Moiraine allowed herself a small smile as Lan’s friends galloped after him. If he wanted to be away from her so quickly, then she had made some impression. A deeper one had to wait. So he thought she needed to avoid the rougher parts of Chachin, did he? The way she handled those bandits should have taught him better.
Putting him out of her mind, she went in search of exactly those rougher quarters. When she and Siuan had been allowed a trip into Tar Valon as Accepted, the common rooms Siuan liked to visit were always in that sort of area. Their food and wine were cheap, and they were unlikely to be frequented by Aes Sedai who would surely have disapproved of Accepted having a cup of wine in such a place. Besides, Siuan said she felt more comfortable in those inns than at the better establishments where Moiraine would have preferred to eat. Besides, tightfisted as Siuan was, she certainly would have sought out a room at the cheapest inn to be found.
Moiraine rode through the crowded streets until she found a place inside the first ringwall where there were no sedan chairs or street musicians and the rare pushbarrow vendors had no patrons and faces without hope of having any soon. The stone buildings lining the narrow street had a shabby appearance that belied their brightly tiled roofs, cracked paint on doors and window frames where there was any paint, dirty windows with broken panes. Ragged children ran laughing and playing, but children played and laughed in the direst surroundings. Shopkeepers with cudgels stood guard over the goods displayed on tables in front of their shops and eyed the passersby as though considering every one of them capable of theft. Maybe some of those folk were, in their worn, patched woolens, scuttling along with head down or swaggering with defiant scowls. A poor woman might easily be tempted into theft when she had nothing. Moiraine’s fur-lined cloak and silk riding dress drew furtive glances, and so did Arrow. There was not another horse on the street.
As she dismounted in front of the first inn she came to, a dusty-appearing place called The Ruffled Goose, a slat-ribbed yellow dog growled at her, hackles standing, till she flicked it with a fine flow of Air and sent it yelping down the street. Of more concern was a tall young woman in a much-darned red dress that had faded in patches of different shades. She was pretending to search for a stone in her shoe while eyeing Arrow sideways. A covetous gaze, that. There were no hitching posts or rings here. Letting the reins hang free, which would tell Arrow not to move, Moiraine wove hobbles of Air for the mare’s forefeet and a ward around her that would warn if anyone tried to move the animal. That one, she held on to rather than tying off.
The dim common room of The Ruffled Goose bore out the exterior. The floor was covered with what might have been sawdust once, but now appeared to be congealed mud. The air stank of stale tabac smoke and sour ale, and something that seemed to be scorching in the kitchen. The patrons huddled over their mugs at the small tables, rough-faced men in rough coats, lifted their heads in surprise at her entrance. The innkeeper proved to be a lean, leathery fellow in a stained gray coat with his narrow face cast in a permanent leer, as villainous in appearance as any of those bandits on the high road had been.
“Do you have a Tairen woman staying here?” she asked. “A young Tairen woman with blue eyes?”
“This place isn’t for the likes of you, my Lady,” he muttered, rubbing a wiry hand across his stubbly cheek. He might have rearranged some dirt. “Come, let me show you to something more fit.”
He started for the door, but she laid a hand on his sleeve. Lightly. Some of the stains on his coat appeared to be encrusted food, and up close, he smelled as though he had not washed in weeks. “The Tairen woman.”
“I’ve never seen a blue-eyed Tairen. Please, my Lady. I know a fine inn, a grand place, only two streets over.”
The ward she had set on Arrow tingled against her skin. “Thank you, no,” she told the innkeeper, and hurried outside.
The woman in the faded red dress was trying to lead Arrow away, tugging at the reins and growing increasingly frustrated at the mare’s tiny mincing steps.
“I would abandon that notion if I were you,” Moiraine said loudly. “The penalty for horse-theft is flogging if the horse is recovered, and worse if not.” Every Accepted was required to become acquainted with the more common laws of the different nations.
The young woman spun, mouth dropping open. Apparently she had believed she had more time before Moiraine came out. Surprise vanished quickly, though, and she straightened her back and laid a hand on her long-bladed belt knife. “I suppose you think you can make me,” she said, contemptuously eyeing Moiraine up and down.
It would have been a pleasure to send the woman off with a few stripes across her back, but doing so might well have revealed who she was. A number of passersby, men and women and children, had stopped to watch. Not to interfere; just to see the outcome. “I will if I must,” Moiraine said calmly, coolly.
The young woman frowned, licking her lips and fingering the hilt of her knife. Abruptly, she flung down Arrow’s reins. “Keep her then! Truth is, she isn’t worth stealing.” Turning her back, she strode away shooting defiant glares in every direction.
