Knife of Dreams twot-11

by Robert Jordan

  “She is not very impressive like that,” Sevanna muttered, frowning into her goblet, now. “Even that ring cannot make her look like an Aes Sedai.” She shook her head irritably. For some reason Faile did not understand, it was very important to Sevanna that everyone know that Galina was a sister. She had even taken to giving her the honorific. “Why are you here so early, Therava? I have not even eaten, yet. Will you take some wine?”

  “Water,” Therava said firmly. “As for it being early, the sun is almost over the horizon. I broke fast before it rose. You grow as indolent as a wetlander, Sevanna.”

  Lusara. a buxom Domani gai’shain, quickly filled a goblet from the silver water pitcher. Sevanna seemed amused by the Wise Ones’ insistence on drinking only water, yet she provided it for them. Anything else would have been an insult even she would want to avoid. The copper-skinned Domani had been a merchant, and well into her middle years, but a few white hairs among the black falling below her shoulders had not been enough to save her. She was stunningly beautiful, and Sevanna gathered the rich, the powerful and the beautiful, simply taking them if they were gai’shain to someone else. There were so many gai’shain that few complained at having one taken. Lusara curtsied gracefully and bowed to present her tray to Therava on her cushion, all very proper, but on the way back to her place against the wall, she smiled at Faile. Worse, it was a conspiratorial smile.

  Faile suppressed a sigh. Her last switching had been for a sigh at the wrong moment. Lusara was one of those who had sworn fealty to her in the past two weeks. After Aravine, Faile had tried to choose carefully, but rejecting someone who asked to swear was creating a possible betrayer, so she had far too many adherents, a good number of whom she was unsure of. She was beginning to believe that Lusara was trustworthy, or at least that she would not intentionally betray her, but the woman treated their escape plans like a child’s game, without cost if they lost. It seemed she had treated merchanting in the same way, making and losing several fortunes, but Faile would have no chance to start over if they lost. Nor would Alliandre or Maighdin. Or Lusara. Among Sevanna’s gai’shain, those who actually attempted escape were kept chained when not serving her or performing tasks.

  Therava took a swallow of water, then set the goblet down on the flowered carpet beside her and fixed Sevanna with a steely gaze. “The Wise Ones believe it is past time for us to move north and east. We can find easily defended valleys in the mountains there, and we can reach them in less than two weeks even slowed as we are by the gai’shain. This place is open on every side, and our raids to find food must go further and further.”

  Sevanna’s green eyes met that stare without blinking, which Faile doubted she herself could have done. It nettled Sevanna when the other Wise Ones met without her, and frequently she took it out on her gai’shain. but she smiled and took a sip of wine before replying in patient tones, as though explaining to someone not quite bright enough to understand. “Here, there is good soil for planting, and we have their seed to add to our own. Who knows what the soil is like in the mountains? Our raids bring in cattle and sheep and goats, too. Here, there are good pastures. What pasturage do you know of in these mountains, Therava? Here, we have more water than any clan has ever had. Do you know where the water is in the mountains? As to defending ourselves, who will come against us? These wetlanders run from our spears.”

  “Not all run,” Therava said drily. “Some are even good at dancing the spears. And what if Rand al’Thor sends one of the other clans against us? We would never know until the horns closed in on us.” Suddenly she smiled, too, a smile that never reached her eyes. “Some say your plan is to be captured and made gai’shain to Rand al’Thor so you can induce him to marry you. An amusing idea, you agree?”

  Despite herself. Faile flinched. Sevanna’s mad intention to marry al’Thor-she had to be mad to think she could!-was what put Faile in danger from Galina. If the Aiel woman did not know that Perrin was linked to al’Thor, Galina could tell her. Would tell her if she could not get her hands on that cursed rod. Sevanna would take no chances on losing her then. She would be chained as certainly as if caught trying to escape.

