That settled it for her. Pulling her arm loose before he could get a grip on it, she quickened her pace toward the gates. "Come along, Uno, and do not dawdle. If you dawdle, I will leave you behind." He caught up to her, grumbling under his breath about the stubbornness of women. Once she understood that that was his subject, and that apparently he did not think her injunction against cursing held when talking to himself, she stopped listening.
Chapter 39
(Dragon)
Encounters in Samara
The Whitecloaks at the gates gave Uno and Nynaeve no more mind than they gave anyone else in the steady throng, which was to say a cold suspicious stare, searching yet quick. Too many people made anything else impossible, and maybe the scale-armored guards did, too. Not that there was any reason for more except in her mind. Her Great Serpent ring and Lan's heavy gold ring both nestled in her pouch — the dress's low neckline meant she could not wear them on the thong — but somehow she almost expected Children of the Light to pick out a Tower-trained woman by instinct. Her relief was palpable when those icy, unfeeling eyes swept past her.
The soldiers paid the two of them as little attention — once she rearranged her shawl yet again. Uno's scowl might have helped send their eyes back to the Whitecloaks, but the man had no right to scowl in the first place. It was her business.
Rewrapping the folded length of gray wool one more time, she tied the ends around her waist. The shawl defined her bosom more than she wished, and still exposed a bit of cleavage, yet it was a considerable improvement on the dress alone. At least she would not have to worry about the shawl slipping again. If only the thing were not so hot. The weather really should be turning soon. They were not that far south of the Two Rivers.
Uno patiently waited on her for a change. She was of two minds as to whether this was simple courtesy — his scarred face looked a deal too patient — but finally they walked together into Samara. Into chaos.
A babble of noise hung over everything, no one sound distinguishable. People jammed the rough stone-paved streets all but shoulder to shoulder from slate-roofed taverns to thatch-roofed stables, from raucous inns with simple painted signs like The Blue Bull or The Dancing Goose to shops where the signs had no words, only a knife-and-scissors here, a bolt of cloth there, a goldsmith's scales or a barber's razor, a pot or a lamp or a boot. Nynaeve saw faces as pale as that of any Andorman and as dark as that of any of the Sea Folk, some clean, some dirty, and coats with high collars, low collars, no collars, drably colored and bright, plain and embroidered, shabby and near new-made, in styles strange as often as familiar. One fellow with a dark forked beard wore silver chains across the chest of his plain blue coat, and two with their hair in braids — men, with a black braid over each ear below their shoulders! — had tiny brass bells sewn to their red coatsleeves and the turned-down tops of thigh-high boots. Whatever land they hailed from, those two were not fools; their dark eyes were hard and searching as Uno's, and they carried curved swords on their backs. A bare-chested man in a bright yellow sash, skin a deeper brown than aged wood and hands intricately tattooed, had to be one of the Sea Folk, though he wore neither earrings nor nose ring.
The women were equally as diverse, hair ranging from raven black to yellow so pale it was nearly white, braided or gathered or hanging loose, cut short, to the shoulders, to the waist, dresses in worn wool or neat linen or shimmering silk, collars brushing chins with lace or embroidery and necklines every bit as low as the one she hid. She even saw a copper-complexioned Domani woman in a barely opaque red gown that covered her to the neck and hid next to nothing! She wondered how safe that woman would be after dark. Or in this broad daylight, for that matter.
The occasional Whitecloaks and soldiers in that milling mass seemed overwhelmed, struggling to make ground as hard as anyone else. Oxcarts and horse-drawn wagons inched along the haphazardly crisscrossing streets, bearers jostled sedan-chairs through the crowds, and now and then a lacquered coach with a plumed team of four or six made its laborious way, liveried footman and steel-capped guards vainly trying to clear a path. Musicians with flute or zither or bittern played at every corner where there was not a juggler or an acrobat — their skill certainly nothing to make Thom or the Chavanas worry — always with another man or woman holding out a cap for coins. Ragged beggars wove through it all, plucking at sleeves and proffering grimy hands, and hawkers bustled with trays of everything from pins to ribbons to pears, their cries lost in the din.
