The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 195

The frantic headshaking was answer enough. When Nynaeve removed the gag, the woman only paused to swallow once before babbling, “I will not report you. I swear it. Only take this from my neck. I have gold. Take it. I swear, I will never tell anyone.”

“Be quiet,” Nynaeve snapped, and the woman shut her mouth immediately. “What is your name?”

“Seta. Please. I will answer you, but please take — it — off! If anyone sees it on me ...” Seta's eyes rolled down to stare at the leash, then squeezed shut. “Please?” she whispered.

Nynaeve realized something. She could never make Elayne wear that collar.

“Best we get on with it,” Elayne said firmly. She was down to her shift, too, now. “Give me a moment to put this other dress on, and — ”

“Put your own clothes back on,” Nynaeve said.

“Someone has to pretend to be a damane,” Elayne said, “or we will never reach Egwene. That dress fits you, and it cannot be Min. That leaves me.”

“I said put your clothes on. We have somebody to be our Leashed One.” Nynaeve tugged at the leash that held Seta, and the sul'dam gasped.

“No! No, please! If anyone sees me —” She cut off at Nynaeve's cold stare.

“As far as I am concerned, you are worse than a murderer, worse than a Darkfriend. I can't think of anything worse than you. The fact that I have to wear this thing on my wrist, to be the same as you for even an hour, sickens me. So if you think there is anything I'll balk at doing to you, think again. You don't want to be seen? Good. Neither do we. No one really looks at a damane, though. As long as you keep your head down the way a Leashed One is supposed to, no one will even notice you. But you had better do the best you can to make sure the rest of us aren't noticed, either. If we are, you surely will be seen, and if that is not enough to hold you, I promise you I'll make you curse the first kiss your mother ever gave your father. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” Seta said faintly. “I swear it.”

Nynaeve had to remove the bracelet in order for them to slide Elayne's graydyed dress down the leash and over Seta's head. It did not fit the woman well, being loose at the bosom and tight across the hips, but Nynaeve's would have been as bad, and too short besides. Nynaeve hoped people really did not look at damane. She put the bracelet back on reluctantly.

Elayne gathered up Nynaeve's clothes, wrapped the other dyed dress around them, and made a bundle, a bundle for a woman in farm clothes to be carrying as she followed a sul'dam and a damane. “Gawyn will eat his heart out when he hears about this,” she said, and laughed. It sounded forced.

Nynaeve looked at her closely, then at Min. It was time for the dangerous part. “Are you ready?”

Elayne's smile faded. “I am ready.”

“Ready,” Min said curtly.

“Where are you ... we ... going?” Seta said, quickly adding, “If I may ask?”

“Into the lions' den,” Elayne told her.

“To dance with the Dark One,” Min said.

Nynaeve sighed and shook her head. “What they are trying to say is, we are going where all the damane are kept, and we intend to free one of them.”

Seta was still gaping in astonishment when they hustled her out of the shed.

Bayle Domon watched the rising sun from the deck of his ship. The docks were already beginning to bustle, though the streets leading up from the harbor stood largely empty. A gull perched on a piling stared at him; gulls had pitiless eyes.

“Are you sure about this, Captain?” Yarin asked. “If the Seanchan wonder what we're all doing aboard — ”

“You just make certain there do be an axe near every mooring line,” Domon said curtly. “And, Yarin? Do any man try to cut a line before those women are aboard, I will split his skull.”

“What if they don't come, Captain? What if it's Seanchan soldiers instead?”

“Settle your bowels, man! If soldiers come, I will make a run for the harbor mouth, and the Light have mercy on us all. But until soldiers do come, I mean to wait for those women. Now go look as if you are no doing anything.”

Domon turned back to peering up into the town, toward where the damane were held. His fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the railing.

The breeze from the sea brought the smell of breakfast cook fires to Rand's nose, and tried to flap at his motheaten cloak, but he held it closed with one hand as Red neared the town. There had not been a coat to fit him in the clothes they had found, and he thought it best to keep the fine silver embroidery on his sleeves and the herons on his collar hidden. The Seanchan attitude toward conquered people carrying weapons might not extend to those with heronmark swords, either.

The first shadows of morning stretched out ahead of him. He could just see Hurin riding in among the wagon yards and horse lots. Only one or two men moved among the lines of merchant wagons, and they wore the long aprons of wheelwrights or blacksmiths. Ingtar, the first in, was already out of sight. Perrin and Mat followed behind Rand at spaced intervals. He did not look back to check on them. There was not supposed to be anything to connect them; five men coming into Falme at an early hour, but not together.

The horse lots surrounded him, horses already crowding the fences, waiting to be fed. Hurin put his head out from between two stables, their doors still closed and barred, saw Rand and motioned to him before ducking back. Rand turned the bay stallion that way.

Hurin stood holding his horse by the reins. He had on one of the long vests instead of his coat, and despite the heavy cloak that hid his short sword and swordbreaker, he shivered with the cold. “Lord Ingtar's back there,” he said, nodding down the narrow passage. “He says we'll leave the horses here and go the rest of the way on foot.” As Rand dismounted, the sniffer added, “Fain went right down that street, Lord Rand. I can almost smell it from here.”

Rand led Red down the way to where Ingtar had already tied his own behind the stable. The Shienaran did not look very much like a lord in a dirty fleece coat with holes worn through the leather in several places, and his sword looked odd belted over it. His eyes had a feverish intensity.

Tying Red alongside Ingtar's stallion, Rand hesitated over his saddlebags. He had not wanted to leave the banner behind. He did not think any of the soldiers would have gone into the bags, but he could not say the same for Verin, nor predict what she would do if she found the banner. Still, it made him uneasy to have it with him. He decided to leave the saddleba