New Spring: The Novel (wheel of time)

by Robert Jordan

  "Maybe it isn't what you're used to," Siuan replied, "but a sound roof to keep off rain is really all you need. And there are no sisters there, so you can chase fleas and lice to your heart's content. But we'd better hurry if we want to reach it before full dark."

  Moiraine sighed. And hurried. After dark was not a good time to be out near the sorts of places Siuan favored.

  Siuan, it turned out, had a room at a most respectable inn called The Evening Star, three sprawling stories of stone that catered to merchants of middling rank, especially women unwilling to be bothered by noise or rough sorts in the spacious common room. A pair of bull-shouldered fellows, leaning against blue-painted columns as they kept watch on the front door, made sure there was none of that. In truth, they were the only men in the room. A good many of the tables were taken by women, most in well-cut but plain woolens with only a brooch or earrings for jewelry and two with the chains of the Kandori Merchants' Guild looping across their bosoms, though three in bright Domani dresses, discussing something heatedly if in low voices, wore tall chain-necklaces of gold that covered their entire necks. A gray-haired woman plying her hammers on a dulcimer was striking a quiet yet merry tune, and the smells from the kitchens spoke of lamb roasting, not fish.

  The innkeeper, Ailene Tolvina, was a lean woman with an air of brooking little nonsense, in a gray dress embroidered with a sprinkling of blue flowers on the shoulders. She had no rooms free, but she made no objection to Moiraine joining Siuan. "So long as the extra for two is paid," she added, holding out a hand. Silks and fur were insufficient to bring curtsies from Mistress Tolvina.

  "I can chase fleas to my heart's content?" Moiraine said, hanging her cloak on a peg in Siuan's small room on the top floor. At least it was warm, with a stove built under the not-very-wide bed, and tidy. Siuan was never untidy. "I am surprised you are staying here." The "extra" had been a silver penny, which meant Siuan must be paying two.

  "You'll just have to call the fleas first. Why surprised?" Siuan settled cross-legged on the bed, yet she all but bounced. She seemed invigorated since Canluum. A goal always made Siuan bubble with enthusiasm.

  Moiraine did not answer the question. They were going to be sharing that bed, and Siuan knew exactly which ticklish spots could reduce her to helpless laughter and pleading. "What have you learned?"

  "A great deal and nothing. I've had a time, Moiraine, I tell you. That fool horse nearly beat me to death getting here. The Creator made people to walk or go by boat, not be bounced around. I suppose the Sahera woman wasn't the one, or you'd be jumping like a ladyfish in spring. I found Ines Demain almost right off, but not where I can reach her. She's a new widow, but she did have a son, for sure. Named him Rahien because she saw the dawn come up over Dragonmount. Talk of the streets. Everybody thinks it a fool reason to name a child."

  Moiraine pushed down a momentary thrill. Seeing dawn over the mountain did not mean the child had been born on it. There was no chair or stool, nor room for one, so she sat on the end of the bed, wrapping her arms around her knees. "If you have found Ines and her son, Siuan, why is she out of reach?"

  "She's in the bloody Aesdaishar Palace, that's why." Siuan could have gained entry easily as Aes Sedai, but otherwise only if the Palace was hiring servants.

  The Aesdaishar Palace. "We will take care of that in the morning," Moiraine sighed. It meant risk, yet the Lady Ines had to be questioned. No woman Moiraine had found yet had been able to see Dragonmount when her child was born. "Have you seen any sign of of the Black Ajah?" She had to get used to saying that name.

  Siuan frowned at her lap and fingered her divided skirt. "This is a strange city, Moiraine," she said finally. "Lamps in the streets, and women who fight duels, even if they do deny it, and more gossip than ten men full of ale could spew. Some of it is interesting." She leaned forward to put a hand on Moiraine's knee. "Everybody's talking about a young blacksmith who died of a broken back a couple of nights ago. Nobody expected much of him, but this last month or so he turned into quite a speaker. Convinced his guild to take up money for the poor who've come into the city, afraid of the bandits, folks not connected to a guild or House."

  "Siuan, what under the Light-?"

