A Crown of Swords

## Chapter 26

#### The Irrevocable Words

Morgase lay awake, staring at the ceiling through the moonlit darkness, and tried to think of her daughter. A single pale linen sheet covered her, but despite the heat she sweated in a thick woolen sleeping gown, laced tightly to the neck. Sweat hardly mattered; no matter how many times she bathed, no matter how hot the water, she did not feel clean. Elayne must be safe in the White Tower. At times it seemed years since she could make herself trust Aes Sedai, yet whatever the paradox, the Tower was surely the safest place for Elayne. She tried to think of Gawyn—he would be in Tar Valon with his sister, full of his pride for her, so earnest in his desire to be her shield when she needed one—and of Galad—why would they not let her see him? She loved him as much as if he had come out of her own body, and in so many ways he needed it more than the other two. She tried to think of them. It was difficult to think of anything except . . . Wide eyes stared up into the darkness, glistening with unshed tears.

She had always thought she was brave enough to do whatever needed doing, to face whatever came; she had always believed she could pick herself up and continue to fight. In one endless hour, without leaving more than a few bruises that were already fading, Rhadam Asunawa had begun teaching her differently. Eamon Valda had completed her education with one question. The bruise her answer had left on her heart had not faded. She should have gone back to Asunawa herself and told him to do his worst. She should have . . . She prayed that Elayne was safe. Perhaps it was not fair to hope more for Elayne than for Galad or Gawyn, but Elayne would be the next Queen of Andor. The Tower would not miss the chance to put an Aes Sedai on the Lion Throne. If only she could see Elayne, see all her children once more.

Something rustled in the dark bedchamber, and she held her breath, fought against trembling. The faint moonlight barely let her make out the bedposts. Valda had ridden north from Amador yesterday, him and Asunawa, with thousands of Whitecloaks to face the Prophet, but if he had come back, if he . . .

A shape in the darkness resolved into a woman, too short for Lini. “I thought you might still be awake,” Breane’s voice said softly. “Drink this; it will help.” The Cairhienin woman tried to put a silvery cup into Morgase’s hand. It gave off a slightly sour smell.

“Wait until you’re summoned to bring me drink,” she snapped, pushing the cup away. Warm liquid spilled onto her hand, onto the linen sheet. “I was almost asleep when you came stamping in,” she lied. “Leave me!”

Instead of obeying, the woman stood looking down at her, face shadowed. Morgase did not like Breane Taborwin. Whether Breane truly was nobly born and come down in the world, as she sometimes claimed, or merely a servant who had learned to counterfeit her betters, she obeyed when and as she chose and let her tongue run entirely too free. As she proved now.

“You moan like a sheep, Morgase Trakand.” Even kept low, her voice seethed in anger. She set the cup on the small bedside table with a thump; more of the contents splashed onto the tabletop. “Bah! Many others have seen far worse. You are alive. None of your bones are broken; your wits are whole. Endure; let the past pass, and go on with your life. You have been so much on edge that the men walk on their toes, even Master Gill. Lamgwin has hardly slept a wink these three nights.”

Morgase flushed with annoyance; even in Andor, servants did not speak so. She caught the woman’s arm in a tight grip, but anxiety warred with displeasure. “They don’t know, do they?” If they did, they would try to avenge her, rescue her. They would die. Tallanvor would die.

“Lini and I drape linen over their eyes for you,” Breane sneered, pulling her hand away and flinging it back at her. “If I could save Lamgwin, I would let them know you for the bleating sheep you are. He sees the Light made flesh in you; I see a woman without courage to accept the day. I will not let you destroy him with your cowardice.”

Cowardice. Outrage welled up in Morgase, yet no words came. Her fingers knotted in the sheet. She did not think she could have decided in cold blood to lie with Valda, but had she, she could have lived with it. She thought she could. Another matter entirely to say yes because she feared facing Asunawa’s knotted cords and needles again, feared worse that he would have gotten to eventually. However she had screamed under Asunawa’s ministrations, Valda was the one who had showed her the true borders of her courage, so far short of where she had believed. Valda’s touch, his bed, could be forgotten, with time, but she would never be able to wash the shame of that “yes” from her lips. Breane hurled the truth in her face, and she did not know how to reply.

She was spared the need by a rush of boots in the outer room. The bedchamber door flung open, and a running man stopped a pace inside.

“So you’re awake; good,” Tallanvor’s voice said after a moment. Which allowed her heart to start beating again, allowed her to breathe. She tried to release Breane’s hand—she did not remember clasping it—but to her surprise, the woman squeezed once before letting go.

“Something is happening,” Tallanvor went on, striding to the lone window. Standing to one side as if to avoid being seen, he peered into the night. Moonlight outlined his tall form. “Master Gill, come and tell what you saw.”

A head appeared in the doorway, bald top shining in the darkness. Behind, in the other room, a hulking shadow moved; Lamgwin Dorn. When Basel Gill realized she was still in bed, that faint shining from his scalp jerked as he directed his eyes elsewhere, though he probably had difficulty making out more than the bed itself. Master Gill was even wider than Lamgwin, but not nearly as tall. “Forgive me, my Queen. I didn’t mean to . . . ” He cleared his throat violently, and his boots scraped on the floor, shifting. Had he had a cap, he would have been turning it in his hands, or wadding it nervously, “I was in the Long Corridor, on my way to . . . to . . . ” To the jakes, was what he could not bring himself to say to her. “Anyway, I glanced out one of the windows, and I saw a . . . a big bird, I think . . . land on top of the South Barracks.”

