“More wine, girl,” she said curtly, and Falion scurried with the tall-necked silver pitcher to refill her goblet with steaming spiced wine. The livery of a maid, with the Red Heart and Golden Hand on her breast, suited Falion. Her long face was a stiff mask as she hurried to replace the pitcher on the drawered highchest and take up her place beside the door.

“You play a dangerous game,” Marillin Gemalphin said, rolling her own goblet between her palms. A skinny woman with lifeless pale brown hair, the Brown sister did not look an Aes Sedai. Her narrow face and wide nose would have fitted better above Falion’s livery than it did above her fine blue wool, and that was suitable only for a middling merchant. “She is shielded somehow, I know, but when she can channel again, she will make you howl for this.” Her thin lips quirked in a humorless smile. “You may find yourself wishing you could howl.”

“Moridin chose this for her,” Shiaine replied. “She failed in Ebou Dar, and he ordered her punished. I don’t know the details and don’t want to, but if Moridin wants her nose ground in the mud, I’ll push it so deep she is breathing mud a year from now. Or do you suggest I disobey one of the Chosen?” She barely suppressed a shudder at the very thought. Marillin tried to hide her expression in drinking, but her eyes tightened. “What about you, Falion?” Shiaine asked. “Would you like me to ask Moridin to take you away? He might find you something less onerous.” Mules might sing like nightingales, too.

Falion did not even hesitate. She bobbed a maid’s straight-backed curtsy, her face going even paler than it already was. “No, mistress,” she said hastily. “I am content with my situation, mistress.”

“You see?” Shiaine said to the other Aes Sedai. She doubted very much that Falion was anything approaching content, but the woman would accept whatever was handed out rather than face Moridin’s displeasure directly. For the same reason, Shiaine would rule her with a very heavy hand. You never knew what one of the Chosen might learn of, and take amiss. She herself thought her own failure was buried deep, but she would take no chances. “When she can channel again, she won’t have to be a maid all the time, Marillin.” Anyway, Moridin had said Shiaine could kill her if she wished. There was always that, if her position began to chafe too much. He had said she could kill both sisters, if she wished.

“That’s as may be,” Marillin said darkly. She cast a sidelong glance at Falion and grimaced. “Now, Moghedien instructed me to offer you what assistance I thought I could give, but I’ll tell you right now, I won’t enter the Royal Palace. The whole city has too many sisters in it for my taste, but the Palace is stuffed with wilders on top. I wouldn’t get ten feet without someone knowing I was there.”

Sighing, Shiaine leaned back and crossed her legs, idly kicking a slippered foot. Why did people always think you did not know as much as they? The world was full of fools! “Moghedien ordered you to obey me, Marillin. I know, because Moridin told me. He did not say so right out, but I think when he snaps his fingers, Moghedien jumps.” Talking about the Chosen this way was dangerous, but she had to make matters clear. “Do you want to tell me again what you won’t do?”

The narrow-faced Aes Sedai licked her lips, darting another glance at Falion. Did the woman fear she would end up that way? Truth to tell, Shiaine would have traded Falion for a proper lady’s maid in a heartbeat. Well, as long as she could retain her other services. Very likely, they both would have to die when this was finished. Shiaine did not like leaving loose ends.

“I wasn’t lying about that,” Marillin said slowly. “I really wouldn’t get ten feet. But there’s a woman already in the Palace. She can do what you need. It may take time to make contact, though.”

“Just make sure it’s not too long a time, Marillin.” So. One of the sisters in the Palace was Black Ajah, was she? She would have to be Aes Sedai, not just a Darkfriend, to do what Shiaine needed.

The door opened, and Murellin looked in questioningly, his heavily muscled bulk almost filling the doorway. Beyond him, she could make out another man. At her nod, Murellin stepped aside and motioned Daved Hanlon to enter, closing the door behind him. Hanlon was swathed in a dark cloak, but he snaked out one hand to cup Falion’s bottom through her dress. She glared at him bitterly, but did not move away. Hanlon was part of her punishment. Still, Shiaine had no wish to watch him fondle the woman.

“Do that later,” she ordered. “Did it go well?”

