Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

The Rose March was in bloom.

That was incredible. Few other plants had bloomed in this terrible summer, and those that did had wilted. But the Rose March was blooming, and fiercely, hundreds of red explosions twisting around the garden framework. Voracious insects buzzed from flower to flower, as if every bee in the city had come here to feed.

Gawyn kept his distance from the insects, but the scent of roses was so

pervasive that he felt bathed in it. Once he finished his walk, his clothing would probably smell of the perfume for hours.

Elayne was speaking with several advisors near one of the benches beside a small, lily-covered pond. She was showing her pregnancy, and seemed radiant. Her golden hair reflected the sunlight like the surface of a mirror; atop that hair, the Rose Crown of Andor looked almost plain by comparison.

She often had much to do these days. He'd heard hushed reports of the weapons she was building, the ones she thought might be as powerful as captive damane. The bellfounders in Caemlyn had been working for straight through the nights, from what he'd heard. Caemlyn was preparing for war, the city abuzz with activity. She didn't often have time for him, though he was glad for what she could spare.

She smiled at him as he approached, then waved off her attendants for the moment. She walked to him and gave him a fond kiss on the cheek. "You look thoughtful."

"A common malady of mine lately," he said. "You look distracted."

"A common malady of mine lately," she said. "There is always too much to do and never enough of me to do it.

"If you need to "

"No," she said, taking his arm. "I need to speak to you. And I've been told that a walk around the gardens once a day will be good for my constitution."

Gawyn smiled, breathing in the scents of roses and mud around the pond. The scents of life. He glanced up at the sky as they walked. "I can't believe how much sunlight we've been seeing here. I'd nearly convinced myself that the perpetual gloom was something unnatural."

"Oh, it probably is," she said nonchalantly. "A week back the cloud cover in Andor broke around Caemlyn, but nowhere else."

"But . . . how?"

She smiled. "Rand. Something he did. He was atop Dragonmount, I think. And then . . ."

Suddenly, the day seemed darker. "Al'Thor again," Gawyn spat. "He follows me even here."

"Even here?" she said with amusement. "I believe these gardens are where we first met him."

Gawyn didn't reply to that. He glanced northward, checking the sky in that direction. Ominous dark clouds hung out there. "He's the father, isn't he?"

"If he were," Elayne said without missing a beat, "then it would be prudent to hide that fact, wouldn't it? The children of the Dragon Reborn will be targets."

Gawyn felt sick. He'd suspected it the moment he'd discovered the pregnancy. "Burn me," he said. "Elayne, how could you? After what he did to our mother!"

"He did nothing to her," Elayne said. "I can produce witness after witness that will confirm it, Gawyn. Mother vanished before Rand liberated Caemlyn." There was a fond look in her eyes as she spoke of him. "Something is happening to him. I can feel it, feel him changing. Cleansing. He drives back the clouds and makes the roses bloom."

Gawyn raised an eyebrow. She thought the roses bloomed because of al'Thor! Well, love could make a person think strange things, and when the man she spoke of was the Dragon Reborn, perhaps some irrationality was to be expected.

They approached the pond's small dock. He could remember swimming there as a child, then getting an earful for it. Not from his mother, from Galad, though Gawyn's mother had given him a stern, disappointed look. He'd never told anyone that he'd been swimming only because Elayne had pushed him in.

"You're never going to forget that, are you?" Elayne asked.

"What?" he asked.

"You were thinking of the time you slipped into the pond during Mother's meeting with House Farah."

"Slipped? You pushed me!"

"I did nothing of the sort," Elayne said primly. "You were showing off, balancing on the posts."

"And you shook the dock."

"I stepped onto it," Elayne said. "Forcefully. I'm a vigorous person. I have a forceful stride."