Gawyn shifted his feet as if about to protest, then bowed his head instead. “As you command, mother.”
Elayne grimaced. “Mother, Gawyn cannot keep me out of trouble if he is not with me. It was for that reason alone he left his rooms. Mother, surely there could be no harm in just looking at Logain. Almost everyone in the city was closer to him than we.”
“Everyone in the city is not the Daughter-Heir.” Sharpness underlay the Queen’s voice. “I have seen this fellow Logain from close, and he is dangerous, child. Caged, with Aes Sedai to guard him every minute, he is still as dangerous as a wolf. I wish he had never been brought near Caemlyn.”
“He will be dealt with in Tar Valon.” The woman on the stool did not take her eyes from her knitting as she spoke. “What is important is that the people see that the Light has once again vanquished the Dark. And that they see you are part of that victory, Morgase.”
Morgase waved a dismissive hand. “I would still rather he had never come near Caemlyn. Elayne, I know your mind.”
“Mother,” Elayne protested, “I do mean to obey you. Truly I do.”
“You do?” Morgase asked in mock surprise, then chuckled. “Yes, you do try to be a dutiful daughter. But you constantly test how far you may go. Well, I did the same with my mother. That spirit will stand you in good stead when you ascend to the throne, but you are not Queen yet, child. You have disobeyed me and had your look at Logain. Be satisfied with that. On the journey north you will not be allowed within one hundred paces of him, neither you nor Gawyn. If I did not know just how hard your lessons will be in Tar Valon, I would send Lini along to see that you obey. She, at least, seems able to make you do as you must.”
Elayne bowed her head sullenly.
The woman behind the throne seemed occupied with counting her stitches. “In one week,” she said suddenly, “you will be wanting to come home to your mother. In a month you will be wanting to run away with the Traveling People. But my sisters will keep you away from the unbeliever. That sort of thing is not for you, not yet.” Abruptly she turned on the stool to look intently at Elayne, all her placidity gone as if it had never been. “You have it in you to be the greatest Queen that Andor has ever seen, that any land has seen in more than a thousand years. It is for that we will shape you, if you have the strength for it.”
Rand stared at her. She had to be Elaida, the Aes Sedai. Suddenly he was glad he had not come to her for help, no matter what her Ajah. A sternness far beyond Moiraine’s radiated from her. He had sometimes thought of Moiraine as steel covered with velvet; with Elaida the velvet was only an illusion.
“Enough, Elaida,” Morgase said, frowning uneasily. “She has heard that more than enough. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” For a moment she was silent, looking at her daughter. “Now there is the problem of this young man”—she gestured to Rand without taking her eyes off Elayne’s face—“and how and why he came here, and why you claimed guest-right for him to your brother.”
“May I speak, mother?” When Morgase nodded her assent, Elayne told of events simply, from the time she first saw Rand climbing up the slope to the wall. He expected her to finish by proclaiming the innocence of what he had done, but instead she said, “Mother, often you tell me I must know our people, from the highest to the lowest, but whenever I meet any of them it is with a dozen attendants. How can I come to know anything real or true under such circumstances? In speaking with this young man I have already learned more about the people of the Two Rivers, what kind of people they are, than I ever could from books. It says something that he has come so far and has put on the red, when so many incomers wear the white from fear. Mother, I beg you not to misuse a loyal subject, and one who has taught me much about the people you rule.”
“A loyal subject from the Two Rivers.” Morgase sighed. “My child, you should pay more heed to those books. The Two Rivers has not seen a tax collector in six generations, nor the Queen’s Guards in seven. I daresay they seldom even think to remember they are part of the Realm.” Rand shrugged uncomfortably, recalling his surprise when he was told the Two Rivers was part of the Realm of Andor. The Queen saw him, and smiled ruefully at her daughter. “You see, child?”
Elaida had put down her knitting, Rand realized, and was studying him. She rose from her stool and slowly came down from the dais to stand before him. “From the Two Rivers?” she said. She reached a hand toward his head; he pulled away from her touch, and she let her hand drop. “With that red in his hair, and gray eyes? Two Rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height.” Her hand darted out to push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. “Or such skin.”
