Lord of Chaos

## Chapter 24

#### An Embassy

Turning away from the musicians on the street corner, a perspiring woman puffing at a long flute and a red-faced man plucking a nine-string bittern, Egwene threaded her way through the crowd with a light heart. The sun stood high in the sky, molten gold, and the paving stones were hot enough to burn through the soles of her soft boots. Sweat dripped from her nose, her shawl felt like a heavy blanket even looped loosely over her elbows, and there was enough dust in the air that she already wanted to wash, yet she smiled. Some people eyed her askance, when they thought she was not looking, which almost made her laugh. That was how they looked at Aiel. People saw what they expected to see, and they saw a woman in Aiel garb, never noticing her eyes or her height.

Hawkers and peddlers cried their wares, competing against the shouts of butchers and candlemakers, the rattle and clatter from silversmiths’ and potters’ shops, the squeal of ungreased axles. Rough-tongued wagon drivers and men walking alongside ox-carts loudly contested the way with dark-lacquered sedan chairs and sober coaches with House sigils on the doors. There were musicians everywhere, along with tumblers and jugglers. A knot of pale women in riding dresses, carrying swords, swaggered by, imitating how they imagined men behaved, laughing too raucously and pushing their way in a manner that would have started a dozen fights in a hundred paces had they been men. A blacksmith’s hammer rang on his anvil. In general a babble and hum of bustle hung in the air, the noise of a city that she had almost forgotten among the Aiel. Perhaps she had missed it.

She did laugh then, right there in the street. The first time she had heard the noise of a city, it had nearly stunned her. Sometimes it seemed that wide-eyed girl had been someone else.

A woman working her bay mare through the crowd turned to look at her curiously. The horse had small silver bells tied in her long mane and tail, and the woman had more bells in the dark hair that hung halfway down her back. Pretty, she could not have been much older than Egwene, but she had a hardness to her face, and a sharp eye, and no fewer than six knives at her belt, one nearly as large as an Aiel’s. A Hunter for the Horn, no doubt.

A tall handsome man in a green coat, two swords on his back, watched the woman ride on. He was probably another. They seemed to be everywhere. As the crowd swallowed the woman on the bay, he turned and saw Egwene looking at him. Smiling with sudden interest, he squared broad shoulders and started toward her.

Hastily Egwene put on her coldest face, tried to combine Sorilea at her sternest with Siuan Sanche, the stole of the Amyrlin Seat around her shoulders.

He stopped, looking surprised. As he turned away, she distinctly heard him growl, “Flaming Aiel.” She could not help laughing again; he must have heard despite the noise, because he stiffened, shaking his head. But he did not look back.

The source of her good mood was twofold. One was the Wise Ones finally agreeing that walking in the city provided as much exercise as walking around it outside the walls. Sorilea in particular did not seem to understand why she wanted to spend a minute more than she had to among throngs of wetlanders, especially cramped inside walls. Mostly, though, she felt good because they had told her that now the headaches that had puzzled them so were completely gone—she had not been able to hide them altogether—she could return to Tel’aran’rhiod soon. Not in time for the next meeting, three nights off, but before the one after.

That was a relief in more ways than one. An end to having to sneak into the World of Dreams. An end to laboriously working everything out for herself. An end to being terrified the Wise Ones would catch her and refuse to teach her any more. An end to needing to lie. It was necessary—she could not afford to waste time; there was too much to learn, and she could not believe she would have time to learn it all—but they would never understand.

Aiel dotted the crowd, both in cadin’sor and in gai’shain white. The gai’shain went where they were sent, yet the others might well be inside the walls for their first time, and quite possibly their last. The Aiel really did not seem to like cities, though a good many had come in six days ago, to see Mangin hang. It was said he put the noose around his own neck, and made some Aiel joke about whether the rope would break his neck or his neck the rope. She had heard several Aiel repeat the joke, but never a comment about the hanging. Rand had liked Mangin; she was sure of it. Berelain had informed the Wise Ones of the sentence as though telling them their wash would be ready the next day, and the Wise Ones had listened the same way. Egwene did not think she would ever understand Aiel. She was very much afraid she did not understand Rand anymore. As for Berelain, Egwene understood her all too well; that one was only interested in men who were alive.

With thoughts like those, it took an effort to regain her good mood. The city was certainly no cooler than outside the walls—in fact, with no breeze and people so close, it might have been hotter—and nearly as dusty, but at least she was not trudging along with nothing to look at but the ashes of Foregate. A few more days and she would be able to learn again, to really learn. That put a smile back on her face.

