When she came out fr
om behind the blankets, she was ready. “I claim the right of a woman alone,” she told them formally. “I travel to Chachin, and I ask the shelter of your swords.” She also pressed a fat silver coin into each man’s hand. She was not really sure about this ridiculous “woman alone” business, but silver caught most men’s attention. “And two more each, paid in Chachin.”
The reactions were not what she expected. Ryne glared at the coin as he turned it over in his fingers. Lan looked at his without expression and tucked it into his coat pocket with a grunt. She had given them some of her last Tar Valon marks, she realized, but Tar Valon coins could be found anywhere, along with those of every other land.
Bukama bowed with his left hand on his knee. “Honor to serve, my Lady,” he said. “To Chachin, my life above yours.” His eyes were also blue, and they, too, would not quite meet hers. She hoped he did not turn out to be a Darkfriend.
Learning anything proved to be difficult. Impossible. First the men were busy setting up camp, tending the horses, making a larger fire. They did not seem eager to face a new spring night without that. Bukama and Lan barely said a word over a dinner of flatbread and dried meat that she tried not to wolf down. Ryne talked and was quite charming, really, with a dimple in his cheek when he smiled, and a sparkle in his blue eyes, but he gave no opening for her to mention The Gates of Heaven or Aes Sedai. When she finally inquired why he was going to Chachin, his face turned sad.
“Every man has to die somewhere,” he said softly, and went off to make up his blankets. A very odd answer. Worthy of an Aes Sedai.
Lan took the first watch as the moon rose above the trees, sitting cross-legged not far from Ryne, and when Bukama doused the fire and rolled himself up in his blankets near Lan, she wove a ward of Spirit around each man. Flows of Spirit she could hold on to sleeping, and if any of them moved in the night, the ward would wake her without alerting them. It meant waking every time they changed guard, which they did frequently, but there was nothing for it. Her own blankets lay well away from the men, and as she settled her head on her saddle for the third time, Bukama murmured something she could not catch. She heard Lan’s reply plainly enough.
“I’d sooner trust an Aes Sedai, Bukama. Go to sleep.”
All the anger she had tamped down flared up. The man threw her into an icy pond, he did not apologize, he…! She channeled, Air and Water weaving with a touch of Earth. A thick cylinder of water rose from the surface of the pond, stretching up and up in the moonlight, arching over. Crashing down on the fool who was so free with his tongue!
Splattered, Bukama and Ryne bounded to their feet with oaths, but she continued the torrent for a count of ten before letting it end. Freed water splashed down across the campsite. She expected to see a sodden, half-frozen man beaten to the ground and ready to learn proper respect. He was dripping wet, a few small fish flopping around his feet. He was standing on his feet. With his sword out.
“Shadowspawn?” Ryne said in a disbelieving tone, and atop him, Lan said, “Maybe! I’ve never heard the like, though. Guard the woman, Ryne! Bukama, take west and circle south; I’ll take east and circle north!”
“Not Shadowspawn!” Moiraine snapped, stopping them in their tracks. They stared at her. She wished she could see their expressions better in the moonshadows, but those cloud-shifting shadows aided her, too, cloaking her in mystery. With an effort she gave her voice every bit of cool Aes Sedai serenity she could muster. “It is unwise to show anything except respect to an Aes Sedai, Master Lan.”
“Aes Sedai?” Ryne whispered. Despite the dim light, the awe on his face was clear. Or maybe it was fear.
No one else made a sound, except for Bukama’s grumbles as he shifted his bed away from the mud. Ryne spent a long time moving his blankets in silence, giving her small bows whenever she glanced his way. Lan made no attempt to dry off. He started to choose a new spot for his watch, then stopped and sat back where he had been, in the mud and water. She might have thought it a gesture of humility, only he glanced at her, very nearly meeting her eyes this time. If that was humility, kings were the most humble men on earth.
She wove her wards around them again, of course. If anything, revealing herself only made it more necessary. She did not go to sleep for quite a while, though. She had a great deal to think about. For one thing, none of the men had asked why she was following them. The man had been on his feet! When she drifted off, she was thinking of Ryne, strangely. A pity if he was afraid of her, now. A great pity if he turned out to be a Darkfriend. He was charming, and quite pretty, really. She did not mind a man wanting to see her unclothed, only his telling others about it.
