Knife of Dreams

  "This is your good news?" Birgitte said. She saw the implications, too. "A hint of when might help."

  Reene spread her hands. "Arymilla gave Skellit a gold crown with her own hands once, my Lady. He turned it over to me as proof that he's reformed." Her lips compressed for a moment; Skellit had saved himself from hanging, yet he would never regain trust. "That's the only time the man's been within ten paces of her. He has to go by what he can pick up gossiping with the other men." She hesitated. "He's very afraid, my Lady. The men in those camps are certain they'll take the city in a matter of days."

  "Afraid enough to turn his coat a third time?" Elayne asked quietly. There was nothing to say to the other matter.

  "No, my Lady. If Naean, or Arymilla, learns what he's done, he's a dead man, and he knows it. But he's afraid if the city falls, they will learn. I think he may bolt soon."

  Elayne nodded grimly. Mercenaries were not the only rats to flee fire. "Do you have any good news, Master Norry?"

  The First Clerk had been standing quietly, fingering his embossed leather folder and trying to appear as if he were not listening to Reene. "I think I can better Mistress Harfor, my Lady." There might have been a touch of triumph in his smile. Of late, it was rare for him to have better news than she. "I have a man I believe can follow Mellar successfully. May I have him brought in?"

  Now, that was excellent news. Five men had died trying to follow Doilin Mellar when he went out into the city at night, and the "coincidence" seemed strained. The first time, it had appeared the fellow fell afoul of a footpad, and she thought nothing of it beyond settling a pension on the man's widow. The Guards managed to keep crime under some control—except for arson, at least—yet robbers used darkness as a cloak to hide in. The other four had seemed the same, killed with a single knife thrust, their purses emptied, but however dangerous the streets at night, coincidence hardly seemed credible.

  When she nodded, the spindly old man hurried to the doors and opened one to put his head out. She could not hear what he said—the ward worked both ways—but in a few minutes a burly Guardsman entered pushing ahead of him a shuffling man with fetters on his wrists and ankles. Everything about the prisoner seemed . . . average. He was neither fat nor thin, tall nor short. His hair was brown, of no particular shade she could name, and his eyes as well. His face was so ordinary she doubted she could describe him. No feature stood out at all. His clothing was just as unremarkable, a plain brown coat and breeches of neither the best wool nor the worst, somewhat rumpled and beginning to show dirt, a lightly embossed belt with a simple metal buckle that might have ten thousand twins in Caemlyn. In short, he was eminently forgettable. Birgitte motioned the Guardsman to stop the fellow well short of the chairs and told him to wait outside.

  "A reliable man," Norry said, watching the Guardsman leave. "Afrim Hansard. He served your mother faithfully, and knows how to keep his mouth shut."

  "Chains?' Elayne said.

  "This is Samwil Hark, my Lady," Norry said, eyeing the man with the sort of curiosity he might have shown toward an unfamiliar and oddly shaped animal, "a remarkably successful cutpurse. The Guards only caught him because another ruffian . . . um . . . 'turned the cat on him,' as they say in the streets, hoping to lessen his own sentence for a third offense of strongarm robbery." A thief would be eager for that. Not only was the flogging longer, the thief-mark branded on his forehead would be much harder to disguise or hide than the mark on his thumb for his second offense. "Anyone who has managed to keep from being caught for as long as Master Hark should be able to carry out the task I have in mind for him."

  "I'm innocent, I am, my Lady." Hark knuckled his forehead, the iron chains of his fetters clinking, and put on an ingratiating smile. He talked very quickly. "It's all lies and happenstances, it is. I'm a good Queen's man, I am. I wore your mother's colors in the riots, my Lady. Not that I took part in the rioting, you understand. I'm a clerk when I have work, which I'm out of at the moment. But I wore her colors on my cap for all to see, I did." The bond was full of Birgitte's skepticism.

  "Master Hark's rooms contained chests full of neatly cut purses," the First Clerk went on. "There are thousands of them, my Lady. Quite literally thousands. I suppose he may regret keeping . . . um . . . trophies. Most cutpurses have sense enough to get rid of the purse as soon as possible."

