The man tried to pull his head away from the knife in Thom's hand, and Thom pushed him harder against the wall. "What Andoran lord?" But he knew. The Light help him, he knew.
"Rand. Of House al'Thor. Tall. Young. A blademaster, or at least he wears the sword. I know he came to see you. Him and an Ogier, and you talked. Tell me what you know. I might even throw in a crown or two, myself."
"You fool," Thom breathed. Dena died for this? Oh, Light, she's dead. He felt as if he wanted to cry. "The boy's a shepherd." A shepherd in a fancy coat, with Aes Sedai around him like bees around honeyroses. "Just a shepherd." He tightened his grip in the man's hair.
"Wait! Wait! You can make more than any five crowns, or even ten. A hundred, more like. Every House wants to know about this Rand al'Thor. Two or three have approached me. With what you know, and my knowing who wants to know it, we could both fill our pockets. And there has been a woman, a lady, I have seen more than once while asking after him. If we can find out who she is … why, we could sell that, too."
"You've made one real mistake in it all," Thom said.
"Mistake?" The man's far hand was beginning to slide down toward his belt. No doubt he had another dagger there. Thom ignored it.
"You should never have touched the girl."
The man's hand darted for his belt, then he gave one convulsive start as Thom's knife went home.
Thom let him fall over away from the door and stood a moment before bending tiredly to tug his blades free. The door banged open, and he whirled with a snarl on his face.
Zera jerked back, a hand to her throat, staring at him. "That fool Ella just told me," she said unsteadily, "that two of Barthanes's men were asking after you last night, and with what I've heard this morning … I thought you said you didn't play in the Game anymore."
"They found me," he said wearily.
Her eyes dropped from his face and widened as they took in the bodies of the two men. Hastily she stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. "This is bad, Thom. You'll have to leave Cairhien." Her gaze fell on the bed, and her breath caught. "Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, Thom, I'm so sorry."
"I cannot leave yet, Zera." He hesitated, then tenderly drew a blanket over Dena, covering her face. "I have another man to kill, first."
The innkeeper gave herself a shake and pulled her eyes away from the bed. Her voice was more than a little breathy. "If you mean Barthanes, you're too late. Everybody's talking about it already. He is dead. His servants found him this morning, torn to pieces in his bedchamber. The only way they knew it was him was his head stuck on a spike over the fireplace." She laid a hand on his arm. "Thom, you can't hide that you were there last night, not from anybody who wants to know. Add these two in, and there's nobody in Cairhien who won't believe you were involved." There was a slight questioning note in her last words, as if she, too, were wondering.
"It doesn't matter, I suppose," he said dully. He could not stop looking down at the blanket-covered shape on the bed. "Perhaps I will go back to Andor. To Caemlyn."
She took his shoulders, turning him away from the bed. "You men," she sighed, "always thinking with either your muscles or your hearts, and never your heads. Caemlyn is as bad as Cairhien, for you. Either place, you'll end up dead, or in prison. Do you think she'd want that? If you want to honor her memory, stay alive."
"Will you take care of …" He could not say it. Growing old, he thought. Going soft. He pulled the heavy purse from his pocket and folded her hands around it. "This should take care of … everything. And help when they start asking questions about me, too."
"I will see to everything," she said gently. "You must go, Thom. Now."
He nodded reluctantly, and slowly began stuffing a few things in a set of saddlebags. While he worked, Zera got her first close look at the fat man sprawled partway in the wardrobe, and she gave a loud gasp. He looked at her inquiringly; as long as he had known her, she had never been one to go faint over blood.
"These aren't Barthanes's men, Thom. At least, that one isn't." She nodded toward the fat man. "It's the worst kept secret in Cairhien that he works for House Riatin. For Galldrian."
"Galldrian," he said flatly. What has that bloody shepherd gotten me into? What have the Aes Sedai gotten us both into? But it was Galldrian's men murdered her.
There must have been something of his thoughts on his face. Zera said sharply, "Dena wants you alive, you fool! You try to kill the King, and you'll be dead before you get within a hundred spans of him, if you come that close!"
