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

The city beyond the gates stilled his laughter.

Here the streets were paved, some broad enough for a dozen or more large wagons abreast, all straight as knife cuts and crossing at right angles. The hills that rolled outside the walls were here carved and terraced, faced with stone; they looked as much made by men as the stone buildings with their severe straight lines and sharp angles, or the great towers with their unfinished tops surrounded by scaffolding. People crowded the streets and the alleys, dulleyed and hollowcheeked, huddling beneath makeshift leantos or ragged blankets rigged as tents, or simply jammed together in the open, in the dark clothes favored by Cairhienin city dwellers and the bright colors of Foregaters and the rough garb of farmers and villagers. Even the scaffolds were filled, on every level to the very top, where folk looked tiny for the height. Only the middle of the streets remained clear as Rand and the Maidens made their way along, and that only for as long as it took the people to surge out around them.

It was the people who stilled his mirth. Worn and ragged as they were, jammed together like sheep in a toosmall pen, they cheered. He had no idea how they knew who he was, unless perhaps the officer's shouts at the gates had been heard, but a roar sprang ahead of him as he circled through the streets, the Maidens forcing a way through the throng. The thunder of it overwhelmed any words except for the occasional “Lord Dragon” when enough shouted it together, but the meaning was clear in men and women holding up children to see him pass, in scarves and scraps of cloth waved from every window, in people who tried to push past the Maidens with outstretched hands.

They certainly seemed to have no fear of Aiel, not at the chance to lay a finger on Rand's boots, and their numbers were such, the pressure of hundreds shoving them forward, that some managed to wriggle through. Actually, a good many touched Asmodean's instead — he certainly looked a lord; in all his dripping lace, and perhaps they thought the Lord Dragon must be an older man than the youth in a red coat — but it made no difference. Whoever managed to put hand to anyone's boot or stirrup, even Pevin's, wore joy on their faces and mouthed “Lord Dragon” into the din even as Maidens forced them back with their bucklers.

Between the clamor of acclaim and the riders sent by the officer at the gate it was no surprise when Meilan appeared, a dozen lesser Tairen lords for retinue and fifty Defenders of the Stone to clear his way, laying about them with the butts of their lances. Grayhaired, hard and lean in his fine silk coat with stripes and cuffs of green satin, the High Lord sat his saddle with the stiffbacked ease of one who had been put on a horse and taught to command it almost as soon as he could walk. He ignored the sweat on his face, and equally the possibility that his escort might trample someone. Both were minor annoyances and the sweat likely the greater. Edorion, the pinkcheeked lordling who had come to Eianrod, was among the others, not quite so plump as he had been, so his redstriped coat hung on him. The only other Rand recognized was a broadshouldered fellow in shades of green; Reimon had liked to play at cards with Mat back in the Stone, as he recalled. The others were older men for the most part. None displayed any more consideration of the crowd they plowed through than Meilan. There was not one Cairhienin in the lot.

The Maidens let Meilan ride through when Rand nodded, but closed behind him to exclude the rest, a fact the High Lord did not notice at first. When he did, his dark eyes smoldered angrily. He was often angry, Meilan was, since Rand had first come to the Stone of Tear.

The noise began to abate with the Tairen arrival, fading to a dull murmur by the time Meilan made a rigid bow to Rand from his saddle. His gaze flickered to Aviendha before he decided to ignore her, just as he was trying to ignore the Maidens. “The Light illumine you, my Lord Dragon. Be you well come to Cairhien. I must apologize for the peasants, but I was unaware you meant to enter the city now. Had I known, they would have been cleared. I meant to give you a grand entry, befitting the Dragon Reborn.”

“I have had one,” Rand said, and the other man blinked.

“As you say, my Lord Dragon.” He went on after a moment, his tone making it clear that he did not understand. “If you will accompany me to the Royal Palace, I have arranged a small greeting. Small indeed, I fear, since I had no warning of you, yet by this even I will make sure —”

“Whatever you have arranged now will do,” Rand cut in, and received another bow and a thin, oily smile for reply. The fellow was all subservience now, and in an hour he would be talking as to someone too feeblewitted to understand facts held under his nose, but beneath it all lay a contempt and hatred that he believed Rand did not see although they shone in his eyes. Contempt because Rand was not a lord — not truly, as Meilan saw it, by birth — and hatred because Meilan had had the power of life and death before Rand came, with few his equal and none his superior. To believe that the Prophecies of the Dragon would be fulfilled someday was one thing; to have them fulfilled, and his own power diminished by them, was quite another.

There was a moment of confusion before Rand made Sulin allow the other Tairen lords to bring their horses in behind Asmodean and Pevin's banner. Meilan would have had the Defenders clear the way again, but Rand curtly ordered that they follow behind the Maidens. The soldiers obeyed, faces unchanging beneath the rims of their helmets, though their whiteplumed officer shook his head, and the High Lord put on a condescending smile. That smile faded when it became clear that the crowds opened up easily ahead of the Maidens. That they did not have to club a path through, he attributed to the Aiel reputation for savagery, and frowned when Rand made no reply. One thing Rand made note of: Now that he had Tairens with him, the cheers did not rise again.

The Royal Palace of Cairhien occupied the highest hill of the city, exactly in the center, square and dark and massive. In fact, between the palace in all its levels and the stonefaced terracing, it was hard to say there was a hill there at all. Lofty colonnaded walks and tall narrow windows, high above the ground, did no more to relieve the rigidity than did gray, stepped towers precisely placed in concentric squares of increasing height. The street became a long, broad ramp leading up to tall bronze gates, and a huge square courtyard beyond lined with Tairen soldiers standing like statues, spears slanted. More stood on the overlooking stone balconies.

A ripple of murmurs ran through the ranks at the appearance of the Maidens, but it was quickly stilled in chanted shouts of “All glory to the Dragon Reborn! All glory to the Lord Dragon and Tear! All glory to the Lord Dragon and the High Lord Meilan!” From Meilan's expression, you would have t