“And Lord Conail, High Seat of House Northan.”
Conail Northan grinned over the rim of his silver cup. Tall and lean, in a gray coat with sleeves just too short to cover his bony wrists, he had an engaging grin, merry brown eyes, and an eagle’s beak for a nose. “We drew straws for the order to be introduced, and I drew short. Northan stands with Trakand. Can’t let a ninny like Arymilla take the throne.” He managed his sword smoothly, and he at least had reached his majority, but if he was many months past sixteen, Elayne would eat his turned-down boots and his silver-knot spurs.
Their youth was no surprise, of course, but she had expected Conail to have a graying head at his side to advise him and the others to have their guardians looking over their shoulders. There was no one else in the room aside from Birgitte, standing in front of the tall arched windows with her arms folded beneath her breasts. Bright midday sunlight flooding through the clear glass set in the casements made her a silhouette of displeasure.
“Trakand welcomes all of you, and I welcome all of you,” Elayne said, suppressing her dismay. “I will not forget your support, and Trakand will not forget.” Something of her consternation must have crept through, because Catalyn’s mouth compressed and her eyes glittered.
“I am past my guardianship, as you must know, Elayne,” she said in a stiff voice. “My uncle, Lord Arendor, said at the Feast of Lights that I was as ready as I would ever be and might as well have free rein then as in a year. Truth, I think he wanted more time to go hunting while he still can. He has always loved hunting, and he’s quite old.” Once again she failed to see Dyelin’s frown. Arendor Haevin and Dyelin were roughly of an age.
“I have no guardian either,” Branlet said uncertainly, his voice nearly as high-pitched as Catalyn’s.
Dyelin gave him a sympathetic smile and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. It promptly fell forward again. “Mayv was riding alone, as she liked to do, and her horse stepped into a gopher hole,” she explained quietly. “By the time anyone found her, it was too late. There has been some . . . discussion . . . over who’s to take her place.”
“They’ve been arguing for three months,” Branlet muttered. For a moment he looked younger than Perival, a boy trying to find his way with no one to show him the path. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone that, but I can tell you. You’re going to be the Queen.”
Dyelin put a hand on Perival’s shoulder, and he stood up straighter, though he still was shorter than she. “Lord Willin would be here with Lord Perival, but the years have him bedridden. Age creeps up on us all, eventually.” She shot another look at Catalyn, but the girl was studying Birgitte, now, her lips pursed. “Willin said I was to tell you that he sends his good wishes and also one he considers a son.”
“Uncle Willin told me to uphold the honor of Mantear and of Andor,” Perival said, intent as only a child being serious could be. “I will try, Elayne. I will try very hard.”
“I’m sure you will succeed,” Elayne told him, managing to put at least a little warmth into her tone. She wanted to chase them all out and ask Dyelin some very pointed questions, but that could not be, not right away. Whatever their ages, they were all the High Seats of powerful Houses, and she had to offer refreshment and at least a modicum of conversation before they went to change from their journey.
“Is she really the Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards?” Catalyn asked as Birgitte handed Elayne a thin blue porcelain cup of slightly darkened hot water. The girl spoke as though Birgitte was not there. Birgitte raised an eyebrow before leaving, but Catalyn seemed practiced in not seeing what she did not want to see. The winecup in her plump hand gave off the sharply sweet aroma of spices. There was not so much as a drop of honey in Elayne’s miserable excuse for tea.
“Yes, and my Warder, too,” she said. Politely. As ready as she would ever be! The girl probably thought it a compliment. She deserved a switching for pure rudeness, yet you could not switch a High Seat. Not when you needed her support.
Catalyn’s eyes flashed to Elayne’s hands, but the Great Serpent ring did nothing to alter the coolness of her expression. “They gave you that? I had not heard you had been raised Aes Sedai. I thought the White Tower had sent you home. When your mother died. Or perhaps because of the troubles in the Tower we hear about. Imagine, Aes Sedai squabbling like farmwives at market. But how can she be a general or a Warder without a sword? In any case, my aunt Evelle says a woman should leave swords to men. You don’t shoe your own horse when you have a farrier, or grind your own grain when you have a miller.” A quote from Lady Evelle, no doubt.
