A Crown of Swords

by Jordan, Robert

  “You understand now?” he said. “You still serve the Great Lord, but now it will be by doing as I say.”

  “I understand, Mia’cova,” she said automatically.

  Again he laughed, a deep rich sound that mocked her as he put the mindtrap away beneath his shirt. “There is no need for that, now you’ve had your lesson. I will call you Moghedien, and you will call me Moridin. You are still one of the Chosen. Who is there to replace you?”

  “Yes, of course, Moridin,” she said tonelessly. Whatever he said, she knew that she was owned.

  CHAPTER

  26

  The Irrevocable Words

  Morgase lay awake, staring at the ceiling through the moonlit darkness, and tried to think of her daughter. A single pale linen sheet covered her, but despite the heat she sweated in a thick woolen sleeping gown, laced tightly to the neck. Sweat hardly mattered; no matter how many times she bathed, no matter how hot the water, she did not feel clean. Elayne must be safe in the White Tower. At times it seemed years since she could make herself trust Aes Sedai, yet whatever the paradox, the Tower was surely the safest place for Elayne. She tried to think of Gawyn—he would be in Tar Valon with his sister, full of his pride for her, so earnest in his desire to be her shield when she needed one—and of Galad—why would they not let her see him? She loved him as much as if he had come out of her own body, and in so many ways he needed it more than the other two. She tried to think of them. It was difficult to think of anything except. . . . Wide eyes stared up into the darkness, glistening with unshed tears.

  She had always thought she was brave enough to do whatever needed doing, to face whatever came; she had always believed she could pick herself up and continue to fight. In one endless hour, without leaving more than a few bruises that were already fading, Rhadam Asunawa had begun teaching her differently. Eamon Valda had completed her education with one question. The bruise her answer had left on her heart had not faded. She should have gone back to Asunawa herself and told him to do his worst. She should have. . . . She prayed that Elayne was safe. Perhaps it was not fair to hope more for Elayne than for Galad or Gawyn, but Elayne would be the next Queen of Andor. The Tower would not miss the chance to put an Aes Sedai on the Lion Throne. If only she could see Elayne, see all her children once more.

  Something rustled in the dark bedchamber, and she held her breath, fought against trembling. The faint moonlight barely let her make out the bedposts. Valda had ridden north from Amador yesterday, him and Asunawa, with thousands of Whitecloaks to face the Prophet, but if he had come back, if he. . . . A shape in the darkness resolved into a woman, too short for Lini. “I thought you might still be awake,” Breane’s voice said softly. “Drink this; it will help.” The Cairhienin woman tried to put a silvery cup into Morgase’s hand. It gave off a slightly sour smell.

  “Wait until you’re summoned to bring me drink,” she snapped, pushing the cup away. Warm liquid spilled onto her hand, onto the linen sheet. “I was almost asleep when you came stamping in,” she lied. “Leave me!”

  Instead of obeying, the woman stood looking down at her, face shadowed. Morgase did not like Breane Taborwin. Whether Breane truly was nobly born and come down in the world, as she sometimes claimed, or merely a servant who had learned to counterfeit her betters, she obeyed when and as she chose and let her tongue run entirely too free. As she proved now.

  “You moan like a sheep, Morgase Trakand.” Even kept low, her voice seethed in anger. She set the cup on the small bedside table with a thump; more of the contents splashed onto the tabletop. “Bah! Many others have seen far worse. You are alive. None of your bones are broken; your wits are whole. Endure; let the past pass, and go on with your life. You have been so much on edge that the men walk on their toes, even Master Gill. Lamgwin has hardly slept a wink these three nights.”

  Morgase flushed with annoyance; even in Andor, servants did not speak so. She caught the woman’s arm in a tight grip, but anxiety warred with displeasure. “They don’t know, do they?” If they did, they would try to avenge her, rescue her. They would die. Tallanvor would die.

  “Lini and I drape linen over their eyes for you,” Breane sneered, pulling her hand away and flinging it back at her. “If I could save Lamgwin, I would let them know you for the bleating sheep you are. He sees the Light made flesh in you; I see a woman without courage to accept the day. I will not let you destroy him with your cowardice.”

