For a moment Nynaeve stared in confusion. She liked rough men? What could he possibly mean by . . . ? Slowly it sank in, and she groaned. “Oh, that is just what I need.” And Thom and Juilin running around Samara. The Light knew what trouble they could get into.
“I still want to know what you thought you were doing,” Elayne said, “but we are wasting time here.”
Nynaeve let them start her off through the crowd, one to either side, but even with the news of Luca and the others, she felt satisfied with her day’s work. “We should be out of here in a day or two, with luck. If Galad doesn’t find us a boat, Masema will. It turns out he is the Prophet. You remember Masema, Elayne. That sour-faced Shienaran we saw—” Realizing that Elayne had stopped, Nynaeve paused for her to catch up again.
“Galad?” the younger woman said disbelievingly, forgetting to hold her cloak closed. “You saw—you spoke to Galad? And the Prophet? You must have, or how would they be trying to find a vessel? Did you have tea with them, or did you just meet them in a common room? Where the bald-headed man carried you, no doubt. Maybe the King of Ghealdan was there, too? Would you please convince me I am dreaming so I can wake up?”
“Get a grip on yourself,” Nynaeve said firmly. “It is a queen, now, not a king, and yes, she was. And he wasn’t bald; he had a topknot. The Shienaran, I mean. Not the Prophet. He’s as bald as—” She glared at Birgitte until the woman stopped snickering. The glower slipped a little when Nynaeve remembered who she was glowering at and what she had done to her, but if the woman had not smoothed her features, they might have found out whether she could bring herself to slap Birgitte cross-eyed. They began walking again, and she said as levelly as she could manage, “This is what happened. I saw Uno, one of the Shienarans who was at Falme, watching you highwalk, Elayne. He doesn’t think any better of the Daughter-Heir of Andor showing her legs than I do, by the way. In any case, Moiraine sent them here after Falme, but . . .”
She related everything quickly as they made their way through the crowd, riding roughshod over Elayne’s increasingly incredulous exclamations, answering their questions in as few words as possible. Despite a quick interest in the shifts of the Ghealdanin throne, Elayne concentrated on exactly what Galad had said and why Nynaeve had been fool enough to approach the Prophet, whoever he was. That word—fool—popped up often enough to make Nynaeve keep a tight leash on her temper. She might doubt whether she could slap Birgitte, but Elayne had no such protection, Daughter-Heir or not. A few more repetitions, and the girl would discover it. Birgitte was more interested in Masema’s intentions on the one hand and the Shienarans on the other. It seemed she had encountered Borderlanders in previous lives, though their nations had had different names, and thought well of them by and large. She said little, really, but she appeared to approve of holding on to the Shienarans.
Nynaeve expected the news about Salidar to startle them, or excite them, or anything but what it did. Birgitte took it as matter-of-factly as if she had said they would eat supper with Thom and Juilin that night. Plainly she meant to go where Elayne did, and all else mattered little. Elayne looked doubtful. Doubtful!
“Are you certain? You have tried so hard to remember, and . . . Well, it seems awfully fortuitous that Galad should just happen to mention it to you.”
Nynaeve glowered. “Of course I am certain. Coincidences do happen. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, as you may have heard. I remember now that he mentioned it in Sienda, too, but I was so concerned over you being concerned about him that I didn’t—” She cut off short.
They had arrived at a long narrow area near the north wall, marked off by ropes. At one end stood something like a segment of wooden fence, two paces wide and two tall. People lined the ropes four deep, with children crouching down in front or holding a father’s leg or a mother’s skirts. A buzz rose as the three women appeared. Nynaeve would have stopped dead, but Birgitte had her by the arm, and it was walk or be dragged.
“I thought we were going to the wagon,” she said faintly. Busy with talking, she had paid too little attention to where they were going.
“Not unless you want to see me shoot in the dark,” Birgitte replied. She sounded all too willing to give it a try.
Nynaeve wished she could have made some other comment than a squeak. The bit of fence filled her vision as they progressed down the open space, to the exclusion of the onlookers. Even their increasing murmurs sounded distant. The fence looked a mile from where Birgitte would stand.
