Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

She gave him a patient look, trying to make allowances. Very plainly trying. “The petition does not say, my Lord Dragon.”

If Moiraine had known anything about the Sea Folk, she had not made it part of his education, but from Reene’s attitude, this woman was important. A Wavemistress certainly sounded important. That would mean the Grand Hall. He had not been there since returning from Cairhien. Not that he had any reason to avoid the throne room; there just had been no need to go there. “This afternoon,” he said slowly. “Tell her I will see her in the mid-afternoon. You’ve given her good apartments? And her retinue?” He doubted anyone with so grand a title traveled alone.

“She refused them; they have taken rooms at The Ball and Hoop.” Her mouth flattened slightly; apparently, however lofty a Wavemistress, that was not proper in Reene Harfor’s eyes. “They were very dusty and travel-sore, hardly able to stand. They came by horse, not coach, and I do not believe they are used to horses.” She blinked as if surprised to have unbent that much, and regained her reserve like donning a cloak. “Someone else wishes to see you, my Lord Dragon.” Her tone picked up the faintest hint of distaste. “The Lady Elenia.”

Rand almost grimaced himself. No doubt Elenia had another lecture prepared on her claims to the Lion Throne; so far he had managed not to hear more than one word in three. She would be easy enough to turn down. Still, he really should know something of Andor’s history, and no one handy knew more of it than Elenia Sarand. “Send her to me in my rooms, please.”

“Do you really mean the Daughter-Heir to have the throne?” Reene’s tone was not harsh, but all deference was gone. Her face had not changed, yet Rand was sure that with a wrong answer she would shout “For Elayne and the White Lion!” and try to bash his brains in, Aiel or no Aiel.

“I do,” he sighed. “The Lion Throne is Elayne’s. By the Light and my hope of rebirth and salvation, it is.”

Reene studied him a moment, then spread her skirts in another deep curtsy. “I will send her to you, my Lord Dragon.” Her back was stiff as she glided away, but it always was; there were no telling whether she believed a word.

“A crafty enemy,” Caldin said heatedly before Reene had gone five paces, “will set a weak ambush you are meant to break through. Confident because you have dealt with the threat, your guard relaxed, you walk into the second, stronger ambush.”

Right on top of Caldin, Nandera said in a cold voice, “Young men can be impetuous, young men can be rash, young men can be fools, but the Car’a’carn cannot let himself be a young man.”

Rand glanced over his shoulder before starting off, just long enough to say, “We’re back inside the Palace now. Choose your two.” It was little surprise that Nandera and Caldin chose themselves, and none at all that they strode after him wrapped in a hard silence.

At the door to his apartments, he told them to send Elenia in when she came and left them in the corridor. There was plum punch in a silver-chased pitcher waiting, but he did not touch it. Instead he stood staring at it, trying to plan out what he was going to say, until he realized what he was doing and grunted in surprise. What was there to plan?

A tap at the door announced honey-haired Elenia, who swept a curtsy in a dress worked with golden roses. On any other woman, Rand would have thought they were just roses; on Elenia, they had to stand for the Rose Crown. “My Lord Dragon is most gracious to receive me.”

“I want to ask you some things about Andor’s history,” Rand said. “Will you take plum punch?”

Elenia’s eyes widened in delight before she could stop them. Undoubtedly she had planned how to work Rand around to this in order to lead into her claims, and here it was handed to her. A smile bloomed on her foxlike face. “May I have the honor of pouring for my Lord Dragon?” she said, not waiting for him to wave his assent. She was so pleased with the turn of events that he almost expected her to press him into a chair and urge him to put his feet up. “Upon what point of history may I shed light?”

“A general sort of . . . ” Rand frowned; that would give the excuse to be listing her ancestry in detail inside of two sentences “ . . . that is, how Souran Maravaile came to bring his wife here. Was he from Caemlyn?”

“Ishara brought Souran, my Lord Dragon.” Elenia’s smile turned briefly indulgent. “Ishara’s mother was Endara Casalain, who was Artur Hawkwing’s governor here then — the province was called Andor — and also the daughter of Joal Ramedar, the last King of Aldeshar. Souran was only . . . only a general” — she had been going to say a commoner; he would have wagered on it — “though Hawkwing’s finest, of course. Endara resigned her warrant and knelt to Ishara as Queen.” Somehow, Rand did not believe it had happened quite that way, or so smoothly. “They were the worst of times, of course, quite as bad as the Trolloc Wars, I am sure. With Hawkwing dead, every noble thought to become High King. Or High Queen. Ishara knew that no one would be able to take it all, though; there were too many factions, and alliances broke as soon as made. She convinced Souran to raise the siege of Tar Valon, and brought him and as much of his army as he could hold together here.”