A broad smile split his axe-like face. “It went exactly as I planned it, of course.” He threw one side of the dark cloak over his shoulder, revealing golden knots of rank on his red coat. “You are speaking to the Captain of the Queen’s Bodyguard.”

CHAPTER

11

Ideas of Importance

Without even taking a look, Rand stepped through the gateway into a large dark room. The strain of holding the weave, of fighting saidin, made him sway; he wanted to gag, to double over and spew up everything in him. Holding himself upright was an effort. A little light crept through cracks between the shutters on a few small windows set high in one wall, just enough to see by with the Power in him. Furniture and large cloth-covered shapes nearly filled the room, interspersed with wide barrels of the sort used to store crockery, chests of all shapes and sizes, boxes and crates and knickknacks. Little more than walkways a pace or two wide remained clear. He had been sure he would not find servants hunting for something, or cleaning up. The highest floor of the Royal Palace had several such storerooms, looking like the attics of huge farmhouses and just about forgotten. Besides, he was ta’veren, after all. A good thing no one had been there when the gateway opened. One edge of it had sliced the corner off an empty chest bound in cracked, rotting leather, and the other had taken a glass-smooth shaving down the length of a long, inlaid table stacked with vases and wooden boxes. Maybe some Queen of Andor had eaten at that table, a century or two gone.

A century or two, Lews Therin laughed thickly in his head. A very long time. For the love of the Light, let go! This is the Pit of Doom! The voice dwindled as the man fled into the recesses of Rand’s mind.

For once, he had his own reasons to listen to Lews Therin’s complaints. Hastily he motioned Min to follow him from the forest clearing on the other side of the gateway, and as soon as she did, he let it close behind her in a quick vertical slash of light by releasing saidin. Blessedly, the nausea went with it. His head still spun a little, but he did not feel as if he were going to vomit or fall over or both. The feel of filth remained, though, the Dark One’s taint oozing into him from the weaves he had tied off around himself. Shifting the strap of his leather scrip from one shoulder to the other, he tried to use the motion to hide wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve. He did not have to worry about Min noticing after all, however.

Her blue, heeled boots stirred the dust on the floor at her first step, and her second made it rise. She pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from her coatsleeve just in time to catch a violent sneeze, followed by a second and third, each worse than the last. He wished she had been willing to stay in a dress. Embroidered white flowers decorated the sleeves and lapels of her blue coat, and paler blue breeches molded her legs snugly. With yellow-embroidered bright blue riding gloves tucked behind her belt, and a cloak edged with yellow scrollwork and held by a golden pin in the shape of a rose, she did look as if she had arrived by more normal means, but she would draw every eye. He was in coarse brown woolens any laborer might wear. Most places in the last few days, he had been blatant with his presence; this time he did not want just to be gone before anyone knew he had been here, he did not want anyone but a special few to ever know he had been.

“Why are you grinning at me and thumbing your ear like a loobie?” she demanded, stuffing the handkerchief back into her sleeve. Suspicion filled her big, dark eyes.

“I was just thinking how beautiful you are,” he said quietly. She was. He could not look at her without thinking so. Or without regretting that he was too weak to send her away to safety.

She

drew a deep breath, and sneezed before she could even clap a hand over her mouth, then glared at him as if it were somehow his fault. “I abandoned my horse for you, Rand al’Thor. I curled my hair for you. I gave up my life for you! I will not give up my coat and breeches! Besides, no one here has ever seen me in a dress for more time than it took me to change out of it. You know this won’t work unless I’m recognized. You certainly can’t pretend you wandered in off the street with that face.”

Unthinking, he ran a hand across his jaw, feeling his own face, but that was not what Min saw. Anyone looking at him would see a man inches shorter and years older than Rand al’Thor, with lank black hair, dull brown eyes and a wart on his bulbous nose. Only someone who touched him could pierce the Mask of Mirrors. Even an Asha’man would not see it, with the weaves inverted. Though if there were Asha’man in the Palace, it might mean his plans had gone further awry than he believed. This visit could not, must not, come to killing. In any case, she was right; it was not a face that would have been allowed into the Royal Palace of Andor unescorted.

“As long as we can finish this and be gone quickly,” he said. “Before anyone has time to think that if you’re here, maybe I am, too.”

