He froze, turning, scanning the forest behind him. To the right, it stood brown and dead; to his left, the tree cover dwindled. He couldn’t see anyone.
Have I been pushing myself too hard? he wondered, rubbing his head as he turned to continue walking. Imagining things that—
Another little strike on the back of his head. He spun and caught sight of something dropping to the grass. Frowning, he knelt down and picked it up. An acorn. Another one smacked him in the forehead. It had come from the forest.
Perrin growled and strode into the trees. One of the camp’s few children, perhaps? Ahead was a large oak tree; the trunk thick and wide enough to hide someone. Once he grew close, he hesitated. Was this some kind of trap? He laid his hand on his hammer and inched forward. The tree was downwind, and he couldn’t catch the scent of—
A hand suddenly jutted out from behind the trunk, holding a brown sack. “I caught a badger,” a familiar voice said. “Want to let it go on the village green?”
Perrin froze, then let out a bellowing laugh. He rounded the tree’s trunk and found a figure in a high-collared red coat—trimmed with gold—and fine brown trousers sitting on the tree’s exposed roots, the sack squirming near his ankles. Mat was chewing idly on a long length of jerky, and wore a broad-brimmed black hat. A black polearm with a broad blade at the top leaned against the tree beside him. Where had he gotten such fine clothing? Hadn’t he once complained about Rand wearing outfits like that?
“Mat?” Perrin asked, nearly too stunned to speak. “What are you doing here?”
“Catching badgers,” Mat said, shaking the sack. “Bloody hard to do, you know, particularly on short notice.”
The sack rustled and Perrin heard a faint growl from inside. He could smell that there was, indeed, something alive in that sack. “You actually caught one?”
“Call me nostalgic.”
Perrin didn’t know whether to chastise Mat or laugh at him—that particular mix of emotions was common when Mat was around. No colors, fortunately, spun in Perrin’s eyes now that they were near one another. Light, that would have been confusing. Perrin did feel a…rightness, however.
The long-limbed man smiled, setting the sack down and standing, offering a hand. Perrin took it, but pulled Mat into a hearty hug.
“Light, Mat,” Perrin said. “It seems like it’s been forever!”
“A lifetime,” Mat said. “Maybe two. I lose count. Anyway, Caemlyn already is buzzing with news of your arrival. Figured the only way to get in a word of welcome was to slip through that gateway and find you before everyone else.” Mat picked up his spear and rested it on his shoulder, blade to the back.
“What have you been doing? Where have you been? Is Thom with you? What about Nynaeve?”
“So many questions,” Mat said. “How safe is this camp of yours?”
“Safe as any place.”
“Not safe enough,” Mat grew solemn. “Look, Perrin, we’ve got some mighty dangerous folks after us. I came because I wanted to warn you to take extra care. Assassins will find you soon enough, and you’d best be ready for them. We need to catch up. But I don’t want to do it here.”
“Where, then?”
“Meet me in an inn called The Happy Throng, in Caemlyn. Oh, and if you don’t mind, I’ll be wanting to borrow one of those black-coated fellows of yours for a few shakes. Need a gateway.”
“For what purpose?”
“I’ll explain. But later.” Mat tipped his hat, turning to jog back toward the still-open gateway to Caemlyn. “Really,” he said, turning and jogging backward for a moment. “Be careful, Perrin.”
With that, he ducked past a few refugees and through the gateway. How had he gotten past Grady? Light! Perrin shook his head to himself, then bent to untie the sack and ease the poor badger Mat had captured.
Chapter 45
A Reunion
Elayne woke in her bed, bleary-eyed. “Egwene?” she said, disoriented. “What?”
The last memories of the dream were dissolving like honey consumed by warm tea, but Egwene’s words remained firm in Elayne’s mind. The serpent has fallen, Egwene had sent. Your brother’s return was timely.
Elayne sat up, feeling a surge of relief. She had spent the entire night trying to channel enough to make her dream ter’angreal work, to no avail. When she’d found out that Birgitte had turned away Gawyn—while Elayne sat inside, furious but unable to attend the meeting with Egwene—she’d been livid.
