Winter's Heart

## Chapter 21

#### A Matter of Property

Egeanin lay on her back on the bed with her hands raised, palms toward the ceiling and fingers spread. Her pale blue skirts made a fan across her legs, and she tried to lie very still so as not to wrinkle the narrow pleats too much. The way dresses confined movement, they must be an invention of the Dark Lord. Lying there, she studied fingernails too long for her to lay hands on a line without breaking at least half. Not that she had personally handled lines in quite a few years, but she had always been ready and able to, at need.

“ . . . plain foolheadedness!” Bayle growled, poking at the blazing logs in the brick fireplace. “Fortune prick me, Seahawk could sail nearer the wind, and faster, than any Seanchan ship ever made. There did be squalls ahead, too, and . . . ” She listened only enough to know he had stopped grumbling about the room and taken up the same old argument. The dark-paneled chamber was not the best at The Wandering Woman, or even close, yet it met his requirements excepting the view. The two windows looked out on the stableyard. A Captain of the Green ranked with a banner-general, but in this place, most of those she outranked were aides or secretaries to senior officers of the Ever Victorious Army. Among the army as at sea, being of the Blood added little unless it was the High Blood.

The sea-green lacquer on the nails of her little fingers sparkled. She had always hoped to rise, eventually perhaps to Captain of the Gold, commanding fleets, as her mother had. As a girl, she had even dreamed of being named the Hand of the Empress at Sea just like her mother, to stand at the left hand of the Crystal Throne, so’jhin to the Empress herself, might she live forever, allowed to speak directly to her. Young women had foolish dreams. And she had to admit that once chosen for the Forerunners, she considered the possibility of a new name. Not hoping for it, certainly—that would have been getting above herself—yet everyone had known the recovery of the stolen lands would mean new additions to the Blood. Now she was Captain of the Green, ten years before she should have had any hope of it, and stood on the slopes of that steep mountain that rose through the clouds to the sublime pinnacle of the Empress, might she live forever.

She doubted she would be given command of one greatship, however, much less a squadron. Suroth claimed to accept her story, but if so, why had she been left sitting at Cantorin? Why, when orders finally came, were they to report here and not to a ship? Of course, there were only so many commands available, even for a Captain of the Green. It might be that. She might have been chosen for a position near Suroth, though her orders said only that she was to travel to Ebou Dar by the first available means and await further instructions. Maybe. The High Blood might speak to the low without the intervention of a Voice, but it seemed to her that Suroth had forgotten her as soon as she was dismissed after receiving her rewards. Which also might mean Suroth was suspicious. Arguments that ran in circles. In any case, she could live on seawater if that Seeker had given over his suspicions. He had no more, or she would already be in a dungeon shrieking, yet if he was in the city, too, he would be watching her, waiting for one misstep. He could not shed so much as a single drop of her blood, now, but the Seekers were experienced at dealing with that minor difficulty. So long as he left it to watching, though, he could stare at her until his eyes shriveled. She had a stable deck under her feet, now, and from here on she would take great care how she stepped. Captain of the Gold might no longer be possible, yet retiring as Captain of the Green was honorable.

“Well?” Bayle demanded. “What about that?”

Wide and solid and strong, just the sort of man she had always favored, he was standing beside the bed in his shirtsleeves, a frown on his face and his fists on his hips. Not a pose a so’jhin should take with his mistress. With a sigh, she let her hands drop onto her stomach. Bayle just would not learn how a so’jhin was supposed to behave. He took it all as a joke, or play, as though none of it were real. Sometimes he even said he wanted to be her Voice, no matter how often she explained she was not of the High Blood. Once, she had had him beaten, and afterwards he had refused to sleep in the same bed with her until she apologized. Apologized!

Hastily, she ran through what she had half-heard of his growling. Yes; still the same arguments after all this time. Nothing new. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she sat up and ticked points off on her fingers. She had done it so often, she could deliver them by rote. “Had you tried to run, the damane on the other ship would have snapped your masts like twigs. It was not a chance stop, Bayle, and you know it; their first hail was a demand to know whether you were Seahawk. By bringing you into the wind and announcing we were on our way to Cantorin with a gift for the Empress, may she live forever, I allayed their suspicions. Anything else—anything!—and we would all have been chained in the hold and sold as soon as we reached Cantorin. I doubt we’d have been lucky enough to face the headsman instead.” She held up her thumb. “And last, if you had kept calm as I told you to, you would not have gone to the block, either. You cost me a great deal!” Several other women in Cantorin apparently had her same taste in men. They had pushed the bidding up extravagantly.

