The Fires of Heaven

by Jordan, Robert

  “Ours is the only one in the stableyard,” Juilin said. Thom and Elayne were still staring at one another, plainly not hearing a word.

  Driving off with the curtains down was no protection, then. Nynaeve was willing to bet that Galad had already learned exactly how they had come to Sienda. “Is there a back way from the stableyard?”

  “A gate wide enough for one of us at a time,” Juilin said dryly. “And what’s on the other side is little more than an alley, anyway. There aren’t more than two or three streets in this village wide enough for the coach.” He studied that cylindrical hat, turning it in his hands. “I could get close enough to crack his head. If you were ready, you could drive off during the confusion. I could catch you up on the road.”

  Nynaeve sniffed loudly. “How? Gallop after on Skulker? Even if you didn’t fall out of the saddle inside a mile, do you think you would even reach a horse if you attacked a Whitecloak in that street?” Galad was still there across the street, and Trom had joined him, the pair apparently chatting idly. She leaned over and yanked Thom’s nearest mustache. “Do you have anything to add? Any brilliant plans? Did all your listening to gossip yield anything that might help?”

  He clapped a hand to his face and gave her an offended look. “Not unless you think there’s help in Ailron laying claim to some border villages in Altara. A strip the whole length of the border, from Salidar to So Eban to Mosra. Is there any help in that, Nynaeve? Is there? Try to pull a man’s mustache out of his face. Somebody ought to box your ears, for once.”

  “What would Ailron want with a strip along the border, Thom?” Elayne asked. Perhaps she was interested—she seemed interested in every fool twist and turn of politics and diplomacy—or perhaps she was just trying to stop an argument. She used to try smoothing over things all the time, before she became wrapped up in flirting with Thom.

  “It isn’t the King, child.” His voice softened, for her. “It’s Pedron Niall. Ailron does what he is told usually, though he and Niall make out that it isn’t so. Most of those villages have been empty since the Whitecloak War, what the Children call the Troubles. Niall was the general in the field then, and I doubt he’s ever given up wanting Altara. If he controls both banks of the Eldar, he can squeeze the river trade to Ebou Dar, and if he can crack Ebou Dar, the rest of Altara will trickle into his hands like grain flowing from a hole in a sack.”

  “That is all very well,” Nynaeve said firmly before he or the girl could speak again. There had been something in what he had said that tickled her memory, but she could not say what or why. In any case, they had no time for lectures on relations between Amadicia and Altara, not with Galad and Trom watching the front of the inn. She said as much, adding, “What about you, Juilin? You consort with low types.” The thief-catcher always sought out the cutpurses and burglars and footpads in a town; he claimed they knew more of what was really going on than any official. “Are there smugglers we can bribe to sneak us out, or . . . or . . . You know the sort of thing we need, man.”

  “I heard little. Thieves keep low in Amadicia, Nynaeve. First offense is branding, second is loss of your fight hand, and third is hanging, whether it’s the King’s crown or a loaf of bread. There aren’t many thieves in a town this size, not who do it for a living”—he was contemptuous of amateur thieves—“and for the most part they only wanted to talk about two things. Whether the Prophet is really coming to Amadicia, the way rumor says he is, and whether the town fathers might relent and let that traveling menagerie put on a show. Sienda is too far from the borders for smugglers to—”

  She cut him off with peremptory satisfaction. “That is it! The menagerie.” They all looked at her as if she had gone mad.

  “Of course,” Thom said, much too mildly. “We can get Luca to bring the boar-horses back, and make off while they destroy some more of the town. I don’t know what you gave him, Nynaeve, but he threw a rock at us as we were driving off.”

  For once Nynaeve forgave him his sarcasm, feeble as it was. And his lack of wit to see what she saw. “That’s as may be, Thom Merrilin, but Master Luca wants a patron, and Elayne and I are going to be his patrons. We still have to abandon the coach and team—” That smarted; she could have built a snug house in the Two Rivers for what they had cost. “—And sneak out that back way.” Tossing open the chest with the leaf-shaped hinges, she rooted through clothes and blankets and pots and everything that she had not wanted to leave behind with the wagon full of dyes—she had made sure that the men packed everything except the harness—until she came to the gilded caskets and the purses. “Thom, you and Juilin go out by that back gate, and find a wagon and team of some sort. Buy some supplies and meet us on the road back to Luca’s camp.” Regretfully, she filled Thom’s hand with gold, not even bothering to count; there was no telling what things would cost, and she did not want him wasting time bargaining.