Her head spun by the time Uno drew her into a narrower street where the throng seemed thinner, if only by comparison. She paused to straighten her clothes, disarrayed from plunging through the crowd, before following him. It was a trifle quieter here, too. No street entertainers, and fewer hawkers and beggars. Beggars kept clear of Uno, even after he tossed a few coppers to a wary pack of urchins, for which she did not blame them. The man just did not look… charitable.
The town's buildings loomed over these narrow ways, despite being only two or three stories, putting the streets themselves in shadow. But there was good light in the sky, hours yet till dusk. Still plenty of time to get back to the show. If she had to. With luck, they could all be boarding a riverboat by sunset.
She gave a start when another Shienaran suddenly joined them, sword on his back and head shaven but for that topknot, a dark-haired man only a few years older than she. Uno gave curt introductions and explanation without slowing.
"Peace favor you, Nynaeve," Ragan said, the skin of his dark cheek dimpling around a triangular white scar. Even smiling, his face was hard; she had never met a soft Shienaran. Soft men did not survive along the Blight, nor soft women either. "I remember you. Your hair was different, was it not? No matter. Never fear. We will see you safely to Masema and to wherever you would go after. Just be sure not to mention Tar Valon to him." No one was sparing them a second glance, but he lowered his voice anyway. "Masema thinks the Tower will try to control the Lord Dragon."
Nynaeve shook her head. Another fool man who was going to take care of her. At least he did not try to engage her in conversation; the mood she was in, she would have given him the rough side of her tongue if he so much as commented on the heat. Her own face felt a trifle damp, and no wonder, having to wear a shawl in this weather. Abruptly she remembered what the one-eyed man had said concerning Ragan's opinion of her tongue. She did not think she more than glanced at him, but Ragan moved to the other side of Uno as if for shelter and eyed her warily. Men!
The streets grew still narrower, and though the stone buildings lining them did not grow smaller, it was more often than not the backs of the buildings they saw, and rough gray walls that could hide only small yards. Eventually they turned down an alley barely wide enough for all three of them abreast. At the far end, a lacquered and gilded coach stood surrounded by scale-armored men. More immediately, halfway between her and the coach, fellows lounged thickly along both sides of the alley. In a motley of coats, most clutched clubs or spears or swords as different as their garb. They could have been a pack of street toughs, but neither of the Shienarans slowed, so she did not either.
"The street out front will be full of bloody fools hoping to catch a glimpse of Masema at a bloody window." Uno's voice was pitched for her ears alone. "The only way to get in is by the back." He fell silent as they came close enough for the waiting men to hear.
Two of those were soldiers with rimmed steel helmets and scaled tunics, swords at hip and spears in hand, but it was the others who studied the three newcomers and fingered their weapons. They had disturbing eyes, too intent, almost feverish. For once, she would have been pleased to see an honest leer. These men did not care whether she was a woman or a horse.
Without a word Uno and Ragan unfastened the scabbarded blades from their backs and handed them and their daggers to a plump-faced man who might have been a shopkeeper once, from the look of his blue woolen coat and breeches. The clothing had been good; it was clean, but heavily worn, and wrinkled as if it had been s
lept in for a month. Plainly he recognized the Shienarans, and though he frowned at her for a moment, especially at her belt knife, he silently nodded to a narrow wooden gate in the stone wall. That was perhaps the most off-putting fact of all; none of them made a sound.
On the other side of wall was a small yard where weeds stuck up between cobblestones. The tall stone house — three broad, pale-gray stories, with wide windows and scroll-worked eaves and gables, roofed in dark red tiles — must have been one of the finest in Samara. Once the gate was closed behind them, Ragan spoke softly. "There have been attempts to kill the Prophet."
It took Nynaeve a moment to realize that he was explaining why their weapons had been taken. "But you are his friends," she protested. "You all followed Rand to Falme together." She was not about to start calling him the Lord Dragon.
