“Where are the others?” he said, swinging his cloak off and hanging it on the leopard-carved cloak rack. The sound of his boots on the floor tiles bounced from the entry hall’s high ceiling. It was a fine space, with painted plaster cornices and several rich wall hangings on carved panels that were polished to a faint glow, well lit by mirrored stand-lamps with enough gilding for the Royal Palace itself, but burn him if it was much warmer than outside. Falion raised an eyebrow at the dagger in his hand, and he sheathed it with a tight smile. He could have it out again faster than anyone would believe, and his sword near as fast. “The streets are full of thieves at night.” Despite the chill, he removed his gauntlets and tucked them behind his sword belt. Anything else might make it appear he thought himself in danger. The breastplate should be enough anyway, come the worst.
“I do not know where Marillin is,” she said over her shoulder, already turning away and gathering her skirts for the stairsteps. “She went out before sunset. Murellin is in the stables with his pipe. We can talk after I inform Shiaine you’ve arrived.”
Watching her climb the stairs, he grunted. Murellin, a hulking fellow Hanlon did not like at his back, was banished to the stables behind the house whenever he wanted to smoke his pipe, because Shiaine disliked the smell of the rough tabac he used, and since he usually took a pot of ale with him, or even a pitcher, he should not be coming in any time soon. Marillin worried him more. She was Aes Sedai, too, apparently as much under Shiaine’s orders as Falion, or himself, but he had no agreements with her. No arguments, either, yet he distrusted any Aes Sedai on principle, Black Ajah or not. Where had she gone? To do what? What a man did not know could kill him, and Marillin Gemalphin spent entirely too much time off doing things he knew nothing about. He was coming to the conclusion that there were entirely too many things in Caemlyn he knew nothing about. Past time he learned, if he wanted to live.
With Falion gone, he went from the icy entry hall straight to the kitchen at the back of the house. The brick-walled room was empty, of course—the cook knew better than to poke her nose out of her room in the basement once she was sent away for the night—and the black iron stove and the ovens stood cold, but a small blaze on the long stone hearth made the kitchen one of the few rooms in the house that would be warm. Compared to the rest, at least. Shiaine was a stingy woman, except when it came to her own comforts. The fire here was only in case she happened to want mulled wine in the night, or a heated egg-milk.
He had been in this house above half a dozen times since coming to Caemlyn, and he knew which cabinets held the spices and which room off the kitchen always held a cask of wine. Always good wine. Shiaine never stinted there. Not with that she intended to drink herself, anyway. By the time Falion returned, he had the honeypot and a dish of ginger and cloves sitting on the wide kitchen table with a pitcher full of wine, and a poker thrust into the fire. Shiaine might say “come now” and mean “now,” but when she wanted to make a man wait, it could be near daylight before she saw him. These calls always cost him sleep, burn the woman!
“Who is the visitor?” he asked.
“He gave no name, not to me,” Falion said, propping the door to the hall open with a chair. That let some of the sparse warmth leak out, but she would want to be able to hear if Shiaine summoned her. Or maybe she wanted to make sure the other woman was not able to eavesdrop. “A lean man, tall and hard, with the look of a soldier. An officer of some rank, maybe a noble, by his manner, and Andoran by his accents. He seems intelligent and cautious. His clothes are quite plain, though costly, and he wears no rings or pins.” Frowning at the table, she turned to one of the tall open-front cabinets beside the door to the hallway and added a second pewter cup to the one he had set out for himself. It had never occurred to him to set out two. Bad enough he had to fix his own wine. Aes Sedai or no Aes Sedai, she was the maid. But she took a chair at the table and pushed the dish of spices away from her for all the world as though she expected him to serve.
“Shiaine had two visitors yesterday, however, more careless than this fellow,” she went on. “One, in the morning, had the Golden Boars of Sarand on the cuff of his gauntlets. He probably thought no one would notice small-work, if he thought at all. A plump, yellow-haired man in his middle years who looked down his nose at everything, complimented the wine as though surprised to find a decent vintage in the house, and wanted Shiaine to have me beaten for showing insufficient respect.” She said even that in a cold, measured voice. The only time she had had any heat in her was when Shiaine put the strap to her. He had heard her howl right enough then. “A countryman who has seldom been to Caemlyn but believes he knows how his betters behave, I should say. You can mark him by a wart on his chin and a small half-moon scar beside his left eye. The fellow in the afternoon was short and dark, with a sharp nose and wary eyes, and no scars or marks I could see, though he wore a ring with a square garnet on his left hand. He was sparing with words, very mindful to give away nothing in the little I heard, but he carried a dagger with the Four Moons of House Marne on the pommel.”
