Hark was staring at her with his mouth hanging open, she realized. Master Norry was studiously examining the lion’s stained tail. She stopped dancing and folded her hands. Fool men! “Where is Mellar now?”
“In his rooms, I believe,” Norry said.
“My Lady, you’ll take it off now?” Hark said. “And I can go? I did what you asked.”
“First you have to lead us to this house,” she said, darting past him to the twinned doors. “Then we’ll talk.” Putting her head out into the corridor, she found Deni and seven more Guardswomen lined up on either side of the doors. “Deni, send someone to fetch the Lady Birgitte as fast as possible, and someone else to wake the Aes Sedai and ask them to come, too, with their Warders and prepared to take a ride. Then you go and wake however many Guardswomen you think you need to arrest Mellar. You needn’t be too gentle about it. The charges are murder and being a Darkfriend. Lock him in one of the basement storerooms with a strong guard.” The stocky woman smiled broadly and began giving orders as Elayne went back inside.
Hark was wringing his hands and shifting from one foot to the other anxiously. “My Lady, what do you mean we’ll talk? You promised to take this thing off me if I followed the man, you did. And I did, so you have to keep your word.”
“I never said I’d remove the Finder, Master Hark. I said you’d be exiled to Baerlon instead of hanging, but wouldn’t you rather remain in Caemlyn?”
The man widened his eyes, trying to look sincere. And failing. He even smiled. “Oh, no, my Lady. I’ve been dreaming about the fresh country air in Baerlon, I has. I’ll wager there’s never a worry about getting rotten meat in your stew there. Here, you got to sniff careful before you eat anything. I’m looking forward to it, I am.”
Elayne put on the stern face her mother had always worn passing judgment. “You’d be out of Baerlon two minutes behind the Guardsmen who escorted you there. And then you’d hang for breaking your exile. Much better for you to remain in Caemlyn and take on a new line of work. Master Norry, could you use a man with Hark’s talents?”
“I could, my Lady,” Norry replied without even a pause for thought. A satisfied smile touched his thin lips, and Elayne realized what she had done. She had given him a tool to encroach on Mistress Harfor’s ground. But there was no undoing it, now.
“The work won’t be so remunerative as your former ‘trade,’ Master Hark, but you won’t hang for it.”
“Not so what, my Lady?” Hark said, scratching his head.
“It won’t pay so well. What do you say? Baerlon, where you’ll surely cut a purse or bolt, and hang for either one, or Caemlyn, where you’ll have steady work and no fear of the hangman. Unless you take up cutting purses again.”
Hark swayed on his feet, scrubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. “I needs a drink, I does,” he muttered hoarsely. Very likely he believed the Finder would allow her to know if he cut a purse. If so, she had no intention of disabusing him.
Master Norry scowled at the man, but when he opened his mouth, she said, “There’s wine in the small sitting room. Let him have one cup, then join me in the large sitting room.”
The large sitting room was dark when she walked in, but she channeled to light the mirrored stand-lamps against the dark-paneled walls, and the kindling of the fires neatly laid on the facing hearths. Then she took a seat in one of the low-backed chairs around the scroll-edged table and released saidar again. Since her experiment at holding the Power all day, she had not held it longer than necessary. Her mood swung from joyful excitement to morose worry and back. On the one hand, she was done with having to put up with Mellar, and soon she would have her hands on two Black sisters. Questioning them might lead to the rest, or at least reveal their plans. And if not, this Shiaine would have her own secrets. Anyone who was “working” two Darkfriend sisters would have secrets worth knowing. On the other hand, what would Duhara do to try forcing her acceptance as an advisor? Duhara would try to meddle somehow, but she could not see how. Burn her, she did not need any more difficulties between her and the throne. With a little luck, tonight would not only snare two Black sisters, it might uncover a third, a murderer ten times over. Back and forth she went, from Falion and Marillin to Duhara, even after Master Norry and Hark joined her.
Hark, a silver cup in his hand, tried to take a seat at the table, but Master Norry tapped him on the shoulder and jerked his head toward a corner. Sullenly, Hark went where he was directed. He must have begun drinking as soon as the cup was filled, because he emptied it in one long pull then stood turning it over in his hands and staring at it. Suddenly he gave a start and directed an ingratiating grin at her. Whatever he saw on her face made him flinch. Scuttling to the long table against the wall, he set the cup down with exaggerated care, then scuttled back to his corner.
