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

Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9) Page 172

He drew her to the side of the street, where the deep over hanging eaves of a single-story stone house gave a little shelter from the rain, if not from the wind to any great extent. Cadsuane was with Min and the others? It might mean nothing. He had seen Aes Sedai fascinated with Nynaeve before, and according to Min, Alivia was even stronger. “What news, Verin?” he said quietly.

The round little Aes Sedai blinked as though she forgotten there was any news, then smiled suddenly. “Oh, yes. The Seanchan. They are in Illian. Not the city, not yet; no need to go pale. But they have crossed the border. They are building fortified camps along the coast and inland. I know little of military matters. I always skip over the battles when I read a history. But it does seem to me that whether they are in the city yet or not, that is where they are aiming. Your battles don’t seem to have done much to slow them. That’s why I don’t read about the battles. They seldom seem to alter anything in the long run, only in the short. Are you well?”

He forced his eyes open. Verin peered up at him like a chubby sparrow. All that fighting, all those men dead, men he had killed, and it had changed nothing. Nothing!

She is wrong, Lews Therin murmured in his head. Battles can alter history. He did not sound pleased with it. The trouble is, sometimes you cannot say how history will be changed until it is too late.

“Verin, if I went to Cadsuane, would she talk with me? About something other than how my manners don’t suit her? That’s all she ever seems to care about.”

“Oh, dear. I’m afraid Cadsuane is very much a traditionalist in some ways, Rand. I’ve never actually heard her call a man uppity, but . . .” She laid fingertips against her mouth in thought for a moment, then nodded, raindrops sliding down her face. “I believe she will listen to what you have to say, if you can manage to erase the bad impression you made on her. Or at least smudge it, as much as you can. Few sisters are impressed by titles or crowns, Rand, and Cadsuane less than any other I know. She cares much more about whether or not people are fools. If you can show her you aren’t a fool, she will listen.”

“Then tell her . . .” He drew a deep breath. Light, he wanted to strangle Kisman and Dashiva and all of them with his bare hands! “Tell her I’ll be leaving Far Madding tomorrow, and I hope she will come with me, as my advisor.” Lews Therin sighed with relief at the first part of that; if he had been more than a voice, Rand would have said he stiffened at the second part. “Tell her I accept her terms; I apologize for my behavior in Cairhien, and I will do my best to watch my manners in the future.” Saying that hardly grated at all. Well, a little, but unless Min was wrong, he needed Cadsuane, and Min was never wrong with her viewings.

“So you found what you are after here?” He frowned at her, and she smiled back and patted his arm. “If you had come to Far Madding thinking you could conquer the city by announcing who you are, you would have left as soon as you realized you cannot channel here. That leaves wanting to find something, or someone.”

“Maybe I found what I need,” he said curtly. Just not what he wanted.

“Then come to the Barsalla palace, on the Heights, this evening, Rand. Anyone can tell you how to find it. I really am sure she will be willing to listen to you.” Shifting her cloak, she seemed to notice the dampness of the wool for the first time. “Oh, my. I must go dry off. I suggest you do the same.” Half turned to leave, she paused and looked back over her shoulder at him. Her dark eyes were unblinking. Suddenly she did not sound muddled at all. “You could do far worse than Cadsuane for an advisor, Rand, but I doubt you could do better. If she accepts, and you truly are not a fool, you will listen to her advice.” She glided away through the rain looking nothing so much as a very stout swan.

Sometimes that woman frightens me, Lews Therin murmured, and Rand nodded. Cadsuane did not frighten him, but she made him wary. Any Aes Sedai who had not sworn to him made him wary, except for Nynaeve. And he was not always certain of her, either.

The rain died away while he was walking the two miles back to The Counsel’s Head, but the wind picked up, and the sign over the door, painted with the stern visage of a woman wearing the jeweled coronet of a First Counsel, swung on creaking hinges. The common room was smaller than that of The Golden Wheel, but the wall panels were carved and polished, the tables beneath the red ceiling beams not so crowded together. The doorway to the Women’s Room was red, too, and carved like intricate lace, as were the lintels of the pale marble fireplaces. At The Counsel’s Head, the serving men secured their long hair with polished silver clips. Only two of them were to be seen, standing near the kitchen door, but there were just three men at the tables, foreign merchants sitting far apart, each engrossed in his own wine. Competitors, perhaps, since now and then one or another would shift on his chair and frown at the other two. One, a graying man, wore a dark gray silk coat, and a lean fellow with a hard face had a red stone the size of a pigeon’s egg in his ear. The Counsel’s Head catered to the wealthier outland merchants, and there were not many of those in Far Madding at present.

The clock on a mantel in the Women’s Room — a clock with a silver case, so Min said — rang the hour with small bells as he came into the common room, and before he had finished shaking out his cloak, Lan entered. As soon as the Warder met Rand’s eye, he shook his head. Well, Rand had not really expected to find them at this point. Even for a ta’veren, that might be pushing the impossible.

Once they both had steaming cups of wine and were settled on a long red bench in front of one of the fireplaces, he told Lan what he had decided, and why. Part of why. The important part. “If I had my hands on them right this minute, I’d kill them and take my chances escaping, but killing them changes nothing. It doesn’t change enough, anyway,” he corrected, frowning into the flames. “I can wait one more day, hoping to find them tomorrow, for weeks. Months. Only, the world won’t wait for me. I thought I’d be done with them by now, but events are already marching ahead of what I expected. Just the events I know about. Light, what’s happening that I don’t know about because I haven’t heard some merchant nattering about it over his wine?”

“You can never know everything,” Lan said quietly, “and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies