CHAPTER
11
Just Another Sell-sword
“I realize there have been … disagreements between us in the past,” Adelorna Bastine said, riding beside Egwene as they passed through camp. Adelorna was a slim, regal woman; her tilted eyes and dark hair bespoke her Saldaean heritage. “I would not have you consider us enemies.”
“I have not,” Egwene said carefully, “and do not.” She did not ask what Adelorna meant by using the word “us.” She was Green, and Egwene had suspected for a time that she was the Captain-General, the name the Greens gave to the head of their Ajah.
“That is well,” Adelorna said. “Some within the Ajah have acted in foolishness. They have been … informed of their mistakes. You will find no further resistance from those who should have loved you best, Mother. Whatever has passed, let it be buried.”
“Let it be buried,” Egwene agreed, amused. Now, she thought. After all of this, the Greens try to claim me?
Well, she would use them. She had been worried that her relationship with them was beyond repair. Choosing Silviana as her Keeper had made many determine to treat her as an enemy. Egwene had heard whispers that many thought she would have chosen the Red as her Ajah, despite the fact that she not only had a Warder, but had married him.
“If I may ask,” Egwene said. “Is there a particular incident which has brought about this … bridge across our difficulties?”
“Some are willfully ignorant of what you did during the Seanchan invasion, Mother,” Adelorna said. “You proved to have the spirit of a warrior. Of a general. This is something the Green Ajah must not ignore. Indeed, we must embrace it as an example. So it has been decided, and so those who lead the Ajah have spoken.” Adelorna met Egwene’s eyes, then bowed her head.
The implication was obvious. Adelorna was the head of the Green Ajah. To speak it outright would not be appropriate, but to give Egwene this knowledge was to give a measure of trust and respect.
If you had truly been raised from us, the action said, you would have known who led us. You would have known our secrets. I give them to you. There was also gratitude to the motion. Egwene had saved Adelorna’s life during the Seanchan assault of the White Tower.
The Amyrlin was of no Ajah—and Egwene actually expressed this virtue more than any before her, for she never had belonged to an Ajah. Still, this gesture was moving. She rested her hand on Adelorna’s arm in thanks, then gave her leave to depart.
Gawyn, Silviana and Leilwin rode off to the side, where Egwene had sent them after Adelorna asked for a private word. That Seanchan … Egwene vacillated between keeping her close to watch her, and sending her far, far away.
Leilwin’s information about the Seanchan had been useful. So far as she could determine, Leilwin had told her the exact truth. For now, Egwene kept her close—if only because she frequently thought of more questions about the Seanchan. Leilwin acted more like a bodyguard than a prisoner. As if Egwene would trust her safety to one of the Seanchan. She shook her head, riding among the gathered tents and campfires of the army. Most were empty, as Bryne had the men forming battle lines. He expected the Trolloc approach within the hour.
Egwene found Bryne calmly organizing his maps and papers in a tent near the center of the camp. Yukiri was there, arms folded. Egwene dismounted and went in.
Bryne looked up sharply. “Mother!” he exclaimed, causing her to freeze.
She looked down. There was a hole in the floor of the tent, and she had nearly stepped into it.
It was a gateway. The other side appeared to open into the air itself, looking down on the Trolloc army, which was crossing the hills. The recent week had involved many skirmishes, with Egwene’s archers and riders slaughtering Trollocs who marched, in force, toward the hills and the border into Arafel.
Egwene peered through this gateway in the floor. It was high up, well outside of bow range, but looking down through it at the Trollocs made her dizzy.
“I’m not sure if this is brilliant,” she said to Bryne, “or incredibly foolhardy.”
Bryne smiled, turning back to his maps. “Winning wars is about information, Mother. If I can see exactly what they are doing—where they are trying to envelop us and how they are bringing in reserves—I can prepare. This is better than a battle tower. I should have thought of it ages ago.”
“The Shadow has Dreadlords who can channel, General,” Egwene said. “Peeking through this gateway could get you burned to a crisp. That’s not to mention Draghkar. If a flock of them tried to fly through this—”
“Draghkar are Shadowspawn,” Bryne said. “I’ve been told that they’d die passing through the gateway.”