  “That is a wonderful idea,” Elayne said, grinning. “Galad will be looking for two women, not a troupe of animals and jugglers. And he will never think we would head for Ghealdan.”

  Nynaeve had not thought of that. She had intended making Luca head straight for Tear. A menagerie such as he had put together, with tumblers and jugglers in addition to animals, could earn its way almost anywhere, she was sure. But if Galad did come looking for them, or send someone, it would be to the east. And he might be smart enough to look even in a menagerie; men did show brains sometimes, usually when you least expected it. “That was the first thing I thought of, Elayne.” She ignored the sudden faint taste in her mouth, the acrid memory of boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf.

  Thom and Juilin protested, of course. Not the idea as such, but they seemed to think that one of them remaining behind could protect her and Elayne against Galad and any number of Whitecloaks. They did not seem to realize that if it came to that, channeling would do more than the pair of them and ten more besides. They still seemed troubled, but she managed to push them both out with the stern injunction “And don’t you dare come back here. We will meet you on the road.”

  “If it comes to channeling,” Elayne quietly said once the door was shut, “we will quickly find ourselves facing the whole Whitecloak garrison, and probably the army garrison as well. The Power doesn’t make us invincible. All it will take is two arrows.”

  “We will worry about that when it comes,” Nynaeve told her. She hoped the men had not thought of that. If they had, likely one of them would lurk about, and probably rouse Galad’s suspicions if he was not careful. She was ready to accept their help when it was needed—Ronde Macura had taught her that, though having to be rescued like a kitten down a well still galled—but it would be when she thought it necessary, not they.

  A quick trip downstairs found Mistress Jharen. Her lady had changed her mind; she did not think she could face the heat and dust of travel again so quickly; she intended to nap, and did not want to be disturbed until a late supper that she would send down for. Here was the coin for another night’s lodging. The innkeeper was very understanding of a noble lady’s delicacy, and how inconstant their desires. Nynaeve thought, Mistress Jharen would be understanding of anything short of murder, so long as the reckoning was paid.

  Leaving the plump woman, Nynaeve cornered one of the serving girls for a moment. A few silver pennies changed hands, and the girl darted off in her apron to find two of the deep bonnets that Nynaeve said looked so shady and cool; not the sort of thing her lady would wear, of course, but they would do nicely for her.

  When she got back to the room, Elayne had the gilded caskets on a blanket with the dark polished box holding the recovered ter’angreal and the washleather purse that held the seal. The fat purses of coin lay beside Nynaeve’s scrip on the other bed. Folding the blanket, Elayne tied the bundle with some stout cord from one of their chests. Nynaeve had saved everything.

  She regretted leaving it all behind now. It was not just the expense. Not only that. You never knew when something was going to come in handy. Take the two
woolen dresses that Elayne had laid out on her bed. They were not fine enough for a lady, and too fine for a lady’s maid, but if they had left them in Mardeein as Elayne had wanted, they would be in a fine fix for clothing now.

  Kneeling, Nynaeve rummaged in another chest. A few shifts, two more wool dresses for changes. The pair of cast-iron frying pans in a canvas bag were perfectly good, but too heavy, and the men would certainly not forget replacements for those. The sewing kit, in its neat bone-inlaid box; they would never think to buy so much as a pin. Her mind was only partly on her selections, though.

  “You knew Thom before?” she asked in what she hoped was a casual tone. She watched Elayne from the corner of her eye while pretending to concentrate on rolling stockings.

  The girl had begun pulling out clothes of her own, sighing over the silks before putting them aside. She froze with her hands deep in one of the chests, and she did not look at Nynaeve. “He was Court-bard in Caemlyn when I was little,” she said quietly.

