Towers of Midnight (68 page)

Bed rest! For a queen! Well, in order to keep Melfane from hovering over her, she'd given an oath that she would stay off her feet. But she'd said nothing about staying in her bedroom.

Four Guardsmen carried the litter high on their shoulders. Elayne sat safely between armrests, wearing a crimson gown, hair carefully brushed, the Rose Crown of Andor atop her head.

The day was muggy, the weather turning warm, the sky nil dark with clouds. She spared a moment to feel guilty for making the poor men, in dress uniform, carry her through this early-summer heat. But these men would ride to battle in her name; they could stand a little warm weather. How often did Guardsmen get the honor of carrying their queen, anyway?

Birgitte strode alongside the bed, and the bond indicated that she was amused. Elayne had feared she'd try to stop this excursion, but instead she had laughed] Birgitte must have determined that this day's activities
 
though bound to upset Melfane
 
were no real risk to Elayne or her babes. To the Warder, that meant this was an opportunity to see Elayne get paraded through town looking foolish.

Elayne winced. What would the people say? The Queen, riding a litter, being marched to the outer wall? Well, Elayne wasn't about to let rumors keep her from seeing the test firsthand, and she wasn't about to be bullied by a tyrannical midwife.

She had quite a view from the wall. The fields leading to Anngill lay open to her left; the city bustled to her right. Those fields were too brown. Reports from around the realm were dire. Nine fields in ten had failed.

Elayne's porters carried her up to one of the wall's tower turrets, then hit a snag as they realized the poles on the litter were too long to make the turns on the stairs inside the tower; the demonstration was supposée to happen atop it. Luckily, there were alternative short handholds for jret such

situations. They removed the poles, switched to the handholds, and proceeded.

While they carried her up, she distracted herself by thinking about Cairhien. The noble Houses there all claimed to be eagerly awaiting her arrival to take the throne, and yet none offered more than the most flaccid support. Daes Dae'mar was fully in effect, and the posturing for Elayne's ascent
 
or her failure to ascend
 
had begun the moment Rand had mentioned that he intended the nation to be hers.

In Cairhien, a hundred different political winds always blew in a hundred different directions. She didn't have time to learn all of the different factions before she took the throne. Besides, if she was seen as playing the game, she could be seen as someone to defeat. She had to find a way to seize the Sun Throne -without mixing too much in the local House politics.

Elayne's litter creaked up and crested the lip of the tower's turret. Atop the tower, Aludra stood with one of her prototype dragons. The bronze tube was quite long and set in a framework of wood. It was just a dummy, for display. A second, working dragon had been set up atop the next tower down the wall. It was far enough away that Elayne wouldn't be in danger if something went wrong.

The slender Taraboner woman seemed to take no thought for the fact that she was delivering a potentially world-changing weapon to the queen of a foreign country; all Aludra seemed to want was a way to get back at the Seanchan, or so Mat had explained. Elayne had spent some time with the woman while traveling with Lucas menagerie, but still wasn't certain how trustworthy she was. She'd have Master Norry keep an eye on her.

Assuming, of course, the dragons worked. Elayne spared another glance for the people down below. Only then did she realize how high up she really was. Light!

I'm safe, she reminded herself. Min's viewing. Not that she said anything like that to Birgitte, not any longer. And she did intend to stop taking so many risks. This wasn't a risk. Not really.

She turned away before she grew dizzy and inspected the dragon more closely. It was shaped like a large bronze bell, though longer and narrower. Like an enormous vase turned on its side. Elayne had received more than one missive from the city's irate bellfounders. Aludra insisted that her orders be carried out exactly and had forced the men to recast the tube three times.

Late the previous night, a loud crack had sounded across the city. As if

a stone wall had fallen somewhere or a bolt of lightning had struck. This morning Elayne had received a note from Aludra.

First test a success, it had read. Meet me today on city wall for demonstration.

"Your Majesty," Aludra said. "You are . . . well, yes?"

"I will be fine, Aludra," Elayne said, trying to maintain her dignity. "The dragon is ready?"

"It is," Aludra said. She wore a long brown dress, her black wavy hair loose, coming down to her waist. Why no braids today? Aludra didn't seem to care for jewelry, and Elayne had never seen her wear any. A group of five men from Mat's Band of the Red Hand stood with her, one carrying what appeared to be a chimney brush of some sort. Another had a metal sphere in his hands, and another carried a small wooden cask.

Elayne could see a similar group on the next tower over. Someone there raised a hat into the air and waved at her. Mat wanted to watch from the tower with the working dragon, it seemed. Foolhardy man. What if the thing exploded like a nightflower?

"The demonstration, then," Aludra said, "we shall begin. These men here will show you what is being done on the other tower." She hesitated as she regarded Elayne. "Her Majesty, I think we should prop her up, so that she can see the display."

A few minutes later, they'd located some small boxes to place beneath the litter and elevate Elayne so that she could see over the tower's crenela-tions. It appeared that something had been constructed on a distant hillside, though it was too far for Elayne to make out. Aludra pulled out several looking glasses and handed one each to Elayne and Birgitte.

Elayne raised her glass to her eye. Dressing dummies. Aludra had set up some fifty of them in ranks on the far hill. Light! Where had she gotten so many? Likely, Elayne would be getting some wordy missives from gownmakers across the city.

Mat had promised this would be worth practically any cost. Of course, that was Mat. He wasn't exactly the most reliable person around.

He's not the one who lost an invaluable ter'angreal to the Shadow, she reminded herself. She grimaced. In her pouch, she carried another replica of the foxhead. It was one of three she'd created so far. If she was going to be confined to her bed, then she might as well make use of her time. It would be a lot less frustrating if she could channel consistently.

