“What did I tell you?” Bunt had to raise his voice to near a shout in order to be heard. “The grandest city in the world. Built by Ogier, you know. Least, the Inner City and the Palace were. It’s that old, Caemlyn is. Caemlyn, where good Queen Morgase, the Light illumine her, makes the law and holds the peace for Andor. The greatest city on earth.”
Rand was ready to agree. His mouth hung open, and he wanted to put his hands over his ears to shut out the din. People crowded the road, as thick as folk in Emond’s Field crowded the Green at Bel Tine. He remembered thinking there were too many people in Baerlon to be believed, and almost laughed. He looked at Mat and grinned. Mat did have his hands over his ears, and his shoulders were hunched up as if he wanted to cover them with those, too.
“How are we going to hide in this?” he demanded loudly when he saw Rand looking. “How can we tell who to trust with so many? So bloody many. Light, the noise!”
Rand looked at Bunt before answering. The farmer was caught up in staring at the city; with the noise, he might not have heard anyway. Still, Rand put his mouth close to Mat’s ear. “How can they find us among so many? Can’t you see it, you wool-headed idiot? We’re safe, if you ever learn to watch your bloody tongue!” He flung out a hand to take in everything, the markets, the city walls still ahead. “Look at it, Mat! Anything could happen here. Anything! We might even find Moiraine waiting for us, and Egwene, and all the rest.”
“If they’re alive. If you ask me, they’re as dead as the gleeman.”
The grin faded from Rand’s face, and he turned to watc
h the gates come nearer. Anything could happen in a city like Caemlyn. He held that thought stubbornly.
The horse could not move any faster, flap the reins as Bunt would; the closer to the gates they came, the thicker the crowd grew, jostling together shoulder to shoulder, pressing against the carts and wagons heading in. Rand was glad to see a good many were dusty young men afoot with little in the way of belongings. Whatever their ages, a lot of the crowd pushing toward the gates had a travel-worn look, rickety carts and tired horses, clothes wrinkled from many nights of sleeping rough, dragging steps and weary eyes. But weary or not, those eyes were fixed on the gates as if getting inside the walls would strip away all their fatigue.
Half a dozen of the Queen’s Guards stood at the gates, their clean red-and-white tabards and burnished plate-and-mail a sharp contrast to most of the people streaming under the stone arch. Backs rigid and heads straight, they eyed the incomers with disdainful wariness. It was plain they would just as soon have turned away most of those coming in. Aside from keeping a way clear for traffic leaving the city, though, and having a hard word with those who tried to push too fast, they did not hinder anyone.
“Keep your places. Don’t push. Don’t push, the Light blind you! There’s room for everybody, the Light help us. Keep your places.”
Bunt’s cart rolled past the gates with the slow tide of the throng, into Caemlyn.
The city rose on low hills, like steps climbing to a center. Another wall encircled that center, shining pure white and running over the hills. Inside that were even more towers and domes, white and gold and purple, their elevation atop the hills making them seem to look down on the rest of Caemlyn. Rand thought that must be the Inner City of which Bunt had spoken.
The Caemlyn Road itself changed as soon as it was inside the city, becoming a wide boulevard, split down the middle by broad strips of grass and trees. The grass was brown and the tree branches bare, but people hurried by as if they saw nothing unusual, laughing, talking, arguing, doing all the things that people do. Just as if they had no idea that there had been no spring yet this year and might be none. They did not see, Rand realized, could not or would not. Their eyes slid away from leafless branches, and they walked across the dead and dying grass without once looking down. What they did not see, they could ignore; what they did not see was not really there.
Gaping at the city and the people, Rand was taken by surprise when the cart turned down a side street, narrower than the boulevard, but still twice as wide as any street in Emond’s Field. Bunt drew the horse to a halt and turned to look back at them hesitantly. The traffic was a bit lighter here; the crowd split around the cart without breaking stride.
“What you’re hiding under your cloak, is it really what Holdwin says?”
Rand was in the act of tossing his saddlebags over his shoulder. He did not even twitch. “What do you mean?” His voice was steady, too. His stomach was a sour knot, but his voice was steady.
Mat stifled a yawn with one hand, but he shoved the other under his coat—clutching the dagger from Shadar Logoth, Rand knew—and his eyes had a hard, hunted look under the scarf around his head. Bunt avoided looking at Mat, as if he knew there was a weapon in that hidden hand.
“Don’t mean nothing, I suppose. Look, now, if you heard I was coming to Caemlyn, you were there long enough to hear the rest. Was I after a reward, I’d have made some excuse to go in the Goose and Crown, speak to Holdwin. Only I don’t much like Holdwin, and I don’t like that friend of his, not at all. Seems like he wants you two more than he wants . . . anything else.”
“I don’t know what he wants,” Rand said. “We’ve never seen him before.” It might even be the truth; he could not tell one Fade from another.
“Uh-huh. Well, like I say, I don’t know nothing, and I guess I don’t want to. There’s enough trouble around for everybody without I go looking for more.”
Mat was slow in gathering his things, and Rand was already in the street before he started climbing down. Rand waited impatiently. Mat turned stiffly from the cart, hugging bow and quiver and blanketroll to his chest, muttering under his breath. Heavy shadows darkened the undersides of his eyes.
Rand’s stomach rumbled, and he grimaced. Hunger combined with a sour twisting in his gut made him afraid he was going to vomit. Mat was staring at him now, expectantly. Which way to go? What to do now?
Bunt leaned over and beckoned him closer. He went, hoping for advice about Caemlyn.
“I’d hide that. . . .” The old farmer paused and looked around warily. People pushed by on both sides of the cart, but except for a few passing curses about blocking the way, no one paid them any attention. “Stop wearing it,” he said, “hide it, sell it. Give it away. That’s my advice. Thing like that’s going to draw attention, and I guess you don’t want any of that.”
Abruptly he straightened, clucking to his horse, and drove slowly on down the crowded street without another word or a backward glance. A wagon loaded with barrels rumbled toward them. Rand jumped out of the way, staggered, and when he looked again Bunt and his cart were lost to sight.
“What do we do now?” Mat demanded. He licked his lips, staring wide-eyed at all the people pushing by and the buildings towering as much as six stories above the street. “We’re in Caemlyn, but what do we do?” He had uncovered his ears, but his hands twitched as if he wanted to put them back. A hum lay on the city, the low, steady drone of hundreds of shops working, thousands of people talking. To Rand it was like being inside a giant beehive, constantly buzzing. “Even if they are here, Rand, how could we find them in all of this?”
“Moiraine will find us,” Rand said slowly. The immensity of the city was a weight on his shoulders; he wanted to get away, to hide from all the people and noise. The void eluded him despite Tam’s teachings; his eyes drew the city into it. He concentrated instead on what was right around him, ignoring everything that lay beyond. Just looking at that one street, it almost seemed like Baerlon. Baerlon, the last place they had all thought they were safe. Nobody’s safe anymore. Maybe they are all dead. What do you do then?
“They’re alive! Egwene’s alive!” he said fiercely. Several passersby looked at him oddly.
“Maybe,” Mat said. “Maybe. What if Moiraine doesn’t find us? What if nobody does but the . . . the. . . .” He shuddered, unable to say it.
“We’ll think about that when it happens,” he told Mat firmly. “If it happens.” The worst meant seeking out Elaida, the Aes Sedai in the Palace. He would go on to Tar Valon, first. He did not know if Mat remembered what Thom had said about the Red Ajah—and the Black—but he surely did. His stomach twisted again. “Thom said to find an inn called The Queen’s Blessing. We’ll go there first.”