Winter's Heart (76 page)

The Sea Folk must have been aware of the bustle that enveloped the Palace, Guardswomen running through the hallways carrying messages and fetching this person or that, but Elayne made sure they were told nothing. Suppose Zaida decided to come along, she was capable of having one of the Windfinders make her own gateway if Elayne refused her, and the Wavemistress was a complication to be avoided. The woman already behaved as though she had as much right in the Palace as Elayne herself. Zaida trying to domineer could ruin everything as surely as Mellar leering at her.

Making haste seemed beyond Essande’s ability, yet everyone else flew, and by the time the sun stood straight overhead, Elayne found herself riding Fireheart slowly through the snows of Braem Wood, near enough fifty leagues north of Caemlyn as the wild goose flew but only a step through the gateway into thick forest of tall pine and leatherleaf and oak mixed with gray-branched trees that had lost their leaves. Occasionally a broad
meadow opened up, covered with snow like white carpets, unblemished save for the hoofprints of Merilille’s running horse. Merilille had been sent ahead with the letter, and Elayne, Aviendha and Birgitte had followed after an hour, to give her time to reach the Borderlanders ahead of them. The road from Caemlyn to New Braem lay some miles to the west. Here, they could have been a thousand leagues from human habitation.

For Elayne, dressing had been as serious as choosing armor. Her cloak was lined with marten for added warmth, but the material was dark green wool, soft yet thick, and her riding dress was green silk, and unadorned. Even her snug riding gloves were plain dark green leather. Unless the swords had been drawn, that was the armor in which an Aes Sedai faced rulers. Her only visible jewelry was a small amber brooch in the shape of a turtle, and if anyone thought that odd, let them. An army of Borderlanders was beyond any trap one of her rivals could lay, or even Elaida, but those ten sisters—ten or more—might be Elaida’s. She was not about to let herself be bundled off back to the White Tower.

“We can turn back from this without incurring
toh,
Elayne.” Aviendha, scowling, still wore her Aiel garments, with her single silver necklace and heavy ivory bracelet. Her stocky bay was a hand shorter than Fireheart or Birgitte’s lean gray, Arrow, and much gentler to handle, though she rode more easily than once she had. Dark-stockinged legs bared above the knee by straddling a saddle, she actually looked warm, except for the shawl wrapped around her head. Unlike Birgitte, she had not ceased her attempts to dissuade Elayne. “Surprise is all very well, but they will respect you more if they must meet you halfway.”

“I can hardly abandon Merilille,” Elayne said more patiently than she felt. Perhaps she was not weary any longer, but neither did she feel particularly fresh, not at all ready to put up with badgering. But she did not want to snap at Aviendha. “She might feel something of a fool, standing there with a letter announcing that I’m coming and I don’t come. Worse,
I
would feel a fool.”

“Better to feel a fool than be one,” Birgitte muttered, half under her breath. Her dark cloak spread behind her saddle, and her intricate braid hung from the opening of her hood almost to her waist. Pulling that hood up just enough to frame her face was the one concession she had made to the cold and the gusting wind that sometimes lifted fresh-fallen snow like feathers. She did not want her vision obscured. The cover on her bow’s saddle-case, meant to keep the bowstring dry, hung down so she could reach the bow quickly. The suggestion that she wear a sword had been quashed with as much indignation as if Elayne had asked Aviendha to wear
one. Birgitte knew the bow, but she claimed she might stab herself trying to draw a sword. Still, her short green coat would have blended into woodlands at another time of the year, and for a wonder, her wide-legged trousers were the same color. She was a Warder now, not the Captain-General of the Queen’s Guard, yet she was not so pleased by the title as might have been expected. The bond carried as much frustration as alertness.

Elayne sighed, her breath misting. “You two know what I hope to achieve here. You’ve known since I decided. Why are you suddenly treating me as if I’m made of blown glass?”

The pair exchanged looks past her, each waiting for the other to speak first, then silently turned to stare straight ahead, and suddenly she knew.

“When my child is born,” she said dryly, “you can both apply to be her wet nurse.” If her child was “her.” If Min had said, it was lost in Aviendha and Birgitte’s wine-hazed memories of that night. It might be better to have a son first, so he could begin his training before his sister came. Yet a daughter secured the succession, while a lone son would be pushed aside, and as much as she wanted more than one, nothing said she would have another child. The Light send her more of Rand’s children, but she had to be practical. “I myself do not need a wet nurse.”

