A Crown of Swords (87 page)

The water was black, lightless. Her outstretched fingers struck wood, and she felt across the piercework carving until she found the door, scrabbled down the edge of that—and found a hinge. Muttering imprecations in her head, she cautiously felt her way to the other side. Yes! The latch handle! She lifted it, pushed outward. The door moved maybe two inches—and stopped.

Lungs straining, she swam back up to the pocket, but only long enough to fill them again. This time, finding the door came faster. She stuck her fingers through the crack to find what held the door shut. They sank into mud. Maybe she could dig away a little hillock, or. . . . She felt higher. More mud. Increasingly frantic, she worked her fingers from the bottom of the crack to the top, and then, refusing to believe, from the top to the bottom. Mud, solid gooey mud, all the way.

This time when she swam back up to the pocket, she grabbed hold of
the edge of the seat above her and hung from it, panting, heart beating wildly. The air felt . . . thicker.

“I will not die here,” she muttered. “I will not die here!”

She hammered a fist against the seat until she felt it bruise, fighting for the anger that would allow her to channel. She would not die. Not here. Alone. No one would know where she had died. No grave, just a corpse rotting at the bottom of the river. Her arm fell with a splash. She labored for breath. Flecks of black and silver danced in her eyes; she seemed to be looking down a tube. No anger, she realized dimly. She kept trying to reach for
saidar
, but without any belief that she would touch it, now. She was going to die here after all. No hope. No Lan. And with hope gone, flickering on the edge of consciousness like a guttering candle flame, she did something she had never done before in her life. She surrendered completely.

Saidar
flowed into her, filled her.

She was only half-aware of the wood above her suddenly bulging outward, bursting. In rushing bubbles of air she drifted up, out through the hole in the hull into darkness. Vaguely, she knew she should do something. She could almost remember what. Yes. Her feet kicked weakly; she tried to move her arms to swim. They seemed to just float.

Something seized her dress, and panic roused her in thoughts of sharks, and lionfish, and the Light alone knew what else that might inhabit these black depths. A spark of consciousness spoke of the Power, but she flailed desperately with fists and feet, felt her knuckles land solidly. Unfortunately, she also screamed, or tried to. A great quantity of water rushing down her throat washed away scream,
saidar
, and very nearly her final scraps of awareness.

Something tugged on her braid, then again, and she was being towed . . . somewhere. She was no longer conscious enough to struggle, or even to be very much afraid of being eaten.

Abruptly her head broke surface. Hands encircled her from behind—hands; not a shark, after all—squeezed hard against her ribs in a most familiar way. She coughed—water spewed from her nose—coughed again, painfully. And drew a shuddering breath. She had never tasted anything so sweet in her life.

A hand cupped her chin, and suddenly she was being towed again. Lassitude washed through her. All she could do was float on her back, and breathe, and stare up at the sky. So blue. So beautiful. The stinging in her eyes was not all from the salty river.

And then she was being pushed upward against the side of a boat, a rude hand beneath her bottom shoving her higher, until two lanky fellows with brass rings in their ears could reach down and haul her aboard. They helped her walk a step or two, but as soon as they let go to help her rescuer, her legs collapsed like towers of soggy mush.

On unsteady hands and knees, she stared blankly at a sword and boots and green coat someone had thrown down on the deck. She opened her mouth—and emptied herself of the River Eldar. The entire river, it seemed, plus her midday meal, and her breakfast; it would not have surprised her at all to see a few fish, or her slippers. She was wiping her lips with the back of her hand when she became aware of voices.

“My Lord is all right? My Lord was down for a very long time.”

“Forget me, man,” said a deep voice. “Get something to wrap around the lady.” Lan’s voice, that she dreamed every night of hearing.

Wide-eyed, Nynaeve barely bit back a wail; the horror she had felt when she thought she was going to die was nothing alongside what flashed through her now. Nothing! This was a nightmare. Not now! Not like this! Not when she was a drowned rat, kneeling with the contents of her stomach spread out before her!