“Are you sure that he said he swore by . . . our mother?” Elayne demanded sourly. Acknowledging Galad as her brother even that far was unpleasant for her.
“What? Yes. I said so, didn’t I? Listen. If Luca is in the city, he would not know whether we did this or not until it was too late to . . .” Nynaeve knew she was babbling, but she could not seem to stop her tongue. Somehow she had never realized how far a hundred paces really was. In the Two Rivers, grown men always shot targets at twice that. But then, none of those targets had ever been her. “I mean, it already is very late. The shadows . . . The glare . . . We really should do this in the morning. When the light is—”
“If he swore by her,” Elayne broke in as if she had not been listening, “then he will hold to it no matter what. He would sooner break an oath on his hope of salvation and rebirth than that. I think . . . no, I know we can trust him.” She did not sound as if she particularly liked it, though.
“The light is just fine,” Birgitte said, a hint of amusement in her calm voice. “I might try it blindfolded. This lot will want it to look difficult, I think.”
Nynaeve opened her mouth, but nothing came out. This time she would have settled for a squeak. Birgitte was only making a bad joke. She had to be joking.
They positioned her with her back against the rough wooden fence, and Elayne began tugging at the knot in the shawl as Birgitte turned back the way they had come, drawing an arrow from her quiver.
“You really did something foolish this time,” Elayne muttered. “We can trust Galad’s oath, I’m sure, but you could not know what he might do beforehand. And to approach the Prophet!” She jerked the shawl from Nynaeve’s shoulders roughly. “You could have had no idea whatsoever what he might do. You worried everybody and risked everything!”
“I know,” Nynaeve managed to get out. The sun was in her eyes; she could no longer see Birgitte at all. But Birgitte could see her. Of course she could. That was the important thing.
Elayne looked at her suspiciously. “You know?”
“I know I risked everything. I should have talked with you, asked you. I know I’ve been a fool. I should not be allowed outside without a keeper.” It all came in a breathless rush. Birgitte must be able to see her.
Suspicion became concern. “Are you all right? If you really do not want to do this . . .”
The woman thought she was afraid. Nynaeve could not, would not, allow that. She forced a smile, hoped her eyes were not too wide. Her face felt tight. “Of course I want to. I’m looking forward to it, actually.”
Elayne gave her a dubious frown, but nodded at last. “You are sure about Salidar?”
She did not wait for an answer, but hurried off to one side, folding the shawl. For some reason, Nynaeve could not work up a proper indignation over the question, or Elayne not waiting. Her breath was coming so fast that she was dimly aware that she might come right out of the dress’s low neck, yet even that thought could not catch her. The sun filled her view; had she squinted, she might have been able to make out Birgitte after a fashion, but her eyes had a will of their own, increasingly widening. There was nothing she could do now. It was a punishment for taking foolish risks. She could manage only the tiniest pique over being punished after working everything out so well. And Elayne did not even believe her about Salidar! She would have to take it stoically. She would—
Seemingly out of nowhere an arrow tchunked into the wood, vibrating against her right wrist, and stoic resolve broke with a low wail. It
was all she could do to keep her knees straight. A second arrow brushed the other wrist, producing a slightly higher pitch to her yelp. She could as soon stop Birgitte’s shafts as silence herself. Arrow by arrow the yelps rose higher, and it seemed to her almost as if the crowd was cheering her cries. The louder she shrieked, the louder they cheered and applauded. By the time she was outlined from knees to head, the applause was thunderous. In truth, she felt some irritation at the finish, when the crowd all rushed to throng around Birgitte, leaving her standing there staring at the fletchings around her. Some still quivered. She still quivered.
Pushing away, she scurried off toward the wagons as quickly as she could before anyone noticed how much her legs were wobbling. Not that anyone was paying any attention to her. All she had done was stand there and pray Birgitte did not sneeze, or get an itch. And tomorrow she would have to go through it again. That or let Elayne—and worse, Birgitte—know she could not face it.