“Rand,” she said, her voice soft, and he eyed her warily. Resting a hand on his chest, she looked up at him with a serious expression. “Rand, you really need to see Elayne. And Aviendha, I suppose; you know she’s probably here, too. If you—”

He shook his head, and wished he had not. The dizziness had still not gone completely. “No!” he said curtly. Light! No matter what Min said, he just could not believe that Elayne and Aviendha both loved him. Or that the fact they did, if it was a fact, did not upset her. Women were not that strange! Elayne and Aviendha had reason to hate him, not love him, and Elayne, at least, had made herself clear. Worse, he was in love with both of them, as well as with Min! He had to be as hard as steel, but he thought he might shatter if he had to face all three at once. “We find Nynaeve and Mat, and go, as fast as we can.” She opened her mouth, but he gave her no chance to speak. “Don’t argue with me, Min. This is no time for it!”

Tilting her head to one side, Min put on a small, amused smile. “When do I ever argue with you? Don’t I always do exactly as you tell me?” If that lie were not bad enough, she added, “I was going to say, if you want to hurry, why are we standing in this dusty storeroom all day?” For punctuation, she sneezed again.

She was the least likely to cause comment, even dressed as she was, so she put her head out of the room first. Apparently the storeroom was not entirely forgotten; the heavy door’s hinges barely creaked. A quick look both ways, and she hurried out, gesturing him to follow. Ta’veren or no, he was relieved to find the long corridor empty. The most timid servant might have wondered at seeing them emerge from a storeroom in the upper reaches of the Palace. Still, they would encounter people soon enough. The Royal Palace did not run as heavily to servants as the Sun Palace or the Stone of Tear, but there were still hundreds of them in a place this size. Walking along beside Min, he tried to shamble and gawk at bright tapestries and carved wall panels and polished highchests. None were so fine this high as they would be lower down, but a common workman would gawk.

“We need to get down to a lower floor as fast as we can,” he murmured. There was still no one in sight, but there might be ten people around the next corner. “Remember, just ask the first servant we see where to find Nynaeve and Mat. Don’t elaborate unless you have to.”

“Why, thank you for reminding me, Rand. I knew something had slipped my mind, and I just couldn’t imagine what.” Her brief smile was much too tight, and she muttered something under her breath.

Rand sighed. This was too important for her to play games, but she was going to, if he let her. Not that she saw it that way. Sometimes, though, her ideas of important differed widely from his. Very widely. He would have to keep a close eye on her.

“Why, Mistress Farshaw,” a woman’s voice said behind them. “It is Mistress Farshaw, isn’t it?”

The scrip swung and thumped Rand’s back heavily as he spun around. The plump graying woman staring at Min in astonishment was perhaps the last person he wanted to meet, besides Elayne or Aviendha. Wondering why she was wearing a red tabard with the White Lion large on the front, he slouched and avoided looking at her directly. Just a workman doing his job. No reason to glance at him twice.

“Mistress Harfor?” Min exclaimed, beaming delightedly. “Yes, it’s me. And you are just the woman I was looking for. I’m afraid I am lost. Can you tell me where to find Nynaeve al’Meara? And Mat Cauthon? This fellow has something Nynaeve asked him to deliver.”

The First Maid frowned slightly at Rand before returning her attention to Min. She raised an eyebrow at Min’s garments, or maybe at the dust on them, but she mentioned neither. “Mat Cauthon? I don’t believe I know him. Unless he’s one of the new servants or Guardsmen?” she added doubtfully. “As for Nynaeve Sedai, she’s very busy. I suppose it will be all right with her if I accept whatever it is and put it in her room.”

Rand jerked upright. Nynaeve Sedai? Why would the others—the real Aes Sedai—let her play at that still? And Mat was not here? Had never been here, apparently. Colors whirled in his head, almost an image he could make out. In a heartbeat it vanished, but he staggered. Mistress Harfor frowned at him again, and sniffed. Likely she thought him drunk.

