Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 253

Mazrim Taim drew the eye. He was tall, with a strongly hooked nose and an air of physical strength about him. An air of darkness, too. He sat there with his ankles crossed and one arm hanging over the heavy arm of the throne, yet he seemed ready to explode into violence. Interestingly, though his black coat was embroidered with blue-and-gold dragons that twined around the sleeves from elbows to cuffs, he did not wear the collar pins.

“Six sisters of the Red Ajah,” he said when they stopped short of the dais. His eyes. . . . She had only thought the Tairen’s eyes were augers. “Plainly you didn’t come to try gentling us all.” Chuckles rippled around the room. “Why did you come asking to speak to me?”

“I am Pevara Tazanovni, Sitter for the Red,” she said. “This is Javindhra Doraille, also a Red Sitter. The others are Tarna Feir, Desala Nevanche—“

“I didn’t ask your names,” Taim cut in coldly. “I asked why you came here.”

This was not going well. She managed not to take a deep breath, but she wanted to. Outwardly, she was cool and calm. Inside, she wondered whether she would end the day forcibly bonded. Or dead. “We want to discuss bonding Asha’man as Warders. After all, you’ve bonded fifty-one sisters. Against their will.” As well to let him know they were aware of that from the start. “We do not propose bonding any man against his will, however.”

A tall, golden-haired man standing near the dais sneered at her. “Why should we allow Aes Sedai to take any m—” Something unseen struck the side of his head so hard that his feet left the floor tiles before he fell in a heap, eyes closed and blood trickling from his nostrils.

A lean man with receding gray-streaked hair and a forked beard bent to touch a finger to the fallen man’s head. “He’s alive,” he said as he straightened, “but his skull’s cracked and his jaw’s broken.” He might have been talking about the weather. None of the men made any move to offer Healing. Not one!

“I have some small skill in Healing.” Melare said, gathering her skirts and already moving toward the fallen man. “Enough for this, I think. With your permission.”

Taim shook his head. “You do not have my permission. If Mishraile survives till nightfall, he’ll be Healed. Perhaps the pain will teach him to guard his tongue. You say you want to bond Warders? Reds?”

That last word carried a great deal of contempt, which Pevara chose to ignore. Tarna’s eyes could have turned the sun to an icicle, though. Pevara laid a cautionary hand on the other woman’s arm as she spoke. “Reds have experience with men who can channel.” Mutters rose among the watching Asha’man. Angry mutters. She ignored that, too. “We are not afraid of them. Custom can be as hard to change as law, harder at times, but it has been decided to change ours. Henceforth, Red sisters may bond Warders, but only men who can channel. Each sister may bond as many as she feels comfortable with. Given the Green, for example, I think that is unlikely to be more than three or four.”

“Very well.”

Pevara blinked in spite of herself. “‘Very well’?” She must have misunderstood him. He could not have been convinced so easily.

Taim’s eyes seemed to bore into her head. He spread his hands, and it was a mocking gesture. “What would you have me say? Fair is fair? Equal shares? Accept ‘very well’ and ask who will let you bond them. Besides, you must remember the old saying. Let the lord of chaos rule.” The chamber erupted with men’s laughter.

Pevara had never heard any saying like that. The laughter made the hair on the back of her neck try to stand.

The End of the Eleventh Boo