  "1 picks them up when I sees one, I does, my Lady." Hark spread his hands as far as his chains allowed and shrugged, the very image of injured innocence. "Maybe it were foolish, but I never saw no harm. Just a harmless sort of amusement, my Lady."

  Mistress Harfor sniffed loudly, disapproval clear on her face. Hark managed to look even more hurt.

  "His rooms also contained coins to the value of over one hundred twenty gold crowns, secreted under the floorboards, in cubbyholes in the walls, in the rafters, everywhere. His excuse for that," Norry raised his voice as Hark opened his mouth again, "is that he distrusts bankers. He claims the money is an inheritance from an aged aunt in Four Kings. I myself very much doubt the magistrates in Four Kings will have registered such an inheritance, though. The magistrate judging his case says he seemed surprised to learn that inheritances are registered.” Indeed, Hark’s smile faded somewhat at being reminded. "He says that he worked for Wilbin Saems, a merchant, until Saems' death four months ago, but Master Saems' daughter maintains the business, and neither she nor any of the other clerks recall any Samwil Hark."

  "They hates me, they does, my Lady," Hark said in a sullen voice. His hands gripped the chain between them in fists. "I was gathering evidence of how they was stealing from the good master—his own daughter, mind!—only he died afore I could give it to him, and I was turned out in the streets without a reference or a penny, I was. They burned what I'd gathered, gave me a drubbing and threw me out."

  Elayne tapped her chin thoughtfully. "A clerk, you say. Most clerks are better spoken than you, Master Hark, but I'll offer you a chance to give evidence for your claim. Would you send for a lapdesk, Master Norry?"

  Norry gave a thin smile. How could the man make a smile seem dry? "No need, my Lady. The magistrate in the case had the same idea." For the first time that she had ever seen, he took a sheet of paper from the folder clutched to his chest. She thought trumpets should sound! Hark's smile faded away completely as his eyes followed that page from Norry's hand to hers.

  One glance was all that was needed. A few uneven lines covered less than half the sheet, the letters cramped and awkward. No more than half a dozen words were actually legible, and those barely.

  "Hardly the hand of a clerk," she murmured. Returning the page to Norry, she tried to make her face stern. She had seen her mother passing judgment. Morgase had been able to make herself appear implacable. "I fear, Master Hark, that you will sit in a cell until the magistrates in Four Kings can be queried, and soon after that you will hang." Hark's lips writhed, and he put a hand to his throat as if he could already feel the noose. "Unless, of course, you agree to follow a man for me. A dangerous man who doesn't like to be followed. If you can tell me where he goes at night, instead of hanging, you will be exiled to Baerlon. Where you would be well advised to find a new line of work. The governor will be informed of you."

  Suddenly Hark's smile was back. "Of course, my Lady. I'm innocent, but I can see how things look dark against me, I can. I'll follow any man you want me to. I was your mother's man, I was, and I'm your man, too. Loyal is what I am, my Lady, loyal if I suffers for it." Birgitte snorted derisively.

  "Arrange for Master Hark to see Mellar's face without being seen, Birgitte." The man was unmemorable, but there was no point in taking chances. "Then turn him loose." Hark looked ready to dance, iron chains or no iron chains. "But first. . . . You see this, Master Hark?" She held up her right hand so he could not miss the Great Serpent ring. "You may have heard that I am Aes Sedai." With the Power already in her, it was a simple matter to weave Spirit. "It is true." The weave she laid on Hark's belt buckle, his boots, his coat and breeches
, was somewhat akin to that for the Warder bond, though much less complex. It would fade from the clothing and boots in a few weeks, or months at best, but metal would hold a Finder forever. "I've laid a weave on you, Master Hark. Now you can be found wherever you are." In truth, only she would be able to find him—a Finder was attuned to the one who wove it—but there was no reason to tell him that. "Just to be sure that you are indeed loyal."

