Winter's Heart

by Jordan, Robert

  Abruptly, they were surrounded by glistening snow, standing knee-deep in it. Snow made gleaming white mounds on the rooftops as if from a heavy fall. This was not the first time such a thing had happened, and they simply refused to let the sudden cold touch them, rather than imagining cloaks and warmer clothes.

  “No one is going to move against me before spring,” Elayne said. Armies did not move in winter, at least, not unless they had the benefit of Traveling, like Egwene’s army. Snow bogged everything down, and mud whenever the snow melted. Those Borderlanders probably had begun their march south thinking winter was never coming this year. “Besides, you will need every man when you reach Tar Valon.”

  Unsurprisingly, Egwene nodded acceptance without making the offer again. Even with this past month of hard recruiting behind her, Gareth Bryne still had no more than half the soldiers he had told her would be needed to take Tar Valon. According to Egwene, he was ready to begin with what he had, but clearly it troubled her. “I have hard decisions to make, Elayne. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, but it is still me who has to decide.”

  Impulsively, Elayne waded through the snow and threw her arms around Egwene to hug her. At least, she started out wading. As she clasped the other woman to her, the snow vanished, leaving not so much as a damp spot on their dresses. The two of them staggered as if dancing with one another and almost fell.

  “I know you will make the right decision,” Elayne said, laughing in spite of herself. Egwene did not join her laughter.

  “I hope so,” she said gravely, “because whatever I decide, people are going to die for it.” She patted Elayne’s arm. “Well, you understand that sort of decision, don’t you. We both need to be back in our beds.” She hesitated before going on. “Elayne, if Rand comes to you again, you must let me know what he says, whether he gives you any clue what he means to do or where he means to go.”

  “I will tell you whatever I can, Egwene.” Elayne felt a stab of guilt. She had told Egwene everything—almost everything—but not that she had bonded Rand with Min and Aviendha. Tower law did not prohibit what they had done. Very careful questioning of Vandene had made that much clear. But whether it would be permitted was not clear at all. Still, as she had heard an Arafellin mercenary recruited by Birgitte say, “what was not forbidden was allowed.” That sounded almost like one of Lini’s old sayings, though she doubted her nurse would ever have been so permissive. “You’re troubled by him, Egwene. More than usual, I mean. I can tell. Why?”

  “I have reason to be, Elayne. The eyes-and-ears report very troubling rumors. Only rumors, I hope, but if they aren’t . . .” She was very much the Amyrlin Seat now, a short slender young woman who seemed strong as steel and tall as a mountain. Determination filled her dark eyes and set her jaw. “I know you love him. I love him, too. But I am not trying to Heal the White Tower just so he can chain Aes Sedai like damane. Sleep well and have pleasant dreams, Elayne. Pleasant dreams are more valuable than people realize.” And with that, she was gone, back to the waking world.

  For a moment, Elayne stood staring at the spot where Egwene had been. What had she been talking about? Rand would never do that! If only for love of her, he would not! She prodded that rock-hard knot in the back of her head. With him so far away, the veins of gold shone only in memory. Surely he would not. Troubled in herself, she stepped out of the dream, back to her sleeping body.

  She needed sleep, but no sooner was she back in her own body than sunlight fell on her eyelids. What hour was it? She had appointments to keep, duties to carry out. She wanted to sleep for months. She wrestled with duty, but duty won. She had a busy day ahead. Every day was a busy day. Her eyes popped open, feeling grainy, as if she had not slept at all. By the slant of light through the windows, it was well beyond sunrise. She could simply lie there. Duty. Aviendha shifted in her sleep, and Elayne poked her sharply in the ribs. If she had to be awake, then Aviendha was not going to loll about.

  Aviendha woke with a start, stretching for her knife lying atop the small table on her side of the bed. Before her hand touched the dark horn hilt, she let it fall. “Something woke me,” she muttered. “I thought a Shaido was—Look at the sun! Why did you let me sleep so late?” she demanded, scrambling from the bed. “Just because I’m allowed to stay with you—” the words were muffled for an instant as she jerked her sleep-wrinkled shift off over her head “—does not mean Monaelle won’t switch me if she thinks I am being lazy. Do you mean to lie there all day?”

