A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

Harine took it up again, gesturing toward the raised stern of the ship. “We will speak in my cabin, if it pleases you. A soarer is not a large vessel, Rand al’Thor, and the cabin is small. If it pleases you to come alone, all here stand surety for your safety.” So. From the Coramoor to plain Rand al’Thor. She would take back what she had given, if she could.

He was about to open his mouth and agree — anything to get this done; Harine was already moving that way, still gesturing for him to follow, the other women with her — when Merana gave another tiny cough.

“The Windfinders can channel,” she murmured hastily into her hand. “You should take two sisters with you, or they’ll feel they’ve gained the upper hand.”

Rand frowned. The upper hand? He was the Dragon Reborn, after all. Still . . . ”I will be pleased to come, Wavemistress, but Min here goes everywhere with me.” He patted Min’s hand on his arm — she had not let go an instant — and Harine nodded. Taval was already holding the door open; Derah made one of those small bows, gesturing him toward it.

“And Dashiva, of course.” The man gave a start at his name, as if he had been asleep. At least he was not staring wide-eyed around the deck like Flinn and Narishma. Staring at the women. Stories spoke of the alluring beauty and grace of Sea Folk women, and Rand could certainly see that — they walked as if they would begin dancing on the next step, swaying sinuously — but he had not brought the men here to ogle. “Keep your eyes open!” he told them harshly. Narishma colored, jerking himself stiffly erect, and pressed fist to chest. Flinn simply saluted, but both seemed more alert. For some reason, Min looked up at him with the tiniest wry smile.

Harine nodded a little more impatiently. A man stepped out from the crew, in baggy green silk breeches and with an ivory-hilted sword and dagger thrust behind his sash. More white-haired than she, he also wore five fat little rings in each ear. She waved him away even more impatiently. “As it please you, Rand al’Thor,” she said.

“And of course,” Rand added, as though an afterthought, “I must have Merana, and Rafela.” He was not certain why he chose the second name — perhaps because the plump Tairen sister was the only one not Green except Merana — but to his surprise, Merana smiled in approval. For that matter, Bera nodded, and so did Faeldrin, and Alanna.

Harine did not approve. Her mouth tightened before she could control it. “As it pleases you,” she said, not quite so pleasantly as before.

Once he was inside the stern cabin, where everything except a few brass-bound chests seemed built into the walls, Rand was not so sure the woman had not gained whatever she wanted just bringing him there. For one thing, he was forced to stand hunched over, even between the roof beams, or whatever they were called on a ship. He had read several books about ships, but none mentioned that. The chair he was offered at the foot of the narrow

table would not pull out, being fastened to the deck, and once Min showed him how to unlatch the chair arm and swing it out so he could sit, his knees hit the bottom of the table. There were only eight chairs. Harine sat at the far end, her back to the stern’s red-shuttered windows, with her Windfinder to her left and the Sailmistress to her right and Taval below her. Merana and Rafela took the chairs below Shalon, while Min sat to Rand’s left. Dashiva, with no chair, took a place beside the door, standing upright quite easily, though the roof beams almost brushed his head, too. A young woman in a bright blue blouse, with one thin earring in each ear, brought thick cups of tea, brewed black and bitter.

“Let’s be done with this,” Rand said testily as soon as the woman left with her tray. He left his cup on the table after one sip. He could not stretch out his legs. He hated being confined. Thoughts of being doubled inside the chest flashed in his head, and it was all he could do to rein his temper. “The Stone of Tear has fallen, the Aiel have come over the Dragonwall, all the parts of your Jendai Prophecy have come to pass. I am the Coramoor.”

Harine smiled across her cup, a cool smile with no amusement in it. “That may be so, as it pleases the Light, but — “

“It is so,” Rand snapped despite a warning glance from Merana. She went so far to nudge his leg with her foot. He ignored that, too. The cabin walls seemed closer, somehow. “What is it that you don’t believe, Wavemistress? That Aes Sedai serve me? Rafela, Merana.” He gestured sharply.

All he wanted was for them to come to him and be seen to come, but they set down their cups and rose gracefully, glided to either side of him — and knelt. Each took one of his hands in both of hers and pressed her lips to the back of it, right on the shining golden-maned head of the Dragon that wound around his forearm. He just managed to conceal his shock, not taking his eyes from Harine. Her face went a little gray.

