Galad answered calmly. “I gave Nynaeve my word, sister. My first duty is to see you safely on your way to Caemlyn. And Nynaeve, of course. The Children would have had to fight this Prophet soon or late.”
“Couldn’t you simply have let us know the ship was here?” Nynaeve asked wearily. Men and their word. It was all very admirable, sometimes, but she should have listened when Elayne said he did what he saw as right no matter who was hurt.
“I don’t know what the Prophet wanted the ship for, but I doubt it was so you could take passage downriver.” Nynaeve flinched. “Besides which, I paid the captain your passage while he was still unloading his cargo. An hour later, one of the two men I left to make sure he did not sail without you came to tell me the other man was dead and the Prophet had taken the ship. I don’t understand what you are so upset about. You wanted a ship, needed a ship, and I got you one.” Frowning, Galad addressed Thom and Juilin. “What is the matter with them? Why do they keep staring at one another?”
“Women,” Juilin said simply, and got slapped on the back of the head by Birgitte for his trouble. He glared at her.
“Horseflies have a nasty bite,” she grinned, and his glower faded into uncertainty as he readjusted his cap.
“We can sit here all day discussing right and wrong,” Thom said dryly, “or we can take this vessel. Passage has been paid, and there’s no getting the price back now.”
Nynaeve flinched again. However he meant it, she knew how she heard it.
“There may be trouble reaching the river,” Galad said. “I donned this clothing because the Children are not popular in Samara at the moment, but the mobs can set on anyone.” He eyed Thom doubtfully, with his white hair and long white mustaches, and Juilin a little less so—even disheveled, the Tairen looked hard enough to pound posts—then turned to Uno. “Where is your friend? Another sword might be useful until we reach my men.”
Uno’s smile was villainous. Clearly, there was no more love between them than at their first meeting. “He’s about. And maybe one or two more. I’ll see them to the ship, if your Whitecloaks can hold on to it. Or if they can’t.”
Elayne opened her mouth, but Nynaeve spoke up quickly. “That’s enough, both of you!” Elayne would just have tried honeyed words again. They might have worked, but she wanted to lash out. At something, anything. “We need to move quickly.” She should have considered, when she flung two madmen at the same target, what might happen if they both hit at once. “Uno, gather the rest of your men, as fast as you can.” He tried to tell her they were already waiting on the other side of the menagerie, but she plowed on. They were madmen, both of them. All men were! “Galad, you—”
“Rouse and rise!” Luca’s shout cut into her words as he trotted between the wagons, limping, and with a bruise discoloring the side of his face. His scarlet cape was soiled and torn. It seemed Thom and Juilin were not the only ones to have entered the town. “Brugh, go tell the horse handlers to hitch the teams! We’ll have to abandon the canvas,” he grimaced at the words, “but I mean to be on the road in under an hour! Andaya, Kuan, pull your sisters out! Wake anybody still asleep, and if they’re washing, tell them to dress dirty or come naked! Hurry, unless you’re ready to proclaim the Prophet and march to Amadicia! Chin Akima’s lost his head already, along with half his performers, and Sillia Cerano and a dozen of hers were flogged for being too slow! Move!” By that time, everybody except those around Nynaeve’s wagon were at the run.
Luca’s limp slowed as he approached, eyeing Galad warily. And Uno, for that matter, though he had seen the one-eyed man twice before. “Nana, I want to talk to you,” he said quietly. “Alone.”
“We will not be going with you, Master Luca,” she told him.
“Alone,” he said, and seized her arm, hauling her away.
She looked back to tell the others not to interfere and found there was no need. Elayne and Birgitte were hurrying off toward the canvas wall that encompassed the menagerie, and except for a few glances at her and Luca, the four men were engrossed in conversation. She sniffed loudly. Fine men they were, to watch a woman manhandled and do nothing.
Jerking her arm free, she strode along beside Luca, silk skirts swishing her displeasure. “I suppose you want your money, now that we are going. Well, you shall have it. One hundred gold marks. Though I think you should allow something for the wagon and horses we’re leaving behind. And for what we’ve brought in. We have certainly increased the number of your patrons. Morelin and Juilin with their highwalking, me with the arrows, Thom—”
“Do you think I want the gold, woman?” he demanded rounding on her. “If I did, I’d have asked for it the day we crossed the river! Have I asked? Did you ever think why not?”
