A Crown of Swords

  “I doubt one would do any good against you,” she said, walking her gelding slowly toward them, “and I would not like you to think I was threatening you.” She looked once at Min — just a glance that ran head to toe, though Min was sure everything about her was filed away — but aside from that, Lady Caraline kept her eyes on Rand. She drew rein three paces away, just far enough so he could not reach her afoot before she could dig in her heels. “I can only think of one gray-eyed man with your height who might suddenly appear out of nowhere, unless perhaps you are an Aiel in disguise, but perhaps you will be so kind as to supply a name?”

  “I am the Dragon Reborn,” Rand said, every bit as arrogant as he had been with the Sea Folk, yet if any ta’veren swirling of the Pattern was at work, the woman on the horse gave no evidence.

  Rather than leaping down to fall to her knees, she merely nodded, pursing her lips. “I have heard so very much about you. I have heard you went to the Tower to submit to the Amyrlin Seat. I have heard you mean to give the Sun Throne to Elayne Trakand. I have also heard that you killed Elayne, and her mother.”

  “I submit to no one,” Rand replied sharply. He stared up at her with eyes fierce enough to snatch her out of the saddle by themselves. “Elayne is on her way to Caemlyn as we speak, to take the throne of Andor. After which, she will have the throne of Cairhien as well.” Min winced. Did he have to sound like a pillow stuffed full of haughty? She had hoped he had calmed down a bit after the Sea Folk.

  Lady Caraline laid her crossbow across the saddle in front of her, running a gloved hand along it. Perhaps regretting that loosed bolt? “I could accept my young cousin on the throne — better she than some, at least — but . . . ” Those big dark eyes that had seemed so liquid suddenly became stone. “But I am not sure I can accept you in Cairhien, and I do not mean only your changes to laws and customs. You . . . change fate by your very presence. Every day since you came, people die in accidents so bizarre no one can believe them. So many husbands abandon their wives, and wives their husbands, that no one even comments upon it now. You will tear Cairhien apart just by remaining here.”

  “Balance,” Min broke in hastily. Rand’s face was so dark, he looked ready to burst. Maybe he had been right to come after all. Certainly there was no point letting him throw this meeting away in a tantrum. She gave no one a chance to speak. “There is always a balance of good against bad. That’s how the Pattern works. Even he doesn’t change that. As night balances day, good balances harm. Since he came, there hasn’t been a single stillbirth in the city, not one child born deformed. There are more marriages some days than used to be in a week, and for every man who chokes to death on a feather, a woman tumbles head over heels down three flights of stairs and, instead of breaking her neck, stands up without a bruise. Name the evil, and you can point to the good. The turning of the Wheel requires balance, and he only increases the chances of what might have happened anyway in nature.” Suddenly she colored, realizing they were both looking at her. Staring, more like.

  “Balance?” Rand murmured, eyebrows lifting.

  “I’ve been reading some of Master Fel’s books,” she said faintly. She did not want anyone to think she was pretending to be a philosopher. Lady Caraline smiled at her tall saddlebow and toyed with her reins. The woman was laughing at her. She would show this woman what she could laugh at!

  Abruptly a tall black gelding with the look of a warhorse came crashing through the undergrowth, ridden by a man well into his middle years, with close-cropped hair and a pointed beard. Despite his yellow Tairen coat, the fat sleeves striped with green satin, eyes of a startling pretty blue looked out of his damp, dark face, like pale polished sapphires. Not a particularly pretty man, but those eyes made up for a too-long nose. He carried a crossbow in one leather-gauntleted hand, and brandished a broadhead bolt in the other.

  “This came down inches from my face, Caraline, and it has your markings! Just because there’s no game is no reason — ”He became aware of Rand and Min just then, and his drawn crossbow lowered toward them. “Are these strays, Caraline, or did you find spies from the city? I’ve never believed al’Thor would continue to let us sit here unhindered.”

