Lord of Chaos (15 page)

“Could I trust any Aes Sedai?” Rand asked. “It was just a headache. My head isn’t hard enough not to ache a little when it’s hit.”

Bashere snorted hard enough to stir his thick mustaches. “However hard your head is, sooner or later you’ll have to trust Aes Sedai. Without
them, you’ll never bring all the nations behind you short of conquest. People look for such things. However many of the Prophecies they hear you’ve fulfilled, many will wait for the Aes Sedai to put their stamp on you.”

“I won’t avoid fighting anyway, and you know it,” Rand said. “The Whitecloaks aren’t likely to welcome me into Amadicia even if Ailron agrees, and Sammael certainly won’t give up Illian without a fight.”
Sammael and Rahvin and Moghedien and
. . . . Harshly he forced the thought from his consciousness. It was not easy. They came without warning, and it was never easy.

A thump made him look over his shoulder. Arymilla lay in a heap on the paving stones. Karind was kneeling to pull her skirts down over her ankles and chafe her wrists. Elegar swayed as though he might join Arymilla in a moment, and neither Nasin nor Elenia appeared in much better state. Most of the rest looked ready to sick up. Mention of the Forsaken could do that, especially since Rand had told them that Lord Gaebril really had been Rahvin. He was not sure how much they believed, but just considering the possibility was enough to unhinge the knees of most. Their shock was why they were still alive. Had he believed they had served knowingly. . . .
No
, he thought.
If they’d known, if they were all Darkfriends, you’d still use them
. Sometimes he was so sick of himself that he really was ready to die.

At least he was telling the truth. The Aes Sedai were all dying to keep it secret, the Forsaken being free; they feared that knowing would just bring more chaos and panic. Rand was trying to spread the truth. People might panic, but they would have time to recover. The Aes Sedai way, knowledge and panic might come too late for recovery. Besides, people had a right to know what they faced.

“Illian won’t hold out long,” Bashere said. Rand’s head whipped back around, but Bashere was too old a campaigner to speak of what he should not where others could hear. He was just taking the talk away from the Forsaken. Though if the Forsaken, or anything else, made Davram Bashere nervous, Rand had not seen it yet. “Illian will crack like a nut hit by a hammer.”

“You and Mat worked out a good plan.” The basic idea had been Rand’s, but Mat and Bashere had provided the thousand details that would make it work. Mat more than Bashere.

“An interesting young fellow, Mat Cauthon,” Bashere mused. “I look forward to speaking with him again. He never would say who he studied under. Agelmar Jagad? I hear you’ve both been to Shienar.” Rand said
nothing. Mat’s secrets were his own; Rand was not really sure what they were himself. Bashere tilted his head, scratched at a mustache with one finger. “He’s young to have studied under anyone. No older than you. Did he find a library somewhere? I would like to see the books he’s read.”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Rand said. “I don’t know.” He supposed Mat had to have read a book sometime, somewhere, but Mat did not have much interest in books.

Bashere only nodded. When Rand did not want to talk about something, Bashere usually let it alone. Usually. “The next time you jaunt off to Cairhien, why don’t you bring back the Green sister who’s there? Egwene Sedai? I’ve heard the Aiel speak of her; they say she’s from your home village, too. You could trust her, couldn’t you?”

“Egwene has other duties,” Rand laughed. A Green sister. If Bashere only knew.

Somara appeared at Rand’s side with his linen shirt and his coat, a fine red wool cut in the Andoran style, with dragons on the long collar and laurel leaves thick on the lapels and climbing the sleeves. She was tall even for an Aiel woman, maybe not quite a hand shorter than he. Like the other Maidens, she had lowered her veil, but the gray-brown
shoufa
still hid all but her face. “The
Car’a’carn
will catch a chill,” she murmured.

He doubted it. The Aiel might find this heat nothing out of the ordinary, but already sweat streamed down him nearly as hard as while working the sword. Still, he pulled the shirt over his head and tucked it in, though leaving the laces undone, then shrugged into the coat. He did not think Somara would actually try to put the clothes on him, not in front of others, but this way he would avoid lectures from her and Enaila, and very likely some of the others, along with the herb tea.

To most Aiel he was the
Car’a’carn
, and so it was with the Maidens. In public. Alone with these women who had chosen to reject marriage and the hearth in favor of the spear, matters became more complicated. He supposed he could stop it—maybe—but he owed it to them not to. Some had already died for him, and more would—he had promised, the Light burn him for it!—and if he could let them do that, he could let them do the rest. Sweat soaked through the shirt immediately and began making dark patches on the coat.

“You need the Aes Sedai, al’Thor.” Rand hoped Bashere was half this dogged when it came to fighting; that was the man’s reputation, but he had only reputation and a few weeks to go by. “You can’t afford to have them against you, and if they don’t at least think they have a few strings
tied to you, they might go that way. Aes Sedai are tricksome; no man can know what they’ll do or why.”

“What if I tell you there are hundreds of Aes Sedai ready to support me?” Rand was aware of the Andorans listening; he had to be careful not to say too much. Not that he knew much. What he did know was probably exaggeration and hope. He certainly doubted the “hundreds,” whatever Egwene hinted.