In spite of herself, she took a step back, crossing her arms beneath her breasts sternly. And immediately wished she had not; that stance more than emphasized what she was exposing. Stubbornness kept her arms where they were—she was not about to let him think she was flustered, especially since she was—but surprisingly, his eyes remained on hers. Maybe he was ill. He had never avoided looking at her bosom before, and if Valan Luca was not interested in bosoms or gold . . . “If not about the gold, then why do you want to talk to me?”
“All the way back here from the town,” he said slowly, following her, “I kept thinking that now you would finally go.” She refused to back away again, even when he was standing over her and staring down intently. At least he was still looking at her face. “I don’t know what you are running from, Nana. Sometimes, I almost believe your story. Morelin certainly has a noblewoman’s manner about her, at least. But you were never a lady’s maid. The last few days, I’ve half expected to find the pair of you rolling on the ground tearing one another’s hair. And maybe Maerion in the pile.” He must have seen something on her face, because he cleared his throat and hurried on. “The point is, I can find someone else for Maerion to shoot at. You do scream so beautifully, anyone would think you were truly terrified, but—” He cleared his throat again, even more hastily, and drew back. “What I am trying to say is that I want you to stay. There’s a wide world out there, a thousand towns waiting for a show like mine, and whatever is chasing you will never find you with me. A few of Akima’s people, and some of Sillia’s who haven’t been marched off across the river—they’re joining me. Valan Luca’s show will be the greatest the world has ever seen.”
“Stay? Why should I stay? I told you from the first we only wanted to reach Ghealdan, and nothing has changed.”
“Why? Why, to have my children, of course.” He took one of her hands in both of his. “Nana, your eyes drink my soul, your lips inflame my heart, your shoulders make my pulse race, your—”
She cut in hurriedly. “You want to marry me?” she said incredulously.
“Marry?” He blinked. “Well . . . uh . . . yes. Yes, of course.” His voice picked up strength again, and he pressed her fingers to his lips. “We will be wed at the first town where I can arrange it. I’ve never asked another woman to marry me.”
“I can quite believe it,” she said faintly. It took some effort to pull her hand free. “I am sensible of the honor, Master Luca, but—”
“Valan, Nana. Valan.”
“But I must decline. I am betrothed to another.” Well, she was, in a way. Lan Mandragoran might think his signet ring just a gift, but she saw it differently. “And I am going.”
“I should bundle you up and carry you with me.” Dirt and rips somewhat spoiled the grandiloquent flourish of his cape as he drew himself up. “With time, you would forget the fellow.”
“You try it, and I’ll have Uno make you wish you had been sliced for sausage.” That barely deflated the fool man at all. She drove a finger hard against his chest. “You do not know me, Valan Luca. You don’t know anything about me. My enemies, the ones you dismiss so easily, would make you take off your skin and dance in your bones, and you would be grateful if that was all they did. Now, I am going, and I don’t have time
to listen to your drivel. No, don’t say any more! My mind is set, and you will not change it, so you might as well stop blathering.”
Luca sighed heavily. “You are the only woman for me, Nana. Let other men choose boring flutterers with their shy sighs. A man would know he had to walk through fire and tame a lioness with his bare hands every time he approached you. Every day an adventure, and every night . . .” His smile almost earned him boxed ears. “I will find you again, Nana, and you will choose me. I know it in here.” Thumping his chest dramatically, he gave his cape an even more pretentious swirl. “And you know it, too, my dearest Nana. In your fair heart, you do.”
Nynaeve did not know whether to shake her head or gape. Men were mad. All of them.
He insisted on escorting her back to her wagon, holding her arm as if they were at a ball.