  With a groan, Elayne climbed out of the bed. Essande was already waiting at the door to the dressing room; she never waked Elayne unless Elayne remembered to order it. Elayne surrendered herself to the white-haired woman’s almost silent ministrations while Aviendha dressed herself, but her sister made up for Essande’s quiet with a laughing string of comments along the line of how having someone else put your clothes on you must feel like being a baby again and how Elayne might forget how to put on her own clothes and need somebody to dress her. She had done very much the same every morning since they had begun to share the same bed. Aviendha found it very funny. Elayne did not say a word, except to answer her tire-woman’s suggestions on what she should wear, until the last mother-of-pearl button was done up and she stood examining herself in the stand-mirror.

  “Essande,” she said then, casually, “are Aviendha’s clothes ready?” The fine blue wool with a little silver embroidery would do well enough for what she faced today.

  Essande brightened. “All Lady Aviendha’s pretty silks and laces, my Lady? Oh, yes. All brushed and cleaned and ironed and put away.” She gestured to the wardrobes lining one wall.

  Elayne smiled over her shoulder at her sister. Aviendha stared at the wardrobes as though they contained vipers, then gulped and hastily finished winding the dark folded kerchief around her head.

  When Elayne had dismissed Essande, she said, “Just in case you need them.”

  “Very well,” Aviendha muttered, putting on her silver necklace. “No more jokes about the woman dressing you.”

  “Good. Or I’ll tell her to start dressing you. Now, that would be amusing.”

  Grumbling under her breath about people who could not take a joke, Aviendha plainly did not agree. Elayne half expected her to demand that all the clothes she had acquired be discarded. She was a little surprised Aviendha had not seen to it already.

  For Aviendha, the breakfast laid out in the sitting room consisted of cured ham with raisins, eggs cooked with dried plums, dried fish prepared with pine nuts, fresh bread slathered with butter, and tea made syrupy with honey. Well, not actually syrupy, but it seemed so. Elayne got no butter on her bread, very little honey in her tea, and instead of the rest, a hot porridge of grains and herbs that was supposed to be especially healthy. She did not feel with child, no matter what Min had told Aviendha, but Min had told Birgitte, too, once the three of them began getting drunk. Between her Warder, Dyelin, and Reene Harfor, she now found herself limited to a diet “suitable for a woman in her condition.” If she sent to the kitchens for a treat, somehow it never arrived, and if she slipped down there herself, the cooks gave her such glum disapproving stares that she slipped back out again with nothing.

  She did not really mourn the spiced wine and sweets and the other things she was no longer allowed—not that much, anyway, except when Aviendha was gobbling tarts or puddings—but everyone in the Palace knew she was pregnant. And of course, that meant they knew how she had gotten that way, if not with whom. The men were not too bad, beyond the fact that they knew, and she knew they knew, but the women did not bother to hide knowing. Whether they accepted or deprecated the situation, half looked at her as though she were a hoyden and the other half with speculation. Forcing herself to swallow the porridge—it was not that bad, really, but she dearly would have loved some of the ham Aviendha was slicing, or a little of the egg with plums—spooning lumpy porridge into her mouth, she almost looked forward to the start of birthing sickness, so she could share the queasy
belly with Birgitte.

  The first visitor to enter her apartments that morning beside Essande was the leading candidate among the Palace women for the father of her barely quickened child.

  “My Queen,” Captain Mellar said, sweeping off his plumed hat in a flourishing bow. “The Chief Clerk awaits Your Majesty’s pleasure.” The captain’s dark, unblinking eyes said he would never have dreams of the men he killed, and the lace-edged sash across his chest and the lace at his neck and wrists only made him look harder. Wiping grease from her chin with a linen napkin, Aviendha watched him with no expression on her face. The two Guardswomen standing one on either side of the doors grimaced faintly. Mellar already had a reputation for pinching Guardswomen’s bottoms, the prettier ones’ at least, not to mention disparaging their abilities in the city’s taverns. The second was far worse, in the Guardswomen’s eyes.