  “I see.” She did not see at all. How did a man go from a court-bard, entertaining royalty, the next thing to a noble, to a gleeman wandering from village to village?

  “He was Mother’s lover after Father died.” Elayne had gone back to choosing, and she said it so matter-of-factly that Nynaeve gaped.

  “Your mother’s—!”

  The other woman still was not looking at her, though. “I did not remember him until Tanchico. I was very small. It was his mustaches, and standing close enough to look up at his face, and hearing him recite part of The Great Hunt of the Horn. He thought I’d forgotten again.” Her face colored slightly. “I—drank too much wine, and the next day I made out that I could not remember anything.”

  Nynaeve could only shake her head. She remembered the night the girl had filled her fool self with wine. At least she had never done that again; her head the next morning had seemed an effective cure. Now she knew why the girl behaved as she did with Thom. She had seen the same back in the Two Rivers a few times. A girl just old enough to really think of herself as a woman. Who else would she measure herself against except her mother? And sometimes, who better to compete against, to prove that she was a woman? Usually it led to no more than trying to be better at everything from cooking to sewing, or maybe some harmless flirting with her father, but in the case of one widow, Nynaeve had seen the woman’s nearly grown daughter make a complete fool of herself trying to capture the man her mother intended to marry. The trouble was, Nynaeve had no idea what to do about this silliness in Elayne. Despite severe lectures and more from her and the Women’s Circle, Sari Ayellin had not settled down until her mother was married again and she herself had found a husband, too.

  “I suppose he must have been like a second father to you,” Nynaeve said carefully. She pretended to concentrate on her own packing. Thom had certainly been looking at the girl that way. It explained so much.

  “I hardly think of him so.” Elayne appeared intent on deciding how many silk shifts to take, but her eyes saddened. “I cannot really remember my father; I was only a baby when he died. Gawyn says he spent all of his time with Galad. Lini tried to make the best of it, but I know he never came to see Gawyn or me in the nursery. He would have, I know, once we were old enough to teach things, like Galad. But he died.”

  Nynaeve tried again. “At least Thom is fit for a man of his age. We’d be in a fine fix if he suffered from stiff joints. Old men often do.”

  “He could still do backflips if not for his limp. And I don’t care if he does limp. He is intelligent and knowledgeable about the world. He is gentle, and yet I feel quite safe with him. I don’t think I should tell him that. He tries to protect me enough as it is.”

  With a sigh, Nynaeve gave up. For now, at least. Thom might look on Elayne as a daughter, but if the girl kept this up he just might remember that she was not, and then Elayne would find herself in the pickling kettle. “Thom is very fond of you, Elayne.” Time to shift to some other subject. “Are you sure about Galad? Elayne? Are you sure Galad could turn us in, Elayne?”

  The other woman gave a start, wiping a small frown from her face.

  “What? Galad? I’m certain, Nynaeve. And if we refuse to let him take us to Caemlyn, that will only make the decision for him.”

  Muttering to herself, Nynaeve pulled a silk riding dress out of her chest. Sometimes she thought the Creator had only made men to cause trouble for women.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Heading West

  When the serving girl came with the bonnets, Elayne was stretched out on one of the beds in a white silk shift, a damp cloth over her eyes, and Nynaeve was pretending to mend the hem of the pale green dress that Elayne had been wearing. As often as not she stuck her thumb; she would never have admitted it to anyone, but she was not very good at needlework. She wore her dress, of course—maids did not loll about like ladies—but she did have her hair hanging loose. Clearly she had no intention of leaving the room any time soon. She thanked the girl in a whisper, so as not to wake her lady, and pressed another silver penny on her, with the repeated injunction that her lady was not to be disturbed on any account.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Elayne bounded to her feet and began pulling their bundles out from under the beds. Nynaeve tossed the silk gown down and twisted her arms behind her to undo her buttons. In no time at all they were ready, Nynaeve in green wool, Elayne in blue, with the bundles on their backs. Nynaeve carried the scrip with her herbs and the money, Elayne the blanket-wrapped boxes. The deep curving brims of the bonnets hid their faces so well that Nynaeve thought they could have walked right by Galad without him knowing them, especially with her hair down; he would remember the braid. Mistress Jharen, however, might well stop two strange women coming with fat bundles from upstairs.

