So far as the people of Tarabon were concerned, the Children would have the blame for the inevitable killings, not the King, or the army of Tarabon. Once Amathera was invested with the Crown and Staff of the Tree, a few more of the Assembly might well join the rebels, but if the rest admitted they had not elected her the news would set Tanchico afire. As for any tales that came from those who fled — why, rebels would spread any sort of treasonous lie. And the King and Panarch of Tarabon would both dangle on strings Carridin could hand to Pedron Niall to do with as he pleased.
Not such a grand prize as it would have been when the King of Tarabon controlled more than a few hundred square miles around Tanchico, yet it might be grand again. With the aid of the Children — a legion or two would be needed at least; not just the five hundred men Carridin had — the Dragonsworn might yet be crushed, the various rebels defeated, even the war with Arad Doman successfully prosecuted. If either country still realized it was fighting the other. Arad Doman was in worse condition than Tarabon, so Carridin heard.
In truth, he hardly cared if Tarabon fell under the Children's sway, or Tanchico, or any of it. There were motions to go through, things to do that he had always done, but it was difficult to think of anything except when his own throat would be cut. Perhaps he would long to have his throat cut. Two whole months since the last report.
He did not stay to drink with the Taraboners, but made his goodbyes, as shortly as he could. If they took offense, they needed him too much to show it. Selindrin saw him come down, and a stableboy was trotting his horse up to the front door when he reached the street. Tossing the boy a copper, he spurred the black gelding to a quick canter. The ragged folk in the twisty streets got out of his way, which was to the good; he was not sure he would notice if he trampled one of them. Not that it would be any loss. The city was full of beggars; he could hardly breathe without the stench of old, sour sweat and dirt. Tamrin ought to sweep them up and sweep them out; let the rebels in the country contend with them.
It was the country that held his mind, but not the rebels. They could be dealt with easily enough, after word began to spread that this one or that was a Darkfriend. And once he managed to turn a few of them over to the Hand of the Light, they would stand up before everyone and confess to worshipping the Dark One, eating children, anything and everything they were told. The rebels could not last long after that; the pretenders still in the field would wake to find themselves alone. But the Dragonsworn, the men and women who had actually declared for the Dragon Reborn, would not fall away for a charge of being Darkfriends. Most people already considered them so, swearing to follow a man who could channel.
It was the man they had sworn to follow who was the problem, the man whose name they did not even know. Rand al'Thor. Where was he? A hundred bands of Dragonsworn out there, at least two large enough to be called armies, fighting the King's army — such of it as still held allegiance to Andric — fighting the rebels — who were busy fighting each other as often as Andric or the Dragonsworn — yet Carridin had no clue to which band sheltered Rand al'Thor. He could be on Almoth Plain or in Arad Doman, where the situation was the same. If he was, Jaichim Carridin was a dead man in all likelihood.
At the palace on the Verana he had commandeered for the Children's headquarters, he tossed his reins to one of the white-cloaked guards and stalked inside without returning their salutes. The owner of this ornate mass of pale domes and lacy spires and shaded gardens had put forward a claim to the Throne of the Light, and no one complained at the occupation. Least of all the owner; what was left of his head still adorned a spike above the Traitors' Steps, on the Maseta.
For once Carridin barely glanced at fine Tarabon carpets, or furnishings worked with gold and ivory, or fountained courts where splashing water made a cool sound. Broad hallways with golden lamps and high ceilings covered in delicate gold-work scrolls interested him not at all. This palace could match the finest in Amadicia, if not the largest, yet foremost in his mind right then was the strong brandy in the room he had taken for a study.
He was halfway across a priceless carpet, all patterned blue and scarlet and gold, eyes fixed on the carved cabinet that held a silver flask of double-distilled brandy, when suddenly he realized he was not alone. A woman in a clinging, pale-red gown stood near the tall, narrow windows overlooking one of the tree-shaded gardens, her honey-colored hair in braids that brushed her shoulders. A misty scrap of veil did nothing to hide her face. Young and pretty, with a rosebud mouth and large brown eyes, she was no servant, not dressed like that.
"Who are you?" he demanded irritably. "How did you get in here? Leave at once, or I'll have you tossed into the street."