Aviendha’s sun-darkened cheeks turned darker with embarrassment. Birgitte’s expression did not change, yet the same emotion oozed along the Warder bond.

They rode slowly, following Merilille’s tracks for close on two hours, and Elayne was thinking that the nearest camp must be very close when Birgitte suddenly pointed ahead and said, “Shienarans,” then eased her bow in its case. Alertness swallowed frustration and everything else in the bond. Aviendha touched the hilt of her belt knife as if making sure it was there.

Waiting beneath the trees, off to one side from Merilille’s traces, men and horses alike were so still that Elayne almost took them for natural outcrops of some sort until she made out the strange swooping crests on their helmets. Their mounts were not armored, as Shienaran heavies’ animals often were, but the men themselves wore plate-and-mail, with long-hilted swords on their backs, and swords and maces hung at their belts and from their saddles. Their dark eyes never blinked. One of the horses swished its tail, and the movement seemed startling.

A sharp-faced man with a harsh voice spoke as Elayne and the other two women drew rein in front of him. The crest atop his helmet looked like narrow wings. “King Easar sends his assurance of your safety, Elayne Sedai, and I add my own. I am Kayen Yokata, Lord of Fal Eisen, and may
Peace abandon me and the Blight consume my soul if harm befalls you or anyone with you in our camp.”

That was not so comforting as Elayne might have wished. All these guarantees of her safety only made clear that there had been some question of it, and might still be. “Does an Aes Sedai need assurances from Shienarans?” she said. She started to run through a novice exercise for calmness, and realized she did not need it. Very strange. “You may lead, Lord Kayen.” He merely nodded and turned his horse.

Some of the Shienarans glanced at Aviendha without expression, recognizing an Aiel, but for the most part they simply fell in behind. Only the hooves crunching the harder snow beneath the fresh fall broke the silence of their short ride. She had been right. The Shienaran camp was very close. She began to see sentries, mounted and armored, just minutes later, and soon after that they rode into the Shienaran camp.

Sprawled among the trees, the encampment seemed larger than she had imagined. Whether she looked left, right or ahead, tents and cookfires, lines of tethered horses and rows of wagons stretched out of her sight. As she and her escort passed, soldiers looked up in curiosity, hard-faced men with their heads shaved except for a tuft on top that was sometimes long enough to reach the shoulders. Few wore any part of their armor, but armor and weapons always lay close to hand. The smell was not so bad as Merilille had described, though she could make out the faint odor of latrines and horse dung beneath the aroma of whatever was boiling in all these cookpots. No one appeared hungry, though many were lean. Not the leanness of starvation, though, just that of men who had never carried much fat on them. She did notice that there were no spits over any fire she could see. Meat would be harder to come by than grain, though grain itself was in short enough supply this late in winter. Barley soup did not strengthen a man the way meat did. They needed to move soon; nowhere could support four armies this size for long. She just had to make sure they moved in the right direction.

Not everyone she saw was a soldier with a shaven head, of course, though the men among them looked almost as hard. There were fletchers making arrows, wheelwrights working on wagons, farriers shoeing horses, laundresses stirring boiling kettles, women working with needles who might have been seamstresses or wives. Great numbers of people always followed an army, sometimes as many as the soldiers themselves. She did not see anyone who could have been Aes Sedai, though; sisters were unlikely to push up their sleeves and work wooden paddles in the laundry kettles, or don patched woolens and sit darning breeches. Why did they want to remain
hidden? She resisted the desire to embrace the Source, to draw
saidar
through the turtle
angreal
pinned to her breast. One battle at a time, and first she must fight for Andor.

Before a much larger tent than any of the others she could see, pale canvas with a single long peak, Kayen dismounted and handed her down. He hesitated over whether to do the same for Birgitte and Aviendha, but Birgitte solved his dilemma by stepping down smoothly and handing her reins to a waiting soldier, Aviendha by half-falling out of the saddle. She had improved her riding, but mounting and dismounting still gave her difficulty. Glaring around her to see whether anyone was laughing, she smoothed down her bulky skirts, then unwrapped the shawl from around her head and settled it on her shoulders. Birgitte watched her horse being taken away as though she wished she had taken her bow and quiver from the saddle. Kayen pulled open one of the entry flaps and bowed.

