The Guardswomen, unaware, were still waiting patiently on their horses, keeping watch on the treeline around the meadow and little concerned with that after their reception at the manor, though Caseille was watching Elayne and Aviendha, a slight frown visible behind the face-bars of her helmet. She knew they never delayed at opening a gateway. The men from the manor were gath?ered around their packhorse, pawing at the bundles and apparently arguing over whether or not something had been included. Aviendha still moved her gray closer to Elayne’s black and spoke in a voice that would not carry.
“We know nothing, Elayne. Not whether he is dancing the spears or this is something else. If he dances the spears and we rush in, will he attack us before he knows who are? Will we distract him because he does not expect us, and allow his enemies to win? If he dies, we will find who took his life and kill them, but if we go to him now, we go blindly, and we may bring disaster on our backs.”
“We could be careful,” Elayne said sullenly. It infuriated her that she was feeling sullen, and showing it, but all she could do was ride her moods and try not let them get the upper hand com?pletely. “We don’t have to Travel right to the spot.” Gripping her pouch, feeling the small ivory carving of a seated woman that nes?tled inside, she looked pointedly at her sister’s amber brooch. “Light, Aviendha, we haveangreal, and neither of us is exactly helpless.” Oh, Light, now she was sounding petulant. She knew very well that both of them together,angreal and all, would be flies battling a flame against what they could sense, but even so, a fly-bite at the right moment might make the difference. “And don’t tell me I’ll endanger the baby. Min said she will be born strong and healthy. You told me so yourself. That means I will live at least long enough for my daughter to be born.” She hoped for a daugh?ter.
Fireheart chose that moment to nip at the gray, and Siswai nipped back, and for a bit Elayne was occupied with getting her gelding under control and keeping Aviendha from being thrown and telling Caseille that they did not need any help, and by the end of it, she was not feeling sullen any longer. She wanted to smack Fireheart right between his ears.
Aside from making the animal obey the reins, Aviendha behaved as if nothing had happened at all. She did frown, a little uncertainly, her face framed by the dark wool of her shawl, but her uncertainty had nothing to do with the horse.
“I have told you about the rings in Rhuidean,” she said slowly, and Elayne gave an impatient nod. Every woman who wanted to become a Wise One was sent through ater’angreal before she began training. It was something like theter’angreal used to test novices for being raised to Accepted in theWhiteTower, except that in this one, a woman saw her whole life. All of her possible lives, really, every decision made differently, an infinite fan of lives based on differing choices. “No one can remember all of that, Elayne, only bits and pieces. I knew I would loveRandal’Thor . . .” she was still uncomfortable sometimes about using just his first name in front of others, “and that I would find sister-wives. For most things, all you retain is a vague impression at best. A hint of warn?ing, sometimes. I think if we go to him now, something very bad will happen. Maybe one of us will die, maybe both in spite of whetMin said.” That she said Min’s name without fumbling was a mea?sure of her concern. She did not know Min very well, and usually named her formally, as Min Farshaw. “Perhaps he will die. Perhaps something else. I do not know for sure - maybe we will all survive, and we will sit around a fire with him roastingpecara when we find him - but the glimmer of a warning is there in my head.”
Elayne opened her mouth angrily. Then she closed it again, anger draining away like water down a hole, and her shoulders slumped. Perhaps Aviendha’s glimmer was true and perhaps not, but the fact was that her arguments had been good from the start. A great risk taken in ignorance, and taking it might bring disaster. The beacon had grown brighter still. And he was there, right where the beacon was. The bond did not tell her so, not at this dis?tance, but she knew. And she knew she had to leave him to take care of himself while she took care of Andor.
“I don’t have anything to teach you about being a Wise One, Aviendha,” she said quietly. “You are already much wiser than I. Not to mention braver and more coolheaded. We return to Caemlyn.”
Aviendha colored faintly under the praise - she could be very sensitive, at times - but she wasted no time in opening the gate?way, a rotating view of a stableyard in the Royal Palace that widened into a hole in the air and let snow from the meadow fall onto the clean-swept paving stones as near three hundred miles away as made no difference. The sense of Birgitte, somewhere in the palace, sprang alive in Elayne’s head. Birgitte had a headache and a sour stomach, not unusual occurrences of late, but they suited Elayne’s mood all too well.
Imust leave him to take care of himself,she thought as she rode through. Light, how often had she thought that? No matter.Randwas the love of her heart and the joy of her life, but Andor was her duty.
