A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

Guards at the city gates shouted at the racing wagon, but Cadsuane told Master Tol not to stop, and he flailed at his mules all the harder. People in the streets leaped out of the way to avoid being run down, and the wagon’s progress left behind shouts and curses, overturned sedan chairs, and coaches run into street vendors’ stalls. Through the streets and up the broad ramp to the Sun Palace, where guards in Lord Dobraine’s colors spilled out as though preparing to fight off hordes. While Master Tol was squealing at the top of lungs that Aes Sedai made him do it, the soldiers saw Min. Then they saw Rand. Min had thought she was in a whirlwind before, but she had been wrong.

Two dozen men tried to reach into the wagon at once to lift Rand out, and those who managed to lay hands on him, handled him as gently as a babe, four to either side with their arms beneath. Cadsuane must have repeated a thousand times that he was not dead as they hurried into the palace and along corridors that seemed longer than Min remembered, with more Cairhienin soldiers crowding along behind. Nobles began appearing from every doorway and crossing hall, it seemed, faces bloodless, staring as Rand passed. She lost track of Caraline and Darlin, realized she could not remember seeing them since the wagon, and, wishing them well, forgot them. Rand was the only thing she cared about. The only thing in the world.

Nandera was with the Far Dareis Mai guarding the doors to Rand’s rooms, with their gilded Rising Suns. When the graying Maiden saw Rand, stone-faced Aiel composure shattered. “What has happened to him?” she wailed, eyes going wide. “What has happened?” Some of the other Maidens began to moan, a low, hair-raising sound like a dirge.

“Be quiet!” Cadsuane roared, slapping her hands together in a thundercrack. “You, girl. He needs his bed. Hop!” Nandera hopped. Rand was stripped and in his bed in a twinkling, with Samitsu and Niande both hovering over him, the Cairhienin chased out and Nandera at the door repeating Cadsuane’s instructions that he was not to be disturbed by anyone, all so fast Min felt dizzy. She hoped one day to see the confrontation between Cadsuane and the Wise One Sorilea; it had to come, and it would be memorable.

Yet if Cadsuane thought her instructions were really going to keep everyone out, she was mistaken. Before she had more than moved a chair, floating it on the Power, to sit beside Rand’s bed, Kiruna and Bera strode in like the two faces of pride, ruler of a court and ruler of her farmhouse.

“What is this I hear about —?” Kiruna began furiously. She saw Cadsuane. Bera saw Cadsuane. To Min’s amazement, they stopped there with their mouths hanging open.

“He is in good hands,” Cadsuane said. “Unless one of you has suddenly found more Talent for Healing than I recall?”

“Yes, Cadsuane,” they said meekly. “No, Cadsuane.” Min closed her own mouth.

Samitsu took an ivory-inlaid chair against the wall, spreading her dark yellow skirts, and sat with her hands folded, watching Rand’s chest rise and fall beneath the sheet. Niande went to Rand’s bookshelf and selected a book before she sat near the windows. Reading! Kiruna and Bera started to sit, then actually looked to Cadsuane and waited for her impatient nod before they sat down.

“Why aren’t you doing something?” Min shouted.

“That is what I might ask,” Amys said, walking into the room. The youthful, white-haired Wise One stared at Rand for a moment, then shifted her deep brown shawl and turned to Kiruna and Bera. “You may go,” she said. “And Kiruna, Sorilea wishes to see you again.”

Kiruna’s dark face paled, but the pair of them rose and curtsied, murmuring, “Yes, Amys,” even more meekly than for Cadsuane before leaving with embarrassed glances at the Green sister.

“Interesting,” Cadsuane said when they were gone. Her dark eyes locked with Amys’ blue, and Cadsuane, at least, seemed to like what she saw. At any rate, she smiled. “I should like to meet this Sorilea. She is a strong woman?” She seemed to emphasize the word “strong.”

“The strongest I have ever known,” Amys said simply. Calmly. You would never have thought Rand lay senseless in front of her. “I do not know your Healing, Aes Sedai. I trust that you have done what can be done?” Her tone was flat; Min doubted how much Amys did trust.

“What can be done, has been,” Cadsuane sighed. “All we can do now is wait.”

“While he dies?” a man’s harsh voice said, and Min jumped.

Dashiva strode into the room, his plain face contorted in a scowl. “Flinn!” he snapped.

Niande’s book thudded to the floor from apparently nerveless fingers; she stared at the three men in black coats as she would have at the Dark One himself. Pale-faced, Samitsu muttered something that sounded like a prayer.

At Dashiva’s command, the grizzled Asha’man limped to the bed on the opposite side from Cadsuane and began running his hands along the length of Rand’s still body a foot above the sheet. Young Narishma stood frowning by the door, fingering the hilt of his sword, those big dark eyes trying to watch all three Aes Sedai at once. The Aes Sedai, and Amys. He did not look afraid; just a man confidently waiting for those women to show themselves his enemies. Unlike the Aes Sedai, Amys ignored the Asha’man except for Flinn. Her eyes followed him, smooth face utterly expressionless. But her thumb ran along the haft of her belt knife in a very expressive manner.

“What are you doing?” Samitsu demanded, leaping up from her chair. Whatever her unease about Asha’man, concern for her unconscious patient had overcome it. “You, Flinn or whoever you are.” She started toward the bed, and Narishma flowed to block her. Frowning, she tried to go around, and he put a hand on her arm.

“Another boy with no manners,” Cadsuane murmured. Of the three sisters, only she displayed no alarm whatsoever at the Asha’man. Instead, she studied them over steepled fingers.

Narishma flushed at her comment and removed his hand, but when Samitsu tried to go around him again, he once more stepped in front of her.

She settled for glaring past his shoulder. “You, Flinn, what are you doing? I won’t have you killing him with your ignorance! Do you hear me?” Min practically danced from foot to foot. She did not think an Asha’man would kill Rand, not on purpose, but . . . He trusted them, but . . . Light, even Amys did not seem sure, frowning from Flinn to Rand.

Flinn stripped the sheet down to Rand’s waist, exposing the wound. The gash looked neither better nor worse than she remembered, a gaping, angry, bloodless wound slicing across the round scar. He appeared to be sleeping

.

“He can’t do any worse than Rand already is,” Min said. Nobody paid her any mind.

Dashiva made a guttural sound, and Flinn looked at him. “You see something, Asha’man?”

“I have no Talent for Healing,” Dashiva said, twisting his mouth wryly. “You’re the one who took my suggestion and learned.”

“What suggestion?” Samitsu demanded. “I insist that you — ”

“Be quiet, Samitsu,” Cadsuane said. She seemed to be the only one in the room who was calm aside from Amys, and from the way the Wise One kept stroking her knife hilt, Min was not certain about her. “I think the last thing he wants to do is harm the boy.”