Lord of Chaos (99 page)

“I will make a note of your feelings,” she said indulgently. “Just do not let them hinder you. Do you have a saying that fits, Lini? Something for young Tallanvor and his feelings?” Light, why did she take such a delight in taunting him? He came close to treason, but she was his Queen, not. . . . The rest of the thought would not come.

Lini sat near the windows, rolling a ball of blue yarn from the skein Breane held stretched on her hands. “Paitr minds me of that young undergroom, just before you went to the White Tower. The one who got two maids with child and was caught trying to sneak away from the manor with a sackful of your mother’s plate.”

Morgase’s jaw hardened, but nothing could spoil her pleasure, not even the glance Breane gave her, as if she should be allowed to state her opinion as well. Paitr had been overjoyed at Morgase’s impending escape. Of course, part of that was because he apparently expected some sort of reward from his uncle for his part—at least, a few of his comments suggested it; something about making up for a failure back home—but the young man practically danced when she agreed to the plan that would have them all out of the Fortress today and out of Amador by sunrise tomorrow. Away from Amador and on the road to Ghealdan, where soldiers would not come with strings to tie to Andor. Two days ago Barshaw himself came to unfold the scheme, disguised as a shopkeeper delivering knitting needles and yarn, a squat big-nosed man with a choleric eye and a sneering mouth, though the words came out respectfully enough. It was hard to believe him Paitr’s uncle, they looked so different, much less a merchant. Still, his plan was a marvel of simplicity, if hardly dignified, needing only enough people outside the Fortress to make it work. Morgase
was going to ride out of the Fortress of the Light buried in the bottom of a cartload of kitchen refuse.

“Now, you all know what to do,” she told them. So long as she herself was in her rooms, the rest could move about with considerable freedom. Everything depended on that. Well, not everything; but certainly every escape but her own. “Lini, you and Breane must be in the laundry yard when the bell sounds High.” Lini nodded complacently, but Breane gave her a purse-lipped look. They had been over this twenty times. Even so, Morgase was not going to allow a mistake to result in anyone being left behind. “Tallanvor, you will leave your sword behind and wait at an inn called The Oak and Thorn.” He opened his mouth, but she forestalled him firmly. “I have heard your arguments. You can find another sword. They’ll believe you mean to return if you leave it.” He grimaced, but finally nodded. “Lamgwin is to wait at The Golden Head, and Basel at—”

A hasty tap at the door, and it opened enough to admit Basel’s balding head. “My Queen, there’s a man . . . a Child. . . .” He glanced over his shoulder into the hall. “There’s a Questioner, my Queen.” Tallanvor’s hands went to his sword hilt, of course, and he would not take them away until she had gestured twice and grimaced at him beside.

“Admit him.” She managed a calm voice, but butterflies the size of foxes fluttered frantically in her belly. A Questioner? Was everything that suddenly had been going so well about to turn just as suddenly to disaster?

A tall hawk-nosed man pushed Basel out of the way and closed the door in his face. The white-and-gold tabard with the crimson crook on his shoulder gave his rank as Inquisitor. She had not met Einor Saren, but he had been pointed out to her. There was a set of unalterable certainty to his face. “You are summoned to the Lord Captain Commander,” he said coldly. “You will come now.”

Morgase’s thoughts raced faster than the butterflies. She was used to being summoned—Niall did not come to her, now he had her in the Fortress—called before the man for another lecture on her duty to Andor or for what was supposed to be a friendly chat to show her that Niall had her best interests, and Andor’s, at heart. Used to that, but not to this sort of messenger. If she was being given over to the Questioners, there would be no subterfuge. Asunawa would send enough men to drag her away, and everyone with her. Him, she had met briefly; he made her blood freeze. Why had an Inquisitor been sent? She voiced the question, and Saren replied in the same icy tones.

“I was with the Lord Captain Commander, and I was coming this way.
I have finished my business, and now I will take you back. After all, you are a queen, due respect.” That all sounded slightly bored, somewhat impatient, until the last, when a note of wry mockery entered. No warmth, though.

“Very well,” she said.

“Shall I accompany my Queen?” Tallanvor bowed formally; at least he made a display of deference when any outsider was around.

