Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

“Aviendha and I could have a look around the city while you see the Queen,” Birgitte said before Elayne could open her mouth. Aviendha’s face lit up.

Elayne gave the pair of them a sharp look, then sighed. “Well, at least be careful. Nynaeve, are you coming, or do you want to see the city too?” That last was in a dry tone, with another glance at Birgitte.

“Oh, I would not miss it,” Nynaeve told her. “It will be good to finally meet someone who thinks . . .” She could not finish it with the maid there. “We should not keep the Queen waiting.”

“Oh, no,” the liveried woman said. “It’d be as much as my ears are worth.”

However much her ears were worth, it took some time to walk through the palace corridors. As though to make up for all the white outside, the palace was full of color. In one corridor the ceiling was painted green and the walls blue, in another the walls were yellow and the ceiling pale rose. The floor tiles were diamonds of red and black and white, or blue and yellow, or almost any combination in any shade. There were very few tapestries, usually scenes of the sea, but a good many tall vases of golden Sea Folk porcelain stood in arched niches, and also large pieces of carved crystal, statuettes and vases and bowls, that caught Elayne’s eye as well as Nynaeve’s.

Of course servants scurried about everywhere, the men’s version of the livery entailing white breeches and a long green vest over a white shirt with wide, pleated sleeves, but before they had gone very far Nynaeve saw someone striding toward them who made her stop and catch Elayne’s arm. It was Jaichim Carridin. She did not take her eyes off the tall graying man as he strode on past them, those cruel deep-set eyes never turning in their direction, white cloak spreading behind him. Sweat covered his face, but he ignored it as he ignored them.

“What is he doing here?” Nynaeve demanded. That man had unleashed slaughter in Tanchico, and the Light only knew where else.

The serving woman looked at her quizzically. “Why, the Children of the Light sent an embassy too, months gone. The Queen . . . Aes Sedai?” Again, that hesitation.

Elayne managed to nod graciously, but Nynaeve could not blank the asperity from her own voice. “Then we should not keep her waiting.” One thing Merilille had let slip about this Tylin was that she was a punctilious woman, stiffly formal. But if she too started doubting they were Aes Sedai, Nynaeve was in just the mood to prove it.

The serving woman left them in a large room with a pale blue ceiling and yellow walls, where a row of tall triple-arched windows gave onto a long wrought-iron balcony and let in a quite comfortable salty breeze, and before the Queen Nynaeve and Elayne made their curtsies, proper for Aes Sedai to ruler, a slight dip, a tiny bow of the head.

Tylin was a most impressive woman. No taller than Nynaeve, she stood with a regal bearing that Elayne would have had to strain to match on her best day. She should have replied to their courtesies with the same, but she did not. Instead her large black eyes examined them with imperious intensity.

Nynaeve returned the favor as well as she could. Waves of glossy black hair, gray at the temples, hung well bel

ow Tylin’s shoulders, framing a face that was handsome if not unlined. Shockingly, there were two scars on the woman’s cheeks, fine and so old they had all but vanished. Of course, she did have one of those curved knives stuck through a belt of woven gold, with hilt and scabbard encrusted in gems, Nynaeve was sure it must be for show. Tylin’s blue silk dress was certainly nothing anyone could wear fighting a duel, with falls of snowy lace that would nearly hide her fingers if she lowered her hands, and skirts drawn up above her knees in front to expose layers of green and white silk petticoats and trailing behind her a pace or more. The bodice, trimmed in the same lace, was snug enough that Nynaeve was not sure whether sitting in it or standing would be more uncomfortable. A collar of woven gold fastened around the gown’s high neck, which put more lace under her chin, supported a white-sheathed marriage knife hanging hilt-down into an oval cut-out that easily equalled any of those deep necklines.

“You two must be Elayne and Nynaeve.” Tylin took a chair carved to resemble bamboo, though covered in gilt, and arranged her skirts carefully without taking her eyes from them. Her voice was deep, melodious and commanding. “I understood there was a third. Aviendha?”

Nynaeve exchanged glances with Elayne. There had been no invitation for them to sit, not so much as a flicker of eyes toward a chair. “She is not Aes Sedai,” Elayne began calmly.

Tylin spoke before she could say more. “And you are? You’ve seen eighteen winters at most, Elayne. And you, Nynaeve, staring at me like a cat with its tail caught, how many have you seen? Twenty-two? Twenty-three perhaps? Stab my liver! I visited Tar Valon once, and the White Tower. I doubt any woman your age has ever worn that ring on her right hand.”

“Twenty-six!” Nynaeve snapped. With a good part of the Women’s Circle back in Emond’s Field thinking she was too young to be Wisdom, it had become habit with her to flourish every naming day she could claim. “I am twenty-six and an Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah.” She still felt a thrill of pride saying that. “Elayne may be eighteen, but she is Aes Sedai as well, and Green Ajah. Do you think Merilille or Vandene would let us wear these rings as a joke? A good many things have changed, Tylin. The Amyrlin Seat, Egwene al’Vere, is no older than Elayne.”