Drawing a last deep calming breath, Elayne led the other two women in. She could not allow them to see her as a supplicant. She was not here to beg, or to defend.
Sometimes,
Gareth Bryne had told her when she was a child,
you find yourself outnumbered, with no path to slip away. Always do what your enemy least expects, Elayne. In that case, you must attack.
From the start, she must attack.

Inside, Merilille glided to her across the layered carpets laid down for a floor. The diminutive Gray’s smile was not precisely relieved, but clearly she was glad to see Elayne. Aside from her, there were only five others present, two women and three men, and one of the latter was a servant, an old cavalryman by his bowed legs and scarred face, who came to take cloaks and gloves—and blink at Aviendha—before retreating to a plain wooden table that held a silver tray with a tall-necked pitcher and an array of cups. The other four ruled the nations of the Borderlands. A scattering of backless camp chairs and four large braziers holding glowing coals completed the tent’s furnishings. This was not the sort of reception the Daughter-Heir of Andor might have expected, with courtiers and many servants, and idle conversation to be made before serious discussions could begin, and men and women at those rulers’ shoulders to advise them. What she found was what she had hoped for.

Healing had rid Merilille’s eyes of their dark circles before she left the Palace, and she made Elayne’s introduction with simple dignity. “This is Elayne Trakand, of the Green Ajah, as I told you.” That, and nothing more. Elayne knew enough from Vandene to pick out one from another of the four rulers who faced her.

“I give you welcome, Elayne Sedai,” Easar of Shienar said. “Peace and the Light favor you.” He was a short man, no taller than herself, slim in a bronze-colored coat, his face unwrinkled despite a long white topknot that hung over the side of his head. Looking at his sad eyes, she reminded herself that he was accounted a wise ruler and a skilled diplomat as well as a fine soldier. In appearance, he was none of those things. “May I offer you wine? The spices are not fresh, but they have gained extra sharpness with age.”

“When Merilille told us you would come all the way from Caemlyn today, I confess I would have doubted her, were she not Aes Sedai.” Ethenielle of Kandor, perhaps half a hand taller than Merilille, was plump, her black hair lightly dusted with gray, but there was nothing motherly about her despite her smile. Regal dignity clothed her as much as did her fine blue wool. Her eyes were blue, too, clear and level.

“We are pleased that you did come,” Paitar of Arafel said in a surprisingly deep, rich voice that made Elayne feel warmed, somehow. “We have much to discuss with you.” Vandene had said he was the most beautiful man in the Borderlands, and perhaps he had been long ago, but age had laid deep lines in his face, and only a fringe of short gray hair remained on his head. He was tall and broad-shouldered, though, in plain green, and he did look strong. And not a fool.

Where the others carried their years with grace, Tenobia of Saldaea flaunted youth if not beauty, with her eagle’s beak of a nose and wide mouth. Her tilted, almost purple eyes, level with Elayne’s, were her best feature. Perhaps her only one. Where the others dressed simply, even if they did rule nations, her pale blue dress was worked with pearls and sapphires and she wore more sapphires in her hair. Suitable for the court, but hardly for a camp. And where they were courteous . . . “Under the Light, Merilille Sedai,” Tenobia said in a high voice, frowning, “I know you speak truth, but she looks more a child than an Aes Sedai. You did not mention she would be bringing a black-eyed Aiel.”

Easar’s face never changed, but Paitar’s mouth tightened, and Ethenielle went so far as to cut her eyes briefly toward Tenobia in a glance that would have suited a mother. A very irritated and displeased mother.

“Black?” Aviendha muttered in confusion. “My eyes are not black. I never saw black eyes except on a peddler until I crossed the Dragonwall.”

“You know I can speak only the truth, Tenobia, and I assure you,” Merilille began.

Elayne silenced her with a touch on the arm. “It is enough that you
know I am Aes Sedai, Tenobia. This is my sister, Aviendha, of the Nine Valleys Sept of the Taardad Aiel.” Aviendha smiled at them, or at least bared her teeth. “This is my Warder, Lady Birgitte Trahelion.” Birgitte made a short bow, her golden braid swaying.