The Great Hunt Page 50

  “And do you never think to use that sword against us?”

  The man’s hands went white-knuckled gripping his knees, and there was suddenly sweat in his voice. “I have sworn the oaths, Captain. I obey, await, and serve.”

  “You see?” Egeanin said, turning to Domon. “There is no reason to forbid them weapons. There must be trade, and merchants must protect themselves from bandits. We allow the people to come and go as they will, so long as they obey, await, and serve. Their forefathers broke their oaths, but these have learned better.” She started back up the hill, and the soldiers pushed Domon after her.

  He looked back at the merchant. The man stayed bent as he was till Egeanin was ten paces up the street, then he straightened and hurried the other way, leaping down the sloping street.

  Egeanin and his guards did not look around, either, when a mounted Seanchan troop passed them, climbing the street. The soldiers rode creatures that looked almost like cats the size of horses, but with lizards’ scales rippling bronze beneath their saddles. Clawed feet grasped the cobblestones. A three-eyed head turned to regard Domon as the troop climbed by; aside from everything else, it seemed too—knowing—for Domon’s peace of mind. He stumbled and almost fell. All along the street, the Falmen were pressing themselves back against the fronts of the buildings, some closing their eyes. The Seanchan paid them no heed.

  Domon understood why the Seanchan could allow the people as much freedom as they did. He wondered if he would have had nerve enough to resist. Damane. Monsters. He wondered if there was anything to stop the Seanchan from marching all the way to the Spine of the World. No my business, he reminded himself roughly, and considered whether there was any way to avoid the Seanchan in his future trading.

  They reached the top of the incline, where the town gave way to hills. There was no town wall. Ahead were the inns that served merchants who traded inland, and wagon yards and stables. Here, the houses would have made respectable manors for the minor lords in Illian. The largest of them had an honor guard of Seanchan soldiers out front, and a blue-edged banner bearing a golden, spread-winged hawk rippling above it. Egeanin surrendered her sword and dagger before taking Domon inside. Her two soldiers remained in the street. Domon began to sweat. He smelled a lord in this; it was never good to do business with a lord on the lord’s own ground.

  In the front hall Egeanin left Domon at the door and spoke to a servant. A local man, judging by the full sleeves of his shirt and the spirals embroidered across his chest; Domon believed he caught the words “High Lord.” The servant hurried away, returning finally to lead them to what was surely the largest room in the house. Every stick of furniture had been cleared out of it, even the rugs, and the stone floor was polished to a bright gleam. Folding screens painted with strange birds hid walls and windows.

  Egeanin stopped just inside the room. When Domon tried to ask where they were and why, she silenced him with a savage glare and a wordless growl. She did not move, but she seemed on the point of bouncing on her toes. She held whatever it was she had taken from his ship as if it were precious. He tried to imagine what it could be.

  Suddenly a gong sounded softly, and the Seanchan woman dropped to her knees, setting the silk-wrapped something carefully beside her. At a look from her, Domon got down as well. Lords had strange ways, and he suspected Seanchan lords might have stranger ones than he knew.

  Two men appeared in the doorway at the far end of the room. One had the left side of his scalp shaved, his remaining pale golden hair braided and hanging down over his ear to his shoulder. His deep yellow robe was just long enough to let the toes of yellow slippers peek out when he walked. The other wore a blue silk robe, brocaded with birds and long enough to trail nearly a span on the floor behind him. His head was shaved bald, and his fingernails were at least an inch long, those on the first two fingers of each hand lacquered blue. Domon’s mouth dropped open.

  “You are in the presence of the High Lord Turak,” the yellow-haired man intoned, “who leads Those Who Come Before, and succors the Return.”

  Egeanin prostrated herself with her hands at her sides. Domon imitated her with alacrity. Even the High Lords of Tear would no demand this, he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Egeanin kissing the floor. With a grimace, he decided there was a limit to imitation. They can no see whether I do or no anyway.

  Egeanin suddenly stood. He started to rise as well, and made it as far as one knee before a growl in her throat and a scandalized look on the face of the man with the braid put him back down, face to the floor and muttering under his breath. I would no do this for the King of Illian and the Council of Nine together.