A roar came from the city walls, as if half of Cairhien were shouting. Frowning, Thom peered from his window. Beyond the top of the gray walls above the rooftops of the Foregate, a thick column of smoke was rising into the sky. Far beyond the walls. Beside the first black pillar, a few gray tendrils quickly grew into another, and more wisps appeared further on. He estimated the distance and took a deep breath.
"Perhaps you had better think about leaving, too. It looks as if someone is firing the granaries."
"I have lived through riots before. Go now, Thom." With a last look at Dena's shrouded form, he gathered his things, but as he started to leave, Zera spoke again. "You have a dangerous look in your eyes, Thom Merrilin. Imagine Dena sitting here, alive and hale. Think what she would say. Would she let you go off and get yourself killed to no purpose?"
"I'm only an old gleeman," he said from the door. And Rand al'Thor is only a shepherd, but we both do what we must. "Who could I possibly be dangerous to?"
As he pulled the door to, hiding her, hiding Dena, a mirthless, wolfish grin came onto his face. His leg hurt, but he barely felt it as he hurried purposefully down the stairs and out of the inn.
Padan Fain reined in his horse atop a hill above Falme, in one of the few sparse thickets remaining on the hills outside the town. The packhorse bearing his precious burden bumped his leg, and he kicked it in the ribs without looking; the animal snorted and jerked back to the end of the lead he had tied to his saddle. The woman had not wanted to give up her horse, no more than any of the Darkfriends who had followed him had wanted to be left alone in the hills with the Trollocs, without Fain's protecting presence. He had solved both problems easily. Meat in a Trolloc cookpot had no need of a horse. The woman's companions had been shaken by the journey along the Ways, to a Waygate outside a long-abandoned stedding on Toman Head, and watching the Trollocs prepare their dinner had made the surviving Darkfriends extremely biddable.
From the edge of the trees, Fain studied the unwalled town and sneered. One short merchant train was rumbling in among the stables and horse lots and wagon yards that bordered the town, while another rumbled out, raising little dust from dirt packed by many years of such traffic. The men driving the wagons and the few riding beside them were all local men by their clothing, yet the mounted men, at least, had swords on baldrics, and even a few spears and bows. The soldiers he saw, and there were few, did not seem to be watching the armed men they had supposedly conquered.
He had learned something of these people, these Seanchan, in his day and a night on Toman Head. At least, as much as the defeated folk knew. It was never hard to find someone alone, and they always answered questions properly put. Men gathered more information on the invaders, as if they actually believed they would eventually do something with what they knew, but they sometimes tried to hold back. Women, by and large, seemed interested in going on with their lives whoever their rulers were, yet they noted details men did not, and they talked more quickly once they stopped screaming. Children talked the quickest of all, but they seldom said much that was worthwhile.
He had discarded three quarters of what he had heard as nonsense and rumors growing into fables, but he took some of those conclusions back, now. Anyone at all could enter Falme, it appeared. With a start, he saw the truth of a little more "nonsense" as twenty soldiers rode out of the town. He could not make out their mounts clearly, but they were certainly not horses. They ran with a fluid grace, and their dark skins seemed to have
a glint in the morning sun, as of scales. He craned his neck to watch them disappear inland, then booted his horse toward the town.
The local folk among the stables and parked wagons and fenced horse lots gave him no more than a glance or two. He had no interest in them, either; he rode on into the town, onto its cobblestone streets sloping down to the harbor. He could see the harbor clearly, and the large, oddly shaped Seanchan ships anchored there. No one bothered him as he searched streets that were neither crowded nor empty. There were more Seanchan soldiers here. The people hurried about their business with eyes down, bowing whenever soldiers passed, but the Seanchan paid them no mind. It all seemed peaceful on the surface, despite the armored Seanchan in the streets and the ships in the harbor, but Fain could sense the tension underneath. He always did well where men were tense and afraid.
He came to a large house with more than a dozen soldiers standing guard before it. Fain stopped and dismounted. Except for one obvious officer, most wore armor of unrelieved black, and their helmets made him think of locusts' heads. Two leathery-skinned beasts with three eyes and horny beaks instead of mouths flanked the front door, squatting like crouching frogs; the soldier standing by each of the creatures had three eyes painted on the breast of his armor. Fain eyed the blue-bordered banner flapping above the roof, the spread-winged hawk clutching lightning bolts, and chortled inside himself.
