A Crown of Swords

by Jordan, Robert

  “Tell her she must stop, Mother.” Lelaine’s smile and tone made her seem to be counseling a daughter. “This foolishness—worse than foolishness—has everyone at daggers’ points. Some of the sisters are even beginning to believe, Mother. It will not be long before the notion spreads to the servants, and the soldiers.” The look she directed toward Bryne was full of doubt. Bryne appeared to be attempting to chat with Myrelle, who was staring at the warded group and running her reins uneasily through her gloved hands.

  “Believing what is plain is hardly foolish,” Romanda barked. “Mother . . .” In her mouth, that sounded entirely too much like “girl.”

  “. . . the reason Delana must be stopped is she does no good and considerable harm. Perhaps Elaida is Black—though I have strong doubts, whatever secondhand gossip that trollop Halima brought; Elaida is wrongheaded to a fault, but I cannot believe her evil—yet even if she is, trumpeting it will make outsiders suspicious of every Aes Sedai and drive the Black into deeper hiding. There are methods to dig them out, if we don’t frighten them into flight.”

  Lelaine’s sniff bordered on a snort. “Even were this nonsense true, no self-respecting sister would submit to your methods, Romanda. What you’ve suggested is close to being put to the question.” Egwene blinked in confusion; neither Siuan nor Leane had brought her a whisper of this. Luckily, the Sitters were not paying her enough mind to notice. As usual.

  Planting her fists on her hips, Romanda squared around on Lelaine. “Desperate days demand desperate actions. Some might ask why anyone would put her dignity ahead of exposing the Dark One’s servants.”

  “That sounds dangerously near an accusation,” Lelaine said, eyes narrowing.

  Romanda was the one smiling now, a cold flinty smile. “I will be the first to submit to my methods, Lelaine, if you are the second.”

  Lelaine actually growled, taking half a step toward the other woman, and Romanda leaned toward her, chin thrust out. They looked ready to begin pulling hair and rolling in the dirt, and Aes Sedai dignity be hanged. Varilin and Takima glared at one another like two maidservants supporting their mistresses, a long-legged wading bird in a scowling match with a wren. The whole lot of them seemed to have forgotten Egwene entirely.

  Siuan came running up in a broad straw hat, leading a fat dun mare with white-stockinged hind legs, and skidded to a halt when she saw the warded gathering. One of the grooms was with her, a lanky fellow in a long, frayed vest and a patched shirt, holding the reins of a tall roan. The wards were invisible to him, but saidar did not hide the faces. His eyes went very wide, and he began licking his lips. For that matter, passersby walked wide around the tent and pretended to see nothing, Aes Sedai, Warders and servants alike. Bryne alone frowned and studied them as though wondering what was hidden from his ears. Myrelle was retying her saddlebags, plainly on the point of leaving.

  “When you have decided what I should say,” Egwene announced, “then I can decide what to do.” They really had forgotten her. All four stared at her in amazement as she walked between Romanda and Lelaine and out through the doubled wards. There was nothing to feel as she brushed by the weave, of course; they had never been made to stop anything as solid as a human body.

  When she scrambled onto the roan, Myrelle drew a deep breath and emulated her in resignation. The wards had vanished, though the glow still enveloped the two Sitters, each more the image of frustration than the other as they stood watching. Hurriedly Egwene donned the thin linen dustcloak that had been draped in front of her gelding’s saddle, and the riding gloves that were tucked into a small pocket in the cloak. A wide-brimmed hat hung from the saddle’s high pommel, deep blue to match her dress, with a spray of white plumes pinned slanting across the front that shouted of Chesa’s hand. Heat she could ignore, but the glare of the sun was another matter. Removing plumes and pin, she tucked them into the saddlebags, put the hat on her head and tied the ribbons beneath her chin.

  “Shall we go, Mother?” Bryne asked. He was already mounted, the helmet that had been hanging from his saddle now obscuring his face behind steel bars. It looked quite natural on him, as though he had been born for armor.

  She nodded. There was no attempt to stop them. Lelaine would not stoop to shouting halt in public, of course, but Romanda. . . . Egwene felt a sense of relief as they rode away, yet her head seemed to be splitting. What was she to do about Delana? What could she do?