  “Your name is Egeanin?” It had to be the voice of the man in the blue robe. His slurring speech had a rhythm almost like singing.

  “I was so named on my sword-day, High Lord,” she replied humbly.

  “This is a fine specimen, Egeanin. Quite rare. Do you wish a payment?”

  “That the High Lord is pleased is payment enough. I live to serve, High Lord.”

  “I will mention your name to the Empress, Egeanin. After the Return, new names will be called to the Blood. Show yourself fit, and you may shed the name Egeanin for a higher.”

  “The High Lord honors me.”

  “Yes. You may leave me.”

  Domon could see nothing but her boots backing out of the room, pausing at intervals for bows. The door closed behind her. There was a long silence. He was watching sweat from his forehead drip onto the floor when Turak spoke again.

  “You may rise, trader.”

  Domon got to his feet, and saw what Turak held in his long-nailed fingers. The cuendillar disk shaped into the ancient seal of the Aes Sedai. Remembering Egeanin’s reaction when he mentioned Aes Sedai, Domon began to sweat in earnest. There was no animosity in the High Lord’s dark eyes, only a slight curiosity, but Domon did not trust lords.

  “Do you know what this is, trader?”

  “No, High Lord.” Domon’s reply was as steady as a rock; no trader lasted long who could not lie with a straight face and an easy voice.

  “And yet you kept it in a secret place.”

  “I do collect old things, High Lord, from times past. There do be those who would steal such, did they lay easy to hand.”

  Turak regarded the black-and-white disk for a moment. “This is cuendillar, trader—do you know that name?—and older than you perhaps know. Come with me.”

  Domon followed the man cautiously, feeling a little more sure of himself. With any lord of the lands he knew, if guards were going to be summoned, they already would have been. But the little he had seen of Seanchan told him they did not do things as other men did. He schooled his face to stillness.

  He was led into another room. He thought the furniture here had to have been brought by Turak. It seemed to be made of curves, with no straight lines at all, and the wood was polished to bring out strange graining. There was one chair, on a silk carpet woven in birds and flowers, and one large cabinet made in a circle. Folding screens made new walls.

  The man with the braid opened the doors of the cabinet to reveal shelves holding an odd assortment of figurines, cups, bowls, vases, fifty different things, no two alike in size or shape. Domon’s breath caught as Turak carefully set the disk beside its exact twin.

  “Cuendillar,” Turak said. “That is what I collect, trader. Only the Empress herself has a finer collection.”

  Domon’s eyes almost popped out of his head. If everything on those shelves was truly cuendillar, it was enough to buy a kingdom, or at the least to found a great House. Even a king might beggar himself to buy so much of it, if he even knew where to find so much. He put on a smile.

  “High Lord, please accept this piece as a gift.” He did not want to let it go, but that was better than angering this Seanchan. Maybe the Darkfriends will chase him now. “I do be but a simple trader. I want only to trade. Let me sail, and I do promise that—”

  Turak’s expression never chang
ed, but the man with the braid cut Domon off with a snapped, “Unshaven dog! You speak of giving the High Lord what Captain Egeanin has already given. You bargain, as if the High Lord were a—a merchant! You will be flayed alive over nine days, dog, and—” The barest motion of Turak’s finger silenced him.

  “I cannot allow you to leave me, trader,” the High Lord said. “In this shadowed land of oath-breakers, I find none who can converse with a man of sensibilities. But you are a collector. Perhaps your conversation will be interesting.” He took the chair, lolling back in its curves to study Domon.

  Domon put on what he hoped was an ingratiating smile. “High Lord, I do be a simple trader, a simple man. I do no have the way of talking with great Lords.”

  The man with the braid glared at him, but Turak seemed not to hear. From behind one of the screens, a slim, pretty young woman appeared on quick feet to kneel beside the High Lord, offering a lacquered tray bearing a single cup, thin and handleless, of some steaming black liquid. Her dark, round face was vaguely reminiscent of the Sea Folk. Turak took the cup carefully in his long-nailed fingers, never looking at the young woman, and inhaled the fumes. Domon took one look at the girl and pulled his eyes away with a strangled gasp; her white silk robe was embroidered with flowers, but so sheer he could see right through it, and there was nothing beneath but her own slimness.