  “I am not a queen, yet, Captain,” Elayne said briskly. She always tried to keep as much to the point as possible with the man. “How is recruiting for my bodyguard coming along?”

  “Only thirty-two, so far, my Lady.” Still holding his hat, the hatchet-faced man rested both hands on his sword hilt, his lounging posture hardly suitable for the presence of one he had called his queen. Nor was his grin. “Lady Birgitte has exacting standards. Not many women can match them. Give me ten days, and I can find a hundred men who’ll better them and hold you as dear in their hearts as I do.”

  “I think not, Captain Mellar.” It was an effort to keep a chill out of her voice. He had to have heard the rumors concerning himself and her. Could he think that just because she had not denied them, she might actually find him . . . attractive? Pushing away the half-empty porridge bowl, she suppressed a shudder. Thirty-two, so far? The numbers were growing quickly. Some of the Hunters for the Horn who had been demanding rank had decided that serving in Elayne’s bodyguard carried a certain flair. She conceded that the women could not all be on duty day and night, but no matter what Birgitte said, the goal of a hundred seemed excessive. The woman dug in her heels now at any suggestion of fewer, though. “Please tell the Chief Clerk he can come in,” she told him. He swept her another elaborate bow.

  She rose to follow him, and as he pulled one of the lion-carved doors open, she laid a hand on his arm and smiled. “Thank you again for saving my life, Captain,” she said, this time warm enough for a caress.

  The fellow smirked at her! The Guardswomen stared straight ahead, frozen, those she could see out in the hall before the doors closed behind him as well as those inside, and when Elayne turned around, Aviendha was staring at her with little more expression than she had shown Mellar. That little was pure amazement, though. Elayne sighed.

  Crossing the carpets, she bent to put an arm around her sister and spoke softly, for her ear alone. She trusted the women of her bodyguard with things she told very few others, but there were some matters she dared not trust to them. “I saw a maid passing, Aviendha. Maids gossip worse than men. The more who think this child is Doilin Mellar’s, the safer it will be. If necessary, I’ll let the man pinch my bottom.”

  “I see,” Aviendha said slowly, and frowned into her plate as though seeing something other than the eggs and plums she began pushing around with her spoon.

  Master Norry presented his usual blend of mundane maintenance of the Palace and the city, tidbits from his correspondents in foreign capitals, and information gleaned from merchants and bankers and others who had dealings beyond the borders, but his first piece of news was by far the most important to her, if not the most interesting.

  “The two most prominent bankers in the city are . . . amenable, my Lady,” he said in that dry-as-dust voice of his. Clutching his leather folder to his narrow chest, he eyed Aviendha sideways. He was still not accustomed to her presence while he made his reports. Or the Guardswomen. Aviendha bared her teeth at him, and he blinked, then coughed into a bony hand. “Master Hoffley and Mistress Andscale were somewhat . . . hesitant . . . at first, but they know the market for alum as well as I. It would not be safe to say that their coffers are now yours, but I have arranged for twenty thousand gold crowns to be moved to the Palace strongroom, and more will come as needed.”

  “Inform the Lady Birgitte,” Elayne told him, hiding her relief. Birgitte had not yet signed enough new Guards to hold a city as large as Caemlyn, much less do anything else, but Elayne could not expect to see revenue from her estates before spring, and the mercenaries were expensive. Now she would not lose them for lack of gold before Birgitte recruited men to replace them. “Next, Master Norry?”

  “I fear the sewers must be given a high priority, my Lady. The rats are breeding in them as if it were spring, and . . .”