Without thought she embraced
saidar
and channeled. Water fell away from her clothes, her hair, in a rush and washed all evidence of her little mishap out through a scupper hole. Scrambling to her feet, she hurriedly pulled her necklace aright and did her best to straighten her dress and hair, but the soaking in salt water and then the rapid drying had left several stains on the silk and a number of creases that would require a knowledgeable hand with a hot iron to remove. Wisps of hair wanted to fly away from her scalp, and the opals in her braid seemed to dot the bristling tail of an angry cat.

It did not matter. She was calmness itself, cool as an early spring breeze, self-possessed as. . . . She spun around before he could come on her from behind and startle her into disgracing herself completely.

She only realized how quickly she had moved when she saw that Lan was just then taking his second step from the railing. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Soaking wet in shirt and breeches and stockings, he was gorgeous, with his dripping hair clinging to the angles of his face, and. . . . A split purple bruise was rising on his face, as from a blow. She clapped a hand to her mouth, remembering her fist connecting.

“Oh, no! Oh, Lan, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!” She was not really aware of crossing the space between them; she was just there, stretching up
on toetips to lay fingers gently on his injury. A deft weave of all Five Powers, and his tanned cheek was unblemished. But he might have been hurt elsewhere. She spun the weaves to Delve him; new scars made her wince inside, and there was something odd, but he seemed healthy as a prime bull. He was also very wet, from saving her. She dried him as she had herself; water splashed around his feet. She could not stop touching him. Both hands traced his hard cheeks, his wonderful blue eyes, his strong nose, his firm lips, his ears. She combed that silky black hair into place with her fingers, adjusted the braided leather band that held it. Her tongue seemed to have a life of its own, too. “Oh, Lan,” she murmured. “You really are here.” Somebody giggled. Not her—Nynaeve al’Meara did not giggle—but somebody did. “It isn’t a dream. Oh, Light, you’re here. How?”

“A servant at the Tarasin Palace told me you’d gone to the river, and a fellow at the landing said what boat you had taken. If Mandarb hadn’t lost a shoe, I would have been here yesterday.”

“I don’t care. You’re here now. You’re here.” She did not giggle.

“Maybe she is Aes Sedai,” one of the boatmen murmured, not quite low enough, “but I still say she’s one duckling who means to stuff herself in that wolf’s jaws.”

Nynaeve’s face flashed pure scarlet, and she snatched her hands to her sides, her heels thumping to the deck. Another time, she would have given the fellow what for, and no mistake. Another time, when she could think. Lan crowded everything else out of her head. She seized his arm. “We can talk more privately in the cabin.” Had one of the oarsmen snickered?

“My sword and—”

“I’ll bring it,” she said, snatching up his things from the deck on flows of Air. One of those louts
had
snickered. Another flow of Air pulled open the cabin door, and she hustled Lan and his sword and the rest inside and slammed it behind them.

Light, she doubted if even Calle Coplin back home had ever been as bold as this, and as many merchants’ guards knew Calle’s birthmark as knew her face. But it was not the same at all. Not at all! Still, no harm in being just a tad less . . . eager. Her hands went back to his face—only to straighten his hair some more; just that—and he caught her wrists gently in his big hands.

“Myrelle holds my bond, now,” he said quietly. “She is lending me to you until you find a Warder of your own.”

Calmly pulling her right hand free, she slapped his face as hard as she could swing. His head hardly moved, so she freed the other hand and
slapped him harder with that. “How could you?” For good measure, she punctuated the question with another slap. “You knew I was waiting!” One more seemed called for, just to drive the point home. “How could you do such a thing? How could you let her?” Another slap. “Burn you, Lan Mandragoran! Burn you! Burn you! Burn you to the Pit of Doom! Burn you!”

The man—the
bloody
man!—did not say one word. Not that he could, of course; what defense could he offer? He just stood there while she rained blows at him, making no move, unblinking eyes looking peculiar, as well they might with the way she reddened his cheeks for him. If her slaps made little impression on him, though, the palms of her hands began to sting like fury.

Grimly, she clenched a fist and punched him in the belly with all her might. He grunted. Slightly.

“We will talk this over calmly and rationally,” she said, stepping back from him. “As adults.” Lan just nodded and sat down and pulled his boots over to him! Pushing bits of hair out of her face with her left hand, she stuck the right behind her so she could flex her sore fingers without him seeing. He had no right being that hard, not when she wanted to hit him. Too much to hope she had cracked a rib in him.