  Half a dozen more riders appeared behind him, sweating men in fat-sleeved coats with satin stripes and perspiring women in riding dresses with wide, thick lace collars. All carrying crossbows. The last of those riders had not halted, horses stamping and tossing heads, before twice as many came struggling through the brush from another direction and pulled up near Caraline, slight, pale men and women in dark clothes with stripes of color sometimes to below the waist. All with crossbows. Servants afoot came after, laboring and panting with the heat, the men who would dress and carry any downed game. It hardly seemed to matter that none had more than a skinning knife at his belt. Min swallowed, and unconsciously began patting her cheeks with her handkerchief a little more vigorously. If even one person recognized Rand before he knew it . . .

  Lady Caraline did not hesitate. “Not spies, Darlin,” she said, turning her horse to face the Tairen newcomers. The High Lord Darlin Sisnera! All that was needed now was Lord Toram Riatin. Min wished Rand’s ta’veren tugging at the Pattern could be just a little less complete. “A cousin and his wife,” Caraline went on, “come from Andor to see me. May I present Tomas Trakand — from a minor branch of the House — and his wife Jaisi.” Min almost glared at her; the only Jaisi she had ever known had been a dusty prune before she was twenty, and sour and bad-tempered to boot.

  Darlin’s gaze swept over Rand again, lingered a moment on Min. He lowered his crossbow and bowed his head just a hair, a High Lord of Tear to a minor noble. “You are welcome, Lord Tomas. It takes a brave man to join us in our present circumstances. Al’Thor may loose the savages on us any day.” The Lady Caraline gave him an exasperated look that he made a show of not seeing.

  He noted that Rand’s return bow was no more than his, however; noted, and frowned. A darkly handsome woman in his retinue muttered angrily under her breath — she had a long hard face, well-practiced in anger — and a stout fellow, scowling and sweating in a red-striped coat of pale green, heeled his horse forward a few steps as if thinking to ride Rand down.

  “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” Rand said coolly, as though he noticed nothing. The Dragon Reborn to . . . The Dragon Reborn to just about anybody, was what it was. Arrogance on a mountaintop. “Not much happens as we expect. For instance, I heard you were in Tear, in Haddon Mirk.”

  Min wished she dared speak up, dared say something to soothe him. She settled for stroking his arm. Casually. A wife — now there was a word that suddenly sounded fine — a wife idly patting her husband. Another fine word. Light, it was hard being fair! It was hardly fair, having to be fair.

  “The High Lord Darlin is but lately come by longboat with a few of his close friends, Tomas.” Caraline’s throaty tone never changed, but her gelding suddenly pranced, no doubt at a sharp heel, and under cover of regaining control she turned her back to Darlin and shot Rand a brief warning frown. “Do not trouble the High Lord, Tomas.”

  “I do not mind, Caraline,” Darlin said, slinging his crossbow from his saddle by a loop. He rode a little closer and rested an arm on his tall saddlebow. “A man should know what he is stepping into. You may have heard the tales about al’Thor going to the Tower, Tomas. I came because Aes Sedai approached me months ago with suggestions that might happen, and your cousin informed me she had received the same. We thought we might put her on the Sun Throne before Colavaere could take it. Well, al’Thor is no fool; never believe he is. Myself, I think he played the Tower like a harp. Colavaere is hanged, he sits secure behind Cairhien’s walls — without an Aes Sedai halter, I’ll wager, no matter what rumor says — and until we find some way to extricate ourselves, we sit in his hand, waiting for him to make a fist.”

  “A ship brought you,” Rand said simply. “A ship could take you away.” Abruptly Min realized he was gently patting her hand on his arm. Trying
to soothe her!

  Startlingly, Darlin threw back his head and laughed. A great many women would forget his nose for those eyes and that laugh. “So it would, Tomas, but I’ve asked your cousin to marry me. She will not say yes or no, but a man cannot abandon even a possible wife to the mercies of the Aiel, and she will not leave.”

  Caraline Damodred drew herself up on her saddle, face cold enough to shame an Aes Sedai, but suddenly auras of red and white flashed around her and Darlin, and Min knew. The colors never seemed to matter, but she knew that they would marry — after Caraline had led him a merry chase. More, to her eyes a crown suddenly appeared on Darlin’s head, a simple golden circlet with a slightly curved sword lying on its side above his brows. The king’s crown he would wear one day, though of what country, she could not say. Tear had High Lords instead of a king.

