The soldiers formed around them in a hollow box that started along the slate path with Tallanvor leading. Gawyn and Elayne walked on either side of Rand, both appearing lost in unpleasant thoughts. The soldiers had sheathed their swords and returned arrows to quivers, but they were no less on guard than when they had had weapons in hand. They watched Rand as if they expected him at any moment to snatch his sword and try to cut his way to freedom.
Try anything? I won’t try anything. Unnoticed! Hah!
Watching the soldiers watching him, he suddenly became aware of the garden. One thing had happened after another, each new shock coming before the last had a chance to fade, and his surroundings had been a blur, except for the wall and his devout wish to be back on the other side of it. Now he saw the green grass that had only tickled the back of his mind before. Green! A hundred shades of green. Trees and bushes green and thriving, thick with leaves and fruit. Lush vines covering arbors over the path. Flowers everywhere. So many flowers, spraying the garden with color. Some he knew—bright golden sunburst and tiny pink tallowend, crimson starblaze and purple Emond’s Glory, roses in every color from purest white to deep, deep red—but others were strange, so fanciful in shape and hue he wondered if they could be real.
“It’s green,” he whispered. “Green.” The soldiers muttered to themselves; Tallanvor gave them a sharp look over his shoulder and they fell silent.
“Elaida’s work,” Gawyn said absently.
“It is not right,” Elayne said. “She asked if I wanted to pick out the one farm she could do the same for, while all around it the crops still failed, but it still isn’t right for us to have flowers when there are people who do not have enough to eat.” She drew a deep breath, and refilled her self-possession. “Remember yourself,” she told Rand briskly. “Speak up clearly when you are spoken to, and keep silent otherwise. And follow my lead. All will be well.”
Rand wished he could share her confidence. It would have helped if Gawyn had seemed to have it as well. As Tallanvor led them into the Palace, he looked back at the garden, at all the green streaked with blossoms, colors wrought for a Queen by an Aes Sedai’s hand. He was in deep water, and there was no bank in sight.
Palace servants filled the halls, in red liveries with collars and cuffs of white, the White Lion on the left breast of their tunics, scurrying about intent on tasks that were not readily apparent. When the soldiers trooped by with Elayne and Gawyn, and Rand, in their midst, they stopped dead in their track
s to stare openmouthed.
Through the middle of all the consternation a gray-striped tomcat wandered unconcernedly down the hall, weaving between the goggling servants. Suddenly the cat struck Rand as odd. He had been in Baerlon long enough to know that even the meanest shop had cats lurking in every corner. Since entering the Palace, the tom was the only cat he had seen.
“You don’t have rats?” he said in disbelief. Every place had rats.
“Elaida doesn’t like rats,” Gawyn muttered vaguely. He was frowning worriedly down the hall, apparently already seeing the coming meeting with the Queen. “We never have rats.”
“Both of you be quiet.” Elayne’s voice was sharp, but as absent as her brother’s. “I am trying to think.”
Rand watched the cat over his shoulder until the guards took him round a corner, hiding the tom from sight. A lot of cats would have made him feel better; it would have been nice if there was one thing normal about the Palace, even if it was rats.
The path Tallanvor took turned so many times that Rand lost his sense of direction. Finally the young officer stopped before tall double doors of dark wood with a rich glow, not so grand as some they had passed, but still carved all over with rows of lions, finely wrought in detail. A liveried servant stood to either side.
“At least it isn’t the Grand Hall.” Gawyn laughed unsteadily. “I never heard that Mother commanded anyone’s head cut off from here.” He sounded as if he thought she might set a precedent.
Tallanvor reached for Rand’s sword, but Elayne moved to cut him off. “He is my guest, and by custom and law, guests of the royal family may go armed even in Mother’s presence. Or will you deny my word that he is my guest?”
