The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

Unconsciously she adjusted the velvet mask that hid the upper half of her face; she felt ridiculous wearing the thing, but it was necessary to blend in to some extent. The mask—blue to match her high-necked silk gown—the gown itself, and her dark hair, grown down to her shoulders now, were as far as she could make herself go. Passing for a Taraboner was unnecessary—Tanchico bulged with refugees, a good many of them foreigners swept up in the troubles—and it was beyond her in any case. These people were animals; they had no discipline, no order.

Regretfully, she turned from the harbor to her table companion, a

narrow-faced fellow with a weasel’s greedy smile. Floran Gelb’s frayed collar did not belong in the Garden of Silver Breezes, and he continually wiped his hands on his coat. She always met them here, the greasy little men she was forced to deal with. It was a reward for them, and a means of keeping them off balance.

“What do you have for me, Master Gelb?”

Wiping his hands again, he lifted a coarse jute bag onto the table and watched her anxiously. She held the bag down beside her before opening it. A silvery metal a’dam lay inside, a collar and bracelet connected by a leash cunningly worked and joined. She closed the bag and set it on the floor. This made three that Gelb had recovered, more than anyone else.

“Very good, Master Gelb.” A small purse went across the table the other way; Gelb made it disappear under his coat as if it held the Empress’s crown instead of a handful of silver. “And do you have anything else?”

“Those women. The ones you want me to look for?” She had grown used to the quick speech of these people, but she wished he would not lick his lips that way. It did not make him any harder to understand, but it was unsightly.

She very nearly told him she was not interested anymore. But this was a part of why she was in Tanchico, after all; maybe the whole reason, now. “What of them?” That she could even think of shirking her duty made her speak more harshly than she had intended, and Gelb flinched.

“I … I think I’ve found another one.”

“You are sure? There have been … mistakes.”

Mistakes was a gentle way to put it. Near a dozen women who came only vaguely near the descriptions had been nuisances she could ignore once she had seen them. But that noblewoman, a refugee from estates burned out by the war. Gelb had kidnapped the woman off the street, thinking to earn more for delivering her than for telling where she was. In his defense, the Lady Leilwin closely matched one of the women Egeanin sought, but she had told him they would not speak with any accent he recognized, certainly not a Taraboner accent. Egeanin had not wanted to kill the woman, yet even in Tanchico someone might have listened to her story. Leilwin had gone bound and gagged onto one of the courier boats in the dead of night; she was young and pretty, and someone would find a better use for her than slitting her throat. But Egeanin was not in Tanchico to find serving girls for the Blood.

“No mistakes, Mistress Elidar,” he said hastily, flashing that smile full of teeth. “Not this time. But … I need a little gold. To be sure. To get close enough. Four or five crowns?”

“I pay for results,” Egeanin told him firmly. “After your … mistakes, you are lucky that I pay you at all.”

Gelb licked his lips nervously. “You said … . Back in the beginning, you said you’d have a few coins for those as could do special sorts of work.” A muscle in his cheek twitched; his eyes darted as if someone might be listening at the lace-carved wall around three sides of the table, and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Stirring up trouble, as it were? I heard a rumor—from a fellow who’s bodyservant to Lord Brys—about the Assembly, and choosing the new Panarch. I think maybe it’s true. The man was drunk, and when he realized what he had said, he nearly fouled himself. Even if it isn’t, it would still rip Tanchico wide open.”

“Do you really believe there is any need to buy trouble in this city?” Tanchico was a rotting bellfruit ready to fall in the first wind. The whole of this wretched land was. For a moment she was tempted to buy his “rumor.” She was supposed to be a trader in whatever goods or information came along, and she had even sold some. But dealing with Gelb sickened her. And her own doubts frightened her. “That will be all, Master Gelb. You know how to make contact with me if you find another of these.” She touched the rough-woven sack.

Instead of rising, he sat staring, trying to see through her mask. “Where are you from, Mistress Elidar? The way you talk, all slurred out and soft-like—begging your pardon; no offense meant—I can’t place you.”

“That will be all, Gelb.” Maybe it was the quarterdeck voice, or maybe the mask failed to hide her cold stare, but Gelb bounced to his feet, ducking bows and stammering apologies while he fumbled open the door in the lacework wall.

She sat there after he was gone, giving him time to leave the Garden of Silver Breezes. Someone would follow him outside, to make certain he did not wait to shadow her. All this skulking and hiding disgusted her; she almost wished something would destroy her disguise and give her an honest face-to-face fight.

A new ship was sweeping into the harbor below, a Sea Folk raker with its towering masts and clouds of sail. She had examined a captured raker, but she would have given almost anything to take one out, though she expected a Sea Folk crew would be necessary to wring the most from the vessel. The Atha’an Miere were stubborn about taking the oaths; it would not be as good if she had to buy a crew. Buy an entire crew! The amount of gold that came in by the courier boats for her to fling about was going to her head.

