Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time 9) - Page 75

“I’ll allow you to run tell Aleis I’m here as fast as your legs can carry you, boy,” Cadsuane replied, unfastening her cloak and tossing it across her saddle. “Tell her I’ll be in the dome, and tell her I don’t have all day. Well? Hop!” This time the man’s smile did not slide, it turned sickly, but he only hesitated a moment before setting off at a dead run while shouting for grooms to come take the horses.

Cadsuane had dismissed him from her attention as soon as she finished giving him his orders, however. “Verin, Kumira, you two will come with me,” she announced briskly. “Merise, keep everyone together and ready until I—Alanna, come back and dismount. Alanna!” Reluctantly Alanna turned her mount away from the gates an

d climbed down with a sulky glower. Her slim Warder, Ihvon, watched her anxiously. Cadsuane sighed as though her patience was almost at an end. “Sit on her if you must to keep her here, Merise,” she said, handing her reins to a small, wiry groom. “I want everyone ready to leave when I’m done with Aleis.” Merise nodded, and Cadsuane turned to the groom. “A little water is all he needs,” she said, giving her horse an affectionate pat. “I haven’t exercised him much today.”

Shalon was more than happy to turn her own horse over to a groom without instructions. She would not mind if he killed the creature. She did not know how far she had ridden in a daze, but she felt as though she had been in that saddle every mile of the however many hundred leagues to Cairhien. She felt rumpled in her flesh as well as her clothes. Abruptly, she realized that Jahar’s pretty face was not with the other men. Verin’s Tomas, a stocky gray-head as hard as any of the others, was leading the spotted gray pack animal that had been Jahar’s. Where had the young man gotten to? Merise certainly did not appear concerned by his absence.

“This First Counsel,” Harine growled, letting Moad help her down. She moved as stiffly as Shalon. He had simply leapt from his horse. “She is an important woman here, Sarene?”

“You might say she is the ruler of Far Madding, though the other Counsels, they call her first among equals, whatever that is supposed to mean.” Handing over her own mount to a groom, Sarene looked quite unrumpled. Perhaps she had been upset before over this ter’angreal that stole the Source, but now she was all cool detachment, like carved ice. The groom stumbled over his own feet looking at her face. “Once, the First Counsel, she advised the queens of Maredo, but since Maredo’s . . . dissolution . . . most First Counsels have considered themselves the natural heirs of Maredo’s rulers.”

Shalon knew that her knowledge of the shorebound’s history was as uncertain as her knowledge of geography away from the shore, but she had never heard of any nation called Maredo. It was enough for Harine, though. If this First Counsel ruled here, the Wavemistress of Clan Shodein must meet her. Harine’s dignity demanded no less. She hobbled determinedly across the stableyard to Cadsuane.

“Oh, yes,” the insufferable Aes Sedai said before Harine could more than open her mouth. “You will come with me, as well. And your sister. I think not your Swordmaster, though. A man in the dome would be bad enough; but a man with a sword might make the Counsels fall over in fits. You have a question, Wavemistress?” Harine snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of teeth. “Good,” Cadsuane murmured. Shalon groaned. This was not improving her sister’s temper by a feather.

Cadsuane led them along broad, blue-tiled corridors hung with bright tapestries and lit by gilded stand lamps with glittering mirrors, where servants in blue first stared at them in surprise, then made hasty shorebound courtesies as they passed. She led them up long, swooping flights of white stone stairs that hung unsupported except where they touched a pale wall, which they did not always. Cadsuane glided like a swan, but at a speed that made the ache in Shalon’s legs begin to burn. Harine’s face set in a wooden mask, hiding the effort of trotting up stairs. Even Kumira seemed a trifle surprised, though Cadsuane’s pace caused her no apparent exertion. Round little Verin churned away at Cadsuane’s side, now and then smiling over her shoulder at Harine and Shalon. Sometimes Shalon thought she hated Verin, but there was no spite or amusement in those smiles, only encouragement.

Cadsuane took them up a final curling flight of stairs, enclosed by walls, and suddenly they were on a balcony with an intricate, gilded metal railing that ran all the way around. . . . For a moment, Shalon’ gaped. Above her rose an overarching blue dome a hundred feet or more high at its peak. Nothing held it up but itself. Her ignorance of the shorebound extended to architecture as well as geography and history—and Aes Sedai—in fact, her ignorance of the shorebound was almost complete, excepting only Cairhien. She knew how to draw the plans for a raker and see it built, but she could not begin to imagine how to construct this.

