The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

He stood leaning on the table until she was gone, unwilling to let her see him sink awkwardly to his knees, see the tears trickling down his weathered face. Oh, Light, Owyn. He had buried it all as deeply as he could. I couldn’t get there in time. I was too busy. Too busy with the bloody Game of Houses. He scrubbed at his face testily. Moiraine could play the Game with the best. Wrenching him around this way, tugging every string he had thought perfectly hidden. Owyn, Elayne. Morgase’s daughter. Only fondness remained for Morgase, perhaps a little more than that, but it was hard to walk away from a child you had bounced on your knee. That girl in Tanchico? That city would eat her alive even without a war. It must be a pit of rabid wolves, now. And Moiraine will give me the names. All he had to do was leave Rand in Aes Sedai hands. Just as he had left Owyn. She had him like a snake in a cleft stick, damned however he writhed. Burn the woman!

Looping the embroidery basket’s handle over her arm, Min gathered her skirts with her other hand and strolled out of the dining hall after breakfast in a gliding pace, her back straight. She could have balanced a full goblet of wine on her head without spilling a drop. Partly that was because she could not take a proper stride in her dress, all pale blue silk with a snug bodice and sleeves and a full skirt that would drag its embroidered hem on the ground if she did not hold it up. It was also partly because she was sure she could feel Laras’s eyes on her.

A glance back proved her right. The Mistress of the Kitchens, a winecask on legs, was beaming after her approvingly from the dining hall doorway. Who would have thought the woman had been a beauty in her youth, or would have a place in her heart for pretty, flirtatious girls? “Lively,” she called them. Who would have suspected she would decide to take “Elmindreda” under her stout wing? It was hardly a comfortable position. Laras kept a protective eye on Min, an eye that seemed to find her anywhere in the Tower grounds. Min smiled back and patted her hair, now a round black cap of curls. Burn the woman! Doesn’t she have something to cook, or some scullion to yell at?

Laras waved to her, and she waved in return. She could not afford to offend someone who watched her so closely, not when she had no idea how many mistakes she might be making. Laras knew every trick of “lively” women, and expected to teach Min any she did not already know.

One real mistake, Min reflected as she took a seat on a marble bench beneath a tall willow, had been the embroidery. Not from Laras’s point of view, but her own. Pulling her embroidery hoop from the basket, she ruefully examined yesterday’s work, a number of lopsided yellow oxeyes and something she had meant to be a pale yellow rosebud, though no one would know unless she told them. With a sigh, she set to picking the stitches out. Leane was right, she supposed; a woman could sit for hours with an embroidery hoop, watching everyone and everything, and nobody thought it strange. It would have helped, though, if she had any skill at all.

At least it was a perfect morning for being out-of-doors. A golden sun had just cleared the horizon in a sky where the few fluffy white clouds seemed arrayed to emphasize the perfection. A light breeze caught the scent of roses and ruffled tall calma bushes with their big red or white blossoms. Soon enough the gravel-covered paths near the tree would be full of people on one errand or another, everyone from Aes Sedai to stablemen. A perfect morning, and a perfect place from which to watch unobserved. Perhaps today she would have a useful viewing.

“Elmindreda?”

Min jumped, and stuck her pricked finger in her mouth. Twisting ’round on the bench, she prepared to assail Gawyn for sneaking up on her, but the words froze in her throat. Galad was with him. Taller than Gawyn, with long legs, he moved with a dancer’s grace and a lean, sinewy strength. His hands were long, too, elegant yet strong. And his face … . He was, quite simply, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

“Stop sucking your finger,” Gawyn said with a grin. “We know you are a pretty little girl; you do not need to prove it to us.”

Blushing, she hastily pulled her hand down, and barely restrained herself from a furious glare that would not have been at all in keeping with Elmindreda. He had needed no threats or commands from the Amyrlin to keep her secret, only her asking, but he did take any opportunity to tease that presented itself.

“It is not right to mock, Gawyn,” Galad said. “He did not mean to offend, Mistress Elmindreda. Your pardon, but can it be we have met before? When you frowned at Gawyn so fiercely just then, I almost thought I knew you.”

Min dropped her eyes demurely. “Oh, I could never forget meeting you, my Lord Galad,” she said in her best foolish-girl voice. The simpering tone, and anger at her own slip, sent a tide of heat to her hairline, improving her disguise.

She did not look anything like herself, and the dress and the hair were only a part of it. Leane had acquired creams and p

owders and an incredible assortment of mysterious scented things in the city and drilled her until she could have used them in her sleep. She had cheekbones, now, and more color in her lips than nature had put there. A dark cream lining her eyelids and a fine powder that emphasized her lashes made her eyes seem larger. Not at all like herself. Some of the novices had told her admiringly how beautiful she was, and even a few Aes Sedai had called her “a very pretty child.” She hated it. The dress was quite pretty, she admitted, but she hated the rest of it. Yet there was no point in donning a disguise if she did not keep it up.

