The ridiculous man frowned down that long nose till she began to wonder whether she had gone too far. He was mad as a spring hare, but not in everything. Not always. “I had not realized you were so . . . sensitive,” he said finally. Without stopping his effort to ride around Janny. His decrepit face brightened. “But I should have known. I will remember, from now on. Jarid may live. So long as he doesn’t pester you.” Abruptly, he seemed to notice Janny for the first time, and with an irritated grimace, he raised his hand high, balling it into a fist. The plump woman visibly steeled herself for the blow without moving aside, and Elenia gritted her teeth. Silk embroidery. Definitely unsuitable for a maid, but Janny had earned it.
“Lord Nasin, I have been looking for you everywhere” a woman’s simpering voice cried, and the circling stopped.
Elenia exhaled in relief as Arymilla rode up in the twilight with her entourage, and had to stifle a surge of fury at feeling relief. In over-elaborately embroidered green silk, with lace under her chin and at her wrists, Arymilla was plump verging on stout, with a vacuous smile and brown eyes that were always wide with affected interest even when there was nothing to be interested in. Lacking the brains to tell the difference, she possessed just enough cunning to know there were things that should interest her, and she did not want anyone to think she had missed them. The only real concern she had was her own comfort and the income to ensure it, and the only reason she wanted the throne was that the royal coffers could provide greater comfort than the revenues of any High Seat. Her entourage was larger than Nasin’s, though only half were armsmen wearing the Four Moons of her House. For the most part, hangers-on and sycophants made up the rest, lesser lords and ladies of minor Houses and others willing to lick Arymilla’s wrist for a place near power. She did love people to fawn over her. Naean was there, too, on the edge of the group with her armsmen and maid, apparently cool-eyed and in control of herself once more. But keeping well away from Jaq Lounalt, a lean man with one of those farcical Taraboner veils covering his huge mustaches and a conical cap pushing the hood of his cloak to a ridiculous height. The fellow smiled too much, as well. He hardly looked a man who could reduce someone to begging with just a few cords.
“Arymilla,” Nasin said in a confused tone, then frowned at his fist as if surprised to find it raised. Lowering his hand to the pommel of his saddle, he beamed a smile at the silly woman. “Arymilla, my dear,” he said warmly. Not with the sort of warmth he often directed at Elenia. Somehow, it seemed, he had become at least half-convinced that Arymilla was his daughter, and his favorite at that. Once, Elenia had heard him reminiscing at length with the woman about her “mother,” his last wife, dead nearly thirty years now. Arymilla managed to hold her end of the conversation, too, though she had never met Miedelle Caeren as far as Elenia knew.
Still, despite all his fatherly smiles for Arymilla, his eyes sought through the shadowed crowd on horseback behind her, and his face relaxed when he found Sylvase, his granddaughter and heir, a sturdy, placid young woman who met his gaze, unsmiling, then pulled her dark, fur-lined cowl well forward. She never smiled or frowned or showed any emotion at all that Elenia had ever detected, just kept an unvarying cowlike expression. Plainly, she had a cow’s wits, too. Arymilla kept Sylvase
closer than she did Elenia or Naean, and so long as she did, there was no chance that Nasin would be forced to retire from his honors. He was mad, assuredly, but sly. “I hope you’re taking good care of my little Sylvase, Arymilla,” he murmured. “There are fortune hunters everywhere, and I want the darling girl kept safe.”
“Of course, I am,” Arymilla replied, brushing her overfed mare past Elenia without so much as a glance. Her tone was honey-sweet, and sickeningly doting. “You know I’ll keep her as safe as I keep myself.” Smiling that empty-headed smile, she set about straightening Nasin’s cloak on his shoulders and smoothing it with the air of someone settling a shawl on a beloved invalid. “It’s much too cold out for you. I know what you need. A warm tent and some hot spiced wine. I’ll be happy to have my maid prepare it for you. Arlene, accompany Lord Nasin to his tent and fix him some good spiced wine.”
A slim woman in her entourage gave a violent twitch, then rode forward slowly, pushing back the hood of her plain blue cloak to reveal a pretty face and a tremulous smile. Suddenly all lickspittles and toad-eaters were adjusting their cloaks against the wind or snugging their gloves, looking anywhere except at Arymilla’s maid. Especially the women. One of them could have been chosen as easily, and they knew it. Oddly, Sylvase did not look away. It was impossible to see her face in the shadows of her hood, but the opening turned to follow the slender woman.