"Threats, Bors? You should be more welcoming to a guest, yes?"
That name jolted him to his heels. Before he thought, he had his sword out, lunging for her throat.
Something seized him — the air turned to crawling jelly — something forced him to his knees, encased him from the neck down. It tightened around his wrist until bones grated; his hand popped open, and his sword fell. The Power. She was using the One Power on him. A Tar Valon witch. And if she knew that name…
"Do you remember," she said, coming closer, "a meeting where Ba'alzamon himself appeared, and showed us the faces of Matrim Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara, and Rand al'Thor?" She practically spat the names, especially the last; her eyes could have drilled holes in steel. "You see? I know who you are, yes? You pledged your soul to the Great Lord of the Dark, Bors." Her sudden laugh was a tinkling of bells.
Sweat popped out on his face. Not just a despised Tar Valon witch. Black Ajah. She was Black Ajah. He had thought it would be a Myrddraal that came for him. He had thought there was time yet. More time. Not yet. "I have tried to kill him," he babbled. "Rand al'Thor. I have tried! But I cannot find him. I cannot! I was told my family would be killed if I failed, one by one. I was promised I would be last! I have cousins, yet. Nephews. Nieces. I have another sister! You must give me more time!"
She stood there, watching him with those sharp brown eyes, smiling with that plump little mouth, listening to him spew out where Vanora could be found, where her bedchamber lay, how she liked to ride alone in the forest beyond Carmera. Perhaps if he shouted some of the guards would come. Perhaps they could kill her. He opened his mouth wider — and that thick invisible jelly oozed in, forcing his jaws apart until they creaked in his ears. Nostrils flaring, he sucked air in frantically. He could still breathe, but he could not scream. All that came out were muffled groans, like a woman wailing behind walls. He wanted to scream.
"You are very amusing," the honey-haired woman said finally. "Jaichim. That is a good name for a dog, I think. Would you like to be my dog, Jaichim? If you are a very good dog, I may allow you to watch Rand al'Thor die one day, yes?"
It took a moment for what she was saying to sink in. If he was to see Rand al'Thor die, she was not… She was not going to kill him, skin him alive, do the things his mind had conjured that would make flaying a release. Tears rolled down his face. Sobs of relief shook him, as much as he could shake, trapped as he was. That trap abruptly vanished, and he collapsed on hands and knees, still weeping. He could not stop.
The woman knelt beside him and tangled a hand in his hair, pulled his head up. "Now you will listen to me, yes? The death of Rand al'Thor is for the future, and you will see it only if you are a good dog. You are going to move your Whitecloaks to the Panarch's Palace."
"H-how do y-you know that?"
She shook his head from side to side, not gently. "A good dog does not question his mistress. I throw the stick; you fetch the stick. I say kill; you kill. Yes? Yes." Her smile was just a flash of teeth. "There will be difficulty in taking the Palace? The Panarch's Legion is there, a thousand men, sleeping in the hallways, the exhibition rooms, the courtyards. You do not have so many of your Whitecloaks."
"They…" He had to stop and swallow. "They will make no trouble. They will believe Amathera has been chosen by the Assembly.
It is the Assembly that—"
"Do not bore me, Jaichim. I do not care if you kill the entire Assembly so long as you hold the Panarch's Palace. When will you move?"
"It… it will take three or four days for Andric to deliver sureties."
"Three or four days," she murmured half to herself. "Very well. A little longer delay should cause no harm." He was wondering what delay she meant when she cut away the little ground remaining under his feet. "You will keep control of the Palace, and you will send the Panarch's fine soldiers away."
"That is impossible," he gasped, and she jerked his head back so hard he did not know if his neck would break or his scalp tear loose first. He did not dare resist. A thousand invisible needles pricked him, on his face, his chest, his back, arms, legs, everywhere. Invisible, but he was sure no less real for that.
"Impossible, Jaichim?" she said softly. "Impossible is a word I do not like to hear."
The needles twisted deeper; he groaned, but he had to explain. What she wanted was impossible. He panted with haste. "Once Amathera is invested as Panarch, she will control the Legion. If I try to hold the Palace, she will turn them on me, and Andric will help her. There is no way I can hold against the Panarch's Legion, and against whatever Andric can strip from the Ring forts."