Folding his arms, Hanlon leaned against the side of the fireplace and kept his face smooth despite a desire to scowl. He had been sure that the plan was for Elayne to take the throne, though what came after remained a mystery. She had been promised to him as a queen. Whether or not she wore a crown when he took her mattered not a whit to him except for the spice it added—breaking that long-legged bit to saddle would be pure pleasure if she had been a farmer’s daughter, especially after the chit cut a slice off him today in front of all those other women!—but dealings with Sarand and Marne said maybe Elayne was meant to die uncrowned. Maybe, in spite of all the promises that he could romp a queen, he had been placed where he was so he could kill her at some selected moment, when her death would bring some specific result sought by Shiaine. Or rather by the Chosen who had given her her orders. Moridin, the fellow was called, a name Hanlon had never heard before coming to this house. That did not trouble him. If a man had the nerve to call himself one of the Chosen, Hanlon was not fool enough to question it. The likelihood that he was no more than a dagger in this did trouble him. So long as a dagger did the job, what matter if it broke in the doing? Much better to be the fist on the hilt than the blade.
“Did you see any gold change hands?” he asked. “Did you hear anything?”
“I would have said,” she replied thinly. “And by our agreement, it is my turn for a question.”
He managed to mask his irritation behind an expectant look. The fool woman always asked about the Aes Sedai in the palace or those she called the Kin, or about the Sea Folk. Silly questions. Who was friendly with whom, and who unfriendly. Who exchanged private words and who avoided one another. What he had heard them say. As if he had nothing to do with his time but lurk around the hallways spying on them. He never lied to her—there was too much chance she might learn the truth, even mired here in this house as a maid; she was Aes Sedai, after all—but it was growing difficult to come up with something he had not already told her, and she was adamant that he give information if he expected to receive any. Still, he had a few tidbits to offer today, some of the Sea Folk going off, and the whole lot of them jumping for most of the day as if they had icicles shoved down their backs. She would have to settle for that. What he needed to know was important, not bloody gossip.
Before she could get her question out, though, the door to the outside opened. Murellin was large enough that he almost filled the doorway, yet icy cold still swirled in, a gust that made the small fire dance and sent sparks flying up the chimney until the big man pushed the door shut. He gave no sign that he felt the chill, but then, his brown coat looked thick as two cloaks. Besides, the man was not only the size of an ox, he had the wits of one. Setting a tall wooden mug down on the table with a thump, he tucked his thumbs behind his wide belt and eyed Hanlon resentfully. “You messing with my woman?” he muttered.
Hanlon gave a start. Not from any fear of Murellin, not with
the oaf on the other side of the table. What startled him was the Aes Sedai leaping from her chair and snatching up the wine pitcher. Dumping in the ginger and cloves, she added a scoop of honey and swirled the pitcher around as if that was going to mix everything, then used a fold of her skirt to pull the poker from the fire and shove it into the wine without checking to see whether it was hot enough yet. She never looked in Murellin’s direction at all.
“Your woman?” Hanlon said carefully. That earned a smirk from the other man.
“Near enough. The Lady figured I might as well use what you aren’t. Anyway, Fally and me keep each other warm nights.” Murellin started around the table, still grinning, but at the woman, now. A shout echoed in the hallway, and he stopped with a sigh, his grin fading.
“Falion!” Shiaine’s distant voice called sharply. “Bring Hanlon up now and be quick about it!” Falion set the pitcher on the table hard enough to slop wine over the rim and was heading for the door before Shiaine finished. When the other woman spoke, Falion jumped.
Hanlon jumped too, if for a different reason. Catching up to her, he seized her arm as she took the first step on the stairs. A quick glance back showed the kitchen door closed. Maybe Murellin did feel the cold. He kept his voice low anyway. “What was that all about?”
“It is none of your business,” she said curtly. “Can you get me something that will make him sleep? Something I can put in his ale or wine? He will drink anything, however it tastes.”
“If Shiaine thinks I’m not obeying orders, it bloody well is my business, and you ought to see it that way, too, if you have two bloody thoughts to rub together.”
She tilted her head, staring down that long nose at him, cold as a fish. “This has nothing to do with you. As far as Shiaine is concerned, I will still belong to you when you are here. You see, certain matters changed.” Suddenly, something unseen grasped his wrist tightly and pulled his hand from her sleeve. Something else latched on to his throat, squeezing till he could not draw breath. Futilely, he scrabbled left-handed for his dagger. Her tone remained cool. “I thought certain other matters should change accordingly, but Shiaine does not see things logically. She says that when the Great Master Moridin wishes my punishment lessened, he will say so. Moridin gave me to her. Murellin is her way of making sure I understand that. Her way of making sure I know that I am her dog until she says otherwise.” Abruptly she drew a deep breath, and the pressure vanished from his wrist and throat. Air had never tasted so sweet. “You can get what I ask for?” she said, as calm as if she had not just tried to kill him with the bloody Power. Just the thought that that had been touching him made his skin crawl.
“I can . . .” he began hoarsely, and stopped to swallow, rubbing at his throat. It felt as though it had been cinched in a hangman’s noose. “I can get you something that will put him in a sleep he’ll never wake from.” As soon as it was safe, he was going to gut her like a goose.
She snorted derisively. “I would be the first Shiaine suspected, and I might as well cut my own wrists as object to anything she decided to do. It will be enough if he sleeps the nights through. Leave the thinking to me, and we will both be the better for it.” Resting a hand on the carved newelpost, she glanced up the stairs. “Come. When she says now, she means now.” A pity he could not hang her up like a goose to wait for the knife.
