A Crown of Swords (45 page)

The motion of the boat had changed, to a rocking back and forth. Were they out of the river, yet? Into what was called “the bay”? That was wider still, far wider, so Elayne said. Aviendha locked her hands on her knees and tried desperately to think of anything else. If the others saw her fear, the shame would follow her to the end of her days. The worst of it was, she had suggested this, after hearing Elayne and Nynaeve talk of the Sea Folk. How could she have known what it would be like?

The blue silk of her dress felt incredibly smooth, and she latched on to that. She was barely used to skirts at all—she still yearned for the
cadin’sor
the Wise Ones had made her burn when she began training with them—and here she wore a
silk
dress—of which she now owned four!—and silk stockings instead of stout wool, and a silk shift that made her aware of her skin in a way she never had been before. She could not deny the beauty of the dress, no matter how odd it was to find herself wearing such things, but silk was precious, and rare. A woman might have a scarf of silk, to be worn on feastdays and envied by others. Few women had two. It was different among these wetlanders, though. Not everyone wore silk, yet sometimes it seemed to her every second person did. Great bolts and even bales of it came by ship from the lands beyond the Three-fold Land. By ship. On the ocean. Water stretching to the horizon, with many places where, if she understood correctly, you could not see land at all. She came close to shivering at the impossible thought. None of the others looked as if they wished to talk. Elayne absently twisted the Great Serpent ring on her right hand and peered at something not to be seen inside the four walls. These worries often overtook her. Two duties confronted her, and if one lay nearer her heart, she had chosen the one she considered more important, more honorable. It was her right and duty to become the chief, the queen, of Andor, but she had chosen to continue hunting. In a way, however important their search, that was like putting something before clan or society, yet Aviendha felt pride. Elayne’s view of honor was as peculiar at times as the notion of a woman being a chief, or her becoming chief just because her mother had been, but she followed it admirably. Birgitte, in the wide red trousers and short yellow coat Aviendha envied, sat toying with her waist-long braid, lost in thought as well. Or maybe sharing part of Elayne’s worries. She was Elayne’s first Warder, which upset the Aes Sedai back in the Tarasin Palace no end, though it did not seem to bother their Warders. Wetlander customs were so curious they hardly bore thinking about.

If Elayne and Birgitte seemed to deflect any thought of talk, Nynaeve al’Meara, directly opposite Aviendha by the door, rebuffed it firmly. Nynaeve; not Nynaeve al’Meara. Wetlanders liked to be called by only half their names, and Aviendha was trying to remember, however much it felt like using a honey-name. Rand al’Thor was the only lover she had ever had, and she did not think even of him so intimately, but she had to learn their ways if she was to wed one of them.

Nynaeve’s deep brown eyes stared through her. Her knuckles were
white on a thick braid as dark as Birgitte’s was golden, and her face had gone beyond pale to a faint green. From time to time she emitted a tiny muted groan. She did not usually sweat; she and Elayne had taught Aviendha the trick. Nynaeve was a puzzle. Brave to the point of madness sometimes, she moaned over her supposed cowardice, and here she displayed her shame for all to see without a care. How could the
motion
disturb her so, when all that water did not?

Water again. Aviendha shut her eyes to avoid seeing Nynaeve’s face, but that only made the sounds of the birds and the lapping water fill her head.

“I have been thinking,” Elayne said suddenly, then paused. “Are you all right, Aviendha? You. . . .” Aviendha’s cheeks reddened, but at least Elayne did not say aloud that she had jumped like a rabbit at the sound of her voice. Elayne seemed to realize how close she had come to revealing Aviendha’s dishonor; color flushed her own cheeks as she continued. “I was thinking about Nicola, and Areina. About what Egwene told us last night. You don’t suppose they can cause
her
any trouble, do you? What is she to do?”

“Rid herself of them,” Aviendha said, drawing a thumb across her neck. The relief of speaking, of hearing voices, was so great that she almost gasped. Elayne appeared shocked. She was remarkably softhearted at times.

“It might be for the best,” Birgitte said. She had revealed no more name than that. Aviendha thought her a woman with secrets. “Areina could have made something of herself with time, but—Don’t look at me that way, Elayne, and stop going all prim and indignant in your head.” Birgitte often slipped back and forth between the Warder who obeyed and the older first-sister who instructed whether or not you wished to learn. Right then, waving an admonishing finger, she was the first-sister. “You two wouldn’t have been warned to stay away if it was a difficulty the Amyrlin could solve by having them set to work with the laundresses or the like.”