  The main road in this area, a wide stretch of dirt packed so hard nothing could raise dust from it, ran through the army’s camp and along the gap between that and the Aes Sedai’s. Bryne angled across it, through the rest of the army on the other side.

  Although the army camp held thirty times or more as many people as the Aes Sedai camp, there seemed to be few more tents than for the sisters and those who served them, all scattered out across the flats and up the hillsides. Most of the soldiers slept in the open. But then, it was hard to remember the last time rain had fallen, and there certainly was not a cloud to be seen. Strangely, there were more women than in the sisters’ camp, though they seemed fewer at first glance, among so many men. Cooks tended kettles and laundresses attacked great heaps of clothing, while some worked with the horses or wagons. A fair number appeared to be wives; at least, they sat about knitting or darning dresses or shirts or stirring small cookpots. Armorers had set up almost anywhere she looked, hammers making steel ring on their anvils, and fletchers adding arrows to bundles by their feet, and farriers checking horses. Wagons of every sort and size stood everywhere, hundreds, perhaps thousands; the army seemed to scoop up every one it found along its path. Most of the foragers were already out, but a few high-wheeled carts and lumbering wagons still trundled away in search of farms and villages. Here and there soldiers raised a cheer as they rode by. “Lord Bryne!” and “The Bull! The Bull!” That was his sigil. Nothing about Aes Sedai or the Amyrlin Seat.

  Egwene twisted around in her saddle to make sure Myrelle was still close behind. She was, letting her horse follow on its own, a far-off, slightly sickly expression on her face. Siuan had taken a position at the rear, shepherd to their lone sheep. Then again, she might just have been afraid to urge her mount ahead. The dun was positively a butterball, but Siuan would probably treat a pony like a warhorse.

  Egwene felt a stab of irritation at her own animal. His name was Daishar; Glory, in the Old Tongue. She would much rather be riding Bela, a shaggy little mare not much slimmer than Siuan’s dun that she had ridden out of the Two Rivers. Sometimes she thought she must look a doll, perched atop a gelding that could be taken for a warhorse, but the Amyrlin had to have a proper mount. No shaggy cart horses. Even if this rule was of her own making, she felt as confined as a novice.

  Turning in the saddle, she said, “Do you expect any opposition ahead, Lord Bryne?”

  He glanced at her sideways. She had asked the same once before leaving Salidar and twice while crossing Altara. Not enough to rouse suspicions, she thought.

  “Murandy is like Altara, Mother. Neighbor too busy scheming against neighbor, or outright fighting him, to band together for anything short of a war, and not to any great degree then.” His tone was very dry. He had been Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards in Andor, with years of border skirmishes against the Murandians behind him. “Andor will be another matter, I fear. I am not looking forward to that.” He turned another way, climbing a gentle slope to avoid three wagons rumbling over rocks in the same direction.

  Egwene tried not to grimace. Andor. Before, he had just said no. These were the tail end of the Cumbar Hills, somewhat south of Lugard, the capital of Murandy. Even if they were lucky, the border of Andor lay at least ten days ahead.

  “And when we reach Tar Valon, Lord Bryne. How do you plan to take the city?”

  “No one has asked me that yet, Mother.” She had only thought his voice was dry before; now it was dry. “By the time we reach Tar Valon, the Light willing, I’ll have two or three times as many men as I do now.” Egwene winced at
the idea of paying so many soldiers; he did not seem to notice. “With that, I will lay siege. The hardest part will be finding ships, and sinking them to block Northharbor and Southharbor. The harbors are as much the key as holding the bridge towns, Mother. Tar Valon is larger than Cairhien and Caemlyn together. Once food stops going in. . . .” He shrugged. “Most of soldiering is waiting, when it isn’t marching.”

  “And if you don’t have that many soldiers?” She had never thought of all those people going hungry, women and children. She had never really thought of anyone being involved except the Aes Sedai, and the soldiers. How could she have been so foolish? She had seen the results of war in Cairhien. Bryne seemed to take it so lightly. But then, he was a soldier; privation and death must be everyday to soldiers. “What if you only have . . . say . . . what you do now?”

