New Spring

  It would have been a pleasure to send the woman off with a few stripes across her back, but doing so might well have revealed who she was. A number of passersby, men and women and children, had stopped to watch. Not to interfere; just to see the outcome. “I will if I must,” Moiraine said calmly, coolly.

  The young woman frowned, licking her lips and fingering the hilt of her knife. Abruptly, she flung down Arrow’s reins. “Keep her then! Truth is, she isn’t worth stealing.” Turning her back, she strode away shooting defiant glares in every direction.

  Temper flared in Moiraine, and she channeled Air, striking the woman a hard blow across the bottom. A very hard blow. With a shriek, the woman leaped at least a foot in the air. Gripping her knife hilt, she spun about, scowling and searching for who had hit her, but there was no one closer than two paces, and people were looking at her in open puzzlement. She started off again, rubbing herself with both hands.

  Moiraine gave a small nod of satisfaction. Perhaps in the future the would-be horsethief would know not to insult another woman’s horse. Her satisfaction did not last long.

  At the second inn on the street, The Blind Pig, a round-faced, squinting woman in a long apron that might have once been white cackled that she had no Tairens in her rooms. Every word out of her mouth came with a shrill laugh. “Best you be off, girl,” she said as well. “My trade will have a pretty tender like you for dinner if you don’t scurry away quick.” Tilting her head back, she roared with laughter that her customers echoed.

  At The Silver Penny, the last inn on the street, the innkeeper was a beautiful woman in her middle years, not too overly tall, with a joyous smile and glossy black hair worn in a thick braid that started atop her head. Wonder of wonders, Nedare Satarov’s brown woolen dress was neat, clean and well cut, and her common-room floor was freshly swept. Her patrons were rough-faced men and hard-eyed women, but the smells from the kitchen promised something tolerable.

  “Why, yes, my Lady,” she said, “I do have a Tairen woman of that description staying here. She’s gone out just now. Why don’t you have a seat and some nice spiced wine while you wait for her.” She held out a wooden mug she had been carrying when she first approached. The mug gave off the sweet smell of fresh spices.

  “Thank you,” Moiraine said, returning the woman’s smile with one just as bright. What luck to find Siuan so fast. But her hand stopped just short of the mug. Something had altered in Mistress Satarov’s expression. Just by a hair, but there was definitely a slight air of anticipation about her now. And she had been carrying the mug when she approached. Moiraine had not seen a sign of wine in the first two inns. No one in this part of the city could afford wine. Spices could cover many other tastes.

  Embracing the Source, she wove Spirit in one of the Blue’s secret weaves and touched the innkeeper with it. Slight anticipation became definite unease. “Are you certain the young woman meets my description exactly?” she asked, and tightened the weave a fraction. Sweat appeared on Mistress Satarov’s forehead. “Are you absolutely certain?” Another tightening, and a edge of fear appeared in the woman’s eyes.

  “Come to think, she doesn’t have blue eyes at that. And…And she left this morning, come to think.”

  “How many unwary visitors have you fed wine?” Moiraine asked coldly. “How many women? Do you leave them alive? Or simply wishing they were dead?”

  “I…. I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ll excuseme, I….”

  “Drink,” Moiraine commanded, tightening the weave to just short of panic. Trembling, Mistress Satarov was unable to break free from her gaze. “Drink it all.”

  Still staring into Moiraine’s eyes, the woman raised the mug unsteadily to her mouth, and her throat worked convulsively as she swallowed. Abruptly, her eyes widened as she realized what she was doing, and with a cry she flung the mug away in a spray of wine. Moiraine released the weave, but that did not lessen Mistress Satarov’s fear. The woman’s face contorted with terror as she gazed around her common room. Hoisting her skirts above her knees, she began running toward the kitchens, perhaps the stairs at the back of the room, yet in three paces she was staggering from side to side, and in three more she collapsed to the floor as though her bones had melted, her stockinged legs exposed to the thigh. Silk stockings. The woman had made a tidy profit from her vile trade. She waved her arms as though seeking to crawl, but there was no strength in them.