“A bird!” Lini’s thin voice drove Master Gill to leap into the room, clearing the doorway. Or maybe it was a sharp poke in his stout ribs. Lini usually took every advantage her gray hair offered. She stalked by him still belting her nightrobe. “Fools! Ox-brained lummoxes! You woke my ch—!” She stopped with a fierce cough; Lini never forgot that she had been Morgase’s nurse, and her mother’s as well, but she never slipped in front of others. She would be cross that she had now, and it showed in her voice. “You woke your Queen for a bird!” Patting her hairnet, she automatically tucked in a few strands that had escaped in her sleep. “Have you been drinking, Basel Gill?” Morgase wondered that herself.

“I don’t know it was a bird,” Master Gill protested. “It didn’t look like any bird, but what else flies, except bats? It was big. Men climbed off its back, and there was another still on its neck when it took off again. While I was slapping my face to wake up, another of the . . . things . . . landed, and more men climbed down, and then another came, and I decided it was time to tell Lord Tallanvor.” Lini did not sniff, but Morgase could almost feel her stare, and it was not directed at her. The man who had abandoned his inn to follow her certainly felt it. “The Light’s own truth, my Queen,” he insisted.

“Light!” Tallanvor announced like an echo. “Something . . . . Something just landed atop the North Barracks.” Morgase had never heard him sound shaken before. All she wanted was to make them all go away and leave her alone in her misery, but there seemed no hope. Tallanvor was worse than Breane in many ways. Much worse.

“My robe,” she said, and for once Breane was quick to hand her one. Master Gill hastily turned his face to the wall while she climbed from the bed and put on the silk robe.

She strode to the window, tying the sash. The long North Barracks loomed across the wide courtyard, four hulking floors of flat-roofed dark stone. Not a light showed, there or anywhere in the Fortress. All was stillness and silence. “I see nothing, Tallanvor.”

He drew her back. “Just watch,” he said.

Another time she would have regretted his hand leaving her shoulder, and been irritated at her own regret as well as his tone. Now, after Valda, she felt relief. And irritation at the relief as well as his tone. He was too disrespectful by miles, far too stubborn, too young. Not much older than Galad.

Shadows moved as the moon did, but nothing else stirred. Off in the city of Amador, a dog bayed, answered by more. Then, as she opened her mouth to dismiss Tallanvor and all of them, darkness atop the massive barracks humped up and hurled itself off the roof.

Something, Tallanvor had called it, and she had no better name. An impression of a long body that seemed thicker than a man was tall; great ribbed wings like a bat’s sweeping down as the creature fell toward the courtyard; a figure, a man, sitting just behind a sinuous neck. And then the wings caught air, and the . . . something . . . soared up, blocking the moonlight as it swept over her head trailing a long, thin tail.

Morgase closed her mouth slowly. The only thought that came to her was Shadowspawn. Trollocs and Myrddraal were not the only Shadowtwisted creatures in the Blight. She had never been taught of anything like this, but her tutors in the Tower said that things lived there no one had ever seen clearly and lived to describe. How could it be so far south, though?

Abruptly a flash of light flared with a great boom in the direction of the main gates, and then again, at two more places along the great outer wall. Those were gates too, she believed.

“What in the Pit of Doom was that?” Tallanvor muttered in a moment of silence before alarm gongs began resounding in the darkness. Shouts rose, and screams, and hoarse cries like some sort of horn. Fire leaped with a crash of thunder, then again elsewhere.

“The One Power,” Morgase breathed. She might not be able to channel, or as well as not, but she could tell that. Notions of Shadowspawn fled. “It . . . it must be Aes Sedai.” She heard someone’s breath catch behind her; Lini or Breane. Basel Gill excitedly murmured “Aes Sedai,” and Lamgwin murmured back too low for her to understand. Off in the darkness, metal clashed on metal; fire bellowed, and lightning streaked from the cloudless sky. Faintly through the din came alarm bells from the city at last, but strangely few.

“Aes Sedai.” Tallanvor sounded doubtful. “Why now? To rescue you, Morgase? I thought they couldn’t use the Power against men, only Shadowspawn. Besides, if that winged creature wasn’t Shadowspawn, I will never see one.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about!” she said, confronting him heatedly. “You—!” A crossbow bolt clashed against the windowframe in a spray of stone chips; air stirred against her face as it ricocheted between them and planted itself in one of the bedposts with a solid tchunk. A few inches to the right, and all her troubles would have been ended.

She did not move, but Tallanvor pulled her away from the window with an oath. Even by moonlight, she could see his frown as he studied her. For a moment she thought he might touch her face; if he did, she did not know whether she would weep or scream or order him to leave her forever or . . .

Instead, he said, “More likely it’s some of those men, those Shamin or whatever they call themselves.” He insisted on accepting the strange, impossible tales that had seeped even into the Fortress. “I think I can get you out, right now; everything will be confusion. Come with me.”