Arched doorways edged with white stone, like the one they had come through, marked stairs at three other places around the long balcony, but they were alone, and that seemed to please Cadsuane, though all she did was nod to herself. “Kumira, show the Wavemistress and her sister Far Madding’s guardian.” Her voice echoed faintly inside the vast dome. She drew Verin a little distance away, and the pair of them put their heads together. There was no echo of what they whispered.

“You must forgive them,” Kumira told Harine and Shalon quietly. Even that produced a slight sound, if not quite an echo. “Peace, but this must be awkward, even for Cadsuane.” She ran her fingers through her short brown hair and shook her head to settle it back in place. “The Counsels are seldom happy to see Aes Sedai, especially sisters born here. I think they would like to pretend the Power doesn’t exist. Well, their history gives them reason, and for the last two thousand years they have had the means to support the pretense. In any event, Cadsuane is Cadsuane. She seldom sees a swelled head without deciding to deflate it, even when it happens to be wearing a crown. Or a Counsel’s diadem. Her last visit was over twenty years ago, during the Aiel War, but I suspect some who remember it will want to hide under their beds when they learn she is back.” Kumira gave a small, amused laugh. Shalon saw nothing to laugh at. Harine twisted her lips, but it made her look as though she suffered from a bad belly.

“You wish to see the . . . guardian?” Kumira went on. “As good a name as any, I suppose. There isn’t much to see.” She stepped cautiously closer to the gilded railing and peered over as if fearing she might fall, but those blue eyes had sharpened again. “I would give anything to study it, but that is impossible, of course. Who knows what else it might be able to do beside what we already know?” Her tone held as much awe as regret.

Shalon had no fear of heights, and she pressed herself against the elaborately worked metal beside the Aes Sedai, wanting to see this thing that had taken the Source away. After a moment, Harine joined them. To Shalon’s surprise, the drop that made Kumira uneasy was less than twenty feet, below, a smooth floor tiled in blue and white to make a convoluted maze centered on a double-pointed red oval rimmed with yellow. Beneath the balcony, three women in white sat on stools spaced equally around the edge of the floor, right against the dome’s wall, and beside each woman, a disc a full span across that looked like clouded crystal had been set into the floor and inlaid with a long thin wedge of clear crystal that pointed toward the chamber’s center. Metal collars surrounded the murky discs, marked off like a compass but with ever-smaller markings between the larger. Shalon could not be sure, but the collar nearest her appeared to be inscribed with numerals. That was all. No monstrous shapes. She had imagined something huge and black that sucked in the light. Her hands tightened on the rail to keep from trembling, and she locked her knees to hold herself still. Whatever was down there, it had stolen the Light.

A whisper of slippers announced new arrivals on the balcony by the same doorway they had used, about a dozen smiling women with their hair on top of their heads, in flowing blue silk robes worn over their dresses like sleeveless coats, richly embroidered in gold and trailing behind them on the floor. These people knew how to mark out rank. Each woman wore a large pendant in the shape of that gold-rimmed red oval suspended from a necklace of heavy golden links, and the same shape was repeated at the front of each narrow golden diadem. On one woman, the red ovals were made of rubies, not enamel, and sapphires and moonstones almost hid the golden circlet on her brows, and she wore a heavy golden signet ring on her right forefinger. She was tall and stately, her black hair drawn up in a large ball, heavily winged with white, though her face was unlined. The others were tall, short, stout, thin, pretty and plain, none young, and every one of them had an air of authority about her, but she stood out for more than her gems. Compassion and wisdom filled her large dark eyes, and it was command that she radiated, not simple authority. Shalon did not need to be told that this was the First Counsel, but the woman announced it anyway.

“I am Aleis Barsalla, First Counsel of Far Madding.” Her mellifluous voice, deep for a woman, seemed to be making a proclamation, and expecting cheers. The sound of her voice bouncing inside the dome gave something like acclamation. “Far Madding gives welcome to Harine din Togara Two Winds, Wavemistress of Clan Shodein and Ambassador Extraordinary for the Mistress of the Ships to the Atha’an Miere. May the Light illumine you and see you prosper. Your coming gladdens every heart in Far Madding. I embrace the chance to learn more of the Atha’an Miere, but you must be weary from the rigors of your journey. I have arranged pleasant quarters for you in my palace. When you have rested and eaten, we can talk; to our mutual advantage, if it pleases the Light.” The others spread the skirts of their robes and made half bows.

Harine inclined her head slightly, a hint of satisfaction in her smile. Here, at last, were those who showed her proper respect. And very likely it helped that they did not gape at her and Shalon’s jewelry.