Well, Mesaana had been defeated, it seemed. And what was that about her brother? She smiled. Perhaps he and Egwene had worked out their problems.
Morning light peeked through the drapes. Elayne sat back, feeling the powerful warmth through the bond with Rand that had appeared there. Light, but that was a wonderful sensation. The moment she’d begun feeling it, the cloud cover around Andor had broken.
It had been about a week since the testing of the dragons, and she’d put all of the bellfounders in her nation to work on creating them. These days, one could hear a steady sound in Caemlyn, repeating booms as members of the Band trained with the weapons in the hills outside of the city. So far, she had let only a few of the weapons be used for training; the different teams rotated practicing on them. She’d gathered the larger number in a secret warehouse inside Caemlyn for safekeeping.
She thought about the dream sending again. She hungered for specifics. Well, Egwene would probably send a messenger by gateway eventually.
The door cracked, and Melfane looked in. “Your Majesty?” the short, round-faced woman asked. “Is everything all right? I thought I heard a cry of pain.” Ever since lifting her ban on Elayne remaining in bed, the midwife had decided to sleep in the antechamber outside Elayne’s bedroom to keep a careful watch on her.
“That was an exclamation of joy, Melfane,” Elayne said. “A greeting for the wonderful morning that has come to us.”
Melfane frowned. Elayne tried to act cheerful around the woman, to persuade her that more bed rest wasn’t needed, but perhaps that last part had been a little much. Elayne couldn’t afford to appear as if she were forcing herself to be happy. Even if she was. Insufferable woman.
Melfane walked in and pulled open the drapes—sunlight was good for a woman with child, she’d explained. Part of Elayne’s treatment lately had been to sit in her bed with the covers drawn back, letting the spring sunlight bake her skin. As Melfane moved, Elayne felt a little tremble from inside. “Oh! There was another. They’re kicking, Melfane! Come feel!”
“I won’t be able to feel it yet, Your Majesty. Not until they’re stronger.” She began the normal daily routine. Listen to Elayne’s heartbeat, then listen for the babe’s. Melfane still wouldn’t believe there were twins. After that, she inspected and prodded Elayne, performing all of the tests in her secretive list of annoying and embarrassing things to do to women.
Finally, Melfane placed hands on hips, regarding Elayne, who was doing up her nightgown. “I think you’ve been straining yourself too much lately. I want you to be certain to take proper rest. My cousin Tess’s daughter had a child not two years ago who was birthed barely breathing. Light be thanked that the child survived, but she had been working the fields late through the day before and not taking proper meals. Imagine! Take care of yourself, my Queen. Your babies will be thankful for it.”
Elayne nodded, relaxing. “Wait!” she said, sitting up. “Babies?”
“Yes,” Melfane said, walking to the door. “There are two heartbeats in your womb, sure as I have two arms. Don’t know how you knew it.”
“You heard the heartbeats!” Elayne exclaimed, elated.
“Yes, they’re there, sure as the sun.” Melfane shook her head and left, sending in Naris and Sephanie to dress her and brush her hair.
Elayne endured the process in a state of amazement. Melfane believed! She couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
An hour later, she settled into her small sitting room, windows all thrown open to let in the sunlight, sipping wa
rm goat’s milk. Master Norry entered on long spindly legs, tufts of hair sticking up behind the backs of his ears, face long and peaked, leather folder under his arm. He was accompanied by Dyelin, who didn’t usually attend the morning meeting. Elayne raised an eyebrow at the woman.
“I have the information you requested, Elayne,” Dyelin said, pouring herself some morning tea. Today it was cloudberry. “I hear Melfane heard heartbeats?”
“She did indeed.”
“My congratulations, Your Majesty,” Master Norry said. He opened his folder and began arranging his papers on the tall, narrow table beside her chair. He rarely sat down in Elayne’s company. Dyelin took one of the other comfortable chairs beside the hearth.
What information had Elayne requested of the woman? She didn’t recall asking for anything specific. The question distracted her as Norry went over the daily reports on the various armies in the area. There was a list of altercations between sell-sword groups.