She did not correct him; few people knew anything about the One Power, much less the differences between saidar and saidin. His idea had its attractions. They might be able to escape in the bedlam of a battle.

“Take her out into that!” Lini screeched. Flaring lights drowned the moon at the window; crashes and thunders drowned the din of men and swords. “I thought you had more wits, Martyn Tallanvor. ‘Only fools kiss hornets or bite fire.’ You heard her say it’s Aes Sedai. Do you think she doesn’t know? Do you?”

“My Lord, if it is Aes Sedai . . . ” Master Gill trailed off.

Tallanvor’s hands fell away from her, and he grumbled under his breath, wishing he had a sword. Pedron Niall had allowed him to keep his blade; Eamon Valda was not so trusting.

For an instant, disappointment swelled in her breast. If only he had insisted, had dragged her . . . What was the matter with her? Had he tried to drag her anywhere for any reason, she would have had his hide. She needed to take hold of herself. Valda had dented her confidence—no, he had casually ripped it to shreds—but she must cling to those shreds and knit them up again. Somehow. If the tatters were worth knitting up again.

“At least I can find out what is happening,” Tallanvor growled, striding for the door. “If it isn’t your Aes Sedai—”

“No! You will remain here. Please.” She was very glad of the pale darkness, hiding her furiously flushing face. She would have bitten her tongue off before saying that last word, but it had slipped out before she knew. She went on in firmer tones. “You will remain here, guarding your Queen as you should.”

In the dun light, she could see his face, and his bow seemed quite proper, but she would have wagered her last copper both were angry. “I will be in your anteroom.” Well, there was no doubt about his voice. For once, though, she cared neither how angry he was nor how little he hid it. Very possibly she might kill the infuriating man with her own hands, but he was not going to die tonight, cut down by soldiers with no way to tell which side he was on.

There was no hope of sleep now even had she been able. Without lighting any lamps, she washed her face and teeth. Breane and Lini helped her dress, in blue silk slashed with green, with spills of snowy lace at her wrists and beneath her chin. It would do very well for receiving Aes Sedai. Saidar raged in the night. They had to be Aes Sedai. Who else could it be?

When she joined the men in the anteroom, they were sitting in darkness except for the moonlight through the windows, and the occasional flash of Power-wrought fire. Even a candle might attract unwanted attention. Lamgwin and Master Gill sprang from their chairs respectfully; Tallanvor stood more slowly, and she needed no light to know he regarded her with a sullen frown. Furious that she had to ignore him—she was his Queen!—furious and barely able to keep it from her voice, she ordered Lamgwin to bring more of the tall wooden chairs further from the windows. In silence, they sat and waited. At least, silence on their part. Outside thunderous crashes and roars still echoed, horns cried and men shouted, and through it she felt saidar surge and fall and surge again.

Slowly, after at least an hour, the battle dwindled and died. Voices still shouted incomprehensible orders, wounded screamed, and sometimes those strange hoarse horns gave voice, but no more did steel ring on steel. Saidar faded; she was sure women still held it inside the Fortress, but she did not think any channeled now. All seemed close to peaceful after the clamor and commotion.

Tallanvor stirred, but she waved him back before he could rise; for a moment she thought he would not obey. Night weakened, and sunlight crept in through the windows, shining on Tallanvor’s glower. She held her hands still in her lap. Patience was but one of the virtues that young man needed to learn. Patience stood second only to courage as a noble virtue. The sun rose higher. Lini and Breane began whispering together in increasingly worried tones, shooting glances in her direction. Tallanvor scowled, dark eyes smoldering, sitting rigid in that dark blue coat that fit him so well. Master Gill fidgeted, running first one hand then the other across his gray-fringed head, mopping his pink cheeks with a handkerchief. Lamgwin slouched in his chair, the onetime street tough’s heavy-lidded eyes making him seem half asleep, but whenever he glanced at Breane a smile flickered on his scarred, broken-nosed face. Morgase focused on her breathing, almost like the exercises she had done during her months in the Tower. Patience. If someone did not come soon, she was going to have sharp words to say, Aes Sedai or not!

Despite herself, she jumped at an abrupt pounding on the door to the hallway. Before she could tell Breane to see who was there, the door swung open, banging against the wall. Morgase stared at who entered.

A tall, dark, hook-nosed man stared back at her coldly, the long hilt of a sword rising above his shoulder. Strange armor covered his chest, overlapping plates lacquered glistening gold and black, and he held a helmet on his hip that looked like an insect’s head, black and gold and green, with three long, thin green plumes. Two more armored like him came at his heels wearing their helmets, though without plumes; their armor seemed painted rather than lacquered, and they carried crossbows ready. Still more stood in the hall outside, with gold-and-black tasseled spears.

Tallanvor and Lamgwin and even stout Master Gill scrambled to their feet, placing themselves between her and her peculiar visitors. She had to push a way through.

The hook-nosed man’s eyes went straight to her before she could demand an explanation. “You are Morgase, Queen of Andor?” His voice was harsh, and he drawled his words so badly she barely understood.