“No.” She would take Lamgwin instead. No, any of the men would make it seem she thought she needed bodyguards. Saren frightened her nearly as much as Asunawa did, and she would not let him catch even a hint of the fact. She put on a casual, tolerant smile. “Surely I need no protection here.”

Saren smiled too, or at least his mouth did. He seemed to be laughing at her.

Outside, with Basel and Lamgwin looking at her uncertainly, she almost changed her mind about attendants; she would have, had she not spoken inside. But two men could not protect her if this really was some elaborate trap, and changing her mind would be a show of weakness. Walking through the stone corridors beside Saren, she certainly felt weak, not like a queen at all. No. Maybe she would scream like anyone else if the Questioners had her in their dungeons—well, there was no maybe about it; she was not fool enough to believe royal flesh different from any other in that regard—but until then, she would be what she was. Deliberately, she set about flogging down those butterflies.

Saren led her into a small flagstone-paved courtyard where bare-chested men were hacking at wooden posts with swords. “Where are we going?” she demanded. “This is not the way I have gone to the Lord Captain Commander’s study before. Is he somewhere else?”

“I take the shortest way,” he replied curtly. “I have more important matters to see to than. . . .” He did not finish, and he did not slow, either.

She had no choice but to follow, down a corridor lined with long rooms full of narrow cots and men often bare-chested or in less. She kept her eyes fixed on Saren’s back, composing the blistering sentences she meant to deliver to Niall. Across a stableyard, the smell of horses and dung heavy in the air and a farrier shoeing horses in one corner, along another barracks hallway and then one with kitchens down one side and the thick smell of stew cooking, into another courtyard. . . . She stopped dead.

A long, high scaffold stood in the middle of the yard. Three women and over a dozen men filled every space, hands and feet bound, nooses
snugged around their necks. Some wept piteously; most only looked terrified. The last two men on the far end were Torwyn Barshaw and Paitr, the boy in his shirtsleeves instead of the red-and-white coat she had had made for him. Paitr was not weeping, but his uncle was. Paitr appeared too horrified to think of tears.

“For the Light!” a Whitecloak officer called out, and another Whitecloak shoved a long lever at the end of the scaffold.

Trapdoors snapped opened with loud cracks, and the victims fell from sight. Some of the stretched ropes quivered as those at the end choked their lives away instead of dying quickly from a broken neck. Paitr’s was one of those. And her fine escape died with him. Perhaps she should have had as much concern for him, but it was the escape she thought of, her way out of the trap she had walked into. Herself trapped, and Andor with her.

Saren was looking at her, plainly expecting her to faint or sick up.

“So many at once?” she said, proud of the steadiness in her voice. Paitr’s rope had stopped jerking; it only swung slowly from side to side, now. No escape.

“We hang Darkfriends every day,” Saren answered dryly. “Perhaps in Andor you release them with a lecture. We do not.”

Morgase met his gaze. The shortest way? So this was Niall’s new tactic. It did not surprise her that no mention had been made of her planned escape. Niall was too subtle for that. She was an honored guest, and Paitr and his uncle had been hanged by chance, for some crime that had nothing to do with her. Who would be the next to mount the gallows? Lamgwin or Basel? Lini or Tallanvor? Strange, but the image of Tallanvor with a rope around his neck hurt more than the image of Lini. The mind played peculiar tricks. Over Saren’s shoulder she caught sight of Asunawa, at a window overlooking the scaffold. He was staring down at her. Maybe this was his doing, not Niall’s. It made no difference. She could not let her people die for nothing. She could not let Tallanvor die. Very peculiar tricks.

Arching an eyebrow mockingly, she said, “If this has unhinged your knees, I suppose we can wait until you find your strength again.” A light voice, not affected at all by what she saw. Light, let her not vomit.

Saren’s face darkened, and he turned on his heel and stalked away. She followed at a stately pace, not looking up at Asunawa’s window, trying not to think of the scaffold.

Perhaps it really was the shortest way, for in the next corridor Saren led her up steep flights of stairs, delivering her to Niall’s audience chamber more quickly than she remembered making the journey before. As usual
Niall did not rise, and there was no chair for her to take, so she was forced to stand before him like a petitioner. He seemed distracted, sitting silent and staring at her, but not really seeing her.