  “Siege?” Apparently some of what they had been saying had finally broken into whatever Myrelle was thinking. She booted the sorrel forward, making a number of men jump aside, some falling on their faces. A few opened their mouths angrily, then saw her ageless features and shut their jaws again, glowering. They might as well not have existed for all of her. “Artur Hawkwing besieged Tar Valon for twenty years and failed.” Abruptly she realized ears were about and lowered her voice, but it was still acid. “Do you expect us to wait twenty years?”

  That acid washed over Gareth Bryne without leaving a stain. “Would you prefer a direct assault right off, Myrelle Sedai?” He could have been asking whether she wanted her tea sweet or bitter. “Several of Hawkwing’s generals tried, and their men were slaughtered. No army has ever managed to breach Tar Valon’s walls.”

  That was not strictly true, Egwene knew. In the Trolloc Wars, an army of Dreadlord-led Trollocs had actually plundered and burned a part of the White Tower itself. At the end of the War of the Second Dragon, an army trying to rescue Guaire Amalasan before he was gentled had reached the Tower, too. Myrelle could not know, though, much less Bryne. Access to those secret histories, hidden deep in the Tower library, was set out in a law that was itself secret, and revealing the existence of either records or law was treason. Siuan said if you read between the lines, you found hints of things that had not been recorded even there. Aes Sedai were very good at hiding truth when they thought it necessary, even from themselves.

  “With a hundred thousand or what I have now,” Bryne continued, “I will be the first. If I can block the harbors. Hawkwing’s generals never managed that. The Aes Sedai always raised those iron chains in time to stop the ships getting into the harbor mouth and sank them before they could be placed to hinder trade. Food and supplies got in. It will come to your assault eventually, but not until the city’s weakened, if I have my way.” His voice was still . . . ordinary. A man discussing an outing. His head turned toward Myrelle, and though his tone did not change, the intensity in his eyes was evident even behind his faceguard. “And you all agreed I would, when it came to the army. I won’t throw men away.”

  Myrelle opened her mouth, then closed it slowly. Plainly she wanted to say something but did not know what. They had given their word, she and Sheriam and those who had been running things when he appeared in Salidar, however much giving it galled. However much the Sitters tried to get round it. They had given no word. Bryne acted as though they had, though, and so far he had managed to get away with it. So far.

  Egwene felt ill. She had seen war. Images flashed in her head, men fighting, killing their way through the streets of Tar Valon, dying. Her eyes fell on a square-jawed fellow chewing his tongue while he sharpened a pikehead. Would he die in those streets? The grizzled, balding man running his fingers so carefully down each arrow before sliding the shaft into his quiver? And there. That lad swaggering in his high riding boots. He looked too young to shave. Light, so many were boys. How many would die? For her. For justice, for the right, for the world, but at the heart, for her. Siuan raised her hand, but did not complete the gesture. Had she been close enough, she could not pat the Amyrlin Seat on the shoulder where everyone could see.

  Egwene straightened her back. “Lord Bryne,” she said in a tight voice, “what is it you want me to see?” She thought he half-glanced at Myrelle before answering.

  “Better you see it for yourself, Mother.”

  Egwene thought her head might break open. If Siuan’s clues led to anything at all, she might just skin Myrelle. If they did not, she might skin Siuan. And she might throw Gareth Bryne in for good measure.

  CHAPTER

  12

  A Morning of Victory

  The crooked hills and ridges surrounding the camp showed every sign of the drought and unseasonable heat. The unholy heat in truth; even the dullest scullion scrubbing pots saw the Dark One’s touch on the world. The true forest lay behind them to the west, but twisted oaks grew out of the rocky slopes, sourgums and pines of unfamiliar shape, and trees Egwene had no names for, brown and yellow and bare-branched. Not winter-bare or brown. Starved for moisture and coolness. Dying, if the weather did not change soon. Beyond the last of the soldiers a river ran off south and west, the Reisendrelle, twenty paces wide and flanked on either side by hard-baked mud studded with stones. Swirling around rocks that might have made crossing hazardous in other days, the water rose short of the horses’ knees as they forded. Egwene felt her own problems dwindle in size. Despite her head, she offered a small prayer for Nynaeve and Elayne. Their search was as important as anything she did. More. The world would live if she failed, but they had to succeed.