She stopped near a wiry, damp-faced Illuminator; it was easy to tell what he was, or had been. His thick mustaches were not covered by the diaphanous veil Taraboners often wore, but baggy breeches, embroidered on the legs, and an equally loose shirt embroidered across the chest marked him well enough. He was selling finches and warblers in crudely made cages. With their chapter house burned by the Shaido, a number of Illuminators were trying to find the means to return to Tarabon.

“I have it from the most reliable source,” he was telling a handsome graying woman in a plainly cut dark blue dress. A merchant, no doubt, catching a jump on those waiting for better times in Cairhien. “The Aes Sedai,” the Illuminator confided, leaning over a caged bird to whisper, “they are divided. The Aes Sedai, they are at war. With one another.” The merchant nodded agreement.

Egwene stopped pretending to consider a green-headed finch and moved on, though she had to hop out of the way of a round-faced gleeman, striding along with self-important flourishes of his patch-covered cloak. Gleemen knew very well that they were among the few wetlanders welcome in the Waste; Aiel did not intimidate them. At least, they pretended so.

That rumor troubled her. Not that the Tower had split apart—that could not have been kept secret much longer—but talk of war between Aes Sedai. Knowing that Aes Sedai were set against Aes Sedai was like knowing one part of her family was set against another, just barely tolerable for knowing the reasons, yet the thought that it might come to more . . . if only there were some way to Heal the Tower, to make it whole again without bloodshed.

A little farther down the street, a perspiring Foregate woman who might have been pretty if her face were cleaner was dispensing rumor along with ribbons and pins from a tray hung from a neckstrap. She wore a blue silk dress, slashed with red in the skirt, that had been made for a shorter woman; the heavily worn hem was high enough to show her stout shoes, and holes in the sleeves and bodice showed where embroidery had been picked out. “I tell you a fact,” she informed the women picking over her tray, “there has been Trollocs seen around the city. Ah, yes, that green will set off your eyes. Hundreds of Trollocs and . . . ”

Egwene barely paused. If there had been even one Trolloc anywhere near the city, the Aiel would have known long before it became street gossip. She wished the Wise Ones gossiped. Well, they did, sometimes, but only about other Aiel. As far as Aiel were concerned, nothing about wetlanders was very absorbing. Being able to pop into Elaida’s study in Tel’aran’rhiod whenever she wanted and read the woman’s letters had accustomed her to knowing what was happening in the world, though.

Abruptly Egwene realized she was looking around differently, looking at people’s faces. There were Aes Sedai eyes-and-ears in Cairhien as surely as she was sweating. Elaida must receive a report a day by pigeon from Cairhien, if not more. Tower spies, Ajah spies, spies for individual Aes Sedai. They were everywhere, often where and who you least suspected. Why were those two tumblers just standing there? Were they catching their breath, or watching her? They sprang back into action, one leaping up to a handstand on the other’s shoulders.

A spy for the Yellow Ajah had once tried to bundle Elayne and Nynaeve off to Tar Valon, on orders issued by Elaida. Egwene did not actually know that Elaida wanted her as well, but assuming anything else would be very foolish. Egwene could not make herself believe that Elaida would forgive anyone who had worked closely for the woman she deposed.

For that matter, some of the Aes Sedai in Salidar probably had eyes-and-ears here too. If word ever reached them of “Egwene Sedai of the Green Ajah . . . ” It could be anybody. That skinny woman in the shop door, apparently studying a bolt of dark gray cloth. Or the blowsy woman lolling beside the tavern door, flapping her apron at her face. Or that fat fellow with his pushcart full of pies—Why was he looking at her so strangely? She very nearly headed for the nearest city gate.

It was the fat fellow who stopped her, or rather the way he suddenly tried to cover his pies with his hands. He was staring at her because she had been staring at him. He was probably afraid an Aiel “savage” was going to take some of his wares without paying.

Egwene laughed weakly. Aiel. Even people who looked her in the face assumed she was Aiel. A Tower agent who was looking for her would walk right past. Feeling a good deal better, she went back to meandering through the streets, listening where she could.