  Some of the men and women at the tables looked at Moiraine in wonderment, doubtless amazed that she was not the one lying on the floor, but most seemed to be studying Mistress Satarov’s futile attempts to claw her way along. A wiry man with a long scar down his face gained a slow smile that never touched his eyes. A heavyset fellow with a blacksmith’s shoulders licked his lips. By twos and threes women began hurrying out into the street, many shrinking back from Moiraine as they passed her. Some of the men went, too. She joined the exodus without looking back. Sometimes justice came from other than laws or swords.

  That was how the rest of her day went, finding the scattered districts where people’s clothes were worn and patched and everyone went afoot. In Chachin, a matter of five streets could take you from the homes and shops of craftsmen who were at least moderately prosperous to squalid poverty and back again. Rulers always tried to do something about those in need, if they were good and decent rulers, and she had heard that Ethenielle was considered generous, yet every time one man was lifted from penury, another seemed to fall into it. That might not be fair, but it was the way of the world. The frustration of it was another reason she wanted to avoid the Sun Throne.

  She asked in common rooms filled with drunken shouts and laughter and in grim ones where the men and women at the tables seemed to want only to drown their troubles in drink, but no one admitted to seeing a blue-eyed young Tairen woman. Three more times she was offered wine under suspicious circumstances, but she did not repeat what she had done to Mistress Satarov. Not that she was not tempted, but word of that sort of thing would spread. Once might be dismissed as rumor; four was something else again. Any Blue hearing about that would certainly suspect another Blue was in the city. She disliked thinking that a Blue sister could really be Black, but any sister at all could be, and she needed to remain hidden as long as she could manage.

  Twice she was attacked by pairs of men who seized Arrow’s bridle and tried to claw her from the saddle. Had there been more, she might have had to reveal herself, but the fear-inducing weave at full strength sent them dashing away through the crowds in mindless panic. Onlookers stared at the running men in amazement, obviously wondering why strong men intent on stealing a horse should suddenly flee, yet unless there was a wilder among them, no one was any the wiser. No fewer than seven more times someone tried to steal Arrow while she was inside an inn. Once it was a pack of children she scattered with a shout, another time half a dozen young men who thought they could ignore her, until she sent them leaping and yelping their way down the street under a flurry of Air-woven switches. It was not that Chachin was any more lawless than other cities, but she was in places where silk clothing and a fur-lined cloak and a fine horse were simply signs that she was ripe for plucking. Had she lost Arrow there, a magistrate might well have said it was her own fault. There was nothing for it but to grit her teeth and move on. Cold daylight began to settle toward yet another icy night.

  She was walking Arrow through lengthening shadows, eyeing darknesses that moved suspiciously in an alley and thinking that she would have to give up for today, when Siuan came bustling up from behind.

  “I thought you might look down here when you came,” Siuan said, taking her elbow to hurry her along. She was wearing the same blue wool riding dress. Moiraine doubted she had even considered spending some of the coin Moiraine had given her on another. “I’ve been haunting these regions looking for you. Let’s get inside before we freeze.” Siuan eyed those shadows in the alley, too, and absently fingered her belt knife, as if using the Power could not de
al with any ten of them. Well, not without revealing themselves. Perhaps it was best to move quickly. “Not the quarter for you, Moiraine. There are fellows around here would bloody well have you for dinner before you knew you were in the pot. Are you laughing or choking?”

  “Both,” Moiraine replied with some difficulty. How often today had she heard some variation on her being something to be cooked and eaten if she was not careful? She had to stop and hug the other woman. “Oh, Siuan, it is so good to see your face. Where are you staying? Somewhere that serves fish, I suppose. May I at least hope the beds lack fleas and lice?”

  “Maybe it isn’t what you’re used to,” Siuan replied, “but a sound roof to keep off rain is really all you need. And there are no sisters there, so you can chase fleas and lice to your heart’s content. But we’d better hurry if we want to reach it before full dark.”

  Moiraine sighed. And hurried. After dark was not a good time to be out near the sorts of places Siuan favored.