Nasin’s grin showed his teeth, making him look even more like a goat than usual. “Yes. Yes, mulled wine would be good. Arlene, is it? Come, Arlene, there’s a good girl. Not too chill, are you?” The girl squeaked as he swept a corner of his cloak around her shoulders and gathered her so close she was leaning out of her saddle. “You’ll be warm in my tent, I promise.” Without so much as a glance back, he rode off at a walk, chortling and whispering at the young woman under his arm. His armsmen followed with the creak of leather and the slow, wet clop of hooves in the muck. One of them laughed, as if another had said something funny.
Elenia shook her head in disgust. Pushing a pretty woman in front of Nasin to distract him was one thing - she did not even have to be that pretty; any woman the old fool could corner was in danger - but using your own maid was revolting. Not as revolting as Nasin himself, though. “You promised to keep him away from me, Arymilla,” she said in a low, tight voice. That lecherous old crackbrain might have forgotten her existence for the moment, but he would remember the next time he saw her. “You promised to keep him occupied.”
Arymilla’s face grew sullen, and she petulantly tugged her riding gloves tighter. She had not gotten what she wanted. That was a great sin, to her. “If you want to be safe from admirers, you ought to stay close to me instead of wandering about loose. Can I help it if you attract men? And I did rescue you. I haven’t heard any thanks for that.”
Elenia’s jaw clenched so hard that it began to ache. Pretending that she supported this woman of her own choice was enough to make her want to bite something. Her choices had been made clear enough; write to Jarid or endure an extended honeymoon with her “betrothed.” Light, she might have taken the choice if not for the certainty that Nasin would lock her up in some out-of-the-way manor and, after she had put up with his pawing, eventually forget she was there. And leave her there. Arymilla insisted on the pretense, though. She insisted on a great many things, some of them utterly insufferable. Yet they had to be suffered. For the time being. Perhaps, once matters were set straight, Master Lounalt could offer his attentions to Arymilla for a few days.
From somewhere she summoned an apologetic smile, and made herself bend her neck as if she were one of the boot-licking leeches who were watching her avidly. After all, if she crawled for Arymilla, it only proved they were right to. The feel of their eyes on her made her want to bathe. Doing this in front of Naean made her want to shriek. “I offer you all the gratitude that’s in me, Arymilla.” Well, that was no lie. All the gratitude that was in her came about equal to a desire to strangle the other woman. Very slowly. She had to inhale deeply before she could get the next part out, though. “You must forgive me for being slow, please.” A very bitter word. “Nasin made me quite distraught. You know how Jarid would react if he learned of Nasin’s behavior.” Her own voice took on a honed edge at that last, but the fool woman giggled. She giggled!
“Of course you’re forgiven, Elenia,” she laughed, her face lightening. “All you need do is ask. Jarid is a hothead, isn’t he? You must write to him and tell him how content you are. You are content, aren’t you? You can dictate to my secretary. I do hate staining my fingers with ink, don’t you?”
“Certainly I’m content, Arymilla. How could I not be?” Smiling required no effort at all, this time. The woman actually thought she was clever. Using Arymilla’s secretary precluded any possibility of secret inks, but she could tell Jarid quite openly to do absolutely nothing without her counsel, and the brainless fluff would think she was only obeying.
Nodding with a smug self-satisfaction, Arymilla gathered her reins, imitated by her coterie. If she stuck a pot on her head and called it a hat, they would all wear pots, too. “It is getting late,” she said, “and I want an early start in the morning. Aedelle Baryn’s cook has an excellent repast waiting on us. You and Naean must ride with me, Elenia.” She made it sound as though she were honoring them, and they had no choice except to behave as though she were, falling in on either side of her. “And Sylvase, of course. Come, Sylvase.”
Nasin’s granddaughter brought her mare closer, but not up beside Arymilla. She followed a little behind, with Arymilla’s sycophants crowding on her heels since they had not been invited to ride with Arymilla. Despite the fitful, icy wind tugging at their cloaks, several of the women and two or three of the men tried unsuccessfully to engage the girl in conversation. She seldom said two words together. Still, with no High Seat in reach to fawn over, a High Seat’s heir would do, and maybe one of the fellows hoped to marry well. Likely one or two were more in the nature of guards, or at least spies making sure she did not try to communicate with anyone in her House. This lot would find that exciting, touching on the edges of power. Elenia had her own plans for Sylvase.
