"My Lord Dragon, Lord Davram has returned." It was Elza Penfell who escorted Bashere into the barn. She was a handsome woman in a dark green riding dress; her brown eyes seemed to grow feverish when they found Rand. She, at least, was one he did not have to worry about. Elza was fanatical in her devotion.
"Thank you, Elza." he said. "Best you return to help with the cleanup. There's a long way to go, yet."
Her mouth tightened slightly, and her gaze took in everyone from Cadsuane to the Ogier with an air of jealousy before she offered a curtsy and left. Yes, fanatical was the word.
Bashere was a short, slender man in a gold-worked gray coat with the ivory baton of the Marshal-General of Saldaea, tipped with a golden wolf’s head, tucked behind his belt opposite his sword. His baggy trousers were tucked into turned-down boots that had been waxed till they shone despite a light splattering of mud. His recent work had required as much formality and dignity as he could supply, and he could supply a great deal. Even the Seanchan must have heard his reputation by now. Gray streaked his black hair and the thick mustaches that curled around his mouth like down-turned horns. Dark tilted eyes sad, he walked right past Rand with the rolling gait of a man more accustomed to a saddle than his own feet, walked slowly along the line of dead men, staring intently at each face. Impatient as Rand was, he gave him his time to mourn.
"I've never seen anything like what's outside," Bashere said quietly as he walked. "A big raid out of the Blight is a thousand Trollocs. Most are only a few hundred. Ah, Kirkun, you never did guard your left the way you should. Even then, you need to outnumber them three or four times to be assured you won't go into their cookpots. Out there. ... I think I saw a foreshadowing of Tarmon Gai'don. A small part of Tarmon Gai'don. Let's hope it really is the Last Battle. If we live through that, I don't think we'll ever want to see another. We will, though. There's always another battle. I suppose that will be the case until the whole world turns Tinker.'' At the end of the row, he stopped in front of a man whose face was split almost down to his luxuriant black beard. "Ahzkan here had a bright future ahead of him. But you could say the same of a lot of dead men."
Sighing heavily, he turned to face Rand. "The Daughter of the Nine Moons will meet you in three days at a manor house in northern Altara, near the border of Andor." He touched the breast of his coat. "I have a map. She's already near there somewhere, but they say it isn't in lands they control. When it comes to secrecy, these Seanchan make Aes Sedai look as open as village girls." Cadsuane snorted.
"You suspect a trap?" Logain eased his sword in its scabbard, perhaps unconsciously.
Bashere made a dismissive gesture, but he eased his sword, too. "I always suspect a trap. It isn't that. The High Lady Suroth still didn't want me or Manfor to talk to anyone but her. Not anyone. Our servants were mutes, just as when we went to Ebou Dar with Loial."
"Mine had had her tongue cut out," Loial said in tones of disgust, his ears tilting back. His knuckles paled on the haft of his axe. Haman made a shocked sound, his ears going stiff as fence posts.
"Altara just crowned a new King," Bashere went on, "but everybody in the Tarasin Palace seemed to be walking on eggshells and looking over their shoulders, Seanchan and Altaran alike. Even Suroth looked as though she felt a sword hovering above her neck."
"Maybe they're frightened of Tarmon Gai'don," Rand said. "Or the Dragon Reborn. I'll have to be careful. Frightened people do stupid things. What are the arrangements, Bashere?"
The Saldaean pulled the map from inside his coat and walked back to Rand unfolding it. "They're very precise. She will bring six sul'dam and damane, but no other attendants." Alivia made a noise like an angry cat, and he blinked before going on, no doubt uncertain of a freed damane, to say the least. "You can bring five people who can channel. She'll assume any man with you can, but you can bring a woman who can't to make the honors even." Min was suddenly at Rand's side, wrapping her arm around his.
"No," he said firmly. He was not about to take her into a possible trap.
"We'll talk about it," she murmured, the bond filling with stubborn resolve.
The most dire words a woman can say short of "I'm going to kill you," Rand thought. Suddenly he felt a chill. Had it been him? Or Lews Therin? The madman chuckled softly in the back of his head. No matter. In three days, one difficulty would be resolved. One way or another. "What else, Bashere?"