“I guess that’s true,” Egwene said, “but you’d have a flock of dead Draghkar in here. Regardless, channelers can still attack through it.”
“I will take that chance. The advantage offered is incredible.”
“I’d still rather you use scouts to look through the gateway,” Egwene said, “not your own eyes. You are a resource. One of our most valuable. Risks are unavoidable, but please take care to minimize them.”
“Yes, Mother,” he said.
She inspected the weaves, then eyed Yukiri.
“I volunteered, Mother,” Yukiri said before Egwene could ask how a Sitter ended up doing simple gateway duty. “He sent to us, asking if forming a gateway like this—horizontal, instead of vertical—was possible. I thought it an interesting puzzle.”
She was not surprised he had sent to the Grays. There was a growing sentiment among them that, just as the Yellows specialized in Healing weaves and the Greens specialized in Battle weaves, the Grays should take particular interest in weaves for Traveling. They seemed to consider travel part of their calling as mediators and ambassadors.
“Can you show me our own lines?” Egwene asked.
“Certainly, Mother,” Yukiri said, closing the gateway. She opened another, letting Egwene look down on the battle lines of her army as they formed up in defensive positions on the hills.
This was more efficient than maps. No map could completely convey the lay of a land, the way that troops moved. Egwene felt as if she were looking at an exact replica of the landscape in miniature.
Vertigo hit her suddenly. She was standing at the edge of a drop of hundreds of feet. Her mind reeled, and she stepped back, taking a deep breath.
“You need to put a rope up around this thing,” Egwene said. “Someone could step right off.” Or pitch headfirst while staring down …
Bryne grunted. “I sent Siuan for something like that.” He hesitated. “She didn’t much like being sent, though, so she might come back with something completely useless.”
“I keep wondering,” Yukiri said. “Shouldn’t there be a way to create a gateway like this, but make it so it can only let light through? Like a window. You could stand on it and look down, without fearing that you could slip through. With the right weaves, you might be able to make it invisible from the other side…”
Stand on it? Light. You’d have to be mad.
“Lord Bryne,” Egwene said, “your battle lines seem very solid.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“They are also lacking.”
Bryne raised his head. Other men might have risen to the challenge, but he did not. Perhaps it was all of that practice in dealing with Morgase. “How so?”
“You form up the troops as usual,” Egwene said. “Archers at the front and on the hills to slow the enemy advance, heavy cavalry to charge and hit, then withdraw. Pikes to hold the line, light cavalry to protect our flanks and keep us from being surrounded.”
“The soundest battle strategies are often those that are time-tested,” Bryne said. “We may have a large force, with all of those Dragonsworn, but we’re still outnumbered. We can’t be more aggressive than I’ve been here.”
“Yes, you can be,” Egwene said calmly. She met his eyes. “This is unlike any battle you’ve ever fought, and your army is not like any you’ve eve
r led, General. You have a major advantage that you are not taking into account.”
“You mean the Aes Sedai?”
Bloody right I do, she thought. Light, she’d been spending too much time around Elayne.
“I did account for you, Mother,” Bryne said. “I had planned for the Aes Sedai to be a reserve force to aid companies in disengaging so we can rotate in fresh troops.”
“Pardon, Lord Bryne,” Egwene said. “Your plans are wise, and certainly some of the Aes Sedai should be used that way. However, the White Tower did not prepare and train for thousands of years to sit out the Last Battle as a reserve force.”
Bryne nodded, slipping a new set of documents out from underneath his pile. “I did consider other more … dynamic possibilities, but I did not want to overstep my authority.” He handed her the documents.
Egwene scanned them, raising an eyebrow. Then she smiled.
* * *
Mat had not remembered so many Tinkers around Ebou Dar. Brilliantly colored wagons grew like vibrant mushrooms on an otherwise dun field. There were enough of them to make a bloody city. A city of Tinkers? That would be like … like a city of Aiel. It was just wrong.