Elayne schooled her face, ignoring the only slightly buried insults. “An army is a general’s sword, Catalyn. Gareth Bryne says a general who uses another blade is mistaking the job.” The name seemed to make no impression on her, either. Miners’ children in the Mountains of Mist knew Gareth Bryne’s name!
Aviendha appeared at Elayne’s side, smiling as though delighted at the opportunity to talk with the girl. “Swords are no use at all,” she said sweetly. Sweetly! Aviendha! Elayne had never realized her sister could dissemble so skillfully. She had a cup of mulled wine, too. It would have been too much to expect her to continue drinking bitter tea out of sisterly affection. “You should learn the spear. Also the knife, and the bow. Birgitte Trahelion could shoot your eyes out at two hundred paces with her bow. Maybe at three hundred.”
“The spear?” Catalyn said faintly. And then, in a slightly incredulous tone, “My eyes?”
“You have not met my sister,” Elayne said. “Aviendha, Lady Catalyn Haevin. Catalyn, Aviendha of the Nine Valleys Taardad.” Perhaps she should have done that the other way around, but Aviendha was her sister, and even a High Seat must settle for being introduced to the sister of the Daughter-Heir. “Aviendha is Aiel. She’s studying to become a Wise One.”
The fool girl’s mouth dropped open at the start, her chin falling more and more with each pronouncement until she was gaping like a fish. Very satisfying. Aviendha gave Elayne a smaller smile, her green eyes sparkling with approbation above her winecup. Elayne kept her own face smooth, but she wanted to grin back.
The others were much more easily handled, much less infuriating. Perival and Branlet were shy their first time in Caemlyn much less in the Royal Palace, hardly saying two words unless someone drew them out. Conail did think the claim that Aviendha was Aiel must be a joke, and nearly got her belt knife in his brisket for laughing raucously, but luckily, he thought that was a joke as well. Aviendha adopted an icy composure that might have made her seem a Wise One in her usual clothes; in velvets, she appeared even more a lady of the court no matter how she fingered her knife. And Branlet did keep sneaking sidelong peaks at Birgitte. It took Elayne a little while to realize that he was watching her walk in her heeled boots—those wide trousers were actually quite snug over the hips—but she only sighed. Fortunately, Birgitte never noticed, and the bond would have let Elayne know even if she tried to hide it. Birgitte liked having men look at her. Grown men. It would have done Elayne’s cause no good if her Warder smacked young Branlet’s bottom.
Mainly they wanted to know whether Reanne Corly was an Aes Sedai. None of the four had ever seen a sister before, but they thought she must be, since she could channel, and carry them and their armsmen across hundreds of miles in a step. It was a good opportunity to practice evasion without actually lying, helped by the Great Serpent ring on her own finger. A lie would taint her relations with these four at the start, but it would hardly do to hope that rumors of Aes Sedai aid would filter out to Arymilla while spreading the truth about freely. Of course, all four were eager to let her know how many armsmen they had brought, a total of just over three thousand, nearly half of them crossbowmen or halberdiers who would be especially useful on the walls. That was a sizable force for four Houses to have had ready to hand when Dyelin came calling, but then, no House wanted its High Seat unguarded in these times. Kidnapping was not unheard of when the throne sat in question. Conai
l said as much, with a laugh; he seemed to find everything worth a laugh. Branlet nodded and scrubbed a hand through his hair. Elayne wondered how many of his numerous aunts, uncles and cousins knew he was gone, and what they would do when they learned.
“If Dyelin had been willing to wait a few days,” Catalyn said, “I could have brought more than twelve hundred men.” That was the third time in as many sentences that she had managed to point out that she had brought the largest contingent by a considerable margin. “I have sent to all of the Houses pledged to Haevin.”
“And I to every House pledged to Northan,” Conail added. With a grin, of course. “Northan may not summon as many swords as Haevin or Trakand—or Mantear,” he put in with a bow to Perival, “but whoever rides when the Eagles call will be riding for Caemlyn.”