Lifting the damp cloth that lay across her eyes, carefully so she did not catch the bracelet-and-rings angreal in her hair—she wore that and her jeweled ter'angreal every waking moment now—Nynaeve sat up on the edge of her bed. With men needing Healing from dreadful wounds, some missing a hand or an arm, it had seemed petty to ask Healing for a headache, but the willow bark seemed to have worked as well. Only more slowly. One of her rings, set with a pale green stone that now appeared to glow with a faint internal light, seemed to vibrate continually on her finger though it did not really move. The pattern of vibrations was mixed, a reaction to saidar and saidin being channeled outside. For that matter, someone could have been channeling inside. Cadsuane was sure it should be able to indicate direction, but she could not say how. Ha! for Cadsuane and her supposed superior knowledge! She wished she could say that to the woman's face. It was not that Cadsuane intimidated her—certainly not; she stood above Cadsuane— just that she wanted to maintain some degree of harmony. That was the reason she held her tongue around the woman.
The rooms she shared with Lan were spacious, but also drafty, with no casement fitting its window properly, and over the generations the house had settled enough that the doors had been trimmed so they could close all the way, making more gaps to let every breeze whistle through. The fire on the stone hearth danced as though it were outdoors, crackling and spitting sparks. The carpet, so faded she could no longer really make out the pattern, had more holes burned in it than she could count. The bed with its heavy bedposts and worn canopy was large and sturdy, but the mattress was lumpy, the pillows held more feathers that poked through than they did down, and the blankets seemed almost more darns than original material. But Lan shared the rooms, and that made all the difference. That made them a palace.
He stood at one of the windows where he had been since the attack began, staring down now at the work going on outside. Or perhaps studying the slaughter yard the manor house grounds had become. He was so still, he might have been a statue, a tall man in a well-fitting dark green coat, his shoulders broad enough to make his waist appear slender, with the leather cord of his hadori holding back his shoulder-length hair, black tinged with white at the temples. A hard-faced man, yet beautiful. In her eyes he was, let anyone else say what they would. Only they had best not say it in her hearing. Even Cadsuane. A ring bearing a flawless sapphire was cold on her right hand. It seemed more likely he was feeling anger than hostility. That ring did have a flaw, in her estimation. It was all very well to know someone nearby was feeling angry or hostile, but that did not mean the emotion was directed at you.
"It's time for me to go back outside and lend a hand again,'' she said as she stood.
"Not yet," he told her without turning from the window. Ring or no ring, his deep voice was calm. And quite firm. "Moiraine used to say a headache was sign she had been channeling too much. That's dangerous."
Her hand strayed toward her braid before she could snatch it down again. As if he knew more about channeling than she! Well, in some ways he did. Twenty years as Moiraine's Warder had taught him as much as a man could know of saidar. "My headache is completely gone. I'm perfectly all right now."
"Don't be petulant, my love. There are only a few hours till twilight. Plenty of work will be left tomorrow.'' His left hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, relaxed, tightened. Only that hand moved.
Her lips compressed. Petulant? She smoothed her skirt furiously. She was not petulant! He seldom invoked his right to command in private—curse those Sea Folk for ever thinking of such a thing!—but when he did, the man was unbending. Of c
ourse, she could go anyway. He would not try to stop her physically. She was certain of that. Fairly certain. Only she did not intend to violate her marriage vows in the slightest way. Even if she did want to kick her beloved husband's shins.
Kicking her skirts instead, she went to stand beside him at the window and slip her arm through his. His arm was rock hard, though. His muscles were hard, wonderfully so, but this was the hardness of tension, as though he were straining to lift a great weight. How she wished she had his bond, to give her hints of what was troubling him. When she laid hands on Myrelle. . . . No, best not to think of that hussy! Greens! They simply could not be trusted with men!
