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No fewer than five sisters were staying at The Gates of Heaven—none known to her from the Tower, the Light be thanked—and all sat in the common room when she walked in. Master Helvin, the innkeeper, would always make room for an Aes Sedai even when he had to force other patrons to double up.
Only Felaana Bevaine, a slim yellow-haired Brown in plain dark woolens, wore her shawl. She had been the first to corner Moiraine when she arrived. They had felt her ability as soon as she came close, of course.
Mistress Asher dropped her eyes whenever a sister glanced at her, but they had no interest in her.
To two Aes Sedai. Short of Sierin herself, she could hardly have encountered two worse than this pair in sober silks. The white wings in Larelle Tarsi’s long hair emphasized her serene, copper-skinned elegance. She had taught Moiraine in several classes, as both novice and Accepted, and she had a way of asking the last question you wanted to hear. Worse, the other was Merean. Seeing them together was a surprise; she had not thought they particularly liked one another.
Nearly black eyes studied her from beneath a bun of iron-gray hair decorated with golden ornaments, stars and birds, crescent moons and fish. Cadsuane, too, wore her shawl, fringed in green. “In my opinion, girl,” she said dryly, “you could profit from ten years in white.”
Everyone had believed Cadsuane Melaidhrin dead somewhere in retirement until she reappeared at the start of the Aiel War, and a good many sisters probably wished her truly in her grave. Cadsuane was a legend, a most uncomfortable thing to have alive and staring at you. Half the tales about her came close to impossibility, while the rest were beyond it, even among those that had proof.
long-ago King of Tarabon winkled out of his palace when it was learned he could channel, carried to Tar Valon to be gentled while an army that did not believe chased after to attempt rescue. A King of Arad Doman and a Queen of Saldaea both kidnapped, spirited away in secrecy, and when Cadsuane finally released them, a war that had seemed certain simply faded away. It was said she be...
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It was whispered that she had actually assaulted an Amyrlin, once. Impossible, of course; she would have been executed!
Siuan had been born to lead. Cadsuane had been born to command.
Except for her pillow-friend Siuan. Of course, pillow-friends frequently get into tangles together, but with those two, one was never sent to me without the other. The last time the very night after passing for the shawl.”
How close she and Siuan had been was no one’s business but theirs.
If Merean or Larelle was part of the search, they must have at least part of the list in her little book. Including Jurine Najima here, the Lady Ines Demain in Chachin, and Avene Sahera, who lived in “a village on the high road between Chachin and Canluum.”
Cadsuane smiled, not at all pleasantly. “You’ll leave when I say, child. Be silent till you’re spoken to. That pitcher should hold spiced wine. Pour for us.”
“Meilyn is considerably older. When she and I are gone, that leaves Kerene the strongest.”
“Holding our silence about age doesn’t keep people from knowing we live longer than they. Phaaw! From Kerene, it’s a sharp drop to the next five. Five once this child and the Sanche girl reach their potential. And one of those is as old as I am and in retirement to boot.”
“No one has come to the Tower in a thousand years who could match me. No one to match Meilyn or Kerene in almost six hundred. A thousand years ago, there would have been fifty sisters or more who stood higher than this child. In another hundred years, though, she’ll stand in the first rank. Oh, someone stronger may be found in that time, but there won’t be fifty, and there may be none. We dwindle.”
I suspect you’ll want to take as much care choosing your first man as you do your first Warder.” Moiraine jerked back, spluttered with indignation. First her and Siuan, now this. There were things one talked about, and things one did not!
When they were gone, Moiraine stared at Cadsuane incredulously. She had never seen anything like it. Except an avalanche, once.
“You’ve worn the shawl only four months or so, and you have affairs that cannot wait? Phaaw! You still haven’t learned the first real lesson, that the shawl means you are ready to truly begin learning. The second lesson is caution. I know better than most how hard that is to find when you’re young and have saidar at your fingertips and the world at your feet. As you think.” Moiraine tried to fit a word in, but she might as well have stood in front of that avalanche. “You will take great risks in your life, if you live long enough. You already take more than you know. Heed carefully what I say.
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The woman was…formidable. Custom forbade physical violence against another sister, but Cadsuane had not sidestepped a hair in her threat. She had said it right out, so by the Three Oaths she meant it exactly. Incredible.
