his mother was dead… Elayne. If they were dead, he would see whether the Dragon Reborn could live with a sword through his heart!
Adjusting her red-fringed shawl, Katerine Alruddin rose from the cushions with the other women in the tent. She almost sniffed when Coiren, plump and pompous, intoned, "As it has been agreed, so shall it be." This was a meeting with savages, not the conclusion of a treaty between the Tower and a ruler.
The Aiel women showed no more reaction, no more expression, than when they first arrived. That was something of a surprise; kings and queens betrayed their innermost feelings when faced by two or three Aes Sedai, much less half a dozen; brutish savages surely should be trembling visibly by now. Perhaps that should have been almost no reaction. Their leader — her name was Sevanna, followed by some nonsense about "septs" and "Shaido Aiel" and "wise" — said, "It is agreed so long as I get to see his face." She had a sulky mouth, and wore her blouse unlaced to attract men’s eyes; that the Aiel chose one like her to lead showed how crude they were. "I want to see him, and have him see me, when he is defeated. Only with that will your Tower be allied to the Shaido."
The hint of eagerness in her voice made Katerine suppress a smile. Wise? This Sevanna truly was a fool. The White Tower did not have allies; there were those who served its ends willingly and those who served unwillingly, no others.
A slight thinning at the corners of Coiren’s mouth betrayed her irritation. The Gray was a good negotiator, but she did like to have things done just so, every foot placed exactly where it had been planned to go. "Without doubt, your service deserves what you ask."
One of the gray-haired Aiel — Tarva, or some such — narrowed her eyes, but Sevanna nodded, hearing what Coiren had wanted her to hear.
Coiren set out to escort the Aiel women as far as the foot of the hill, along with Erian, a Green, and Nesune, a Brown, and the five Warders they had between them. Katerine went as far as the edge of the trees to watch. On arrival the Aiel had been allowed to come up alone, like the supplicants they were, but now they were given all honor to make them believe they truly were friends and allies. Katerine wondered whether they were civilized enough to recognize the subtleties.
Gawyn was down there, sitting on a rock, staring off across the grasslands. What would that young man think if he learned he and his children were only here to get them away from Tar Valon? Neither Elaida nor the Hall liked having a pack of young wolves about who refused to accept the leash. Perhaps the Shaido could be prevailed upon to eliminate the problem. Elaida had intimated as much. That way his death would not rebound against the Tower with his mother.
"If you stare so at the young man much longer, Katerine, I will begin to think you should be a Green."
Katerine stamped out a quick spark of anger and inclined her head respectfully. "I was only speculating on his thoughts, Galina Sedai."
That was as much respect as was proper in so public a place, and perhaps even a touch more. Galina Casban looked less than Katerine’s true age at most and was twice that, and for eighteen years the round-faced woman had been the head of the Red Ajah. A fact not known outside the Ajah, of course; such things were for the Ajah alone. She was not even one of the Sitters for the Red in the Hall of the Tower; Katerine suspected that the heads of most other Ajahs were. Elaida would have named her leader of this expedition instead of that self-important Coiren, except that Galina herself had pointed out that a Red might make Rand al’Thor suspicious. The Amyrlin Seat was supposed to be of all Ajahs and none, renouncing her old loyalty, but if Elaida deferred to anyone — which was debatable, true — she deferred to Galina.
"Will he come willingly, as Coiren thinks?" Katerine asked.
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"Perhaps," Galina said dryly. "The honor this delegation does him should be enough to make a king carry his throne to Tar Valon on his back."
Katerine did not bother to nod. "The woman Sevanna will kill him, given a chance."
"Then she must not be given a chance." Galina’s voice was cold, her plump mouth tight. "The Amyrlin Seat will not be pleased to have her plans disrupted. And you and I will have days to scream in the dark before we die."
Drawing her shawl up over her shoulders reflexively, Katerine shuddered. There was dust in the air; she would get out her light cloak. It would not be Elaida’s rage that killed them, though her fury could be terrible. For seventeen years Katerine had been Aes Sedai, but not until the morning before they departed Tar Valon had she learned that she shared more than the Red Ajah with Galina. Twelve years she had been a member of the Black Ajah, never knowing that Galina had too, for far longer. Of necessity Black sisters kept themselves hidden, even from each other. Their rare gatherings were held with faces covered and voices disguised. Before Galina, Katerine had known only two to recognize. Orders were left on her pillow, or in a pocket of her cloak, the ink ready to vanish if any hand but hers touched the paper. She had a secret place to leave messages, and dire orders not to try to see who came to take them. She had never disobeyed. There might be Black sisters among those following a day behind, but she had no way of knowing.
"Why?" she asked. Orders to preserve the Dragon Reborn made no sense, even if they delivered him into Elaida’s hands.
"Questions are dangerous for one sworn to obey without."
Katerine shuddered again, and barely stopped herself from curtsying. "Yes, Galina Sedai." But she could not help wondering. Why?
"They show neither respect nor honor," Therava growled. "They allow us to enter their camp as though we were toothless dogs, then take us out under guard like suspected thieves."
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