Mat trotted Pips along the roadway. Of course, there was an Aiel city. Maybe there would be a Tinker city someday, too. They would buy up all of the colored dye, and everyone else in the world would have to wear brown. There would be no fighting in the city, so it would be downright boring, but there also would not be a single bloody pot with a hole in the bottom for thirty leagues!
Mat smiled, patting Pips. He had covered over his ashandarei as best he could to make it look like a walking pole strapped to the side of the horse. His hat lay inside the pack he had hung from the saddlebags, along with all of his nice coats. He had ripped the lace off the one he wore. It was a shame, but he did not want to be recognized.
He wore a crude bandage wrapped around the side of his head, covering his missing eye. As he approached the Dal Eira gate, he fell into line behind the others awaiting permission to enter. He should look just like another wounded sell-sword riding into the city, seeking refuge or perhaps work.
He made certain to slump in the saddle. Keep your head down: good advice on the battlefield and when entering a city where people knew you. He could not be Matrim Cauthon here. Matrim Cauthon had left the queen of this city tied up to be murdered. Many would suspect him of the murder. Light, he would have suspected himself. Beslan would hate him now, and there was no telling how Tuon would feel about him, now that they had had some time apart.
Yes, best to keep his head down and stay quiet. He would feel the place out. If, that was, he ever reached the front of this bloody line. Who ever heard of a line to enter a city?
Eventually, he reached the gate. The bored soldier there had a face like an old shovel—it was half-covered in dirt and would be better off locked in a shed somewhere. He looked Mat up and down.
“You have sworn the oaths, traveler?” the guard asked in a lazy Seanchan drawl. On the other side of the gate, a different soldier waved over the next person in line.
“Yes, I have indeed,” Mat said. “The oaths to the great Seanchan Empire, and the Empress herself, may she live forever. I’m just a poor, traveling sell-sword, once attendant to House Haak, a noble family in Murandy. I lost my eye to some bandits in the Tween Forest two years back while protecting a young child I discovered in the woods. I raised her as my own, but—”
The soldier waved him on. The fellow did not look as if he had been listening. Mat considered staying put out of principle. Why would the soldiers force people to wait in such a long line and give them time to think of a cover story, only to not hear it out? That could offend a man. Not Matrim Cauthon, who was always lighthearted and never offended. But someone else, surely.
He rode on, containing his annoyance. Now, he just needed to make his way to the right tavern. Pity Setalle’s place was not an option any longer. That had—
Mat stiffened in the saddle, though Pips continued his leisurely pace forward. Mat had just taken a moment to look at the other guard at the gate. It was Petra, the strongman from Valan Luca’s menagerie!
Mat looked the other way and slumped again in his saddle, then shot another glance over his shoulder. That was Petra, all right. There was no mistaking those log arms and that tree-stump neck. Petra was not a tall man, but he was so wide, an entire army could have taken shade in his shadow. What was he doing back in Ebou Dar? Why was he wearing a Seanchan uniform? Mat almost went over to talk to him, as they had always been amiable, but that Seanchan uniform made him reconsider.
Well, at least his luck was with him. If he had been sent to Petra instead of the guard he had ended up talking to, he would have been recognized for sure. Mat breathed out, then climbed down to lead Pips. The city was crowded, and he did not want the horse pushing someone over. Besides, Pips was laden down enough to look like a packhorse—if the looker knew nothing of horses—and walking might make Mat less memorable.
Perhaps he should have started his search for a tavern in the Rahad. Rumors were always easy to find in the Rahad, as was a game of dice. It was also the easiest place to find a knife in your gut, and that was saying something in Ebou Dar. In the Rahad people were as likely to take out their knives and begin killing as they were to say hello in the morning.
He did not go into the Rahad. The place looked different, now. There were soldiers camped outside it. Generations of successive rulers in Ebou Dar had allowed the Rahad to fester unchecked, but the Seanchan were not so inclined.