“Souran Maravaile was the one besieging Tar Valon?” Rand said, startled. Artur Hawkwing had laid a twenty-year siege against Tar Valon, and put a price on the head of every Aes Sedai.

“The final year of it,” she said, a touch impatiently, “as nearly as the histories record.” It was plain she had little real interest in Souran except as Ishara’s husband. “Ishara was wise. She promised the Aes Sedai that her eldest daughter would be sent to study in the White Tower, thus gaining the Tower’s backing and an Aes Sedai advisor named Ballair, the first ruler to do so. Others did follow, of course, but they still wanted Hawkwing’s throne.” She had the bit in her teeth now, face animated, goblet forgotten, gesturing with her free hand. Words bubbled out. “A full generation passed before that idea died, although Narasim Bhuran did try as late as the last ten years of the War of the Hundred Years — a dismal failure that ended with his head on a pike after a year — and Esmara Getares’s effort some thirty years earlier gained considerable ground before she tried to conquer Andor and spent the last twelve years of her life as the guest of Queen Telaisien. Esmara was assassinated in the end, though there is no record of why anyone would want her dead once Telaisien broke her power. You see, the Queens who came after Ishara, from Alesinde to Lyndelle, followed what she had begun, and not only in sending a daughter to the Tower. Ishara had Souran secure the land around Caemlyn first, only a few villages in the beginning, then slowly expanded her control. Why, it took five years for her sway to reach the River Erinin. But the land that Andor’s Queens held was solidly theirs when most others who called themselves kings or queens were still more interested in gaining new lands than in solidifying what they already had.”

She paused for breath, and Rand leaped in quickly. Elenia spoke of these people as if she knew them personally, but his head was spinning with names he had never heard before. “Why is there no House Maravaile?”

“None of Ishara’s sons lived past twenty.” Elenia shrugged and sipped her punch; the subject did not interest her. But it did give her a new topic. “Nine queens reigned over the course of the War of the Hundred Years, and none had a son live beyond twenty-three. The battles were constant, and Andor was pressed from every side. Why, in Maragaine’s reign, four kings brought armies against her — there is a town named for the battle, on the site. The kings were — ”

“But all the queens have been descendants of Souran and Ishara?” Rand put in quickly. The woman would give him a day-by-day account if he let her. Sitting, he motioned her to take a chair.

“Yes,” she said reluctantly. Probably reluctant to include Souran. But she brightened immediately. “You see, it is a matter of how much of Ishara’s blood one has. How many lines connect you to her, and in what degree. In my case — ”

“It isn’t easy for me to understand. For example, take Tigraine and Morgase. Morgase had the best claim to succeed Tigraine. I suppose that means Morgase and Tigraine were closely related?”

“They were cousins.” Elenia made an effort to hide her irritation over being interrupted so often, especially now that she was so close to the heart of what she wanted to say, but her mouth still narrowed. She looked like a fox that wanted to bite, but the chicken kept slipping just out of reach.

“I see.” Cousins. Rand drank deeply, half-emptying his goblet.

“We are all cousins. All the Houses.” His silence seemed to invigorate her. Her smile returned. “With marriages over a thousand years, there is not a House without some drop of Ishara’s blood. But the degree is what is important, that and the number of connecting lines. In my case —”

Rand blinked. “You’re all cousins? All of you? That doesn’t seem poss—” He leaned forward intently. “Elenia, if Morgase and Tigraine had been . . . merchants, or farmers . . . how closely would they have been related?”

“Farmers?” she exclaimed, staring at him. “My Lord Dragon, what a peculiar —” The blood drained slowly from her face; he had been a farmer, after all. She wet her lips, a nervous flicker of the tongue. “I suppose . . . I should have to think. Farmers. I suppose that means imagining all the Houses as farmers.” A nervous titter broke from her before she drowned it in her punch. “Had they been farmers, I don’t think anyone would consider them related at all. All the connections are too far back. But they were not, my Lord Dragon . . . “

He stopped listening with more than half an ear and sank back in his chair. Not related.

“ . . . have thirty-one lines to Ishara, while Dyelin has only thirty, and . . . “