“I am sure you would remember,” Gawyn said dryly. “I did not mean to interrupt you at your embroidery—swallows, are they? Yellow swallows?” Min thrust the hoop back into the basket. “But I wanted to ask you to comment on this.” He pushed a small, leather-bound book, old and tattered, into her hands, and suddenly his voice was serious. “Tell my brother this is nonsense. Perhaps he will listen to you.”

She examined the book. The Way of the Light, by Lothair Mantelar. Opening it, she read at random. “Therefore abjure all pleasure, for goodness is a pure abstract, a perfect crystalline ideal which is obscured by base emotion. Pamper not the flesh. Flesh is weak but spirit is strong; flesh is useless where spirit is strong. Right thought is drowned in sensation, and right action hindered by passions. Take all joy from rightness, and rightness only.” It seemed to be dry nonsense.

Min smiled at Gawyn, and even managed a titter. “So many words. I fear I know little of books, my Lord Gawyn. I always mean to read one—I do.” She sighed. “But there is so little time. Why, just fixing my hair properly takes hours. Do you think it is pretty?” The outraged startlement on his face nearly made her laugh, but she changed it to a giggle. It was a pleasure to turn the tables on him for a change; she would have to see if she could do it more often. There were possibilities in this disguise she had not considered. This stay in the Tower had turned out to be all boredom and irritation. She deserved some amusement.

“Lothair Mantelar,” Gawyn said in a tight voice, “founded the Whitecloaks. The Whitecloaks!”

“He was a great man,” Galad said firmly. “A philosopher of noble ideals. If the Children of the Light have sometimes been … excessive … since his day, it does not change that.”

“Oh, my. Whitecloaks,” Min said breathlessly, and added a little shudder. “They are such rough men, I hear. I cannot imagine a Whitecloak dancing. Do you think there is any chance of a dance here? Aes Sedai do not seem to care for dancing either, and I do so love to dance.” The frustration in Gawyn’s eyes was delightful.

“I do not think so,” Galad said, taking the book from her. “Aes Sedai are too busy with … with their own affairs. If I hear of a suitable dance in the city, I will escort you, if you wish it. You need have no fear of being annoyed by those two louts.” He smiled at her, unconscious of what he was doing, and she suddenly found herself breathless in truth. Men should not be allowed smiles like that.

It actually took her a moment to remember what two louts he was talking about. The two men who had supposedly asked for Elmindreda’s hand in marriage, nearly fighting each other because she could not make up her mind, pressing her to the point of seeking sanctuary in the Tower because she could not stop encouraging them both. Just the entire excuse for her being there. It’s this dress, she told herself. I could think straight if I had on my proper clothes.

“I’ve noticed the Amyrlin speaks to you every day,” Gawyn said suddenly. “Has she mentioned our sister Elayne? Or Egwene al’Vere? Has she said anything of where they are?”

Min wished she could black his eye. He did not know why she was pretending to be someone else, of course, but he had agreed to help her be accepted as Elmindreda, and now he was linking her to women too many in the Tower knew were friends of Min. “Oh, the Amyrlin Seat is such a wonderful woman,” she said sweetly, baring her teeth in a smile. “She always asks how I am passing the time, and compliments my dress. I suppose she hopes I’ll make a decision soon between Darvan and Goemal, but I just cannot.” She widened her eyes, hoping it made her look helpless and confused. “They are both so sweet. Who did you say? Your sister, my Lord Gawyn? The Daughter-Heir herself? I do not think I’ve ever heard the Amyrlin Seat mention her. What was the other name?” She could hear Gawyn grinding his teeth.

“We should not bother Mistress Elmindreda with that,” Galad said. “It is our problem, Gawyn. It is up to us to find the lie and deal with it.”

She barely heard him, because suddenly she was staring at a big man with long dark hair curling around slumped shoulders, wandering aimlessly down one of the graveled paths through the trees, under the watchful eyes of an Accepted. She had seen Logain before, a sad-faced, once-hearty man, always with an Accepted for companion. The woman was meant to keep him from killing himself as much as to prevent his escape; despite his size, he truly did not seem up to anything of the latter sort. But she had never before seen a flaring halo around his head, radiant in gold and blue. It was only there for a moment, but that was enough.

Logain had proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn, had been captured and gentled. Whatever glory he might have had as a false Dragon was far behind him now. All that remained for him was the despair of the gentled, like a man who had been robbed of sight and hearing and taste, wanting to die, waiting for the death that inevitably came to such men in a few years. He glanced at her, perhaps not seeing her; his eyes looked hopelessly inward. So why had he worn a halo that shouted of glory and power to come? This was something she had to tell the Amyrlin.

“Poor fellow,” Gawyn muttered. “I cannot help pitying him. Light, it would be a mercy to let him end it. Why do they make him keep on living?”

“He deserves no pity,” Galad pronounced. “Have you forgotten what he was, what he did? How many thousands died before he was taken? How many towns were burned? Let him live on as a warning to others.”

Gawyn nodded, but reluctantly. “Yet men followed him. Some of those towns were burned after they declared for him.”