Birgitte was the first to arrive, the bond filled with weary discontent. “A ride?” she said, and when Elayne explained, she began raising objections. Well, some of it was objections; the rest was just insults.
“What hare-brained, crack-pated scheme are you talking about, Birgitte?” Vandene said as she entered the room. She wore a riding dress that hung loose on her. One of her sister’s, it would have fit her perfectly while Adeleas was alive, but the white-haired woman had lost weight. Her Jaem, wiry and gnarled, took one look at Hark and placed himself where he could watch the man. Hark ventured a smile, but it faded when Jaem’s expression remained hard as iron. The Warder’s graying hair was thin, but there was nothing soft about him.
“She intends to try capturing two Black sisters tonight,” Birgitte replied, shooting a hard look at Elayne.
“Two Black sisters?” Sareitha exclaimed walking through the door. She gathered her dark cloak around her as though the words had given a chill. “Who?” Her Warder Ned, a tall, broad-shouldered young man with yellow hair, eyed Hark and touched his sword hilt. He chose a spot where he could watch the man, too. Hark shifted his feet. He might have been thinking of trying to run.
“Falion Bhoda and Marillin Gemalphin,” Elayne said. Sareitha’s mouth hardened.
“What about Falion and Marillin?” Careane asked as she glided into the room. Her Warders were disparate men, a tall, gangly Tairen, a blade-slender Saldaean, and a broad-shouldered Cairhienin. They exchanged glances, and Tavan, the Cairhienin, leaned against the wall watching Hark while Cieryl and Venr stood in the doorway. Hark’s mouth took on a sickly twist.
There was nothing for it but to explain again from the beginning. Which Elayne did with a rising impatience that had nothing to do with her shifting moods. The longer this took, the more chance that Falion and Marillin might be gone by the time she reached the house on Full Moon Street. She wanted them. She intended to have them! She should have made Birgitte wait until everyone had gathered.
“A good plan, I think,” Vandene said when she finished. “Yes, it will do nicely.” Others were not so agreeable.
“It isn’t a plan, it’s bloody madness!” Birgitte said sharply. Arms folded beneath her bosom, she scowled down at Elayne, the bond such a turmoil of emotions that Elayne could barely make them out. “The four of you enter the house alone. Alone! That isn’t a plan. It’s flaming insanity! Warders are supposed to guard their Aes Sedai’s backs. Let us come with you.” The other Warders put in emphatic agreements, but at least she was not trying to stop the whole thing any more.
“There are four of us,” Elayne told her. “We can watch our own backs. And sisters do not ask their Warders to face other sisters.” Birgitte’s face darkened. “If I need you, I’ll shout so loud you’d be able to hear me if you were back here in the palace. The Warders remain outside!” she added when Birgitte opened her mouth. The bond filled with frustration, but Birgitte’s jaw snapped shut.
“Perhaps this man can be trusted,” Sareitha said, glancing at Hark with no trust at all, “but even if he heard correctly, nothing says there are still only two sisters in the house. Or any. If they have gone, there’s no danger, but if o
thers have joined them, we might as well put our necks in a noose and spring the trap ourselves.”
Careane folded her sturdy arms and nodded. “The danger is too great. You yourself told us that when they fled the Tower, they stole a number of ter’angreal, some very dangerous indeed. I’ve never been called a coward, but I don’t fancy trying to sneak up on someone who might have a rod that can make balefire.”
“He could hardly have misheard something as simple as ‘there are only two of us,’ ” Elayne replied firmly. “And they spoke as if they didn’t expect any others.” Burn her, considering her standing with respect to them, they should have been jumping to obey rather than arguing. “In any case, this isn’t a discussion.” A pity both objected. If only one had, it could have been a clue. Unless they both were Black Ajah. A bone-freezing thought, that, yet her plan took the possibility into account. “Falion and Marillin won’t know we are coming until it’s too late. If they’re gone, we’ll arrest this Shiaine, but we are going.”