Temper flared in Moiraine, and she channeled Air, striking the woman a hard blow across the bottom. A very hard blow. With a shriek, the woman leaped at least a foot in the air. Gripping her knife hilt, she spun about, scowling and searching for who had hit her, but there was no one closer than two paces, and people were looking at her in open puzzlement. She started off again, rubbing herself with both hands.
Moiraine gave a small nod of satisfaction. Perhaps in the future the would-be horsethief would know not to insult another woman’s horse. Her satisfaction did not last long.
At the second inn on the street, The Blind Pig, a round-faced, squinting woman in a long apron that might have once been white cackled that she had no Tairens in her rooms. Every word out of her mouth came with a shrill laugh. “Best you be off, girl,” she said as well. “My trade will have a pretty tender like you for dinner if you don’t scurry away quick.” Tilting her head back, she roared with laughter that her customers echoed.
At The Silver Penny, the last inn on the street, the innkeeper was a beautiful woman in her middle years, not too overly tall, with a joyous smile and glossy black hair worn in a thick braid that started atop her head. Wonder of wonders, Nedare Satarov’s brown woolen dress was neat, clean and well cut, and her common-room floor was freshly swept. Her patrons were rough-faced men and hard-eyed women, but the smells from the kitchen promised something tolerable.
“Why, yes, my Lady,” she said, “I do have a Tairen woman of that description staying here. She’s gone out just now. Why don’t you have a seat and some nice spiced wine while you wait for her.” She held out a wooden mug she had been carrying when she first approached. The mug gave off the sweet smell of fresh spices.
“Thank you,” Moiraine said, returning the woman’s smile with one just as bright. What luck to find Siuan so fast. But her hand stopped just short of the mug. Something had altered in Mistress Satarov’s expression. Just by a hair, but there was definitely a slight air of anticipation about her now. And she had been carrying the mug when she approached. Moiraine had not seen a sign of wine in the first two inns. No one in this part of the city could afford wine. Spices could cover many other tastes.
Embracing the Source, she wove Spirit in one of the Blue’s secret weaves and touched the innkeeper with it. Slight anticipation became definite unease. “Are you certain the young woman meets my description exactly?” she asked, and tightened the weave a fraction. Sweat appeared on Mistress Satarov’s forehead. “Are you absolutely certain?” Another tightening, and a edge of fear appeared in the woman’s eyes.
“Come to think, she doesn’t have blue eyes at that. And…And she left this morning, come to think.”
“How many unwary visitors have you fed wine?” Moiraine asked coldly. “How many women? Do you leave them alive? Or simply wishing they were dead?”
“I…. I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ll excuseme, I….”
“Drink,” Moiraine commanded, tightening the weave to just short of panic. Trembling, Mistress Satarov was unable to break free from her gaze. “Drink it all.”
Still staring into Moiraine’s eyes, the woman raised the mug unsteadily to her mouth, and her throat worked convulsively as she swallowed. Abruptly, her eyes widened as she realized what she was doing, and with a cry she flung the mug away in a spray of wine. Moiraine released the weave, but that did not lessen Mistress Satarov’s fear. The woman’s face contorted with terror as she gazed around her common room. Hoisting her skirts above her knees, she began running toward the kitchens, perhaps the stairs at the back of the room, yet in three paces she was staggering from side to side, and in three more she collapsed to the floor as though her bones had melted, her stockinged legs exposed to the thigh. Silk stockings. The woman had made a tidy profit from her vile trade. She waved her arms as though seeking to crawl, but there was no strength in them.
Some of the men and women at the tables looked at Moiraine in wonderment, doubtless amazed that she was not the one lying on the floor, but most seemed to be studying Mistress Satarov’s futile attempts to claw her way along. A wiry man with a long scar down his face gained a slow smile that never touched his eyes. A heavyset fellow with a blacksmith’s shoulders licked his lips. By twos and threes women began hurrying out into the street, many shrinking back from Moiraine as they passed her. Some of the men went, too. She joined the exodus without looking back. Sometimes justice came from other than laws or swords.
That was how the rest of her day went, finding the scattered districts where people’s clothes were worn and patched and everyone went afoot. In Chachin, a matter of five streets could take you from the homes and shops of craftsmen who were at least moderately prosperous to squalid poverty and back again. Rulers always tried to do something about those in need, if they were good and decent rulers, and she had heard that Ethenielle was considered generous, yet every time one man was lifted from penury, another seemed to fall into it. That might not be fair, but it was the way of the world. The frustration of it was another reason she wanted to avoid the Sun Throne.