Min wondered whether to tell her what she had seen while they were all together. Aviendha would have Rand’s babies, too. Four of them at once! Something was odd about that, though. The babies would be healthy, but still something odd. And people often did not like hearing about their futures, even when they said they wanted to. She wished someone could tell her whether she herself would. . . .
Walking along in silence, Aviendha wiped sweat from her face with her fingers and swallowed hard. Min had to swallow, too. Everything Rand was feeling was in that ball. Everything!
“The kerchief trick didn’t work for you, either?” she said hoarsely.
Aviendha blinked, and crimson darkened her face. A moment later, she said, “That is better. Thank you. I . . . With him in my head, I forgot.” She frowned. “It did not work for you?”
Min shook her head miserably. This was indecent! “It helps if I talk, though.” She had to make friends with this woman, somehow, if this whole peculiar business was to have a hope of working. “I’m sorry for what I said. About toes, I mean. I know a little of your customs. There’s something about that man that just makes me cheeky. I can’t control my tongue. But don’t think I’m going to let you start hitting me or carving on me. Maybe I have toh, but we’ll have to find some other way. I could always groom your horse, when we have time.”
“You are as proud as my sister,” Aviendha muttered, frowning. What did she mean by that? “You have a good sense of humor, too.” She seemed to be talking to herself. “You did not make a fool of yourself about Rand and Elayne the way most wetlander women would. And you did remind me. . . .” With a sigh, she flipped her shawl up onto her shoulders. “I know where there is some oosquai. If you are too drunk to think, then—” Staring down the hallway, she stopped dead. “No!” she growled. “Not yet!”
Coming toward them was an apparition that made Min’s jaw drop. Consternation pushed Rand beyond awareness. From comments she had known that the Captain-General of Elayne’s Guards was a woman, and Elayne’s Warder to boot, but nothing else. This woman had a thick, intricate golden braid pulled over one shoulder of her short, white-collared red coat, and her voluminous blue trousers were tucked into boots with heels as high as Min’s. Auras danced around her and images flickered, more than Min had ever seen around anyone, thousands it seemed, cascading over one another. Elayne’s Warder and Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards . . . wobbled . . . a little, as though she had already been into the oosquai. Servants who caught sight of her decided they had work in another part of the Palace, leaving the three of them alone in the corridor. She did not seem to see Min and Aviendha until she almost walked into them.
“You bloody helped her in this, didn’t you?” she growled, focusing glassy-looking blue eyes on Aviendha. “First, she flaming vanishes out of my head, and then . . . !” She trembled, and visibly controlled herself, but even then she was breathing hard. Her legs did not seem to want to hold her upright. Licking her lips, she swallowed and went on angrily. “Burn her, I can’t concentrate enough to shake it off! You let me tell you, if she’s doing what I think she’s doing, I’ll kick her tickle-heart around the bloody Palace, and then I’ll flaming welt her till she can’t sit for a month—and you alongside her!—if I have to find forkroot to do it!”
“My first-sister is a grown woman, Birgitte Trahelion,” Aviendha said truculently. Despite her tone, her shoulders were hunched, and she did not quite meet the other woman’s stare. “You must stop trying to treat us as children!”
“When she bloody well behaves like an adult, I bloody well treat her as one, but she has no right to do this, not in my flaming head, she doesn’t! Not in my—!” Abruptly, Birgitte’s glazed blue eyes bulged. The golden haired woman’s mouth dropped open, and she would have fallen if Min and Aviendha had not each seized an arm.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she sobbed, just once, and whimpered, “Two months!” Shaking free of them, she straightened and fixed Aviendha with blue eyes clear as water and hard as ice. “Shield her for me, and I’ll let you off your share.” Aviendha’s sullen, indignant glare just slid off her.
“You’re Birgitte Silverbow!” Min breathed. She had been sure even before Aviendha said the name. No wonder the Aiel woman was behaving as if she feared those threats would be carried out right then and there. Birgitte Silverbow! “I saw you at Falme!”