“They will not ride very fast in winter,” Perival said quietly. And astonishingly, since no one had spoken to him. “I think that whatever we do, we will have to do it with who we have now.”
Conail laughed and cuffed the lad’s shoulder and told him to buck up his spirits, because every man with a heart was on his way to Caemlyn to support the Lady Elayne, but Elayne studied Perival more closely. His blue eyes met hers for a moment without blinking before he shyly lowered his gaze. A boy, but he knew what he had ridden into better than Conail or Catalyn, who proceeded to tell them yet again how many armsmen she had brought, and how many Haevin could call on, as if everyone there except Aviendha did not know exactly how many rode to each House’s summons, in trained soldiers and farmers who had carried a halberd or pike in some war and village men who could be drafted at need. Close enough to exactly, anyway. Lord Willin had done good work with young Perival. Now she had to keep it from going to waste.
Eventually it was time to exchange kisses, with Branlet blushing to his hair, and Perival blinking bashfully when Elayne bent to him, and Conail vowing never to wash his cheek. Catalyn returned a surprisingly hesitant peck to Elayne’s cheek, as if it had just occurred to her that she had consented to placing Elayne above her, but after a moment she nodded to herself, cool pride settling back on her like a mantle. Once the four were handed over to the maids and serving men who would take them to the apartments that Elayne hoped the First Maid had had time to ready, Dyelin refilled her winecup and settled herself in one of the tall, carved chairs with a weary sigh.
“As fine a week’s work as I’ve ever done, if I do say so myself. I got Candraed out of the way straight off. I never thought Danine would be able to make up her mind, and it only took an hour to prove me right, though I had to stay three to keep from offending her. The woman must keep in bed till noon from being unable to decide to which side of the mattress to climb down from! The rest were ready to see sense with only a little convincing. No one with any sense wants to risk Arymilla gaining the throne.”
For a moment, she frowned at her wine, then fixed Elayne with a steady look. She never hesitated to speak her mind, whether or not she thought Elayne would agree, and plainly she intended to do so now. “It may have been a mistake to pass these Kinswomen off as Aes Sedai, however side-mouthed we’ve been about it. The strain may be too much to ask of them, and it puts us all at risk. This morning, for no reason I could make out, Mistress Corly was staring and gaping like a goose-girl come to the city. I think she almost failed at weaving the gateway to bring us here. That would have been wonderful, everyone lined up to ride through a miraculous hole in the air that never materialized. Not to mention that it would have stuck me in Catalyn’s company for the Light knows how long. Odious child! There’s a good mind there, if someone took her in hand for a few years, but she has a double dose of the viperous Haevin tongue.”
Elayne gritted her teeth. She knew how cutting Haevins could be. The whole family took pride in it! Catalyn obviously did. And she was tired of explaining what on this day could frighten any woman who could channel. She was tired of being reminded of what she was trying to ignore. That bloody beacon was still blazing in the west, an utter impossibility both for its size and its duration. The thing had been unchanging for hours! Anyone who channeled for this long without a rest must have fallen over with exhaustion by now. And Rand bloody al’Thor was right there, in the heart of it. She was certain of that! He was alive, but that only made her want to slap his face for putting her through this. Well, his face was not there, but—
Birgitte slammed her silver cup down on a side table so hard that wine flew everywhere. Some laundress was going to sweat to take that stain out of her coatsleeve. A maid would labor for hours to restore the side table’s polish. “Children!” she barked. “People are going to die because of the decisions they make, and they’re flaming children, Conail worst of all! You heard him, Dyelin. He wants to challenge Arymilla’s champion like Artur bloody Hawkwing! Hawkwing never fought anybody’s flaming champion, and he knew when he was younger than Lord Northan that it was a fool’s game to rest so much on a flaming duel, but Conail thinks he can win Elayne the flaming throne with his flaming sword!”
“Birgitte Trahelion is right,” Aviendha said fiercely. Her hands were fists gripping her skirts. “Conail Northan is a fool! But how could anyone follow those children into the dance of spears? How could anyone ask them to lead?”