He stepped on her reply. “You will come with me. Alone,” he added as Tallanvor, and Lamgwin, and Master Gill all moved forward. The crossbowmen presented their weapons; the heavy quarrels looked made to punch holes in armor; a man would hardly slow one down.

“I have no objection to my people remaining here until I return,” she said a good more calmly than she felt. Who were these people? She was familiar with the accents of every nation, familiar with their armor. “I am sure you will see to my safety very well, Captain . . . ?”

He did not supply a name, only motioned curtly for her to follow. To her vast relief, Tallanvor made no fuss despite his hot gaze. To her vast irritation, Master Gill and Lamgwin looked to him before stepping back.

In the hallway, the soldiers formed around her, the hook-nosed officer and the two crossbowmen in the lead. A guard of honor, she tried to tell herself. This soon after a battle, wandering around unprotected was worse than foolish; there might be holdouts who would seize a hostage, or kill any who saw them. She wished she believed that.

She tried questioning the officer, but he never spoke a word, never slackened his stride or turned his head, and she stopped trying. None of the soldiers so much as glanced at her; they were hard-eyed men of the kind she knew from her own Queen’s Guards, men who had seen fighting before, more than once. But who were they? Their boots struck the floorstones as one in an ominous drumbeat emphasized by the stark Fortress corridors. There was little color, nothing for beauty except scattered tapestries showing Whitecloaks in bloody battle.

She realized they were taking her toward the Lord Captain Commander’s quarters, and a queasiness settled in the pit of her stomach. She had grown almost pleasantly accustomed to the way while Pedron Niall lived; she had come to dread it in the few days since he died—but as they rounded a corner, she started at the sight of some two dozen archers marching behind their own officer, men in baggy trousers and boiled leather breastplates painted in horizontal stripes of blue and black. Each man wore a conical steel cap, with a veil of gray steel mail covering his face to the eyes; here and there the ends of mustaches dangled below the veils. The archers’ officer bowed to the one leading her guard, who merely raised his hand in reply.

Taraboners. She had not seen a Taraboner soldier in a good many years, but those men were Taraboners in spite of those stripes, or she would eat her slippers. Yet that made no sense. Tarabon was chaos come to life, a hundred-sided civil war between pretenders to the throne and Dragonsworn. Tarabon could never have launched this attack on Amador itself. Unless, incredibly, one claimant had won out over the rest, and over the Dragonsworn, and . . . It was impossible, and it did not explain these strangely armored soldiers, or that winged beast, or . . .

She thought she had seen strangeness. She thought she had known queasiness. Then she and her guard turned another corner and encountered two women.

One was slender, short as any Cairhienin and darker than any Tairen, in a blue dress that stopped well short of her ankles; silver lightning forked across red panels on her breast and the sides of her wide, divided skirts. The other woman, in drab dark gray, stood taller than most men, with golden hair to her shoulders that had been brushed till it glistened and frightened green eyes. A silver leash connected a silver bracelet on the shorter woman’s wrist to a necklace worn by the taller.

They stood aside for Morgase’s guard, and when the hook-nosed officer murmured “Der’sul’dam”—Morgase thought that was it; his slurred accent made understanding difficult—when he murmured in tones nearly but not quite to an equal, the dark woman bowed her head slightly, twitched at the leash, and the golden-haired woman sank to the floor, folding herself with her head on her knees and her palms flat on the floorstones. As Morgase and her guards passed by, the dark woman bent to pat the other fondly on the head, as she might a dog, and worse, the kneeling woman looked up with pleasure and gratitude.

Morgase made the necessary effort to keep walking, to keep her knees from folding, to keep her stomach from emptying itself. The sheer servility was bad enough, but she was certain the woman being patted on the head could channel. Impossible! She walked in a daze, wondering whether this could be a dream, a nightmare. Praying that it was. She had a vague awareness of stopping for more soldiers, these in red-and-black armor, then . . .

Pedron Nail’s audience chamber—Valda’s now, or rather whoever had taken the fortress—was changed. The great golden sunburst remained, set in the floor, but all Niall’s captured banners, which Valda had kept as if they were his, were gone, and so were the furnishings, except for the plainly carved high-backed chair Niall and then Valda had used, flanked now by two tall, luridly painted screens. One showed a white-crested black bird of prey with a cruel beak, its white-tipped wings spread wide, the other a black-spotted yellow cat with one paw on a dead, deerlike creature half its size, with long, straight horns and white stripes.

There were a number of people in the room, but that was all she had time to notice before a sharp-faced woman in blue robes stepped forward, one side of her head shaved and the remaining hair in a long brown braid that hung in front of her right shoulder. Her blue eyes, full of contempt, could have done for the eagle’s or the cat’s. “You are in the presence of the High Lady Suroth, who leads Those Who Come Before, and succors The Return,” she intoned in that same slurring accent.

Without warning, the hook-nosed officer seized the back of Morgase’s neck and bore her down prostrate beside him. Stunned, not least because the breath was knocked out of her, she saw him kiss the floor.

“Release her, Elbar,” another woman drawled angrily. “The Queen of Andor is not to be treated so.”

The man, Elbar, rose as far as his knees, head bent. “I abase myself, High Lady. I beg forgiveness.” His voice was as cold and flat as that accent allowed.

