Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time 10)

Dyelin took Aviendha’s announcement with less aplomb, mut­tering about the Sea Folk. She had not turned a hair at hearing that half the Windfinders were leaving, not in front of Reene and Norry, but now she demanded to know the whole story. “I never did trust Zaida,” she grumbled when Elayne finished. “This agree­ment sounds good for trade, I suppose, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she had one of the Windfinders try to listen in. She struck me as a woman who wants to know everything, just in case it might be useful one day.” There was very little hesitant about Dyelin, yet she hesitated now, rolling her winecup between her palms. “Are you certain this . . . this beacon . . . can’t harm us, Elayne?”

“As certain as I can be, Dyelin. If it was going to crack open the world, I think it would have by now.” Aviendha laughed, but Dyelin turned quite pale. Really! Sometimes you had to laugh if only to keep from crying.

“If we tarry much longer now that Norry and Mistress Harfor are gone,” Birgitte said, “somebody might start wondering why.” She waved a hand at the walls, indicating the ward she could not see. She knew it was still in place, though. The daily meetings with the First Maid and the First Clerk always concealed a little something more.

Everyone gathered around her as she moved a pair of golden Sea Folk porcelain bowls on one of the side tables and pulled a much-folded map from inside her short coat. It rode there always, except when she slept, and then it resided beneath her pillow. Spread out, with empty winecups at the corners to hold it flat, the map dis­played Andor from the River Erinin to the border between Altara and Murandy. In truth, it could have been said to show all of Andor, since what lay farther west had been only half under Caemlyn’s control for generations. It had hardly been a masterpiece of the mapmaker’s art to begin with, and creases obscured much of the detail, but it showed the terrain well enough, and every town and village was marked, every road and bridge and ford. Elayne set her teacup down at arm’s length from the map to avoid spilling on it and adding more stains. And to rid herself of the wretched excuse for tea.

“The Borderlanders are moving,” Birgitte said, pointing to the forests north of Caemlyn, to a spot above Andor’s northmost bor­der, “but they haven’t covered much ground. At this rate, they’ll be well over a month getting close to Caemlyn.”

Swirling her silver cup, Dyelin peered into the dark wine, then looked up suddenly. “I thought you northerners were used to snow, Lady Birgitte.” Even now she had to probe, and telling her not to would only make her ten times as certain that Birgitte was hiding secrets, and twenty times as determined to learn them.

Aviendha scowled at the older woman - when she was not in awe of Birgitte, sometimes she became fiercely protective of Birgitte’s secrets - but Birgitte herself met Dyelin’s gaze levelly, with no hint of alarm in the bond. She had become quite comfortable with the lie about her origins. “I haven’t been back to Kandor in a long time.” That was simple truth, though it had been far longer than Dyelin could have imagined. The country had not even been called Kandor, then. “But no matter what you’re used to, moving two hundred thousand soldiers, not to mention the Light alone knows how many camp followers, is slow going in winter. Worse, I sent Mistress Ocalin and Mistress Fote to visit some of the villages a few miles south of the border.” Sabeine Ocalin and Julanya Fote were Kinswomen who could Travel. “They say the villagers think the Borderlanders are camped for the winter.”

Elayne tsked, frowning at the map as she traced distances with a finger. She was counting on news of the Borderlanders, if not on the Borderlanders themselves. Word of an army that size entering Andor should be leaping ahead of it like wildfire in dry grass. No one but a fool could believe they had marched all those hundreds of leagues to try conquering Andor, but everyone who heard would be speculating on their intentions and what to do about them, a dif­ferent opinion on every tongue. Once the news began to spread, anyway. When it did, she had an advantage over everyone else. She had arranged for the Borderlanders to cross into Andor into the first place, and she had already arranged for them to leave.

The choice had not been very difficult. Stopping them would have been a bloody affair, if it could have been managed at all, and they wanted no more than the width of a road to march onward into Murandy, where they thought they would find the Dragon Reborn. That was her doing, as well. They hid their reason for seeking Rand, and she was not about to give them a true location, not when they had as many as a dozen Aes Sedai with them and hid that fact, too. But once news of them reached the High Seats. . . .

“It should work,” she said softly. “If necessary, we can plant rumors of the Borderlanders ourselves.”

“It should work,” Dyelin agreed, then added in a dark voice, “As long as Bashere and Bael keep a close rein on their men. It’s going to be a volatile mix, with Borderlanders, Aiel and the Legion of the Dragon all within a few miles of one another. And I can’t see how we can be sure the Asha’man won’t do something mad.” She ended with a sniff. In her book, a man had to be mad in the first place, or he would never have chosen to become an Asha’man. Aviendha nodded. She disagreed with Dyelin almost as frequently as Birgitte did, but for the most part, the Asha’man were one thing they agreed on.

“I’ll make sure the Borderlanders stay well clear of the Black Tower,” Elayne reassured them, though she had done the same before. Even Dyelin knew that Bael and Bashere would hold their forces in check - neither man wanted a battle he did not need, and Davram Bashere certainly would not fight his own countrymen - but anyone had a right to be uneasy about the Asha’man and what they might do. She slid her finger from the six-pointed star identifying Caemlyn across the few miles to the ground the Asha’man had usurped. The Black Tower was not marked, but she knew all too well exactly where it lay. At least that was well away from the Lugard Road

. Sending the Borderlanders south into Murandy without upsetting the Asha’man would not be difficult.

