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Crossing the floor slowly, he knelt before her and held out his daori stretched between his hands. 'In
token of what I owe to you, Edeyn, always and for ever.' If his voice did not hold the fervour of that first
morning, surely she understood.
She did not take the cord. Instead, she studied him. 'I knew you had not been gone so long as to forget
our ways,' she said finally. 'Come.'
Rising, she grasped his wrist and drew him to the windows overlooking the garden ten paces below.
Two servants were spreading water from buckets, and a young woman was strolling along a slate path in a blue
dress as bright as any of the early flowers that grew beneath the trees.
'My daughter, Iselle.' For a moment, pride and affection warmed Edeyn's voice. 'Do you remember her?
She is seventeen, now. She hasn't chosen her carneira, yet,' young men were chosen by their carneira; young
women chose theirs, 'but I think it time she married anyway.'
He vaguely recalled a child who always had servants running, the blossom of her mother's heart, but his
head had been full of Edeyn, then. 'She is as beautiful as her mother, I am sure,' he said politely. He twisted the
daori in his hands. She had too much advantage as long as he held it, all advantage, but she had to take it from
him. 'Edeyn, we must talk.' She ignored that.
'Time you were married, too, sweetling. Since none of your female relatives is alive, it is up to me to
arrange.'
He gasped at what she seemed to be suggesting. At first he could not believe. 'Iselle?' he said hoarsely.
'Your daughter?' She might keep custom in her own way, but this was scandalous. 'I'll not be reined into
something so shameful, Edeyn. Not by you, or by this.' He shook the daori at her, but she only looked at it and
smiled.
'Of course you won't be reined, sweetling. You are a man, not a boy. Yet you do keep custom,' she
mused, running a finger along the cord of hair quivering between his hands. 'Perhaps we do need to talk.'
But it was to the bed that she led him.
Moiraine spent most of the day asking discreet questions at inns in the rougher parts of Chachin, where her silk
dress and divided skirts drew stares from patrons and innkeepers alike. One leathery fellow wearing a
permanent leer told her that his establishment was not for her and tried to escort her to a better, while a round-
faced, squinting woman cackled that the evening trade would have a tender pretty like her for dinner if she did
not scurry away quick, and a fatherly old man with pink cheeks and a joyous smile was all too eager for her to
drink the spiced wine he prepared out of her sight. There was nothing for it but to grit her teeth and move on.
That was the sort of place Siuan had liked to visit when they were allowed a rare trip into Tar Valon as
Accepted, cheap and unlikely to be frequented by sisters, but none had a blue-eyed Tairen staying under any
name. Cold daylight began to settle towards 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.
'Let's get inside before we freeze.' She eyed those shadows in the alley, too, and absently fingered her beltknife
as if using the Power could not deal 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?'
Siuan, it turned out, was at a most respectable inn called The Evening Star, which catered to merchants
of middling rank, especially women unwilling to be bothered by noise or rough sorts in the common room. A
pair of bull-shouldered fellows made sure there was none of that. Siuan's room was tidy and warm, if not large,
and the innkeeper, a lean woman with an air of brooking little nonsense, made no objections to Moiraine joining
Siuan. So long as the extra for two was paid.
While Moiraine was hanging her cloak on a peg, Siuan settled crosslegged on the not-very-wide bed.
She seemed invigorated since Canluum. A goal always made Siuan bubble with enthusiasm. '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
spawning redtail. I found Ines Demain almost right off, but not where 1 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.'
'Avene Sahera's son was born a week too early and thirty miles from Dragonmount,'
Moiraine said when Siuan paused for breath. She 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. 'If you have found Ines and her son, Siuan, why is she out of reach?' The Lady Ines, it
turned it out, was in the Aesdaishar Palace, where Siuan could have gained entry easily as Aes Sedai and
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.
Instead of answering immediately, Siuan frowned at her lap and fingered her 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 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 fishmarket, 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.
Morning was a whirlwind of activity, little of it satisfying. Moiraine got what she wanted, but not
without having to bite her tongue. And Siuan started up again. Arguments Moiraine had dealt with the night
before cropped up anew. Siuan did not like being argued out of what she thought was right. She did not like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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Crossing the floor slowly, he knelt before her and held out his daori stretched between his hands. 'In
token of what I owe to you, Edeyn, always and for ever.' If his voice did not hold the fervour of that first
morning, surely she understood.