She was trembling. “I couldn’t trust this to a pigeon,” she mumbled, “or to any of the eyes-and-ears. I wouldn’t have dared. They’re all dead. Aisha and Kerene, Valera and Ludice and Meilyn. They say Aisha and her Warder were killed by bandits in Murandy. Kerene supposedly fell off a ship in the Alguenya during a storm and drowned. And Meilyn…Meilyn….” Sobs racked her so she could not go on.
“Think, Moiraine. Tamra supposedly died in her sleep, too. Only we know Meilyn didn’t, no matter where she was found. First Tamra, then the others started dying. The only thing that makes sense is that someone noticed her calling sisters in and wanted to know why badly enough that they bloody risked putting the Amyrlin Seat herself to the question. They had to have something to hide to do that, something they’d hazard anything to keep hidden. They killed her to hide it, to hide what they’d done, and then they set out to kill the rest. Which means they don’t want the boy found, not alive. They
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“Start searching for the Lady Ines, and I will catch you up there, looking for Avene Sahera on the way.”
Haesel Palan was a rug merchant from Murandy with the lilt of Lugard in her
grizzled old man and a hard-faced young one, in dark, knee-long coats, with braided leather cords tied around their heads. Malkieri? She thought that was what that cord meant. The third was an Arafellin with belled braids, in a dark yellow coat sewn with more bells. The same fellow she had seen leaving The Gates of Heaven.
Far from a pretty man, too. Not handsome, with that hard, angular face. A suitable face for a brigand.
He straightened, raised his arm, and she came out of the water dangling from his hand. In consternation she stared at him until her feet touched the ground and he backed away.
“Shadowspawn?” Ryne said in a disbelieving tone, and atop him, Lan said, “Maybe! I’ve never heard the like, though. Guard the woman, Ryne! Bukama, take west and circle south; I’ll take east and circle north!”
He was charming, and quite pretty, really. She did not mind a man wanting to see her unclothed, only his telling others about it.
Only a fool believed women less dangerous than men, but women often seemed to think men fools when it came to women.
Besides, she had given them money. The woman did not know insult when she offered it.
An honorable man protects whoever needs protecting, but children above all, and women above men.
But Ryne was right; he had seen a Cairhienin in her skin, more than one. And they had all tried to mesh him in a scheme, or two, or three. Over one particularly memorable ten days in the south of Cairhien, he had almost been killed six times and nearly married twice.
Only Ryne met her gaze directly, with an uneasy smile. The man needed to decide whether he was besotted or afraid.
There was a limit to how many insults a man could swallow in silence.
Light, the woman had a tongue like a knife!
In private, all advantage belonged to a man’s carneira.
Even absent, the woman was a cockleburr down the back of his neck.
Brys was Ethenielle’s Swordbearer, the general of her armies, as well as her consort, and he had not come by the office through marrying Ethenielle. Brys owned a strong reputation as a general.
“Three of the surviving five are in this room, Lan. Shall we ask them how they will cast? What must be, will be.”
A formidable opponent, the woman who wore part of his soul in her hair.
Ines Demain almost right off, but not where I can reach her. She’s a new widow, but she did have a son, for sure. Named him Rahien because she saw the dawn come up over Dragonmount. Talk of the streets. Everybody thinks it a fool reason to name a child.”
“The best seamstress in Chachin would be Silene Dorelmin,”
The King of Malkier? Light! The woman must have thought her a complete fool!
And if this Gorthanes was still trying to find her, word of Moiraine Damodred in the Aesdaishar Palace would reach his ears all too soon.
The Lady Ines was in seclusion, mourning her husband. “He fell over dead in his breakfast porridge ten days ago,”
“A much older man, but it seems she loved him. She’s been given ten rooms and a garden on the south side of the palace; her husband was a close friend to Prince Brys.”
“Lan is the King of Malkier, and the luckiest man in the world, and the best swordsman. Except for my father, of course.”
“Are you so eager to see Cadsuane?” Merean said, looking down at her. Her voice was pleasant, her smooth face comforting, but her eyes were cold iron. “The last I saw her, she said that next time she met you, she’d spank your bottom till you couldn’t sit for a week. She’ll do it, too.”
the gray-haired woman who opened it that the Lady Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai wished to speak with King al’Lan Mandragoran. The woman had added her own touches to what Moiraine told her. King, indeed! Shockingly, the reply came back that Lord Mandragoran had no wish to speak with any Aes Sedai. The gray-haired woman looked scandalized, but closed the door firmly.
