A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

aundry hung drying from every third window, except where a structure stood empty. Some did, and those windows gaped liked eye sockets in a skull. A sour-sweet smell of decay permeated the air, last month’s chamber pots and ancient refuse moldering wherever it had been flung, and for every fly on the other side of the Eldar, a hundred buzzed here in clouds of green and blue. He spotted the peeling blue door of The Golden Crown of Heaven and shuddered at the thought of taking the women in there if the storm broke, despite what Beslan said. Then he shuddered again for having shuddered. Something was happening to him, and he did not like it.

Nynaeve and Elayne insisted on taking the lead, with Reanne between them and the Wise Women close behind. Lan stayed at Nynaeve’s shoulder like a wolfhound, hand on sword hilt, eyes constantly searching, radiating menace. In truth, he was probably enough protection for two dozen pretty sixteen-year-old girls carrying sacks of gold, even here, but Mat insisted that Vanin and the rest keep their eyes open. In fact, the former horsethief and poacher kept so close to Elayne that anyone could have been forgiven for thinking he was her Warder, if a rather fat and rumpled one. Beslan rolled his eyes expressively at Mat’s instructions, and Nalesean irritably stroked his beard and muttered that he could still be in bed.

Men strutted arrogantly along the streets with often ragged vests and no shirts, wearing great brass hoops in their ears and brass finger rings set with colored glass, one knife or sometimes two stuck behind their belts. Hands hovering near those knives, they stared as though daring someone to give the wrong twist to a look. Others skulked from corner to corner, doorway to doorway with hooded eyes, imitating the slat-ribbed dogs that sometimes snarled from a dark alleyway barely wide enough for a man to squeeze into. Those men hunched over their knives, and there was no way to tell which would run and which stab. By and large, the women made any of the men appear humble, parading in worn dresses and twice as much brass jewelry as the men. They carried knives too, of course, and their bold dark eyes sent ten sorts of challenge in every glance. In short, the Rahad was the sort of place where anyone wearing silk could hardly hope to walk ten steps without being cracked over the head. After which they had best hope to wake stripped to the skin and tossed onto a pile of rubbish in an alley, since the alternative was not to wake at all. But . . .

Children darted from every second door with chipped pottery cups of water, sent by their mothers in case the Wise Women wished a drink. Men with scarred faces and murder etched into their eyes stared openmouthed at seven Wise Women together, then bobbed jerky bows and inquired politely if they could be of assistance, was there anything that required carrying? Women, sometimes with as many scars and always eyes to make Tylin flinch, curtsied awkwardly and breathlessly asked whether they might supply directions, had anyone made a bother of themselves to bring so many Wise Women? If so, the strong implication was, Tamarla and the rest had no need of troubling themselves if they would just supply the name.

Oh, they glared at the soldiers as hotly as ever, though even the hardest flinched away from Lan after a single look. And, oddly enough, from Vanin. A few of the men growled at Beslan and Nalesean whenever they gazed too long at a woman’s deep neckline. Some growled at Mat, though he could not understand why; unlike those two, he was never in danger of his eyeballs falling down the front of a woman’s dress. He knew how to look discreetly. Nynaeve and Elayne were ignored, for all their finery, and so was Reanne in her red wool dress; they did not have the red belt. But they did have the protection of those belts. Mat realized that Beslan had been right. He could empty his purse on the ground, and no one would pick up a copper, at least so long as the Wise Women remained. He could pinch the bottom of every woman in sight, and even if she had apoplexy, she would walk away.

“What a pleasant walk,” Nalesean said dryly, “with such interesting sights and smells. Did I tell you I didn’t get much sleep last night, Mat?”

“Do you want to die in bed?” Mat grumbled. They might as well all have stayed in bed; they were bloody useless here, that was for sure. The Tairen snorted indignantly. Beslan laughed, but he probably thought Mat meant something else.

Across the Rahad they marched, until Reanne finally stopped in front of a building exactly like every other, all flaking plaster and crumbling brick, the same Mat had followed another woman to yesterday. No laundry hung from these windows; only rats lived in there. “In here,” she said.

Elayne’s eyes climbed slowly to the flat roof. “Six,” she murmured in tones of great satisfaction.

“Six,” Nynaeve sighed, and Elayne patted her arm as though sympathizing with her.

“I wasn’t really sure,” she said. So Nynaeve smiled and patted her. Mat did not understand a word of it. So the building had six floors. Women behaved very strangely sometimes. Well, most of the time.

Inside, a long hallway carpeted with dust ran dimly to the back, the far end lost in shadows. Few of the doorways held doors, and those were rough planks. One opening, almost a third of the way down the hall, led to a narrow flight of steep stone-faced steps climbing upward. That was the way he had gone the day before, following footprints in the dust, but he thought some of those other openings must be crossing corridors. He had not taken time to look around then, but the building was too deep and too wide for this floor to be served by only the one they saw. It was too big for only one way in.