“I have small forgiveness for this, Elbar.” Morgase looked up. Suroth took her aback. The sides of her head were shaved, leaving a glossy black crest across the top of her head and a mane that flowed down her back. “Perhaps when you are punished. Report yourself now. Leave me! Go!” A sweeping gesture flashed fingernails at least an inch long, the first two on each hand a glistening blue.

Elbar bowed on his knees, then rose smoothly, backing away through the door. For the first time Morgase realized none of the other soldiers had followed them in. She realized something else, as well. He gave her one final glance before he vanished, and instead of flickering resentment for the one who had caused his punishment, he . . . considered. There would be no punishment; the entire exchange had been arranged beforehand.

Suroth swept toward Morgase, carefully holding her pale blue robe to keep her skirts exposed, snow-white, with hundreds of tiny pleats. Embroidered vines and lush red and yellow flowers spread across the robe. For all her sweeping, Morgase noticed the woman did not reach her until she had regained her feet on her own.

“You are unharmed?” Suroth asked. “If you are harmed, I will double his punishment.”

Morgase brushed at her dress so she would not have to look at the false smile that never touched the woman’s eyes. She took the opportunity to look around the room. Four men and four women knelt against one wall, all young and more than good-looking, all wearing . . . She jerked her eyes away. Those long white robes were very nearly transparent! At the far sides of the screens two more pairs of women knelt, one of each in the gray dress, one in the blue embroidered with lightning, bound by the silvery leash from wrist to neck. Morgase was not close enough to say for sure, but she had the sick-making certainty that the gray-clad women could channel. “I am quite all right, thank—” A huge reddish brown shape lay sprawled on the floor—a heap of tanned cowskins, perhaps. Then it heaved. “What is that?” She managed not to gape, but the question popped from her tongue before she could stop it.

“You admire my lopar?” Suroth swept away a good deal quicker than she had come. The enormous shape raised a great round head for her to stroke it under the chin with a knuckle. The creature put Morgase in mind of a bear, though it was easily half again as big as the largest bear she had ever heard tell of, and hairless to boot, with no muzzle to speak of and heavy ridges surrounding its eyes. “Almandaragal was given to me as a pup, for my first true-name day; he foiled the first attempt to kill me that same year, when he was only a quarter grown.” There was real affection in the woman’s voice. The . . . lopar’s . . . lips peeled back to reveal thick pointed teeth as she stroked; its forepaws flexed, claws sheathing and unsheathing from six long toes on each. And it began to purr, a bass rumble fit for a hundred cats.

“Remarkable,” Morgase said faintly. True-name day? How many attempts had there been to kill this woman that she could speak of “the first” so casually?

The lopar whined briefly when Suroth left it, but quickly settled with its head on its paws. Disconcertingly, its eyes did not follow her, but settled mainly on Morgase, now and then flicking toward the door or the narrow, arrow-slit windows.

“Of course, however loyal a lopar, it cannot match damane.” No affection touched Suroth’s voice now. “Pura and Jinjin could slay a hundred assassins before Almandaragal blinked his eye.” At the mention of each name, one of the blue-clad women twitched her silvery leash, and the woman at the other end doubled herself as the one in the corridor had. “We have many more damane since returning than before. This is a rich hunting ground for marath’damane. Pura,” she added casually, “was once a . . . woman of the White Tower.”

Morgase’s knees wobbled. Aes Sedai? She studied the bent back of the woman called Pura, refusing to believe. No Aes Sedai could be made to cringe like that. But any woman who could channel, not just an Aes Sedai, should be able to take that leash and strangle her tormentor. Anyone at all should be able to. No, this Pura could not be. Morgase wondered if she dared ask for a chair. “That is very . . . interesting.” At least her voice was steady. “But I do not think you asked me here to speak of Aes Sedai.” Of course, she had not been asked. Suroth stared at her, not a muscle moving except that the long-nailed fingers of her left hand twitched.

“Thera!” the sharp-faced woman with half her head shaved barked suddenly. “Kaf for the High Lady and her guest!”

One of the women in diaphanous robes, the eldest but still young, leaped gracefully to her feet. Her rosebud mouth had a petulant look to it, but she darted behind the tall screen painted with the eagle, and in moments reappeared bearing a silver tray with two small white cups. Kneeling sinuously before Suroth, she bowed her dark head as she raised the tray, so her offering stood higher than she. Morgase shook her head; any servant in Andor asked to do that—or wear that robe!—would have stormed off in a dudgeon.

“Who are you? Where do you come from?”

Suroth raised one of the cups on her fingertips, inhaling the steam rising from it. Her nod was entirely too much permission for Morgase’s liking, but she took a cup anyway. One sip, and she stared into her drink in amazement. Blacker than any tea, the liquid was also more bitter. No amount of honey would make it drinkable. Suroth put her own cup to her lips and sighed with enjoyment.