Birgitte gave a start as if goosed, then looked around hurriedly. Once she realized they were alone, she relaxed. A little. She eyed Min up and down. “Whatever you saw, Silverbow is dead,” she said bluntly. “I’m Birgitte Trahelion, now, and that’s all.” Her lips twisted wryly for a moment. “The flaming Lady Birgitte Trahelion, if you flaming please. Kiss a sheep on Mother’s Day if I can do anything about that, I suppose. And who might you be when you’re to home? Do you always show off your legs like a bloody feather dancer?”
“I am Min Farshaw,” she replied curtly. This was Birgitte Silverbow, hero of a hundred legends? The woman was foul-mouthed! And what did she mean, Silverbow was dead? The woman was standing right in front of her! Besides, those multitudes of images and auras flashed by too quickly for her to make out any clearly, but she was certain they indicated more adventures than a woman could have in one lifetime. Strangely, some were connected to an ugly man who was older than she, and others to an ugly man who was much younger, yet somehow Min knew they were the same man. Legend or no legend, that superior air irritated her no end. “Elayne, Aviendha and I just bonded a Warder,” she said without thinking. “And if Elayne is celebrating a little, well, you better think twice about storming in, or you’ll be the one sitting tender.”
That was enough to make her aware of Rand again. That raging furnace was still there, hardly lessened at all, but thank the Light, he was no longer . . . Blood rushed into her cheeks. He had lain often enough in her arms, catching his breath in the tangle of their bedding, but this really did seem like peeping!
“Him?” Birgitte said softly. “Mothers’ milk in a cup! She could have fallen in love with a cutpurse or a horsethief, but she had to choose him, more fool her. By what I saw of him at that place you mentioned, the man’s too pretty to be good for any woman. In any case, she has to stop.”
“You have no right!” Aviendha insisted in a sulky voice, and Birgitte took on a look of patience. Stretched patience, but still patience.
“She might be proper as a Talmouri maiden except when it comes to putting her head on the chopping block, but I think she’ll wind up her courage to put him through his paces again, and even if she does whatever it was she did, she’ll forget and be back in my head. I won’t bloody go through that again!” She squared herself, plainly ready to march off and confront Elayne.
“Think of it as a good joke,” Aviendha said pleadingly. Pleadingly! “She has played a good joke on you, that is all.” A curl of Birgitte’s lip expressed what she thought of that.
“There’s a trick Elayne told me,” Min said hurriedly, catching hold of Birgitte’s sleeve. “It didn’t work for me, but maybe . . .” Unfortunately, once she had explained . . .
“She’s still there,” Birgitte said grimly after a moment. “Step out of my way, Min Farshaw,” she said, pulling her arm free, “or—”
“Oosquai!” Aviendha voice rose desperately, and she was actually wringing her hands! “I know where there is oosquai! If you are drunk . . . ! Please, Birgitte! I . . . I will pledge myself to obey you, as apprentice to mistress, but please do not interrupt her! Do not shame her so!”
“Oosquai?” Birgitte mused, rubbing her jaw. “Is that anything like brandy? Hmm. I think the girl is blushing! She really is prim most of the time, you know. A joke, you said?” Suddenly she grinned, and spread her arms expansively. “Lead me to this oosquai of yours, Aviendha. I don’t know about you two, but I intend to get drunk enough to . . . well . . . to take off my clothes and dance on the table. And not a hair drunker.”
Min did not understand that at all, or why Aviendha stared at Birgi
tte and suddenly began laughing about it being “a wonderful joke,” but she was sure she knew why Elayne was blushing, if she actually was. That hard ball of sensations in her head was a raging wildfire again.
“Could we go find that oosquai, now?” she said. “I want to get drunk as a drowned mouse, and fast!”
When Elayne woke the next morning, the bedchamber was icy, a light snow was falling on Caemlyn, and Rand was gone. Except inside her head. That would do. She smiled, a slow smile. For now, it would. Stretching languorously beneath the blankets, she remembered her abandon the night before—and most of the day as well! She could hardly believe it had been her!—and thought that she should be blushing like the sun! But she wanted to be abandoned with Rand, and she did not think she would ever blush again, not for anything connected to him.
Best of all, he had left her a present. On the pillow beside her when she woke lay a golden lily in full bloom, the dew fresh on the lush petals. Where he could have gotten such a thing in the middle of winter she could not begin to imagine. But she wove a Keeping around it, and set it on a side table where she would see it every morning when she woke. The weave was Moghedien’s teaching, but it would hold the blossom fresh forever, the dewdrops never evaporating, a constant reminder of the man who had given her his heart.