Arymilla was another with no objections to nattering away when anyone with sense would be muffling herself in her cowl, and her chatter as they rode through the dying light flitted from what Lir’s sister would offer at supper to the plans for her coronation. Elenia listened only enough to murmur approvingly at what seemed appropriate spots. If the fool wanted to offer a sworn amnesty to those who opposed her, far be it from Elenia Sarand to tell her she was a fool. It was painful enough having to . . . simper. . . at the woman without listening to her. Then one thing Arymilla said hit her ear like an awl.
“You and Naean won’t mind sharing a bed, will you? It seems we are short of decent tents here.”
She flitted on, but for a moment, Elenia could not hear a word. She felt as though her skin had been stuffed with snow. Turning her head slightly, she met Naean’s shocked gaze. There was no possible way Arymilla could know about their chance meeting, not yet, and even if she did, why would she offer them a chance to plot together? A trap? Spies to listen to what they said? Naean’s maid, or. . . . Or Janny? The world seemed to spin. Black and silver flecks floated in front of Elenia’s eyes. She thought she was about to faint.
Abruptly she realized that Arymilla had addressed something to her directly and was waiting on an answer with an increasingly impatient scowl. Frantically, she cast her mind about. Yes, she had it. “A gilded coach, Arymilla?” What a ridiculous notion. As well ride in a Tinker’s wagon! “Oh, delightful! You do have such marvelous ideas!” Arymilla’s pleased simper put a little ease into Elenia’s breathing. The woman was a brainless fool. Maybe there was a shortage of suitable tents. More likely she just thought they were safe, now. Tamed. Elenia turned her bared teeth into a simper of her own. But she put aside any idea of having the Taraboner “entertain” the woman, even for an hour. With Jarid’s sign
ature on that pledge, there was only one way to clear her path to the throne. Everything was in hand and ready to go forward. The only question was whether Arymilla or Nasin should die first.
Night pressed down on Caemlyn with a hard cold driven deep by sharp winds. Here and there a glow of light spilling from an upper window spoke of people still awake, but most shutters were drawn, and a thin sliver of moon low in the sky only seemed to emphasize the darkness. Even the snow coating rooftops and piled along the fronts of buildings where it had escaped the day’s traffic was a shadowy gray. The lone man muffled head to ankles in a dark cloak, striding through the frozen slush left on the paving stones, answered to Daved Hanlon or Doilan Mellar with equal ease; a name was no more than a coat, and a man changed his coat whenever needed. He had worn a number over the years. Given his wishes, he would have had his feet up in front of a roaring fire in the Royal Palace, a mug in his hand, a pitcher of brandy at his side, and a willing wench on his knee, but he had others’ wishes to serve. At least the footing was better here in the New City. Not good, with this frozen muck underfoot that could turn a careless step into a sprawl, yet a man’s boots were less likely to go out from under him here than back on the steeper hills of the Inner City. Besides, darkness suited him tonight.
There had been few people in the streets when he started out, and the number had dwindled away as darkness deepened. Wise people stayed indoors once night fell. Occasionally, dim shapes skulked in the deeper shadows, but after a brief study of Hanlon, they scuttled around corners ahead of him, or withdrew into alleys trying to muffle their curses as they floundered in snow that likely had not been touched by the sun. He was not bulky, and little taller than the average run of men, with his sword and breastplate hidden by his cloak to boot, but footpads looked for weakness or hesitation, and he moved with an obvious self-confidence, plainly unafraid of lurkers. An attitude helped by the long dagger concealed in his gauntleted right hand.
He kept an eye out for patrols of Guardsmen as he walked, but he did not expect to see any. The strongarms and prowlers would have sought other hunting grounds if the Guards were about. Of course, he could send nosy Guardsmen on their way with a word, yet he wanted no observers of any kind, and no questions why he was so far from the palace afoot. His step hesitated as two heavily cloaked women appeared at a crossing well ahead, but they moved on without glancing his way, and he breathed more easily. Very few women would venture out at this time of night without a man along to wield sword or cudgel, and even without seeing their faces he would have wagered a fistful of gold to a horse apple that pair were Aes Sedai. Or else some of those strange women who filled most of the beds in the palace.