Outside, not far from the house, she could see a pair of those black-coated Asha'man, and the sisters bonded to them. She had avoided that whole lot as much as possible—the Asha'man for obvious reasons, the sisters because they supported Elaida—yet you could not spend time in the same house with people, even a house as large and rambling as Algarin's, and avoid coming to recognize them. Arel Malevin was a Cairhienin who seemed even wider than he actually was because he stood barely chest-high to Lan, Donalo Sandomere a Tairen with a garnet in his left ear and his gray-streaked beard trimmed to a point and oiled, although she doubted very much that his creased, leathery face belonged to a noble. Malevin had bonded Aisling Noon, a fierce-eyed Green who peppered her speech with Borderland oaths that sometimes made Lan wince. Nynaeve wished she understood them, but he refused to explain. Sandomere's captive was Ayako Norsoni, a diminutive White with wavy waist-length black hair who was nearly as brown-skinned as a Domani. She seemed shy, a rarity among Aes Sedai. Both women wore their fringed shawls. The captives almost always did, perhaps as gestures of defiance. But then, they seemed to get on strangely well with the men. Often Nynaeve had seen them chatting companionably, hardly the behavior of defiant prisoners. And she suspected that Logain and Gabrelle were not the only pair sharing a bed outside wedlock. It was disgraceful!
Suddenly fires bloomed below, six enveloping dead Trollocs in front of Malevin and Aisling, seven in front of Sandomere and Ayako, and she squinted against the blinding glare. It was like trying to look at thirteen noonday suns blazing in a cloudless sky. They were linked. She could tell from the way the flows of saidar moved, stiffly, as though they were being forced into place rather than guided. Or rather, the men were trying to force them. That never worked with the female half of the Power. It was pure Fire, and the blazes were ferocious, fiercer than she would have expected from Fire alone. But of course they would be using saidin as well, and who could say what they were adding from that murderous chaos? The little she could recall of being linked with Rand left her with no desire ever again to go near that. In just a few minutes the fires vanished, leaving only low heaps of grayish ash lying on seared earth that looked hard and cracked. That could not do the soil much good. "You can't find this very entertaining, Lan. What are you thinking?"
"Idle thoughts," he said, his arm hard as stone beneath her hand. New fires flared outside.
"Share them with me." She managed to put a hint of question in that. He seemed amused by the nature of their vows, yet he absolutely refused to follow the smallest instruction when they were alone. Requests, he granted instantly—well, most of the time—but the man would quietly leave his boots muddy till the mud flaked off if she told him not to track in mud.
"Unpleasant thoughts, but if you wish. The Myrddraal and Trollocs make me think of Tarmon Gai'don."
"Unpleasant thoughts, indeed."
Still staring out the window, he nodded. There was no expression on his face—Lan could teach Aes Sedai about hiding emotions!—but a touch of heat entered his voice. "It's coming soon, Nynaeve, yet al'Thor seems to think he has forever to dance with the Seanchan. Shadow-spawn could be moving down through the Blight while we stand here, down through—" His mouth snapped shut. Down through Malkier, he had almost said, dead Malkier, the murdered land of his birth. She was sure of it. He went on as if he had not paused. "They could strike at Shienar, at the whole Borderlands, next week, or tomorrow. And al'Thor sits weaving his Seanchan schemes. He should send someone to convince King Easar and the others to return to their duty along the Blight. He should be marshaling all the force he can gather and taking it to the Blight. The Last Battle will be there, and at Shayol Ghul. The war is there."
Sadness welled up in her, yet she managed to keep it out of her voice. "You have to go back," she said quietly.
At last he turned his head, frowning down at her. His clear blue eyes were so cold. They held less of death than they had, of that she was certain, but they were still so cold. "My place is with you, heart of my heart. Ever and always."
She gathered all of her courage and held on to it hard, so hard that she ached. She wanted to speak fast, to get the words out before courage failed, but she forced herself to a steady tone and an even pace. "A Borderland saying I heard from you once. 'Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.' My duty lies here, making sure Alivia doesn't kill Rand. But I will take you to the Borderlands. Your duty lies there. You want to go to Shienar? You mentioned King Easar and Shienar. And it is close to Malkier."
He looked down at her for a long time, but at last he exhaled softly, and the tension left his arm. "Are you sure, Nynaeve? If you are, then, yes, Shienar. In the Trolloc Wars, the Shadow used Tarwin's Gap to move large numbers of Trollocs, just as it did a few years back, when we sought the Eye of the World. But only if you are completely sure."