Elayne gave a sharp sniff in the face of what she could not deny, and adjusted her green silk skirts where they were drawn up in front to expose layers of blue and white petticoats. She was wearing the local fashion, complete with creamy lace at her wrists and around her neck, a gift from Tylin Quintara, as was the close-fitting necklace of woven gold. Aviendha did not approve. The upper half of the dress, the bodice, fitted as snugly as that necklace, and a missing narrow oval of cloth revealed the inner slopes of her breasts. Walking about where all could see was not the same as the sweat tents; people in the streets of the city were not
gai’shain
. Her own
dress had a high neck that brushed her chin with lace and no parts of it missing.

“Beside,” Birgitte went on, “I would think
Marigan
would worry you more. She frightens me spitless.”

That name got through to Nynaeve, as well it might. Her groaning ceased, and she sat up straight. “If she comes after us, we will just settle for her again. We’ll . . . we’ll. . . .” Drawing breath, she stared at them pointedly, as if they were arguing with her. What she said, in a faint voice, was. “Do you think she will?”

“Fretting will do no good,” Elayne told her, much more calmly than Aviendha could have managed if she thought one of the Shadowsouled had marked her out. “We will just have to do as Egwene said and be careful.” Nynaeve muttered something inaudible, which was probably just as well.

Silence descended again, Elayne settling to a browner study than before, Birgitte propping her chin on one hand as she frowned at nothing. Nynaeve kept right on grumbling under her breath, but she had both hands pressed to her middle now, and from time to time she paused to swallow. The splashing of water seemed louder than ever, and the cries of the birds.

“I have been thinking too, near-sister.” She and Elayne had not reached the point of adopting each other as first-sisters yet, but she was sure they would, now. Already they brushed each other’s hair, and every night in the dark shared another secret never told to anyone else. This Min woman, though. . . . That was for later, when they were alone.

“About what?” Elayne asked absently.

“Our search. We prepare for success, but we are as far away as when we began. Does it make sense not to use every weapon at hand? Mat Cauthon is
ta’veren
, yet we work to avoid him. Why not take him with us? With him, we might find the bowl at last.”

“Mat?” Nynaeve exclaimed incredulously. “As well stuff your shift full of nettles! I would not endure the man if he had the bowl in his coat pocket.”

“Oh,
do
be quiet, Nynaeve,” Elayne murmured, without any heat. She shook her head wonderingly, taking no notice of the other’s sudden glower. “Prickly” only began to describe Nynaeve, but they were all used to her ways. “
Why
didn’t I think of that? It is so
obvious
!”

“Maybe,” Birgitte murmured dryly, “you had Mat the scoundrel set so hard in your mind, you couldn’t see he had any use.” Elayne gave her a cool stare, chin raised, then abruptly grimaced, and nodded reluctantly. She did not accept criticism easily.

“No,” Nynaeve said in a voice that somehow managed to be sharp and weak at the same time. The sickly cast of her face had deepened, but it no longer seemed caused by the boat’s heaving. “You cannot possibly mean it! Elayne, you know what a torment he can be, how stubborn he is. He’ll insist on bringing those soldiers of his like a feastday parade. Try finding anything in the Rahad with soldiers at your shoulder. Just try! Inside two steps, he’ll try to take charge, flaunting that
ter’angreal
at us. He’s a thousand times worse than Vandene or Adeleas, or even Merilille. The way he behaves, you would think we’d walk into a bear’s den just to see the bear!”

Birgitte made a noise in her throat that might have been amusement, and received a darted glare. She returned such a look of bland innocence that Nynaeve began to sound as if she were choking.

Elayne was more soothing; she probably would try to make peace in a water-feud. “He is
ta’veren
, Nynaeve. He alters the Pattern, alters
chance
, just being there. I’m ready to admit we need luck, and a
ta’veren
is more than luck. Besides, we can snare two birds at once. We should not have been letting him run loose all this time, no matter how busy we were. That’s done no one any good, him least of all. He needs to be made fit for decent company. We will put him on a short rein from the start.”