  They traveled southward at an easy canter, slowing when the hillside slant of the land grew too great or the horses had to climb any distance through trees and sparse scrub, but keeping to the lowland as much as possible and covering ground quickly. Bryne’s big-nosed gelding, sure-footed and strong, hardly seemed to mind which way the ground tilted or whether smooth or rough, yet Daishar kept pace easily. Sometimes Siuan’s plump animal labored, though she might just have been picking up her rider’s anxiety. No amount of practice could make Siuan anything but a terrible rider, nearly throwing her arms around the mare’s neck climbing upslope, almost falling from the saddle going down, awkward as a duck afoot on the flats and not far from wide-eyed as the horse. Myrelle actually regained some of her humor watching Siuan. Her own white-footed sorrel picked her way in delicate swoops like a swallow, and Myrelle rode with an assurance and flare that made Bryne appear stolid and workmanlike.

  Before they had gone very far, riders appeared atop a high ridge to the west, perhaps a hundred men in column, the rising sun glinting off breastplates and helmets and lance points. At their head streamed a long white pennant Egwene could not make out, but she knew it bore the Red Hand. She had not expected to see them so close to the Aes Sedai camp.

  “Dragonsworn animals,” Myrelle muttered, watching the horsemen parallel their route. Her gloved hands tightened on her reins—with fury, not fear.

  “The Band of the Red Hand puts out patrols,” Bryne said placidly. With a glance at Egwene, he added, “Lord Talmanes seems concerned about you, Mother, last I spoke to him.” He put no more emphasis on that than the other.

  “You’ve spoken with him?” Every vestige of Myrelle’s serenity vanished. The anger she had to hold in with Egwene, she could safely unleash on him. She all but shook with it. “That is very close to treason, Lord Bryne. It might well be treason!” Siuan had been dividing her attention between her horse and the men on the ridge, and she did not look at Myrelle, but she stiffened. No one had tied the Band and treason together before.

  They rounded a bend in the hill valley. A farm clung to a hillside, or what had been a farm once. One wall of the small stone house had collapsed, and a few charred timbers stuck up beside the soot-coated chimney like grimy fingers. The roofless barn was a blackened hollow box of stone, and scattered ash marked where sheds might once have stood. All across Altara they had seen as bad and worse, entire villages sometimes, the dead lying in the streets, food for ravens and foxes and feral dogs that fled
when people came close. Stories of anarchy and murder in Tarabon and Arad Doman suddenly had flesh and bones. Many men seized any excuse to turn bandit or settle old grudges—Egwene hoped fervently it was so—but the name on every survivor’s lips was Dragonsworn, and the sisters blamed Rand as surely as if he had carried the torches himself. They would use him still if they could, though, control him if they found a way. She was not the only Aes Sedai to believe in doing what she must even when she had to hold her nose.

  Myrelle’s anger affected Bryne as little as rain affected a boulder. Egwene had a sudden image of storms whirling about his head and flood-waters swirling around his knees while he just kept striding ahead. “Myrelle Sedai,” he said with the calm she should have shown, “when ten thousand men or more are shadowing my backtrail, I want to know what their intentions are. Especially this particular ten thousand or more.”

  This was a dangerous topic. However happy Egwene was that they were past questions of Talmanes’ concern over her, she should have been grinding her teeth that he had mentioned her at all, but she was so startled she sat bolt upright in her saddle. “Ten thousand? Are you sure?” The Band had had little more than half that when Mat brought it to Salidar hunting her and Elayne.

  Bryne merely shrugged. “I gather recruits as I go, and so does he. Not as many, but some men have notions about serving Aes Sedai.” More people than not would have been distinctly uneasy, saying that to three sisters; he said it with a wry smile. “Besides, it seems the Band has a certain reputation from the fighting in Cairhien. The tale is, Shen an Calhar never loses, whatever the odds.” That was what drove men to join, here as back in Altara, the thought that two armies must mean a battle. Trying to stand aside might end as hard as choosing the wrong side; at best there would be no pickings for neutrals. “I’ve had a few deserters to my ranks from Talmanes’ newlings. Some seem to think the Band’s luck is tied up in Mat Cauthon and can’t be there without him.”