She studied him so long he began to sweat. He did not dare to flinch, hardly even to blink; those thousand biting little stabs did not allow it.
"The Panarch will be dealt with," she said finally. The needles vanished, and she stood.
Carridin stood, too, trying to steady himself. Perhaps some bargain could be reached; the woman seemed willing to listen to reason now. His legs quivered with shock, but he made his voice as firm as he could. "Even if you can influence Amathera—"
She cut him off. "I told you not to question, Jaichim. A good dog obeys his mistress, yes? I promise you, if you do not you will beg me to find a Myrddraal to play with you. Do you understand me?"
"I understand," he said leadenly. She continued to stare, and after a moment he did understand. "I will do as you say… mistress." Her brief, approving smile made him flush. She moved toward the door, turning her back on him as if he really were a dog, and a toothless one. "What…? What is your name?"
Her smile was sweet this time, and mocking. "Yes. A dog should know his mistress's name. I am called Liandrin. But that name must never touch a dog's lips. Should it, I will be most displeased with you."
When the door closed behind her, he staggered to a high-backed chair inlaid with ivory and fell into it. The brandy he left where it was; the way his stomach was twisting, it would make him vomit. What interest could she possibly have in the Panarch's Palace? A dangerous line of questioning, perhaps, but even if they served the same master he could not feel anything but revulsion for a Tar Valon witch.
She did not know as much as she thought. With the King's sureties in hand, he could keep Tamrin and the army away from his throat with the threat of revelation, and Amathera, too. They could still rouse the mob, though. And the Lord Captain Commander might be more than disapproving of the entire affair, might believe he was reaching for personal power. Carridin dropped his head in his hands, envisioning Niall signing his death warrant. His own men would arrest him; and hang him. If he could arrange the death of the witch… But she had promised to protect him from the Myrddraal. He wanted to weep again. She was not even here, yet she had him trapped as tightly as ever, steel jaws clamped on both legs and a noose snug around his neck.
There had to be a way out, but every way he looked there was only another trap.
Liandrin ghosted through the halls, easily avoiding servants and Whitecloaks. When she stepped out of a small back door into a narrow alley behind the palace, the tall young guard there stared at her with a blend of relief and unease. Her little trick of opening someone to her suggestions — just a whip-crack trickle of the Power — had not been needed with Carridin, but it had easily convinced this fool that she should be allowed in. Smiling, she motioned him to bend closer. The lanky lout grinned as if expecting a kiss, a grin that froze as her narrow blade went through his eye.
She leaped nimbly back as he fell, a boneless sack of flesh. He would not speak of her even by accident now. Not so much as a spot of blood stained her hand. She wished she had Chesmal's skill at killing with the Power, or even Rianna's lesser talent. Strange that the ability to kill with the Power, to stop a heart or boil blood in the veins, should be so closely linked to Healing. She herself could not Heal much more than scrapes or bruises; not that she had any interest in it.
Her sedan chair, red-lacquered and inlaid with ivory and gold, was waiting at the end of the alley, and with it her bodyguards, a dozen big men with faces like starving wolves. Once in the streets, they cleared a path through the crowds with ease, spears clubbing any not quick enough to move aside. They were all dedicated to the Great Lord of the Dark, of course, and if they did not know exactly who she was, they knew that other men had disappeared, men who failed to serve properly.
The house she and the others had taken, two sprawling stories of flat-roofed stone and white plaster on a hillside at the base of the Verana, Tanchico's easternmost peninsula, belonged to a merchant who had also sworn his oaths to the Great Lord. Liandrin would have preferred a palace — one day perhaps she would have the King's Palace on the Maseta; she had grown up staring enviously at the Lords' palaces, but why should she settle for one of them? — yet despite her preferences, it made sense to stay hidden awhile yet. There was no way the fools in Tar Valon could suspect they were in Tarabon, but the Tower was surely still hunting them, and Siuan Sanche's pets could be sniffing anywhere.