  Cowardice. Outrage welled up in Morgase, yet no words came. Her fingers knotted in the sheet. She did not think she could have decided in cold blood to lie with Valda, but had she, she could have lived with it. She thought she could. Another matter entirely to say yes because she feared facing Asunawa’s knotted cords and needles again, feared worse what he would have gotten to eventually. However she had screamed under Asunawa’s ministrations, Valda was the one who had showed her the true borders of her courage, so far short of where she had believed. Valda’s touch, his bed, could be forgotten, with time, but she would never be able to wash the shame of that “yes” from her lips. Breane hurled the truth in her face, and she did not know how to reply.

  She was spared the need by a rush of boots in the outer room. The bedchamber door flung open, and a running man stopped a pace inside.

  “So you’re awake; good,” Tallanvor’s voice said after a moment. Which allowed her heart to start beating again, allowed her to breathe. She tried to release Breane’s hand—she did not remember clasping it—but to her surprise, the woman squeezed once before letting go.

  “Something is happening,” Tallanvor went on, striding to the lone window. Standing to one side as if to avoid being seen, he peered into the night. Moonlight outlined his tall form. “Master Gill, come and tell what you saw.”

  A head appeared in the doorway, bald top shining in the darkness. Behind, in the other room, a hulking shadow moved; Lamgwin Dorn. When Basel Gill realized she was still in bed, that faint shining from his scalp jerked as he directed his eyes elsewhere, though he probably had difficulty making out more than the bed itself. Master Gill was even wider than Lamgwin, but not nearly as tall. “Forgive me, my Queen. I didn’t mean to. . . .” He cleared his throat violently, and his boots scraped on the floor, shifting. Had he had a cap, he would have been turning it in his hands, or wadding it nervously. “I was in the Long Corridor, on my way to . . . to. . . .” To the jakes, was what he could not bring himself to say to her. “Anyway, I glanced out one of the windows, and I saw a . . . a big bird, I think . . . land on top of the South Barracks.”

  “A bird!” Lini’s thin voice drove Master Gill to leap into the room, clearing the doorway. Or maybe it was a sharp poke in his stout ribs. Lini usually took every advantage her gray hair offered. She stalked by him still belting her nightrobe. “Fools! Ox-brained lummoxes! You woke my ch—!” She stopped with a fierce cough; Lini never forgot that she had been Morgase’s nurse, and her mother’s as well, but she never slipped in front of others. She would be cross that she had now, and it showed in her voice. “You woke your Queen for a bird!” Patting her hairnet, she automatically tucked in a few strands that had escaped in her sleep. “Have you been drinking, Basel Gill?” Morgase wondered that herself.

  “I don’t know it was a bird,” Master Gill protested. “It didn’t look like any bird, but what else flies, except bats? It was big. Men climbed off its back, and there was another still on its neck when it took off again. While I was slapping my face to wake up, another of the . . . things . . . landed, and more men climbed down, and then another came, and I decided it was time to tell Lord Tallanvor.” Lini did not sniff, but Morgase could almost feel her stare, and it was not directed at her. The man who had abandoned his inn to follow her certainly felt it. “The Light’s own truth, my Queen,” he insisted.

  “Light!” Tallanvor announced like an echo. “Something. . . . Something just landed atop the North Barracks.” Morgase had never heard him sound shaken before. All she wanted was to make them all go away and le
ave her alone in her misery, but there seemed no hope. Tallanvor was worse than Breane in many ways. Much worse.

  “My robe,” she said, and for once Breane was quick to hand her one. Master Gill hastily turned his face to the wall while she climbed from the bed and put on the silk robe.

  She strode to the window, tying the sash. The long North Barracks loomed across the wide courtyard, four hulking floors of flat-roofed dark stone. Not a light showed, there or anywhere in the Fortress. All was stillness and silence. “I see nothing, Tallanvor.”

  He drew her back. “Just watch,” he said.

  Another time she would have regretted his hand leaving her shoulder, and been irritated at her own regret as well as his tone. Now, after Valda, she felt relief. And irritation at the relief as well as his tone. He was too disrespectful by miles, far too stubborn, too young. Not much older than Galad.