  Sevanna looked anything except amused. Eyes glittering, she leaned forward, her robe gaping to expose her bosom completely. “Who says this? Who?” Therava picked up her goblet and took another swallow of water. Realizing she would get no answer. Sevanna leaned back, and rearranged her robe. Her eyes still glittered like polished emeralds, though, and there was nothing casual in her words. They came out as hard as her eyes. “I will marry Rand al’Thor, Therava. I almost had him, until you and the other Wise Ones failed me. I will marry him, unite the clans, and conquer all of the wetlands!”

  Therava sneered over her goblet. “Couladin was the Car’a’carn, Sevanna. I have not found the Wise Ones who gave him permission to go to Rhuidean, but I will. Rand al’Thor is a creature of the Aes Sedai. They told him what to say at Alcair Dal. and a black day it was when he revealed secrets few are strong enough to know. Be grateful that most believe he lied. But I forget. You have never gone to Rhuidean. You believed his secrets lies yourself.”

  Gai’shain began entering past the tentflap, their white robes rain-damp. holding their hems knee-high until they were inside. Each wore the golden collar and belt. Their soft white laced boots left muddy-marks on the carpets. Later, when those had dried, they would have to clean them away, but getting visible mud on your robes was a sure path to the switch. Sevanna wanted her gai’shain spotless when they were around her. Neither Aiel woman paid the slightest attention to the arrivals.

  Sevanna seemed taken aback by what Therava had said. “Why do you care who gave Couladin permission? No matter,” she said, waving a hand as though brushing away a fly, when she got no reply. “Couladin is dead. Rand al’Thor has the markings, however he got them. I will marry him, and I will make use of him. If the Aes Sedai could control him, and I saw them handling him like a babe, then I can. With a little help from you. And you will help. You agree that uniting the clans is worth doing no matter how it is done? You did once.” Somehow, there was more than a hint of threat in that. “We Shaido will become the most powerful of the clans in one leap.”

  Lowering their cowls, the new gai’shain filed wordlessly along the tent walls, nine men and three women, one of them Maighdin. The sun-haired woman wore a grim expression that had been on her face since the day Therava had discovered her in the Wise One’s tent. Whatever Therava had done, all Maighdin would say of it was that she wanted to kill the other woman. Sometimes she whimpered in her sleep, though.

  Therava kept whatever she thought about uniting the clans to herself. “There is much feeling against staying here. Many of the sept chiefs press the red disc on their nar’baha every morning. I advise you to heed the Wise Ones.”

  Nar’baha. That would mean ‘box of fools.’ or something very near. But what could this be? Bain and Chiad were still teaching her about Aiel ways, when they could find time, and chey had never mentioned any such thing. Maighdin stopped beside Lusara. A slender Cairhienin nobleman named Doirmanes stopped beside Faile. He was young and very pretty, but he bit his lip nervously. If he learned about the oaths of fealty, he would have to be killed. She was certain he would run to Sevanna in a heartbeat.

  “We remain here,” Sevanna said angrily, flinging her goblet to the carpets in a spray of wine. “I speak for the clan chief, and I have spoken!”

  “You have spoken,” Therava agreed calmly. “Bendhuin, sept chief of the Green Salts, has received permission to go to Rhuidean. He left five days ago with twenty of his algai’d’siswai and four Wise Ones to stand witness.”

  Not until one of the new gaishain stood beside each of those already there did Faile and the others raise their cowls and begin filing along the walls toward the doorflap. already gathering their robes to the knee. She had become quite sanguine about exposing her legs so.

  “He seeks to replace me, and I was not even informed?”

  �
�Not you, Sevanna. Couladin. As his widow, you speak for the clan chief until a new chief returns from Rhuidean, but you are not the clan chief.”

  Faile stepped out into the cold, gray morning drizzle, and the tent-flap cut off whatever Sevanna said to that. What was going on between the two women? Sometimes, as this morning, they seemed antagonists, but at others they seemed reluctant conspirators bound together by something that gave neither any comfort. Or perhaps it was the being bound together itself that made them uncomfortable. Well, she could not see how knowing would help her escape, so it did not really matter. But the puzzle nagged at her.