The trouble was, she had grown used to knowing things just weeks, or even days, after they happened, and with a certainty that they had happened. Rumor might cross a hundred miles in a day or take a month, and it birthed ten daughters every day. Today she learned that Siuan had been executed because she unearthed the Black Ajah, that Siuan was Black Ajah and still alive, that the Black Ajah had driven those Aes Sedai who were not Black from the Tower. They were not new tales, only variations on old. One new story, spreading like fire in a summer meadow, was that the Tower had been behind all the false Dragons; that made her so angry she stalked away stiff-backed every time she heard it. Which meant she did a good bit of stiff-backed stalking. She heard that Andorans in Aringill had declared some noblewoman queen—Dylin, Delin, the name varied—now that Morgase was dead, which might be true, and that Aes Sedai were running around Arad Doman doing very improbable things, which was certainly untrue. The Prophet was coming to Cairhien; the Prophet had been crowned King of Ghealdan—no, Amadicia; the Dragon Reborn had killed the Prophet for blasphemy. The Aiel were all leaving; no, they meant to settle and stay. Berelain was to be crowned on the Sun Throne. A skinny little man with shifty eyes nearly got himself beaten by his listeners outside a tavern for saying that Rand was one of the Forsaken, but Egwene stepped into that without thought.

“Have you no honor?” she demanded coldly. The four coarse-faced men who had been on the point of grabbing the skinny fellow blinked at her. They were Cairhienin, not all that much taller than she, but much bulkier, with the broken noses and sunken knuckles of brawlers, yet she held them where they stood with her sheer intensity. That and the presence of Aiel in the street; they were not fool enough to become rough with an Aiel woman, as they thought, in those circumstances. “If you must face a man for what he says, face him one at a time, in honor. This is not battle; you shame yourselves to go four at one.”

They stared at her as if she were mad, and slowly her face reddened. She hoped they thought it anger. Not how dare you pick on someone weaker, but how dare you not let him fight you one by one? She had just lectured them as if they followed ji’e’toh. Of course, if they did, there would have been no need to lecture.

One of the men ducked his head in a sort of half-bow. His nose was not only crooked, the tip was missing. “Uh . . . he is gone now . . . uh . . . mistress. Can we go too?”

It was true; the skinny man had used her interference to vanish. She felt a flash of contempt. Running because he feared to face four. How could he bear the shame? Light, she was doing it again.

She opened her mouth to say that of course they could—and nothing came out. They took her silence for assent, or maybe excuse, and hurried away, but she barely noticed them go. She was too busy staring at the back of a mounted party making its way up the street.

She did not recognize the dozen or so green-cloaked soldiers forcing a path through the crowd, but who they escorted was a different matter. She could only see the backs of the women—five or six, she thought, between the soldiers—just parts of their backs, but that was more than enough. Much more. The women wore light dustcloaks, pale linen in shades of brown, and Egwene found herself staring right at what seemed to be a pure white disc embroidered on the back of one of those cloaks. Only the stitching picked out the white Flame of Tar Valon from the border signifying the White Ajah. She caught a glimpse of green, of red. Red! Five or six Aes Sedai, riding toward the Royal Palace, where a copy of the Dragon banner waved fitfully atop a stepped tower alongside one of Rand’s crimson flags bearing the ancient Aes Sedai symbol. Some called that the Dragon banner, and others al’Thor’s banner, or even the Aiel banner, and a dozen other names besides.

Wriggling through the crowd, she followed them maybe twenty paces, then stopped. A Red sister—at least one Red that she had seen—had to mean this was the long-expected embassy from the Tower, the one Elaida had written would escort Rand to Tar Valon. More than two months since that letter arrived by a hard-riding courier; this party must have left not long behind.

They would not find Rand—not unless he had slipped in unannounced; she had decided that he had somehow rediscovered the Talent called Traveling, but that put her no closer to knowing how it was done—yet whether they found Rand or not, they must not find Egwene. The best she could expect was to be hauled up short as an Accepted out of the Tower with no full sister to oversee her, and that could be expected only if Elaida really was not hunting for her. Even then they would haul her back to Tar Valon, and Elaida; she had no illusions that she could resist five or six Aes Sedai.

With a last look after the receding Aes Sedai, she gathered her skirts and began to run, dodging between people, sometimes caroming off them, ducking under the noses of teams pulling wagons or carriages. Angered shouts followed her. When she at last dashed through one of the tall square-arched city gates, the hot wind hit her in the face. Unhindered by buildings, it carried sheets of dust that made her cough, but she kept running, all the way back to the Wise One’s low tents.

To her surprise a sleek gray mare, saddle and bridle worked and fringed with gold, stood outside Amys’s tent, in the charge of a gai’shain who kept his eyes down except when patting the spirited animal. Ducking inside, she found the rider, Berelain, sipping tea with Amys and Bair and Sorilea, all stretched out on bright, tasseled cushions. A white-robed woman, Rodera, knelt to one side, meekly waiting to refill cups.