Her morning was taken up with the news that Alivia had vanished during the night, a serious matter that put the Kin in a tumult. It was not until Zaida appeared in a taking because Nynaeve had not come for a lesson with the Atha’an Miere that Elayne learned that Nynaeve and Lan were both gone from the Palace, too, and no one knew when or how. Not until much later did she learn that the collection of angreal and ter’angreal they had carried out of Ebou Dar was missing the most powerful of the three angreal, and several other items besides. Some of those, she was sure, were intended for a woman who expected to be attacked at any moment with the One Power. Which made the hastily scribbled note Nynaeve had left hidden among the remainder all the more disturbing.
CHAPTER
13
Wonderful News
The Sun Palace’s sunroom was cold despite fires roaring on hearths at either end of the room, thickly layered carpets, and a slanted glass roof that let in bright morning light where snow caught on the thin muntins did not shield it, but it was suitable for holding audiences. Cadsuane had thought it best not to appropriate the throne room. So far, Lord Dobraine had remained quiet about her holding Caraline Damodred and Darlin Sisnera—she saw no better way to keep them from going on with their mischief than keeping them in a firm grip—but Dobraine might begin to fuss over that if she pushed beyond what he considered proper. He was too close to the boy for her to want to force him, and faithful to his oaths. She could look back on her life and recall failures, some bitterly regretted, and mistakes that had cost lives, but she could not afford mistakes or failure here. Most definitely not failure. Light, she wanted to bite someone!
“I demand the return of my Windfinder, Aes Sedai!” Harine din Togara, all in green brocaded silk, sat rigidly in front of Cadsuane, her full mouth tight. Despite an unlined face, white streaked her straight black hair. Wavemistress of her clan for ten years, she had commanded a large vessel long before that. Her Sailmistress, Derah din Selaan, a younger woman all in blue, sat on a chair placed a careful foot farther back in accordance with their notions of propriety. The pair might have been dark carvings of outrage, and their outlandish jewelry somehow added to the effect. Neither so much as flickered an eye toward Eben when he bowed and offered silver goblets of hot spiced wine on a tray.
The boy did not seem to know what to do next when they took nothing. Frowning uncertainly, he remained bent until Daigian plucked at his red coat and led him away smiling, an amused pouter pigeon in dark blue slashed with white. A slender lad with a big nose and large ears, never to be called handsome much less pretty, but she was very possessive of him. They took seats close together on a padded bench in front of one of the fireplaces and began playing cat’s cradle.
“Your sister is assisting us in learning what happened on the unfortunate day,” Cadsuane said smoothly, and somewhat absently. Taking a swallow of her own spiced wine, she waited, uncaring whether they saw her impatience. No matter how Dobraine grumbled about how impossible it was to meet the terms of that incredible bargain Rafela and Merana had made on behalf of the al’Thor boy, he still might have handled the Sea Folk himself. She could hardly give them half of her mind. Probably that was just as well for them. If she focused on the Atha’an Miere, she would be hard-pressed not to swat them like bitemes, though they were not the real source of her exasperation.
Five sisters were arrayed around the fireplace at the other end of the sunroom from Daigian and Eben. Nesune had a large wood bound volume from the Palace library spread on a reading stand in front of her chair. Like the others, she wore a plain woolen dress more suited to a merchant than an Aes Sedai. If any regretted the lack of silks, or money for silks, they did not show it. Sarene, with her thin, beaded braids, stood working at a large embroidery frame, her needle making the tiny stitches of yet another flower in a field of blossoms. Erian and Beldeine were playing stones, watched by Elza, who waited her turn to take on the winner. By all appearances they were enjoying an idle morning, without a care in the world. Perhaps they knew they were here because she wanted to study them. Why had they sworn fealty to the al’Thor boy? At least Kiruna and the others had been in his presence when they decided to swear. She was willing to admit that no one could resist the influence of a ta’veren when it caught you. But these five had taken a harsh penance for kidnapping him and reached their decision to offer oath before they were brought near him. In the beginning she had been inclined to accept their various explanations, but over the last few days that inclination had taken hard knocks. Disturbingly hard knocks.