No, she was not sure. She wanted to cry, to scream at him that he was a fool, that his place was with her, not dying alone in a futile private war with the Shadow. Only, she could not say any of that. Bond or no bond, she knew he was torn inside, torn between his love of her and his duty, torn and bleeding as surely as if he had been stabbed with a sword. She could not add to his wounds. She could try to make sure he survived, though. "Would I make the offer if I wasn't sure?" she said dryly, surprised at how calm she sounded. "I won't like sending you away, but you have your duty, and I have mine."
Wrapping his arms around her, he hugged her to his chest, gently at first, then harder, until she thought he might squeeze all the air from her lungs. She did not care. She hugged him just as fiercely, and had to pry her hands from his broad back when she was done at last. Light, she wanted to weep. And knew she must not.
As he began packing his saddlebags, she hurriedly changed into a riding dress of yellow-slashed green silk and stout leather shoes, then slipped from the room before he was done.
Algarin's library was large, a square, high-ceilinged room lined with shelves. Half a dozen cushioned chairs stood scattered around the floor, and a long table and a tall map-rack completed the furnishings. The stone hearth was cold and the iron stand-lamps unlit, but she channeled briefly to light three of them. A hasty search found the maps she needed in the rack's diamond-shaped compartments. They were as old as most of the books, yet the land did not change greatly in two or three hundred years.
When she returned to their rooms, Lan was in the sitting room, saddlebags on his shoulder, Warder's color-shifting cloak hanging down his back. His face was still, a stone mask. She took only time to get her own cloak, blue silk lined with velvet, and they walked in silence, her right hand resting lightly on his left wrist, out to the dimly lit stable where their horses were kept. The air there smelled of hay and horses and horse dung, as it always did in stables.
A lean, balding groom with a nose that had been broken more than once sighed when Lan told him they wanted Mandarb and Loversknot saddled. A gray-haired woman began work on Nynaeve's stout brown mare, while three of the aging men made a job of getting Lan's tall black stallion bridled and out of his stall.
"I want a promise from you," Nynaeve said quietly as they waited. Mandarb danced in circles so that the plump fellow trying to lift the saddle onto the stallion's back had to run trying to catch up. "An oath. I mean it, Lan Mandragoran. We aren't alone any longer."
"What do
you want my oath on?" he asked warily. The balding groom called for two more men to help.
"That you'll ride to Fal Moran before you enter the Blight, and that if anyone wants to ride with you, you'll let him."
His smile was small, and sad. "I've always refused to lead men into the Blight, Nynaeve. There were times men rode with me, but I would not—"
"If men have ridden with you before," she cut in, "men can ride with you again. Your oath on it, or I vow I'll let you ride the whole long way to Shienar." The woman was fastening the cinches on Loversknot's saddle, but the three men were still struggling to get Mandarb's saddle on his back, to keep him from shaking off the saddle blanket.
"How far south in Shienar do you mean to leave me?" he asked. When she said nothing, he nodded. "Very well, Nynaeve. If that's what you want. I swear it under the Light and by my hope of rebirth and salvation."
It was very hard not to sigh with relief. She had managed it, and without lying. She was trying to do as Egwene wanted and behave as though she had already taken the Three Oaths on the Oath Rod, but it was very hard dealing with a husband if you could not lie even when it was absolutely necessary.
"Kiss me," she told him, adding hastily, "That wasn't an order. I just want to kiss my husband." A goodbye kiss. There would be no time for one later.
"In front of everyone?" he said, laughing. "You've always been so shy about that."
The woman was nearly done with Loversknot, and one of the grooms was holding Mandarb as steady as he could while the other two hurriedly buckled the cinches.
"They're too busy to see anything. Kiss me, or I'll think you're the one who's—" His lips on hers shut off words. Her toes curled.
Some time later, she was leaning on his broad chest to catch her breath while he stroked her hair. "Perhaps we can have one last night together in Shienar," he murmured softly. "It may be some time before we're together again, and I'll miss having my back clawed."