Rasoria, the stocky under-lieutenant in charge, seemed relieved when the grooms led Fireheart off. If Elayne’s bodyguard had their way, no one except themselves would have been allowed within arm’s reach. Well, maybe they were not quitethat bad, but they looked with suspicion at almost everyone except Birgitte and Aviendha. Rasoria, a Tairen despite her blue eyes and the yellow hair she wore cut short, was among the worst in that regard, even insisting on watching the cooks make Elayne’s meals and havingeverything tasted before it was brought up. Elayne had not protested, however over-zealous they might be. One experience of drugged wine was more than enough, even when she knew she would live at least long enough to bear her child. But it was nei?ther the Guardswomen’s mistrust nor the need for it that tightened her mouth. It was Birgitte, weaving her way through the crowded stableyard, but not toward her.
Aviendha was last to appear out of the gateway, of course, after she was sure that everyone was through, and before she let the gateway wink out of existence, Elayne started in her direction, striding off so suddenly that her escort had to leap to maintain their guarding ring around her. As quickly as she moved, though, Birgitte, with her thick golden braid hanging to her waist, was there first, helping Aviendha down and handing the gray mare over to a long-faced groom who seemed almost as leggy as Siswai. Aviendha always had more difficulty getting off a horse than get?ting on, but Birgitte had more than assistance in mind. Elayne and her escort arrived just in time to hear the woman say to Aviendha in a low, hurried voice, “Did she drink her goat’s milk? Did she get enough sleep? She feels. . . .” Her voice trailed off at the end, and she drew a deep breath before turning to face Elayne, outwardly calm, and unsurprised to find her right there. The bond did work both ways.
Birgitte was not a big woman, though she stood taller than Elayne in her heeled boots, as tall as Aviendha, but she usually had a presence that was only heightened by the uniform of the Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards, a short red coat with a high white collar worn over baggy blue trousers tucked into gleaming black boots, four golden knots on her left shoulder and four bands of gold on each white cuff. After all, she was Birgitte Silverbow, a hero out of legend. She remained wary of trying to live up to those legends; she claimed that the stories were grossly inflated where they were not complete fabrications. Yet she was still the same woman who had done every one of the things that formed the heart of those legends and more besides. Now, despite her apparent com?posure, unease tinged the concern for Elayne that flowed through the bond along with her headache and her sullen stomach. She knew very well that Elayne hated for them to check on her behindher back. That was not the whole reason for Elayne’s irritation, but the bond let Birgitte know just how upset she was.
Aviendha, calmly unwrapping her shawl from around her head and draping it over her shoulders, attempted the gaze of a woman who had done nothing wrong and certainly was not involved with anyone else who had done anything wrong. She might have man?aged it if she had not widened her eyes for an added touch of inno?cence. Birgitte was a bad influence on her in some ways.
“I drank the goat’s milk,” Elayne said in a level voice, all too conscious of the Guardswomen ringing the three of them. Facing outward, eyes scanning the yard and the balconies and the rooftops, nearly every one was certainly listening. “I got enough sleep. Is there anything else you want to askme?” Aviendha’s cheeks colored faintly.
“I think I have all the answers I need for the moment,” Birgitte replied without a hint of the blush Elayne had been hoping for. The womanknew she was tired,knew she had to be lying about the sleep.
The bond was decidedly inconvenient at times.She had drunk nothing but half a cup of extremely well watered wine last night, but she was beginning tohave Birgitte’s morning-after headand her sour stomach. None of the other Aes Sedai she had spoken to about the bond had mentioned anything of the kind, but she and Birgitte all too often mirrored one another, physically and emo?tionally. The last presented real problems when her moods were on a seesaw. Sometimes she managed to shrug it off, or fight it off, but today she knew she was going to have to suffer until Birgitte was Healed. She thought the mirroring must occur because they were both women. No one had heard of anyone bonding another woman before. Few had heard of it now, to tell the truth, and some of them seemed to believe it could not be true. A Warder was male as surely as a bull was male. Everyone knew that, and not many stopped to think that anything that “everyone knew” deserved close examination.
Being caught in a lie, when she was trying to follow Egwene’s dictate about living as if she had already taken the Three Oaths, made Elayne defensive, and that made her blunt. “Is Dyelin back?”
