Crossroads of Twilight (61 page)

“Closer than the day I arrived in the palace,” he growled, glowering at her back. He tried never to offend those the Chosen had set above him, but the chit was trying him. He could snap that slender neck like a twig! To keep his hands from her throat, he filled one of the cups and held it with no intention of drinking. In his left hand, of course. Just because there was one dead man in the room already did not mean she had no plans to make
it two corpses. “But I have to go slow. It isn’t as if I can back her into a corner and tickle her out of her shift.”

“I suppose not,” Shiaine said in a muffled voice. “She is hardly the sort of woman you are used to.” Was she
laughing
? Was she
amused
at him? It was all he could do not to throw down the winecup and strangle the fox-faced bint.

Suddenly she turned around, and he blinked as she casually slipped her dagger back into its sheath. He had never seen her draw the bloody thing! He took a swallow of wine without thinking, and almost choked when he realized what he had done.

“How would you like to see Caemlyn looted?” she asked.

“Well enough, if I have a good company at my back and a clear path to the gates.” The wine had to be safe. Two cups meant she had drunk, too, and if he had picked up the dead man’s, there could not be enough poison left in it to sicken a mouse. “Is that what you want? I follow orders as well as the next man.” He did when he seemed likely to survive them, or when they came from the Chosen. As well die for a fool as disobey the Chosen. “But sometimes it helps to know more than ‘go there and do that.’ If you told me what you’re after here in Caemlyn, I might be able to help you reach it faster.”

“Of course.” She smiled a toothy smile while her eyes stayed as flat as brown stones. “But first, tell me why there is fresh blood on your gauntlet?”

He smiled back. “A footpad who got unlucky, my Lady.” Maybe she had sent the man and maybe not, but he added her throat to the list of those he intended to slit. And he might as well add Marillin Gemalphin, too. After all, a lone survivor was the only one who could tell the tale of what had happened.

The Subject of Negotiations

The morning sun sat on the horizon, leaving the nearer side of Tar Valon still wrapped in shadows, but the snow that covered everything gleamed brightly. The city itself seemed to shine behind its long white walls, all bravely towered and bannered, yet to Egwene, sitting her roan gelding on the riverbank above the city, it seemed even farther away than it really was. The Erinin widened to more than two miles here, and the Alindrelle Erinin and Osendrelle Erinin, flowing to either side of the island, were almost half that, so that Tar Valon appeared to sit in the middle of a great lake, unreachable despite the massive bridges that stood high above the waters so that ships could sail beneath them easily. The White Tower itself, a thick bone-white shaft rising to an impossible height from the city’s heart, filled her own heart with a yearning for home. Not for the Two Rivers, but for the Tower. That was her home, now. A plume of smoke caught her eye, a faint black line rising from the far bank beyond the city, and she grimaced. Daishar stamped a hoof in the snow, but a pat on the neck sufficed to soothe the roan. It would take more to soothe his rider. Homesickness was the smallest part of it. Minuscule, compared to the rest.

With a sigh, she rested her reins on the high pommel of her saddle and raised the long brass-bound looking glass. Her cloak fell back, slipping off one shoulder, but she ignored the cold that misted her breath and placed a gloved hand to shield the front lens against the sun’s glare. The city walls
leaped closer in her sight. She focused on the tall curving arms of Northharbor that pushed out into the upstream currents. People moved purposefully atop the battlements that enfolded the harbor, but she could barely discern men from women at that distance. Still, she was glad that she was not wearing her seven-striped stole, and that her face was deep within her cowl, just in case someone there had a stronger glass than she. The wide mouth of the man-made harbor was blocked by a massive iron chain drawn taut a few feet above the water. Tiny dots on the water, diving birds fishing in front of the harbor, gave the chain scale. One single pace-long link would have required two men to lift it. A rowboat might slip under that barrier, but no vessel of any size would enter unless the White Tower allowed. Of course, the chain was only intended to keep out enemies.

“There they are, Mother,” Lord Gareth murmured, and she lowered the glass. Her general was a stocky man in a plain breastplate worn over a plain brown coat, without any touch of gilt or embroidery anywhere. His face was bluff and weathered behind the bars of his helmet, and the years had given him a strange sort of comforting calmness. All you need do was look at Gareth Bryne to know that if the Pit of Doom opened in front of him, he would smother his fear and go about doing what needed doing. And other men would follow him. He had proved on battlefield after battlefield that following him was the path to victory. A good man to have following her. Her eyes followed his gauntleted hand, pointing upriver.

Just coming in sight around a point of land, five, six—no, seven—riverships were slicing furrows down the Erinin. Large vessels as such things were seen on the river, one with three masts, their triangular sails stood out tight, and their long sweeps cut hard through the blue-green water to add a little more speed. Everything about the craft spoke of a burning desire for speed, a desire to reach Tar Valon
now!
The river was deep enough here that ships could run within shouting distance of the banks in places, but these sailed in almost single file as close to the middle of the Erinin as the steersmen could manage and hold the wind. Sailors clinging to the mastheads kept watch along the shoreline, and not for mudbanks.

