“I don’t know, either.” Hurin sounded as worried as the Ogier looked. “He could be doing just what he said, or. . . . That’s the way of the Game of Houses. You never know. I spent most of my time in Cairhien in the Foregate, Lord Rand, and I don’t know much about Cairhienin nobles, but—well, Daes Dae’mar can be dangerous anywhere, but especially in Cairhien, I’ve heard.” He brightened suddenly. “The Lady Selene, Lord Rand. She’ll know better than me or the Builder. You can ask her in the morning.”

But in the morning, Selene was gone. When Rand went down to the common room, Mistress Madwen handed him a sealed parchment. “If you’ll forgive me, my Lord, you should have listened to me. You should have tapped on your Lady’s door.”

Rand waited until she went away before he broke the white wax seal. The wax had been impressed with a crescent moon and stars.

I must leave you for a time. There are too many people here, and I do not like Caldevwin. I will await you in Cairhien. Never think that I am too far from you. You will be in my thoughts always, as I know that I am in yours.

It was not signed, but that elegant, flowing script had the look of Selene.

He folded it carefully and put it in his pocket before going outside, where Hurin had the horses waiting.

Captain Caldevwin was there, too, with another, younger officer and fifty mounted soldiers crowding the street. The two officers were bare-headed, but wore steel-backed gauntlets, and gold-worked breastplates strapped over their blue coats. A short staff was fastened to the harness on each officer’s back, bearing a small, stiff blue banner above his head. Caldevwin’s banner bore a single white star, while the younger man’s was crossed by two white bars. They were a sharp contrast to the soldiers in their plain armor and helmets that looked like bells with metal cut away to expose their faces.

Caldevwin bowed as Rand came out of the inn. “Good morning to you; my Lord Rand. This is Elricain Tavolin, who will command your escort, if I may call it that.” The other officer bowed; his head was shaved as Caldevwin’s was. He did not speak.

“An escort will be welcome, Captain,” Rand said, managing to sound at ease. Fain would not try anything against fifty soldiers, but Rand wished he could be certain they were only an escort.

The captain eyed Loial, on his way to his horse with the blanket-covered chest. “A heavy burden, Ogier.”

Loial almost missed a step. “I never like to be far from my books, Captain.” His wide mouth flashed teeth in a self-conscious grin, and he hurried to strap the chest onto his saddle.

Caldevwin looked around, frowning. “Your Lady is not down yet. And her fine animal is not here.”

“She left already,” Rand told him. “She had to go on to Cairhien quickly, during the night.”

Caldevwin’s eyebrows lifted. “During the night? But my men. . . . Forgive me, my Lord Rand.” He drew the younger officer aside, whispering furiously.

“He had the inn watched, Lord Rand,” Hurin whispered. “The Lady Selene must have gotten past them unseen somehow.”

Rand climbed to Red’s saddle with a grimace. If there had been any chance Caldevwin did not suspect them of something, it seemed Selene had finished it. “Too many people, she says,” he muttered. “There’ll be more people by far in Cairhien.”

“You said something, my Lord?”

Rand looked up as Tavolin joined him, mounted on a tall, dust-colored gelding. Hurin was in his saddle, too, and Loial stood beside his big horse’s head. The soldiers were formed up in ranks. Caldevwin was nowhere to be seen.

“Nothing is happening the way I expect,” Rand said.

Tavolin gave him a brief smile, hardly more than a twitch of his lips. “Shall we ride, my Lord?”

The strange procession headed for the hard-packed road that led to the city of Cairhien.

CHAPTER

22

Watchers

Nothing is happening as I expect,” Moiraine muttered, not expecting an answer from Lan. The long, polished table before her was littered with books and papers, scrolls and manuscripts, many of them dusty from long storage and tattered with age, some only fragments. The room seemed almost made of books and manuscripts, filling shelves except where there were doors or windows or the fireplace. The chairs were high-backed and well padded, but half of them, and most of the small tables, held books, and some had books and scrolls tucked under them. Only the clutter in front of Moiraine was hers, though.

She rose and moved to the window, peered into the night toward the lights of the village, not far off. No danger of pursuit here. No one would expect her to come here. Clear my head, and begin again, she thought. That is all there is to do.

None of the villagers had any suspicion that the two elderly sisters living in this snug house were Aes Sedai. One did not suspect such things in a small place like Tifan’s Well, a farming community deep in the grassy plains of Arafel. The villagers came to the sisters for advice on their problems and cures for their ills, and valued them as women blessed by the Light, but no more. Adeleas and Vandene had gone into voluntary retreat together so long ago that few even in the White Tower remembered they still lived.

With the one equally aged Warder who remained to them, they lived quietly, still intending to write the history of the world since the Breaking, and as much as they could include of before. One day. In the meantime, there was so much information to gather, so many puzzles to solve. Their house was the perfect place for Moiraine to find the information she needed. Except that it was not there.

Movement caught her eye, and she turned. Lan was lounging against the yellow brick fireplace, as imperturbable as a boulder. “Do you remember the first time we met, Lan?”

She was watching for some sign, or she would not have seen the quick twitch of his eyebrow. It was not often she caught him by surprise. This was a subject neither of them ever mentioned; nearly twenty years ago she had told him—with all the stiff pride of one still young enough to be called young, she recalled—that she would never speak of it again and expected the same silence of him.

Tags: Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time Fantasy
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