“Really, Mat,” Nynaeve said when he told off Harnan and half the Redarms to find any back way in and guard it. Lan kept so close to her side, he might have been glued there. “Don’t you see by now there’s no need?”

Her tone was so mild that Elayne must have passed on the truth about Tylin, but if anything, that only soured his mood further. He did not want anyone to know. Bloody useless! But those dice were still rattling around in his head. “Maybe Moghedien likes back doors,” he said dryly. Something cluttered in the dark end of the hall, and one of the men with Harnan cursed loudly about rats.

“You told him,” Nynaeve breathed furiously at Lan, one hand snapping shut on her braid.

Elayne made an exasperated sound. “This is no time to stop for an argument, Nynaeve. The Bowl is upstairs! The Bowl of the Winds!” A small ball of light suddenly appeared, floating in front of her, and without waiting to see whether or not Nynaeve was coming, she gathered her skirts and darted up the stairs. Vanin dashed after her with a startling turn of speed for his bulk, followed by Reanne and most of the Wise Women. Round-faced Sumeko and Ieine, tall and dark and pretty despite the lines at the corners of her eyes, hesitated, then remained with Nynaeve.

Mat would have gone, too, if Nynaeve and Lan had not been in his way. “Would you let me by, Nynaeve?” he asked. He deserved to be there, at least, when this fabulous bloody Bowl was uncovered. “Nynaeve?” She was so focused on Lan she seemed to have forgotten anyone else. Mat exchanged glances with Beslan, who grinned and squatted easily with Corevin and the remaining Redarms. Nalesean leaned against the wall and yawned ostentatiously. Which was a mistake with all that dust about; the yawn turned into a coughing fit that darkened his face and doubled him over.

Even that did not distract Nynaeve. Carefully, she took her hand away from her braid. “I am not angry, Lan,” she said.

“Yes, you are,” he replied calmly. “But he had to be told.”

“Nynaeve?” Mat said. “Lan?” Neither one so much as flickered an eye his way.

“I would have told him when I was ready, Lan Mandragoran!” Her mouth clamped shut, but her lips writhed as though she were talking to herself. “I will not be angry with you,” she went on in a much milder tone, and that sounded addressed to herself as well. Very deliberately she tossed her braid back over her shoulder, jerked that blue-plumed hat straight, and clasped her hands at her waist.

“If you say so,” Lan said mildly.

Nynaeve quivered. “Don’t you take that tone with me!” she shouted. “I tell you, I’m not angry! Do you hear me?”

“Blood and ashes, Nynaeve,” Mat growled. “He doesn’t think you’re angry. I don’t think you’re angry.” A good thing women had taught him to lie with a straight face. “Now could we go upstairs and fetch this bloody Bowl of the Winds?”

“A marvelous idea,” said a woman’s voice from the door to the street. “Shall we go up together and surprise Elayne?” Mat had never seen the two women who walked into the hall before, but their faces were Aes Sedai faces. The speaker’s was long and cold as her voice, her companion’s framed by scores of thin dark braids worked with colored beads. Nearly two dozen men crowded in behind them, bulky fellows with heavy shoulders, clubs and knives in hand. Mat shifted his grip on the ashandarei; he knew trouble when he saw it, and the foxhead on his chest was cool, almost cold against his skin. Somebody was holding the One Power.

The two Wise Women nearly fell over dropping curtsies as soon as they saw those ageless features, but Nynaeve certainly knew trouble, too. Her mouth worked soundlessly as the pair came down the hallway, her face all consternation and self-recrimination. Behind him, Mat heard a sword leaving its scabbard, but he was not about to look back to see whose. Lan just stood there, which meant of course that he looked like a leopard ready to pounce.

“They’re Black Ajah,” Nynaeve said at last. Her voice started faint and gained strength, as she went on. “Falion Bhoda and Ispan Shefar. They committed murder in the Tower, and worse since. They’re Darkfriends, and . . . ” Her voice faltered for an instant, “ . . . they have me shielded.”

The newcomers continued to advance serenely. “Have you ever heard such nonsense, Ispan?” the long-faced Aes Sedai asked her companion, who stopped grimacing at the dust long enough to smirk at Nynaeve. “Ispan and I come from the White Tower, while Nynaeve and her friends are rebels against the Amyrlin Seat. They’ll be punished severely for that, and so will anyone who helps them.” With a shock, Mat realized the woman did not know; she thought that he and Lan and the others were just hired strongarms. Falion directed a smile at Nynaeve; it made a blizzard warm by comparison. “There’s someone who will be overjoyed to see you when we take you back, Nynaeve. She thinks you are dead. Better the rest of you go now. You don’t want to meddle in Aes Sedai affairs. My men will see you to the river.” Without taking her eyes from Nynaeve, Falion motioned for the men behind her to

come forward.

Lan moved. He did not draw his sword, and against Aes Sedai he should have had no chance if he had, no chance in any case, but one moment he was standing still and the next he had thrown himself at the pair. Just before he struck, he grunted as though hit hard, but he crashed into them, carrying both Black sisters to the dusty floor. That opened the sluicegates wide.