"That's why we're bloody let in at all," Uno said dryly. "I told you we don't see everything the way… the Prophet does." The slight pause, and the quick half-glance back at the gate to see if anyone was listening, spoke volumes. It had been Masema, before. And Uno was clearly a man who did not temper his tongue easily.
"Just watch what you say for once," Ragan told her, "and likely you will get the help you want." She nodded, as agreeably as anyone could wish — she knew sense when she heard it, even if he had no right to offer it — and he and Uno exchanged doubtful glances. She was going to stuff these two into a sack with Thom and Juilin and switch anything that stuck up.
Fine house as it might be, the kitchen was dusty, and empty except for one bony, gray-haired woman, her drab gray dress and white apron the only clean things in sight as they walked through. Sucking her teeth, the old woman hardly glanced up from stirring a small kettle of soup over a tiny blaze in one of the wide stone fireplaces. Two battered pots hung on hooks where twenty could have, and, a cracked pottery bowl on a blue-lacquered tray stood on the broad table.
Beyond the kitchen, moderately fine hangings decorated the walls. Nynaeve had developed something of an eye in the last year, and these scenes of feasts and hunts for deer and bear and boar were only good, not excellent. Chairs and tables and chests lined the halls, dark lacquer streaked with red, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Hangings and furniture alike were also dusty, and the red-and-white tiled floor had had only a halfhearted lick with a broom. Cobwebs decorated the corners and cornices of the high plaster ceiling.
There were no other servants — or anyone else — in sight until they came to a weedy fellow sitting on the floor beside an open door, his grimy red silk coat much too large for him and at odds with a filthy shirt and worn woolen breeches. One of his cracked boots had a large hole in the sole; a toe poked through another in the other one. He held up a hand, whispering, "The Light shine on you, and praise the name of the Lord Dragon?" He made it sound a question, querulously twisting a narrow face as unwashed as his shirt, but then he did the same with everything. "The Prophet can't be disturbed now? He's busy? You'll have to wait a bit?" Uno nodded patiently, and Ragan leaned against the wall; they had been through this before.
Nynaeve did not know what she had expected of the Prophet, not even now that she was aware who he was, but certainly not filth. That soup had smelled like cabbage and potatoes, hardly the fare for a man who had an entire city dancing for him. And only two servants, both of whom could well have come from the rudest huts outside the city.
The skinny guard, if such he was — he had no weapon; perhaps he was not trusted either — seemed to have no objection when she moved to where she could see through the doorway. The man and woman inside could not have been more different. Masema had shaved even his topknot, and his coat was plain brown wool, heavily wrinkled but clean, although his knee-high boots were scuffed. Deep-set eyes turned his permanently sour look to a scowl, and a scar made a pale triangle on his dark cheek, a near mirror image of Ragan's, only more faded with age and a hair nearer the eye. The woman, in elegantly gold-embroidered blue silk, was short of her middle years and quite lovely despite a nose perhaps too long for beauty. A simple blue net cap gathered dark hair spilling almost to her waist, but she wore a broad necklace of gold and firedrops with a matching bracelet, and gemmed rings decorated nearly every finger. Where Masema seemed poised to rush at something, teeth bared, she bore herself with stately reserve and grace.
"…so many follow wherever you go," she was saying, "that order flies over the wall when you arrive. People are not safe in themselves or their property —"
"The Lord Dragon has broken all bonds of law, all bonds made by mortal men and women." Masema's voice was heated, but intense, not angry. "The Prophecies say that the Lord Dragon will break all chains that bind, and it is so. The Lord Dragon's radiance will protect us against the Shadow."
"It is not the Shadow that threatens here, but cutpurses and slipfingers and headcrackers. Some who follow you — many — believe that they can take what they wish from whoever has it without payment or leave."
