A lean woman wearing a lieutenant’s two golden knots on the shoulder of her red cloak saluted Elayne with an arm across her chest, and her roan gelding tossed his head, making the silver bells in his mane chime faintly, as if he too were saluting. “We are ready, my Lady, and the area is clear.” Caseille Raskovni was one of those who had been a merchant’s guard, and her Arafellin accents were not those of an educated woman, but her voice was brisk and no-nonsense. She used the proper form of address, and would until Elayne was crowned, yet she was ready to fight to gain that crown for Elayne. Very, very few, male or female, signed the roster of the Queen’s Guard these days unless they were ready for that. “The men Master Ros handed over are ready, too. As ready as they’ll ever be.” Clearing his throat, the man shifted his crutch and took to studying the snow in front of his boots.
Elayne could see what Caseille meant. Master Ros had scraped together eleven men from the manor to send to Caemlyn and outfitted them with halberds and short-swords and what armor he could find, nine antique helmets without faceguards and seven breastplates with dents that made them vulnerable. Their mounts were not bad, though hairy with their winter coats, but even huddled as their riders were in thick cloaks, she could see that eight were unlikely to need to shave above once in a week, if that. The men Master Ros had described as being experienced had wrinkled faces and bony hands and probably not a full set of teeth between them. He had not been lying or trying to stint; Aedmun would have gathered all the fit men in the area to take with him and outfitted them in the best he had. The story had been the same everywhere. Apparently a great number of hale and hearty men scattered the length of Andor were trying to reach her in Caemlyn. And none of them likely to get into the city until all was decided, now. She could search every day without finding a single band. Still, this little bunch held their halberds as if they knew how to use them. Then again, that was not hard to do sitting a saddle at rest with the halberd’s butt tucked in your stirrup. She could have managed that.
“We have visited nineteen of these manors, sister,” Aviendha said softly, moving closer until their shoulders touched, “and counting these, we have gathered two hundred and five boys too young to be blooded and old men who should have laid down the spear long ago. I have not asked before. You know your people and your ways. Is this worth the time you give it?”
“Oh, yes, sister.” Elayne kept her voice just as low, so the one-legged former soldier and the servants could not overhear. The best of people could turn muleheaded if they realized you wanted them to behave a certain way. Particularly if they realized that the help they had painfully gathered and offered, and you had accepted, was not what you were after at all. “Everyone in that village down by the river knows I’m here by now, and so do half the farms for miles. By noon, the other half will know, and by tomorrow, the next village over, and more farms. News travels slowly in winter, especially in this country. They know I’ve spoken my claim to the throne, yet if I gain the throne tomorrow or die tomorrow, they might not learn of it before the middle of spring, maybe not even until summer. But today they know that Elayne Trakand is alive that she visited the manor in silks and jewels and summoned men to her banner. People twenty miles from here will claim they saw me and touched my hand. Few people can say that without speaking in favor of whoever they claim to have seen, and when you speak in favor of someone, you convince yourself to favor them. There are men and women in nineteen places around Andor talking about how they saw the Daughter-Heir just this last week, and every day the area that talk covers spreads like an inkblot.
“If I had time, I’d visit every village in Andor. It won’t make a hair of difference in what happens in Caemlyn, but it may make all the difference after I win.” She would not admit to any possibility other than winning. Especially not given who would take the throne if she failed. “Most Queens in our history spent the first years of their rule gathering the people solidly behind them, Aviendha, and some never did, but harder times than these are coming. I may not have one year before I need every Andoran to stand behind me. I can’t wait until I have the throne. Harder times are coming, and I have to be ready. Andor has to be ready, and I must make it so,” she finished firmly.
Smiling, Aviendha touched Elayne’s cheek. “I think I will learn a great deal about being a Wise One from you.”