It was an effort not to clench his fists. “I was born in Emond’s Field,” he said stiffly. “My mother was an outlander; that’s where my eyes come from. My father is Tam al’Thor, a shepherd and farmer, as I am.”
Elaida nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from his face. He met her gaze with a levelness that belied the sour feeling in his stomach. He saw her note the steadiness of his look. Still meeting him eye to eye, she moved her hand slowly toward him again. He resolved not to flinch this time.
It was his sword she touched, not him, her hand closing around the hilt at the very top. Her fingers tightened and her eyes opened wide with surprise. “A shepherd from the Two Rivers,” she said softly, a whisper meant to be heard by all, “with a heron-mark sword.”
Those last few words acted on the chamber as if she had announced the Dark One. Leather and metal creaked behind Rand, boots scuffling on the marble tiles. From the corner of his eye he could see Tallanvor and another of the guardsmen backing away from him to gain room, hands on their swords, prepared to draw and, from their faces, prepared to die. In two quick strides Gareth Bryne was at the front of the dais, between Rand and the Queen. Even Gawyn put himself in front of Elayne, a worried look on his face and a hand on his dagger. Elayne herself looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. Morgase did not change expression, but her hands tightened on the gilded arms of her throne.
Only Elaida showed less reaction than the Queen. The Aes Sedai gave no sign that she had said anything out of the ordinary. She took her hand from the sword, causing the soldiers to tense even more. Her eyes stayed on his, unruffled and calculating.
“Surely,” Morgase said, her voice level, “he is too young to have earned a heron-mark blade. He cannot be any older than Gawyn.”
“It belongs with him,” Gareth Bryne said.
The Queen looked at him in surprise. “How can that be?”
“I do not know, Morgase,” Bryne said slowly. “He is too young, yet still it belongs with him, and he with it. Look at his eyes. Look how he stands, how the sword fits him, and he it. He is too young, but the sword is his.”
When the Captain-General fell silent, Elaida said, “How did you come by this blade, Rand al’Thor from the Two Rivers?” She said it as if she doubted his name as much as she did where he was from.
“My father gave it to me,” Rand said. “It was his. He thought I’d need a sword, out in the world.”
“Yet another shepherd from the Two Rivers with a heron-mark blade.” Elaida’s smile made his mouth go dry. “When did you arrive in Caemlyn?”
He had had enough of telling this woman the truth. She made him as afraid as any Darkfriend had. It was time to start hiding again. “Today,” he said. “This morning.”
“Just in time,” she murmured. “Where are you staying? Don’t say you have not found a room somewhere. You look a little tattered, but you have had a chance to freshen. Where?”
“The Crown and Lion.” He remembered passing The Crown and Lion while looking for The Queen’s Blessing. It was on the other side of the New City from Master Gill’s inn. “I have a bed there. In the attic.” He had the feeling that she knew he was lying, but she only nodded.
“What chance this?” she said. “Today the unbeliever is brought into Caemlyn. In two d
ays he will be taken north to Tar Valon, and with him goes the Daughter-Heir for her training. And at just this juncture a young man appears in the Palace gardens, claiming to be a loyal subject from the Two Rivers . . .”
“I am from the Two Rivers.” They were all looking at him, but all ignored him. All but Tallanvor and the guards; those eyes never blinked.
“. . . with a story calculated to entice Elayne and bearing a heron-mark blade. He does not wear an armband or a cockade to proclaim his allegiance, but wrappings that carefully conceal the heron from inquisitive eyes. What chance this, Morgase?”
The Queen motioned the Captain-General to stand aside, and when he did she studied Rand with a troubled look. It was to Elaida that she spoke, though. “What are you naming him? Darkfriend? One of Logain’s followers?”
“The Dark One stirs in Shayol Ghul,” the Aes Sedai replied. “The Shadow lies across the Pattern, and the future is balanced on the point of a pin. This one is dangerous.”
Suddenly Elayne moved, throwing herself onto her knees before the throne. “Mother, I beg you not to harm him. He would have left immediately had I not stopped him. He wanted to go. It was I who made him stay. I cannot believe he is a Darkfriend.”