"There is justice in the hereafter, when we are born again. Concern with things of this world is useless. But very well. If you wish earthly justice" — his lip curled contemptuously —"let it be this. Henceforth, a man who steals will have his right hand cut off. A man who interferes with a woman, or insults her honor, or commits murder will be hung. A woman who steals or commits murder will be flogged. If any accuses and finds twelve who will agree, it will be done. Let it be so."
"As you say, of course," the woman murmured. Aloof elegance remained on her face, but she sounded shaken. Nynaeve did not know how Ghealdanin law ran, but she did not think it could be so casual as that. The woman took a deep breath. "There is still the matter of food. It becomes difficult to feed so many."
"Every man, woman and child who has come to the Lord Dragon must have a full belly. It must be so! Where gold can be found, food can be found, and there is too much gold in the world. Too much concern with gold." Masema's head swung angrily. Not angry with her, but in general. He looked to be searching for those who concerned themselves with gold so he could unleash fury on their heads. "The Lord Dragon has been Reborn. The Shadow hangs over the world, and only the Lord Dragon can save us. Only belief in the Lord Dragon, submission and obedience to the word of the Lord Dragon. All else is useless, even where it is not blasphemy."
"Blessed be the name of the Lord Dragon in the Light." It had the sound of a rote reply. "It is no longer simply a matter of gold, my Lord Prophet. Finding and transporting food in sufficient —"
"I am not a lord," he broke in again, and now he was angry. He leaned toward the woman, spittle on his lips, and though her face did not change, her hands twitched as if they wanted to clutch her dress. "There is no lord but the Lord Dragon, in whom the Light dwells, and I am but one humble voice of the Lord Dragon. Remember that! High or low, blasphemers earn the scourge!"
"Forgive me," the begemmed woman murmured, spreading her skirts in a curtsy fit for a queen's court. "It is as you say, of course. There is no lord save the Lord Dragon, and I am but a humble follower of the Lord Dragon — blessed be the name of the Lord Dragon — who comes to hear the wisdom and guidance of the Prophet."
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Masema was suddenly cold. "You wear too much gold. Do not let earthly possession seduce you. Gold is dross. The Lord Dragon is all."
Immediately she began plucking rings from her fingers, and before the second was off, the weedy fellow scurried to her side, pulling a pouch from his coat pocket and holding it for her to drop them in. The bracelet and necklace followed as well.
Nynaeve looked at Uno and raised an eyebrow.
"Every penny goes to the poor," he told her in a low voice that barely reached her ear, "or somebody who needs it. If some merchant hadn't bloody given him her house, he'd be in a bloody stable, or one of those huts outside the city."
"Even his food comes as a gift," Ragan said just as quietly. "They used to bring him dishes fit for a king, until they learned he just gave away everything but a little bread, and soup or
stew. He hardly drinks wine, now."
Nynaeve shook her head. She supposed it was one way to find money for the poor. Simply rob anyone who was not poor. Of course, that would just make everyone poor in the end, but it might work for a time. She wondered if Uno and Ragan knew the whole of it. People who claimed they were collecting money to help others often had a way of letting a good bit stick in their own pockets, or else they liked the power that spreading it about gave them, liked it far too much. She had better feeling for the man who freely gave one copper from his own purse than for the fellow who wrested a gold crown from someone else's. And less for fools who abandoned their farms and shops to follow this… this Prophet, with no idea where their next meal would come from.
Inside the room, the woman curtsied to Masema even more deeply than before, spreading her skirts wide and bowing her head. "Until I once again have the honor of the Prophet's words and counsel. The name of the Lord Dragon be blessed in the Light."
Masema waved her away absently, already half forgotten. He had seen them in the hall, and was looking at them with as close to pleasure as his dour face could come. It was not very close. The woman swept out, not even appearing to see Nynaeve or the two men. Nynaeve sniffed as the weedy fellow in the red coat waved anxiously for them to come in. For someone who had just given up her jewelry on demand, that woman managed a fine queenly air.
The skinny man scampered back to his place by the door as the other three men shook hands in the Borderlands fashion, gripping forearms.
"Peace favor your sword," Uno said, echoed by Ragan.
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