She did not take the cord. Instead, she studied him. 'I knew you had not been gone so long as to forget
our ways,' she said finally. 'Come.'
Rising, she grasped his wrist and drew him to the windows overlooking the garden ten paces below.
Two servants were spreading water from buckets, and a young woman was strolling along a slate path in a blue
dress as bright as any of the early flowers that grew beneath the trees.
'My daughter, Iselle.' For a moment, pride and affection warmed Edeyn's voice. 'Do you remember her?
She is seventeen, now. She hasn't chosen her carneira, yet,' young men were chosen by their carneira; young
women chose theirs, 'but I think it time she married anyway.'
He vaguely recalled a child who always had servants running, the blossom of her mother's heart, but his
head had been full of Edeyn, then. 'She is as beautiful as her mother, I am sure,' he said politely. He twisted the
daori in his hands. She had too much advantage as long as he held it, all advantage, but she had to take it from
him. 'Edeyn, we must talk.' She ignored that.
'Time you were married, too, sweetling. Since none of your female relatives is alive, it is up to me to
arrange.'
He gasped at what she seemed to be suggesting. At first he could not believe. 'Iselle?' he said hoarsely.
'Your daughter?' She might keep custom in her own way, but this was scandalous. 'I'll not be reined into
something so shameful, Edeyn. Not by you, or by this.' He shook the daori at her, but she only looked at it and
smiled.
'Of course you won't be reined, sweetling. You are a man, not a boy. Yet you do keep custom,' she
mused, running a finger along the cord of hair quivering between his hands. 'Perhaps we do need to talk.'
But it was to the bed that she led him.
Moiraine spent most of the day asking discreet questions at inns in the rougher parts of Chachin, where her silk
dress and divided skirts drew stares from patrons and innkeepers alike. One leathery fellow wearing a
permanent leer told her that his establishment was not for her and tried to escort her to a better, while a round-
faced, squinting woman cackled that the evening trade would have a tender pretty like her for dinner if she did
not scurry away quick, and a fatherly old man with pink cheeks and a joyous smile was all too eager for her to
drink the spiced wine he prepared out of her sight. There was nothing for it but to grit her teeth and move on.
That was the sort of place Siuan had liked to visit when they were allowed a rare trip into Tar Valon as
Accepted, cheap and unlikely to be frequented by sisters, but none had a blue-eyed Tairen staying under any
name. Cold daylight began to settle towards 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.
'Let's get inside before we freeze.' She eyed those shadows in the alley, too, and absently fingered her beltknife
as if using the Power could not deal 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?'
Siuan, it turned out, was at a most respectable inn called The Evening Star, which catered to merchants
of middling rank, especially women unwilling to be bothered by noise or rough sorts in the common room. A
pair of bull-shouldered fellows made sure there was none of that. Siuan's room was tidy and warm, if not large,
and the innkeeper, a lean woman with an air of brooking little nonsense, made no objections to Moiraine joining
Siuan. So long as the extra for two was paid.
While Moiraine was hanging her cloak on a peg, Siuan settled crosslegged on the not-very-wide bed.
She seemed invigorated since Canluum. A goal always made Siuan bubble with enthusiasm. '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
spawning redtail. I found Ines Demain almost right off, but not where 1 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.'
'Avene Sahera's son was born a week too early and thirty miles from Dragonmount,'
Moiraine said when Siuan paused for breath. She 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. 'If you have found Ines and her son, Siuan, why is she out of reach?' The Lady Ines, it
turned it out, was in the Aesdaishar Palace, where Siuan could have gained entry easily as Aes Sedai and
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.
Instead of answering immediately, Siuan frowned at her lap and fingered her 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 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 fishmarket, 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.
Morning was a whirlwind of activity, little of it satisfying. Moiraine got what she wanted, but not
without having to bite her tongue. And Siuan started up again. Arguments Moiraine had dealt with the night
before cropped up anew. Siuan did not like being argued out of what she thought was right. She did not like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]