“My Windfinder is not subject to your authority, Aes Sedai,” Harine said sharply, as if denying the blood connection. “Shalon must and will be returned to me at once.” Derah nodded curt agreement. Cadsuane thought the Sailmistress might do the same if Harine ordered her to jump from a cliff. In the Atha’an Miere’s hierarchy, Derah stood a long distance below Harine. And that was almost as much as Cadsuane knew of them. The Sea Folk might prove useful or might not, but she could find a way to get a grip on them in any case.
“This is an Aes Sedai inquiry,” she replied blandly. “We must follow Tower law.” Loosely interpreted, to be sure. She had always believed the spirit of the law was far more important than the letter.
Harine puffed up like an adder and began yet another harangue listing her rights and demands, but Cadsuane listened with half an ear.
She could almost understand Erian, a pale, black-haired Illianer, fiercely insisting that she must be at the boy’s side when he fought the Last Battle. And Beldeine, so new to the shawl that she had not yet achieved agelessness, so determined to be everything that a Green should be. And Elza, a pleasant-faced Andoran whose eyes almost glowed when she spoke of making certain that he lived to face the Dark One. Another Green, and even more intense than most. Nesune, hunched forward to peer at her book, looked like a black-eyed bird examining a worm. A Brown, she would climb into a box with a scorpion if she wanted to study it. Sarene might be fool enough to be startled that anyone thought her pretty, much less stunning, but the White insisted on the cool precision of her logic; al’Thor was the Dragon Reborn, and logically, she must follow him. Tempestuous reasons, idiotic reasons, yet she could have accepted them, if not for the others.
The door to the hall opened to admit Verin and Sorilea. The leathery, white-haired Aiel woman handed something small to Verin that the Brown tucked into her belt pouch. Verin was wearing a flowered brooch on her simple bronze-colored dress, the first jewelry Cadsuane had ever seen on her aside from her Great Serpent ring.
“That will help you sleep,” Sorilea said, “but remember, just three drops in water or one in wine. A little more, and you might sleep a day or longer. Much
more, and you will not wake. There is no taste to warn you, so you must be careful.”
So Verin was having trouble sleeping, too. Cadsuane had not had a good night’s rest since the boy fled the Sun Palace. If she did not find one soon, she thought she might bite someone. Nesune and the others were eyeing Sorilea uneasily. The boy had made them apprentice themselves to the Wise Ones, and they had learned that the Aiel women took that very seriously. One snap of Sorilea’s bony fingers could end their idle morning.
Harine leaned forward out of her chair and gave Cadsuane’s cheek a sharp tap with her fingers! “You are not listening to me,” she said harshly. Her face was a thunderhead, and that of her Sailmistress scarcely less stormy. “You will listen!”
Cadsuane put her hands together and regarded the woman over her fingertips. No. She would not stand the Wavemistress on her head here and now. She would not send the woman back to her apartments weeping. She would be as diplomatic as Coiren could wish. Hastily she scanned through what she had heard. “You speak for the Mistress of the Ships to the Atha’an Miere, with all of her authority, which is more than I can imagine,” she said mildly. “If your Windfinder is not returned to you within the hour, you will see that the Coramoor punishes me severely. You require an apology for your Windfinder’s imprisonment. And you require me to make Lord Dobraine set aside the land promised by the Coramoor immediately. I believe that covers the essential points.” Except for the one about having her flogged!
“Good,” Harine said, leaning back comfortably, in command now. Her smile was sickeningly self-satisfied. “You will learn that—”
“I do not care a fig for your Coramoor,” Cadsuane continued, her voice still mild. All the figs in the world for the Dragon Reborn, but not one for the Coramoor. She did not alter her tone by a hair. “If you ever touch me again without permission, I will have you stripped, striped, bound and carried back to your rooms in a sack.” Well, diplomacy had never been her strongest point. “If you do not cease pestering me about your sister . . . Well, I might actually grow angry.” Standing, she ignored the Sea Folk woman’s indignant puffing and gaping and raised her voice to be heard at the end of the room. “Sarene!”
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