Mat wished them luck. The Rahad had fought off every invasion so far. Light. Rand should have just hidden there, instead of going up to fight the Last Battle. The Trollocs and Darkfriends would have come for him, and the Rahad would have left them all unconscious in an alley, their pockets turned inside out and their shoes sold for soup money. Mat caught a glimpse of Rand shaving, but he squashed the image.
Mat shouldered his way over a crowded canal bridge, keeping a close eye on his saddlebags, but so far, not a single cutpurse had tried for them. With a Seanchan patrol on every other corner, he could see why. As he passed a man yelling out the day’s news, with hints that he had good gossip for a little coin, Mat found himself smiling. He was surprised at how familiar, even comfortable, this city felt. He had liked it here. Though he could vaguely remember grumbling about wanting to be away—probably just after the wall fell on him, as Matrim Cauthon was not often one for grumbling—he now realized that his time in Ebou Dar had been among the best of his life. Plenty of cards and dice in the city.
Tylin. Bloody ashes, but that had been a fun game. She had had the better of him time and again. Light send him plenty of women who could do that, though not in rapid succession, and always when he knew how to find the back door. Tuon was one. Come to think of it, he would probably never need another. She was enough of a handful for any man. Mat smiled, patting Pips on the neck. The horse blew down Mat’s neck in return.
Strangely, this place felt more like home to him than the Two Rivers did. Yes, the Ebou Dari were prickly, but all peoples had their quirks. In fact, as Mat thought about it, he had never met a people who were not prickly about one thing or another. The Borderlanders were baffling, and so were the Aiel—that went without saying. The Cairhienin and their strange games, the Tairens and their ridiculous hierarchies, the Seanchan and their … Seanchan-ness.
That was the truth of it. Everyone outside the Two Rivers, and to a lesser extent Andor, was bloody insane. A man just had to be ready for that.
He strolled along, careful to be polite, lest he find a knife in his gut. The air smelled of a hundred sweetmeats, the chattering crowd a low roar in his ears. The Ebou Dari still wore their colorful outfits—maybe that was why the Tinkers had come here, drawn to the bright colors like soldiers drawn to dinner—anyway, the Ebou Dari women wore dresses with tight laced tops that showed plenty of bosom, not that Mat looked. Their skirts had colorful petticoats underneath and they pi
nned up the side or front to show them off. That never had made sense to him. Why put the colorful parts underneath? And if you did, why take such pains to cover them over, then go around with the outside pinned up?
The men wore long vests that were equally colorful, perhaps to hide the bloodstains when they were stabbed. No point in throwing away a good vest just because the fellow wearing it was murdered for inquiring after the weather. Though … as Mat walked along, he found fewer duels than he had expected. They never had been as common in this part of the city as in the Rahad, but some days, he had hardly been able to take two steps without passing a pair of men with knives out. This day, he saw not a single one.
Some of the Ebou Dari—you could often tell them by their olive skin—were parading around in Seanchan dress. Everyone was very polite. As polite as a six-year-old boy who had just heard that you had a fresh apple pie back in the kitchen.
The city was the same, but different. The feel was off a shade or two. And it was not just that there were no Sea Folk ships in the harbor any longer. It was the Seanchan, obviously. They’d made rules since he’d left. What kind?
Mat took Pips to a stable that seemed reputable enough. A quick glance at their stock told him that; they were caring well for the animals, and many were very fine. It was best to trust a stable with fine horses, though it cost you a little more.
He left Pips, took his bundle, and used the still-wrapped ashandarei as a walking staff. Choosing the right tavern was as tough as choosing a good wine. You wanted one that was old, but not broken down. Clean, but not too clean—a spotless tavern was one that never saw any real use. Mat could not stand the types of places where people sat around quietly and drank tea, coming there primarily to be seen.
No, a good tavern was worn and used, like good boots. It was also sturdy, again like good boots. So long as the ale did not taste like good boots, you would have a winner. The best places for information were over in the Rahad, but his clothing was too nice to visit, and he did not want to run into whatever the Seanchan were doing there.
The Wheel of Time Page 1240