Morgase made a soothing gesture toward her daughter, but her eyes remained on Rand. “Is this a Foretelling, Elaida? Are you reading the Pattern? You say it comes on you when you least expect it and goes as suddenly as it comes. If this is a Foretelling, Elaida, I command you to speak the truth clearly, without your usual habit of wrapping it in so much mystery that no one can tell if you have said yes or no. Speak. What do you see?”
“This I Foretell,” Elaida replied, “and swear under the Light that I can say no clearer. From this day Andor marches toward pain and division. The Shadow has yet to darken to its blackest, and I cannot see if the Light will come after. Where the world has wept one tear, it will weep thousands. This I Foretell.”
A pall of silence clung to the room, broken only by Morgase expelling her breath as if it were her last.
Elaida continued to stare into Rand’s eyes. She spoke again, barely moving her lips, so softly that he could barely hear her less than an arm’s length away. “This, too, I Foretell. Pain and division come to the whole world, and this man stands at the heart of it. I obey the Queen,” she whispered, “and speak it clearly.”
Rand felt as if his feet had become rooted in the marble floor. The cold and stiffness of the stone crept up his legs and sent a shiver up his spine. No one else could have heard. But she was still looking at him, and he had heard.
“I’m a shepherd,” he said for the entire room. “From the Two Rivers. A shepherd.”
“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” Elaida said aloud, and he could not tell if there was a touch of mockery in her tone or not.
“Lord Gareth,” Morgase said, “I need the advice of my Captain-General.”
The blocky man shook his head. “Elaida Sedai says the lad is dangerous, my Queen, and if she could tell more I would say summon the headsman. But all she says is what any of us can see with our own eyes. There’s not a farmer in the countryside won’t say things will get worse, without any Foretelling. Myself, I believe the boy is here through mere happenstance, though an ill one for him. To be safe, my Queen, I say clap him in a cell till the Lady Elayne and the Lord Gawyn are well on their way, then let him go. Unless, Aes Sedai, you have more to Foretell concerning him?”
“I have said all that I have read in the Pattern, Captain-General,” Elaida said. She flashed a hard smile at Rand, a smile that barely bent her lips, mocking his inability to say that she was not telling the truth. “A few weeks imprisoned will not harm him, and it may give me a chance to learn more.” Hunger filled her eyes, deepening his chill. “Perhaps another Foretelling will come.”
For a time Morgase considered, chin on her fist and elbow on the arm of her throne. Rand would have shifted under her frowning gaze if he could have moved at all, but Elaida’s eyes froze him solid. Finally the Queen spoke.
“Suspicion is smothering Caemlyn, perhaps all of Andor. Fear and black suspicion. Women denounce their neighbors for Darkfriends. Men scrawl the Dragon’s Fang on the doors of people they have known for years. I will not become part of it.”
“Morgase—” Elaida began, but the Queen cut her off.
“I will not become part of it. When I took the throne I swore to uphold justice for the high and the low, and I will uphold it even if I am the last in Andor to remember justice. Rand al’Thor, do you swear under the Light that your father, a shepherd in the Two Rivers, gave you this heron-mark blade?”
Rand worked his mouth to get enough moisture to speak. “I do.” Abruptly remembering to whom he was speaking he hastily added, “My Queen.” Lord Gareth raised a heavy eyebrow, but Morgase did not seem to mind.
“And you climbed the garden wall simply to gain a look at the false Dragon?”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“Do you mean harm to the throne of Andor, or to my daughter, or my son?” Her tone said the last two would gain him even shorter shrift than the first.
“I mean no harm to anyone, my Queen. To you and yours least of all.”
“I will give you justice then, Rand al’Thor,” she said. “First, because I have the advantage of Elaida and Gareth in having heard Two Rivers speech when I was young. You have not the look, but if a dim memory can serve me you have the Two Rivers on your tongue. Second, no one with your hair and eyes would claim that he is a Two Rivers shepherd unless it was true. And that your father gave you a heron-mark blade is too preposterous to be a lie. And third, the voice that whispers to me that the best lie is often one too ridiculous to be taken for a lie . . . that voice is not proof. I will uphold the laws I have made. I give you your freedom, Rand al’Thor, but I suggest you take a care where you trespass in the future. If you are found on the Palace grounds again, it will not go so easily with you.”