  "Just listen, Moiraine. He collected a lot of silver himself, and it seems he was on his way to the guild house to turn in six or eight bags of it when he was killed. Fool was carrying it all by himself. The point is, there wasn't a bloody coin of it taken, Moiraine. And he didn't have a mark on him, aside from his broken back."

  They shared a long look; then Moiraine shook her head. "I cannot see how to tie that to Meilyn or Tamra. A blacksmith? Siuan, we can go mad thinking we see Black sisters everywhere."

  "We can die from thinking they aren't there," Siuan replied. "Well. Maybe we can be silverpike in the nets instead of grunters. Just remember silverpike go to the fish-market, too. What do you have in mind about this Lady Ines?"

  Moiraine told her. Siuan did not like it, and this time it took most of the night to make her see sense. In truth, Moiraine almost wished Siuan would talk her into trying something else. But Lady Ines had seen dawn over Dragonmount. At least Ethenielle's Aes Sedai advisor was with her in the south.

  CHAPTER 24

  Making Use of Invisibility

  Siuan started up again while they were dressing the next morning. She disliked being argued out of anything, particularly when she thought herself in the right. And she usually did think herself in the right. "I don't like you taking all the risks," she muttered, pulling a blue wool dress over her head. She had brought a change, as it turned out, and she had been near to snippy in pointing out that Moiraine was the one with only a single dress to her name.

  "I will not be taking all the risks," Moiraine said, suppressing a sigh. They had gone over this and over it last night. "You must take as many as I. Will you help me with these buttons?"

  Siuan turned her around by the shoulders almost roughly and attacked the two rows of small mother-of-pearl buttons that ran down her back. "Don't be a gudgeon," she grumbled, tugging at the dress much more fiercely than was necessary. "If this works as you say it will, nobody will notice me. You'll have all sails set, the sweeps out, and banners flying. I say there has to be a better way, and we're going to sit down and talk it over till you see the right of it."

  Moiraine did sigh then. A bear with a sore tooth would have been better company. Even that fellow Lan! Doing up Siuan's buttons in turn, she tried distracting the other woman by telling her how much the cut of her dress molded her hips and bosom. Well, for a little more than distraction. Siuan deserved a bit of snippiness back.

  "It does attract men's eyes," Siuan replied. And giggled! She even gave her hips a twitch! Moiraine thought she might spend the whole day sighing.

  When they went down, with their cloaks folded over their arms, the common room was nearly full of merchants chatting over breakfast, still all women. The two Kandori, one with three chains across her chest, the other with two, were eating hurriedly and beaming like women who foresaw a prosperous day ahead. Some had done business the night before, it seemed. One slender woman in dark gray was eyeing her plump, complacent companion with the sickly expression of someone who had been brought near financial ruin. The three Domani picked at their plates, pushing the food around with their forks; by their tight eyes and pallid faces, they were all nursing sore heads from too much drink.

  "A big breakfast, and then we can talk," Siuan said, going on tiptoe to scan the room for an empty table. "The kitchens here make a fine breakfast."

  "Rolls that we can eat on the way," Moiraine said firmly, and hurried toward Mistress Tolvina, who was giving instructions to a serving girl in a snowy apron with a blue border. The only way to win an argument with Siuan was to sweep her along. If you let up for an instant, you would find yourself the one being swept.

  "Good morning, Mistress Tolvina," she said as the innkeeper turned from the waiting girl. "We wish to hire two of your men to escort us for a few hours t
his morning." The pair watching the door this morning were different from those who had been on duty last night, though just as large.

  The lean woman's eyebrows rose slightly, increasing her no-nonsense air. Again, there was no curtsy, though Moiraine had used the Power to make sure her dress looked fresh from the laundress. "Why? If you've gotten yourself engaged in a duel, I'll have no part of it. A fool thing, these whip-duels and the like, and I'll not abet you. You'd just come back lashed bloody, in any case. I certainly doubt you've ever fought before."

  Moiraine bit her tongue. Siuan said the innkeeper had all sorts of rules, from locking the outside doors at midnight to no male visitors in rooms, and enforced them strictly, but she would not have spoken so had she known they were Aes Sedai. "I wish to visit a banker," she said once she could trust herself to speak. Getting them thrown out of Siuan's room would not be a disaster, but it would be inconvenient. They had a great deal to do today. "A good and reputable banker. Do you know of one nearby?"