  Six Maidens stood clustered in front of the tent, veils hanging down onto their chests, spears thrust up through the harness of the bow cases on their backs. Bain and Chiad were contemptuous of Sevanna for using Maidens of the Spear for her guard of honor though she herself had never been a Maiden, and for having her tent always guarded, but there were never fewer than six, night or day. Those two were contemptuous of the Shaido Maidens for allowing it, too. Neither being a clan chief nor speaking for one gave you as much power as most nobles possessed. These Maidens’ hands were flashing in a rapid conversation. She caught the sign for Car’a’carn several times, but not sufficient else to make out what they were saying, or whether about al’Thor or Couladin.

  Standing there long enough to find out, if she could find out, was beyond the question. With the others already hurrying away down the muddy street, the Maidens would become suspicious, for one thing, and then they might switch her themselves, or worse, use her own bootlaces. She had had a hard dose of that from some Maidens, for having “insolent eyes,” and she did not want another. Especially when it meant baring herself in public. Being Sevanna’s gai’shain gave no protection. Any Shaido could discipline any gai’shain they thought was behaving improperly. Even a child could, if the child was set to watch you carry out a chore. For another thing, the cold rain, light as it was, was going to soak through her woolen robes soon enough. She had only a short walk back to her tent, no more than a quarter of a mile, but she would not complete it without being stopped for a time.

  A yawn cracked her jaw as she turned from the large red tent. She very much wanted her blankets and a few more hours sleep. There would be more chores come afternoon. What they might be, she did not know. Matters would be much simpler if Sevanna settled on who she wanted to do what when, but she seemed to choose names at random, and always at the last minute. It made planning anything, much less the escape, very difficult.

  All sorts of tents surrounded Sevanna’s, low, dark Aiel tents, peaked tents, walled tents, tents of every sort and size in every color imaginable, separated by a tangle of dirt streets that were now rivers of mud. Lacking enough of their own, the Shaido snatched up every tent they could find. Fourteen septs were camped in a sprawl around Maiden now, a hundred thousand Shaido and as many gai’shain, and rumor said two more septs, the Morai and the White Cliff, would arrive within days. Aside from small children splashing through the mud with romping dogs, most of the people she could see as she walked wore mud-stained white and were carrying baskets or bulging sacks.

  Most of the women did not hurry; they ran. Except for the blacksmiths, the Shaido seldom did any work themselves, and generally only out of boredom, she suspected. With so many gai’sbain, finding chores for them all was itself a chore. Sevanna was no longer the only Shaido to actually sit in a bathtub with a gai’sbain scrubbing her back. None of the Wise Ones had gone that far yet. but some of the others would not stir themselves two paces to pick something up when they could tell a gai’sbain to fetch it.

  She was almost to the gai’sbain portion of the camp, hard against the gray stone walls of Maiden, when she saw a Wise One striding toward her with her dark shawl wrapped around her head against the rain. Faile did not stop, but she bent her knees a little. Meira was not so frightening as Therava, but the grim-faced woman was hard enough, and shorter than Faile. Her narrow mouth always grew even tighter when she was confronted with a woman taller than she. Faile would have thought that learning her own sept, the White Cliff, would be there soon, would brighten the woman’s mood, but the news had had no dis-cernable effect at all.

  “So you were just lagging,” Meira said as she came close. Her eyes were as hard as the sapphires they resembled. “I left Rhiale listening to the others because I feared some drunken fool had pulled you into a tent.” She glared around her as though looking for a drunken fool about to do just that.

  “No one accosted me, Wise One,” Faile said quickly. Several had in the last few weeks, some drunk and some not, but Rolan always appeared in the nick of time. Twice the big Mera’din had had to fight to save her. and once he had killed the other man. She had expected nine kinds of uproar and trouble, but the Wise Ones judged it a fair fight, and Rolan said her name had never been mentioned. For all that Bain and Chiad insisted it went against all custom, assault was a constant danger for gai’shain women here. She was sure that Alliandre had been assaulted once, before she and Maighdin also acquired Mera’din shadows. Rolan denied having asked them to help her people. He said they were just bored and looking for something to do. “I’m very sorry I was slow.”