“No,” Birgitte said just as bluntly, and Elayne sighed. Dyelin had left the city days before Arymilla’s army appeared, taking Reanne Corly with her to make gateways and speed her travel, and a great deal depended on Dyelin’s return. On what news she brought back. On whether she brought anything besides news.
Choosing who would be Queen of Andor was quite simple, boiled down to essentials. There were over four hundred Houses in the realm, but only nineteen strong enough that others would fol?low where they led. Usually, all nineteen stood behind the Daughter-Heir, or most of them, unless she was plainly incompe?tent. House Mantear had lost the throne to Trakand when Mordrellen died only because Tigraine, the Daughter-Heir, had vanished and Mantear had begun running heavily to boy children. And because Morgase Trakand had gathered thirteen Houses in her support. Only ten of the nineteen were necessary to ascend the throne, by law and custom. Even claimants who still thought they should have the throne themselves usually fell in with the rest, or at least fell silent and gave up their pursuit, once another woman had ten Houses at her back.
Things had been bad enough when she had three declared rivals, but now Naean and Elenia were united behind Arymilla Marne, of all people, the least likely of the three to have succeeded, and that meant she had two Houses - two large enough to count; Matherin and those eighteen others she had visited were too small - her own Trakand and Dyelin’s Taravin, to face six. Oh, Dyelin insisted that Carand, Coelan and Renshar would come to Elayne, and Norwelyn and Pendar and Traemane besides, but the first three wanted Dyelin herself on the throne, and the last three seemed to have gone into hibernation. Dyelin was firm in her loy?alty, though, and tireless on Elayne’s behalf. She persisted in her belief that some of the Houses that were keeping silent could be convinced to support Elayne. Of course, Elayne could not approach them herself, but Dyelin could. And now the situation verged on desperate. Six Houses supporting Arymilla, and only a fool would think she had not sent feelers out toward the others. Or that some might listen just because she did have six already.
Despite the fact that Caseille and her Guards had vacated the courtyard, Elayne and the others had to thread their way across the paving stones though a crowd. The men from Matherin werefinally down off their horses, but they were still moiling about, dropping their halberds and picking them up only to drop them again, trying to unload their packhorse there in the stableyard. One of the boys was chasing a chicken that somehow had gotten loose and was scuttling between the horses’ legs, while one of the wrinkled old men shouted encouragement, though whether for the boy or the chicken was unclear. A leather-faced bannerman with the merest fringe of white hair remaining, in a faded red coat that strained across his belly, was trying to establish order with the help of an only slightly younger Guardsman, both of them likely returned from their pensions, as a good many had, but another of the boys seemed about to lead his shaggy horse into the palace itself, and Birgitte had to order him out of the way before Elayne could enter. The boy, a fuzz-cheeked lad who could not have been above fourteen, gaped at Birgitte as widely as he had at the palace. She was certainly more picturesque in her uniform than the Daughter-Heir in a riding dress, and he had already seen the Daughter-Heir. Rasoria gave him a shove back toward the old ban?nerman, shaking her head.
“I don’t naming know what I can do with them,” Birgitte grumbled as a maid liveried in red-and-white took Elayne’s cloak and gloves in the small entry hall. Small in terms of the Royal Palace. With gilded stand-lamps flickering between narrow, fluted white columns, it was half again the size of Matherin’s main entry hall, though the ceiling was not so high. Another maid with the White Lion on the left breast of her dress, a girl not that much older than the boy who had tried to bring his horse inside, offered a ropework silver tray with tall cups of steaming spiced wine before simultaneous frowns from Aviendha and Birgitte made her shy back. “The flaming boys fall asleep if they’re put on guard,” Bir?gitte went on, scowling at the retreating maid. “The old men stay awake, but half can’t remember what they’re flaming supposed to do if they see somebody trying to scale the bloody wall, and the other half together couldn’t fight off six shepherds with a dog.” Aviendha raised an eyebrow at Elayne and nodded.
“They aren’t here to fight,” Elayne reminded them as they started down a blue-tiled corridor lined with mirrored stand-lamps and inlaid chests, Birgitte and Aviendha on either side of her andthe Guardswomen spreading out a few paces ahead of them and behind.Light, she thought,Iwouldn’t have takenthe wine! Her head pounded in rhythm with Birgitte’s, and she touched her temple, wondering whether she should order her Warder to go