Tallanvor hesitated, locking eyes with her, then nodded. “Very well, my Lady.” She smiled at Rand as Tallanvor stepped back, but it lasted only a moment. “First rank to accompany me,” Tallanvor commanded. “Announce the Lady Elayne and the Lord Gawyn to Her Majesty,” he told the doorkeepers. “Also Guardsman-Lieutenant Tallanvor, at Her Majesty’s command, with the intruder under guard.”
Elayne scowled at Tallanvor, but the doors were already swinging open. A sonorous voice sounded, announcing those who came.
Grandly Elayne swept through the doors, spoiling her regal entrance only a little by motioning for Rand to keep close behind her. Gawyn squared his shoulders and strode in flanking her, one measured pace to her rear. Rand followed, uncertainly keeping level with Gawyn on her other side. Tallanvor stayed close to Rand, and ten soldiers came with him. The doors closed silently behind them.
Suddenly Elayne dropped into a deep curtsy, simultaneously bowing from the waist, and stayed there, holding her skirt wide. Rand gave a start, then hastily emulated Gawyn and the other men, shifting awkwardly until he had it right. Down on his right knee, head bowed, bending forward to press the knuckles of his right hand against the marble tiles, his left hand resting on the end of his sword hilt. Gawyn, without a sword, put his hand on his dagger the same way.
Rand was just congratulating himself on getting it right when he noticed Tallanvor, his head still bent, glaring sideways at him from behind his face-guard. Was I supposed to do something else? He was suddenly angry that Tallanvor expected him to know what to do when no one had told him. And angry over being afraid of the guards. He had done nothing to be fearful for. He knew his fear was not Tallanvor’s fault, but he was angry at him anyway.
Everyone held their positions, frozen as if waiting for the spring thaw. He did not know what they were waiting for, but he took the opportunity to study the place to which he had been brought. He kept his head down, just turning it enough to see. Tallanvor’s scowl deepened, but he ignored it.
The square chamber was about the size of the common room at The Queen’s Blessing, its walls presenting hunting scenes carved in relief in stone of the purest white. The tapestries between the carvings were gentle images of bright flowers and brilliantly plumaged hummingbirds, except for the two at the far end of the room, where the White Lion of Andor stood taller than a man on scarlet fields. Those two hangings flanked a dais, and on the dais a carved and gilded throne where sat the Queen.
A bluff, blocky man stood bareheaded by the Queen’s right hand in the red of the Queen’s Guards, with four golden knots on the shoulder of his cloak and wide golden bands breaking the white of his cuffs. His temples were heavy with gray, but he looked as strong and immovable as a rock. That had to be the Captain-General, Gareth Bryne. Behind the throne and to the other side a woman in deep green silk sat on a low stool, knitting something out of dark, almost black, wool. At first the knitting made Rand think she was old, but at second glance he could not put an age to her at all. Young, old, he did not know. Her attention seemed to be entirely on her needles and yarn, just as if there were not a Queen within arm’s reach of her. She was a handsome woman, outwardly placid, yet there was something terrible in her concentration. There was no sound in the room except for the click of her needles.
He tried to look at everything, yet his eyes kept going back to the woman with the gleaming wreath of finely wrought roses on her brow, the Rose Crown of Andor. A long red stole, the Lion of Andor marching along its length, hung over her silken dress of red and white pleats, and when she touched the Captain-General’s arm with her left hand, a ring in the shape of the Great Serpent, eating its own tail, glittered. Yet it was not the grandeur of clothes or jewelry or even crown that drew Rand’s eyes again and again: it was the woman who wore them.
Morgase had her daughter’s beauty, matured and ripened. Her face and figure, her presence, filled the room like a light that dimmed the other two with her. If she had been a widow in Emond’s Field, she would have had a line of suitors outside her door even if she was the worst cook and most slovenly house keeper in the Two Rivers. He saw her studying him and ducked his head, afraid she might be able to tell his thoughts from his face. Light, thinking about the Queen like she was a village woman! You fool!
“You may rise,” Morgase said in a rich, warm voice that held Elayne’s assurance of obedience a hundred times over.
Rand stood with the rest.
“Mother—” Elayne began, but Morgase cut her off.