  He mingled it all together, according to what he felt was most pressing. Norry seemed to take it as a personal failure that he had not yet learned who had freed Elenia and Naean, though less than a week had passed since their rescue. The price of grain was climbing exorbitantly, along with that of every other sort of foodstuff, and it was already apparent that repairs to the Palace roof would take longer and cost more than the masons had first estimated, but food always grew more expensive as winter went on and masons always cost more than they first had said they would. Norry admitted that his last correspondence from New Braem was several days old, but the Borderlanders appeared content to remain where they were, which he could not understand. Any army, much less one as large as this was said to be, ought to be stripping the countryside around it bare by now. Elayne did not understand why either, but she was content that it was so. For the time being. Rumors in Cairhien of Aes Sedai swearing fealty to Rand at least gave a reason for Egwene’s concern, though it hardly seemed likely any sister would actually do such a thing. That was the least important piece of news, in Norry’s estimation, but not in hers. Rand could not afford to alienate the sisters with Egwene. He could not afford to alienate any Aes Sedai. But he did seem to find ways to do so.

  Reene Harfor soon replaced Halwin Norry, nodding to the bodyguards at the door in passing and giving Aviendha an open smile. If the plump graying woman had ever been uncertain about Elayne calling Aviendha sister, she had never shown it, and now she genuinely appeared to approve. Smiles or no smiles, though, her report was much more grim than anything in the Chief Clerk’s.

  “Jon Skellit is in the pay of House Arawn, my Lady,” Reene said, her round face stern enough to fit a hangman. “Twice now he has been seen accepting a purse from men known to favor Arawn. And there is no doubt that Ester Norham is in someone’s pay. She isn’t stealing, but she has over fifty crowns of gold hidden under a loose floorboard, and she added ten crowns last night.”

  “Do as with the others,” Elayne said sadly. The First Maid had uncovered nine spies she was certain of, so far, four of them employed by people Reene had not yet been able to uncover. That Reene had found any at all was enough to anger Elayne, but the barber and the hairdresser were something more. Both had been in her mother’s service. A pity they had not seen fit to transfer their loyalty to Morgase’s daughter.

  Aviendha grimaced as Mistress Harfor murmured that she would, but there was no point in discharging the spies, or killing them as Aviendha had suggested. They would just be replaced by spies she did not know. A spy is your enemy’s tool until you know her, her mother had said, but then she is your tool. When you find a spy, Thom had told her, wrap him in swaddling and feed him with a spoon. The men and women who had betrayed their service would be “allowed” to discover what Elayne wanted them to know, not all true, such as the numbers Birgitte had recruited.

  “And the other matter, Mistress Harfor?”

  “Nothing yet, my Lady, but I have hopes,” Reene said even more grimly than before. “I have hopes.”

  Following the First Maid’s departure came two delegations of merchants, first a large group of Kandori with gem-studded earrings and silver guild-chains draped across their chests and then, right behind them, half a dozen Illianers with only a touch of embroidery on o
therwise somber coats and dresses. She used one of the smaller reception rooms. The tapestries flanking the marble fireplace were of hunting scenes, not the White Lion, and the polished wooden wall panels were uncarved. They were merchants, not diplomats, though some seemed to feel slighted that she offered only wine and did not drink with them. Kandori or Illianers, they also looked askance at the two Guardswomen who followed her into the room and posted themselves beside the door, though if by this time they had not heard the tales of an attempt to kill her, they must be deaf. Six more of her bodyguard waited outside the door.

  The Kandori studied Aviendha surreptitiously when not listening attentively to Elayne, and the Illianers avoided looking at her at all after the first widening of eyes in surprise. Doubtless they read significance into the presence of an Aiel, even if she only sat on the floor in a corner and said nothing, but whether Kandori or Illianers, the merchants wanted the same thing, reassurance that Elayne would not so anger the Dragon Reborn that he would interfere with trade by sending his armies and his Aiel to ravage Andor, though they did not come out and say so. Nor did they mention that Aiel and the Legion of the Dragon both had large encampments not many miles from Caemlyn. Their polite questions about her plans now that she had removed the Dragon banners and the Banners of Light from Caemlyn were sufficient. She told them what she told everyone, that Andor would ally itself to the Dragon Reborn but was not his conquest. In return, they offered vague wishes for her well-being, suggesting that they supported her claim to the Lion Throne wholeheartedly without actually saying any such thing. After all, if she failed, they would want to be welcome in Andor under whoever did gain the crown.