The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time #4)

The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time #4) Page 118

“I understand.” Gyldin's mouth was tight. Perhaps she did finally understand; she was a servant, not their equal.

Liandrin waited a moment after she left, the cat cradled in her arms, then snatched open one of the doors. The, entry hall was empty. Gyldin was not eavesdropping. She did not trust the woman. But then, she could not think of anyone she did trust.

“We must be concerned with what concerns us,” she said tightly, closing the door. “Eldrith, have you found a new clue in those pages? Eldrith?”

The plump woman gave a start, then stared around at them, blinking. It was the first time she had raised her head from the battered yellow manuscript; she seemed surprised to see Liandrin. “What? Clue? Oh. No. It is difficult enough getting into the King's Library; if I extracted so much as a page, the librarians would know it immediately. But if I disposed of them, I would never find anything. That place is a maze. No, I found this in a bookseller's near the King's Palace. It is an interesting treatise on —”

Embracing saidar, Liandrin sent the pages showering across the floor. “Unless they are a treatise on the controlling of Rand al'Thor, let them be burned! What have you learned about what we seek?”

Eldrith blinked at the scattered papers. “Well, it is in the Panarch's Palace.”

“You learned that two days ago,”

“And it must be a ter'angreal. To control someone who can channel must require the Power, and since it is a specialized use that means a ter'angreal. We will find it in the exhibition room, or perhaps among the Panarch's collection.”

“Something new, Eldrith.” With an effort Liandrin made her voice less shrill. “Have you found anything that is new? Anything?”

The roundfaced woman blinked uncertainly. “Actually.... No.”

“It does not matter,” Marillin said. “In a few days, once they have invested their precious Panarch, we can begin searching, and if we must inspect every candlestick, we will find it. We are on the brink, Liandrin. We will put Rand al'Thor on a leash and teach him to sit up and roll over.”

“Oh, yes,” Eldrith said, smiling happily. “On a leash.”

Liandrin hoped it was so. She was tired of waiting, tired of hiding. Let the world know her. Let people bend knee as had been promised when she first forswore old oaths for new.

Egeanin knew she was not alone as soon as she stepped into her small house by the kitchen door, but she dropped her mask and the jute bag carelessly on the table and walked over to where a bucket of water stood beside the brick fireplace. As she bent to take the copper ladle, her right hand darted into a low hollow where two bricks had been removed behind the bucket; she spun erect, a small crossbow in her hand. No more than a foot long, it had little power or range, but she always kept it drawn, and the dark stain tipping the sharp steel bolt would kill in a heartbeat.

If the man leaning casually in the corner saw the crossbow, he gave no outward sign. He was palehaired and blueeyed, in his middle years, and goodlooking if too slender for her taste. Clearly he had watched her cross the narrow yard through the irongrilled window beside him. “Do you think that I threaten you?” he said after a moment.

She recognized the familiar accents of home, but she did not lower the crossbow. “Who are you?”

For answer he dipped two fingers carefully into his belt pouch — apparently he could see after all — and brought out something small and flat. She motioned him to lay it on the table and back up again.

Only after he was back in the corner did she move close enough to pick up what he had set there. Never taking her eyes or the crossbow away from him, she lifted it up where she could see. A small ivory plaque bordered in gold, engraved with a raven and a tower. The raven's eyes were black sapphires. A raven, symbol of the Imperial family; the Tower of Ravens, symbol of Imperial justice.

“Normally this would be enough,” she told him, “but we are far from Seanchan, in a land where the bizarre is almost commonplace. What other proof can you offer?”

Smiling with silent amusement, he removed his coat, unlaced his shirt and stripped it off. On either shoulder was the tattoo of raven and tower.

Most Seekers for Truth bore the ravens as well as the tower, but not even someone who dared steal a Seeker's plaque would have himself marked so. To wear the ravens was to be the property of the Imperial family. There was an old story of a fool young lord and lady who had themselves tattooed while drunk, some three hundred years gone. When the then Empress learned of it, she had them brought to the Court of the Nine Moons and set to scrubbing floors. This fellow might be one of their descendants. The mark of the raven was forever.

“My apologies, Seeker,” she said, setting the crossbow down. “Why are you here?” She did not ask a name; any he gave might or might not be his.

He left her holding the plaque while he redressed himself in a leisurely manner. A subtle reminder. She was a captain and he property, but he was also a Seeker, and under the law he could have her put to the question on his own authority. By law he had the right to send her out to buy the rope to bind her while he put her to the question right here, and he would expect her to return with it. Flight from a Seeker was a crime. Refusal to cooperate with a Seeker was a crime. She had never in her life considered any criminal act, no more than she had considered treason against the Crystal Throne. But if he asked the wrong questions, demanded the wrong answers... The crossbow was still close to her hand, and Cantorin was far away. Wild thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.