CHAPTER 11
Talk of Debts
The gateway was positioned so that Elayne seemed to be riding out of a hole in the wall against the street, into a square marked out for safety by sand-filled wine barrels standing on the paving stones. Oddly, she could not feel a single woman channeling anywhere in the palace, though it housed more than a hundred and fifty with the ability. Some would be stationed on the city’s outer walls, of course, too far for her to sense anything short of a linked circle, and a few would be out of the city alto?gether, yet someone in the palace was almost always usingsaidar, whether to try forcing one of the captivesul’dam to admit that she really could see weaves of the One Power or simply to smooth the wrinkles from a shawl without heating an iron. Not this morning, though. Windfinder arrogance often matched the worst shown by any Aes Sedai, yet even that must be quashed by what they sensed. Elayne thought that if she climbed to a high window, she must be able to see the weaves of that great beacon, hundreds of leagues dis?tant as they were. She felt like an ant that had just become aware of mountains, an ant comparing the Spine of the World to the hills it had always held in awe. Yes, even the Windfinders must be walk?ing small in the face of that.
On the eastern side of the palace and fronted on north and south by two-story-high stables of pure white stone, the Queen’s Stableyard traditionally was given over to the Queen’s personal horses and carriages, and she had hesitated over using it before the Lion Throne was acknowledged hers. The steps that led to the throne were as delicate as any court dance, and if the dance some?times came to resemble a tavern brawl, you still had to make your steps with grace and precision in order to gain your goal. Claiming the perquisites before being confirmed had cost some women their chance to rule. In the end, she had decided it was not a transgres?sion that would make her seem over-proud. Besides, the Queen’s Stableyard was relatively small and had no other use. There were fewer people to keep away from an opening gateway here. In fact, when she entered it, the stone-paved yard was empty apart from a single red-coated groom standing in one of the arched stable door?ways, but he turned to give a shout inside, and dozens more came spilling out as she guided Fireheart clear of the marked-off square. After all, she might have returned with an entourage of powerful lords and ladies, or perhaps they just hoped she had.
Caseille brought the Guardswomen through the gateway, and ordered most to dismount and see to their animals. She and half a dozen more remained in their saddles, keeping watch over the heads of the people afoot. Even here, she would not leave Elayne unguarded. Particularly here, where she faced more danger than in any manor she had visited. The Matherin men milled about, getting in the way of grooms and Guards while gaping at the white stone balconies and colonnades that overlooked the yard and the spires and golden domes visible beyond. The cold seemed less here than in the mountains - refusing to let it touch her, as far as she could at present, did not make her totally unaware - but men and women and horses all still breathed faint plumes of mist. The odor of horse dung seemed strong, too, after the clean air of the mountains. A hot bath in front of a roaring fire would be welcome. Afterward, she would have to plunge back into the business of securing the throne, but right now a long soak would be just the thing.
A pair of grooms ran to Fireheart. One took his bridle with a hurried curtsy for Elayne, more concerned with seeing that the tall gelding made no bother while Elayne dismounted than with mak?ing courtesies herself, and another who made his bow and remained bent with his hands making a stirrup for Elayne. Neither gave more than a glance at the view of a snow-covered mountain meadow where they would normally see a stone wall. The stable-workers were accustomed to gateways by now. She had heard that they garnered drinks in the taverns by boasting of how often they saw the Power used and the things they supposedly had seen done with it. Elayne could imagine what those tales sounded like by the time they reached Arymilla. She rather enjoyed the thought of Arymilla chewing her fingernails.
As she set foot on the paving stones, a cluster of Guardswomen appeared around her, in crimson hats with white plumes lying flat on the broad brims, and lace-edged crimson sashes, embroidered with the White Lion, that slanted across their bright breastplates. Not until then did Caseille take the remainder of Elayne’s escort to the stable. Their replacements were just as wary, eyes watching every direction, hands hovering near their sword hilts, except for Deni, a wide, placid-faced woman who carried a long brass-studded cudgel. They were only nine in number -Only nine, Elayne thought bitterly.I need onlynine bodyguards in theRoyalPalaceitself!- yet every one who carried a sword was expert. Women who followed the “trade of the sword,” as Caseille called it, had to be good, or else sooner or later they were cut down by some fellow whose only advantage was strength enough to batter her down. Deni possessed no facility with a sword at all, but the few men who had tested her cudgel regretted doing so. Despite her bulk, Deni was very quick, and she had no concept of fighting fair, or of