It was a larger party than Elayne had expected that rode out of the Queen’s Stableyard behind her and Hark. Birgitte had insisted on bringing fifty Guardswomen, though all they would be doing was missing sleep, a column of twos in red-lacquered helmets and breastplates, black in the night, that snaked along the palace behind the Aes Sedai and Warders. Reaching the front of the palace, they skirted the edge of the Queen’s Plaza, the great oval crowded now with rude shelters that housed sleeping Guardsmen and nobles’ armsmen. Men were billeted everywhere room could be found, but there were insufficient basements and attics and spare rooms near enough the palace, and the parks where circles of Kinswomen would take the men to the places where they were needed. The fighting they did was afoot, on the walls, so their horses were all picketed in nearby parks and in the larger palace gardens. A few sentries shifted as they passed, heads swiveling to follow, but with her hood up, all they could be sure of was that a large contingent of Guardswomen were escorting a party through the night. The sky to the east was still dark, but it must be less than two hours till first light. The Light send dawn would see Falion and Marillin in custody. And one more. At least one more.
Winding streets led over and around the hills past narrow, tile-covered towers that would glitter with a hundred colors when the sun rose and glittered faintly in the cloud-dappled moonlight, past silent shops and lightless inns, simple stone houses with slate roofs and small palaces that might have fit in Tar Valon. The ring of horseshoes on the paving stones and the faint creak of saddle leather sounded loud in the silence. Except for an occasional dog that slunk away into the deeper shadows of alleys, nothing else moved. The streets were dangerous at this hour, but no footpad would be mad enough to come in sight of so large a party. Half an hour after leaving the Royal Palace, Elayne rode Fireheart through the Mondel Gate, a wide, twenty-foot-high arch in the Inner City’s tall white wall. Once there would have been Guardsmen on duty there, to keep the peace, but the Queen’s Guards were spread too thin now for that.
Almost as soon as they were into the New City, Hark turned east into a warren of streets that meandered in every direction through the city’s hills. He rode awkwardly, on a bay mare that had been found for him. Cutpurses seldom spent time in the saddle. Some of the streets were quite narrow here, and it was in one of those that he finally drew rein, surrounded by stone houses of two or three or even four stories. Birgitte raised a hand to halt the column. The sudden silence seemed deafening.
“It’s just around that corner there, it is, my Lady, the other side of the street,” Hark said in a near whisper, “but if we go riding out there, they might hear us or see us. Pardon, my Lady, but if these Aes Sedai are what you says they are, I don’t want them seeing me.” He scrambled down from his saddle clumsily and looked up at her, wringing his hands, his moonshadowed face anxious.
Dismounting, Elayne led Fireheart to the corner and peeked around the corner of a narrow, three-story house. The houses along the other street stood dark except for one, four substantial stories of stone with the closed gate of a stableyard beside it. Not an ornate building, but large enough for a wealthy merchant or banker. Bankers and merchants were unlikely to be awake at this hour, however.
“There,” Hark whispered hoarsely, pointing. He stood far back, so he had to lean forward to point. He really did fear being seen. “The one with the light on the second floor, it is.”
“Best to find out if anyone else is awake in there,” Vandene said, peering past Elayne. “Jaem? Don’t go inside the house.”
Elayne expected the lean old Warder to sneak across the street, but he just strolled out holding his cloak close around him against the early morning chill. Even the dangerous grace of a Warder appeared to have deserted him. Vandene seemed to sense her surprise.
“Skulking draws the eye and creates suspicion,” she said. “Jaem is just a man walking, and if it’s early to be out in the streets, he isn’t sneaking, so anyone who sees him will think of some mundane reason for him to be out.”
Reaching the stableyard gate, Jaem pulled it open and walked through as if he had a perfect right. Long minutes passed before he came back out, shutting the gate carefully behind him, and strolled back along the street. He rounded the corner and the leopard-like grace reappeared in his step.
“All the windows are dark except that one,” he told Vandene quietly. “The kitchen door is unlatched. So is the back door. That lets onto an alley. Trusting, for Darkfriends. Or else dangerous enough they don’t worry about burglars. There’s a big fellow sleeping in the barn, up in the loft. Big enough to scare any burglar, but he’s so drunk he didn’t wake while I was tying him up.” Vandene raised a questioning eyebrow. “I thought I’d better be safe. Drunks sometimes wake when you least expect. You wouldn’t want him seeing you go in and start making noise.” She nodded approval.
