Lord of Chaos (83 page)

He understood, of course. Her offering of faith in his word, her freedom put in his pocket. He took her hands in both of his, turned them so he could kiss her palms gently. “A precious thing, what you’ve given me to hold. If I go to the Dragonwall Gate every morning, someone is sure to notice, and I may not be able to get away every morning, but do not be too surprised if I appear beside you shortly after you enter the city most days.”

When Egwene finally got back outside, the sun had moved a considerable distance into the hottest part of the afternoon, thinning the crowds a little. Saying goodbye had taken longer than she thought it would; kissing Gawyn might not be the sort of exercise the Wise Ones intended her to take, but her heart was still racing as if she had been running.

Putting him firmly out of mind—well, pushing him to the back with some effort; putting him out seemed to be beyond her—she returned to her vantage point beside the stable. Someone was still channeling inside the mansion; more than one probably, unless that one was weaving something large; the feel was less than earlier, but still strong. A woman was
going into the house, a dark-haired woman Egwene did not recognize, though the agelessness of that hard face marked her. She did not try to eavesdrop again and did not stay long—if they were going in and out, there was too much chance of being seen and recognized despite her clothes—but as she hurried away, one thought hammered at her. What were they up to?

“We intend to offer him escort to Tar Valon,” Katerine Alruddin said, shifting slightly. She could never decide whether Cairhienin chairs were as uncomfortable as they looked or one merely believed they were because they looked so uncomfortable. “Once he leaves Cairhien for Tar Valon, there will be . . . a vacuum here.”

Unsmiling in the gilded chair opposite her, the Lady Colavaere leaned forward slightly. “You interest me, Katerine Sedai. Leave us,” she snapped to the servants.

Katerine smiled.

“We intend to offer him escort to Tar Valon,” Nesune said precisely, but she felt the smallest flash of irritation. Despite a smooth face, the Tairen kept shifting his feet, anxious in the presence of an Aes Sedai, perhaps apprehensive that she might channel. Only an Amadician would have been worse. “Once he departs for Tar Valon, there will be a need for strength in Cairhien.”

The High Lord Meilan licked his lips. “Why do you tell me this?”

Nesune’s smile might have meant anything.

When Sarene entered the sitting room, only Coiren and Erian were there sipping at tea. And a servant waiting to pour, of course. Sarene motioned him out. “Berelain, she may prove to be difficult,” she said once the door closed. “I do not know whether the apple or the whip will work best with her. I am supposed to see Aracome tomorrow, am I not, but I think that more time will be necessary with Berelain.”

“Apple or whip,” Erian said in a tight voice. “Whichever do be necessary.” Her face might have been pale marble framed by raven’s wings. Sarene’s secret vice was poetry, though she would never have let anyone know she could be interested in something so . . . emotional. She would
have died of shame had Vitalien, her Warder, ever discovered that she had written lines comparing him to a leopard, among other graceful, powerful and dangerous animals.

“Pull yourself together, Erian.” As usual, Coiren sounded as if she were making a speech. “What troubles her, Sarene, is a rumor that Galina heard, a rumor that a Green sister was in Tear with young Rand al’Thor and is now here in Cairhien.” She
always
called him “young Rand al’Thor,” as though reminding her listeners that he was young and therefore inexperienced.

“Moiraine
and
a Green,” Sarene mused. That could indeed indicate trouble. Elaida insisted that Moiraine and Siuan had acted alone in letting al’Thor run without guidance, but if even one additional Aes Sedai was involved, it might mean others had been as well, and that was a string that might lead all the way to some, perhaps many, of those who had fled the Tower when Siuan was deposed. “Still, it is only the rumor.”

“Perhaps not,” Galina said as she slipped into the chamber. “Have you not heard? Someone channeled at us this morning. For what purpose I cannot say, but we can imagine very closely I believe.”

The beads worked in Sarene’s tiny dark braids made clicking noises as she shook her head. “It is not the proof of a Green, Galina. It is not even the proof of an Aes Sedai. It could be some poor wretch who was put out of the Tower for failing the test as Accepted. And you know as well as I do that some of these Aielwomen can channel.”

Galina smiled, a sliver of teeth in night-eyed sternness. “I think it is proof of Moiraine. I have heard she had a trick of eavesdropping, and I do not believe this story of her so conveniently dead, with no corpse seen and no one able to tell details.”

That bothered Sarene as well. Partly because she had liked Moiraine—they had been friends as novices and Accepted, though Moiraine was a year ahead, and that friendship had continued over their few meetings in the years since—and partly because it
was
too vague and top convenient, Moiraine dying, vanishing really, when an arrest warrant hung over her. Moiraine might well be capable of faking her own death under those circumstances. “So you believe we have both Moiraine and a Green sister whose name we do not know to deal with? It is still only the speculation, Galina.”

Galina’s smile did not change, but her eyes glittered. She was too hard for logic—she believed what she believed whatever the evidence—yet Sarene had always believed great fires roared somewhere in Galina’s depths. “What I believe,” Galina said, “is that Moiraine
is
the so-called Green.
What better way to hide from arrests than to die and reappear as someone else of another Ajah? I have even heard that this Green is short; we all know Moiraine is far from a tall woman.” Erian had sat up stony straight, her brown eyes large smoldering coals of outrage. “When we lay hands on this
Green
sister,” Galina told her, “I propose that we give her into your charge for the journey back to the Tower.” Erian nodded sharply, but the heat did not fade from her eyes.