“There are many things we must speak of, Morgase, yet I will be brief at this first talk. We Seanchan return to reclaim what was stolen from the heirs of the High King, Artur Paendrag Tanreall.” Pleasure over the kaf became a different pleasure in her voice, both expectation and certainty, and she watched Morgase’s face closely. Morgase could not take her eyes away. “What was ours, will be ours again. In truth, it always has been; a thief gains no ownership. I have begun the recovery in Tarabon. Many nobles of that land have already sworn to obey, await and serve; it will not be long before all have. Their king—I cannot recall his name—died opposing me. Had he lived, in rebellion against the Crystal Throne and not even of the Blood, he would have been impaled. His family could not be found to be made property, but there is a new King and a new Panarch who have sworn their fealty to the Empress, may she live forever, and the Crystal Throne. The bandits will be eradicated; no longer will there be strife or hunger in Tarabon, but the people will shelter beneath the wings of the Empress. Now I begin in this Amadicia. Soon all will kneel to the Empress, may she live forever, the direct descendant of the great Artur Hawkwing.”

If the serving woman had not gone with the tray, Morgase would have put her cup back. No tremor disturbed the dark surface of the kaf, but much of what the woman spouted was meaningless to her. Empress? Seanchan? There had been wild rumors a year or more ago about Artur Hawkwing’s armies come back from across the Aryth Ocean, but only the most credulous could have believed, and she doubted that the worst gossipmonger in the markets still told the tale. Could it have been truth? In any case, what she did understand was more than enough.

“All honor the name of Artur Hawkwing, Suroth . . . ” The sharp-faced woman opened her mouth angrily, subsiding at the move of a blue-nailed finger by the High Lady. “ . . . but his time is long past. Every nation here has an ancient lineage. No land will surrender to you or your Empress. If you have taken some part of Tarabon . . . ” Suroth’s indrawn breath hissed, and her eyes glittered. “ . . . remember that it is a troubled land, divided against itself. Amadicia will not fall easily, and many nations will ride to her aid when they learn of you.” Could it be true? “However many you are, you will find no easy game for your spit. We have faced great threats before, and overcome them. I advise you to make peace before you are crushed.” Morgase remembered saidar raging in the night, and avoided looking at the—damane, had she called them? By strong effort, she managed not to wet her lips.

Suroth smiled that mask’s smile again, eyes shining like polished stones. “All must make choices. Some will choose to obey, await and serve, and will rule their lands in the name of the Empress, may she live forever.”

She took a hand from her cup to gesture, a slight movement of long fingernails, and the sharp-faced woman barked, “Thera! Poses of the Swan!”

For some reason, Suroth’s mouth tightened. “Not the Swan, Alwhin, you blind fool!” she hissed, half under her breath, though her accent made understanding difficult. The frozen smile returned in an instant.

The serving woman rose from her place at the wall again, running out to the middle of the floor in an odd way, on tiptoe, with her arms swept back. Slowly, atop the flaring golden sun, symbol of the Children of the Light, she began a sort of stylized dance. Her arms unfolded to the sides like wings, then folded back. Twisting, she slid her left foot out, lowering herself over the bending knee, both arms outstretched as if appealing, until arms and body and right leg made a straight, slanted line. Her sheer white robe made the whole thing scandalous. Morgase felt her cheeks growing hot as the dance, if it could be called that, continued.

“Thera is new and not well trained yet,” Suroth murmured. “The Poses are most often done with ten or twenty da’covale together, men and women chosen for the clean beauty of their lines, but sometimes it is pleasant to view only one. It is very pleasant to own beautiful things, is it not?”

Morgase frowned. How could anyone own a person? Suroth had spoken earlier about “making someone property.” She knew the Old Tongue, and the word da’covale was not familiar to her, but thinking it out she came up with “Person Who Is Owned.” It was disgusting. Horrendous! “Incredible,” she said dryly. “Perhaps I should leave you to enjoy the . . . dance.”

“In one moment,” Suroth said, smiling at the posturing Thera. Morgase avoided looking. “All have choices to make, as I said. The old King of Tarabon chose to rebel, and died. The old Panarch was captured, yet refused the Oath. Each of us has a place where we belong, unless raised by the Empress, but those who reject their proper place can also be cast down, even to the depths. Thera has a certain grace. Strangely, Alwhin shows great promise in teaching, so I expect that before many years, Thera will learn the skill in the Poses to go with her grace.” That smile swiveled toward Morgase, that glittering gaze.

A very significant gaze, but why? Something to do with the dancer? Her name, mentioned so often, as if to highlight it. But what . . . ? Morgase’s head whipped around, and she stared at the woman, up on her toes and slowly pivoting in one spot with her hands flat together and arms stretched up as high as they would go. “I don’t believe it,” she gasped. “I won’t!”

“Thera,” Suroth said, “what was your name before you became my property? What title did you hold?”

Thera froze in her up-stretched posture, quivering, shooting a look half panic, half terror at sharp-faced Alwhin, a look of pure terror at Suroth. “Thera was called Amathera, if it pleases the High Lady,” she said breathily. “Thera was the Panarch of Tarabon, if it pleases the High Lady.”

The cup dropped from Morgase’s hand, smashing to bits on the floor, spraying the black kaf. It had to be a lie. She had never met Amathera, but she had heard a description, once. No. Many women of the right age could have large dark eyes and a petulant mouth. Pura had never been Aes Sedai, and this woman . . .

