Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

Niall took the tube with a mutter and stumped into the inner room. Omerna was becoming more useless every day, for some reason. Leaving his reports with Balwer was bad enough, nonsense as they were, but even Omerna knew better than to hand one of these tubes with three red stripes to anyone but Niall himself. He held the tube close to a lamp to examine the wax. Unbroken, before his thumbnail pierced it. He would have to light a fire under Omerna, put the fear of the Light into him. The fool was no good as a decoy unless he played the consummate spymaster as far as he was able.

The message was from Varadin again, Niall’s private cipher in that mad, spidery scrawl on a strip of thin paper. He almost burned it unread; then something at the end caught his eye. Beginning at the beginning, he consciously worked the cipher in his mind. He wanted to be absolutely sure. Just as before, it was gibberish about Aes Sedai on leashes and strange beasts, but right at the last . . . Varadin had helped Asidim Faisar find a hiding place in Tanchico; he would try to smuggle Faisar out, but the Forerunners kept such a guard that a whisper could not pass the walls without permission.

Niall rubbed his chin in thought. Faisar was one of those he had sent to Tarabon to see if anything could be salvaged. Faisar knew nothing of Varadin, and Varadin should know nothing of Faisar. The Forerunners kept a such a guard that not a whisper could pass the walls. A madman’s scrawl.

Stuffing the paper into his pocket, he returned to the anteroom. “Balwer, what is the latest from the west?” Between them, “the west” always meant the border with Tarabon.

“No change from before, my Lord. Patrols that penetrate very deeply into Tarabon do not return. The worst trouble near the border is refugees trying to cross.”

Patrols that penetrated too deeply. Tarabon was a pit writhing with poisonous vipers and rabid rats, but . . . “How quickly could you get a courier to Tanchico?”

Balwer did not even blink. The man would not show surprise if one day his horse spoke to him. “The problem will be fresh horses once he crosses the border, my Lord. Normally, I would say twenty days there and back, perhaps a few less with luck. Now, twice that, with luck. Maybe twice that just to reach Tanchico.” A pit that could swallow a courier and not even leave bones behind.

There would be no need for a return, but Niall kept that to himself. “Let it be arranged, Balwer. I will have a letter ready in an hour. I will speak to the courier myself.” Balwer bowed his head in assent, but dry-washed his hands at the same time, insulted. Let him be. There was a small chance this could be done without exposing Varadin. Unnecessary precaution if he was insane, of course, but if not . . . Revealing him would not make anything happen faster.

Back in the audience chamber, Niall studied Varadin’s message once more before holding the slip in a lamp flame, watching it catch. He crumpled the ash between his fingers.

He had four rules concerning action and information. Never make a plan without knowing as much as you can of the enemy. Never be afraid to change your plans when you receive new information. Never believe you know everything. And never wait to know everything. The man who waited to know everything was still sitting in his tent when the enemy burned it over his head. Niall followed those rules. Only once in his life had he abandoned them to follow a hunch. At Jhamara, for no reason but a tickling at the back of his head, he had set a third of his army to watch mountains all said were impassable. While he maneuvered the rest of his forces to crush the Murandians and Altarans, an Illianer army that was supposed to be a hundred miles away came out of those “impassable” passes. The only reason he managed to withdraw without being crushed was a “feeling.” And now he felt that tickling again.

“I do not trust him,” Tallanvor said firmly. “He reminds me of a young sharp I saw at the fair once, a baby-faced fellow who could look you in the eye and grin while he was palming the pea from under its cup.”

For once Morgase had no difficulty holding her temper. Young Paitr had reported that his uncle had finally found a way to smuggle her out of the Fortress of the Light, her and the others. The others had been the rub; Torwyn Barshaw had claimed himself able to get her out alone long since, but she would not leave them behind to the mercies of the Whitecloaks. Not even Tallanvor.

“I will make a note of your feelings,” she said indulgently. “Just do not let them hinder you. Do you have a saying that fits, Lini? Something for young Tallanvor and his feelings?” Light, why did she take such a delight in taunting him? He came close to treason, but she was his Queen, not . . . The rest of the thought would not come.

Lini sat near the windows, rolling a ball of blue yarn from the skein Breane held stretched on her hands. “Paitr minds me of that young under-groom, just before you went to the White Tower. The one who got two maids with child and was caught trying to sneak away from the manor with a sackful of your mother’s plate.”