All three of the replica foxhead medallions worked as the first replica had. She couldn't channel while wearing one, and a powerful weave could overwhelm them. She really needed that original back for further study.

"You can see, Your Majesty," Aludra said in a stiff voice, as if unaccustomed to giving a demonstration, "that we've tried to re-create the conditions under which you might make use of the dragons, yes?"

Except instead offifty dressing dummies, we'll have a hundred thousand Trollocs, Elayne thought.

"The next tower, you should look at it," Aludra said, gesturing.

Elayne turned the glass to look at the next tower down the wall. She could see five members of the Band there, dressed in uniforms, waiting with another dragon. Mat was looking in the thing, right down the tube.

"These have trained somewhat on the dragons," Aludra continued. "But they do not have the efficiency I would like. They will do for now, yes?"

Elayne lowered her glass as the men pulled the dummy tube back
 
it was on a set of wheels
 
and rotated it up a bit toward the sky. One poured some black powder in from his cask, then another stuffed in a wad of something. This was followed by the man with the long pole ramming it down the tube. That wasn't a chimney brush he held, but some kind of tool used for packing.

"That looks like the powder inside a nighfflower," Birgitte said. She felt wary.

Aludra shot the Warder a glance. "And how do you know what is inside a nightflower, Maerion? You do realize how dangerous it is to open one of those, yes?"

Birgitte shrugged.

Aludra frowned, but got no response, so took a deep breath and calmed herself. "The device, it is perfectly safe. We set up the other dragon to do the firing, so there would be no danger, yes? But there would not be danger anyway. The casting is good and my calculations, they are perfect."

"Elayne," Birgitte said, "I still think we'd be better off watching from the wall down below. Even if this one beside us isn't going to be lit."

"After all I went through to get up here?" Elayne asked. "No thank you. Aludra, you may proceed."

She ignored Birgitte's annoyance. Did Aludra really think she could hit one of those dressing dummies with her iron sphere? That was a long way to go, and the sphere was so small, barely wider than a man's outstretched palm. Had Elayne invested all of this effort to get something that would work more poorly than a catapult? This dragon sounded as if it could throw its sphere farther, but the boulders tossed by a catapult were many times larger.

The men finished. The remaining man touched a small torch to a fuse sticking out of the sphere and rolled it into the tube; then they turned the tube to face directly outward.

"You see?" Aludra said, patting the dragon. "Three men is best. Four for safety, in case one falls. One could do the work if he had to, but it would be slow."

The men stepped back as Aludra got out a red flag. She held it up in the air, signaling the other team on the next tower down the wall. Elayne focused on them with the glass. One carried a small torch. Mat watched with a curious expression.

Aludra lowered her flag. The soldier touched his burning torch to the side of the dragon.

The explosive sound that followed was so powerful that it made Elayne jump. The boom was as sharp as a thunderclap, and she heard in the distance what sounded like an echo of the explosion. She raised a hand to her breast, and remembered to draw breath.

A pocket on the mountainside exploded in a massive spray of dust and earth. The ground seemed to tremble! It was as if an Aes Sedai had torn up the earth with a weave, but the One Power hadn't been used at all.

Aludra seemed disappointed. Elayne raised her looking glass to her eye. The blast had missed the dressing dummies by a good twenty paces, but had ripped a hole in the ground five paces wide. Did the ball explode like a nightflower to cause that? This device wasn't merely an improved catapult or trebuchet; it was something else. Something capable of smashing an iron sphere into the ground with such force that it blew open a hole, then perhaps exploded on its own.

Why, she could line an entire wall with these dragons! With all of them firing together. . . .

Aludra raised her flag again; Elayne watched with her glass as the men on the next tower over cleaned, then reloaded, the tube. Mat was holding his ears and scowling, which gave Elayne a smile. He really should have watched from her tower. The reloading process took a very short time, perhaps three minutes. And Aludra said she intended to see it happen more quickly?

Aludra wrote a set of orders and sent it by messenger to the men. They changed the dragon's position slightly. She waved her flag; Elayne steeled herself for another explosion, but still jumped when it came.

This time, the blast was dead-on, hitting in the very center of the rank of dressing dummies. Their tattered remnants spun through the air. The blow destroyed five or six, and knocked down a good dozen of them.

With the ability to fire every two minutes, hit so far away, and deal such destruction, these weapons would be deadly. As deadly as damane, perhaps. Birgitte was still looking through her looking glass, and while her face was impassive, Elayne could feel the woman's amazement.

"The weapon, you find it pleasing?" Aludra asked.

"I find it pleasing, Aludra," Elayne said, smiling. "I find it pleasing indeed. The resources of the entire city are yours, the resources of all An-dor. There are several more bellfounders in Andor." She glanced at the Illuminator. "But you must keep the plans and designs a secret. I will send Guards with you. We can't afford to let any of the bellfounders consider the value of leaving home and selling information to our enemies."

"So long as they don't reach the Seanchan," Aludra said, "I care not."

"Well, I do," Elayne said. "And I'm the one who will see these things used properly. I'll need an oath out of you, Aludra."

The woman sighed, but gave it. Elayne had no intention of turning them against anyone other than Trollocs and Seanchan. But she would feel much more secure about her nation knowing that she had these at her disposal.

She smiled as she considered it, and found it difficult to contain her excitement. Birgitte finally lowered her glass.' She felt . . . solemn.

"What?" Elayne asked as the Guards took turns with her glass, inspecting the devastation. She felt some odd indigestion. Had she eaten something bad for lunch?

"The world just changed, Elayne," Birgitte said, shaking her head, long braid swinging slightly. "It just changed in a very large way. I have a terrible feeling that it's only the beginning."