He also talked of food problems. Despite the Kinswomen making gateways to Rand’s lands to the south for supply—and despite the caches of unexpected food stores that had been discovered in the city—Caemlyn was running low.
“Finally, as for our, um, guests,” Norry said. “Messengers have arrived with the anticipated responses.”
None of the three Houses whose nobility had been captured could afford to pay ransom. Once the Arawn, Sarand and Marne estates had been among the most productive and extensive in Andor—and now they were destitute, their coffers dry, their fields barren. And Elayne had left two of them without leadership. Light, what a mess!
Norry moved on. She had a letter from Talmanes, agreeing to move several companies of soldiers from the Band of the Red Hand to Cairhien. She ordered Norry to send him a writ with her seal, authorizing the soldiers to “lend aid restoring order.” That was, of course, nonsense. No order needed to be restored. But if Elayne was ever going to move for the Sun Throne, she’d need to make some preliminary moves in that direction.
“This is what I wanted to discuss, Elayne,” Dyelin said as Norry began to pack up his papers, arranging each one with meticulous care. Light help them if one of those precious pages tore or got a stain on it.
“The situation in Cairhien is…complex,” Dyelin said.
“When is it not?” Elayne asked with a sigh. “You’ve information on the political climate there?”
“It’s a mess,” Dyelin said simply. “We need to talk about how you’re going to manage the maintenance of two nations, one in absence.”
“We have gateways,” Elayne said.
“True. But you must find a way to take the Sun Throne without letting it look as if Andor is subsuming Cairhien. The nobility there might accept you as their queen, but only if they see themselves as equals to the Andorans. Otherwise, the moment they’re out of your sight, the schemes will grow like yeast in a warm bowl of water.”
“They will be the equals of the Andorans,” Elayne said.
“They won’t see it that way if you go in with your armies,” Dyelin said. “The Cairhienin are a proud people. To think of themselves living conquered beneath Andor’s Crown….”
“They lived beneath Rand’s power.”
“With all due respect, Elayne,” Dyelin said. “He is the Dragon Reborn. You are not.”
Elayne frowned, but how did one argue with that?
Master Norry cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, Lady Dyelin’s advice is not born of idle speculation. I, um, have heard things. Knowing of your interests in Cairhien….”
He’d been growing better at gathering informants. She’d turn him into a regular spymaster yet!
“Your Majesty,” Norry continued, voice lower. “Rumors are claiming that you’ll soon come to seize the Sun Throne. There is already talk of rebellion against you. Idle speculation, I’m certain, but…”
“The Cairhienin could see Rand al’Thor as an emperor,” Dyelin said. “Not a foreign king. That is a different thing.”
“Well, we don’t need to move armies to take the Sun Throne,” Elayne said thoughtfully.
“I…am not certain of that, Your Majesty,” Norry said. “The rumors are quite pervasive. It seems that as soon as the Lord Dragon announced the throne was to be yours, some elements in the nation began working—very subtly—to prevent it from happening. Because of these rumors, many people worry that you will seize the titles of the Cairhienin nobility and give them to Andorans instead. Others claim you will relegate any Cairhienin to a secondary state of citizenship.”
“Nonsense,” Elayne said. “That’s plain ridiculous!”
“Obviously,” Norry said. “But there are many rumors. They do tend to, um, grow like chokevines. The sentiment is strong.”
Elayne gritted her teeth. The world was fast coming to be a place for those with strong alliances, knit together with bonds of both blood and paper. She had the best chance of uniting Cairhien and Andor that any queen had had in generations. “Do we know who has been starting the rumors?”
“That has been very difficult to ascertain, my Lady,” Norry said.
“Who stands to benefit most?” Elayne asked. “That’s the first place we should look for the source.”
Norry glanced at Dyelin.
“Any number of people could benefit,” Dyelin said, stirring her tea. “I would guess that those with the greatest chance of taking the throne themselves would benefit the most.”
“Those who resisted Rand,” Elayne guessed.