Stubborn man that he was, he scowled and scrubbed at his short beard irritably. “I do still say we could have dropped it all over the side,” he muttered. “That Seeker had no proof I did have it aboard.”

“Seekers do no need proof,” she said, mocking his accent. “Seekers do find proof, and the finding do be painful.” If he was reduced to bringing up what even he had conceded long since, maybe she was finally nearing the end of the whole thing. “In any case, Bayle, you have already admitted there is no harm in Suroth having that collar and bracelets. They can’t be put on him unless someone gets close enough, and I’ve heard nothing that suggests anyone has or will.” She refrained from adding that it would not matter if someone did. Bayle was not really familiar with even the versions of the Prophecies they had on this side of the World Sea, but he was adamant that none mentioned the necessity of the Dragon Reborn kneeling to the Crystal Throne. It might prove necessary for him to be fitted with this male a’dam, but Bayle would never see it. “What is done is done, Bayle. If the Light shines on us, we will live long in the service of the Empire. Now, you know this city, so you say. What is there interesting to see or do?”

“There always do be festivals of some sort,” he said slowly, grudgingly. He never liked giving up his argument, no matter how futile. “Some may be to your taste. Some not, I do think. You do be . . . picky.” What did he mean by that? Suddenly he grinned. “We could find a Wise Woman. They do hear marriage vows, here.” He ran his fingers across the shaven side of his scalp, rolling his eyes upward as though trying to see it. “Of course, if I do recall the lecture you did give me on the ‘rights and privileges’ of my position, so’jhin can only marry other so’jhin, so you do need to free me, first. Fortune prick me, you do no have a foot of those promised estates, yet. I can take up my old trade and give you an estate soon enough.”

Her mouth fell open. This was not something old. This was very, very new. She had always prided herself on being level-headed. She had risen to command by skill and daring, a veteran of sea battles and storms and shipwreck. And right that moment she felt like a first-voyage fingerling looking down from the main peak, panicked and dizzy, with the whole world spinning around her and a seemingly inevitable fall to the sea filling her eyes.

“It is not so simple,” she said, surging to her feet so he was forced to step back. Light’s truth, she hated sounding breathless! “Manumission requires me to provide for your livelihood as a free man, to see you can support yourself.” Light! Words flooding out in a rush were as bad as being breathless. She imagined herself on a deck. It helped, a little. “In your case, that means buying a ship, I suppose,” she said, sounding unruffled, at least, “and as you reminded me, I have no estates yet. Besides, I could not allow you to return to smuggling, and you know it.” That much was simple truth, and the rest not really a lie. Her years at sea had been profitable, and if the gold she could call on was small gleanings to one of the Blood, she could buy a ship, so long as he did not want a greatship, but she had not actually denied being able to afford one.

He spread his arms, another thing he was not supposed to do, and after a moment she laid her cheek against his broad shoulder and let him enfold her. “It will be well, lass,” he murmured gently. “Somehow, it will be well.”

“You must not call me ‘lass,’ Bayle,” she chided, staring beyond his shoulder toward the fireplace. It would not seem to come into focus. Before leaving Tanchico she had decided to marry him, one of those lightning decisions that had made her reputation. Smuggler he might be, but she could have put a stop to that, and he was steadfast, strong and intelligent, a seafarer. That last had always been a necessity, to her. Only, she had not known his customs. Some places in the Empire, men did the asking, and were actually offended if a woman even suggested. She knew nothing of enticing a man, either. Her few lovers had all been men of equal rank, men she could approach openly and bid farewell when one or the other of them was ordered to another ship or promoted. And now he was so’jhin. There was nothing wrong with bedding your own so’jhin, of course, so long as you did not flaunt the fact. He would make up a pallet at the foot of the bed as usual, even if he never slept on it. But freeing a so’jhin, casting him off from the rights and privileges Bayle sneered at, was the height of cruelty. No, she was lying by avoidance again, and worse, lying to herself. She wanted wholeheartedly to marry the man Bayle Domon. She was bitterly unsure she could bring herself to marry manumitted property.