Nynaeve smoothed her skirts with considerable vigor. She claimed to have no more interest in dresses than Aviendha—in what they looked like, anyway; she was always muttering about good plain wool being fine enough for anybody—yet her own blue dress was slashed with yellow on the skirts and sleeves, and she herself had chosen its design. Every stitch she owned was silk or embroidered or both, all cut with what Aviendha had learned to recognize as fine care.

For once Nynaeve appeared to understand she would not get her way. Sometimes she threw amazing tantrums until she did, not that she would admit that was what they were. The glower faded to a grumpy sulk. “Who will ask him? Whoever does, he will make her beg. You know he will. I’d sooner marry him!”

Elayne hesitated, then said firmly, “Birgitte will. And she won’t beg; she will tell him. Most men will do as you say if you use a firm, confident voice.” Nynaeve looked doubtful, and Birgitte jerked erect on her bench, startled for the first time Aviendha had ever seen. With anyone else, Aviendha might have said she looked a little afraid, too. Birgitte would have done very well as
Far Dareis Mai
, for a wetlander. She had remarkable skill with a bow.

“You are the clear choice, Birgitte,” Elayne went on quickly. “Nynaeve and I are Aes Sedai, and Aviendha might as well be. We cannot
possibly
do
it. Not and maintain proper dignity. Not with him. You
know
what he is like.” What had happened to all that talk of a firm, confident voice? Not that Aviendha had ever noticed that working for anyone except Sorilea. It surely had not so far on Mat Cauthon that she had seen. “Birgitte, he
can’t
have recognized you. If he had, he would have said something by now.”

Whatever that meant, Birgitte leaned back against the wall and laced her fingers over her stomach. “I should have known you’d get back at me ever since I said it was a good thing your bottom wasn’t any—” She stopped, and a faint satisfied smile appeared on her lips. Nothing changed in Elayne’s expression, but plainly Birgitte thought she had gained a measure of revenge. It must have been something felt through the Warder bond. How Elayne’s bottom entered into anything, though, Aviendha could not puzzle out. Wetlanders were so . . .
odd
. . . at times. Birgitte continued, still wearing that smile. “What I don’t understand is why he starts chafing as soon as he sees you two. It can’t be that you snagged him off here. Egwene was as deep in that as you, but I saw him treat her with more respect than most of the sisters do. Besides, the times I’ve glimpsed him coming out of The Wandering Woman, he looked to be enjoying himself.” Her smile became a grin that made Elayne sniff disapprovingly.

“That is one thing we need to change. A decent woman cannot be in the room with him. Oh, do wipe that smirk off your face, Birgitte. I vow, you are as bad as he, sometimes.”

“The man was born just to be a trial,” Nynaeve muttered sourly.

Suddenly Aviendha was forcibly reminded that she was on a boat as everything lurched, swaying and swinging around to a halt. Rising and straightening dresses, they gathered the light cloaks they had brought. She did not don hers; the sunlight here was not so bright that she needed the hood to keep it from her eyes. Birgitte only draped hers over one shoulder and pushed open the door, following up the three steps after Nynaeve had rushed past her with a hand clapped over her mouth.

Elayne paused to tie her cloak ribbons and arrange the hood around her face, red-gold curls peeking out all around. “You did not say much, near-sister.”

“I said what I had to say. The decision was yours.”

“The key thought was yours, though. Sometimes I think the rest of us are turning into half-wits. Well.” Half turning to the steps, not quite looking at her, Elayne paused. “Distances bother me, sometimes, over water. I think I will look only at the ship, myself. Nothing else.” Aviendha nodded—her near-sister had a fine delicacy—and they went up.

On the deck, Nynaeve was just shaking off Birgitte’s offer of help and pushing herself up from the railing. The two oarsmen looked on in amusement as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Shirtless fellows with a brass hoop in each ear, they must have had frequent use for the curved daggers shoved behind their sashes. Most of their attention went to working their pairs of long sweeps, though, walking back and forth on the deck to hold the heaving boat in place near a ship that almost took Aviendha’s breath with its size, looming above their suddenly very tiny vessel, its three great masts reaching taller than most trees she had seen even here in the wetlands. They had chosen it because it was the largest of the hundreds of Sea Folk ships anchored in the bay. On a ship that big, surely it must be possible to forget all the surrounding water. Except. . . .