“Thank you, my Queen,” he said hoarsely. He could feel Elaida’s displeasure like a heat on his face.
“Tallanvor,” Morgase said, “escort this . . . escort my daughter’s guest from the Palace, and show him every courtesy. The rest of you go as well. No, Elaida, you stay. And if you will too, please, Lord Gareth. I must decide what to do about these Whitecloaks in the city.”
Tallanvor and the guardsmen sheathed their swords reluctantly, ready to draw again in an instant. Still Rand was glad to let the soldiers form a hollow box around him and to follow Tallanvor. Elaida was only half attending what the Queen was saying; he could feel her eyes on his back. What would have happened if Morgase had not kept the Aes Sedai with her? The thought made him wish the soldiers would walk faster.
To his surprise, Elayne and Gawyn exchanged a few words outside the door, then fell in beside him. Tallanvor was surprised, too. The young officer looked from them back to the doors, closing now.
“My mother,” Elayne said, “ordered him to be escorted from the Palace, Tallanvor. With every courtesy. What are you waiting for?”
Tallanvor scowled at the doors, behind which the Queen was conferring with her advisors. “Nothing, my Lady,” he said sourly, and needlessly ordered the escort forward.
The wonders of the Palace slid by Rand unseen. He was befuddled, snatches of thought spinning by too fast to grasp. You have not the look. This man stands at the heart of it.
The escort stopped. He blinked, startled to find himself in the great court at the front of the Palace, standing at the tall, gilded gates, gleaming in the sun. Those gates would not be opened for a single man, certainly not for a trespasser, even if the Daughter-Heir did claim guest-right for him. Wordlessly Tallanvor unbarred a sally-port, a small door set within one gate.
“It is the custom,” Elayne said, “to escort guests as far as the gates, but not to watch them go. It is the pleasure of a guest’s company that should be remembered, not the sadness of parting.”
“Thank you, my Lady,” Rand said. He touched the scarf ba
ndaging his head. “For everything. Custom in the Two Rivers is for a guest to bring a small gift. I’m afraid I have nothing. Although,” he added dryly, “apparently I did teach you something of the Two Rivers folk.”
“If I had told Mother I think you are handsome, she certainly would have had you locked in a cell.” Elayne favored him with a dazzling smile. “Fare you well, Rand al’Thor.”
Gaping, he watched her go, a younger version of Morgase’s beauty and majesty.
“Do not try to bandy words with her.” Gawyn laughed. “She will win every time.”
Rand nodded absently. Handsome? Light, the Daughter-Heir to the throne of Andor! He gave himself a shake to clear his head.
Gawyn seemed to be waiting for something. Rand looked at him for a moment.
“My Lord, when I told you I was from the Two Rivers you were surprised. And everybody else, your mother, Lord Gareth, Elaida Sedai”—a shiver ran down his back—“none of them. . . .” He could not finish it; he was not even sure why he started. I am Tam al’Thor’s son, even if I was not born in the Two Rivers.
Gawyn nodded as if it was for this he had been waiting. Still he hesitated. Rand opened his mouth to take back the unspoken question, and Gawyn said, “Wrap a shoufa around your head, Rand, and you would be the image of an Aielman. Odd, since Mother seems to think you sound like a Two Rivers man, at least. I wish we could have come to know one another, Rand al’Thor. Fare you well.”
An Aielman.
Rand stood watching Gawyn’s retreating back until an impatient cough from Tallanvor reminded him where he was. He ducked through the sally-port, barely clearing his heels before Tallanvor slammed it behind him. The bars inside were jammed into place loudly.
The oval plaza in front of the Palace was empty, now. All the soldiers gone, all the crowds, trumpets, and drums vanished in silence. Nothing left but a scattering of litter blowing across the pavement and a few people hurrying about their business now that the excitement was done. He could not make out if they showed the red or the white.
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