“As my Lady do command, so shall it be,” he said in a blithe mockery of formality.

She punched him under the ribs. Not hard. Just enough to make him grunt. He had to learn! She did not want to see the sights of Ebou Dar any longer. She just wanted to stay where she was, wrapped in Bayle’s arms, not needing to make decisions, stay right where they stood forever.

A sharp knock sounded at the door, and she pushed him away. At least he knew enough not to protest that. While he tugged on his coat, she shook out the pleats of her dress and attempted to smooth away the wrinkles from lying on the bed. There seemed to be a good many, despite how still she had been. This knock might be a summons from Suroth or a maid seeing whether she needed anything, but whoever it was, she was not going to let anyone see her looking as if she had been rolling about on the deck.

Giving up the useless attempt, she waited until Bayle had buttoned himself up and adopted the attitude he thought proper for a so’jhin—Like a captain on his quarterdeck ready to shout orders, she thought, sighing to herself—then barked, “Come!” The woman who opened the door was the last she expected to see.

Bethamin eyed her hesitantly before darting in and closing the door softly behind her. The sul’dam took a deep breath, then knelt, holding herself stiffly upright. Her dark blue dress with its lightning-worked red panels looked freshly cleaned and ironed. The sharp contrast to her own dishevelment irritated Egeanin. “My Lady,” Bethamin began uncertainly, then swallowed. “My Lady, I beg a word with you.” Glancing at Bayle, she licked her lips. “In private, if it pleases you, my Lady?”

The last time Egeanin had seen this woman was in a basement in Tanchico, when she removed an a’dam from Bethamin and told her to go. That would have been enough for blackmail if she were of the High Blood! Without doubt the charge would be the same as for freeing a damane. Treason. Except that Bethamin could not reveal it without condemning herself, too.

“He can hear anything you have to say, Bethamin,” she said calmly. She was in shoal waters, and that was no place for anything except calm. “What do you want?”

Bethamin shifted on her knees and wasted more time with lip licking. Then, suddenly, words came out in a rush. “A Seeker came to me and ordered me to resume our . . . our acquaintance and report on you to him.” As if to stop herself babbling, she caught her underlip in her teeth and stared at Egeanin. Her dark eyes were desperate and pleading, just as they had been in that Tanchico basement.

Egeanin met her gaze coolly. Shoal waters, and an unexpected gale. Her strange orders to Ebou Dar suddenly were explained. She did not need a description to know it must be the same man. Nor did she need to ask why Bethamin was committing treason by betraying the Seeker. If he decided his suspicions were strong enough to take her for questioning, eventually Egeanin would tell him everything she knew, including about a certain basement, and Bethamin would soon find herself once more wearing an a’dam. The woman’s only hope was to help Egeanin evade him.

“Rise,” she said. “Have a seat.” Luckily, there were two chairs, though neither appeared comfortable. “Bayle, I think there is brandy in that flask on the drawered chest.”

Bethamin was so shaky that Egeanin had to help her up and guide her to a chair. Bayle brought worked silver cups holding a little brandy and remembered to bow and present Egeanin’s first, but when he returned to the chest, she saw he had poured for himself, as well. He stood there, cup in hand, watching them as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Bethamin stared at him pop-eyed.

“You think you are poised over the impaling stake,” Egeanin said, and the sul’dam flinched, her frightened gaze jerking back to Egeanin’s face. “You are wrong, Bethamin. The only real crime I have committed was freeing you.” Not precisely true, but in the end, after all, she had placed the male a’dam in Suroth’s hands herself. And talking with Aes Sedai was not a crime. The Seeker might suspect—he had tried to listen at a door in Tanchico—but she was not a sul’dam, charged with catching marath’damane. At worst that meant a reprimand. “So long as he doesn’t learn about that, he has no reason to arrest me. If he wants to know what I say, or anything else about me, tell him. Just remember that if he does decide to arrest me, I will give him your name.” A reminder could only guard against Bethamin suddenly thinking she saw a safe way out, leaving her behind. “He won’t have to make me scream once.”

To her surprise, the sul’dam began to laugh hysterically. Until Egeanin leaned forward and slapped her, anyway.

Rubbing her cheek sullenly, Bethamin said, “He knows near enough everything except the basement, my Lady.” And she began to describe a fantastical web of treason connecting Egeanin and Bayle and Suroth and maybe even Tuon herself with Aes Sedai, and marath’damane, and damane who had been Aes Sedai.