  Hark's smile seemed frozen in place. Sweat beaded on his forehead. When Birgitte went to the door and called in Hansard, giving him instructions to take Hark away and keep him safe from prying eyes, Hark staggered and would have fallen if the husky Guardsman had not held him up on the way out of the room.

  "I fear I may just have given Mellar a sixth victim," Elayne muttered. "He hardly seems capable of following his own shadow without tripping over his boots." It was not so much Hark's death she regretted. The man would have hanged for sure. "I want whoever put that bloody man in my palace. I want them so badly my teeth ache!" The palace was riddled with spies—Reene had uncovered above a dozen beyond Skellit, though she believed that was all of them—but whether Mellar had been set to spy or to facilitate kidnapping her, he was worse than the others. He had arranged for men to die, or he had killed them, in order to gain his place. That those men had thought they were to kill her made no difference. Murder was murder.

  "Trust me, my Lady," Norry said, laying a finger alongside his long nose. "Cutpurses are . . . um . . . stealthy by nature, yet they seldom last long. Sooner or later they cut the purse of someone faster afoot than they, someone who doesn't wait for the Guards." He made a quick gesture as if stabbing someone. "Hark has lasted at least twenty years. A number of the purses in his . . . um . . . collection were embroidered with prayers of thanks for the end of the Aiel War. Those went out of fashion very quickly, as I recall."

  Birgitte sat down on the arm of the next chair and folded her arms beneath her breasts. "I could arrest Mellar," she said quietly, "and have him put to the question. You'd have no need of Hark then."

  "A poor joke, my Lady, if I may say so," Mistress Harfor said stiffly, at the same time that Master Norry said, "That would be . . . um . . . against the law, my Lady."

  Birgitte bounded to her feet, outrage flooding the bond. "Blood and bloody ashes! We know the man's as rotten as last month's fish.''

  "No." Elayne sighed, fighting not to feel outraged as well. "We have suspicions, not proof. Those five men might have fallen afoul of footpads. The law is quite clear on when someone may be put to the question, and suspicions are not reason enough. Solid evidence is needed. My mother often said, 'The Queen must obey the law she makes, or there is no law." I will not begin by breaking the law." The bond carried something . . . stubborn. She fixed Birgitte with a steady look. "Neither will you. Do you understand me, Birgitte Trahelion? Neither will you."

  To her surprise, the stubbornness lasted only moments longer before dwindling away to be replaced by chagrin. "It was only a suggestion," Birgitte muttered weakly.

  Elayne was wondering how she had done that and how to do it again—sometimes there seemed doubt in Birgitte's mind over which of them was in charge—when Deni Colford slipped into the room and cleared her throat to draw attention to herself. A long, brass-studded cudgel balanced the sword hanging at the heavyset woman's waist, looking out of place. Deni was getting better with the sword but still preferred the cudgel she had used keeping order in a wagon drivers' tavern. "A servant came to say that the Lady Dyelin has arrived, my Lady, and will be at your service as soon as she's freshened herself."

  "Send the Lady Dyelin word that she's to meet me in the Map Room." Elayne felt a surge of hope. At last, perhaps, she might hear some good news.

  CHAPTER 17 A Bronze Bear

  Leaving Mistress Harfor and Master Norry, Elayne started eagerly toward the Map Room still holding saidar. Eagerly, but not hurriedly. Deni and three Guardswomen strode ahead of her, heads swiveling in constant search of threats, and the other four stamped along behind. She doubted that Dyelin would take long over her ablutions, good news or bad. The Light send that it was good. Birgitte, hands clasped behind her back and wearing a frown, seemed sunk in silence as they walked, though she studied every crossing corridor as if expecting an attack from it. The bond still carried worry. And tiredness. A yawn cracked Elayne's jaws before she could stop herself.