“Perhaps,” Dyelin said. “Or perhaps not. The strongest of the rebellious elements received great attention from the Dragon, and many of them were either converted or broken. So his allies—those he trusted most, or who professed greatest allegiance to him—are the ones we should probably suspect. This is Cairhien, after all.”
Daes Dae’mar. Yes, it would make sense for Rand’s allies to resist her ascent to the throne. Those who had been favored by Rand would be favored for the throne, should Elayne prove incapable. However, those people would also have undermined their chances by professing allegiance to a foreign leader.
“I should think,” Elayne said thoughtfully, “that those in the best position for the throne would be those in the middle. Anyone who didn’t oppose Rand, and so didn’t earn his ire. But also someone who didn’t support him too wholeheartedly—someone who can be viewed as a patriot who can reluctantly step in and take power once I’ve failed.” She eyed the other two. “Get me the names of anyone who has risen sharply in influence recently, a nobleman or woman who fits those criteria.”
Dyelin and Master Norry nodded. Eventually, she would probably have to build a stronger network of eyes-and-ears, as neither of these two was perfectly suited to leading them. Norry was too obvious, and he already had enough to do with his other duties. Dyelin was…well, Elayne wasn’t certain what Dyelin was.
She owed much to Dyelin, who seemed to have taken it upon herself to act as a surrogate mother to Elayne. A voice of experience and wisdom. But eventually, Dyelin would have to take a few steps back. Neither of them could afford to encourage the notion that Dyelin was the real power behind the throne.
But Light! What would she have done without the woman? Elayne had to steel herself against the sudden surge of feeling. Blood and bloody ashes, when was she going to get over these mood swings? A queen couldn’t afford to be seen crying on a whim!
Elayne dabbed her eyes. Dyelin wisely said nothing.
“This will be for the best,” Elayne said firmly, to distract attention from her treacherous eyes. “I’m still worried about the invasion.”
Dyelin said nothing to that. She didn’t believe that Chesmal had been talking of a specific invasion of Andor; she thought that the Black sister had been speaking of the Trolloc invasion of the Borderlands. Birgitte took the news more seriously, beefing up soldiers on the Andoran borders. Elayne would very much like to have control of Cairhien; if Trollocs were to march on Andor, her sister realm would be one of the avenues they might
use.
Before the conversation could go further, the door to the hallway opened, and Elayne would have jumped in alarm had she not felt that it was Birgitte. The Warder never knocked. She strode in, wearing a sword—reluctantly—and her knee-high black boots over trousers. Oddly, she was followed by two cloaked figures, their faces hidden by hoods. Norry stepped back, raising a hand to his breast at the irregularity of it. Everyone knew that Elayne didn’t like to see visitors in the small sitting room. If Birgitte was bringing people here….
“Mat?” Elayne guessed.
“Hardly,” a familiar voice said, firm and clear. The larger of the figures lowered his hood, revealing a perfectly beautiful masculine face. He had a square jaw and a set of focused eyes that Elayne remembered well from her childhood—mostly when he had noticed her doing something wrong.
“Galad,” Elayne said, surprised at the warmth she felt for her half-brother. She rose, holding out her hands toward him. She’d spent most of their childhood frustrated with him for one reason or another, but it was good to see him alive and well. “Where have you been?”
“I have been seeking truth,” Galad said, bowing with an expert bow, but he did not approach to take her hands. He rose and glanced to the side. “I found that which I did not expect. Steel yourself, sister.”
Elayne frowned as the second, shorter figure lowered her hood. Elayne’s mother.
Elayne gasped. It was her! That face, that golden hair. Those eyes that had so often looked at Elayne as a child, judging her, measuring her—not merely as a parent measured her daughter, but as a queen measured her successor. Elayne felt her heart beating in her chest. Her mother. Her mother was alive.
Morgase was alive. The Queen still lived.
Morgase locked eyes with Elayne, then—oddly—Morgase looked down. “Your Majesty,” she said with a curtsy, still remaining beside the door.
Elayne controlled her thoughts, controlled her panic. She was Queen, or she would have been Queen, or…Light! She’d taken the throne, and she was at least the Daughter-Heir. But now her own mother came back from the bloody dead?
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