Bethamin’s voice began to grow panicky as she darted from one incredible charge to another, and before long, Egeanin began sipping brandy. Just sips. She was calm. She was in command of herself. She was . . . This was beyond shoal waters. She was riding close on a lee shore, and Soulblinder himself rode that gale, coming to steal her eyes. After listening for a time with his own eyes growing wider and wider, Bayle drank down a brimful cup of the dark raw liquor in one go. She was relieved to see his shock, and guilty at feeling relieved. She would not believe him a murderer. Besides, he was very good using his hands but only fair at a sword; with weapons or bare-handed, the High Lord Turak would have gutted Bayle like a carp. Her only excuse for even considering it was that he had been with two Aes Sedai in Tanchico. The whole thing was nonsense. It had to be! Those two Aes Sedai had not been part of any plot, just a chance meeting. Light’s truth, they had been little more than girls, and near innocents at that, too softhearted to accept her suggestion they cut the Seeker’s throat when they had the chance. A pity, that. They had handed her the male a’dam. Ice crept down her spine. If the Seeker ever learned she had intended disposing of the a’dam the way those Aes Sedai suggested, if anyone learned, she would be judged as guilty of treason as if she had succeeded in dropping it into the ocean’s depths. Are you not? she demanded of herself. The Dark One was coming to steal her eyes.

Tears streaming down her face, Bethamin clutched her cup to her breasts as though hugging herself. If she was trying to keep from shaking, she failed miserably. Trembling, she stared at Egeanin, or perhaps at something beyond her. Something horrifying. The fire had not warmed the room very far yet, but sweat was beaded on Bethamin’s face. “ . . . and if he learns about Renna and Seta,” she babbled, “he will know for sure! He’ll come after me, and the other sul’dam! You have to stop him! If he takes me, I’ll give him your name! I will!” Abruptly she tilted lifted the cup to her mouth unsteadily and gulped the contents, choking and coughing, then thrust it out toward Bayle for more. He did not move. He looked poleaxed.

“Who are Renna and Seta?” Egeanin asked. She was as frightened as the sul’dam, but as always, she kept her fear hard-reefed. “What can the Seeker learn about them?” Bethamin’s eyes slid away, refusing to meet hers, and abruptly she knew. “They are sul’dam, aren’t they, Bethamin? And they were collared, too, just like you.”

“They are in Suroth’s service,” the woman whimpered. “They are never allowed to be complete, though. Suroth knows.”

Egeanin rubbed at her eyes wearily. Perhaps there was a conspiracy, after all. Or Suroth might be hiding what the pair were to protect the Empire. The Empire depended on sul’dam; its strength was built on them. The news that sul’dam were women who could learn to channel might shatter the Empire to its core. It had surely shaken her. Maybe shattered her. She herself had not freed Bethamin out of duty. So many things had changed in Tanchico. She no longer believed that any woman who could channel deserved to be collared. Criminals, certainly, and maybe those who refused oaths to the Crystal Throne, and . . . She did not know. Once, her life had been made up of rock-solid certainties, like guiding stars that never failed. She wanted her old life back. She wanted a few certainties.

“I thought,” Bethamin began. She would have no lips left if she did not stop licking them. “My Lady, if the Seeker . . . suffers an accident . . . perhaps the danger would pass with him.” Light, the woman believed in this intrigue against the Crystal Throne, and she was ready to let it pass to save her own skin!

Egeanin rose, and the sul’dam had no choice but to follow. “I will think on it, Bethamin. You will come to see me every day you are free. The Seeker will expect it. Until I make my decision, you will do nothing. Do you understand me? Nothing except your duties and what I tell you.” Bethamin understood. She was so relieved that someone else was dealing with the danger that she knelt again and kissed Egeanin’s hand.

All but bundling the woman out of the room, Egeanin closed the door, then hurled her cup at the fireplace. It hit the bricks and bounced off, rolling across the small rug on the floor. It was dented. Her father had given her that set of cups when she gained her first command. All the strength seemed to have leached out other. The Seeker had knitted moonbeams and happenstance into a strangling cord for her neck. If she was not named property instead. She shuddered at the possibility. Whatever she did, the Seeker had her trapped.