Min frowned, too, but in thought, tapping a finger on her chin, and that only lasted a moment. “I think Nynaeve . . . Sedai wants to see him.” The hesitation was barely noticeable. “Could you have him shown to her rooms, Mistress Harfor? I have another errand before I go. You mind your manners, now, Nuli, and do as you’re told. There’s a good fellow.”

Rand opened his mouth, but before he could get out a word she darted away down the corridor, almost running. Her cloak flared behind her, she was moving so quickly. Burn her, she was going to try finding Elayne! She could ruin everything!

Your plans fail because you want to live, madman. Lews Therin’s voice was a rough, sweaty whisper. Accept that you are dead. Accept it, and stop tormenting me, madman! Rand suppressed the voice to a muted buzz, a biteme buzzing in the darkness of his head. Nuli? What kind of name was Nuli?

Mistress Harfor gaped after Min until she vanished around a corner, then gave her tabard an adjusting tug it did not need. She turned her disapproval on Rand. Even with the Mask of Mirrors she saw a man who towered over her, but Reene Harfor was not a woman to let a small thing like that put her off stride for an instant. “I mistrust the looks of you, Nuli,” she said, her eyebrows drawn down sharply, “so you watch your step. You’ll watch it very carefully, if you have any brain at all.”

Holding the scrip’s shoulder strap with one hand, he tugged his forelock with the other. “Yes, Mistress,” he muttered gruffly. The First Maid might recognize his real voice. Min had been supposed to do all the talking until they found Nynaeve and Mat. What in the Light was he going to do if she did bring Elayne? And maybe Aviendha. She probably was here, too. Light! “Pardon, Mistress, but we ought to hurry. It’s urgent I see Nynaeve as soon as possible.” He hefted the scrip slightly. “She wanted this real important like.” If he was done when Min returned, he might be able to get away with her before he had to face the other two.

“If Nynaeve Sedai thought it was urgent,” the plump woman told him tartly, placing heavy emphasis on the honorific he had omitted, “she would have left word you were expected. Now, follow me, and keep your comments and opinions to yourself.”

She started off without waiting for a reply, without looking back, gliding along with a stately grace. After all, what could he do except as he had been told? As he recalled, the First Maid was accustomed to everyone doing as they were told. Striding to catch up, he took only one step at her side before her startled look made him drop back, tugging his forelock and mumbling apologies. He was not used to having to walk behind anyone. It was not calculated to moderate his mood. The t

ag end of dizziness hung on, too, and the filth of the taint. He seemed to be in a foul mood more often than not of late, unless Min was with him.

Before they had gone very far, liveried servants began to appear in the hallway, polishing and dusting and carrying, scurrying every which way. Plainly the absence of people when he and Min left the storeroom was a rare occurrence. Ta’veren again. Down a flight of narrow service stairs built into the wall, and there were even more. And something else, a great many women who were not in livery. Copper-skinned Domani women, short pale Cairhienin, women with olive skins and dark eyes who were certainly not Andoran. They made him smile, a tight satisfied smile. None had what he could call an ageless face, and a number even bore lines and wrinkles that never decorated any Aes Sedai’s face, but sometimes goose bumps danced on his skin when he came near one of them. They were channeling, or least holding saidar. Mistress Harfor led him past closed doors where that prickling raced, too. Behind those doors, still other women had to be channeling.

“Pardon, Mistress,” he said in the coarse voice he had adopted for Nuli. “How many Aes Sedai are there in the Palace?”

“That is no concern of yours,” she snapped. Glancing over one shoulder at him, though, she sighed and relented. “I don’t suppose there is any harm in you knowing. Five, counting the Lady Elayne and Nynaeve Sedai.” A touch of pride entered her voice. “It has been a long time since that many Aes Sedai claimed guestright here at one time.”

Rand could have laughed, though without amusement. Five? No, that included Nynaeve and Elayne. Three real Aes Sedai. Three! Whoever the rest were did not really matter. He had begun to believe that the rumors of hundreds of Aes Sedai moving toward Caemlyn with an army meant there really might be that many ready to follow the Dragon Reborn. Instead, even his original hope for a double handful of them had been wildly optimistic. The rumors were only rumors. Or else some scheme of Elaida’s making. Light, where was Mat? Color flashed in his head—for an instant he thought it was Mat’s face—and he stumbled.