  As it happened, Mistress Tolvina did, the one she herself used, and for that purpose, she was willing to have two of her "watchers," as she called them, rousted from their rooms over the stable-for an amount Moiraine was sure at least doubled their daily wage. She paid at once, though. Objecting would only waste time, and might drive the price up. Ailene Tolvina did not look like a woman who bargained. Soon enough, she and Siuan were sitting facing each other in a large sedan chair borne by four wiry men who hardly looked strong enough to bear the weight, though they trotted up the crowded streets much more easily than the pair of tall men who escorted the chair carrying long, brass-studded cudgels.

  "This isn't going to work," Siuan muttered between gnaws at a large, crusty roll. "If you think we need more money, all right. Though you do fling it around, Moiraine. But, burn me, this scheme of yours will never work. We'll be netted right away. They'll probably send for a sister. If there isn't one there already. I tell you, we have to find another way."

  Moiraine pretended to be too busy eating her own roll, still warm from the oven, to answer. Besides, she was hungry. If they encountered another Aes Sedai That was a chasm they would have to cross when they came to it. She told herself the flutter in her belly was hunger, not fear. But you could think a lie. Her plan had to work. There was no other way.

  As in Tar Valon, the bank resembled a small palace, this one glittering in the morning sunlight like the real palaces farther up the mountain, with golden tiles on every wall and two tall white domes. The doorman who bowed them inside wore a dark red coat embroidered on the cuffs with silver bees, and the footmen short black coats that exposed their bottoms in their tight breeches. Moiraine's dress with the slashes of Cairhienin nobility on the front was enough to get them an interview with the banker herself rather than an underling, in a quiet, wood-paneled room with silvered stand-lamps and small lines of gilding on the furniture.

  Kamile Noallin was a lovely slim woman in her middle years, with graying hair worn in four long braids and stern, questioning eyes. Kandor was a long way from Cairhien, after all, and from Tar Valon. Still, she had no call to use an enlarging glass to study Ilain Dormaile's seal at the bottom of Moiraine's letter-of-rights. At least the letter itself was only a little blurred from its immersion in that pond. It was not the largest she carried, yet even so it produced an imposing pile of gold in ten leather pouches stacked on the banker's writing table, even after the steep discount for the distance between the two banks.

  "You have bodyguards, I hope," Mistress Noallin murmured politely. Large quantities of gold tended to bring courtesy.

  "Is Chachin so lawless two women are not safe by daylight?" Moiraine asked her coolly. An enlarging glass! "I think our business is done."

  A pair of very large footmen carried the purses outside and placed them on the floor of the sedan chair, looking relieved at the sight of Mistress Tolvina's two "watchers" with their cudgels. The bearers hoisted the extra weight effortlessly, it seemed.

  "Even that blacksmith must have staggered, loaded down like a mule," Siuan muttered, toeing the purses piled between them. "Who could have broken his back that way? Fish guts! Whatever the reason, Moiraine, it must be the Black Ajah."

  The bearers could hear that clearly, but they trotted along without faltering, ignorant of what the words Black Ajah meant, likely ignorant of what an Ajah was, for that matter. On the other hand, an imposing woman gliding by with ivory combs in her hair gave a start, then hiked her skirts to her knees and ran, leaving her two gaping servants to scramble after her through the crowd.

  Moiraine directed a reproving look at Siuan. They could not depend on others' ignorance for protection. Siuan flushed slightly, yet her blue eyes were defiant.

  The Evening Star had a small strongroom where merchants could store their coin safely, those who did not keep strongboxes in their rooms, but placing most of the gold there did not bring any curtsies from Mistress Tolvina, even after Moiraine gave her a gold crown for her troubles. No doubt she had seen too many merchants lose everything to be impressed just because someone had coin at the moment.

  "The best seamstress in Chachin would be Silene Dorelmin," she said in answer to Moiraine's question, "but she's very dear, or so I hear. Very dear." Moiraine took back one of the fat purses, though it dragged her belt down on one side when she tied the strings. That blacksmith must have staggered! No, Siuan was seeing jak o'the mists, that was all.