“Is she?” Tylin said in a flat voice. “I was not told that. When the Aes Sedai who counseled me from the day I took the throne, and my father before me, abruptly leaves for the Tower without explanation, and I then learn that rumors of a Tower divided are true; when Dragonsworn seem to spring out of the ground; when an Amyrlin is chosen to oppose Elaida and an army gathered under one of the great captains, inside Altara, before I hear of it — when all of that has happened, you cannot expect me to be enamored of surprises.”

Nynaeve hoped her face did not look as sickly as she felt. Why could she not learn to hold her tongue occasionally? Abruptly she realized she could no longer sense the True Source; anger and embarrassment did not go together very well. It was probably to the good. If she could channel, she might make an even bigger fool of herself.

Elayne moved to smooth things over without a pause. “I know you have heard this before,” she told Tylin, “but let me add my apologies to those of Merilille and the others. Gathering an army inside your borders without your permission was unconscionable. All I can say in mitigation is that events moved quickly and we in Salidar were caught up, but that is no excuse. I swear to you, no harm is intended to Altara, and no insult was meant to the Throne of the Winds. Even as we speak, Gareth Bryne leads that army north, out of Altara.”

Tylin stared at her, unblinking. “I have heard no word of apology or excuse until yours. But any ruler of Altara must learn to swallow insult from greater powers without salt.” Taking a deep breath, she gestured, lace waving. “Sit, sit. Both of you sit. Lean back on your knife and let your tongue go free.” Her sudden smile was very close to a grin. “I don’t know how you say it in Andor. Be at ease, and speak your mind as you wish.”

Nynaeve was glad that Elayne’s blue eyes widened in surprise, because she herself gasped aloud. This was the woman who Merilille had claimed required ceremony carved in polished marble? Nynaeve was more than glad to take a chair. Thinking of all the hidden currents in Salidar, she wondered whether Tylin was trying to . . . to what? She had come to expect everyone who was not a close friend to try manipulating her. Elayne sat on the very front of her chair, and stiffly.

“I mean what I say,” Tylin insisted. “Whatever you say, I will hear no insult.” From the way her fingers tapped the jeweled hilt at her waist, though, silence might be heard as one.

“I am not certain where to begin,” Nynaeve said carefully. She did wish Elayne had not actually nodded at that; Elayne was supposed to know how to handle kings and queens. Why did she not say something?

“With why,” the Queen said impatiently. “Why do four more Aes Sedai come to Ebou Dar from Salidar? It cannot be to outshine Elaida’s embassy — Teslyn does not even call it that, and there are only her and Joline . . . You did not know?” Falling back in her chair laughing, she pressed the fingers of one hand to her lips. “Do you know about the Whitecloaks? Yes?” Her free hand made a slashing gesture, and her mirth began to subside in small ripples. “That for Whitecloaks! But I must listen to all who court me, Lord Inquisitor Carridin as well as the others.”

“But why?” Nynaeve demanded. “I am glad you don’t like Whitecloaks, but in that case, why must you listen to a word Carridin says? The man’s a butcher.” She knew she had made another mistake. The way Elayne suddenly seemed to be studying the broad white fireplace, where the deep lintel was carved into towering waves, told her that even before the last vestige of Tylin’s laughter snuffed out like a candle.

“You take me at my word,” the Queen said quietly. “I said let your tongue go free, and . . . ” Those dark eyes went to the floor tiles, and she seemed to be gathering herself.

Nynaeve looked to Elayne, hoping for some hint of what she had done wrong, or better, how to make it right, but Elayne only gave her one sideways glance and the smallest shake of her head before returning to her study of the marble waves. Maybe she should avoid looking at Tylin, too? Yet the woman staring at the floor drew her eyes. With one hand Tylin stroked the hilt of her curved dagger, with the other fingered the smaller hilt nestled between her breasts.

The marriage dagger told quite a lot about Tylin; Vandene and Adeleas had been more than willing to explain some things concerning Ebou Dar, usually those that made the city seem unsafe for anyone not surrounded by a dozen armored guards. The white sheath meant the Queen was widowed and did not intend to remarry. The four pearls and one firedrop set in the gold-wrapped hilt said she had borne four sons and one daughter; the white-enameled setting of the firedrop and the red-enameled of three of the pearls said only one son survived. All had been at least sixteen when they died, and died in duels, or the settings would have been black. What must it be like to constantly carry a reminder of that sort! According to Vandene, women saw a red or white setting as a source of pride, whether her stones were pearls and firedrops or colored glass. Vandene said many Ebou Dari women removed the stones of their children past sixteen who refused a duel, and never acknowledged them again.

At long last Tylin raised her head. Her face was pleasant, and her hand left the dagger in her belt, but she continued to finger the marriage knife absently. “I want my son to follow me on the Throne of the Winds,” she said mildly. “Beslan is your age, Elayne. This would be a matter of course in Andor, though he would have to be a woman” — she actually grinned, in apparently genuine amusement — “or in any other land save Murandy, where matters are much the same as here in Altara. In the thousand years since Artur Hawkwing, only one House has held the throne for five generations, and Anarina’s fall was so precipitous that to this day House Todande is a lapdog for anyone who wants them. No other House has ever had more than two rulers in succession.