  Image and auras vanished as Darlin pulled his horse around to face Caraline. “There’s no game to be found today. Toram has already returned to camp. I suggest we do the same.” Those blue eyes scanned the surrounding trees quickly. “It seems your cousin and his wife have lost their horses. They will wander, in a careless moment,” he added to Rand, in a kindly tone. He knew very well they had no horses. “But I’m sure Rovair and Ines will give up their mounts. A walk in the air will do them good.”

  The stout man in the red-striped coat swung down from his tall bay immediately, with a toadying smile for Darlin and one markedly less warm if just as greasy for Rand. The angry-faced woman was a moment later in climbing stiffly from her silver-gray mare. She did not look pleased.

  Neither was Min. “You mean to go into their camp?” she whispered as Rand led her to the horses. “Are you mad?” she added before thinking.

  “Not yet,” he said softly, touching her nose with the tip of one finger. “Thanks to you, I know that.” And he boosted her onto the mare, then climbed into the bay’s saddle and heeled the animal up beside Darlin.

  Heading north and a little toward the west, across the slope, they left Rovair and Ines standing beneath the trees frowning at one another sourly. As they fell in behind with the Cairhienin, the other Tairens shouted laughing wishes that the pair would enjoy the walk.

  Min would have ridden alongside Rand, but Caraline put a hand on her arm, drawing her in back of the two men. “I want to see what he does,” Caraline said quietly. Which one, Min wondered. “You are his lover?” Caraline asked.

  “Yes,” Min told her defiantly, once she could catch a breath. Her cheeks felt like fire. But the woman only nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it was, in Cairhien. Sometimes she realized that all the sophistication she had picked up talking to worldly people was about as thick as her blouse.

  Rand and Darlin rode knee to knee just ahead, the younger man half a head taller than the older, each wrapped in pride like a cloak. But talking, just the same. Listening was not easy. They spoke quietly, and the dead leaves rustling under the horses’ hooves, fallen branches cracking, often was enough to muffle their words. The cry of a hawk overhead or the chattering of a squirrel in a tree drowned them. Still, it was possible to overhear snatches.

  “If I may say so, Tomas,” Darlin said at one point, as they headed down after the first rise, “and under the Light I offer no disrespect, you are fortunate in having a beautiful wife. The Light willing, I will have one as beautiful myself.”

  “Why do they not speak of something important?” Caraline muttered.

  Min turned her head to hide a small smile. The Lady Caraline did not look half as displeased as she sounded. She herself had never cared whether anyone thought her pretty or not. Well, until she met Rand, anyway. Maybe Darlin’s nose was not all that long.

  “I would have let him take Callandor from the Stone,” Darlin said some time later, as they climbed a sparsely treed slope, “but I could not stand aside when he brought Aiel invaders into Tear.”

  “I’ve read the Prophecies of the Dragon,” Rand said, leaning forward on the bay’s neck and urging the animal on. A fine glossy appearance the horse had, but no more bottom than his owner, Min suspected. “The Stone had to fall before he could take Callandor,” Rand continued. “Other Tairen lords follow him, so I hear.”

  Darlin snorted. “They cringe and lick his boots! I could have followed, if that was what he wanted, if . . . ” With a sigh, he shook his head. “Too many ifs, Tomas. There is a saying in Tear. ‘Any quarrel can be forgiven, but kings never forget.’ Tear has not been under a king since Artur Hawkwing, but I think the Dragon Reborn is very like a king. No, he has attainted me with treason, as he calls it, and I must go on as I began. The Light willing, I may see Tear sovereign on its own land once more before I die.”

  It had to be ta’veren work, Min knew. The man would never have spoken this way to someone casually met, Caraline Damodred’s supposed cousin or not. But what did Rand think? She could hardly wait to tell him about the crown.

  Topping that hill, they suddenly came on a knot of spearmen, some with a dented breastplate or helmet, most without either, who bowed as soon they saw the party. To left and right through the trees, Min could see other groups of sentries. Below, the camp lay spread out in what seemed a permanent haze of dust, down a nearly treeless slope and across the hill-valley and up the next hill. Each of the few tents was large, with some noble’s banner hanging limply on a staff above the peak. Almost as many horses stood tied to picket lines as there were people, and thousands of men and a handful of women wandered among the cookfires and wagons. None raised a cheer as their leaders rode in.