“Pose!” Alwhin snapped, and Thera flowed on without so much as one more glance at Suroth or anyone. Whoever she was, clearly the foremost thought in her head now was an urgent desire not to make a mistake. Morgase concentrated on not vomiting.

Suroth stepped very close, face cold as midwinter. “All confront choices,” she said quietly. Her voice could have marked steel. “Some of my prisoners say that you spent time in the White Tower. By law, no marath’damane may escape the leash, but I pledge to you that you, who named me to my eyes and called lie on my word, you will not face that fate.” The emphasis made quite clear that her pledge covered no other possible fate. The smile that never reached her eyes returned. “I hope that you will choose to swear the oath, Morgase, and rule Andor in the name of the Empress, may she live forever.” For the first time, Morgase was absolutely certain the woman lied. “I will speak to you again tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, if I have time.”

Turning away, Suroth glided past the lone dancer to the high-backed chair. As she sat, spreading her robe gracefully, Alwhin barked again. She did not seem to have any other voice. “All! Poses of the Swan!” The young men and women kneeling against the wall leaped forward to join Thera, joining her movements exactly in a line before Suroth’s chair. Only the lopar’s gaze still acknowledged Morgase’s existence. She did not believe she had ever been dismissed so thoroughly in her life. Gathering her dignity with her skirts, she left.

She did not go far alone of course. Those red-and-black armored soldiers stood in the anteroom like statues with red-and-black tasseled spears, faces impassive in their lacquered helmets, hard eyes seeming to stare from behind the mandibles of monstrous insects. One, not much taller than she, fell in at her shoulder without a word and escorted her back to her rooms, where two Taraboners with swords flanked her door, these in steel breastplates, but still painted in horizontal stripes. They bowed low, hands on their knees, and she thought it was for her until her escort spoke for the first time.

“Honor met,” he said in a harsh, dry voice, and the Taraboners straightened, never glancing at her until he said, “Watch her well. She has not given the Oath.” Dark eyes flickered toward her above steel veils, but their short bows of assent were for the Seanchan.

She tried not to hurry inside, but once the door was closed behind her, she leaned against it attempting to settle her whirling thoughts. Seanchan and damane, Empresses and oaths and people owned. Lini and Breane stood in the middle of the room looking at her.

“What did you learn?” Lini asked patiently, in much the tone in which she had questioned the child Morgase about a book read.

“Nightmares and madness,” Morgase sighed. Suddenly she stood up straight, looking around the room anxiously. “Where is—? Where are the men?”

Breane answered the unasked question in a dryly mocking tone. “Tallanvor went to see what he could find out.” Her fists planted themselves on her hips, and her face became deadly serious. “Lamgwin went with him, and Master Gill. What did you find out? Who are these . . . Seanchan?” She said the name awkwardly, frowning around it. “We heard that much for ourselves.” She affected not to notice Lini’s biting stare. “What are we to do now, Morgase?”

Morgase brushed between the women, crossing to the nearest window. Not as narrow as those in the audience chamber, it looked down twenty feet or more to the stone paving of the courtyard. A dispirited column of bareheaded, disheveled men, some with blood-stained bandages, shambled across the courtyard under the watchful gaze of Taraboners carrying spears. Several Seanchan stood atop a nearby tower, peering into the distance between the crenellations. One wore a helmet decorated with three slender plumes. A woman appeared in a window across the court, the lightning-embroidered red panel plain on her breast, frowning down at the Whitecloak prisoners. Those stumbling men looked stunned, unable to believe what had happened.

What were they to do? A decision Morgase dreaded. It seemed that she had not made so much as a decision on fruit for breakfast in months without it leading to disaster. A choice, Suroth had said. Aid these Seanchan in taking Andor, or . . . One last service she could do for Andor. The tail end of the column appeared, followed by more Taraboners, who were joined by their countrymen they passed. A twenty-foot fall, and Suroth lost her lever. Maybe it was the coward’s way out, but she had already proved herself that. Still, the Queen of Andor should not die so.

Under her breath, she spoke the irrevocable words that had been used only twice before in the thousand-year history of Andor. “Under the Light, I relinquish the High Seat of House Trakand to Elayne Trakand. Under the Light, I renounce the Rose Crown and abdicate the Lion Throne to Elayne, High Seat of House Trakand. Under the Light, I submit myself to the will of Elayne of Andor, her obedient subject.” None of that made Elayne Queen, true, but it cleared the way.

“What are you smiling at?” Lini asked.

Morgase turned slowly. “I was thinking of Elayne.” She did not think her old nurse had been close enough to hear what no one really needed to.

Lini’s eyes widened, though, and her breath caught. “You come away from there now!” she snapped, and suiting actions to words, seized her arm and physically pulled her from the window.

“Lini, you forget yourself! You stopped being my nurse a long—!” Morgase drew a deep breath and softened her tone. Meeting those frightened eyes was not easy; nothing frightened Lini. “What I do is for the best, believe me,” she told her gently. “There’s no other way—”

“No other way?” Breane broke in angrily, gripping her skirts till her hands shook. Clearly she would rather have had them wrapped around Morgase’s throat. “What fool nonsense are you spouting now? What if these Seanchan think we killed you?” Morgase compressed her lips; had she become so transparent?