Morgase’s jaw hardened, but nothing could spoil her pleasure, not even the glance Breane gave her, as if she should be allowed to state her opinion as well. Paitr had been overjoyed at Morgase’s impending escape. Of course, part of that was because he apparently expected some sort of reward from his uncle for his part — at least, a few of his comments suggested it; something about making up for a failure back home — but the young man practically danced when she agreed to the plan that

would have them all out of the Fortress today and out of Amador by sunrise tomorrow. Away from Amador and on the road to Ghealdan, where soldiers would not come with strings to tie to Andor. Two days ago Barshaw himself came to unfold the scheme, disguised as a shopkeeper delivering knitting needles and yarn, a squat big-nosed man with a choleric eye and a sneering mouth, though the words came out respectfully enough. It was hard to believe him Paitr’s uncle, they looked so different, much less a merchant. Still, his plan was a marvel of simplicity, if hardly dignified, needing only enough people outside the Fortress to make it work. Morgase was going to ride out of the Fortress of the Light buried in the bottom of a cartload of kitchen refuse.

“Now, you all know what to do,” she told them. So long as she herself was in her rooms, the rest could move about with considerable freedom. Everything depended on that. Well, not everything; but certainly every escape but her own. “Lini, you and Breane must be in the laundry yard when the bell sounds High.” Lini nodded complacently, but Breane gave her a purse-lipped look. They had been over this twenty times. Even so, Morgase was not going to allow a mistake to result in anyone being left behind. “Tallanvor, you will leave your sword behind and wait at an inn called The Oak and Thorn.” He opened his mouth, but she forestalled him firmly. “I have heard your arguments. You can find another sword. They’ll believe you mean to return if you leave it.” He grimaced, but finally nodded. “Lamgwin is to wait at The Golden Head, and Basel at — ”

A hasty tap at the door, and it opened enough to admit Basel’s balding head. “My Queen, there’s a man . . . a Child . . . ” He glanced over his shoulder into the hall. “There’s a Questioner, my Queen.” Tallanvor’s hands went to his sword hilt, of course, and he would not take them away until she had gestured twice and grimaced at him beside.

“Admit him.” She managed a calm voice, but butterflies the size of foxes fluttered frantically in her belly. A Questioner? Was everything that suddenly had been going so well about to turn just as suddenly to disaster?

A tall hawk-nosed man pushed Basel out of the way and closed the door in his face. The white-and-gold tabard with the crimson crook on his shoulder gave his rank as Inquisitor. She had not met Einor Saren, but he had been pointed out to her. There was a set of unalterable certainty to his face. “You are summoned to the Lord Captain Commander,” he said coldly. “You will come now.”

Morgase’s thoughts raced faster than the butterflies. She was used to being summoned — Niall did not come to her, now he had her in the Fortress — called before the man for another lecture on her duty to Andor or for what was supposed to be a friendly chat to show her that Niall had her best interests, and Andor’s, at heart. Used to that, but not to this sort of messenger. If she was being given over to the Questioners, there would be no subterfuge. Asunawa would send enough men to drag her away, and everyone with her. Him, she had met briefly; he made her blood freeze, Why had an Inquisitor been sent? She voiced the question, and Saren replied in the same icy tones.

“I was with the Lord Captain Commander, and I was coming this way. I have finished my business, and now I will take you back. After all, you are a queen, due respect.” That all sounded slightly bored, somewhat impatient, until the last, when a note of wry mockery entered. No warmth, though.

“Very well,” she said.

“Shall I accompany my Queen?” Tallanvor bowed formally; at least he made a display of deference when any outsider was around.

“No.” She would take Lamgwin instead. No, any of the men would make it seem she thought she needed bodyguards. Saren frightened her nearly as much as Asunawa did, and she would not let him catch even a hint of the fact. She put on a casual, tolerant smile. “Surely I need no protection here.”

Saren smiled too, or at least his mouth did. He seemed to be laughing at her.

Outside, with Basel and Lamgwin looking at her uncertainly, she almost changed her mind about attendants; she would have, had she not spoken inside. But two men could not protect her if this really was some elaborate trap, and changing her mind would be a show of weakness. Walking through the stone corridors beside Saren, she certainly felt weak, not like a queen at all. No. Maybe she would scream like anyone else if the Questioners had her in their dungeons — well, there was no maybe about it; she was not fool enough to believe royal flesh different from any other in that regard — but until then, she would be what she was. Deliberately, she set about flogging down those butterflies.

Saren led her into a small flagstone-paved courtyard where bare-chested men were hacking at wooden posts with swords. “Where are we going?” she demanded. “This is not the way I have gone to the Lord Captain Commander’s study before. Is he somewhere else?”

“I take the shortest way,” he replied curtly. “I have more important matters to see to than . . . ” He did not finish, and he did not slow, either.

She had no choice but to follow, down a corridor lined with long rooms full of narrow cots and men often bare-chested or in less. She kept her eyes fixed on Saren’s back, composing the blistering sentences she meant to deliver to Niall. Across a stableyard, the smell of horses and dung heavy in the air and a farrier shoeing horses in one corner, along another barracks hallway and then one with kitchens down one side and the thick smell of stew cooking, into another courtyard . . . She stopped dead.