He had won, and he did not even see her. That irritated her. Light, he had won. Perhaps she should return to her rooms. If she told Tallanvor and Lamgwin and Basel to carve a path for her, they would try. They would die, and so would she; she had never held a sword, but if she gave that command, she would take one up. She would die, and Elayne would ascend the Lion Throne. She would as soon as al’Thor could be pushed from it. The White Tower would see that Elayne got what was hers. The Tower. If the Tower secured the throne for Elayne. . . . It seemed mad, yet she trusted the Tower even less than she did Niall. No, she had to save Andor herself. But the cost. The cost must be paid.

She had to force the words out. “I am ready to sign your treaty.”

Niall hardly appeared to hear at first. Then he blinked, and suddenly laughed wryly and shook his head. That irritated her, too. Pretending surprise. She had not tried to escape. She was a guest. She wished she could see him on a gallows.

He moved into action so quickly that he almost dispelled the memory of his earlier apathy. In moments he had his dried-up little secretary in with a long parchment, everything already written out, and even a copy of the Seal of Andor she could not tell from the original.

Choice or no choice, she made a show of reading the terms. They were no different than she had expected. Niall would lead the Whitecloaks to regain her throne, but there was a price, if not named as such. A thousand Whitecloaks quartered in Caemlyn, with their own courts of law, outside Andoran law, in perpetuity. Whitecloaks to stand equal with the Queen’s Guards throughout Andor, in perpetuity. It might take her lifetime to undo signing this, and Elayne’s as well, but the alternative was al’Thor with the Lion Throne as a trophy. If any woman ever sat on it again, it would be Elenia or Naean or one of that ilk, and as al’Thor’s puppet. That, or Elayne as the Tower’s puppet; she
could
not make herself trust the Tower.

She signed her name clearly, pressed the copied Seal into the red wax that Niall’s secretary dripped at the foot of the sheet. The Lion of Andor surrounded by the Rose Crown. There, she was the first queen ever to accept foreign soldiers on Andoran soil.

“How soon . . . ?” It was harder to say than she had imagined. “How soon will your legions ride?”

Niall hesitated, glancing down the table. There was nothing there except
pen and ink, a sand bowl and a freshly burned down stub of sealing wax, as if he had very recently written a letter. He finished scrawling his signature on the treaty and impressed his own seal, a flaring sun in golden wax, then handed the parchment to his secretary. “Put this in the document room, Balwer. I fear I cannot move as quickly as I had hoped, Morgase. There are developments I must consider. Nothing that need concern you. Simply a matter of how best to move in areas unrelated to Andor. I insist you take this as simply more time for me to enjoy your company.”

Balwer bowed smoothly if somewhat prissily, yet she was almost certain his eyes nearly jerked toward Niall in surprise. She herself nearly gaped. He pressed her and pressed her, and now he had other matters to consider? Balwer scurried out as though afraid she might try to snatch back the treaty and tear it up, but that was the furthest thing from her mind. At least there would be no more hangings. The rest would be dealt with when it could be. One step at a time. Her dogged resistance had failed, but now she had time again, an unexpected gift not to be wasted. The pleasure of her company?

She put on a warm smile. “It seems as though a weight has lifted from my shoulders. Tell me, do you play stones?”

“I am accounted a fair player.” His answering smile was surprised at first, then amused.

Morgase flushed, but managed to keep her face from showing anger. Perhaps it was best that he thought her broken now. No one watched a broken opponent too closely, or regarded them too highly, and if she was careful, with time she could begin recovering what she had given away before his soldiers left Amadicia. She had had a very good teacher in the Game of Houses.

“I will try not to provide too poor a match, if you would like to play.” She was well beyond fair, herself, perhaps even beyond good, but she would have to lose, of course, though not so badly that he grew bored. She hated losing.

Frowning, Asunawa drummed his fingers on the gilded arm of his chair. Above his head, the shepherd’s crook was worked in brilliant lacquer on a pure white disc. “The witch was taken aback,” he murmured.

Saren answered as though it was an accusation. “Some people are affected that way by hanging. The Darkfriends were rounded up yesterday; I’m told they were chanting some catechism to the Shadow when Trom
broke down the door. I checked, but no one thought to ask if they had any connection to her.” At least he did not shift his feet; he stood as straight as any Hand of the Light should.