Following her, his boots thumped on the treads, sending a clatter through the entry hall, and it struck him that he had not heard the visitor leave. Unless the house had some secret way out he did not know, there was only the front door, the one in the kitchen, and a second at the back that could only be reached by passing the kitchen. So it seemed he was to meet this soldier. Maybe it was supposed to come as a surprise. Surreptitiously, he eased his dagger in its sheath.
As expected, the front sitting room had a fine blaze burning away in the wide fireplace of blue-veined marble. It was a room worth the looting, with Sea Folk porcelain vases on the gilt-edged side tables, and tapestries and carpets that would fetch a pretty price. Except that one of the carpets was likely worthless, now. A low blanket-covered mound lay near the middle of the room, and if the fellow that made it had not stained the carpet with his blood, Hanlon would eat the boots sticking out from one end.
Shiaine herself was sitting in a carved armchair, a pretty woman in gold-embroidered blue silk with an ornate belt of woven gold and a heavy gold necklace around her slim neck. Glossy brown hair hung below her shoulders even caught in a net of intricate lace. She looked delicate at first glance, but there was something vulpine about her face, and her smile never touched those big brown eyes. She was using a lace-edged handkerchief to clean a small dagger capped with a firedrop on the pommel. “Go tell Murellin that I will have a . . . bundle . . . for him to dispose of later, Falion,” she said calmly.
Falion’s face remained smooth as polished marble, but she made a curtsy that lacked little of cringing before she scuttled out of the room at a run.
Watching the woman and her dagger from the corner of his eye, Hanlon moved to the covered mound and bent to lift a corner of the blanket. Glazed blue eyes stared out of a face that might have been hard, alive. The dead always looked softer. Apparently he had been neither as cautious nor as intelligent as Falion thought him. Hanlon let the blanket fall and straightened. “He said something you objected to, my Lady?” he said mildly. “Who was he?”
“He said several things I objected to.” She held her dagger up, studying the small blade to be sure it was clean, then slid it into a gold-worked sheath at her waist. “Tell me, is Elayne’s child yours?”
“I don’t know who fathered the whelp,” he said wryly. “Why, my Lady? Do you think I’d go soft? The last chit who claimed I’d gotten a child on her, I stuffed her down a well to cool her head and made sure she stayed there.” There were a long-necked silver wine pitcher and two chased silver cups sitting on a tray on one of the side tables. “Is this safe?” he asked, peering into the cups. Both had wine in the bottom, but a little addition to one would have turned the dead man into easy prey.
“Catrelle Mosenain, an ironmonger’s daughter from Maerone,” the woman said, just as smoothly as if it were common knowledge, and he very nearly flinched in surprise. “You split her head open with a rock before you pitched her down, no doubt to spare her drowning.” How did she know the wench’s name, much less about the rock? He had not remembered her name himself. “No, I doubt you would go soft, but I would hate to think you were kissing the Lady Elayne without letting me know. I would purely hate that.”
Suddenly she frowned at the bloodstained handkerchief in her hand and rose gracefully to glide to the fireplace and toss it into the flames. She stood there warming herself, never even glancing in his direction. “Can you arrange for some of the Seanchan women to escape? Best if it can be both those called sul’dam and the ones called damane,” she stumbled a little over the strange words, “but if you can’t do both, then a few of the sul’dam should do. They will free some of the others.”
“Maybe.” Blood and bloody ashes, she was dancing from one thing to another worse than Falion tonight. “It won’t be easy, my Lady. They’re all guarded close.”
“I didn’t ask whether it was easy,” she said, staring into the flames. “Can you shift guards away from the food warehouses? It would please me if some of those actually burned. I am tired of attempts that always fail.”
“That I cannot do,” he muttered. “Not unless you expect me to go into hiding right after. They keep a record of orders that would make a Cairhienin wince. And it wouldn’t do any good anyway, not with those bloody gateways bringing in more wagons every bloody day.” In truth, he was not sorry for that. Queasy over the means used, certainly, but not sorry. He expected the palace would be the last place in Caemlyn to go hungry in any case, but he had lived out sieges on both sides of the lines, and he had no intention of ever boiling his boots for soup again. Shiaine wanted fires, though.
“Another answer I did not
ask for.” She shook her head, still looking into the fireplace, not at him. “But perhaps something can be done there. How close are you to actually . . . enjoying Elayne’s affections?” she finished primly.
“Closer than the day I arrived in the palace,” he growled, glowering at her back. He tried never to offend those the Chosen had set above him, but the chit was trying him. He could snap that slender neck like a twig! To keep his hands from her throat, he filled one of the cups and held it with no intention of drinking. In his left hand, of course. Just because there was one dead man in the room already did not mean she had no plans to make it two corpses. “But I have to go slow. It isn’t as if I can back her into a corner and tickle her out of her shift.”
“I suppose not,” Shiaine said in a muffled voice. “She is hardly the sort of woman you are used to.” Was she laughing? Was she amused at him? It was all he could do not to throw down the winecup and strangle the fox-faced bint.
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