  “The aroma of kaf,” Turak said, “is almost as enjoyable as the flavor. Now, trader. I have learned that cuendillar is even more rare here than in Seanchan. Tell me how a simple trader came to possess a piece.” He sipped his kaf and waited.

  Domon took a deep breath and set about trying to lie his way out of Falme.

  CHAPTER

  30

  Daes Dae’mar

  In the room shared by Hurin and Loial, Rand peered through the window at the ordered lines and terraces of Cairhien, the stone buildings and slate roofs. He could not see the Illuminators’ chapter house; even if huge towers and great lords’ houses had not been in the way, the city walls would have prevented it. The Illuminators were on everyone’s tongues in the city, even now, days after the night when they had lofted only one nightflower into the sky, and that early. A dozen different versions of the scandal were being told, discounting minor variations, but none close to the truth.

  Rand turned away. He hoped no one had been hurt in the fire, but the Illuminators had not so far admitted there had been a fire. They were a close-mouthed lot about what went on inside their chapter house.

  “I will take the next watch,” he told Hurin, “as soon as I come back.”

  “There is no need, my Lord.” Hurin bowed as deeply as any Cairhienin. “I can keep watch. Truly, my Lord need not trouble himself.”

  Rand drew a deep breath and exchanged looks with Loial. The Ogier only shrugged. The sniffer was growing more formal every day they remained in Cairhien; the Ogier simply commented that humans often acted oddly.

  “Hurin,” Rand said, “you used to call me Lord Rand, and you used not to bow every time I looked at you.” I want him to unbend and call me Lord Rand again, he thought with amazement. Lord Rand! Light, we have to get out of here before I start wanting him to bow. “Will you please sit down? You make me tired, looking at you.”

  Hurin stood with his back stiff, yet appeared ready to leap to perform any task Rand might request. He neither sat down nor relaxed now. “It wouldn’t be proper, my Lord. We have to show these Cairhienin we know how to be every bit as proper as—”

  “Will you stop saying that!” Rand shouted.

  “As you wish, my Lord.”

  It was an effort for Rand not to sigh again. “Hurin, I’m sorry. I should not have shouted at you.”

  “It’s your right, my Lord,” Hurin said simply. “If I don’t do the way you want, it’s your right to shout.”

  Rand stepped toward the sniffer with the intention of grabbing the man’s collar and shaking him.

  A knock on the connecting door to Rand’s room froze them all, but Rand was pleased to see that Hurin did not wait to ask permission before picking up his sword. The heron-mark blade was at Rand’s waist; going out, he touched its hilt. He waited for Loial to seat himself on his long bed, arranging his legs and the tails of his coat to further obscure the blanket-covered chest under the bed, then yanked open the door.

  The innkeeper stood there, rocking with eagerness and pushing his tray at Rand. Two sealed parchments lay on the tray. “Forgive me, my Lord,” Cuale said breathlessly. “I could not wait until you came down, and then you were not in your own room, and—and. . . . Forgive me, but. . . .” He jiggled the tray.

  Rand snatched the invitations—there had been so many—without looking at them, took the innkeeper’s arm, and turned him toward the door to the hall. “Thank you, Master Cuale, for taking the trouble. If you’ll leave us alone, now, please. . . .”

  “But, my Lord,” Cuale protested, “these are from—”

  “Thank you.” Rand pushed the man into the hall and pulled the door shut firmly. He tossed the parchments onto the table. “He hasn’t done that before. Loial, do you think he was listening at the door before he knocked?”

  “You are starting to think like these Cairhienin.” The Ogier laughed, but his ears twitched thoughtfully and he added, “Still, he is Cairhienin, so he may well have been. I don’t think we said anything he should not have heard.”

  Rand tried to remember. None of them had mentioned the Horn of Valere, or Trollocs, or Darkfriends. When he found himself wondering what Cuale could make of what they actually had said, he gave himself a shake. “This place is getting to you, too,” he muttered to himself.