Her mouth compressed at the thought that she must not upset the Asha’man, but there was nothing to be done about it any time soon, so she mentally shifted the black-coated men to one side. What could not be dealt with now, had to be dealt with later.

“And the others?” She did not have to say more. Six major Houses remained uncommitted - at least to her or Arymilla. Dyelin claimed they would all come to Elayne eventually, but they showed no sign of it so far. Sabeine and Julanya had been looking for word of those six, too. Both women had spent the last twenty years as ped­dlers, accustomed to hard journeys, sleeping in stables or under the trees, and listening to what people did not say as much as to what they said. They made perfect scouts. It would be a great loss if they had to be shifted to helping keep the city supplied.

“Rumor has Lord Luan a dozen places, east and west.” Frown­ing at the much-creased map as though Luan’s position should have been marked on it, Birgitte muttered a curse, much viler than called for, now that Reene Harfor was absent. “Always the next village over, or the one beyond that. Lady Ellorien and Lord Abelle seem to have vanished completely, difficult as that has to be for a High Seat. At least, Mistress Ocalin and Mistress Fote haven’t been able to find a whisper of them, or of any House Pendar or House Traemane armsmen, either. Not a man or a horse.” That was very unusual. Someone was exerting great effort.

“Abelle was always a ghost when he wanted to be,” Dyelin muttered, “always able to catch you wrong-footed. Ellorien. . . .” Brushing fingers against her lips, she sighed. “The woman’s too flamboyant to disappear. Unless she’s with Abelle or Luan. Or both of them.” She was not happy with that idea, no matter what she said.

“As for our other “friends’,” Birgitte said, “Lady Arathelle crossed out of Murandy five days ago, here.” She touched the map lightly, some two hundred miles south of Caemlyn. “Four days ago, Lord Pelivar crossed about five or six miles west of that, and Lady Aemlyn here, another five or six miles.”

r /> “Not together,” Dyelin said, nodding. “Did they bring any Murandians? No? Good. They could be moving to their estates, Elayne. If they move further apart, we’ll know for certain.” Those three Houses made her most anxious of all.

“They could be heading home,” Birgitte agreed, reluctantly as always when agreeing with Dyelin. Drawing her intricate braid over her shoulder, she gripped it in a fist almost the way Nynaeve did. “The men and horses must be worn out, after marching into Murandy in winter. But all we can be sure of is that they’re on the move.”

Aviendha snorted. With her in elegant velvets, it was a star­tling sound. “Always assume your enemy will do what you do not want. Decide what you least want them to do, and plan on that.”

“Aemlyn, Arathelle and Pelivar aren’t enemies,” Dyelin protested weakly. Wherever she believed their allegiance would fall in time, those three had announced their support of Dyelin herself for the throne.

Elayne had never read of any queen being forced onto the throne - that sort of thing might not have made it into the histo­ries in any case - yet Aemlyn, Arathelle and Pelivar seemed will­ing to try, and not for hope of power for themselves. Dyelin did not want the throne, but she would hardly be a passive ruler. The sim­ple fact was that Morgase Trakand’s final year had been marred by blunder after blunder, and few knew or believed that she had been a captive of one of the Forsaken during that time. Some Houses wanted anyone except another Trakand on the throne. Or thought they did.

“What is the last thing we want them to do?” Elayne said. “If they disperse to their estates, then they are out of it until spring at the earliest, and everything will be decided by then.” The Light willing, it would. “But if they continue on to Caemlyn?”

“Without the Murandians, they don’t have enough armsmen to challenge Arymilla.” Studying the map, Birgitte rubbed her chin. “If they don’t know by now that the Aiel and the Legion of the Dragon are staying out of this, they’ll have to learn of it soon, but they’ll want to be careful. None of them seems foolish enough to provoke a fight they can’t win when they don’t have to. I’d say they’ll camp somewhere to the east or southeast, where they can keep an eye on events and maybe influence what happens.”

Downing the last of her wine, which must have been cold by now, Dyelin exhaled heavily and walked over to fill her cup again. “If they come to Caemlyn,” she said in a leaden tone, “then they are hoping that Luan or Abelle or Ellorien will join them. Perhaps all three.”

“Then we must figure out how to stop them reaching Caemlyn before our plans come to fruit, without making them permanent enemies.” Elayne worked to make her voice as sure and firm as Dyelin’s was dull. “And we must plan what to do in case they arrive here too early. If that happens, Dyelin, you will have to con­vince them the choice is between me and Arymilla. Otherwise, we’ll be in a tangle we may never straighten out, and all of Andor in it with us.”

Dyelin grunted as if she had been punched. The last time the great Houses split evenly among three claimants for the Lion Throne had been nearly five hundred years ago, and seven years of open war followed before a queen was crowned. The original claimants were all dead by that point.

Without thinking, Elayne picked up her teacup and took a sip. The tea had gone cold, but honey exploded on her tongue. Honey! She looked at Aviendha in astonishment, and her sister’s lips quirked in a small smile. A conspiratorial smile, as if Birgitte did not know exactly what had happened. Even their strangely enhanced bond did not extend to her tasting what Elayne did, yet she had surely felt Elayne’s surprise and pleasure on tasting the tea. Planting fists on hips, she adopted a censorious look. Or rather, she tried to; despite all she could do, a smile crept onto her face, too. Abruptly, Elayne realized that Birgitte’s headache was gone. She did not know when it had vanished, but it certainly was not there any longer.

“Hope for the best and plan for the worst,” she said. “Some­times, the best actually happens.”