Sarene felt stunned. Moiraine? Claim another Ajah than her own? Surely not. Sarene had never married—it was illogical to believe two people could remain compatible for a lifetime—but the only thing she could compare that to was sleeping with another woman’s husband. But it was the charge that stunned her, not the possibility that it might be true. She was about to point out that there were many short women in the world, and that shortness was relative, when Coiren spoke in that billowing voice.

“Sarene, you must take your turn again. We must be prepared, whatever happens.”

“I do not like it,” Erian said firmly. “It does be like preparing for failure.”

“It is only logical,” Sarene told her. “Dividing time into the smallest possible increments, it is impossible to say with any true certainty what will happen between one and the next. Since chasing al’Thor to Caemlyn might mean we would arrive to find that he has come here, we remain here with as much certainty as we can have that he will eventually return, yet that could be tomorrow or a month from now. Any single event in any hour of that wait, or any combination of events, could leave us with no alternative. Thus, preparation is logical.”

“Very nicely explained,” Erian said dryly. She had no head for logic; sometimes Sarene thought that beautiful women did not, though there was no logic in the connection that she could see.

“We have as much time as we need,” Coiren pronounced. When she was not making a speech, she made pronouncements. “Beldeine arrived today and took a room near the river, but Mayam is not due for two days. We must take care, and that gives us time.”

“I still do not like preparing for failure,” Erian murmured into her teacup.

“I will not take it amiss,” Galina said, “if we find time to take Moiraine to justice. We have waited this long; there is not that much hurry with al’Thor.”

Sarene sighed. They did very well at the things they did, but she could not understand it; there was barely a logical bone in one of them.

Retiring upstairs to her chambers, she seated herself in front of the cold fireplace and began to channel. Could this Rand al’Thor really have rediscovered how to Travel? It surpassed belief, yet it was the only explanation. What sort of man was he? That she would discover when she met him, not before. Filled with
saidar
nearly to the point where sweetness became pain, she began running through novice exercises. They were as good as anything. Preparation was only logical.

Thunder rolled across the low, brown grassland hills in a continuous peal, though the sky held not a cloud, only the burning sun, still with a way to climb. On a hilltop, Rand held the reins and the Dragon Scepter on the pommel of his saddle and waited. The thunder swelled. It was hard not to look over his shoulder constantly, south toward Alanna. She had bruised her heel this morning and scraped her hand, and she was in a temper. How and what for, he had no notion; he had no real notion how he could be so sure. The thunder crested.

The Saldaean horsemen appeared over the next rise, three abreast at a dead gallop in a long snake that kept coming, down the slope into the broad sweep between the hills. Nine thousand men made a very long snake. At the foot of the slope they divided, the center column coming on while the others peeled off to right and left, each column dividing again and again until they rode by hundreds, swooping past one another. Riders began standing on their saddles, sometimes on feet, sometimes on hands. Others swung impossibly low to slap the ground on first one side of their galloping mounts, then the other. Men left their saddles entirely to crawl underneath speeding horses, or dropped to the ground to run a pace beside the animal before leaping back into the saddle, then dropping on the other side to repeat the performance.

Rand lifted his reins and heeled Jeade’en. As the dapple moved, so did
the Aiel surrounding him. This morning the men were Mountain Dancers,
Hama N’dore
, more than half wearing the headband of
siswai’aman.
Caldin, graying and leathery, had tried to get Rand to let him bring more than twenty, what with so many armed wetlanders about; none of the Aiel wasted any time with disparaging looks for Rand’s sword. Nandera spent more time watching the two hundred-odd women who trailed after them on horses; she seemed to find more threat in the Saldaean ladies and officers’ wives than in the soldiers, and having met some of the Saldaean women, Rand was not ready to argue. Sulin would probably have agreed. It occurred to him that he had not seen Sulin in. . . . Not since returning from Shadar Logoth. Eight days. He wondered if he had done something to offend her.

This was no time to worry about Sulin or
ji’e’toh.
He circled around the valley until he reached the hilltop over which the Saldaeans had first appeared to him. Bashere himself rode about down there examining first one group as they went through their paces, then another; almost coincidentally, he just happened to do this standing up on his saddle.

For an instant Rand seized
saidin
, and released it a heartbeat later. With his vision enhanced, it had not been difficult to see the two white stones lying near the foot of the slope, right where Bashere had placed them personally last night, four paces apart. With luck, no one had seen him. With luck, no one would ask too many questions about this morning. Below, some men were riding two horses now, a foot on each saddle, still at a dead gallop. Others had a man on their shoulders, sometimes in a handstand.

He looked around at the sound of a horse walking toward him. Deira ni Ghaline t’Bashere rode through the Aiel with seeming unconcern; armed only with a small knife at her silver belt, in a riding dress of gray silk embroidered in silver down the sleeves and on the high neck, she appeared to be daring them to attack her. As tall as many of the Maidens, nearly a hand taller than her husband, she was a big woman. Not stout, nor even plump; simply big. She had wings of white in her black hair, and her dark tilted eyes were fixed on Rand. He suspected she was a beautiful woman when his presence did not turn her face to granite.