Women went in and out of a house across the street, women linked by silver leashes, but he ignored them. He knew about damane from the villagers. They might be of some use later, but not now.
The soldiers were looking at him, especially the officer, whose armor was all gold and red and green.
Forcing an ingratiating smile onto his face, Fain made himself bow deeply. "My lords, I have something here that will interest your Great Lord. I assure you, he will want to see it, and me, personally." He gestured to the squarish shape on his packhorse, still wrapped in the huge, striped blanket in which his people had found it.
The officer stared him up and down. "You sound a foreigner to this land. Have you taken the oaths?"
"I obey, await, and will serve," Fain replied smoothly. Everyone he had questioned spoke of the oaths, though none had understood what they meant. If these people wanted oaths, he was prepared to swear anything. He had long since lost count of the oaths he had taken.
The officer motioned two of his men to see what was under the blanket. Surprised grunts at the weight as they lifted it down from the packsaddle turned to gasps when they stripped the blanket away. The officer stared with no expression on his face at the silver-worked golden chest resting on the cobblestones, then looked at Fain. "A gift fit for the Empress herself. You will come with me."
One of the soldiers searched Fain roughly, but he endured it in silence, noting that the officer and the two soldiers who took up the chest surrendered their swords and daggers before going inside. Anything he could learn of these people, however small, might help, though he was confident of his plan already. He was always confident, but never more than where lords feared an assassin's knife from their own followers.
As they went through the door, the officer frowned at him, and for a moment Fain wondered why. Of course. The beasts. Whatever they were, they were certainly no worse than Trollocs, nothing at all beside a Myrddraal, and he had not given them a second look. It was too late to pretend to be afraid of them now. But the Seanchan said nothing, only led him deeper into the house.
And so Fain found himself on his face, in a room bare of furnishings except for folding screens that hid its walls, while the officer told the High Lord Turak of him and his offering. Servants brought a table on which to set the chest so the High Lord would have no need to stoop; all Fain saw of them were scurrying slippers. He bided his time impatiently. Eventually there would come a time when he was not the one to bow.
Then the soldiers were dismissed, and Fain told to rise. He did so slowly, studying both the High Lord, with his shaven head and his long fingernails and his blue silk robe brocaded with blossoms, and the man who stood beside him with the unshaven half of his pale hair in a long braid. Fain was sure the fellow in green was only a servant, however great, but servants could be useful, especially if they stood high in their master's sight.
"A marvelous gift." Turak's eyes lifted from the chest to Fain. A scent of roses wafted from the High Lord. "Yet the question asks itself; how did one like you come by a chest many lesser lords could not afford? Are you a thief?"
Fain tugged at his worn, none too clean coat. "It is sometimes necessary for a man to appear less than he is, High Lord. My present shabbiness allowed me to bring this to you unmolested. This chest is old, High Lord — as old as the Age of Legends — and within it lies a treasure such as few eyes have ever seen. Soon — very soon, High Lord — I will be able to open it, and give you that which will enable you to take this land as far as you wish, to the Spine of the World, the Aiel Waste, the lands beyond. Nothing will stand against you, High Lord, once I—" He cut off as Turak began running his long-nailed fingers over the chest.
"I have seen chests such as this, chests from the Age of Legends," the High Lord said, "though none so fine. They are meant to be opened only by those who know the pattern, but I — ah!" He pressed among the ornate whorls and bosses, there was a sharp click, and he lifted back the lid. A flicker of what might have been disappointment passed across his face.
Fain bit the inside of his mouth till blood came to keep from snarling. It lessened his bargaining position that he was not the one who had opened the chest. Still, all the rest could go as he had planned if he could only make himself be patient. But he had been patient so long.
"These are treasure from the Age of Legends?" Turak said, lifting out the curled Horn in one hand and the curved dagger with the ruby in its golden hilt in the other. Fain clutched his hands in fists at his sides so he would not grab the dagger. "The Age of Legends," Turak repeated softly, tracing the silver script inlaid around the golden bell of the Horn with the tip of the dagger's blade. His brows rose in startlement, the first open expression Fain had seen from him, but in the next instant Turak's face was as smooth as ever. "Do you have any idea what this is?"
