A Crown of Swords (86 page)

Moghedien thumped a fist against the side of the chair, shouting, “Stop!” The bearers halted so quickly she was almost flung forward.

The crowd jostled past, some shouting curses at her bearers for blocking the way, some shouting more good naturedly. Down here by the river, the throng ran thin enough for her to watch through the gaps. The boat that pulled away from the landing seemed quite distinctive; the roof of the low cabin in the rear was painted red; she did not see that affectation on any of the others waiting at the long stone dock.

She wet her lips, shivering. Moridin’s instructions had been explicit, the price of disobedience made excruciatingly clear. But a slight delay would not hurt. Not if he never learned of it, anyway.

Flinging open the door, she climbed out into the street and looked about hastily. There; that inn, right overlooking the docks. And the river. Lifting her skirts, she hurried away without the slightest fear anyone might hire her chair; until she untied the webs of Compulsion on them, the bearers would tell anyone who asked that they were engaged, and stand there until they died of hunger. A path opened ahead of her, men and women in feathered masks leaping aside before she reached them, leaping with squeals and cries as they clutched where they thought they had been stabbed. As they had; there was no time to spin subtle webs on so many minds, but a flurry of needles woven of Air did as well here.

The stout innkeeper at The Oarsman’s Pride nearly leaped, too, at the sight of Moghedien striding into her common room in gloriously scarlet silk worked with thread-of-gold and black silk that glistened as richly as the gold. Her mask was a great spray of pitch black feathers with a sharp black beak; a raven. That was Moridin’s joke, his command, as was the dress, in fact. His colors were black and red, he said, and she would wear them while she served him. She was in livery, however elegant, and she could have killed everyone who saw her.

Instead, she spun a hasty web on the round-cheeked innkeeper that jerked her up straight and made her eyes pop. No time for subtlety. At Moghedien’s command to show her the roof, the woman
ran
up the railless stairs at the side of the room. It was unlikely any of the feather-draped drinkers saw anything unusual in the innkeeper’s behavior, Moghedien thought with a small laugh. The Oarsman’s Pride probably had never seen a patron of her quality before.

On the flat roof, she quickly weighed the dangers of letting the innkeeper live versus those of killing her. Corpses had a way of pointing a finger, eventually. If you wished to remain quietly hidden in the shadows, you did not kill unless you absolutely had to. Hastily, she adjusted the web of Compulsion, told the woman to go down to her room, to go to sleep and forget ever having seen her. With the haste, it was possible the innkeeper might lose the whole day, or wake somewhat slower of wits than she had been—so much in Moghedien’s life would have been so much easier had she possessed a better Talent for Compulsion—but in any case, the woman scurried away, eager to obey, and left her alone.

As the door thumped down flat into the dirty white-tiled roof,
Moghedien gasped at the sudden feel of fingers stroking her mind, palping her soul. Moridin did that sometimes; a reminder, he said, as if she needed any more. She almost looked around for him; her skin pebbled as though at a sudden icy breeze. The touch vanished, and she shivered again. Coming or going, it did remind her. Moridin himself could appear anywhere at any time. Haste.

Speeding to the low wall that surrounded the roof, she searched the river spread out below. Scores of boats of every size swept along on their oars between larger vessels, anchored or under sail. Most of the cabins of the sort she sought were plain wood, but there she saw a yellow roof, and there a blue, and there, in midriver and heading southward fast. . . . Red. It had to be the right one; she could not take any more time here.

She raised her hands, but as balefire launched itself, something flashed around her and she jerked. Moridin
had
come; he
was
there, and he would. . . . She stared at the pigeons fluttering away. Pigeons! She nearly spewed the contents of her stomach across the roof. A glance at the river, made her snarl.

Because she had jerked, the balefire she meant to slice through cabin and passenger instead had sliced diagonally through the middle of the boat, about where the oarsmen had stood, and the bodyguards. Because the rowers had been burned out of the Pattern
before
the balefire struck, the two halves of the craft were now a good hundred paces back up the river. Then again, perhaps it was not a complete disaster. Because that slice from the boat’s center had gone at the same time the boatmen really died, the river had had minutes to rush in. The two parts of the boat sank out of sight in a great froth of bubbles even as her eyes shifted to them, carrying their passenger to the depths.

Suddenly, what she had done struck her. She had always moved in the dim places, always kept herself hidden, always. . . . Any woman in the city who could channel would know someone had drawn a great deal of
saidar
, if not for what, and any eye watching had seen that bar of liquid white fire sear across the afternoon. Fear gave her wings. Not fear. Terror.

Gathering her skirts, she ran back down the stairs, ran through the common room bumping into tables and careering off people trying to get out her way, ran into the street too frightened to think, battering a path through the crowd with her hands.

“Run!” she shrieked, hurling herself into the sedan chair. Her skirts caught in the door; she ripped them free. “Run!”

The bearers flung themselves into motion, tossing her about, but she
did not care. She braced herself with fingers laced through the carved window screens, and shook uncontrollably. He had not forbidden this. He might forgive, or even ignore her independent action here, if she carried out his instructions swiftly, efficiently. That was her only hope. She was going to make Falion and Ispan
crawl
!