Stalking though the turmoil of horse handlers rushing to hitch teams, the din of men shouting, horses whickering, bears growling, leopards coughing, Elayne found herself muttering under her breath to match any of the animals. Nynaeve had no room to talk about her showing her legs. She had seen the way the woman stood up straighter when Valan Luca appeared. And breathed deeper, too. For Galad as well, for that matter. It was not as if she enjoyed wearing breeches. They were comfortable, true, and cooler than skirts. She could see why Min chose to wear men’s clothes. Almost. There was the problem of getting past the feeling that the coat was really a dress that barely covered your hips. She had just managed that, so far. Not that she intended to let Nynaeve know, her and her viperish tongue. The woman should have realized Galad would ignore the cost of keeping his promise. It was not as if Elayne had not told her about him often enough. And involving the Prophet! Nynaeve just acted without thinking about what she was doing.
“Did you say something?” Birgitte asked. She had gathered her skirts over one arm to keep up, unashamedly baring her legs from blue brocaded slippers to well above her knees, and those sheer silk stockings did not hide as much as breeches.
Elayne stopped dead. “What do you think of how I am dressed?”
“It allows freedom of movement,” the other woman said judiciously. Elayne nodded. “Of course, it’s good that your bottom isn’t too big, as tight as those—”
Striding on furiously, Elayne tugged the coat down with sharp yanks. Nynaeve’s tongue had nothing on Birgitte’s. She really should have required some oath of obedience, or at least some show of proper respect. She would have to remember that once it came time to bond Rand. When Birgitte caught up to her, wearing a sour expression as if she were driven almost beyond endurance, neither of them spoke.
Dressed in green sequins, the pale-haired Seanchan woman was using her goad to guide the huge bull s’redit as his head pushed the heavy wagon holding the black-maned lion’s cage. A horse handler in a shabby leather vest held the wagon tongue, steering the wagon around to where its horses could be hitched more easily. The lion stalked back and forth, lashing his tail and now and then giving a hoarse cough that sounded like the beginning of a roar.
“Cerandin,” Elayne said, “I must speak to you.”
“In a moment, Morelin.” Fixed on the tusked gray animal as she was, her quick, slurred way of speaking made her nearly unintelligible.
“Now, Cerandin. We have little time.”
But the woman did not halt the s’redit and turn until the horse handler called out that the wagon was in position. Then she said impatiently, “What do you need, Morelin? I have much to do, yet. And I would like to change; this dress is not for traveling.” The animal stood waiting patiently behind her.
Elayne’s mouth tightened slightly. “We are leaving, Cerandin.”
“Yes, I know. The riots. Such things should not be allowed. If this Prophet thinks to harm us, he will learn what Mer and Sanit can do.” She twisted to scratch Mer’s wrinkled shoulder with her goad, and he touched her shoulder with his long nose. A “trunk,” Cerandin called it. “Some prefer lopar or grolm for battle, but s’redit properly used—”
“Be quiet and listen,” Elayne said firmly. It was an effort to maintain her dignity, with the Seanchan woman being obtuse and Birgitte standing aside with her arms folded. She was certain Birgitte was just waiting to say something else cutting. “I do not mean the show. I mean myself, and Nana, and you. We are taking ship this morning. In a few hours, we will be beyond the Prophet’s reach forever.”
Cerandin shook her head slowly. “Few river craft can carry s’redit, Morelin. Even if you’ve found one that can, what would they do? What would I do? I do not think I can earn as much by myself as I can with Master Luca, not even with you high walking and Maerion shooting her bow. And I suppose Thom would juggle. No. No, it is better if we all remain with the show.”
“The s’redit will have to be left behind,” Elayne admitted, “but I am sure that Master Luca will take care of them. We will not be performing, Cerandin. There’s no more need for that. Where I am going, there are those who would like to learn about . . .” She was conscious of the horse handler, a lanky fellow with an incongruously bulbous nose, standing close enough to listen. “About where you came from. Much more than you’ve told us already.” No, not listening. Leering. By turns at Birgitte’s bosom and at her legs. She looked at him until his insolent grin turned sickly and he scuttled back to his duties.
Cerandin was shaking her head again. “I am to leave Mer and Sanit and Nerin to be cared for by men who are afraid to come near them? No, Morelin. We will stay with Master Luca. You, too. It is much better. Remember how bedraggled you were the day you came? You do not want to return to that.”