  “Do not cringe. I am not Therava. I will not beat you for the pleasure of it.” Words said in tones hard enough for a headsman. Meira might not beat people for pleasure, but Faile knew for a fact that she had a strong arm swinging a switch. “Now tell me what Sevanna said and did. This water falling from the sky may be a wondrous thing, but it is miserable to walk around in.”

  Obeying the command was easy. Sevanna had not wakened during the night, and once she did rise, all her talk had been of what clothes and jewels she would wear, especially the jewels. Her jewelry chest had been made to hold clothing, and it was filled to the top with more gems than most queens possessed. Before putting on any garment at all, Sevanna had spent time trying on different combinations of necklaces and rings and studying herself in the gilt-framed stand-mirror. It had been very embarrassing. For Faile.

  She had just reached Therava’s arrival with Galina when everything in front of her eyes rippled. She rippled! It was not imagination. Meira’s blue eyes widened as far as they could go; she had felt it, too. Again everything rippled, including herself, harder than before. In shock, Faile stood up straight and let go of her robe. A third time the world rippled, harder still, and as it passed through her. she felt as if she might blow away in a breeze, or simply dissipate in a mist.

  Breathing hard, she waited for the fourth ripple, the one she knew would destroy her and everything else. When it did not come, she expelled every bit of air in her lungs from relief. “What just happened, Wise One? What was that?”

  Meira touched her own arm and looked faintly surprised that her hand did not pass through flesh and bone. “I… do not know,” she said slowly. Giving herself a shake, she added, “Go on about your business, girl.” She gathered her skirts and strode past Faile at little short of a trot, splashing mud as she went.

  The children had vanished from the street, but Faile could hear them wailing inside the tents. Abandoned dogs shivered and whined, tails tucked between their legs. People in the street were touching themselves, touching each other, Shaido and gai’shain alike. Faile clasped her hands together. Of course she was solid. She had only felt as though she were turning to mist. Of course. Hoisting her robes to avoid any more washing than she absolutely had to do. she began to walk. And then to run, careless of how much mud she splashed onto herself or anyone else. She knew there could be no running from another of those ripples. But she ran anyway, as fast as her legs could carry her.

  The gai’shain tents made a broad ring around Maiden’s high granite walls, and they were as varied as the tents in the outer part of the encampment, though most were small. Her own peaked tent could have slept two uncomfortably; it housed herself and three others, Alliandre. Maighdin and a former Cairhienin noblewoman named Dairaine. one of those who curried favor with Sevann
a by carrying tales about the other garshain. That complicated matters, but there was no mending it short of killing the woman, and Faile would not countenance that. Not unless Dairaine became a real threat. They slept huddled together like puppies of necessity, glad of the shared body warmth on cold nights.

  The interior of the low tent was dim when she ducked inside. Lamp oil and candles were in short supply, and not wasted on gai’shain. Only Alliandre was there, lying facedown on her blankets in her collar with a damp cloth, dipped in an herbal infusion, over her bruised bottom. At least the Wise Ones were as willing to give their healing herbs to gai’shain as to Shaido. Alliandre had done nothing wrong, but had been named as one of the five who had pleased Sevanna least yesterday. Unlike some, she had done quite well while being punished- Doirmanes had begun weeping even before he was bent over the chest-but she seemed to be among those chosen out every three or four days. Being a queen did not teach you how to serve a queen. But then, Maighdin was picked nearly as often, and she was a lady’s maid, if not a very skilled one. Faile herself had only been chosen once.

  It was a measure of how Alliandre’s spirits had fallen that she made no move to cover herself, only raised up on her elbows. Still, she had combed her long hair. If she failed to do that, Faile would know the woman had reached bottom. “Did anything… strange… happen to you just now. my Lady?” she asked, fear strong in her unsteady voice.

  “It did.” Faile said, standing crouched under the ridgepole. “I don’t know what it was. Meira doesn’t know what it was. I doubt any of the Wise Ones do. But it didn’t harm us.” Of course it had not harmed them. Of course not. “And it changes nothing in our plans.-’ Yawning, she unfastened the wide golden belt and dropped it on her blankets, then grasped her outer robe to pull it over her head.