A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

The Maidens stared at Rand, and began talking with their hands, sometimes laughing softly. Wary of the Asha’man they might be, yet Maidens being Maidens — Aiel being Aiel — risk only made taunts more fun. Somara murmured aloud about Aviendha settling him down, which earned firm nods of approval. Nobody’s life was ever this tangled in the stories.

As soon as Nerilea returned saying that she had found Davram Bashere and Bael, the clan chief leading the Aiel here in Caemlyn, Rand took off his sword belt, and so did Fedwin. Jalani produced a large leather bag for the swords and the Dragon Scepter, holding it as if the swords were poisonous snakes, or perhaps long dead and rotten. Though in truth she would not have held it so gingerly in either case. Putting on a hooded cloak that Corana handed him, Rand held his wrists together behind his back, and Sulin bound them with a cord. Tightly, muttering to herself.

“This is nonsense. Even wetlanders would call it nonsense.”

He tried not to wince. She was strong, and usi

ng every ounce of it. “You have run away from us too often, Rand al’Thor. You have no care for yourself.” She considered him a brother of an age with herself, but irresponsible at times. “Far Dareis Mai carries your honor, and you have no care.”

Fedwin glowered while his own wrists were tied, though the Maiden binding him hardly put out much effort. Watching, Jonan and Eben frowned deeply. They disliked this plan as much as Sulin did. And understood it as little. The Dragon Reborn did not have to explain himself, and the Car’a’carn seldom did. No one said anything, though. A weapon did not complain.

When Sulin stepped around in front of Rand, she took one look at his face, and her breath caught. “They did this to you,” she said softly, and reached for her heavy-bladed belt knife. A foot or more of steel, it was almost a short-sword, though none but a fool would say that to an Aiel.

“Pull up the hood,” Rand told her roughly. “The whole point of this is that no one recognize me before I reach Bael and Bashere.” She hesitated, peering into his eyes. “I said, pull it up,” he growled. Sulin could kill most men with her bare hands, but her fingers were gentle settling the hood around his face.

With a laugh Jalani snatched the hood down over his eyes. “Now you can be sure no one will know you, Rand al’Thor. You must trust us to guide your feet.” Several Maidens laughed.

Stiffening, he barely stopped short of seizing saidin. Barely. Lews Therin snarled and gibbered. Rand forced himself to breathe normally. It was not total darkness. He could see moonlight below the edge of the hood. Even so, he stumbled when Sulin and Enaila took his arms and led him forward.

“I thought you were old enough to walk better than that,” Enaila murmured in mock surprise. Sulin’s hand moved. It took him a moment to realize she was stroking his arm.

All he could see was what lay just before him, the moonlit flagstones of the stableyard, then stone steps, floors of marble by lamplight, sometimes with a long runner of carpet. He strained his eyes at the movement of shadows, felt for the telltale presence of saidin, or worse, the prickling that announced a woman holding saidar. Blind like this, he might not know he was under attack until too late. He could hear the whisper of a few servants’ feet as they hurried on nighttime chores, but no one challenged five Maidens apparently escorting two hooded prisoners. With Bael and Bashere living in the palace and policing Caemlyn with their men, doubtless stranger sights had been seen in these corridors. It was like walking a maze. But then he had been in one maze or another since leaving Emond’s Field, even when he had thought that he walked a clear path.

Would I know a clear path if I saw one? he wondered. Or have I been at this so long I’d think it was a trap?

There are no clear paths. Only pitfalls and tripwires and darkness. Lews Therin’s snarl sounded sweaty, desperate. The way Rand felt.

When Sulin finally led them into a room and shut the door, Rand tossed his head violently to throw back the hood — and stared. Bael and Davram he had expected, but not Davram’s wife, Deira, nor Melaine, nor Dorindha.

“I see you, Car’a’carn.” Bael, the tallest man Rand had ever seen, sat cross-legged on the green-and-white floor tiles in his cadin’sor, an air about him even at ease that said he was ready to move in a heartbeat. The clan chief of the Goshien Aiel was not young — no clan chief was — and there was gray in his dark reddish hair, but anyone who thought him soft with age was in for a sad surprise. “May you always find water and shade. I stand with the Car’a’carn, and my spears stand with me.”

“Water and shade may be all very well,” Davram Bashere said, hooking a leg over the gilded arm of his chair, “but myself I would settle for chilled wine.” Little taller than Enaila, he had his short blue coat undone, and sweat glistened on his dark face. Despite his apparent indolence, he looked even harder than Bael, with his fierce tilted eyes, and his eagle’s beak of a nose above thick gray-streaked mustaches. “I offer congratulations on your escape, and your victory. But why do you come disguised as a prisoner?”

