The two guards at the wide, lion-carved doors to the Map Room were experienced Guardsmen, one short and the next thing to scrawny, the other wide enough to appear squat though he was of average height. Nothing visible picked them out from any other men in the Guards, but only good swordsmen, trusted men, got this duty. The short man nodded to Deni, then straightened his back stiffly at a disapproving frown from Birgitte. Deni smiled at him shyly—Deni! shyly!—while a pair of Guardswomen went through the inevitable routine. Birgitte opened her mouth, but Elayne laid a hand on her arm, and the other woman looked at her, then shook her head, thick golden braid swaying slowly.

"It's not good when they're on duty, Elayne. They should be seeing to their duties, not mooning over each other." She did not raise her voice, yet color appeared in Deni's round cheeks, and she stopped smiling and started watching the corridor again. It was better that way, perhaps, yet still a pity. Somebody ought to have a little pleasure in their lives.

The Map Room was the second-largest ballroom in the palace, and spacious, with four red-streaked marble fireplaces where small fires burned beneath the carved mantels, a domed ceiling worked with gilt and supported by widely spaced columns two spans from white marble walls that had been stripped of tapestries, and sufficient mirrored stand-lamps to light the room as well as if it had windows. The greatest part of its tile floor was a detailed mosaic map of Caemlyn, originally laid down more than a thousand years ago, after the New City had been completed though before Low Caemlyn began growing. Long before there was an Andor, before even Artur Hawkwing. It had been redone several times since, as tiles faded or became worn, so every street was exact—at least, they had been until today; the Light send they still were—and despite many buildings replaced over the years, even some of the alleys were unchanged from what the huge map showed.

There would be no dancing in the Map Room for the foreseeable future, however. Long tables between the columns held more maps, some large enough to spill over the edges, and shelves along the walls held stacks of reports, those not so sensitive they needed to be locked away or else committed to memory and burned. Birgitte's wide writing table, nearly covered with baskets, most full of papers, stood at the far end of the room. As Captain-General, she had her own study, but as soon as she discovered the Map Room, she had decided the map in the floor made it too good not to use.

A small wooden disc, painted red, marked the spot on the outer wall where the assault had just been beaten back. Birgitte scooped it up in passing and tossed it into a round basket full of the things on her writing table. Elayne shook her head. It was a small basket, but if there were enough attacks at once to need that many markers. . . . "My Lady Birgitte, I have that report on available fodder you asked for," a graying woman said, holding out a page covered with neat lines. The White Lion was worked small on the breast of her neat brown dress. Five other clerks went on with their work, pens skritching. They were among Master Norry's most trusted, and Mistress Harfor had personally screened the half dozen messengers in red-and-white livery, swift young men—boys really—who stood against the wall behind the clerks' small writing tables. One, a pretty youth, began a bow before cutting it short with a blush. Birgitte had settled the question of courtesies, to her or other nobles, with very few words. Work came first, and any noble who disliked that could just avoid the Map Room.

"Thank you, Mistress Anford. I'll look at it later. If you and the others will wait outside, please?"

Mistress Anford quickly gathered up the messengers and the other clerks, giving them only time to stopper their ink jars and blot their work. No one showed a glimmer of surprise. They were accustomed to the need for privacy at times. Elayne had heard people call the Map Room the Secrets Room, though nothing very secret was kept there. All of that was locked away in her apartments.

While the clerks and messengers were filing out, Elayne strode to one of the long tables where a map showed Caemlyn and its surroundings for at least fifty miles in each direction. Even the Black Tower had been inked in, a square sitting less than two leagues south of the city. A growth on Andor, and no way to be rid of it. She still sent parties of Guardsman to inspect some days, via gateways, but the place was large enough that the Asha'man could have been up to anything without her learning of it. Pins with enameled heads marked Arymilla's eight camps around the city, and small metal figures various other camps. A falcon, finely wrought in gold and no taller than her little finger, showed where the Goshien were. Or had been. Were they gone yet? She slipped the falcon into her belt pouch. Aviendha was very much a falcon. On the other side of the table, Birgitte raised a questioning eyebrow.