As the boat swept away from the landing, Nynaeve tossed her mask down beside her on the cushioned bench and slumped back with arms folded and braid gripped firmly, scowling at nothing. Scowling at everything. Listening to the Wind still told her a fierce storm was on the way, the kind that tore off roofs and flattened barns, and she almost wished the river would begin to kick up in waves right that minute.

“If it isn’t the weather, Nynaeve,” she mimicked, “then you should be the one to go. The Mistress of the Ships might be insulted if we didn’t send  the strongest of us. They know Aes Sedai put great store in that. Bah!” That had been Elayne. Except for the “bah.” Elayne just thought putting up with any amount of nonsense from Merilille would be preferable to facing Nesta again. Once you began badly with someone, it was hard to recover—Mat Cauthon was proof enough of that!—and if they had gotten off any worse with Nesta din Reas Two Moons, she would be sending the lot of them to fetch and carry.

“Horrible woman!” she grumbled, shifting around on the seat cushions. Aviendha had been no better when Nynaeve suggested she go to the Sea Folk; those people had been fascinated by her. She pitched her voice high and finicky, not at all like Aviendha’s, but the mood fit. “We will learn of this trouble when we learn, Nynaeve al’Meara. Perhaps I will learn something watching Jaichim Carridin today.” If not for the fact that nothing
whatsoever frightened the Aiel woman, she would have thought Aviendha fearful from her eagerness to spy on Carridin. A day standing in a hot street jostled by crowds was not amusing, and today would be worse, with the festival. Nynaeve would have thought the woman would enjoy a nice refreshing boat ride.

The boat lurched. A nice refreshing boat ride, she told herself. Nice cool breezes on the bay. Moist breezes, not dry. The boat rolled. “Oh, blood and ashes!” she moaned. Appalled, she clapped a hand over her mouth and drummed her heels against the front of the bench in righteous outrage. If she had to endure those Sea Folk for long, she would have as much filth coming off of her tongue as Mat did. She did not want to think about him. One more day folding her hands for that . . . that
man
. . . and she would yank every hair out of her head! Not that he had demanded anything unreasonable so far, but she kept waiting for him to, and his manner . . . !

“No!” she said firmly. “I want to settle my stomach, not rile it.” The boat had begun a slow rocking. She tried to concentrate on her clothes. She was not fixated on clothes the way Elayne sometimes seemed to be, but thinking about silks and laces was soothing.

Everything had been chosen to impress the Mistress of the Ships, to try regaining a little lost ground, for all the good it might do. Green silk slashed with yellow in the skirts, embroidered in gold down the sleeves and across the bodice, with golden lace along the hem, and at her wrists, and just bordering the neckline. Perhaps that should have been higher, to be taken seriously, but she did not own anything higher. Considering Sea Folk customs, it was more than modest. Nesta would have to take her as she was; Nynaeve al’Meara did not go changing herself for anyone.

The yellow opal pins stuck in her braid were her own—a present from the Panarch of Tarabon, no less—but Tylin had provided the gold necklace that fanned emeralds and pearls down to her bosom. A richer piece than she had ever dreamed of owning; a gift for bringing Mat, Tylin had called it, which made no sense at all, but maybe the Queen thought she needed some excuse for such a valuable present. Both gold-and-ivory bracelets came from Aviendha, who had a surprising little stock of jewelry for a woman who so seldom wore more than that one silver necklace. Nynaeve had asked to borrow that pretty roses-and-thorns ivory bracelet that the Aiel woman never wore; surprisingly, Aviendha had snatched it to her bosom as if it was her most precious possession, and of all things, Elayne began comforting her. Nynaeve would not have been surprised to see the pair fall weeping on one another’s shoulder.

There was something odd going on there, and if she had not known those two were too sensible for such nonsense, she would have suspected a man at the root of it. Well, Aviendha was too sensible; Elayne did still yearn for Rand, though Nynaeve could hardly fault her for—

Suddenly she felt weaves of
saidar
almost atop her in huge amounts, and . . .

. . . she floundered in salty water over her head, flailing upward to find air, tangled in her skirts, flailing. Her head broke surface, and she gasped for breath amid floating cushions, staring in astonishment. After a moment, she recognized the slanting shape above her as one of the cabin seats, and a bit of the cabin wall. She was inside a trapped pocket of air. Not large; she could have touched both sides without stretching her arms out fully. But how . . . ? An audible thud announced the bottom of the river; the upside-down cabin, lurched, tilted. She thought the air pocket shrank a little.

The first order of business, before wondering about anything, was getting out before she used up the air. She knew how to swim—she had splashed in the Waterwood ponds often enough back home—it was just when the water started rocking her about that she minded. Filling her lungs, she doubled over and swam down toward where the door must be, kicking awkwardly because of her skirts. It might help to shed the dress, but she was not about to bob to the surface of the river in nothing but shift and stockings and jewels. She was not about to leave those behind, either. Besides, she could not get out of the dress without loosing her belt pouch, and she would drown before losing what was in there.