“Aes Sedai serve me, and so will the Sea Folk.” He motioned the sisters back to their seats. Oddly, they looked a touch surprised. “That is what the Jendai Prophecy says. The Sea Folk will serve the Coramoor. I am the Coramoor.”

“Yes, but there is the matter of the Bargain.” That word was plainly capitalized in Harine’s tone. “The Jendai Prophecy says you will bring us to glory, and all the seas of the world will be ours. As we give to you, you must give to us. If I do not make the Bargain well, Nesta will hang me naked in the rigging by my ankles and call the First Twelve of Clan Shodein to name a new Wavemistress.” A look of utter horror stole across her face as those words came out of her mouth, and her black eyes went wider and wider by the word with disbelief. Her Windfinder goggled at her, and Derah and Taval tried so hard not to, their eyes fastened to the table, that it seemed their faces might break.

And suddenly, Rand understood. Ta’veren. He had seen the effects, the sudden moments when the least likely thing happened because he was near, but he had never known what was going on before until it was finished. Easing his legs as best he could, he leaned his arms on the table. “The Atha’an Miere will serve me, Harine. That is given.”

“Yes, we will serve you, but — ”Harine half-reared out her chair, spilling her tea. “What are you doing to me, Aes Sedai?” she cried, trembling. “This is not fair bargaining!”

“We do nothing,” Merana said calmly. She actually managed to drink a swallow of that tea without wincing.

“You are in the presence of the Dragon Reborn,” Rafela added. “The Coramoor your prophecy calls you to serve, as I believe.” She laid a finger to one round cheek. “You said you speak for the Mistress of the Ships. Does that mean your word is binding on the Atha’an Miere?”

“Yes,” Harine whispered hoarsely, falling back in her seat. “What I say binds every ship, and all to the Mistress of the Ships herself.” It was impossible for one of the Sea Folk to go white in the face, yet staring at Rand, she came as near as she could.

He smiled at Min, to share the moment. At last a people would come to him without fighting every step of the way, or splitting apart like the Aiel. Maybe Min thought he wanted her help to clinch matters, or maybe it was ta’veren. She leaned toward the Wavemistress. “You will be punished for what happens here today, Harine, but not so much as you fear, I think. At least, one day you will be the Mistress of the Ships.”

Harine frowned at her, then glanced to her Windfinder.

“She is not Aes Sedai,” Shalon said, and Harine seemed caught between relief and disappointment. Until Rafela spoke.

“Several years ago, I heard reports of a girl with a remarkable ability to see things. Are you she, Min?”

Min grimaced into her cup, then nodded reluctantly; she always said that the more people knew what she could do, the less good came of it. Glancing across the table at the Aes Sedai, she sighed. Rafela only nodded, but Merana was staring at her, hazel eyes avid in a mask of serenity. No doubt she expected to corner Min as soon as possible and find out what this talent was and how it worked, and no doubt Min expected it too. Rand felt a prickle of irritation; she should have known he would protect her from being bothered. A prickle of irritation, and a warmth that he could protect her from that, at least.

“You may trust what Min says, Harine,” Rafela said. “The reports I heard say that what she sees always seems to come true. And even if she does not realize it, she has seen something else.” Her round face tilted to one side, and a smile curved her mouth. “If you will be punished for what happens here, then it must mean you will agree to whatever your Coramoor wants.”

“Unless I agree to nothing,” Harine blustered. “If I make no Bargain . . . ” Her fists clenched on the tabletop. She had already admitted she had to make the Bargain. She had admitted the Sea Folk would serve.

“What I require of you is not onerous,” Rand said. He had thought about this since deciding to come. “When I want ships to carry men or supplies, the Sea Folk will give them. I want to know what is happening in Tarabon and Arad Doman, and in the lands between. Your ships can learn — will learn — what I want to know; they call in Tanchico and Bandar Eban and a hundred fishing villages and towns between. Your ships can travel farther out to sea than anyone else’s. The Sea Folk will keep watch as far west in the Aryth Ocean as they can sail. There is a people, the Seanchan, who live beyond the Aryth Ocean, and one day, they will come to try to conquer us. The Sea Folk will let me know when they come.”

“You require much,” Harine muttered bitterly. “We know of these Seanchan, who come from the Islands of the Dead, it seems, from which no ship returns. Some of our ships have encountered theirs; they use the One Power as a weapon. You require more than you know, Coramoor.” For once, she did not pause at the title. “Some dark evil has descended upon the Aryth Ocean. No ship of ours has come from there in many months. Ships that sail west, vanish.”