The thought of that lot brought a scowl, and a prickling between his shoulder blades like the brush of nettles. Whatever was going on in the palace, it was enough to give him the grips. The Sea Folk women were bad enough, and not just because they went swaying along the halls in that seductive way, then pulled a knife on a man. He had not even thought of patting one on the bottom after he realized they and the Aes Sedai were staring at one another like strange cats in a box. And plainly, however impossibly, the Sea Folk were the larger cats. The others were worse, in a way. No matter what the rumors said, he knew the look of Aes Sedai, and it did not include wrinkles. Yet some of them could channel, and he had the disturbing notion that they all could. Which made no sense at all. Maybe the Sea Folk had some sort of peculiar dispensation, but as for these Kin, as Falion called them, everyone knew that if three women who could channel and were not Aes Sedai sat down at the same table, Aes Sedai would appear before they could finish a pitcher of wine and tell them to move on and never speak to one another again. And make sure they did it, besides. That was given. But there those women sat in the palace, over a hundred of them, holding their private meetings, walking around Aes Sedai without one frown between them. Until today, anyway, and whatever had set them huddling like frightened hens, the Aes Sedai had been every bit as anxious. There were too many oddities to suit him. When Aes Sedai behaved oddly, it was time for a man to look to the safety of his own skin.
With a curse he jerked himself out of his reverie. A man needed to look out for his skin in the night, too, and letting his concentration drift was no way to do it. At least he had not stopped, or even slowed. After a few more steps, he smiled a thin smile and thumbed the blade of his dagger. The wind sighed down the street and fell, whistled across rooftops and fell, and in the brief silences between he could hear the faint crunch of the boots that had been following him since shortly after he left the palace.
At the next crossing street, he turned to his right at the same steady unhurried pace, then suddenly flattened his back against the front of a stable that stood hard on the corner. The wide stable doors were shut, and likely barred on the inside, but the smell of horse and horse dung hung in the icy air. The inn across the street was closed up tight, as well, its windows shuttered and dark, the only sound aside from the wind the creak of its swinging sign he could not make out in the night. No one to see what they should not.
He had a moment’s warning, the sound of boots quickened in an effort not to let him out of sight too long, and then a cowled head was thrust cautiously around the corner. Not cautiously enough, of course. His left hand darted into the cowl to seize a throat at the same time his right made a practiced stop-thrust with the dagger. He half expected to find a breastplate, or a mail shirt under the man’s coat, and he was ready if he did, but an inch of steel sank easily beneath the fellow’s breastbone. He did not know why that seemed to paralyze a man’s lungs, so he could not cry out, until he had drowned in his own blood, but he knew that it did. Still, tonight he had no time to wait. No Guards in sight at present did not mean matters would stay that way for long. With a quick wrench, he slammed the man’s head against the stable’s stone wall hard enough to crack a skull, then shoved his dagger to the hilt, feeling the blade grate as it dug through the fellow’s spine.
His breathing remained steady - killing was just a thing that, had to be done now and again, nothing to get excited over - but he hurriedly lowered the corpse to the snow against the wall and crouched beside it, wiping his blade on the dead man’s dark coat while sticking his other hand into his armpit to tug off his steel-backed gauntlet. Head swiveling, he watched the street both ways as he felt quickly across the man’s face in the darkness. A rasp of stubble under his fingers told him that it was a man, but no more. Man, woman or child made no difference to him - fools behaved as though children had no eyes to see or tongues to tell what they saw - yet he wished there had been a mustache or a bulbous nose, anything to spark a memory and tell him who this fellow had been. A squeeze at the dead man’s sleeve found thick wool, neither fine nor particularly rough, and a sinewy arm that could have belonged to clerk or wagon driver or footman. To any man, in short, just like the coat. Searching down the body, he rifled through the fellow’s pockets, finding a wooden comb and a ball of twine, which he tossed aside. At the man’s belt, his hand paused. A leather sheath hung there, empty. No man on earth could have drawn a dagger after Hanlon’s blade found his lungs. Of course, there was good cause for a man to carry his knife unsheathed when he walked out at night, but the reason that came most readily to mind right then was to stab someone in the back or cut a throat.