Gates gave onto a small courtyard, windowless except on the upper floor. Leaving the guards and bearers there, she hurried inside. The merchant had furnished a few servants; all sworn to the Great Lord, he assured them, but barely enough to provide for eleven women who rarely stirred outside. One, a sturdily handsome, dark-braided woman called Gyldin, was sweeping the entry hall's red and white tiles when Liandrin entered.
"Where are the others?" she demanded.
"In the front withdrawing room." Gyldin gestured to the double-arched doors to the right as though Liandrin might not know where that was.
Liandrin's mouth tightened. The woman did not curtsy; she used no titles of respect. True, she did not know who Liandrin really was, but Gyldin certainly knew she was high enough to give orders and be obeyed, to send that fat merchant bowing and scraping and bundling his family off to some hovel. "You are supposed to be cleaning, yes? Not standing about? Well, clean! There is dust everywhere. If I find a speck of the dust this evening, you cow you, I will have you beaten!" She clamped her teeth shut. She had copied the manner in which nobles and the wealthy spoke for so long that sometimes she forgot her father had sold fruit from a barrow, yet in one moment of anger the speech of a commoner rolled off her tongue. Too much stress. Too much waiting. With a last, snapped, "Work!" she pushed into the withdrawing room and slammed the door behind her.
The others were not all there, which irritated her even more, but enough. Round-faced Eldrith Jhondar, seated at a lapis-inlaid table beneath a hanging on one white-plastered wall, was making careful notes from a tattered manuscript; sometimes she absently cleaned the nib of her pen on the sleeve of her dark wool dress. Marillin Gemalphin sat beside one of the narrow windows, blue eyes dreamily staring out at the tiny fountain tinkling in a little courtyard, idly scratching the ears of a scrawny yellow cat and apparently unaware of the hairs it shed all over her green silk dress. She and Eldrith were both Browns, but if Marillin ever found out that Eldrith was the reason the stray cats she brought in continually disappeared, there would be trouble.
They had been Browns. Sometimes it was difficult to remember they no longer were, or that she herself was no longer a Red. So much of what had marked them clearly as members of their old Ajahs remained even now that they were openly pledged to the Black. Take the two former Greens. Coppery-skinned,
swan-necked Jeaine Caide wore the thinnest, most clinging silk dresses she could find — white, today — and laughed that the gowns would have to do, since there was nothing available in Tarabon to catch a man's eye. Jeaine was from Arad Doman; Domani women were infamous for their scandalous clothes. Asne Zeramene, with her dark, tilted eyes and bold nose, looked almost demure in pale gray, plainly cut and high-necked, but Liandrin had heard her regret leaving her Warders behind more than once. And as for Rianna Andomeran… Black hair with a stark white streak above her left ear framed a face with the cold, arrogant certainty only a White could assume.
"It is done," Liandrin announced. "Jaichim Carridin will move his Whitecloaks to the Panarch's Palace and hold it for us. He does not yet know we will have guests… of course." There were a few grimaces; changing Ajahs had certainly not altered anyone's feelings toward men who hated women who could channel. "There is an interesting thing. He believed I was there to kill him. For failing to kill Rand al'Thor."
"That makes no sense," Asne said, frowning. "We are to bind him, control him, not kill him." She laughed suddenly, soft and low, and leaned back in her chair. "If there is a way to control him, I would not mind binding him to me. He is a good-looking young man, from the little I saw." Liandrin sniffed; she had no liking for men at all.
Rianna shook her head worriedly. "It makes troubling sense. Our orders from the Tower were clear, yet it is also clear that Carridin has others. I can only postulate dissension among the Forsaken."
"The Forsaken," Jeaine muttered, folding her arms tightly; thin white silk molded her breasts even more revealingly. "What good are promises that we will rule the world when the Great Lord returns if we are crushed between warring Forsaken first? Does anyone believe we could stand against any of them?"
"Balefire." Asne looked around, dark tilted eyes challenging. "Balefire will destroy even one of the Forsaken. And we have the means to produce it." One of the ter'angreal they had removed from the Tower, a fluted black rod a pace long, had that use. None of them knew why they had been ordered to take it, not even Liandrin herself. Too many of the ter'angreal were like that, taken because they had been told to, with no reasons given, but some orders had to be obeyed. Liandrin wished they had been able to secure even one angreal.
The Shadow Rising twot-4 Page 71