Taking up the jute bag, she started to rise, then sat back down hurriedly at the sight of a wide, thick-shouldered man leaving another table. Dark hair, long to his shoulders, and a beard that left his upper lip bare framed Bayle Domon’s round face. He was not masked, of course; he ran a dozen coasting vessels in and out of Tanchico and apparently did not care who knew his whereabouts. Masked. She was not thinking straight. He would not recognize her in a mask. Still, she waited until he was gone before leaving her table. The man might have to be dealt with yet, if he became a danger.

Selindrin took the gold she proffered with a sleek smile and murmured wishes for Egeanin’s continued patronage. Dark hair in dozens of narrow braids, the proprietress of the Garden of Silver Breezes wore clinging white silk, nearly thin enough for a serving girl, and one of those transparent veils that always made Egeanin want to ask Taraboners what dances they could perform. Shea dancers wore almost identical veils and little more. Still, Egeanin thought as she started toward the street, the woman had a sharp mind, else she could not maneuver through the shoals of Tanchico, catering to every faction while earning the enmity of none.

A reminder of that was the tall, white-cloaked man, gray at the temples but hard-faced and hard-eyed, who passed Egeanin and was greeted by Selindrin. Jaichim Carridin’s cloak bore a golden sunburst on the breast, with three golden knots below and a crimson shepherd’s crook behind. An Inquisitor of the Hand of the Light, a high officer in the Children of the Light. The very concept of the Children outraged Egeanin, a military body answerable only to itself. But Carridin and his few hundred soldiers had power of a sort in Tanchico, where any kind of authority seemed to be lacking most of the time. The Civil Watch no longer patrolled the streets, and the army—as much as was still loyal to the King—was too busy holding the fortresses around the city. Egeanin noted that Selindrin did not even glance at the sword on Carridin’s hip. He definitely had power.

As soon as she stepped into the street her bearers came running with her chair from the cluster waiting for their patrons, and her bodyguards closed in around her with their spears. They were a mismatched lot, some in steel caps, three wearing leather shirts sewn with steel scales; rough-faced men, possibly deserters from the army, but aware that continued full bellies and silver to spend depended on her continued safety. Even the bearers carried stout knives, and cudgels stuck out of their sashes. No one who looked as though they had money dared appear out-of-doors unguarded. In any case, had she cared to risk it, it would only draw attention to her.

The guards forced a way through the crowds with no trouble. The throngs eddied and swirled in the narrow streets that wound through the city’s hills, creating clear pockets around sedan chairs surrounded by bodyguards. There were very few carriages to be seen. Horses were becoming an extravagance.

Worn was the only fit description for the milling masses, worn and frenzied. Worn faces, worn clothes, and too-bright, frenzied eyes, desperate, hoping when they knew there was no hope. Many had surrendered, crouching against walls, huddled in doorways, c

lutching wives, husbands, children, not simply worn but ragged and blank-faced. Sometimes they roused enough to cry out to some passerby for a coin, a crust, anything.

Egeanin kept her eyes straight ahead, of necessity trusting the bodyguards to detect any danger. Meeting a beggar’s eyes meant twenty of them jamming themselves hopefully around her chair. Tossing a coin meant a hundred crowding in, clamoring and weeping. She was already using part of the money the courier boats brought to support a soup kitchen, just as if she were one of the Blood. She shuddered to think what discovery of that overstepping of her place would mean. As well put on a brocaded robe and shave her head.

All of this could be put aright once Tanchico fell, with everyone fed, everyone put in their proper place. And she could abandon dresses and things she had no experience or taste for, return to her ship. Tarabon, at least, and perhaps Arad Doman as well, were ready to crumble at a touch, like charred silk. Why was the High Lady Suroth holding back? Why?

Jaichim Carridin lounged in his chair, cloak spread over the carved arms, studying the Taraboner noblemen who occupied the private room’s other chairs. They sat stiffly in their gold-embroidered coats, mouths tight below masks fancifully worked to resemble hawks’ faces, and lions’ and leopards’. He had more to worry him than they, but he managed a calm demeanor. It was two months since he had received word of a cousin found skinned alive in his own bedchamber, three since his youngest sister, Dealda, being carried off from her bridal feast by a Myrddraal. The family steward wrote disbelievingly, frantic with all the tragedy befalling House Carridin. Two months. He hoped Dealda had died quickly. It was said women did not cling to sanity long in Myrddraal hands. Two whole months. Anyone else but Jaichim Carridin would have been sweating blood.

Each man held a golden goblet of wine, but there were no servants present. Selindrin had served them before removing herself with an assurance that they would not be disturbed. There was, in fact, no one else on this, the highest floor of the Garden of Silver Breezes. Two men who had come with the nobles—members of the King’s Life Guard, unless Carridin missed his guess—stood at the foot of the stairs to guarantee continued privacy.