"They're gone, or going." Elayne told her. There would be visits. Aviendha was not gone forever. "Sent somewhere by Rand. Where, I don't know, burn him."

"I wondered why Aviendha wasn't with you."

Elayne laid one finger atop a bronze horseman less than a hand tall, standing a few leagues west of the city. "Someone needs to take a look at Davram Bashere's camp. Find out whether the Saldaeans are leaving, too. And the Legion of the Dragon." It did not matter if they were, really. They had not interfered in matters, thank the Light, and the time when fear that they might restrained Arymilla was long past. But she disliked things happening in Andor without her knowledge. "Send Guardsmen to the Black Tower tomorrow, as well. Tell them to count how many Asha'man they see."

"So he's planning a big battle. Another big battle. Against the Seanchan, I suppose." Folding her

arms beneath her breasts, Birgitte frowned at the map. "I'd wonder where and when, except we have enough in front of us to be going on with."

The map displayed the reasons Arymilla was pressing so hard. For one, to the northeast of Caemlyn, almost off the map, lay the bronze image of a sleeping bear, curled up with its paws over its nose. Two hundred thousand men, near enough, almost as many trained men as all of Andor could field. Four Borderland rulers, accompanied by perhaps a dozen Aes Sedai they tried to keep hidden, searching for Rand, their reasons unstated. Borderlanders had no cause to turn against Rand that she could see—though the simple fact was, he had not bound them to him as he had other lands—but Aes Sedai were another matter, especially with their allegiance uncertain, and twelve approached a dangerous number even for him. Well, the four rulers had in part deciphered her motives for asking them into Andor, yet she had managed to mislead them concerning Rand's whereabouts. Unfortunately, the Borderlanders had belied every tale of how swiftly they could move as they crept south, and now they sat in place, trying to find a way to avoid coming near a city under siege. That was understandable, even laudable. Outland armies in close proximity to Andoran armsmen, on Andoran soil, would make for a touchy situation. There were always at least a few hotheads. Bloodshed, and maybe war, could start all too easily under those circumstances. Even so, bypassing Caemlyn was going to be difficult: the narrow country roads had been turned to bogs by the rains, giving hard passage to an army that large. Elayne could have wished they had marched another twenty or thirty miles toward Caemlyn, though. She had hoped their presence would have had a different effect by now. It might still.

More important, certainly to Arymilla and possibly to herself, a few leagues below the Black Tower stood a tiny silver swordsman with his blade upright in front of him and a silver halberdier, plainly by the same silversmith's hand, one to the west of the black square, the other to the east. Luan, Ellorien and Abelle, Aemlyn, Arathelle and Pelivar had close to sixty thousand men between them in those two camps. Their estates and those of the nobles tied to them must have been stripped near the bone. Those two camps were where Dyelin had been these past three days, trying to learn their intentions.

The spindly Guardsman opened one of the doors and held it for an elderly serving woman carrying a rope-work silver tray with two tall golden wine pitchers and a circle of goblets made of blue Sea Folk porcelain. Reene must have been uncertain how many would be present. The frail woman moved slowly, careful not to tilt the heavy tray and drop anything. Elayne channeled flows of Air to take the tray, then let them dissipate unused. Implying that the woman could not do her job would only be hurtful. She was effusive in her thanks, though. The old woman smiled broadly, clearly delighted, and offered her a deep curtsy once unburdened of the tray.

Dyelin arrived almost right behind the maid, an image of vigor, and shooed her out before grimacing over the contents of one pitcher—Elayne sighed; doubtless it held goat's milk—and filling a goblet from the other. Plainly Dyelin had confined her freshening to washing her face and brushing her hair, golden flecked with gray, because her dark gray riding dress, with a large round silver pin worked with Taravin's Owl and Oak on the high neck, had spots of half-dried mud on the skirts.

"There's something seriously amiss," she said, swirling the wine in her goblet without drinking. A frown deepened the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. "I've been in this palace more times than I can remember, and today I got lost twice."