  The back stairs ran down the outside of the inn, narrow stone flights clinging to the wall. Nynaeve felt a moment of sympathy for Thom and Juilin, hauling the heavy chests up these, but mainly her attention was on the stableyard and the slate-roofed stone stable. A yellow dog lay in the shade beneath the coach, sheltering from the already increasing heat, but all of the grooms were inside. Now and again she could see movement beyond the open stable doors, but no one came out; it was shady in there, too.

  They trotted quickly across the stableyard to the alley between the stable and a tall stone fence. A full dung cart, swarming with flies and scarcely narrower than the alleyway, was just rumbling by. Nynaeve suspected that the glow of saidar surrounded Elayne, though she could not see it. She herself was hoping that the dog did not decide to bark, that no one came out of the kitchens or the stable. Using the Power was no way to sneak off quietly, and talking their way clear would leave traces for Galad to follow.

  The rough wooden gate at the end of the alley had only a lift-latch, and the narrow street beyond, lined with simple stone houses with more thatched roofs than otherwise, was empty except for a handful of boys playing some game that seemed to involve hitting each other with a beanbag. The only adult in sight was a man feeding a cote of pigeons on a roof opposite, his head and shoulders up through a trapdoor. Neither he nor the boys more than glanced at them as they shut the gate and started along the winding street as if they had every right to be there.

  They had walked a good five miles west of Sienda along the dusty road before Thom and Juilin caught up, Thom driving what looked like a Tinker’s wagon, save that it was all one color, a drab green, with the paint flaked off in large patches. Nynaeve was grateful to stuff her bundles under the driver’s seat and climb up beside him, but not so pleased to see Juilin riding Skulker. “I told you not to go back to the inn,” she told him, vowing to hit him with something if he looked at Thom.

  “I did not go back,” he said, unaware that he had saved himself a sore head. “I told the head stableman that my Lady wanted berries fresh from the country, and Thom and I had to go fetch them. It’s the sort of nonsense that some no—” He cut off, clearing his throat, as Elayne gave hi
m a cool, expressionless look from the other side of Thom. Sometimes he forgot that she really was of royalty.

  “We had to have some reason to leave the inn and the stables,” Thom said, whipping up the horses. “I suppose you two said you were taking to your room with fainting spells, or the Lady Morelin was, but the grooms would have been wondering why we wanted to wander about in the heat instead of staying in a nice cool hayloft with no work to do, and maybe a pitcher of ale. Perhaps we’ll not be worth talking about, now.”

  Elayne gave Thom a level look—no doubt for the “fainting spells”—that he pretended not to see. Or perhaps did not. Men could be blind when it suited them. Nynaeve sniffed loudly; he could not miss that. He certainly cracked his whip over the lead horses sharply enough right after. It was all just an excuse so they could take turns riding. That was another thing men did; made excuses to do exactly what they wanted. At least Elayne was frowning at him slightly instead of simpering.

  “There is something else I learned last night,” Thom went on after a time. “Pedron Niall is trying to unite the nations against Rand.”

  “Not that I don’t believe it, Thom,” Nynaeve said, “but how could you learn that? I cannot think some Whitecloak simply told you.”

  “Too many people were saying the same thing, Nynaeve. There’s a false Dragon in Tear. A false Dragon, and never mind prophecies about the Stone of Tear falling, or Callandor. This fellow is dangerous, and the nations ought to unite, the way they did in the Aiel War. And who better to lead them against this false Dragon than Pedron Niall? When so many tongues say the same thing, the same thought exists higher up, and in Amadicia, not even Ailron expresses a thought without asking Niall first.”

  The old gleeman always seemed to put together rumors and whispers and come up with right answers far more often than not. No, not a gleeman; she had to remember that. Whatever he might claim, he had been a court-bard, and had probably seen court intrigue like that in his stories at close hand. Perhaps even dabbled in it himself, if he had been Morgase’s lover. She eyed him sideways, that leathery face with bushy white eyebrows, those long mustaches as snowy as the hair on his head. There was no accounting for some women’s taste.