“I prefer to know whether he is bringing Aes Sedai down on us,” Deira put in. A large woman gowned in gold-worked green silk, Faile’s mother stood as tall as any Maiden there except Somara, long black hair slashed with white at the temples, her nose only a little less bold than her husband’s. Truth, she could give him lessons in looking fierce, and she was very like her daughter in one respect. Her loyalty was to her husband, not Rand. “You’ve taken Aes Sedai prisoner! Are we now to expect the entire White Tower to descend upon our heads?”

“If they do,” Melaine said sharply, adjusting her shawl, “they will be dealt with as they deserve.” Sun-haired, green-eyed and beautiful, no more than a handful of years older than Rand by her face, she was a Wise One, and married to Bael. Whatever had caused the Wise Ones to change their view of Aes Sedai, Melaine, Amys and Bair had changed the most.

“What I wish to know,” the third woman said, “is what you will do about Colavaere Saighan.” While Deira and Melaine had presence, great presence, Dorindha outshone both, though it was difficult to see how exactly. The roof-mistress of Smoke Springs Hold was a solid, motherly woman, much nearer handsome than pretty, with creases at the corners of her blue eyes and as much white in her pale red hair as Bael had gray, yet of the three women, any eye with a brain behind it would have said she held sway. “Melaine says that Bair considers Colavaere Saighan of little importance,” Dorindha went on, “but Wise Ones can be as blind as any man when it comes to seeing the battle ahead and missing the scorpion underfoot.” A smile for Melaine robbed the words of their sting; Melaine’s answering smile certainly said she took none., “A roofmistress’s work is finding those scorpions before anyone is stung.” She also was Bael’s wife, a fact that still disconcerted Rand, for all it had been her choice and Melaine’s. Perhaps partly because it had been theirs; among Aiel, a man had little say if his wife chose a sister-wife. It was not a common arrangement even among them.

“Colavaere has taken up farming,” Rand growled. They blinked at him, wondering whether that was a joke. “The Sun Throne is empty again, and waiting for Elayne.” He had considered weaving a ward against listeners, but a ward could be detected by anyone searching, man or woman, and its presence would announce that something interesting was being said. Well, everything said here would be known from the Dragonwall to the sea soon enough.

Fedwin was already rubbing his wrists, while Jalani sheathed her knife. No one looked at them twice; all eyes were on Rand. Frowning at Nerilea, he waggled his bound hands until Sulin sliced the cords. “I didn’t realize this was to be a family gathering.” Nerilea looked a trifle abashed, maybe, but no one else did.

“After you marry,” Davram murmured with a smile, “you will learn you must choose very carefully what to keep from your wife.” Deira glanced down at him, pursing her lips.

“Wives are a great comfort,” Bael laughed, “if a man does not tell them too much.” Smiling, Dorindha ran her fingers into his hair — and gripped for a moment as though she meant to tug his head off. Bael grunted, but not for Dorindha’s fingers alone. Melaine wiped her small belt knife on her heavy skirt and sheathed it. The two women grinned at one another over his head while he rubbed at his shoulder, where a small spot of blood stained his cadin’sor. Deira nodded thoughtfully; it seemed she had just gotten an idea.

“What woman could I hate enough to marry her to the Dragon Reborn?” Rand said coldly. That caused a silence solid enough to touch.

He tried to take rein on his anger. He should have expected this. Melaine was not just a Wise One, she was a dreamwalker, as were Amys and Bair. Among other things, they could talk to one another in their dreams, and to others; a useful skill, though they had only used it for him once. It was Wise Ones’ business. No wonder at all that Melaine was abreast of everything that had happened. No wonder that she told Dorindha everything, Wise Ones’ business or no; the two women were best friends and sisters rolled into one. Once Melaine let Bael know of the kidnapping, of cours

e he had told Bashere; expecting Bashere to keep that from his wife was like expecting him to keep it secret that their house was on fire. Inch by inch he drew the anger in, forced it down.

“Has Elayne arrived?” He tried to make his voice casual, and missed. No matter. There were reasons everyone knew for him to be anxious. Andor might not be as unquiet as Cairhien, but Elayne on the throne was the fastest way to settle both lands. Maybe the only way.

“Not yet.” Bashere shrugged. “But tales have come north of Aes Sedai with an army somewhere in Murandy, or maybe Altara. That could be young Mat and his Band of the Red Hand, with the Daughter-Heir and the sisters who fled the Tower when Siuan Sanche was deposed.”

Rand rubbed his wrists where the cords had chafed. All that “captive” rigmarole had been on the chance Elayne was here already. Elayne, and Aviendha. So he could come and go without them learning of it till he was gone. Maybe he would have found a way to peek at them. Maybe . . . He was a fool, and no maybe about that.