"The Horn of Valere, High Lord," Fain said smoothly, pleased to see the mouth of the man with the braid drop open. Turak only nodded as if to himself.
The High Lord turned away. Fain blinked and opened his mouth, then, at a sharp gesture from the yellow-haired man, followed without speaking.
It was another room with all the original furnishings gone, replaced by folding screens and a single chair facing a tall round cabinet. Still holding the Horn and the dagger, Turak looked at the cabinet, then away. He said nothing, but the other Seanchan snapped quick orders, and in moments men in plain woolen robes appeared through a door behind the screens bearing another small table. A young woman with hair so pale it was almost white came behind them, her arms full of small stands of polished wood in various sizes and shapes. Her garment was white silk, and so thin that Fain could see her body clearly through it, but he had eyes only for the dagger. The Horn was a means to an end, but the dagger was a part of him.
Turak briefly touched one of the wooden stands the girl held, and she placed it on the center of the table. The men turned the chair to face it under the direction of the man with the braid. The lower servants' hair hung to their shoulders. They scurried out with bows that almost put their heads on their knees.
Placing the Horn on the stand so that it stood upright, Turak laid the dagger on the table in front of it and went to sit in the chair.
Fain could stand it no longer. He reached for the dagger.
The yellow-haired man caught his wrist in a crushing grip. "Unshaven dog! Know that the hand that touches the property of the High Lord unbidden is cut off."
"It is mine," Fain growled. Patience! So long.
Turak, lounging back in the chair, lifted one blue-lacquered fingernail, and Fain was pulled out of the way so the High L
ord could view the Horn unobstructed.
"Yours?" Turak said. "Inside a chest you could not open? If you interest me sufficiently, I may give you the dagger. Even if it is from the Age of Legends, I have no interest in such as that. Before all else, you will answer me a question. Why have you brought the Horn of Valere to me?"
Fain eyed the dagger longingly a moment more, then jerked his wrist free and rubbed it as he bowed. "That you may sound it, High Lord. Then you may take all of this land, if you wish. All of the world. You may break the White Tower and grind the Aes Sedai to dust, for even their powers cannot stop heroes come back from the dead."
"I am to sound it." Turak's tone was flat. "And break the White Tower. Again, why? You claim to obey, await, and serve, but this is a land of oath-breakers. Why do you give your land to me? Do you have some private quarrel with these… women?"
Fain tried to make his voice convincing. Patient, like a worm boring from within. "High Lord, my family has passed down a tradition, generation upon generation. We served the High King, Artur Paendrag Tanreall, and when he was murdered by the witches of Tar Valon, we did not abandon our oaths. When others warred and tore apart what Artur Hawkwing had made, we held to our swearing, and suffered for it, but held to it still. This is our tradition, High Lord, handed father to son, and mother to daughter, down all the years since the High King was murdered. That we await the return of the armies Artur Hawkwing sent across the Aryth Ocean, that we await the return of Artur Hawkwing's blood to destroy the White Tower and take back what was the High King's. And when the Hawkwing's blood returns, we will serve and advise, as we did for the High King. High Lord, except for its border, the banner that flies over this roof is the banner of Luthair, the son Artur Paendrag Tanreall sent with his armies across the ocean."
Fain dropped to his knees, giving a good imitation of being overwhelmed. "High Lord, I wish only to serve and advise the blood of the High King."
Turak was silent so long that Fain began to wonder if he needed further convincing; he was ready with more, as much as was required. Finally, though, the High Lord spoke. "You seem to know what none, neither the high nor the low, has spoken since sighting this land. The people here speak it as one rumor among ten, but you know. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. I could almost think you were sent to entangle me in a trap. But who, possessing the Horn of Valere, would use it so? None of those of the Blood who came with the Hailene could have had the Horn, for the legend says it was hidden in this land. And surely any lord of this land would use it against me rather than put it in my hands. How did you come to possess the Horn of Valere? Do you claim to be a hero, as in the legend? Have you done valorous deeds?"
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