Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 219

That was the first Galina realized that Therava was not alone. Several hundred men, women and children stood among the trees behind them, some of the men carrying women slung over their shoulders, of all things. She covered herself with her hands, her face heating. Those long days of enforced nakedness had not inured her to being unclothed in front of men. Then she noticed another oddity. Only a handful were algai’d’siswai, with bow cases on their backs and quivers at their hips, but every man and every woman except the Wise Ones among them was carrying at least one spear. They had their faces veiled, too, with a scarf or just a scrap of cloth. What could it mean?

“We are returning to the Three-fold Land,” Therava said. “We will send runners to find every sept that can be found and tell them to abandon their wetlander gai’shain, abandon everything they must, and make their way by stealth back to the Three-fold Land. We will rebuild our clan. The Shaido will rise from the disaster Sevanna led us to.”

“That will take generations!” Modarra protested. Slim and quite pretty, but even taller than Therava, as tall as most Aielmen, she stood up to Therava unflinchingly. Galina could not understand how she did that. The woman made her flinch with a glance.

“Then we will take generations,” Therava said firmly. “We will take whatever time is necessary. And we will never leave the Three-fold Land again.” Her gaze shifted to Galina. Who flinched. “You will never touch this again,” she said, raising the rod briefly. “And you will never try to escape me again. She has a strong back. Load her, and let us be on our way. They may try to pursue us.”

Burdened with waterskins and pots and kettles till she almost felt decently covered, Galina staggered through the forest at Therava’s heels. She did not think of the rod, or escape. Something had broken in her. She was Galina Casban, Highest of the Red Ajah, who sat on the Supreme Council of the Black Ajah, and she was going to be Therava’s plaything for the rest of her life. She was Therava’s little Lina. For the rest of her life. She knew that to her bones. Tears rolled silently down her face.

CHAPTER 31 The House on Full Moon Street

They must stay together,” Elayne said firmly. “The two of you shouldn’t be out by yourselves, for that matter. Always three or four together anywhere in Caemlyn. That’s the only way to be safe.” Just two of the mirrored stand-lamps were lit, six flames filling the sitting room with a dim light and the scent of lilies—so much of the lamp oil had gone bad that it was always perfumed, now—but a crackling fire on the hearth was beginning to take away some of the early hour’s coolness.

“There are times a woman wants a little privacy,” Sumeko replied calmly, as if yet another Kinswoman had not just died from wanting privacy. Her voice was calm, at least, but plump hands smoothed her dark blue skirts.

“If you won’t put the fear of the Light into them, Sumeko, I will,” Alise said, her usually mild face stern. She looked the elder of the two, with touches of gray in her hair compared to the glossy black hair that fell below Sumeko’s stout shoulders, yet she was the younger by better than two hundred years. Alise had been intrepid when Ebou Dar fell and they were forced to flee the Seanchan, but her hands moved on her brown skirts, too.

It was long past the bedtime that Essande’s niece Melfane had decreed, but tired as she was all the time, once Elayne woke, she could never get back to sleep, and warm goat’s milk did not help. Warm goat’s milk tasted worse than cool. She was going to make Rand bloody al’Thor drink warm bloody goat’s milk till it came out of his ears! Right after she found out what had hurt him badly enough that she sensed a small jolt of pain while everything else in that small knot in the back of her head that was him remained as vague as a stone. It had been all a stone again ever since, so he was all right, yet something had hurt him deeply for her to sense anything at all. And why was he Traveling so often? One day, he was far to the southeast, the next to the northwest and even more distant, the day after that somewhere else. Was he running from whoever had hurt him? But she had her own worries at the moment.

Unable to sleep and restless, she had dressed herself in the first thing that came to hand, a dark gray riding dress, and gone for a walk to enjoy the stillness of the palace in the small hours of the morning, when even the servants were abed and flickering stand-lamps were the only things that moved in the hallways aside from her. Her and her bodyguards, but she was learning to ignore their presence. She did enjoy the solitude, until the two women encountered her and delivered the sad news that would have awaited sunrise otherwise. She had brought them back to her smaller sitting room to discuss the matter behind a ward against listeners.

Sumeko shifted her bulk in her armchair to glare at Alise. “Reanne let you press boundaries, but as Eldest, I expect—“

“You’re not Eldest, Sumeko,” the smaller woman said coolly. “You have the authority here, but by the Rule, the Knitting Circle consists of the thirteen eldest of us in Ebou Dar. We aren’t in Ebou Dar any longer, so there is no Knitting Circle.”

Sumeko’s round face grew hard as granite. “At least you admit I have the authority.”

“And I expect you to use it to prevent any more of us being murdered. Suggesting isn’t enough, Sumeko, no matter how strongly you say you suggest. It isn’t enough.”

“Arguing will get us nowhere,” Elayne said. “I know you’re on edge. I am, too.” Light, three women murdered with the One Power in the last ten days, and very likely seven more before that, were enough to put an anvil on edge. “But snapping at each other is the worst thing we can do. Sumeko, you need to put your foot down. I don’t care how much anyone wants privacy, no one can be by herself for a minute. Alise, use your persuasion.” Persuasion was not exactly the word. Alise did not persuade. She simply expected people to do as she said, and they nearly always did. “Convince the others that Sumeko is right. Between the two of you, you have to—“

The door opened to admit Deni, who closed it again behind her and bowed, one hand on her sword hilt, the other on her long cudgel. The red-lacquered breastplates and helmets, trimmed in white, had been delivered only yesterday, and the stocky woman had been smiling ever since she donned hers, but she looked solemn behind the face-bars now. “Pardon for interrupting, my Lady, but there’s an Aes Sedai here demanding to see you. A Red, by her shawl. I told her you were likely sleeping, but she was ready to come in an