“He won’t,” Lan said simply. Only a handful knew war as well as Niall. Which meant that this particular war might very well end this day. He wondered whether it would be called a victory. Sliding the looking glass back into its saddle-case, he found himself looking north. Feeling the pull, an iron filing feeling the lodestone. It was almost pain, after so long. Some wars could not be won, yet they still must be fought.
Studying his face, Bukama shook his head. “And only a fool jumps from one war straight into another.” He did not bother to speak softly, and several Domani in Lan’s sight gave him odd looks, clearly wondering what Bukama was talking about. No Borderlander needed to wonder. They knew who he was.
“A month or two will rest me, Bukama.” That was how long it would take to ride home. A month, with luck.
“A year, Lan. Just one year. Oh, all right. Eight months.” Bukama made that sound a great concession. Perhaps he felt tired? He had always seemed made of iron, but he was no longer young.
“Four months,” Lan conceded. He had borne waiting two years; he could bear another four months. And if Bukama still felt weary then…. That was a chasm he would have to cross when he came to it.
As it happened, Niall had not chosen to become a fool, which was very well indeed, given that above half the army had already departed in the belief the victory had been won days ago if not when the Aiel first began their retreat. And they were calling it a great victory. At least, those who had not fought were, the hangers-on and bystanders, and the historians already writing as if they knew everything. Lan was willing to let them. His mind was already two hundred leagues to the north.
Saying their goodbyes, he and Bukama turned their faces southward toward softer lands, avoiding Tar Valon altogether. It was a great and wondrous city by all accounts, but too full of Aes Sedai for any comfort. Bukama talked animatedly of what they might see, in Andor and perhaps Tear. They had been in both lands, but contending with Aiel, they had not seen even the fabled Stone of Tear or any of the great cities. Lan did not speak at all unless Bukama addressed him. He felt the pull of home sharply. All he wanted was a return to the Blight. And no encounters with Aes Sedai.
Chapter
13
Business in the City
They could have had food brought to their rooms, but after Moiraine Healed Siuan, they went down to the first sitting of dinner. Neither was willing to miss her first meal as Aes Sedai in the sisters’ main dining hall, where Accepted came only by rare invitation and novices only to serve at table. It was a spacious high-ceilinged room, colorful winter tapestries decorating the white walls, broad cornice gleaming under a weight of gold leaf. The square tables, their slender legs elegantly carved, were only large enough for four, and most spaced far apart for privacy of conversa
tion, though today some were placed together to accommodate larger groups. The only women in the room wearing their shawls, they attracted looks from other sisters, not to mention a few amused smiles. Moiraine felt her cheeks heating, but it would take more than smiles to make her give up wearing the shawl every time she left her rooms. More than outright laughter. She had worked too hard to earn it. Siuan marched across the bright floor tiles, patterns of all the Ajah colors, with a queenly grace, casually adjusting her shawl along her arms as though to draw attention to it. Siuan was seldom shy.
There were no benches here, but low-backed chairs carved to match the table legs, and where, in their own dining hall, Accepted ate whatever the kitchen prepared, a young serving woman with the Flame of Tar Valon on her breast curtsied before reciting what the kitchens here had to offer in the singsong voice of one who made the same recitation often. Where Accepted ate on heavy glazed pottery and had to serve and clear away their own plates, the same serving woman brought their food on a ropework silver tray, in dishes of thin white Taraboner porcelain impressed with the Flame of Tar Valon all around the rim. Tarabon’s work could not compare with what came from the islands of the Atha’an Miere, but it was hardly inexpensive.
Siuan complained that her fish was too heavily seasoned, yet she left nothing except the bones, and looked around as though thinking of asking for another. Moiraine had a rich soup of vegetables and beef, but she found she had little appetite, and in the end ate only a small piece of dark bread and drank a single cup of tea. She had to escape, but there was no escape. Just walking away from a task assigned by the Amyrlin Seat was unthinkable. Maybe the Hall would decide the plan was untenable. No one had approached her concerning the matter since Tsutama had asked whether she had thought of being Queen of Cairhien. They might decide so. It seemed a thin hope, but thin hopes were all she could find.
As soon as they returned to the Blue quarters, Eadyth summoned them to her rooms again and without ceremony handed each a letter-of-rights in the amount of one thousand crowns gold. “You will receive the same from the Tower each year on this day,” she said, “or if you are not here, it will be deposited as you specify.” The distaste of her earlier lecture had departed entirely. She wore a serene smile, serene and pleased at having gained two new Blues. “Spend wisely. You can obtain more if need be, but ask too often, and you will have to answer questions in the Hall. Believe me, being questioned in the Hall is never pleasant. Never.”
Siuan’s eyes grew very round reading the amount, and impossible as it seemed, wider still at mention of getting more. Few merchants cleared more gold in a year, and many minor nobles made do with far less, but the Tower could not afford to have sisters seen in poverty. The Sun Palace had taught Moiraine that power often grew from others deciding that you already had power, and an appearance of wealth could give that.