"We know about that," Elayne told her, and quickly explained what little they had puzzled out, what she intended to do. Belatedly, she wove a ward against eavesdropping and was unsurprised to feel it slice through saidar. At least whoever had been listening in would get a jolt from that. A small jolt, since so little of the power was involved that she had not sensed it. Maybe there was a way to make it a hard jolt next time, though. Maybe that would begin to discourage eavesdroppers.

"So it might happen again," Dyelin said when Elayne was done. Her tone was calm, but she licked her lips and took a swallow of wine, as if her mouth was suddenly dry. "Well. Well, then. If you don't know what caused it, and you don't know whether it will happen again, what are we to do?"

Elayne stared. Again someone seemed to think she had answers she did not. But then, that was what it meant to be queen. You were always expected to have an answer, to find one. That was what it meant to be Aes Sedai. "We can't stop it, so we'll live with it, Dyelin, and try to keep people from growing too afraid. I'll announce what happened, as much as we know, and have the other sisters do the same. That way, people will know that Aes Sedai are aware, and that should provide some comfort. A little. They'll still be frightened, of course, but not as much as they'll be if we say nothing and it does happen again."

That seemed a feeble effort to her, but surprisingly Dyelin agreed without hesitation. "I myself can suggest nothing else to be done. Most people think you Aes Sedai can handle anything. It should suffice, in the circumstances."

And when they realized that Aes Sedai could not handle anything, that she could not? Well, that was a river that she would cross when she reached it. "Is the news good, or bad?" Before Dyelin could answer, the door opened again.

"I heard that Lady Dyelin had returned. You should have sent for us, Elayne. You aren't queen yet, and I dislike you keeping secrets from me. Where is Aviendha?" Catalyn Haevin, a cool-eyed, ungovernable young woman—a girl in truth, still long months short of her majority, though her guardian had abandoned her to go her own way—was pride to her toenails, her plump chin held high. Of course, that might have been because of the large enameled pin of Haevin's Blue Bear that decorated the high neck of her blue riding dress. She had begun showing Dyelin respect, and a certain wariness, shortly after she started sharing a bed with her and Sergase, but with Elayne she insisted on every perquisite of a High Seat.

"We all heard," Conail Northan said. Lean and tall in a red silk coat, with laughing eyes and an eagle's beak of a nose, he was of age, just, a few months past his sixteenth name day. He swaggered and caressed the hilt of his sword much too fondly, but there seemed no harm in him. Only boyishness, an unfortunate trait in a High Seat. "And none of us could wait to hear when Luan and the others will join us. This pair would have run the whole way." He ruffled the hair of the two younger boys with him, Perival Mantear and Branlet Gilyard, who gave him a dark look and raked fingers through his hair to straighten it. Perival blushed. Quite short but already pretty, he was the youngest at twelve, yet Branlet had only a year on him.

Elayne sighed, but she could not ask them to leave. Children most of them might be—perhaps all, considering Conail's behavior—yet they were the High Seats of their Houses, and along with Dyelin, her most important allies. She did wish she knew how they had learned the purpose of Dyelin’s journey. That had been intended to be a secret until she knew what news Dyelin brought. Another task for Reene. Gossip unchecked, the wrong gossip, could be as dangerous as spies.

"Where is Aviendha?” Catalyn demanded. Strangely, she had become quite taken with Aviendha. Fascinated might have been a better word. Of all things, she had persisted in trying to make Aviendha teach her to use a spear!

"So, my Lady," Conail said, strolling over to fill a blue goblet with wine, "when are they joining us?"

"The bad news is that they aren't," Dyelin said calmly. "The good news is that they've each rejected an invitation to join Arymilla." She cleared her throat loudly as Branlet reached for the wine pitcher. His cheeks reddened, and he picked up the other pitcher as if he had really meant to all along. The High Seat of House Gilyard, yet still a boy for all of the sword on his hip. Perival also wore a sword, one that dragged on the floor tiles and looked too big for him, but he had already taken goat's milk. Pouring her own wine, Catalyn smirked at the younger boys, a superior smile that vanished when she noticed Dyelin looking at her.

"That's small turnips to call good news," Birgitte said. "Burn me, if it isn't. You bring back a bloody half-starve

Tags: Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time Fantasy
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