Bashere’s eyes narrowed. “If there’s been an embassy from the Tower, I would know, so. . . .” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “The split? The Tower has really
split
?” He sounded as if he could not believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Everyone knew Siuan Sanche had been deposed from the Amyrlin Seat and stilled—and executed, so rumor ran—yet to most people a division in the Tower was only conjecture, and few truly believed. The White Tower had remained whole, a monolith towering over thrones, for three thousand years. But the Saldaean was a man who considered all possibilities. He went on in a true whisper, stepping close so the Andorans could not overhear. “It must be the rebels ready to support you. You could strike a better deal with them—they’ll need you as much as you need them, maybe more—but rebels, even Aes Sedai rebels, won’t carry nearly the weight of the White Tower, certainly not with any crown. Commoners might not know the difference, but kings and queens will.”

“They’re still Aes Sedai,” Rand said just as quietly, “whoever they are.”
And wherever they are
, he thought dryly.
Aes Sedai . . . Servants of All . . . the Hall of the Servants is broken . . . broken forever . . . broken . . . Ilyena, my love
. . . . Ruthlessly he quashed Lews Therin’s thoughts. Sometimes they had actually been a help, giving him information he needed, but they were growing too strong. If he did have an Aes Sedai there—a Yellow; they knew the most of Healing—perhaps she. . . . There had been one Aes Sedai he trusted, though not until shortly before her death, and Moiraine had left him a piece of advice about Aes Sedai, about every other woman who wore the shawl and the ring. “I’ll never trust any Aes Sedai,” he rasped softly. “I will use them, because I do need them, but Tower or rebel, I know they’ll try to use me, because that is what Aes Sedai do. I’ll never trust them, Bashere.”

The Saldaean nodded slowly. “Then use them, if you can. But remember this. No one resists for long going the way the Aes Sedai want.” Abruptly he barked a short laugh. “Artur Hawkwing was the last, so far as I know. The Light burn my eyes, maybe you’ll be the second.”

The scrape of boots announced an arrival in the courtyard, one of
Bashere’s men, a heavy-shouldered, hatchet-nosed young fellow a head taller than his general, with a luxuriant black beard as well as thick mustaches. He walked like a man more used to a saddle under him than his own feet, but he handled the sword at his hip smoothly as he bowed. To Bashere, more than to Rand. Bashere might follow the Dragon Reborn, but Tumad—Rand thought that was his name; Tumad Ahzkan—followed Bashere. Enaila and three other Maidens fastened their eyes on the new Saldaean; they did not really trust any wetlander around the
Car’a’carn
.

“There is a man has presented himself at the gates,” Tumad said uneasily. “He says. . . . It is Mazrim Taim, my Lord Bashere.”

Mazrim Taim. Before Rand, other men through the centuries had claimed to be the Dragon Reborn. The last few years before Rand had seen a plague of false Dragons, some of whom could actually channel. Mazrim Taim was one of those, raising an army and ravaging Saldaea before he was taken. Bashere’s face did not change, but he gripped his sword hilt white-knuckle hard, and Tumad was looking at him for orders. Taim’s escape, on the way to Tar Valon to be gentled, was the reason Bashere had come to Andor in the first place. That was how much Saldaea feared and hated Mazrim Taim; Queen Tenobia had sent Bashere with an army to pursue the man wherever he went, however long it took, to make sure Taim never troubled Saldaea again.

The Maidens merely stood calmly, but that name burst among the Andorans like a torch tossed in dry grass. Arymilla was just being helped to her feet, yet her eyes rolled up in her head again; she would have gone down in a heap once more if Karind had not eased her to the paving stones. Elegar staggered back among the columns and bent over, retching loudly. The rest were all gasps and panic, pressing handkerchiefs to mouths and clutching at sword hilts. Even stolid Karind licked her lips nervously.

Rand took his hand away from his coat pocket. “The amnesty,” he said, and both Saldaeans gave him a long flat look.

“What if he has not come for your amnesty?” Bashere said after a
moment. “What if he still claims to be the Dragon Reborn?” Feet shuffled among the Andorans; no one wanted to be within miles of where the One Power might be used in a duel.

“If he thinks that,” Rand said firmly, “I will disabuse him.” He had the rarest sort of
angreal
in his pocket, one made for men, a carving of a fat little man with a sword. However strong Taim might be, he could not stand up to that. “But if he has come for the amnesty, it is his, the same as any other.” Whatever Taim had done in Saldaea, he could not afford to turn away a man who could channel, a man who would not have to be taught from the first steps. He needed such a man. He would turn away no one except one of the Forsaken, not unless he was forced to.
Demandred and Sammael, Semirhage and Mesaana, Asmodean and
. . . . Rand forced Lews Therin down; he could not afford distractions now.

Again Bashere paused before speaking, but finally he nodded and let go of his sword. “Your amnesty holds, of course. But mark me, al’Thor. If Taim ever sets foot in Saldaea again, he will not live to leave. There are too many memories. No command I give—nor Tenobia herself—will stop it.”

“I will keep him out of Saldaea.” Either Taim had come here to submit to him, or else it was going to be necessary to kill him. Unconsciously Rand touched his pocket, pressing the fat little man through the wool. “Let’s have him in here.”

Tumad eyed Bashere, but Bashere’s short nod came so quickly that it seemed Tumad bowed in response to the spoken command. Irritation flashed in Rand, but he said nothing, and Tumad hurried away in that slightly rolling walk. Bashere folded his arms across his chest and stood with one knee bent, a portrait of a man at his ease. Those dark tilted eyes, fixed on the way Tumad had gone, made it a portrait of a man waiting to kill something.

The scuffling of feet started again among the Andorans, hesitant half-steps away then pulling back. Their breathing sounded as though they had run miles.

“You may leave,” Rand told them.

“I for one will stand at your shoulder,” Lir began just as Naean said sharply, “I will not run before—”