  Siuan, it turned out, had a room at a most respectable inn called The Evening Star, three sprawling stories of stone that catered to merchants of middling rank, especially women unwilling to be bothered by noise or rough sorts in the spacious common room. A pair of bull-shouldered fellows, leaning against blue-painted columns as they kept watch on the front door, made sure there was none of that. In truth, they were the only men in the room. A good many of the tables were taken by women, most in well-cut but plain woolens with only a brooch or earrings for jewelry and two with the chains of the Kandori Merchants’ Guild looping across their bosoms, though three in bright Domani dresses, discussing something heatedly if in low voices, wore tall chain-necklaces of gold that covered their entire necks. A gray-haired woman plying her hammers on a dulcimer was striking a quiet yet merry tune, and the smells from the kitchens spoke of lamb roasting, not fish.

  The innkeeper, Ailene Tolvina, was a lean woman with an air of brooking little nonsense, in a gray dress embroidered with a sprinkling of blue flowers on the shoulders. She had no rooms free, but she made no objection to Moiraine joining Siuan. “So long as the extra for two is paid,” she added, holding out a hand. Silks and fur were insufficient to bring curtsies from Mistress Tolvina.

  “I can chase fleas to my heart’s content?” Moiraine said, hanging her cloak on a peg in Siuan’s small room on the top floor. At least it was warm, with a stove built under the not-very-wide bed, and tidy. Siuan was never untidy. “I am surprised you are staying here.” The “extra” had been a silver penny, which meant Siuan must be paying two.

  “You’ll just have to call the fleas first. Why surprised?” Siuan settled cross-legged on the bed, yet she all but bounced. She seemed invigorated since Canluum. A goal always made Siuan bubble with enthusiasm.

  Moiraine did not answer the question. They were going to be sharing that bed, and Siuan knew exactly which ticklish spots could reduce her to helpless laughter and pleading. “What have you learned?”

  “A great deal and nothing. I’ve had a time, Moiraine, I tell you. That fool horse nearly beat me to death getting here. The Creator made people to walk or go by boat, not be bounced around. I suppose the Sahera woman wasn’t the one, or you’d be jumping like a ladyfish in spring. I found Ines Demain almost right off, but not where I can reach her. She’s a new widow, but she did have a son, for sure. Named him Rahien because she saw the dawn come up over Dragonmount. Talk of the streets. Everybody thinks it a fool reason to name a child.”

  Moiraine pushed down a momentary thrill. Seeing dawn over the mountain did not mean the child had been born on it. There was no chair or stool, nor room for one, so she sat on the end of the bed, wrapping her arms around her knees. “If you have found Ines and her son, Siuan, why is she out of reach?”

  “She’s in the bloody Aesdaishar Palace, that’s why.” Siuan could have gained entry easily as Aes Sedai, but otherwise only if the Palace was hiring servants.

  The Aesdaishar Palace. “We will take care of that in the morning,” Moiraine sighed. It meant risk, yet the Lady Ines had to be questioned. No woman Moiraine had found yet had been able to see Dragonmount when her child was born. “Have you seen any sign of…of the Black Ajah?” She had to get used to saying that name.

  Siuan frowned at her lap and fingered her divided skirt. “This is a strange city, Moiraine,” she said finally. “Lamps in the streets, and women who fight duels, even if they do deny it, and more gossip than ten men full of ale could spew. Some of it is interesting.” She leaned forward to put a hand on Moiraine’s knee. “Everybody’s talking about a young blacksmith who died of a broken back a couple of nights ago. Nobody expected much of him, but this last month or so he turned into quite a speaker. Convinced his guild to take up money for the poor who’ve come into the city, afraid of the bandits, folks not connected to a guild or House.”

  “Siuan, what under the Light—?”

  “Just listen, Moiraine. He collected a lot of silver himself, and it seems he was on his way to the guild house to turn in six or eight bags of it when he was killed. Fool was carrying it all by himself. The point is, there wasn’t a bloody coin of it taken, Moiraine. And he didn’t have a mark on him, aside from his broken back.”