  “My Lord?” Hurin had picked up the sealed parchments and was gazing wide-eyed at the seals. “My Lord, these are from Lord Barthanes, High Seat of House Damodred, and from”—his voice dropped with awe—“the King.”

  Rand waved them away. “They still go in the fire like the rest. Unopened.”

  “But, my Lord!”

  “Hurin,” Rand said patiently, “you and Loial between you have explained this Great Game to me. If I go wherever it is they’ve invited me, the Cairhienin will read something into it and think I am part of somebody’s plot. If I don’t go, they’ll read something into that. If I send back an answer, they will dig for meaning in it, and the same if I don’t answer. And since half of Cairhien apparently spies on the other half, everybody knows what I do. I burned the first two, and I will burn these, just like all the others.” One day there had been twelve in the pile he tossed into the common-room fireplace, seals unbroken. “Whatever they make of it, at least it’s the same for everybody. I am not for anyone in Cairhien, and I am not against anyone.”

  “I have tried to tell you,” Loial said, “I don’t think it works that way. Whatever you do, Cairhienin will see some sort of plot in it. At least, that is what Elder Haman always said.”

  Hurin held the sealed invitations out to Rand as if offering gold. “My Lord, this one bears the personal seal of Galldrian. His personal seal, my Lord. And this one the personal seal of Lord Barthanes, who is next to the King himself in power. My Lord, burn these, and you make enemies as powerful as you can find. Burning them’s worked so far because the other Houses are all waiting to see what you’re up to, and thinking you must have powerful allies to risk insulting them. But Lord Barthanes—and the King! Insult them, and they’ll act for sure.”

  Rand scrubbed his hands through his hair. “What if I refuse them both?”

  “It won’t work, my Lord. Every last House has sent you an invitation, now. If you decline these—well, for sure at least one of the other Houses will figure, if you’re not allied with the King or Lord Barthanes, then they can answer your insult of burning their invitation. My Lord, I hear the Houses in Cairhien use killers, now. A knife in the street. An arrow from a rooftop. Poison slipped in your wine.”

  “You could accept them both,” Loial suggested. “I know you don’t want to, Rand, but it might even be fun. An evening a
t a lord’s manor, or even at the Royal Palace. Rand, the Shienarans believed in you.”

  Rand grimaced. He knew it had been chance that the Shienarans thought he was a lord; a chance likeness of names, a rumor among the servants, and Moiraine and the Amyrlin stirring it all. But Selene had believed it, too. Maybe she’ll be at one of these.

  Hurin was shaking his head violently, though. “Builder, you don’t know Daes Dae’mar as well as you think you do. Not the way they play it in Cairhien, not now. With most Houses, it wouldn’t matter. Even when they’re plotting against each other to the knife, they act like they aren’t, out where everybody can see. But not these two. House Damodred held the throne until Laman lost it, and they want it back. The King would crush them, if they weren’t nearly as powerful as he is. You can’t find bitterer rivals than House Riatin and House Damodred. If my Lord accepts both, both Houses will know it as soon as he sends his answers, and they’ll both think he’s part of some plot by the other against them. They’ll use the knife and the poison as quick as look at you.”

  “And I suppose,” Rand growled, “if I only accept one, the other will think I’m allied with that House.” Hurin nodded. “And they will probably try to kill me to stop whatever I’m involved in.” Hurin nodded again. “Then do you have any suggestion as to how I avoid any of them wanting to see me dead?” Hurin shook his head. “I wish I’d never burned those first two.”

  “Yes, my Lord. But it wouldn’t have made much difference, I’m guessing. Whoever you accepted or rejected, these Cairhienin would see something in it.”

  Rand held out his hand, and Hurin laid the two folded parchments in it. The one was sealed, not with the Tree and Crown of House Damodred, but with Barthanes’s Charging Boar. The other bore Galldrian’s Stag. Personal seals. Apparently he had managed to rouse interest in the highest quarters by doing nothing at all.

  “These people are crazy,” he said, trying to think of a way out of this.

  “Yes, my Lord.”