“There are Aes Sedai in the city,” Egwene said as soon as she was inside, “heading toward the Sun Palace. It must be Elaida’s embassy to Rand.”

Berelain rose gracefully; Egwene had to admit, if grudgingly, that the woman was graceful. And her riding dress was decently cut, for even she was not fool enough to go riding in the sun in her usual garb. The others rose with her. “I must return to the palace, it seems,” she sighed. “The Light knows how they will feel about no one there to greet them. Amys, if you know where Rhuarc is, could you send a message for him to meet me?”

Amys nodded, but Sorilea said, “You should not depend on Rhuarc so much, girl. Rand al’Thor gave Cairhien to you to tend. Let most men have a finger, and they will have the whole hand before you know. Let a clan chief have a finger, and he will have the entire arm.”

“It is true,” Amys murmured. “Rhuarc is the shade of my heart, but it is true.”

Pulling slim riding gloves from behind her belt, Berelain began tugging them on. “He reminds me of my father. Too much so, sometimes.” For an instant she grimaced ruefully. “But he gives very good advice. And he knows when to loom, and how much. I think even Aes Sedai must be impressed by Rhuarc staring at them.”

Amys laughed in her throat. “He is impressive. I will send him to you.” She kissed Berelain lightly on the forehead and each cheek.

Egwene stared; that was how a mother kissed her son or daughter. What was going on between Berelain and the Wise Ones? She could not ask, of course. Such a question would be shaming to her and to the Wise Ones. To Berelain too, though Berelain would not know it, and Egwene would not mind shaming Berelain until her hair fell out.

As Berelain turned to leave the tent, Egwene put a hand on the woman’s arm. “They must be handled carefully. They’ll not be friendly toward Rand, but the wrong words, a wrong move, could make them open enemies.” That was true enough, but not what she needed to say. She would rather have her tongue torn out than ask a favor of Berelain.

“I have dealt with Aes Sedai before, Egwene Sedai,” the other woman said dryly.

Egwene refrained from drawing a deep breath. It had to be done, but she would not let this woman see how hard it was. “Elaida means no good to Rand, no more than a weasel means to a chicken, and these Aes Sedai are Elaida’s. If they learn of an Aes Sedai on Rand’s side, here where they can reach her, she might just disappear one day soon after.” Looking into Berelain’s unreadable face, she could not make herself say more.

After a long moment, Berelain smiled. “Egwene Sedai, I will do whatever I can for Rand.” Both smile and tone of voice . . . insinuated.

“Girl,” Sorilea said sharply, and for a wonder, spots of color bloomed in Berelain’s cheeks.

Not looking at Egwene, Berelain said in a carefully neutral voice, “I would appreciate it if you did not tell Rhuarc.” In fact, she was not looking at anyone, but she tried to ignore Egwene’s presence.

“We will not,” Amys put in quickly, leaving Sorilea with her mouth open. “We will not.” The repetition was directed at Sorilea with a blend of firmness and asking, and at last the eldest Wise One nodded, if somewhat grudgingly. Berelain actually sighed with relief before ducking out of the tent.

“The child has spirit,” Sorilea laughed as soon as Berelain was gone. Reclining on the cushions again, she patted the space next to her for Egwene. “We should find the right husband for her, a man to match her. If such exists among wetlanders.”

Wiping her hands and face with the damp cloth Rodera brought, Egwene wondered whether that was enough opening to ask about Berelain in good honor. She accepted a teacup of green Sea Folk porcelain and took her place in the circle of Wise Ones. If one of the others responded to Sorilea, that might be enough.

“Are you certain these Aes Sedai mean harm to the Car’a’carn?” Amys asked instead.

Egwene colored. Thinking about gossip when there were important matters to attend. “Yes,” she replied quickly, then more slowly, “At least . . . I don’t know that they mean to harm him, exactly. Not intentionally, anyway.” Elaida’s letter had mentioned “all the honor and respect” he deserved. How much did a former Red sister think any man who could channel deserved? “But I don’t doubt they will want to control him somehow, make him do what Elaida wants. They aren’t his friends.” How much were the Salidar Aes Sedai his friends? Light, she needed to talk with Nynaeve and Elayne. “And they will not care that he is the Car’a’carn.” Sorilea grunted sourly.

“You believe they will try to harm you?” Bair asked, and Egwene nodded.

“If they discover I’m here . . . ” She tried to cover a shiver by sipping her mint tea. Whether as a handle on Rand or as an unsupervised Accepted, they would do their best to haul her back to the Tower. “They’ll not leave me free if they can help it. Elaida will not want Rand listening to anyone but her.” Bair and Amys exchanged grim looks.

