Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9)

Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9) Page 119

Bethamin jumped slightly herself when the woman rounded on her. “You are aware of my rules concerning men, Mistress Zeami?” she demanded. After all this time, the slow way these people talked still sounded odd. “I’ve heard about your foreign ways, and if that is how you are, it is your business, but not under my roof. If you want to meet with men, you will do it elsewhere!”

“I assure you, I have not been meeting men here or anywhere else, Mistress Shoran.”

The innkeeper frowned at her in suspicion. “Well, he came around asking for you by name. A pretty, yellow-haired man. Not a boy, but not very old, either. One of your lot, dragging his words out so you could hardly understand him.”

Making her tone placating, Bethamin did her best to convince the woman that she did not know anyone who met that description, and that she had no time for men with her duties. Both were true, yet she would have lied if necessary. The Golden Swans had not been commandeered, and three in a bed was much preferable to a hayloft. She tried to find out whether the woman might like some small gift when she went shopping, but the woman actually seemed offended when she suggested a knife with more colorful gems. She had not meant anything expensive, nothing in way of a bribe — not really — yet Mistress Shoran seemed to take it so, huffing and frowning indignantly. In any case, she was not sure she succeeded in changing the woman’s mind by a hair. For some reason, the innkeeper seemed to believe they spent all their free hours engaged in debauchery. She was still frowning when Bethamin started up the railless stairs at the side of the common room pretending that she had not a thought in her mind beyond shopping.

The man’s identity did concern her, though. She certainly did not recognize the description. In all likelihood, he had come about her inquiries, but if that was the case, if he had been able to trace her here, then she had been insufficiently discreet. Perhaps dangerously so. Still, she hoped he came back. She needed to know. She needed to!

Opening the door to her room, she froze. Impossibly, her iron lockbox sat on the bed with its lid thrown open. That was a very good lock, and the only key lay at the bottom of her belt pouch. The thief was still there, and oddly, he was thumbing through her diary! How in the Light had the man gotten past Mistress Shoran’s surveillance?

Paralysis lasted only an instant. Snatching her belt knife from its sheath, she opened her mouth to scream for help.

The fellow’s expression never changed, and he neither tried to run nor to attack her. He just took something small from his pouch and held it up where she could see it, and her breath turned to lead in her throat. Numbly she fumbled her knife back into its scabbard and held out her hands to show him she held no weapon and was not attempting to reach one. Between his fingers was a gold-edged ivory plaque, engraved with a raven and a tower. Suddenly she really saw the man, yellow-haired and in his middle years. Perhaps he was pretty, as Mistress Shoran had said, but only a madwoman would think of a Seeker for Truth in that fashion. Thank the Light she had not recorded anything dangerous in her diary. But he must know. He had asked for her by name. Oh, Light, he must know!

“Close the door,” he said quietly, returning the plaque to his pouch, and she obeyed. She wanted to run. She wanted to plead for mercy. But he was a Seeker, so she stood there, trembling. To her surprise, he dropped her diary back into the lockbox and gestured to the room’s single chair. “Sit. There is no need for you to be uncomfortable.”

Slowly, she hung up her cloak and settled onto the chair, for once not caring how uncomfortable the strange ladderlike back was. She did not try to hide her shivers. Even one of the Blood, even one of the High Blood, might quake at being questioned by a Seeker. She had a small hope. He had not simply ordered her to accompany him. Perhaps he did not know after all.

“You have been asking questions about a ship captain named Egeanin Sarna,” he said. “Why?”

Hope faltered with a thud she could feel in her chest. “I was looking for an old friend,” she quavered. The best lies always contained as much truth as possible. “We were at Falme together. I don’t know whether she survived.” Lying to a Seeker was treason, but she had committed her first treason in deserting during the battle at Falme.

“She lives,” he said curtly. He sat down on the end of the bed without taking his eyes from her. They were blue, and made her want her cloak back. “She is a hero, a Captain of the Green, and the Lady Egeanin Tamarath, now. Her reward from the High Lady Suroth. She is also here in Ebou Dar. You will renew your friendship with her. And report to me who she sees, where she goes, what she says. Everything.”

Bethamin clamped her jaws to keep from laughing hysterically. He was after Egeanin, not her. The Light be praised! The Light be praised in all its infinite mercy! She had only wanted to know if the woman still lived, if she had to take precautions. Egeanin had freed her once, yet in the ten years Bethamin had known her before that, she had been a model of duty. It had always seemed possible she would repent that one aberration no matter the cost to herself, but, wonder of wonders, she had not. And the Seeker was after her, not . . .! Possibilities reared up in front of her, certainties, and she no longer wanted to laugh. Instead, she licked her lips.

“How . . .? How can I renew our friendship?” It had never been friendship anyway, merely acquaintance, but it was too late to say that now. “You tell me she’s been raised to the Blood. Any overture must come from her.” Fear emboldened her. And panicked her as it had at Falme. “Why do you need me to be your Listener? You can take her for questioning any time you decide to.” She bit the inside of her cheek to still her tongue. Light, she wanted nothing less than she wanted him to do that. Seekers were the secret hand of the Empress, might she live forever; in the Empress’s name, he could put even Suroth to the question, or Tuon herself. True, he would die horribly if it turned out he had been in error, but the risk was small with Egeanin. She was only of the low Blood. If he put Egeanin to the question . . .

To her shock, rather than simply telling her to obey, he sat studying her. “I will explain certain things,” he said, and that was a greater shock. Seekers never explained, so she had heard. “You are no use to me, or the Empire, unless you survive, and you will not survive if you fail to understand what you face. If you reveal a word of what I tell you to anyone, you will dream of the Tower of the Ravens as a respite from where you will find yourself. Listen, and learn. Egeanin was sent to Tanchico before the city fell to us, among other things as part of the effort to find sul’dam who had been left behind at Falme. Strangely, she found none, though others did, like those who aided your own return. Instead, Egeanin murdered the sul’dam she found. I put the charge to her my self, and she did not bother denying it. She did not even show outrage, or even indignation. As bad, she consorted in secret with Aes Sedai.” He said the name flatly, not with the normal disgust but rather like an accusation. “When she departed Tanchico, she was traveling on a ship commanded by a man named Bayle Domon. He made some disturbance at having his ship boarded and was made property. She bought him and immediately made him so’jhin, so plainly he is of some importance to her. Interestingly, she had brought the same man to the High Lord Turak in Falme. Domon engaged the High Lord’s regard to the extent that the fellow was often invited to converse with him.” He grimaced. “Do you ha