“I can kill him.” Bayle flexed his hands, broad like the rest of him. “He be a skinny man, as I recall. Used to everyone obeying his word. He will no be expecting anyone to snap his neck.”

“You’ll never find him to kill, Bayle. He won’t meet her in the same place twice, and even if you followed her day and night, he might well be in disguise. You cannot kill every man she speaks to.”

Stiffening her spine, she marched to the table where her writing desk sat and flipped open the lid. The wave-carved writing desk, with its silver-mounted glass inkpot and silver sand jar, had been her mother’s gift at that first command. The neatly stacked sheets of fine paper bore her newly granted sigil, a sword and a fouled anchor. “I will write out your manumission,” she said, dipping the silver pen, “and give you enough coin to buy passage.” The pen glided across the page. She had always had a good hand. Log entries had to be legible. “Not enough to buy a ship, I fear, but it must do. You will depart on the first available ship. Shave the rest of your head, and you should have no trouble. It’s still a shock, seeing bald men not wearing wigs, but so far no one seems to—” She gasped as Bayle slid the page right out from under her pen.

“If you do free me, you can no give me orders,” he said. “Besides, you must ensure I can support myself if you do free me.” He stuck the page into the fire and watched while it blackened and curled. “A ship, you did say, and I will hold you to it.”

“Listen well and hear,” she said in her best quarterdeck voice, but it made no impression on him. It had to be the cursed dress.

“You do need a crew,” he said right over her, “and I can find you one, even here.”

“What good will a crew do me? I don’t have a ship. If I did, where could I sail that the Seeker couldn’t find me?”

Bayle shrugged as though that was not important. “A crew, first. I did recognize that young fellow in the kitchens, the one with the lass on his knee. Stop grimacing. There be no harm to a little kissing.”

She drew herself up, prepared to set him firmly to rights. She was frowning, not grimacing, that pair had been groping at one another in public like animals, and he was her property! He could not speak to her this way!

“His name be Mat Cauthon,” Bayle went on even as she opened her mouth. “By his clothes, he has come up in the world, and far. The first time I did see him, he did be in a farmer’s coat, escaping Trollocs in a place even Trollocs be afraid of. The last time, half the town of Whitebridge did be burning, close enough to, and a Myrddraal did be trying to kill him and his friends. I did no see for myself, but anything else be more than I can believe. Any man who can survive Trollocs and Myrddraal do be useful, I think. Especially now.”

“Someday,” she growled, “I am going to have to see some of these Trollocs and Myrddraal you go on about.” The things could not be half as fearsome as he described.

He grinned and shook his head. He knew what she thought about these so-called Shadowspawn. “Better still, young Master Cauthon did have companions on my ship. Good men for this situation, too. One, you do know. Thom Merrilin.”

Egeanin’s breath caught. Merrilin was a clever old man. A dangerous old man. And he had been with those two Aes Sedai when she met Bayle. “Bayle, is there a conspiracy? Tell me. Please?” No one said please to property, not even to so’jhin. Not unless they wanted something badly, anyway.

Shaking his head again, he leaned a hand on the stone mantel piece and frowned into the flames. “Aes Sedai do plot the way fish swim. They could scheme with Suroth, but the question do be, could she scheme with them? I did see her look at damane, like they did be mangy dogs with fleas and catching diseases. Could she even talk to an Aes Sedai?” He looked up, and his eyes were clear and open, hiding nothing. “I do tell this for true. On my grandmother’s grave, I do know of no plot. But did I know of ten, I still will no let that Seeker or anyone else harm you, whatever it do take.” It was the sort of thing any loyal so’jhin might say. Well, no so’jhin she had ever heard of would have been so straightforward, but the sentiments were the same. Only, she knew he did not mean it that way, could never mean it that way.

“Thank you, Bayle.” A steady voice was a necessity for command, but she was proud that hers was steady now. “Find this Master Cauthon, and Thom Merrilin, if you can. Perhaps something can be done.”

He failed to bow before leaving her presence, but she did not even consider upbraiding him. She did not intend to let the Seeker take her, either. Whatever it took to stop him. That was a decision she had reached before she freed Bethamin. She filled the dented cup to the brim with brandy, meaning to get so drunk she could not think, but instead she sat peering into the dark liquid without touching a drop. Whatever it took. Light, she was no better than Bethamin! But knowing it changed nothing. Whatever it took.