She had her own banker, but Siuan deposited her letter-of-rights with the Tower, in spite of an offered introduction. Siuan’s father had not earned a thousand crowns over his entire life, and she was not about to put that sum at any risk whatsoever. Nothing Moiraine said could convince her. Safety alone concerned her, and it seemed a banking house old enough to have loaned gold to Artur Hawkwing could not be challenged in that regard by the first bank founded after the Breaking.
Wearing her blue-fringed shawl displayed proudly on her shoulders, Moiraine hired a sedan chair in the great square in front of the Tower, where the milling midafternoon crowd of strollers and hawkers, tumblers and jugglers, musicians and barrowmen selling meat pies and roasted nuts, all kept their distance from the huge structure. Few people went nearer than a hundred paces unless they had business with the Tower, or wanted to present a petition. The two bearers, husky fellows in dark brown coats with their long hair neatly tied back, carried her smoothly through the streets, the lead man crying, “Make way for an Aes Sedai! Make way for an Aes Sedai!”
The shouting seemed to impress no one, and perhaps was not believed. Even with the heavy curtains tied back, the fringe on her shawl would remain hidden unless she propped her arms in-elegantly on the windowsills. No one moved aside any faster than they did for wagon drivers’ shouts and often more slowly, since the wagon drivers carried long whips and were not reluctant to use them. Even so, soon enough they reached what appeared to be a small palace, on a broad boulevard with tall leafless trees marching down the center strip, and unfastened the poles so she could open the door. The building was in a southern style, with a high white dome, and narrow spires at the four corners, and broad marble stairs climbing to a wide, white-columned portico, yet there was a restraint about it. The stone carvings, friezes of vines and leaves, were well done, yet simple and not overly plentiful. No one would leave money with a banking house that was poor, but neither would anyone with a bank that spent too lavishly on itself.
A doorman with two bands of red on his dark coatsleeves bowed her through the tall front doors and handed her over to a plain-coated footman, a pretty young man, if too tall, who gravely guided her to the study of Mistress Dormaile, a slim, graying little woman a full hand shorter than Moiraine. Her father had banked with Ilain Dormaile’s elder brother, who still handled her own accounts in Cairhien, making her choice easy in Tar Valon.
A slight smile broke Mistress Dormaile’s usual solemn expression when she saw the shawl, and she spread her dark, red-banded skirts in a precise curtsy, neither too brief nor too deep. But then, she had given the same courtesy even when Moiraine had come in an Accepted’s dress. After all, she knew how much Moiraine had left with the bank on her first arrival in the city, and how much more her estates had sent over the years. Still, the smile was genuine.
“May I offer congratulations, Moiraine Sedai?” she said warmly, escorting Moiraine to a cushioned chair with a high, carved back. “Will you have spiced wine, or tea? Perhaps some honeyed cakes, or poppy seed?”
“The wine, thank you,” Moiraine replied with a smile. “That will suffice.” Moiraine Sedai. This was the first time anyone had called her that, and she rather liked the sound.
Once the other woman had issued orders to the footman, she took a chair facing Moiraine without asking. You did not require your banker to stand too far on ceremony. “I assume you have come to deposit your stipend.” Of course a banker would know of that. “If you seek further information, I fear I put everything I knew into the letter I sent to you, and I have learned nothing more.”
For an instant, Moiraine’s smile froze in place. With an effort, she unfroze it, made her voice casual. “Suppose you tell it to me again. I may winnow out something hearing it fresh.”
Mistress Dormaile inclined her head slightly. “As you say. Nine days ago a man came to me, a Cairhienin, wearing the uniform of a captain in the Tower Guard and giving the name Ries Gorthanes. He spoke with cultured accents, an educated man, perhaps even nobility, and he was tall, a good three hands or more taller than me, and broad-shouldered, with a soldier’s bearing. He was clean-shaven, of course, and his face was well-proportioned, and good-looking despite a scar about an inch long, here.” With one finger, she drew a line from the corner of her left eye back toward her ear.
Neither name nor description jogged anything in Moiraine’s memory, not that she would have spoken if they had. She made a small gesture for the banker to go on.
“He presented an order purportedly signed and sealed by the Amyrlin Seat directing me to lay open your finances to him. Unfortunately for him, I know Tamra Ospenya’s signature well, and the White Tower knows I would never reveal the affairs of my patrons in any respect. I had several footmen overpower him and lock him in an empty strongroom, and then I sent for real Tower Guards. I regret failing to take the opportunity to thrash his mistress or master’s name out of him, but as you know, White Tower law takes a dim view of that.”
The footman returned with an ornate silver pitcher and two silver goblets on a tray, and the banker fell silent until he had gone. “He escaped before the Guards arrived,” she w
ent on, pouring dark wine that gave off the sweet scent of spices. “A matter of bribery.” A grimace of distaste twisted her mouth for a moment as she offered Moiraine a goblet with a small bow. “I had the young man involved strapped so I wager he still feels it when he sits down. I then hired him out as a bilgeboy on a rivership running ice peppers to Tear where he will be put ashore penniless, unless he persuades the captain to keep him on. I made sure of that by convincing her to give me his wages in advance. He is a pretty youth. He might persuade her. I think she had it in mind when she handed over the coins.”