When Uno came that night asking after Nana, she told him in no uncertain terms to prod Masema as much as he dared and to find Galad and tell him he must find a boat quickly, whatever it required. Then she took to her bed without eating and tried to make herself believe that she could convince Elayne and Birgitte that she was too ill to stand against that wall. Only, she was all too certain they would know exactly what her illness was. That even Birgitte would likely be all sympathy just made it worse. One of those fool men had to find a riverboat!
CHAPTER
41
The Craft of Kin Tovere
One hand on his sword hilt, the other holding the green-and-white tasseled length of Seanchan spear, Rand ignored the others on the sparsely treed hilltop for the moment while he studied the three camps spread out below in the midmorning sun. Three distinct camps, and that was the rub. They were all the Cairhienin and Tairen forces at his disposal. Every man else who could use sword or spear was penned in the city, or the Light alone knew where.
The Aiel had rounded up refugees in hordes between the Jangai Pass and here, and a few had even straggled in on their own, lured by rumors that these Aiel at least were not killing everyone in sight, or else too dispirited to care so long as they had a meal before dying. Too many thought they would die, at the hands of the Aiel or the Dragon Reborn, or in the Last Battle, which they seemed to think was shaping up for any day now. A goodly number all together, but farmers and craftsmen and shopkeepers for the most part. Some knew how to use bow or sling to fetch a rabbit, but there was not a soldier in the lot and no time to teach them. The city of Cairhien itself lay little more than five miles to the west, some of the fabled “topless towers of Cairhien” visible above the intervening forest. The city sprawled across hills hard by the River Alguenya, encircled by Couladin’s Shaido and those who had joined him.
One haphazard set of tents and cookfires in the long shallow valley below Rand held some eight hundred Tairens, armored men. Nearly half were Defenders of the Stone in burnished breastplates and rimmed helmets, their plump coatsleeves striped black and gold. The rest were levies from a double handful of lords whose banners and pennants made a circle in the camp’s center around the silver Crescent-and-Stars of the High Lord Weiramon. Guards stood thickly along their picket lines as if they expected a raid against the horses any minute.
Three hundred paces away, the second camp guarded their horses as tightly. The animals were a mixed lot, few approaching the fine arch-necked stock of Tear, and some former plow and cart horses were tied along those ropes or Rand missed his guess. The Cairhienin numbered perhaps a hundred more than the Tairens, but their tents were fewer and most often patched, and their banners and con represented some seventy-odd lords. Few Cairhienin nobles still had many retainers, and the army had broken apart early in the civil war.
The last gathering lay another five hundred paces along, full of Cairhienin for the most part, yet well and truly separated from the others by more than distance. Larger than the other pair combined, this camp held few tents or horses. It displayed no banners, and only the officers wore con, the small pennants on their backs in solid colors meant to pick them out for their men rather than signify a House. Infantry might be necessary, but rare was the lord of Tear or Cairhien, either one, who would admit it. Certainly none would agree to actually lead such. It was the most orderly of the camps, though, the cookfires in neat rows, the long pikes stacked upright where they could be seized in a moment and clusters of archers or crossbowmen dotted along the lines. According to Lan, discipline kept men alive in battle, but infantry were more likely to know it and believe than cavalry.
The three groups were supposedly together, under the same command—the High Lord Weiramon had brought them in from the south late the day before—but the two camps of horsemen watched each other nearly as warily as they did the Aiel on the surrounding hills, the Tairens with a dose of contempt that the Cairhienin echoed in ignoring the third, which in turn eyed the others sullenly. Rand’s followers, his allies, and as ready to fight each other as anyone else.
Still pretending to study the camps, Rand examined Weiramon, helmetless and iron-spined straight nearby. Two younger men, minor Tairen lords, hung at the High Lord’s heels, dark beards trimmed and oiled in perfect imitation of Weiramon’s except that his was streaked with gray, and their breastplates, worn over brightly striped coats, bore goldwork only a touch less ornate than his. Aloof, apart from everyone else on the hilltop yet close to Rand, they could have been waiting for some martial ceremony at a royal court, except for the sweat rolling down their faces. They ignored that as well, though.