  Shadows moved as the moon did, but nothing else stirred. Off in the city of Amador, a dog bayed, answered by more. Then, as she opened her mouth to dismiss Tallanvor and all of them, darkness atop the massive barracks humped up and hurled itself off the roof.

  Something, Tallanvor had called it, and she had no better name. An impression of a long body that seemed thicker than a man was tall; great ribbed wings like a bat’s sweeping down as the creature fell toward the courtyard; a figure, a man, sitting just behind a sinuous neck. And then the wings caught air, and the . . . something . . . soared up, blocking the moonlight as it swept over her head trailing a long, thin tail.

  Morgase closed her mouth slowly. The only thought that came to her was Shadowspawn. Trollocs and Myrddraal were not the only Shadow-twisted creatures in the Blight. She had never been taught of anything like this, but her tutors in the Tower said that things lived there no one had ever seen clearly and lived to describe. How could it be so far south, though?

  Abruptly a flash of light flared with a great boom in the direction of the main gates, and then again, at two more places along the great outer wall. Those were gates too, she believed.

  “What in the Pit of Doom was that?” Tallanvor muttered in a moment of silence before alarm gongs began resounding in the darkness. Shouts rose, and screams, and hoarse cries like some sort of horn. Fire leaped with a crash of thunder, then again elsewhere.

  “The One Power,” Morgase breathed. She might not be able to channel, or as well as not, but she could tell that. Notions of Shadowspawn fled. “It . . . it must be Aes Sedai.” She heard someone’s breath catch behind her; Lini or Breane. Basel Gill excitedly murmured “Aes Sedai,” and Lamgwin murmured back too low for her to understand. Off in the darkness, metal clashed on metal; fire bellowed, and lightning streaked from the cloudless sky. Faintly through the din came alarm bells from the city at last, but strangely few.

  “Aes Sedai.” Tallanvor sounded doubtful. “Why now? To rescue you, Morgase? I thought they couldn’t use the power against men, only Shadowspawn. Besides, if that winged creature wasn’t Shadowspawn, I will never see one.”

  “You don’t know what you are talking about!” she said, confronting him heatedly. “You—!” A crossbow bolt clashed against the windowframe in a spray of stone chips; air stirred against her face as it ricocheted between them and planted itself in one of the bedposts with a solid tchunk. A few inches to the right, and all her troubles would have been ended.

  She did not move, but Tallanvor pulled her away from the window with an oath. Even by moonlight, she could see his frown as he studied her. For a moment she thought he might touch her face; if he did, she did not know whether she would weep or scream or order him to leave her forever or. . . . Instead, he said, “More likely it’s some of those men, those Shamin or whatever they call themselves.” He insisted on accepting the strange, impossible tales that had seeped even into the Fortress. “I think I can get you out, right now; everything will be confusion. Come with me.”

  She did not correct him; few people knew anything about the One Power, much less the differences between saidar and saidin. His idea had its attractions. They might be able to escape in the bedlam of a battle.

  “Take her out into that!” Lini screeched. Flaring lights drowned the moon at the window; crashes and thunders drowned the din of men and swords. “I thought you had more wits, Martyn Tallanvor. ‘Only fools kiss hornets or bite fire.’ You heard her say it’s Aes Sedai. Do you think she doesn’t know? Do you?”

  “My Lord, if it is Aes Sedai. . . .” Master Gill trailed off.

  Tallanvor’s hands fell away from her, and he grumbled under his breath, wishing he had a sword. Pedron Niall had allowed him to keep his blade; Eamon Valda was not so trusting.

  For an instant, disappointment swelled in her breast. If only he had insisted, had dragged her. . . . What was the matter with her? Had he tried to drag her anywhere for any reason, she would have had his hide. She needed to take hold of herself. Valda had dented her confidence—no, he had casually ripped it to shreds—but she must cling to those shreds and knit them up again. Somehow. If the tatters were worth knitting up again.