To her mortification, Elayne blushed in embarrassment. Her cheeks felt on fire! Maybe the swings in humor were worse than the cosseting. Light, she had months of this to look forward to! Not for the first time, she found a kernel of resentment toward Rand. He had done this to her—all right, she had helped him, instigated the doing, in fact, but that was beside the point—he had done this and walked away with a smug grin on his face. She doubted his grin had really been smug, but she could picture it all too easily. Let him dart from giddy to weepy every other hour and see how he liked it! I can’t think in a straight line, she thought irritably. That was his fault, too.
The grooms finally deemed Fireheart and Aviendha’s Siswai meek enough to be mounted by ladies, and Aviendha climbed to her saddle from the stone mounting block with a good deal more grace than she once had shown, arranging her bulky undivided skirts to cover as much of her dark-stockinged legs as possible. She still believed that her own legs were superior to any horse, yet she had become a passable rider. Though she did have a tendency to look surprised when the horse did as she wanted. Fireheart tried to dance once Elayne was on his back, but she reined him in smartly, and a bit more sharply than she would have normally. Her teetering moods had taken her to a sudden sense of dread for Rand, and if she could not ensure his safety, there was one male at hand she could make certain did exactly as he was supposed to.
Six of the Guardswomen led the way down the road from the manor at a slow walk, all the depth of snow would allow, with the rest following her and Aviendha in smart columns, the last horsewomen in line leading the pack animals. The local men trailed behind raggedly with their own packhorse, a shaggy creature tied about with cookpots and rough bundles and even half a dozen live chickens. A few cheers greeted them as they rode through the thatch-roofed village and across the stone bridge that crossed a snake-curved frozen stream, loud cries of “Elayne of the Lily!” and “Trakand! Trakand!” and “Matherin stands!” But she saw a woman crying on her husband’s chest, and tears on his face, too, and another woman who stood with her back to the riders and her head down, refusing even to look. Elayne hoped she would send their sons home to them. There should be little fighting at Caemlyn, unless she blundered badly, but there would be some, and once the Rose Crown was hers, battles lay ahead. To the south lay the Seanchan, and to the north, Myrddraal and Trollocs waiting to descend for Tarmon Gai’don. Andor would bleed sons in the days to come. Burn her, she was not going to cry!
Beyond the bridge, the road slanted up again, a steep climb through pine and fir and leatherleaf, but it was no more than a long mile to the mountain meadow they sought. The snow shining beneath the midmorning sun still bore the marks of hooves coming from where a gateway had left a deep furrow in the snow. It could have been nearer the manor, but the possibility of someone standing where your gateway opened was always the danger.
The glow of saidar surrounded Aviendha as they rode into the meadow. She had made the gateway to come here from their last stop yesterday afternoon, a manor a hundred miles north, so she would weave the gateway to go to Caemlyn, but the sight of Aviendha shining with the Power made Elayne go broody. Whoever made the gateway to leave Caemlyn always ended up making all the others until they returned, since she learned the ground at each place her gateway touched, but on each of their five trips, Aviendha had asked to make that first gateway. She might simply have wanted the practice, as she claimed, though Elayne hardly had more practice than she did, but another possibility had come to mind. Maybe Aviendha wanted to keep her from channeling, in any considerable amount at least. Because she was pregnant. The weave that had made them sisters of the same mother could not
have been used if either of them had been with child, because the unborn child would have shared in the bond, a thing it could not be strong enough to survive, but surely one of the Aes Sedai in the palace would have said something if channeling was to be avoided in pregnancy. Then again, very few Aes Sedai ever bore children. They might not know. She was aware there were many things Aes Sedai did not know, however much they might pretend otherwise to the rest of the world—she herself had taken advantage of that presumption from time to time—but it seemed very strange that they might be ignorant of something so important to most women. It was as though a bird knew how to eat every seed and grain except barley, so supposedly knew, because if it did not know how to eat barley, what else might it be ignorant of? Wise Ones bore children, though, and they had said nothing about—
Abruptly concerns over her babe and channeling and what Aes Sedai might or might not know were pushed right out of her head. She could feel someone channeling saidar. Not Aviendha, not someone on one of the surrounding mountains, not anyone near as close as that. This was distant, like a beacon blazing on a far mountaintop in the night. A very distant mountain. She could not imagine how much of the One Power was needed for her to feel channeling at that distance. Every woman in the world who could channel must be able to sense this. To point straight to it. And the beacon lay to the west. Nothing had changed in the bond with Rand, she could not have said exactly where he was within a hundred miles, but she knew.