Dyelin regarded them both, and chose to answer Aviendha first. She was plainly bemused by Aviendha’s garb. But then, she was bemused by Aviendha and Elayne adopting one another as sisters, by Elayne having an Aiel friend in the first place. That Elayne chose to include that friend in their counsels was something she tolerated. Though not without letting her toleration show. “I became High Seat of Taravin at fifteen, when my father died in a skirmish on the Altaran Marches. My two younger brothers died fighting cattle raiders out of Murandy that same year. I listened to advisors, but I told Taravin riders where to strike, and we taught the Altarans and the Murandians to look elsewhere for their thieving. The times choose when children must grow up, Aviendha, not we, and in these times, a High Seat who is a child cannot be a child any longer.
“As for you, Lady Birgitte,” she went on in a drier voice. “Your language is, as ever . . . pungent.” She did not ask how Birgitte presumed to know so much of Artur Hawkwing, things no historian knew, but she studied her appraisingly. “Branlet and Perival will take guidance from me, and so will Catalyn, I think, much as I regret the time I’ll have to spend with the girl. As for Conail, he’s hardly the first young man to think he’s invincible and immortal. If you can’t keep him reined in as Captain-General, I suggest you try walking for him. The way he was eyeing those breeches of yours, he’ll follow anywhere you lead.”
Elayne . . . shrugged off . . . the pure fury welling up in her. Not her fury, any more than it had been her anger at Dyelin in the first place, or her anger at Birgitte splashing wine about. It was Birgitte’s. She did not want to slap Rand’s face. Well, she did, but that was beside the point. Light, Conail had been looking at Birgitte, too? “They are the High Seats of their Houses, Aviendha. No one in their Houses would thank me for treating them as less; far from it. The men who ride for them will fight to keep them alive, but it is Perival and Branlet, Conail and Catalyn they ride for, not me. Because they are the High Seats.” Aviendha frowned, and folded her arms as though pulling a shawl around herself, but she nodded. Abruptly, and reluctantly—no one rose to such prominence among the Aiel without years of experience, and the approval of the Wise Ones—but she nodded.
“Birgitte, you will have to deal with them, Captain-General to High Seat. White hair wouldn’t necessarily make them any wiser, and it definitely wouldn’t make them any easier to deal with. They’d still have their own opinions, and with years of experience to give them weight, most likely they’d be ten times as certain they knew what needs to be done better than you do. Or than I do.” She made a great effort to keep her tone clear of sharpness, and no doubt Birgitte felt the effort. At least, the flow of rage through the bond suddenly diminished. It was only tamped down, not gone—Birgitte enjoyed havi
ng men look, at least when she wanted them to look, but she very much did not like anyone saying she was trying to attract their attention—yet even so, she knew the danger to both of them of letting their emotions run too free.
Dyelin had begun sipping at her wine, still studying Birgitte. Only a bare handful knew the truth that Birgitte desperately wanted to keep hidden, and Dyelin was not among them, yet Birgitte had been careless enough, a slip of the tongue here, a slip there, that the older woman was certain that some mystery hid behind Birgitte’s blue eyes. The Light only knew what she would think if she solved that riddle. As it was, the two were oil and water. They could argue over which way was up, and certainly over everything else. This time, Dyelin clearly thought she had won, foot and horse.
“Be that as it may, Dyelin,” Elayne continued, “I would have been more pleased if you had brought their advisors with them. What’s done is done, but Branlet troubles me in particular. If Gilyard accuses me of kidnapping him, matters become worse than they were, not better.”
Dyelin waved that away. “You don’t know the Gilyards well, do you? The way they squabble among themselves, they may not notice the boy is gone before summer, and if they do, none will repudiate what he’s done. None of them will admit they were so busy in arguing over who’s to be his guardian that they forgot to keep an eye on him. And second, none of them will admit they weren’t consulted beforehand. In any event, Gilyard would stand for Zaida before standing for Marne, and they don’t like Arawn or Sarand much better.”
“I hope you’re right, Dyelin, because I’m appointing you to deal with any angry Gilyards who appear. And while you’re advising the other three, you can keep a thumb on Conail so he doesn’t do anything completely harebrained.”
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