Chapter
20
Breakfast in Manala
You may call me Lady Alys,” the strange little woman told them when she climbed drowsily from her blankets at sunrise, stifling yawns with a fist. Apparently she was unused to sleeping on the ground. Lan was certain she had been awake every time he took a turn at guard. People breathed differently awake and asleep. Well, women who wore silks seldom encountered hardships or discomfort.
He doubted the name as much as he did the Great Serpent ring she produced, especially after she tucked it back into her belt pouch and said no one must know she was Aes Sedai, not even other sisters. True, Aes Sedai often pretended to be ordinary women, and carried it off with those who did not know a sister’s face, and true, once he had encountered an Aes Sedai who had not yet attained the ageless look, but one and all they practiced serenity to a fault. Oh, they got angry, but it was a cold anger. He had seen “Alys’” face in the moonlight when the water stopped, though he had not realized what he was seeing till later. Childish glee at playing a prank, and childish disappointment that it had not worked as she wished. Aes Sedai were many things, and convoluted enough with it to make other women seem simple, but they were never childish.
When they had first seen her behind them, outpacing the merchant trains and the shield of their guards, Bukama offered a reason for a woman alone to follow three men. If six swordsmen could not kill a man in daylight, perhaps one woman could in darkness. Bukama had not mentioned Edeyn, of course. In truth, it plainly could not be that, or he would be dead now, yet Edeyn might set a woman to watch him, thinking he would be less on his guard. Only a fool believed women less dangerous than men, but women often seemed to think men fools when it came to women.
In the night, despite his earlier misgivings, Bukama had expressed displeasure at Lan’s refusal to make proper pledge to her, though his own pledge sufficed to tie them to this “Lady Alys” to Chachin. Besides, she had given them money. The woman did not know insult when she offered it. This morning, he grumbled while saddling his black gelding, a horse he claimed was not a patch on Sun Lance. That was going some even for Bukama. The black was a fine animal, with excellent conformation and a good turn of speed, if untrained as a warhorse yet. “Aes Sedai or not, a decent man follows certain forms,” he muttered as he tightened his front saddle girth. “It’s a matter of common decency.”
“Give over, Bukama,” Lan told him quietly. Bukama did not, of course.
“It’s disrespectful to her, Lan, and shameful on your part. An honorable man protects whoever needs protecting, but children above all, and women above men. Pledge her protection for your own honor.”
Lan sighed. Likely, Bukama would keep this up the whole way to Chachin. He should understand. If the woman really was Aes Sedai, Lan wanted no more strings binding him to her. Bukama had already tied one, but his own pledge might lead to worse. If she was Aes Sedai, she might be hunting a Warder. If.
Ryne only waited for the woman to finish brushing out her hair, which she did seated on her saddle on the ground, before offering her a flourishing bow that set his bells chiming. “A beautiful morning, my Lady,” he murmured, “though no sunrise could compare in beauty with the deep, dark pools of your eyes.” And then he twitched, his own eyes going wide as he searched to see whether she was offended. “Ah…. May I saddle your mare, my Lady?” As diffident as a scullion in the withdrawing room.
“Why, thank you,” she said, smiling. A very warm smile. “A gracious offer, Ryne.”
She went with him to saddle her bay, or rather to flirt, as it seemed. She stood very close while he worked, looking up at him with those big eyes he so admired, and whatever she said, Lan heard answering murmurs about her “skin of silky snow.” Which brought a delighted laugh from her.
Lan shook his head. He understood what drew Ryne. The woman’s face was beautiful, and however childishly she behaved, the slim body inside that blue silk belonged to no child. But Ryne was right; he had seen a Cairhienin in her skin, more than one. And they had all tried to mesh him in a scheme, or two, or three. Over one particularly memorable ten days in the south of Cairhien, he had almost been killed six times and nearly married twice. An Aes Sedai, if she really was one, and a Cairhienin? There could be no worse combination.
Strangely, she made no complaint about riding on without a bite of breakfast, but when they reached Manala, a considerable village less than an hour along the road, she commanded a halt. And it was a command.