How Bashere kept his equanimity, Rand did not know. A rumor had reached the Palace that very morning, of fighting in the Borderlands, between Borderlanders. Travelers’ tales sprang up like weeds after rain, but this had come from the north, apparently with merchants who had been at least as far as Tar Valon. Nothing in it said where or who exactly. Saldaea was as likely as anywhere else, and Bashere had had no word from there since he left months ago, yet he might have heard that the price of turnips had risen for all the effect the rumor had had on him.
Of course, Rand knew nothing of what was going on in the Two Rivers either — unless vague mutters of an uprising somewhere in the west touched his home; in these days, that could be anything or nothing — but it was not the same for him. He had abandoned the Two Rivers. Aes Sedai had spies everywhere, and he would not wager a copper that the Forsaken did not as well. The Dragon Reborn had no interest in the flyspeck village where Rand al’Thor had grown up; he was far beyond that. If he was not, then Emond’s Field was a hostage to use against him. Still, he would not split hairs with himself. Abandonment was abandonment.
If I could find a way to escape my destiny, do I deserve to? That was his own thought, not Lews Therin’s.
Shifting shoulders that suddenly seemed to ache dully, he kept his voice light. “Forgive me, Bashere. Something odd just occurred to me, but I have been listening. You were saying Caemlyn is filling up. For every man who ran away because he was afraid of the false Dragon, two have come because I’m not, and he isn’t. You see?”
Bashere grunted, which might have meant anything.
“How many have come for other reasons, Rand al’Thor?” Bael was the tallest man Rand had ever seen, a good hand taller than Rand himself. He made an odd contrast with Bashere, who stood shorter than any of the Maidens except Enaila. Gray streaked thickly through Bael’s dark reddish hair, but his face was lean and hard, his blue eyes sharp. “You have enemies enough for a hundred men. Mark me, they will try to strike at you again. There could even be Shadowrunners among them.”
“Even if there are no Darkfriends,” Bashere put in, “trouble brews in the city like tea left on the boil. A number of people have been severely beaten, evidently for doubting you’re the Dragon Reborn, and one poor fellow was hauled from a
tavern into a barn and hanged from the rafters for laughing at your miracles.”
“My miracles?” Rand said incredulously.
A wrinkled, white-haired serving man in a too-large coat of livery, with a large vase in his hands, trying to bow and step out of the way at the same time, tripped on his heel and fell backward. The pale green vase, paper-thin Sea Folk porcelain, flew over his head and went tumbling end-over-end across the dark red floor tiles, spinning and bouncing until it came to rest, upright, thirty or so paces down the hall. The old man scrambled to his feet with surprising spryness and ran to snatch up the vase, running his hands over it and exclaiming in disbelief as much as relief when he found not a chip or a crack. Other servants stared with just as much incredulity, before abruptly coming to themselves and hurrying on about their tasks. They avoided looking at Rand so hard that several forgot to bow or curtsy.
Bashere and Bael exchanged looks, and Bashere blew out his thick mustaches.
“Strange occurrences, then,” he said. “Every day there’s another story about a child falling headfirst onto paving stones from a window forty feet up, without so much as a single bruise. Or a grandmother getting in the way of two dozen runaway horses, only somehow they don’t even buffet her, much less knock her down and trample her. Some fellow threw five crowns twenty-two times straight at dice the other day, and they lay that at your feet, too. Luckily for him.”
“It is said,” Bael added, “that yesterday a basket of roof tiles fell from a roof and landed in the street unbroken in the shape of the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai.” He glanced at the open-mouthed white-haired servant, clutching the vase to his chest as they passed. “I do not doubt that it did.”
Rand exhaled slowly. They did not mention the other sort, of course. The man who stumbled on a step and was hanged when his kerchief caught on the door latch. The loose slate ripped from a roof by a high wind that sailed through an open window and a doorway to kill a woman sitting at table with her family. The sort of thing that did happen, but rarely. Only such things were not rare around him. For good or ill, for ill as often as good, he twisted chance merely by being within a few miles. No, if the Dragons disappeared from his arms and the branded herons from his palms, he was still marked. There was a saying in the Borderlands: “Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather.” Once you had that mountain firmly on your shoulders, there was no way to put it down. There was no one else to carry it anyway, and no use whining about it.
He made his voice brisk. “Have you found the men who did the hanging?” Bashere shook his head. “Then find them, and arrest them for murder. I want a stop put to this. Doubting me isn’t a crime.” Rumor said the Prophet had made it one, but there was nothing he could do about that yet. He did not even know where Masema was, beyond somewhere in Ghealdan or Amadicia. If he had not gone elsewhere meantime. Yet another note chalked up in his head; he had to find the man and rein him somehow.
“No matter how far it goes?” Bashere said. “There are whispers you’re a false Dragon who killed Morgase with Aes Sedai help. The people are supposed to rise up against you and avenge their queen. There may be more than one someone. It isn’t clear.”
Rand’s face hardened. The first part he could live with — he had to; there were too many variations to stamp out however many times he denied it — but he would not tolerate incitement to rebellion. Andor would be one land he did not split apart in war. He would give Elayne a land as unblemished as it had come to him. If he ever found her, he would. “Find who began it,” he said harshly, “and toss them in prison.” Light, how to find who started a whisper? “If they seek pardon, they can ask Elayne for it.” A young serving woman in a rough brown dress, dusting a blue spun-glass bowl, caught sight of his face, and the bowl dropped from her suddenly shaking hands and shattered. He did not always alter chance. “Is there any good news? I could do with some.”
The young woman bent unsteadily to gather up the shards of the bowl, but Sulin glanced at her, just glanced, and she sprang back, flattening herself wide-eyed against a tapestry showing a leopard hunt. Rand did not understand it, but some women seemed more frightened of the Maidens than they did of Aielmen. The young woman looked at Bael as if hoping he would protect her. He did not appear to see her at all.
“That depends on how you define good news.” Bashere shrugged. “I’ve learned that Ellorien of House Traemane and Pelivar of House Coelan entered the city three days ago. Sneaked in, you might say, and neither has come near the Inner City that I’ve heard. Talk in the streets has Dyelin of House Taravin in the country nearby. None of them has responded to your invitations. I’ve heard nothing to connect any of them to the whispers.” He glanced at Bael, who gave a slight shake of his head.
“We hear less than you, Davram Bashere. These people speak more freely around other wetlanders.”
It was good news in any case. Those were people Rand needed. If they believed him a false Dragon, he could find a way around that. If they believed he had killed Morgase . . . Well, so much the better if they remained loyal to her memory, and her blood. “Send them fresh invitations to visit me. Include Dyelin’s name; they may know where she is.”
“If I send such an invitation,” Bashere said doubtfully, “it may do no more than remind them there’s a Saldaean army in Andor.”
Rand hesitated, then nodded, suddenly grinning. “Ask the Lady Arymilla to carry it. I don’t doubt she’ll leap at the chance to show them how close she is to me. But you write it out.” Moiraine’s lessons in playing the Game of Houses were coming in useful once more.
“I do not know whether it is good news or bad,” Bael said, “but the Red Shields tell me two Aes Sedai have taken rooms at an inn in the New City.” The Red Shields had been helping Bashere’s men police Caemlyn and were now taking it over alone. Bael grinned slightly at the chagrin on Bashere’s face. “We hear less, Davram Bashere, but perhaps sometimes we see more.”
“Is one of them our friend who likes cats?” Rand asked. The stories of an Aes Sedai in the city persisted; sometimes there were two, or three, or a whole party. The closest Bashere or Bael had come to anything at all, though, were a few stories of an Aes Sedai who Healed dogs and cats, but always the next street over, told by someone who had been told by someone who had heard it in a tavern or in the market.
Bael shook his head. “I do not think so. The Red Shields said these two seem to have arrived in the night.” Bashere looked interested — he seldom let an opportunity pass to repeat that Rand needed Aes Sedai — but Bael was frowning slightly, so slightly it would not have been noticeable on anyone but an Aiel. Aiel were careful in their dealings with Aes Sedai, even reluctant.
Those few words contained plenty for Rand to think on, and every path came back to himself. Two Aes Sedai had to have a reason to come into Caemlyn, when their sisters were avoiding the city since he appeared there. The most likely reason was something to do with him. In the best of times few people journeyed by night, and these were not the best times. Aes Sedai arriving in the dark might be trying to avoid notice, and the most likely notice for them to avoid was his. On the other hand, they might just be going somewhere urgently. Which could spell a mission for the Tower. The truth of it was, he could not think what might be more important to the Tower right now than himself. Or they might be on their way to join the Aes Sedai that Egwene insisted were going to support him.
Whatever it was, he wanted to know. The Light alone knew what the Aes Sedai were up to — the Tower or Elayne’s hidden lot — but he had to find out. There were too many of them, and they could be too dangerous, for him not to. How would the Tower react when Elaida learned of his amnesty? How would any Aes Sedai? Had they heard yet?
As they approached the doors at the end of the corridor, he opened his mouth to tell Bael to ask one of the Aes Sedai to come to the Palace. He could handle two Aes Sedai if it came to that — so long as they did not catch him by surprise — but there was no point taking chances until he knew who they were and what they were about.
Pride fills me. I am sick with the pride that destroyed me!