“He’s in danger,” she said. “We must go to him, Aviendha.”
Aviendha gave herself a shake and stopped staring westward. The glow remained around her, and Elayne could feel that she had drawn on the Source as deeply as she could. But even as Aviendha turned to her, she felt the amount of saidar the other woman held dwindle. “We must not, Elayne.”
Aghast, Elayne twisted in Fireheart’s saddle to stare at her. “You want to abandon him? To that!” No one could handle so much of saidar, not the strongest circle, not unaided. Supposedly a sa’angreal existed, greater than anything else ever made, and if what she had heard was correct, that might be able to handle this. Maybe. But from what she had heard, no woman could use it and live, not without ter’angreal made for the purpose, and no one had ever seen one that she knew of. Surely no sister would try even if she had found one. That much of the One Power could level mountain ranges at a stroke! No sister would try except perhaps one of the Black Ajah. Or worse, one of the Forsaken. Maybe more than one. What else could it be? And Aviendha simply wanted to ignore it, when she must know that Rand was there?
The Guardswomen, unaware, were still waiting patiently on their horses, keeping watch on the treeline around the meadow and little concerned with that after their reception at the manor, though Caseille was watching Elayne and Aviendha, a slight frown visible behind the face-bars of her helmet. She knew they never delayed at opening a gateway. The men from the manor were gathered around their packhorse, pawing at the bundles and apparently arguing over whether or not something had been included. Aviendha still moved her gray closer to Elayne’s black and spoke in a voice that would not carry.
“We know nothing, Elayne. Not whether he is dancing the spears or this is something else. If he dances the spears and we rush in, will he attack us before he knows who are? Will we distract him because he does not expect us, and allow his enemies to win? If he dies, we will find who took his life and kill them, but if we go to him now, we go blindly, and we may bring disaster on our backs.”
“We could be careful,” Elayne said sullenly. It infuriated her that she was feeling sullen, and showing it, but all she could do was ride her moods and try not let them get the upper hand completely. “We don’t have to Travel right to the spot.” Gripping her pouch, feeling the small ivory carving of a seated woman that nestled inside, she looked pointedly at her sister’s amber brooch. “Light, Aviendha, we have angreal, and neither of us is exactly helpless.” Oh, Light, now she was sounding petulant. She knew very well that both of them together, angreal and all, would be flies battling a flame against what they could sense, but even so, a flybite at the right moment might make the difference. “And don’t tell me I’ll endanger the baby. Min said she will be born strong and healthy. You told me so yourself. That means I will live at least long enough for my daughter to be born.” She hoped for a daughter.
Fireheart chose that moment to nip at the gray, and Siswai nipped back, and for a bit Elayne was occupied with getting her gelding under control and keeping Aviendha from being thrown and telling Caseille that they did not need any help, and by the end of it, she was not feeling sullen any longer. She wanted to smack Fireheart right between his ears.
Aside from making the animal obey the reins, Aviendha behaved as if nothing had happened at all. She did frown, a little uncertainly, her face framed by the dark wool of her shawl, but her uncertainty had nothing to do with the horse.