  “At least I can find out what is happening,” Tallanvor growled, striding for the door. “If it isn’t your Aes Sedai—”

  “No! You will remain here. Please.” She was very glad of the pale darkness, hiding her furiously flushing face. She would have bitten her tongue off before saying that last word, but it had slipped out before she knew. She went on in firmer tones. “You will remain here, guarding your Queen as you should.”

  In the dim light, she could see his face, and his bow seemed quite proper, but she would have wagered her last copper both were angry. “I will be in your anteroom.” Well, there was no doubt about his voice. For once, though, she cared neither how angry he was nor how little he hid it. Very possibly she might kill the infuriating man with her own hands, but he was not going to die tonight, cut down by soldiers with no way to tell which side he was on.

  There was no hope of sleep now even had she been able. Without lighting any lamps, she washed her face and teeth. Breane and Lini helped her dress, in blue silk slashed with green, with spills of snowy lace at her wrists and beneath her chin. It would do very well for receiving Aes Sedai. Saidar raged in the night. They had to be Aes Sedai. Who else could it be?

  When she joined the men in the anteroom, they were sitting in darkness except for the moonlight through the windows, and the occasional flash of Power-wrought fire. Even a candle might attract unwanted attention. Lamgwin and Master Gill sprang from their chairs respectfully; Tallanvor stood more slowly, and she needed no light to know he regarded her with a sullen frown. Furious that she had to ignore him—she was his Queen!—furious and barely able to keep it from her voice, she ordered Lamgwin to bring more of the tall wooden chairs further from the windows. In silence, they sat and waited. At least, silence on their part. Outside thunderous crashes and roars still echoed, horns cried and men shouted, and through it she felt saidar surge and fall and surge again.

  Slowly, after at least an hour, the battle dwindled and died. Voices still shouted incomprehensible orders, wounded screamed, and sometimes those strange hoarse horns gave voice, but no more did steel ring on steel. Saidar faded; she was sure women still held it inside the Fortress, but she did not think any channeled now. All seemed close to peaceful after the clamor and commotion.

  Tallanvor stirred, but she waved him back before he could rise; for a moment she thought he would not obey. Night weakened, and sunlight crept in through the windows, shining on Tallanvor’s glower. She held her hands still in her lap. Patience was but one of the virtues that young man needed to learn. Patience stood second only to courage as a noble virtue. The sun rose higher. Lini and Breane began whispering together in increasingly worried tones, shooting glances in her direction. Tallanvor scowled, dark eyes smoldering, sitting rigid in that dark blue coat that fit him so well. Master Gill fidgeted, running first one hand then the other across his gray-fringed head, mopping his pink cheeks with a handkerchief. Lamgwin slouched in his cha
ir, the onetime street tough’s heavy-lidded eyes making him seem half asleep, but whenever he glanced at Breane a smile flickered on his scarred, broken-nosed face. Morgase focused on her breathing, almost like the exercises she had done during her months in the Tower. Patience. If someone did not come soon, she was going to have sharp words to say, Aes Sedai or not!

  Despite herself, she jumped at an abrupt pounding on the door to the hallway. Before she could tell Breane to see who was there, the door swung open, banging against the wall. Morgase stared at who entered.

  A tall, dark, hook-nosed man stared back at her coldly, the long hilt of a sword rising above his shoulder. Strange armor covered his chest, overlapping plates lacquered glistening gold and black, and he held a helmet on his hip that looked like an insect’s head, black and gold and green, with three long, thin green plumes. Two more armored like him came at his heels wearing their helmets, though without plumes; their armor seemed painted rather than lacquered, and they carried crossbows ready. Still more stood in the hall outside, with gold-and-black tasseled spears.

  Tallanvor and Lamgwin and even stout Master Gill scrambled to their feet, placing themselves between her and her peculiar visitors. She had to push a way through.

  The hook-nosed man’s eyes went straight to her before she could demand an explanation. “You are Morgase, Queen of Andor?” His voice was harsh, and he drawled his words so badly she barely understood.

  He stepped on her reply. “You will come with me. Alone,” he added as Tallanvor, and Lamgwin, and Master Gill, all moved forward. The crossbowmen presented their weapons; the heavy quarrels looked made to punch holes in armor; a man would hardly slow one down.