  Min studied them over the handkerchief she pressed to her nose against the dust, not caring whether Caraline saw what she was doing. Dispirited faces watched them pass, and grim faces, people who knew they were in a trap. Here and there a House’s con stood stiffly above some man’s head, yet most seemed to be wearing whatever they could find, bits and pieces of armor that often neither matched nor fitted very well. A good many, though, men too tall for Cairhien, wore red coats under their battered breastplates. Min eyed a nearly obscured white lion worked on a filthy red sleeve. Darlin could only have brought a few people with him on a longboat, perhaps no more than his hunting party. Caraline looked to neither side as they rode through the camp, but whenever they came near those men in red coats, her mouth tightened.

  Darlin dismounted before a tremendous tent, the largest Min had ever seen, larger than any she had ever imagined, a great red-striped oval, shining in the sunlight like silk, with no fewer than four high conical peaks, each with the Rising Sun of Cairhien stirring above in a lazy breeze, gold on blue. The strumming of harps drifted out amid the murmur of voices, like the sounds of geese. As servants took away the horses, Darlin offered his arm to Caraline. After a very long pause, she laid her fingers lightly on his wrist with no expression whatsoever, letting him escort her inside.

  “My Lady wife?” Rand murmured with a smile, extending his arm.

  Min sniffed and put her hand atop his. She would rather have hit him. He had no right to make a joke of that. He had no right to bring her here, ta’veren or no ta’veren. He could be killed here, burn him! But did he care if she spent the rest of her life weeping? She touched one of the striped doorflaps as they went in, and shook her head in wonder. It was silk. A silk tent!

  No sooner were they inside than she felt Rand stiffen. Darlin’s shrunken retinue and Caraline’s jostled around them with insincere murmurs of apology. Between the four main tentpoles, long trestle tables groaning with food and drink stood about the colorful carpets that had been laid for a floor, and there were people everywhere, Cairhienin nobles in their finery, a few soldiers with the fronts of their heads shaved and powdered, plainly men of high rank by the fine cut of their coats. A handful of bards strolled playing through the crowd, picked out as much by a loftier air than any noble as by the carved and gilded harps they carried. Yet Min’s eyes flew as if pulled to the sure source of Rand’s worry, three Aes Sedai talking together in shawls fringed gre
en and brown and gray. Images and colors flashed around them, but not a thing she could make sense of. A swirl in the crowd revealed another, a comfortably round-faced woman. More images, more flaring colors, but all Min needed was the red-fringed shawl looped over her plump arms.

  Rand tucked her hand under his arm and patted it. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “Everything is going well.” She would have asked him what they were doing there, but she was afraid he would tell her.

  Darlin and Caraline had vanished into the crowd along with their followers, yet as a bowing serving man with stripes of red, green and white on his dark cuffs offered a tray of silver goblets to Rand and Min, she reappeared, shaking off the importunings of a hatchet-faced fellow in one of those red coats. He glared at her back as she took a goblet of punch and waved the servant away, and Min’s breath caught at the aura that suddenly flashed around him, bruised hues so dark they seemed nearly black.

  “Don’t trust that man, Lady Caraline.” She could not stop herself. “He will murder anyone he thinks is in his way; he’ll kill for a whim, kill anybody.” She clamped her teeth shut before saying more.

  Caraline glanced over her shoulder as the hatchet-faced man turned away abruptly. “I could believe it easily of Daved Hanlon,” she said wryly. “His White Lions fight for gold, not Cairhien, and loot worse than the Aiel. Andor became too hot for them, it seems.” That with an arch glance at Rand. “Toram has promised him a great deal of gold, I think, and estates I know.” She tilted her eyes up to Min. “Do you know the man, Jaisi?”

  Min could only shake her head. How to explain what she did know about Hanlon now, that his hands would be red with more rapes and murders before he died? If she had known when or who . . . But all she knew was that he would. Anyway, telling about a viewing never changed it; what she saw happened, no matter who she warned. Sometimes, before she had learned better, it had happened because she warned.