“Then the answer is simple.” Sorilea sounded as if it had all been decided. “You will stay among the tents, and they will not find you. Wise Ones avoid Aes Sedai, in any case. If you remain with us a few more years, we will make a fine Wise One of you.”

Egwene almost dropped her cup. “You flatter me,” she said carefully, “but sooner or later, I will have to go.” Sorilea did not look convinced. Egwene had learned to hold her own with Amys and Bair, after a fashion, but Sorilea . . .

“Not soon, I think,” Bair told her, with a smile to take the sting out. “You have much to learn yet.”

“Yes, and eager to get back to it,” Amys added. Egwene struggled not to blush, and Amys frowned. “You look odd. Did you overuse yourself this morning? I was sure you had recovered enough—”

“I have,” Egwene said hastily. “Truly, I have. I haven’t had a headache in days. It was the dust, running back here. And the crowd in the city was more than I remembered. And I was so excited, I didn’t breakfast very well.”

Sorilea motioned to Rodera. “Bring some honey-bread, if there is any, and cheese, and any fruit you can find.” She poked Egwene in the ribs. “A woman should have some flesh to her.” That from a woman who looked as if she had been left in the sun till most of her flesh had dried away.

Egwene did not really mind eating—she had been too excited to eat this morning—but Sorilea watched every bite go down, and her scrutiny made swallowing a little difficult. That and the fact that they wanted to discuss what to do about the Aes Sedai. If the Aes Sedai were hostile to Rand, they would have to be watched, and a way found to safeguard him. Even Sorilea was a bit edgy about the possibility that they might be putting themselves against Aes Sedai directly—not afraid; it was going against custom that made them uneasy—but whatever was necessary to protect the Car’a’carn had to be done.

For Egwene’s part, she worried that they might turn Sorilea’s suggestion that she remain among the tents into a command. There would be no way to evade that one, no way to avoid fifty eyes except by staying inside her own tent. How did Rand Travel? The Wise Ones would do whatever was necessary, so long as it did not touch ji’e’toh: Wise Ones might interpret it differently here and there, but they held to their interpretation as tightly as any other Aiel. Light, Rodera was Shaido, one of thousands captured in the battle that drove the Shaido away from the city, but the Wise Ones treated her no differently than any other gai’shain, and as far as Egwene could see, Rodera behaved no differently than any other gai’shain, not in the slightest. They would not go against ji’e’toh, no matter how necessary it might be.

Fortunately the subject did not come up. Unfortunately, the question of her health did. The Wise Ones did not know Healing, or how to check someone’s health with the Power. Instead, they tested with their own methods. Some seemed familiar from when she had studied under Nynaeve to become a Wisdom: peering into her eyes, listening to her heart through a hollow wooden tube. Some were distinctly Aiel. She touched her toes until she felt dizzy, jumped up and down in one place until she thought her eyes would bounce out of her head, and ran around the Wise One’s tents until spots swam before her, then had water poured over her head by a gai’shain, drank as much as she could hold, gathered up her skirts, and ran some more. Aiel were great believers in hardiness. Had she been a step too slow, had she staggered to a halt before Amys said she could, they would have decided her health was not sufficiently recovered after all.

When Sorilea finally nodded and said, “You are as sound as a Maiden, girl,” Egwene was swaying and gulping for air. A Maiden would not have been, she was sure. Still, she felt pride. She had never thought of herself as soft, but she knew very well that before she began living with the Aiel she would have fallen on her face halfway through the test. Another year, she thought, and I will run as well as any Far Dareis Mai.

On the other hand, she was hardly up to returning to the city. She joined the Wise Ones in their sweat tent—for once they did not make her pour water over the hot rocks; Rodera did that—luxuriating in the damp heat as it relaxed her muscles, and only left because Rhuarc and two other clan chiefs, Timolan of the Miagoma and Indirian of the Codarra, joined them, tall massive graying men with hard sober faces. That sent her diving out of the tent to hastily wrap her shawl around her. She always expected to hear laughter when she did that, but the Aiel never seemed to understand why she hurried from the sweat tent whenever men came in. It would have fit right into Aiel humor if they had, but luckily they just did not make the connection, for which she was very glad.

Gathering the rest of her clothes in her arms from the neat piles outside the sweat tent, she hurried back to her own. The sun was sitting low now, and after a light meal, she was ready to fall asleep, too tired to even think of Tel’aran’rhiod. Too tired to remember most of her dreams, either—that was something the Wise Ones had been teaching her—but most of those she did remember were about Gawyn.