The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) 75

“You are only flesh!”

“My clothes?”

“Remember your toh, Rand al'Thor. If I can remember ji'e'toh, so can you.” That seemed a strange thing to say; the sun would rise at midnight before she forgot the smallest scrap of ji'e'toh.

“If you keep on like this,” he said with a smile, “I will begin thinking you care for me.”

He meant it for a jest — there were only two ways to deal with her, joke or simply override her; arguing was fatal — and a mild one considering they had spent a night in each other's arms, but her eyes went wide in outrage, and she jerked at the ivory bracelet as if to pull it off and throw it at him. “The Car'a'carn is so far above other men that he does not need clothes,” she spat. “If he wishes to go, let him go in his skin! Must I bring Sorilea and Bair? Or perhaps Enaila, and Somara, and Lamelle?”

He stiffened. Of all the Maidens who treated him as a longlost son of ten, she had chosen the three worst. Lamelle even brought him soup — the woman could not cook a lick, but she insisted on making him soup! “You bring whoever you wish,” he told her in a tight, flat voice, “but I am the Car'a'carn, and I am going into the city.” With luck, he could find his clothes before she returned. Somara was nearly as tall as he, and, at the moment, probably stronger. The One Power certainly would do him no good; he could not have embraced saidin if Sammael appeared in front of him, much less held onto it.

For a long moment she met his stare, then abruptly picked up the leopardworked cup and refilled it from a hammeredsilver pitcher. “If you can find your clothes and dress yourself without falling down,” she said calmly, “you may go. But I will accompany you, and if I think you are too weak to continue, you will return here if Somara must carry you in her arms.”

He stared as she stretched out on one elbow, carefully arranged her skirts, and began sipping at her wine. If he mentioned marriage again, no doubt she would snap his head off again, but in some ways she behaved as if they were married. The worst parts of it, at least. The parts that did not seem a pennyworth different from Enaila or Lamelle at their worst.

Muttering to himself, he gathered the blanket around him and shuffled past her and the firepit to his boots. Clean woolen stockings were folded up inside, but nothing else. He could summon gai'shain. And have the entire matter spread through the camp. Not to mention the possibility that the Maidens would get into it after all; then the question would be whether he was the Car'a'carn, who must be obeyed, or just Rand al'Thor, another man entirely in their eyes. A rolled rug at the back of the tent caught his eye; rugs were always spread out. His sword was inside, the belt with the Dragon buckle wrapped around the scabbard.

Humming to herself, eyes lidded, Aviendha looked half asleep as she watched him search. “You no longer need... that.” She invested the word with so much disgust that no one would have believed she had given him the sword.

“What do you mean?” There were only a few small chests in the tent, inlaid with motherofpearl or worked in brass, or in one case, gold leaf. The Aiel preferred putting things in bundles. None held his clothes. The goldcovered chest, all unfamiliar birds and animals, held tightly tied leather sacks and gave off a smell of spices when he raised the lid.

“Couladin is dead, Rand al'Thor.”

Startled, he stopped and stared at her. “What are you talking about?” Would Lan have told her? No one else knew. But why?

“No one told me, if that is what you are thinking. I know you now, Rand al'Thor. I learn you more every day.”

“I wasn't thinking any such thing,” he growled. “There isn't anything anybody could tell.” Irritably, he snatched up the scabbarded sword and carried it awkwardly under his arm as he went on searching. Aviendha continued sipping wine; he thought she might be hiding a smile.

A fine thing. The High Lords of Tear sweated when Rand al'Thor looked at them, and the Cairhienin might offer him their throne. The greatest Aiel army the world had ever seen had crossed the Dragonwall on the orders of the Car'a'carn, the chief of chiefs. Nations trembled at mention of the Dragon Reborn. Nations! And if he did not find his clothes, he would sit waiting on permission to go outside from a lot of women who thought they knew better about everything than he did.

He finally found them when he noticed the goldembroidered cuff of a red coatsleeve sticking out from under Aviendha. She had been sitting on them all along. She grunted sourly when he asked her to move, but she did it. Finally.

As usual, she watched him shave and dress, channeling the water hot for him without comment — and without being asked — after the third time he nicked himself and muttered about cold water. In truth, this time he was bothered as much because she might see his unsteadiness as for any other cause. You can become used to anything if it goes on long enough, he thought wryly.

She misunderstood his head shaking. “Elayne will not mind if I look, Rand al'Thor.”

Pausing with the laces of his shirt half done, he stared at her. “Do you really believe that?”

“Of course. You belong to her, but she cannot own the sight of you.”

Laughing silently, he went back to the laces. It was good to be reminded that her newfound mystery hid ignorance, aside from anything else. He could not help smiling smugly as he finished dressing, buckled on his sword and took up the tasseled Seanchan spearhead. That last turned the smile a touch toward grimness. He had meant it as a reminder that the Seanchan were still in the world, but it served to recall all the things that he must juggle. Cairhienin and Tairens, Sammael and the other Forsaken, the Shaido and nations that did not know him yet, nations that would have to before Tarmon Gai'don. Dealing with Aviendha was really quite simple compared with that.

Maidens leaped to their feet when he ducked out of the tent quickly to hide the unsteadiness of his legs. He was not sure how far he succeeded. Aviendha kept to his side as though she not only intended to catch him if he fell over but fully expected him to. It did nothing for his mood when Sulin, in her cap of bandages, looked questioningly at her — not him; her! — and waited for her nod before ordering the Maidens to be ready to move.

Asmodean came riding his mule up the hill, leading Jeade'en by the reins. Somehow he had found time to don fresh clothes, all dark green silk. With spills of white lace, of course. The gilded harp hung on his back, but he had given up wearing the gleeman's cloak, and he no longer carried the crimson banner with its ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai. That office fell to a Cairhienin refugee named Pevin, an expressionless fellow in a patched farmer's coat of rough dark gray wool, on a brown mule that should have been put out to grass from pulling a cart some years back. A long scar, still red, ran up the side of his narrow face