  They shared a long look; then Moiraine shook her head. “I cannot see how to tie that to Meilyn or Tamra. A blacksmith? Siuan, we can go mad thinking we see Black sisters everywhere.”

  “We can die from thinking they aren’t there,” Siuan replied. “Well. Maybe we can be silverpike in the nets instead of grunters. Just remember silverpike go to the fish-market, too. What do you have in mind about this Lady Ines?”

  Moiraine told her. Siuan did not like it, and this time it took most of the night to make her see sense. In truth, Moiraine almost wished Siuan would talk her into trying something else. But Lady Ines had seen dawn over Dragonmount. At least Ethenielle’s Aes Sedai advisor was with her in the south.

  Chapter

  24

  Making Use of Invisibility

  Siuan started up again while they were dressing the next morning. She disliked being argued out of anything, particularly when she thought herself in the right. And she usually did think herself in the right. “I don’t like you taking all the risks,” she muttered, pulling a blue wool dress over her head. She had brought a change, as it turned out, and she had been near to snippy in pointing out that Moiraine was the one with only a single dress to her name.

  “I will not be taking all the risks,” Moiraine said, suppressing a sigh. They had gone over this and over it last night. “You must take as many as I. Will you help me with these buttons?”

  Siuan turned her around by the shoulders almost roughly and attacked the two rows of small mother-of-pearl buttons that ran down her back. “Don’t be a gudgeon,” she grumbled, tugging at the dress much more fiercely than was necessary. “If this works as you say it will, nobody will notice me. You’ll have all sails set, the sweeps out, and banners flying. I say there has to be a better way, and we’re going to sit down and talk it over till you see the right of it.”

  Moiraine did sigh then. A bear with a sore tooth would have been better company. Even that fellow Lan! Doing up Siuan’s buttons in turn, she tried distracting the other woman by telling her how much the cut of her dress molded her hips and bosom. Well, for a little more than distraction. Siuan deserved a bit of snippiness back.

  “It does attract men’s eyes,” Siuan replied. And giggled! She even gave her hips a twitch! Moiraine thought she might spend the whole day sighing.

  When they went down, with their cloaks folded over their arms, the common room was nearly full of merchants chatting over breakfast, still all women. The two Kandori, one with three chains across her chest, the other with two, were eating hurriedly and beaming like women who foresaw a prosperous day ahead. Some had done business the night before, it seemed. One slender woman in dark gray was eyeing her plump, complacent companion with the sickly expression of someone who had been brought near financial ruin. The th
ree Domani picked at their plates, pushing the food around with their forks; by their tight eyes and pallid faces, they were all nursing sore heads from too much drink.

  “A big breakfast, and then we can talk,” Siuan said, going on tiptoe to scan the room for an empty table. “The kitchens here make a fine breakfast.”

  “Rolls that we can eat on the way,” Moiraine said firmly, and hurried toward Mistress Tolvina, who was giving instructions to a serving girl in a snowy apron with a blue border. The only way to win an argument with Siuan was to sweep her along. If you let up for an instant, you would find yourself the one being swept.

  “Good morning, Mistress Tolvina,” she said as the innkeeper turned from the waiting girl. “We wish to hire two of your men to escort us for a few hours this morning.” The pair watching the door this morning were different from those who had been on duty last night, though just as large.

  The lean woman’s eyebrows rose slightly, increasing her no-nonsense air. Again, there was no curtsy, though Moiraine had used the Power to make sure her dress looked fresh from the laundress. “Why? If you’ve gotten yourself engaged in a duel, I’ll have no part of it. A fool thing, these whip-duels and the like, and I’ll not abet you. You’d just come back lashed bloody, in any case. I certainly doubt you’ve ever fought before.”

  Moiraine bit her tongue. Siuan said the innkeeper had all sorts of rules, from locking the outside doors at midnight to no male visitors in rooms, and enforced them strictly, but she would not have spoken so had she known they were Aes Sedai. “I wish to visit a banker,” she said once she could trust herself to speak. Getting them thrown out of Siuan’s room would not be a disaster, but it would be inconvenient. They had a great deal to do today. “A good and reputable banker. Do you know of one nearby?”