  An unwillingness to start rumors was not the only reason she maintained a stately pace. There were more than servants in the hallways, now. Courtesy had required her to offer rooms in the palace to the nobles who managed to reach the city with armsmen—counting armsmen loosely; some were well-trained and carried a sword every day, others had been guiding a plow before being called to follow their lord or lady—and a fair number had accepted. Mainly those who had no dwelling in Caemlyn or, she suspected, felt pinched for coin. Farmers or laborers might think all nobles wealthy, and certainly most were, if only in comparison, but the expenses required by their positions and duties left many counting coins as carefully as any farmwife. What she was to do for the newest arrivals she did not know. Nobles already were sleeping three and four to a bed wherever the beds were large enough; all but the narrowest could take at least two, and did. Many Kinswomen had been reduced to pallets on the floor in the servants' quarters, and thank the Light spring had made that possible.

  It seemed the whole lot of her noble guests were out strolling, and when they offered her courtesies, she had to stop and pass at least a few words. Sergase Gilbearn, small and slim in a green riding dress, her dark hair lightly touched with white, who had brought all twenty of the armsmen in her service, and vinegary old Kelwin Janevor, wiry in his discreetly darned blue wool coat, who had brought ten, received as gracious an exchange as did lanky Barel Layden and stout Anthelle Sharplyn, though they were High Seats, if of minor Houses. All had ridden to her support with whatever they could gather, and none had turned back on learning the odds. Many looked uneasy today, though. No one said anything of it—they were all full of good wishes and hopes for a speedy coronation and how honored they were to follow her—but worry was written on their faces. Arilinde Branstrom, normally so ebullient you might think she believed her fifty armsmen could turn the tide for Elayne by themselves, was not the only woman chewing her lip, and Laerid Traehand, stocky and taciturn and usually as stolid as stone, was not the only man with a furrowed brow. Even news of Guybon and the aid he had brought caused only brief smiles, quickly swallowed in ill ease.

  "Do you think they've heard of Arymilla's confidence?" she asked in one of the brief intervals when she was not responding to bows and curtsies. "No, that wouldn't be enough to upset Arilinde or Laerid." Arymilla inside the walls with thirty thousand men likely would fail to upset that pair.

  "It wouldn't," Birgitte agreed. She glanced around as if to see who besides the Guardswomen might hear before going on. "Maybe they're worried over what's been worrying me. You didn't get lost when we got back. Or rather, you had help."

  Elayne paused to offer a few hurried words to a gray-haired couple in woolens that would have suited prosperous farmers. Brannin and Elvaine Martan's manor house was much like a large farmhouse, sprawling and housing generations. A third of their armsmen were their sons and grandsons, nephews and great-nephews. Only those too young or too old to ride had been left behind to see to planting. She hoped the smiling pair did not feel they were getting short shrift, but she was walking on almost as soon as she stopped. "What do you mean, I had help?" she demanded.

  "The palace is . . . changed." For a moment, there was confusion in the bond. Birgitte grimaced. "It sounds mad, I know, but it's as if the whole thing had been built to a slightly different plan." One of the Guardswomen ahead missed a step, caught herself. "I have a good memory. . . ." Birgitte hesitated, the bond filled with a jumble of emotions hastily pushed down. Most of her memories of past lives had vanished as surely as the winter's snow. Nothing remained before the founding of the White Tower, and the four lives s
he had lived between then and the end of the Trolloc Wars were beginning to fragment. Little seemed to frighten her, yet she feared losing the rest, especially her memories of Gaidal Cain. "I don't forget a path once I've followed it," she went on, "and some of these hallways aren't the same as they were. Some of the corridors have been . . . shifted. Others aren't there anymore, and there are some new. Nobody is talking about it that I could find out, but I think the old people are keeping quiet because they're afraid their wits are going, and the younger are afraid they'll lose their positions."

  "That's—" Elayne shut her mouth. Clearly it was not impossible. Birgitte did not suffer from sudden fancies. Naris' reluctance to leave her apartments suddenly made sense, and perhaps Reene's earlier puzzlement, too. She almost wished being with child really had befuddled her. But how? "Not the Forsaken," she said firmly. "If they could do something like this, they'd have done it long since, and worse than. ... A good day to you, too, Lord Aubrem."