“You should thank her, Nynaeve.” How could the man sound so calm! Stamping his foot firmly into one boot, he bent to pick up the other, not looking at her. “You wouldn’t want me bonded to you.”

The flow of Air seized a handful of his hair and bent his head up painfully. “If you dare—if you even dare—to spout that drivel about not wanting to give me a widow’s weeds, Lan Mandragoran, I’ll . . . I’ll. . . .” She could not think of anything strong enough. Kicking him was not near enough. Myrelle. Myrelle and her Warders. Burn him! Removing his hide in strips would not be enough!

He might as well not have been bent over with his neck craned. He just rested his forearms across his knees, and watched her with that odd look in his eyes, and said, “I thought about not telling you, but you have a right to know.” Even so, his tone became hesitant; Lan was never hesitant. “When Moiraine died—when a Warder’s bond to his Aes Sedai is snapped—there are changes. . . .”

As he continued, her arms snaked around herself, hugging tightly to keep her from shivering. Her jaw ached, for she kept it clamped shut. She released the flow holding him as if a hand springing away, released
saidar
, but he only straightened and went on relating this horror without so much as a flinch, went on watching her. Suddenly she understood his eyes, colder
than winter’s heart. The eyes of a man who knew he was dead and could not make himself care, a man waiting, almost eager, for that long sleep. Her own eyes stung with not weeping.

“So you see,” he concluded with a smile that touched only his mouth; an accepting smile, “when it’s done, she will have a year or more of pain, and I will still be dead. You are spared that. My last gift to you,
Mashiara.” Mashiara.
His lost love.

“You are to be my Warder until I find one?” Her voice startled her with its levelness. She could not break down in tears now. She would not. Now, more than ever before, she had to gather all her strength.

“Yes,” he said cautiously, tugging on his other boot. He had always seemed something of a half-tame wolf, and his eyes made him seem much less than half tame now.

“Good.” Adjusting her skirts, she resisted the urge to cross the cabin to him. She could not let him see her fear. “Because I have found him. You. I waited and wished with Moiraine; I won’t with Myrelle. She is going to give me your bond.” Myrelle would, if she had to drag the woman to Tar Valon and back by her hair. For that matter, she might drag her just for the principle of it. “Don’t say anything,” she said sharply when he opened his mouth. Her fingers brushed her belt pouch, where his heavy gold signet ring lay wrapped in a silk handkerchief. With an effort, she moderated her tone; he was ill, and harsh words never helped sickness. It was an effort, though; she wanted to berate him up one side and down the other, wanted to pull her braid out by the roots every time she thought of him and that woman. Fighting to keep her voice calm, she went on.

“In the Two Rivers, Lan, when somebody gives another a ring, they are betrothed.” That was a lie, and she half-expected him to jump to his feet in outrage, but he only blinked warily. Besides, she had read about the notion in a story. “We have been betrothed long enough. We are going to be married today.”

“I used to pray for that,” he said softly, then shook his head. “You know why it can’t be, Nynaeve. And even if it could, Myrelle—”

Despite all her promises to keep her temper, to be gentle, she embraced
saidar
and stuffed a gag of Air into his mouth before he could confess what she did not want to hear. So long as he did not confess, she could pretend nothing had happened. When she got hold of Myrelle, though! Opals pressed hard into her palm, and her hand leaped from her braid as if burned. She occupied her fingers with brushing his hair again while he glared at her indignantly above his gaping mouth. “A small lesson for you
in the difference between wives and other women,” she said lightly. Such a struggle. “I would appreciate it very much if you did not mention Myrelle’s name again in my presence. Do you understand?”

He nodded, and she released the flow, but as soon as he had worked his jaw a moment, he said, “Naming no names, Nynaeve, you know she’s aware of everything I feel, through the bond. If we were man and wife. . . .”

She thought her face might burst into flame. She had never thought of that! Bloody Myrelle! “Is there any way to make sure she knows it is me?” she said finally, and her cheeks nearly did flash to fire. Especially when he fell back against the cabin wall laughing in astonishment.