Drawing a deep breath, Elayne stepped closer. No one but Birgitte was close enough to overhear, but she did not want to take foolish chances. “Cerandin, my true name is Elayne of House Trakand, Daughter-Heir of Andor. One day, I will be Queen of Andor.”
Based on the woman’s behavior the first day, and even more on what she had told them of Seanchan, that should have been enough to quell any resistance. Instead, Cerandin looked her straight in the eye. “You claimed to be a lady the day you came, but . . .” Pursing her lips, she eyed Elayne’s breeches. “You are a very good highwalker, Morelin. With practice, you may be good enough to perform before the Empress one day. Everyone has a place, and everyone belongs in their place.”
For a moment, Elayne’s mouth worked soundlessly. Cerandin did not believe her! “I have wasted quite enough time, Cerandin.”
She reached for the woman’s arm, to haul her along bodily if necessary, but Cerandin caught her hand, twisted, and with a wide-eyed yelp Elayne found herself on tiptoe, wondering whether her wrist would break before her arm came out of her shoulder. Birgitte just stood there, arms folded under her breasts, and had the nerve to raise an eyebrow questioningly!
Elayne gritted her teeth. She would not ask for help. “Release me, Cerandin,” she demanded, wishing she did not sound quite so breathy. “I said, release me!”
Cerandin did, after a moment, and stepped back warily. “You are a friend, Morelin, and always will be. You could be a lady, one day. You have the manner, and if you attract a lord, he may take you for one of his asa. Asa sometimes become wives. Go with the Light, Morelin. I must finish my work.” She held out the goad for Mer to curl his trunk around, and the big animal let her lead him ponderously away.
“Cerandin,” Elayne said sharply. “Cerandin!” The pale-haired woman did not look back. Elayne glared at Birgitte. “A great lot of help you were,” she growled, and stalked off before the other woman could reply.
Birgitte caught her up and fell in at her side. “From what I hear, and what I’ve seen, you have spent considerable time teaching the woman she has a backbone. Did you expect me to help you take it away from her again?”
“I was not trying to do any such thing,” Elayne muttered. “I was trying to take care of her. She is a long way from home, a stranger wherever she goes, and there are some who would not treat her kindly if they learned where she came from.”
“She seems well able to take care of herself,” Birgitte said dryly. “But then, perhaps you taught her that, too? Perhaps she was helpless before you found her.” Elayne’s stare seemed to slide off her like ice sliding down warm steel.
“You just stood and watched her. You are supposed to be my . . .” She glanced around; it was only a glance, but several of the horse handlers ducked their heads away. “My Warder. You are supposed to help me defend myself when I cannot channel.”
Birgitte looked around, too, but unfortunately there was no one close enough to make her hold her tongue. “I will defend you when you are in danger, but if the danger is only of being turned over someone’s knee because you’ve behaved like a spoiled child, I will have to decide whether it’s better to let you learn a lesson that might save you the same or worse another time. Telling her you were heir to a throne! Really! If you are going to be Aes Sedai, you had better start practicing how to bend the truth, not break it into shards.”
Elayne gaped. It was not until she stumbled over her own feet that she managed to say, “But I am!”
“If you say so,” Birgitte said, rolling her eyes at the spangled breeches.
Elayne could not help herself. Nynaeve wielding her tongue like a needle, Cerandin stubborn as two mules, and now this. She threw back her head and screamed with frustration.
When the sound died, it seemed as if the animals had quieted. Horse handlers stood about, staring at her. Coolly, she ignored them. Nothing could worm its way under her skin now. She was as calm as ice, perfectly in control of herself.
“Was that a cry for help,” Birgitte said, tilting her head, “or are you hungry? I suppose I could find a wet nurse in—”
Elayne strode away with a snarl that would have done any of the leopards proud.
CHAPTER
48
Leavetakings
Once she was back in the wagon, Nynaeve changed into a decent dress, with a few exasperated mutters for having to undo one set of buttons and do up another by herself. The plain gray wool, fine and well cut yet hardly elaborate, would pass without comment almost anywhere, but it was decidedly warmer. Still, it felt good to be decently garbed again. And somehow odd, as if she were wearing too many clothes. It must be the heat.
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