The High Lord’s sigil lacked only a few stars to duplicate Lanfear’s, but the long-nosed fellow was not her in disguise, with his mainly gray hair oiled like his beard and combed in a vain attempt to hide its thinness. He had been coming north with reinforcements from Tear when he heard that Aiel were attacking the city of Cairhien itself. Instead of turning back or sitting still, he continued north as hard as his horses could stand, gathering what forces he found along the way.
That was the good news of Weiramon. The bad was that he had fully expected to dispel the Shaido around Cairhien with what he had brought. He still did. And he was none too happy that Rand would not let him be about it or that he was surrounded by Aiel. One Aiel was no different from another to Weiramon. To the others, too, for that matter. One of the young lords pointedly sniffed a scented silk handkerchief whenever he looked at an Aiel. Rand wondered how long the fellow would survive. And what Rand would have to do about it when he died.
Weiramon noticed Rand watching, and cleared his throat. “My Lord Dragon,” he began in a gravelly bark, “one good charge will scatter them like quail.” He slapped his gauntlets against his palm loudly. “Foot never stands up to horse. I will send in the Cairhienin to flush them, then follow with my—”
Rand cut him off. Could the man count at all? Did the number of Aiel he could see here give him no clue to how many might be around the city? It did not matter. Rand had heard as much of this as he could stomach. “You are certain of the news you bring from Tear?”
Weiramon blinked. “News, my Lord Dragon? What—? Oh, that. Burn my soul, there’s nothing to that. Illianer pirates often try to raid along the coast.” They were more than trying, by what the man had said when he arrived.
“And the attacks on the Plains of Maredo? Do they often do that, as well?”
“Why, burn my soul, those are just brigands.” It was more statement of fact than protest. “Perhaps not Illianers at all, but certainly not soldiers. The jumble those Illianers make of things, who can say whether king or Assemblage or Council of Nine has the whiphand on any given day, yet if they do decide to move, it will be armies striking at Tear under the Golden Bees, not raiders burning merchants’ wagons and border farms. You can mark me on that.”
“If you wish it,” Rand replied, as politely as he could. Whatever power the Assemblage, or the Council of Nine, or Mattin Stepaneos den Balgar had, it was what Sammael chose to le
ave them. But relatively few knew that the Forsaken were loose already. Some who should know refused to believe, or ignored it—as if that would make the Forsaken go away—or seemed to think that if it had to happen, it would be in some vague and preferably distant future. There was no point in trying to convince Weiramon, whichever group he belonged in. The man’s belief or disbelief changed nothing.
The High Lord scowled at the hollow between the hills. More specifically, at the two Cairhienin camps. “With no proper rule here as yet, who can say what riffraff have drifted south?” Grimacing, he slapped his gauntlets even harder before turning back to Rand. “Well, we will bring them to heel soon enough for you, my Lord Dragon. If you will only give the order, I can drive. . . .”
Rand brushed past him, not listening, though Weiramon followed, still asking authority to attack, the other two trailing him like heelhounds. The man was a stone-blind fool.
They were not alone, of course. The hilltop was crowded, really. Sulin had a hundred Far Dareis Mai arrayed around the peak, for one thing, every last one looking even more ready to don her veil than Aiel usually did. It was not only the nearness of the Shaido that had Sulin on edge. In mockery of Rand’s contempt for the suspicions in the camps below, Enaila and two Maidens were never far from Weiramon and his lordlings, and the closer they stood to Rand, the more the three Maidens looked about to don veils.
Not far off, Aviendha stood talking with a dozen or more Wise Ones, shawls looped over their elbows, all but she decked in bracelets and necklaces. Surprisingly, it was a bony white-haired woman, even older than Bair, who seemed to be taking the lead. Rand would have expected Amys or Bair, but even they shut up as soon as Sorilea spoke. Melaine was with Bael, halfway between the other Wise Ones and the other clan chiefs. She kept adjusting the coat of Bael’s cadin’sor as if he did not know how to dress himself, and he had the patient look of a man reminding himself of all the reasons he had married. It might be personal, but Rand suspected the Wise Ones were trying to influence the chiefs again. If that was the case, he would learn the particulars soon enough.
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