“Shut up, woman!” Lini never got angry, either, or raised her voice, but she did both now, her withered cheeks red. She raised a bony hand. “You hold your mouth, or I’ll slap you sillier than you are!”

“Slap her if you want to slap someone!” Breane shouted back so fiercely that spittle flew. “Queen Morgase! She will send you and me and my Lamgwin to the gallows, and her precious Tallanvor too, because she lacks the belly of a mouse!”

The door opened to admit Tallanvor and put an abrupt end to it. No one was about to shout in front of him. Lini pretended to examine Morgase’s sleeve as though it might need mending as Master Gill and Lamgwin followed Tallanvor in. Breane put on a bright smile and smoothed her skirts. The men noticed nothing, of course.

Morgase noticed a great deal. For one thing, Tallanvor had a sword belted on, and so did Master Gill, and even Lamgwin, though his was a short-sword. She had always had the feeling he was more comfortable with his fists than any other weapons. Before she could ask how, the skinny little man who brought up the rear closed the door carefully behind him.

“Majesty,” Sebban Balwer said, “forgive the intrusion.” Even his bow and his smile seemed dry and precise, but as his eyes flicked from her to the other women, Morgase decided that whether the other men noticed the atmosphere in the room or not, Pedron Niall’s onetime secretary did.

“I am surprised to see you, Master Balwer,” she said. “I heard there was some unpleasantness with Eamon Valda.” What she had heard was that Valda had said if he laid eyes on Balwer, he would kick him over one of the Fortress walls. Balwer’s smile tightened; he knew what Valda had said.

“He has a plan to take us all out of here,” Tallanvor broke in. “Today. Now.” He gave her a look not that of subject to queen. “We are accepting his offer.”

“How?” she said slowly, forcing her legs to remain straight. What help could this prissy little stick of a man offer? Escape. She wanted very much to sit down, but she was not going to, not with Tallanvor looking at her in that fashion. Of course, she was not his Queen, now, but he did not know that. Another question occurred. “Why? Master Balwer, I’ll not shun any true offer of help, but why would you risk yourself? These Seanchan will make you regret it, should they find out.”

“I laid my plans before they came,” he said carefully. “It seemed . . . imprudent . . . to leave the Queen of Andor in Valda’s hands. Consider it my way of repaying him. I know I am not much to look at, Majesty . . . ” He hid a self-deprecating cough behind his hand. “ . . . but the plan will work. These Seanchan actually make it easier; I would not have been ready for days yet without them. For a newly conquered city, they allow remarkable freedom to anyone willing to say their Oath. Not an hour after sunrise, I obtained a pass allowing myself and up to ten more who have taken the Oath to depart Amador. They believe I intend to buy wine, and wagons to carry it, in the east.”

“It must be a trap.” The words tasted bitter. Better the window than falling into some snare. “They won’t allow you to carry word of them ahead of their army.”

Balwer’s head tilted to one side, and he began dry-washing his hands, then stopped abruptly. “In truth, Majesty, I considered that. The officer who gave me the pass said it did not matter. His exact words: ‘Tell who you will what you have seen, and let them know they cannot stand against us. Your lands will know soon enough anyway.’ I have seen several merchants take the Oath this morning and depart with their wagons.”

Tallanvor moved close to her. Too close. She could almost feel his breath. She could feel his eyes. “We are accepting his offer,” he said for her ears alone. “If I must bind and gag you, I think he can find a way even so. He seems a very resourceful little fellow.”

She met him stare for stare. The window or . . . a chance. If Tallanvor had only held his tongue it would have been much easier to say, “I accept with gratitude, Master Balwer,” but she said it. She stepped away as if to see Balwer without having to crane past Tallanvor. It was always disturbing being so near to him. He was too young. “What is to do first? I doubt those guards at the door will accept your pass for us.”

Balwer bowed his head as if acknowledging her foresight. “I fear they must meet with accidents, Majesty.” Tallanvor eased his dagger in its scabbard, and Lamgwin flexed his hands like the lopar flexing its claws.

She did not believe it could be so easy, even after they had packed up what they could carry and the two Taraboners had been stuffed beneath her bed. At the main gates, holding her linen dust-cloak close awkwardly because of the bundle on her back, she bowed, hands on her knees the way Balwer had shown her, while he told the guards that they had all sworn to obey, await and serve. She thought of how to make sure she was not taken alive. It was not until they were actually riding out of Amador, past the last guards, on the horses Balwer had had waiting, that she began to believe. Of course, Balwer probably expected some fine reward for rescuing the Queen of Andor. She had not told anyone that that was done with beyond going back; she knew she had spoken the words, and no one else needed to know. Regretting them was useless. Now she would see what sort of life she could find without a throne. A life far from a man who was much too young and much too disturbing.

“Why is your smile so sad?” Lini asked, reining her slab-sided brown mare closer. The animal looked moth-eaten. Morgase’s bay was no better; none of the horses were. The Seanchan might have been willing to let Balwer go with his pass, but not with decent mounts.

“There is a long road ahead, yet,” Morgase told her, and thumped her mare into some semblance of a trot after Tallanvor.