The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

From where she stood, Liandrin could see their faces even if their mouths moved soundlessly for her. Plainly each woman was receiving orders the others knew nothing of. The faces told little, though. Rianna merely listened, a touch of relief in her eyes, bowed her head in assent and went. Marillin looked surprised, and then eager, but she had been a Brown, and Browns could be enthusiastic over anything that allowed them a chance to unearth some moldy bit of lost knowledge. Jeaine Caide donned a slow mask of horror, shaking her head at first and trying to cover herself and that disgustingly sheer gown, but Moghedien's face hardened, and Jeaine nodded hurriedly and fled, if not as eagerly as Marillin, just as quickly. Berylla Naron, lean almost to scrawniness and as fine a manipulator and plotter as there was, and Falion Bhoda, longfaced and cold despite her obvious fear, showed as little expression as Rianna had. Ispan Shefar, like Liandrin from Tarabon, though darkhaired, actually kissed Moghedien's hem before she rose.

Then the flows were unwoven around Liandrin. She thought that it was her turn to be sent away on the Shadow knew what errand, until she saw the bonds dispelled around the others remaining as well. Moghedien's finger beckoned peremptorily, and Liandrin knelt between Asne and Chesmal Emry, a tall, handsome woman, darkhaired and darkeyed. Chesmal, once Yellow, could Heal or kill with equal ease, but the intensity of her gaze on Moghedien, the way her hands trembled as they clutched her skirts, said she intended only to obey.

She would have to go by such signs, Liandrin realized. Approaching one of the others with her belief that rewards could be had for handing Moghedien to the rest of the Forsaken might well be disastrous if the one she spoke to had decided that it was in her best interests to be Moghedien's lapdog. She almost whimpered at the thought of a “second lesson.”

“You, I keep with me,” the Forsaken said, “for the most important task. What the others do may bear sweet fruit, but to me yours will be the most important harvest. A personal harvest. There is a woman named Nynaeve al'Meara.” Liandrin's head came up, and Moghedien's dark eyes sharpened. “You know of her?”

“I despise her,” Liandrin replied truthfully. “She is a filthy wilder who ought never to have been allowed in the Tower.” She loathed all wilders. Dreaming of being Black Ajah, she herself had begun learning to channel a full year before going to the Tower, but she was in no way a wilder.

“Very good. You five are going to find her for me. I want her alive. Oh, yes, I do want her alive.” Moghedien's smile made Liandrin shiver; giving Nynaeve and the other two to her might be entirely suitable. “The day before yesterday she was in a village called Sienda, perhaps sixty miles east of here, with another young woman in whom I may be interested, but they have vanished. You will...”

Liandrin listened eagerly. For this, she could be a faithful hound. For the other, she would wait patiently.

Chapter 19

(RubyHilted Dagger)

Memories

“My Queen?”

Morgase looked up from the book on her lap. Sunlight slanted through the window of the sitting room next to her bedchamber. The day was already hot, with no breeze, and sweat dampened her face. It would be noon before much longer, and she had not stirred from the room. That was unlike her; she could not remember why she had decided to laze the morning away with a book. She seemed unable to concentrate on reading of late. By the golden clock on the mantel above the marble fireplace, an hour had passed since she last turned a page, and she could not recall its words. It must be the heat.

The redcoated young officer of her Guards, kneeling with one fist pressed to the redandgold carpet, looked vaguely familiar. Once she had known the name of every Guard assigned to the Palace. Perhaps it was all the new faces. “Tallanvor,” she said, surprising herself. He was a tall, wellmade young man, but she could not tell why she remembered him in particular. Had he brought someone to her once? Long ago? “Guardsman Lieutenant Martyn Tallanvor.”

He glanced at her, startlingly rougheyed, before putting his gaze back on the carpet. “My Queen, forgive me, but I am surprised that you remain here, given the morning's news.”

“What news?” It would be good to learn something besides Alteima's gossip of the Tairen court, At times she felt that there was something else she wanted to ask the woman, but all they ever did was gossip, which she could never remember doing before. Gaebril seemed to enjoy listening to them, sitting in that tall chair in front of the fireplace with his ankles crossed, smiling contentedly. Alteima had taken to wearing rather daring dresses; Morgase would have to say something to her. Dimly she seemed to remember thinking that before. Nonsense. If I had, I would have spoken to her already. She shook her head, realizing that she had drifted away from the young officer entirely, that he had begun speaking and stopped when he saw she was not listening. “Tell me again. I was distracted. And stand.”

He rose, face angry, eyes burning on her before they dropped again. She looked where he had been staring and blushed; her dress was cut extremely low. But Gaebril liked her to wear them so. With that thought she ceased fretting about being nearly naked in front of one of her officers.

“Be brief,” she said curtly. How dare he look at me in that manner? I should have him flogged. “What news is so important that you think you can walk into my sitting room as if it were a tavern?” His face darkened, but whether from proper embarrassment or increased anger she could not say. How dare he be angry with his queen! Does the man think all I have to do is listen to him?

“Rebellion, my Queen,” he said in a flat tone, and all thought of anger and stares vanished.

“Where?”

“The Two Rivers, my Queen. Someone has raised the old banner of Manetheren, the Red Eagle. A messenger came from Whitebridge this morning.”

Morgase drummed her fingers on the book, her thoughts coming more clearly than it seemed they had in a very long time. Something about the Two Rivers, some spark she could not quite fan to life, tugged at her. The region was hardly part of Andor at all, and had not been for generations. She and the last three queens before her had been hard pressed to maintain a modicum of control over the miners and smelters in the Mountains of Mist, and even that modicum would have been lost had there been any way to get the metals out save through the rest of Andor. A choice between holding the mines' gold and iron and other metals and keeping the Two Rivers' wool and tabac had not been difficult. But rebellion unchecked, even rebellion in a part of her realm that she ruled only on a map, could spread like wildfire, to places that were hers in fact. And Manetheren, destroyed in the Trolloc Wars, Manetheren of legend and story, still had a hold on some men's minds. Besides, the Two Rivers was hers. If they had been left to go their own way for far too long, they were