“The messengers from the gates are as quick as ever, it seems, Aleis,” Cadsuane said. “Is there no welcome for me?” Aleis’ smile thinned for a moment, and some of the other smiles faded altogether as Cadsuane moved t

o stand beside Harine. Those that remained were forced. A pretty woman with a serious cast to her face went so far as to scowl.

“We are grateful to you for bringing the Wavemistress here, Cadsuane Sedai.” The First Counsel did not sound particularly grateful. She drew herself up to her full height and looked straight ahead, over Cadsuane’s head rather than at her. “I am sure we can find some way to make the depth of our gratitude known before you leave.”

She could not have made her dismissal plainer short of a command, but the Aes Sedai smiled up at the taller woman. It was not an unpleasant smile, exactly, but neither was it in the least amused. “I may not be leaving for a while, Aleis. I thank you for the offer of accommodations, and accept. A palace on the Heights is always preferable to even the best inn.” The First Counsel’s eyes widened with startlement, then narrowed in determination.

“Cadsuane must stay with me,” Harine said, managing to sound no more than half strangled, before Aleis could speak. “Where she is unwelcome, so am I.” This had been part of the bargain forced on her, if they were to accompany Cadsuane. Among other things they must go when and where she said until they joined the Coramoor, and include her in any invitations they received. That last had seemed very small at the time, especially weighed against the rest, but plainly the woman had known exactly the reception she would receive.

“No need to be disheartened, Aleis.” Cadsuane leaned toward the First Counsel confidingly, but she did not lower her voice. The reverberations in the dome magnified her words. “I’m sure you no longer have any bad habits for me to correct.”

The First Counsel’s face flooded with crimson, and behind her back, speculative frowns passed between the other Counsels. Some contemplated her as if with fresh eyes. How did they attain rank, and how lose it? Besides Aleis, they were twelve, surely a coincidence, but the First Twelve among a clan’s Sailmistresses chose the Wavemistress, usually one of their own number, just as the First Twelve among the Wavemistresses chose the Mistress of the Ships. That was why Harine had accepted that strange girl’s words, because she was of the First Twelve. That, and the fact that two Aes Sedai said the girl saw true visions. A Wavemistress or even the Mistress of the Ships could be deposed, though only for specified causes, such as gross incompetence or losing her wits, and the First Twelve had to speak with a unanimous voice. Things seemed to be done differently among the shorebound, and often sloppily. Aleis’ eyes, fixed now on Cadsuane, were both hate-filled and hunted. Perhaps she could feel twelve sets of eyes on her back. The other Counsels had her on the scales. But if Cadsuane had chosen to meddle in the politics of this place, why? And why so bluntly?

“A man just channeled,” Verin said suddenly. She had not joined the rest and was peering over the rail, ten paces away. The dome made her voice carry. “Do you have many men channeling lately, First Counsel?”

Shalon looked down, and blinked. The formerly clear wedges were now black, and rather than pointing toward the chamber’s heart, somehow they had turned in roughly the same direction. One of the women below was on her feet, bending over to study where along the marked collar the thin black wedge was pointing, and the other two women were already racing toward a round-topped doorway. Suddenly, Shalon knew. Triangulation was a simple matter to any Windfinder. Somewhere beyond that doorway was a chart, and soon the position where the man had channeled would be marked on it.

“It would be red for a woman, not black,” Kumira said in almost a whisper. She still stood a little back from the rail, but she was gripping it with both hands and leaning forward to peer at the scene below. “It warns and locates and defends. And what else? The women who made it would have wanted more, perhaps needed more. Not knowing what else could be incredibly dangerous.” She did not sound frightened, though. She sounded excited.

“An Asha’man, I expect,” Aleis said calmly, pulling her gaze from Cadsuane. “They cannot trouble us. They are free to enter the city, so long as they obey the law.” However calm she was, some of the women behind her tittered like new deckgirls their first time among the shorebound. “Forgive me, Aes Sedai. Far Madding gives you welcome. I am afraid I don’t know your name, though.”

Verin was still gazing down at the dome’s floor. Shalon glanced over the rail again, and blinked as the thin black wedges . . . changed. One moment they were black and pointing north, the next clear and once again pointing to the center of the maze. They did not turn; they just were one thing, then the other.

“All of you may call me Eadwina,” Verin said. Shalon barely suppressed a start. Kumira did not so much as blink. “Do you consider history, First Counsel?” Verin continued without looking up. “Guaire Amalasan’s siege of Far Madding lasted just three weeks. A savage business, at the end.”

Tags: Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time Fantasy
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