The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time 8)

“Do it, please, Min. This woman is like a wolf eyeing the sheepfold. I intend to find out what she wants.”

Min took her time getting up, and dragged her feet to the doors. She was not the only one to think this a bad idea. Or at least to want to be elsewhere when the Dragon Reborn faced Cadsuane Melaidhrin. Dobraine passed her on the way to the door, making a hasty bow with barely a pause, and even Merana and Rafela were out of the room before her, though they made it appear they were not hurrying. Inside the room, they did, anyway. When Min put her head into the hallway, the two sisters had caught Dobraine and were scurrying along at little short of a trot.

Strangely, the half-dozen Maidens who had been outside when Min entered earlier had now grown in number until they lined the corridor as far as she could see in both directions, tall hard-faced women in the grays and browns and grays of the cadin’sor, shoufa wrapped around their heads with the long black veil hanging down. A good many carried their spears and bull-hide bucklers as if they expected a battle. Some were playing a finger-game called “knife, paper, stone,” and the rest were watching intently.

Not so intently that they did not see her, though. When she passed Rand’s message, handtalk flashed up and down the rows, then two lanky Maidens went trotting off. The others promptly returned to the game, playing or watching.

Scratching her head in puzzlement, Min went back in. The Maidens often made her nervous, yet they always had a word for her, sometimes respectful, as to a Wise One, sometimes joking, though their humor was odd, to say the least. Never had they ignored her like this.

Rand was in the bedchamber. That simple fact set her heart racing. He had his coat off, his snowy shirt unlaced at neck and cuffs and pulled out of his breeches. Sitting on the foot of the bed, she leaned back against one of the heavy blackwood bedposts and swung her feet up, crossing her ankles. She had not had a chance to watch Rand undress himself, and she intended to enjoy it.

Instead of continuing, though, he stood there looking at her. “What can Cadsuane possibly teach me?” he asked suddenly.

“You, and all the Asha’man,” she replied. That had been her viewing. “I don’t know what, Rand. I only know you have to learn it. All of you do.” It did not seem he intended to progress beyond letting his shirt hang down. Sighing, she went on. “You need her, Rand. You can’t afford to make her angry. You can’t afford to chase her away.” Actually, she did not think fifty Myrddraal and a thousand Trollocs could chase Cadsuane anywhere, but the point was the same.

A far-off look came into Rand’s eyes, and after a moment, he shook his head. “Why should I listen to a madman?” he muttered almost under his breath. Light, did he really believe Lews Therin Telamon spoke in his head? “Let someone know you need them, Min, and they have a hold on you. A leash, to pull you where they want. I won’t put a halter on my own neck for any Aes Sedai. Not for anyone!” Slowly his fists unclenched. “You, I need, Min,” he said simply. “Not for your viewings. I just need you.”

Burn her, but the man could sweep her feet out from under her with a few words!

With a smile as eager as hers, he grasped the bottom of his shirt with both hands and bent to begin hauling it over his head. Lacing her fingers over her stomach, she settled back to watch.

The three Maidens who marched into the room no longer wore the shoufa that had concealed their short hair in the corridor. They were empty-handed, and no longer wore those heavy-blade belt knives, either. That was all Min had time to notice.

Rand’s head and arms were still inside the shirt, and Somara, flaxen-haired and tall even for an Aiel woman, seized the white linen and tangled it, trapping him. Almost in the same movement, she kicked him between the legs. With a strangled groan, he bent further, staggering.

Nesair, fiery-haired and beautiful despite white scars on both sun-dark cheeks, planted a fist in his right side hard enough to make him stumble sideways.

With a cry, Min launched herself from the bed. She did not know what madness was happening here, could not even begin to guess. One of her knives came smoothly from each sleeve, and she threw herself at the Maidens, shouting, “Help! Oh, Rand! Somebody, help!” At least, that was what she tried to shout.

The third Maiden, Nandera, turned like a snake, and Min found a foot planted in her stomach. Breath rushed out of her in a wheeze. Her knives flew from numb hands, and she turned a somersault over the graying Maiden’s foot, landing on her back with a crash that drove out what little air remained in her. Trying to move, trying to breathe — trying to understand! — all she could do was lie there and watch.

The three women were quite thorough. Nesair and Nandera pounded Rand with their fists while Somara held him bent over and caught in his own shirt. Again and again and again they drove studied blows into Rand’s hard belly, into his right side. Min would have laughed hysterically, had she had any breath. They were trying to beat him to death, and they very carefully avoid hitting anywhere near the tender round scar in his left side with the half-healed slash running through it.

She knew very well how hard Rand’s body was, how strong, but no one could stand up to that. Slowly, his knees folded, and when they thumped to the floor tiles, Nandera and Nesair stood back. Each nodded, and Somara released her hold on Rand’s shirt. He fell forward on his face. She could hear him gasping, fighting groans that bubbled up despite his efforts. Kneeling, Somara pulled his shirt down almost tenderly. He lay there with his cheek on the floor, eyes bulging, struggling for breath.

Nesair bent to catch a fistful of his hair and jerk his head up. “We won the right for this,” she growled, “but every Maiden wanted to lay her hands on you. I left my clan for you, Rand al’Thor. I will not have you spit on me!”

Somara moved a hand as if to smooth hair out of his face, then snatched it back. “This is how we treat a first-brother who dishonors us, Rand al’Thor,” she said firmly. “The first time. The next, we will use straps.”

Nandera stood over Rand with fist planted on her hips and a face of stone. “You carry the honor of Far Dareis Mai, son of a Maiden,” she said grimly. “You promised to call us to dance the spears for you, and then you ran to battle and left us behind. You will not do this again.”

She stepped over him to stride out, and the other two followed. Only Somara glanced back, and if sympathy touched her blue eyes, there was none in her voice when she said, “Do not make this necessary again, son of a Maiden.”

Rand had pushed himself up to hands and knees by the time Min managed to crawl to him. “They must be mad,” she croaked. Light, but her middle hurt! “Rhuarc will —!” She did not know what Rhuarc would do. Not enough, whatever it was. “Sorilea.” Sorilea would stake them out in the sun! To start! “When we tell her — ”

“We tell no one,” he said. He almost sounded as if he had his breath back, although he was still slightly pop-eyed. How could he do that? “They have the right. They’ve earned the right.”

Min recognized that tone much to well. When a man decided to be stubborn, he would sit bare in a nettle patch and deny to your face that they made his bottom sting! She was almost pleased to hear him groan as she helped him to his feet. Well, as they helped each other. If he was going to be a pure wool-headed idiot, he deserved a few bruises!

He eased himself onto the bed, lying back on the heaped pillows, and she snuggled in beside him. Not what she had been hoping for, but as much as was going to happen, she was sure.

“Not what I was hoping to use this bed for,” he muttered. She was not sure she had been supposed to hear.

She laughed. “I enjoy you holding me just as much as . . . as the other.” Strangely, he smiled at her as if he knew she was lying. Her Aunt Miren claimed that was one of the three lies any man would believe from a woman.

“If I am interrupting,” a woman’s cool voice said from the doorway, “I suppose I could return when it is more convenient.”

Min jerked away from Rand as though burned, but when he pulled her back, she settled against him again. She recognized the Aes Sedai standing in the doorway, a plump little Cairhienin with four thin stripes of color across her full bosom and white slashes in her dark skirts. Daigian Moseneillin was one of the sisters who had come with Cadsuane. And she was almost as overbearing as Cadsuane herself, in Min’s opinion.