In fact, they had nothing at all to fear so long as they kept out of bowshot. True, from where she sat her horse, she could have set fire to every one of those ships, or simply cut holes through their hulls and let them sink. The work of moments. Yet doing so surely meant some of those aboard would drown. The currents were strong, the water like ice, and the swim to shore long, for those who actually could swim. Even one death would make what she did using the Power as a weapon. She was trying to live as though
already bound by the Three Oaths, and the Oaths protected those vessels from her or any other sister. A sister who had sworn on the Oath Rod would not be able to
make
herself set those weaves, perhaps not even to form them, unless she could convince herself she was in immediate danger from the ships. But neither captains nor crews believed that, apparently.

As the riverships came closer, shouts thinned to threadbare by distance drifted across the water. The lookouts up on the masts pointed to her and Gareth, and it quickly became apparent they took her for an Aes Sedai with her Warder. Or at least, the captains were unwilling to take the chance she was not. After a moment, the beat of the sweeps increased. Only by a fraction, but the oarsmen labored to find that fraction. A woman on the quarterdeck of the lead vessel, likely the captain, waved her arms as if demanding still more effort, and a handful of men began running up and down the deck, tightening this line or loosening that to change the angle of the sails, though Egwene could not see that they achieved anything. There were men on those decks other than sailors, and most of those crowded to the railings, a handful raising looking glasses of their own. Some seemed to be measuring the distance left to cover before they reached the safety of the harbor.

She thought about weaving a flare, a starburst of light, perhaps with a loud bang, just above each of the vessels. That would certainly let anyone aboard with brains realize that neither speed nor distance kept them safe here, only a forbearance born of the Three Oaths. They
should
know that they were safe
because
of Aes Sedai. Exhaling heavily, she shook her head and mentally upbraided herself. That simple weave would also attract attention in the city, certainly more than the appearance of a single sister. Sisters often came to the riverbank to stare at Tar Valon and the Tower. Even if the only reaction to her flares was some sort of counterdisplay, once begun, that sort of contest could be very difficult to put a stop to. Once begun, matters might well escalate out of hand. There were too many opportunities for that, as it was, the more so these last five days.

“The harbormaster hasn’t let above eight or nine ships in at one time since we arrived,” Gareth said as the first vessel drew abreast of them, “but the captains seemed to have worked out the timing. Another clutch will appear soon, and reach the city about the time the Tower Guards are sure these fellows actually came to enlist. Jimar Chubain knows enough to guard against me sneaking men in aboard ships. He has more of the Guards crowded into the harbors than anywhere except at the bridge towers, and not many anywhere else, so far as I can learn. That will change, though.
The flow of ships starts at first light and keeps up till near nightfall, here and at Southharbor too. This lot doesn’t seem to be carrying as many soldiers as most do. Every plan is brilliant until the day comes, Mother, but then you must adapt to circumstances or be ridden down.”

Egwene made a vexed sound. There must be two hundred or more passengers altogether on those seven ships. A few might be merchants or traders or some other sort of innocent traveler, but the low sun glittered off helmets and breastplates and steel discs sewn to leather jerkins. How many shiploads arrived each day? Whatever the number, a steady flow was pouring into the city to enlist under High Captain Chubain. “Why do men always rush so hard to kill or be killed?” she muttered irritably.

Lord Gareth looked at her calmly. He sat his horse, a big bay gelding with a white stripe down his nose, like a statue. Sometimes, she thought she knew one small part of how Siuan felt about the man. Sometimes she thought it would be worth whatever effort was needed to startle him, just to see him startled.

Unfortunately, she knew the answer to her own question as well as he did. At least as it applied to men going soldiering. Oh, there were men enough who rushed to support a cause or defend what they thought what was right, and some who sought adventure, whatever they believed that was, yet the simple fact was that for carrying a pike or spear, a man could earn twice each day what he would get for walking behind another man’s plow, and half again as much if he could ride well enough to join the cavalry. Crossbowmen and archers fell in between. The man who worked for another could dream of having his own farm or shop one day, or a beginning toward one that his sons could build on, but he surely had heard a thousand tales of men soldiering for five years or ten and coming home with enough gold to set themselves up in comfort, tales of ordinary men who rose to become generals, or lords. For a poor man, Gareth had said bluntly, staring down the point of a pike could be a better view than the hind end of somebody else’s plow horse. Even if he was far more likely to die from the pike than earn fame or fortune. A bitter way to look at it, yet she imagined that was how most of those men on the ships saw matters, too. But then, that was how she had gotten her own army. For every man who wanted to see the usurper pulled from the Amyrlin Seat, for every man who even knew for certain who Elaida was, ten if not a hundred had joined for the pay. Some of the men on the ship were raising their hands, to show the guards on the harbor walls they were not holding weapons.