“I have told you about the rings in Rhuidean,” she said slowly, and Elayne gave an impatient nod. Every woman who wanted to become a Wise One was sent through a ter’angreal before she began training. It was something like the ter’angreal used to test novices for being raised to Accepted in the White Tower, except that in this one, a woman saw her whole life. All of her possible lives, really, every decision made differently, an infinite fan of lives based on differing choices. “No one can remember all of that, Elayne, only bits and pieces. I knew I would love Rand al’Thor . . .” she was still uncomfortable sometimes about using just his first name in front of others, “and that I would find sister-wives. For most things, all you retain is a vague impression at best. A hint of warning, sometimes. I think if we go to him now, something very bad will happen. Maybe one of us will die, maybe both in spite of what Min said.” That she said Min’s name without fumbling was a measure of her concern. She did not know Min very well, and usually named her formally, as Min Farshaw. “Perhaps he will die. Perhaps something else. I do not know for sure—maybe we will all survive, and we will sit around a fire with him roasting pecara when we find him—but the glimmer of a warning is there in my head.”
Elayne opened her mouth angrily. Then she closed it again, anger draining away like water down a hole, and her shoulders slumped. Perhaps Aviendha’s glimmer was true and perhaps not, but the fact was that her arguments had been good from the start. A great risk taken in ignorance, and taking it might bring disaster. The beacon had grown brighter still. And he was there, right where the beacon was. The bond did not tell her so, not at this distance, but she knew. And she knew she had to leave him to take care of himself while she took care of Andor.
“I don’t have anything to teach you about being a Wise One, Aviendha,” she said quietly. “You are already much wiser than I. Not to mention braver and more coolheaded. We return to Caemlyn.”
Aviendha colored faintly under the praise—she could be very sensitive, at times—but she wasted no time in opening the gateway, a rotating view of a stableyard in the Royal Palace that widened into a hole in the air and let snow from the meadow fall onto the clean-swept paving stones as near three hundred miles away as made no difference. The sense of Birgitte, somewhere in the palace, sprang alive in Elayne’s head. Birgitte had a headache and a sour stomach, not unusual occurrences of late, but they suited Elayne’s mood all too well.
I must leave him to take care of himself, she thought as she rode through. Light, how often had she thought that? No matter. Rand was the love of her heart and the joy of her life, but Andor was her duty.
CHAPTER
11
Talk of Debts
The gateway was positioned so that Elayne seemed to be riding out of a hole in the wall against the street, into a square marked out for safety by sand-filled wine barrels standing on the paving stones. Oddly, she could not feel a single woman channeling anywhere in the palace, though it housed more than a hundred and fifty with the ability. Some would be stationed on the city’s outer walls, of course, too far for her to sense anything short of a linked c
ircle, and a few would be out of the city altogether, yet someone in the palace was almost always using saidar, whether to try forcing one of the captive sul’dam to admit that she really could see weaves of the One Power or simply to smooth the wrinkles from a shawl without heating an iron. Not this morning, though. Windfinder arrogance often matched the worst shown by any Aes Sedai, yet even that must be quashed by what they sensed. Elayne thought that if she climbed to a high window, she must be able to see the weaves of that great beacon, hundreds of leagues distant as they were. She felt like an ant that had just become aware of mountains, an ant comparing the Spine of the World to the hills it had always held in awe. Yes, even the Windfinders must be walking small in the face of that.
On the eastern side of the palace and fronted on north and south by two-story-high stables of pure white stone, the Queen’s Stableyard traditionally was given over to the Queen’s personal horses and carriages, and she had hesitated over using it before the Lion Throne was acknowledged hers. The steps that led to the throne were as delicate as any court dance, and if the dance sometimes came to resemble a tavern brawl, you still had to make your steps with grace and precision in order to gain your goal. Claiming the perquisites before being confirmed had cost some women their chance to rule. In the end, she had decided it was not a transgression that would make her seem over-proud. Besides, the Queen’s Stableyard was relatively small and had no other use. There were fewer people to keep away from an opening gateway here. In fact, when she entered it, the stone-paved yard was empty apart from a single red-coated groom standing in one of the arched stable doorways, but he turned to give a shout inside, and dozens more came spilling out as she guided Fireheart clear of the marked-off square. After all, she might have returned with an entourage of powerful lords and ladies, or perhaps they just hoped she had.
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