“It’s time to get ready,” Elayne said. Moving back from the corner and handing her reins to Birgitte, she tried to embrace the Source. It was like trying to catch smoke with her fingers. Frustration and anger welled up, all the things you needed to suppress if you were to channel. She tried again, and failed again. Falion and Marillin were going to get away. To come this close. . . . They had to be in that lighted room. She knew it. And they were going to escape. Sadness replaced anger, and suddenly saidar flowed into her. She barely stifled a sigh of relief. “I’ll meld the flows, Sareitha. Vandene, you meld for Careane.”
“I don’t understand why we have to link,” the Tairen Brown muttered, but she put herself on the edge of embracing the Power. “With two of them and four of us, we outnumber them, but linked, it’s two and two.” A clue? Perhaps she wished it to be three and three?
“Two strong enough to overwhelm them even if they’re holding the Power, Sareitha.” Elayne reached through her as if she were an angreal, and the glow of saidar surrounded the other woman as the link was completed. In truth, it surrounded both of them, but she could only see the part around Sareitha—until she wove Spirit around her. Then the glow vanished. She placed the same weave on herself and prepared four shields and several other weaves, all inverted. She felt almost giddy with excitement, but she did not intend to be caught by surprise. Frustration still pulsed along the bond, but for the rest, Birgitte felt like a drawn arrow. Elayne touched her arm. “We will be all right.” Birgitte snorted and flung her thick braid back over her shoulder. “Keep an eye on Master Hark, Birgitte. It would be a shame if he had to be hanged because he was tempted to run.” Hark squeaked.
She exchanged glances with Vandene, who said, “We might as well be about it.”
The four of them walked up Full Moon Street, slowly, as if out for a stroll, and slipped into the shadow-shrouded stableyard. Elayne opened the kitchen door slowly, but the hinges were well-oiled, emitting not a squeak. The brick-walled kitchen was lit only by a tiny fire in the wide stone fireplace where a kettle hung steaming, yet that was enough for them to cross the floor without bumping into the table or chairs. Someone si
ghed, and she pressed a warning finger to her lips. Vandene frowned at Careane, who looked embarrassed and spread her hands.
A short hall led to stairs at the front of the house. Gathering her skirts, Elayne started up, silent on slippered feet. She was careful to keep Sareitha where she could see her. Vandene was doing the same with Careane. They could do nothing with the Power, but that hardly meant they could do nothing. On the second flight of stairs, she began hearing the murmur of voices. Light spilled from an open door.
“. . . . don’t care what you think,” a woman said in that room. “You leave the thinking to me and do as you’re told.”
Elayne moved to the door. It was a sitting room, with gilded stand-lamps and rich carpets on the floor and a tall fireplace of blue marble, but she had eyes only for the three women in it. Only one, a sharp-faced woman, was seated. That must be Shiaine. The other two stood with their backs to the door, heads bowed like penitents. The sharp-faced woman’s eyes widened when she saw her in the doorway, but Elayne gave her no time to open her mouth. The two Black sisters cried out in alarm as shields went onto them, and flows of Air bound their arms to their sides, tightened their skirts around their legs. More flows of Air fastened Shiaine to her gilded armchair.
Elayne drew Sareitha into the room with her and moved to where she could see all of their faces. Sareitha tried to step back. She might only have been trying to give her the place of prominence, but Elayne caught her sleeve again, keeping her in view, too. Vandene and Careane joined them. Marillin’s narrow face held Aes Sedai calm, but Falion snarled silently.
“What is the meaning of this?” Shiaine demanded. “I recognize you. You’re Elayne Trakand, the Daughter-Heir. But that gives you no right to invade my home and assault me.”
“Falion Bhoda,” Elayne said calmly, “Marillin Gemalphin, Shiaine Avarhin, I arrest you as Darkfriends.” Well, her voice was calm. Inside, she wanted to skip with glee. And Birgitte thought this would be dangerous!
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