“I serve the High Lady Suroth and the Corenne, for the Empress,” he said. “I am checking on the progress of the agents the High Lady has placed in these lands.”

Checking? What had to be checked, and by a Seeker? “I have heard nothing of this from the courier boats.” His smile deepened, and she flushed. Of course the crews would not speak of a Seeker. Yet he answered while lacing up his shirt.

“The courier boats are not to be risked with my trips. I have taken passage on the vessels of a local smuggler, a man called Bayle Domon. His craft stop everywhere in Tarabon and Arad Doman and between.”

“I have heard of him,” she said calmly. “All goes well?”

“It does now. I am glad that you, at least, understood your instructions properly. Among the others, only the Seekers did. It is regrettable that there are not more Seekers with the Hailene.” Settling his coat on his shoulders, he plucked the Seeker's plaque from her hand. “There has been some embarrassment over the return of sul'dam deserters. Such desertions must not become common knowledge. Much better that they simply vanish.”

Only because she had a little time to think was she able to keep her face smooth. Sul'dam had been left behind in the debacle at Falme, she had been told. Possibly some had deserted. Her instruction, delivered by the High Lady Suroth herself, had been to return any who could be found, whether they wanted to return or not, and if that was not possible, dispose of them. The last had seemed only a final alternative. Until now.

“I regret that these lands do not know kaf,” he said, taking a seat at the table. “Even in Cantorin, only the Blood still have kaf. Or it was so when I left. Perhaps supply ships have arrived from Seanchan since. Tea must do. Fix me tea.”

She very nearly knocked him out of his chair. The man was property. And a Seeker. She brewed tea. And served it to him, standing beside his chair with the pot to keep his cup full. She was surprised he did not ask her to don a veil and dance on the table.

She was permitted to sit at last, after fetching pen and ink and paper, but only to sketch maps of Tanchico and its defenses, to draw every other city and town she knew the least thing about. She listed the various forces in the field, as much as she knew of their strength and loyalties, what she had deduced of their dispositions.

When she was done, he stuffed it all in his pocket, told her to send the contents of the jute sack by the next courier boat, and left with one of those amused smiles, saying he might check on her progress again in a few weeks.

She sat there for a long time after he was gone. Every map she had drawn, every list she had made, duplicated papers sent out by courier boats long since. Having her do it all again while he watched might have been a punishment for forcing him to show his tattoos. Deathwatch Guards flaunted their ravens; Seekers rarely did. It might have been that. At least he had not gone down to the basement before she arrived. Or had he? Had he just been waiting for her to speak?

The stout iron lock hung seemingly undisturbed on the door in the hall just beyond the kitchen, but it was said Seekers knew how to open locks without keys. Taking the key from her belt pouch, she unfastened the lock and went down the narrow steps.

One lamp on a shelf lit the dirtfloored basement. Just four brick walls, cleared of everything that might help an escape. A faint smell of the slop pail hung in the air. On the side opposite the lamp, a woman in a dirty dress sat despondently on a few rough woolen blankets. Her head lifted at the sound of Egeanin's steps, dark eyes fearful and pleading. She had been the first sul'dam Egeanin had found. The first, the only. Egeanin had all but stopped looking, after she found Bethamin. And Bethamin had been in this basement since, while courier boats came and went.

“Did anyone come down here?” Egeanin said.

“No. I heard footsteps overhead, but... No.” Bethamin stretched out her hands. “Please, Egeanin. This is all a mistake. You have known me for ten years. Take this thing off of me.”

A silver collar encircled her neck, attached by a thick silver leash to a bracelet of the same metal that hung on a peg a few feet above her head. It had been almost an accident, putting it on her, simply a means of securing her for a few moments. And then she had managed to knock Egeanin down, trying a dashing for freedom.

“If you bring it to me, I will,” Egeanin said angrily. She was angry with many things, not with Bethamin. “Bring the a'dam over here, and I will remove it.”

Bethamin shivered, let her hands fall. “It is a mistake,” she whispered. “A horrible mistake.” But she made no move toward the bracelet. Her first attempted flight had left her writhing on the floor upstairs, wracked by nausea, and had left Egeanin stunned.

Sul'dam controlled damane, women who could channel, by means of a'dam. It was damane who could channel, not sul'dam. But an a'dam could only control a woman who could channel. No other woman, and not a man — young men with that ability were executed, of course — only a woman who could channel. A woman who had that ability and was collared could not move more than a few steps without her bracelet on the wrist of a sul'dam to complete the link.

Egeanin felt very tired climbing the stairs and locking the door again. She wanted some tea herself, but the little the Seeker had left was cold, and she did not feel like brewing more. Instead she sat down and pulled the a'dam out of the jute bag. To her it was only finely jointed silver; she could not use it, and it could not harm her unless