  Silene proved to be a slim woman with a haughty air and a cool voice, in a shimmering blue dress with a neckline cut to show most of her cleavage. The garment barely clung to her shoulders! Moiraine did not worry over being pressed into that sort of dress, though. She intended to violate nearly every rule of propriety between a woman and her seamstress. She tolerated the measuring, since there was no way to hasten it, but Silene's eyes narrowed at the speed with which she chose fabrics and colors. For a moment it seemed she would refuse to sew what Siuan needed, but Moiraine calmly said she would pay twice the usual rate. The woman's eyes went almost to slits at the mention of price, yet she nodded. And Moiraine knew she would get what she wanted. Here, at least.

  "I want them tomorrow," she said. "Put all of your seamstresses to work."

  Silene's eyes did not narrow at that. They widened, flashing with anger. Her voice became icy. "Impossible. At the end of the month, perhaps. Perhaps later. If I can find time at all. A great many ladies have ordered new gowns. The King of Malkier is visiting the Aesdaishar Palace."

  "The last King of Malkier died twenty-five years ago, Silene." Taking up the fat purse, Moiraine upended it over the table in the measuring room, spilling out thirty gold crowns. She was ordering more than three dresses, but while silk was as expensive in Chachin as in Tar Valon, the sewing was much less, and that was the largest expense in a dress.

  Silene eyed the fat coins greedily, and her eyes positively shone when she was told there would be as much again when the dresses were done.

  "But I will keep six coins from the second thirty for each day it takes." Suddenly it seemed that the dresses could be finished sooner than a month after all. Much sooner.

  "You should have your dresses made like what that skinny trull was wearing," Siuan said as they climbed back into the sedan chair. "Ready to fall off. You might as well enjoy men looking at you if you're going to lay your fool head on the chopping block."

  Moiraine performed a novice exercise, imaging herself a rosebud in stillness, opening to the sun. Thankfully, it brought calm. Though holding on to it around Siuan could prove trying. She would crack a tooth if she kept grinding them. "There is no other way, Siuan." The day was more than half gone, and much remained to be done. "Do you think Mistress Tolvina will hire out one of her strongarms for more than a few hours?" The King of Malkier? Light! The woman must have thought her a complete fool!

  At midmorning two days after Moiraine arrived in Chachin, a yellow-lacquered carriage behind a team of four matched grays, driven by a fellow with shoulders like a bull, arriv
ed at the Aesdaishar Palace, with two mares tied behind, a fine-necked bay and a lanky gray. The Lady Moiraine Damodred, colored slashes marching from the high neck of her dark blue gown to below her knees, was received with all due honor, by an upper servant with silvery keys embroidered behind the Red Horse on his shoulder. The name of House Damodred was known, of course, if not hers, and with Laman dead, any Damodred might ascend to the Sun Throne if another House did not seize it. They could not know how she hoped for that.

  She was given suitable apartments, three spacious rooms with silk tapestries on the flower-carved wall panels and a marble-railed balcony looking north across the city toward higher, snowcapped peaks, and assigned servants, two maids and an errand boy, who rushed about unpacking the lady's brass-bound chests and pouring hot rose-scented water for the lady to wash. No one but the servants so much as glanced at Suki, the Lady Moiraine's maid.

  "All right," Siuan muttered when the servants finally left them alone in the sitting room, "I admit I'm invisible in this." Her dark gray dress was fine wool, entirely plain except for collar and cuffs banded in Damodred colors. "You, though, stand out like a High Lord pulling oar. Light, I nearly swallowed my tongue when you asked if there were any sisters in the Palace. I'm so nervous I'm starting to get lightheaded. It feels hard to breathe."

  "It is the altitude," Moiraine told her. "You will get used to it. Any visitor would ask about Aes Sedai; you could see, the servants never blinked." She had held her breath, however, until she heard the answer. One sister would have changed everything. "I do not know why I must keep telling you. A royal palace is not an inn; 'You may call me Lady Alys' would satisfy no one, here. That is fact, not opinion. I must be myself. Suppose you make use of that invisibility and see what you can learn about the Lady Ines. I would be pleased if we leave as soon as possible."