Rand let Sulin hold his coat for him to put on for the simple reason that he would have had to rip it out of her hands physically to do otherwise. As usual, she tried to shove the garment onto him with no regard to details such as where his arms happened to be. The result was a small dance in the middle of his bedchamber. Lews Therin cackled with a sort of mad delight, just loud enough to be heard. Sammael, oh, yes, but Demandred first. First of all I rid myself of him, then Sammael. Oh, yes. If the man had had hands, he would have been rubbing them in glee. Rand ignored him.
“Be respectful,” Sulin muttered under her breath. “You did not show respect to those Aes Sedai in Caemlyn, and you saw what came of it. The Wise Ones . . . I have heard the Wise Ones say things . . . You must be respectful. My Lord Dragon,” she added, as an afterthought.
At last he managed to wrench the coat on the rest of the way. “Has Min come yet?”
“Do you see her? My Lord Dragon.” Picking imaginary lint from the red silk, Sulin began doing up his buttons. It was faster to put his hands down and let her. “Min will come when she comes, if she comes. Sorilea will be done with her in the tents when she is done.” Suddenly she peered up at him sharply. “What do you want with her? You hardly want your bottom pinched while the Aes Sedai are here.” There was no hidden smile this afternoon. “My Lord Dragon.”
It was very hard not to scowl. Everything was going so well, and now this. Sorilea knew he wanted Min today more than for any previous audience; a chance for her to view Coiren and two more of Elaida’s emissaries was not to be missed. Sorilea had promised to have her back. He moved away again, but Sulin followed, working at the buttons. “Sulin, I want you to go to Sorilea’s tent. Find Min and bring her here. No questions, Sulin. Just do it.”
She managed to smile and grind her teeth at the same time, a remarkable sight. “As my Lord Dragon commands.” A smooth curtsy spread red-and-white skirts wide and lowered her face halfway to the floor.
“How long?” he asked as she turned to go. There was no need to say until what; her hesitation showed that she understood.
At last she spoke, calmly and firmly, not grumbling at all. “Until my shame equals theirs.” She looked him straight in the eye for a moment, the Sulin of old, if with longer hair, but just as quickly the mask returned. “If my Lord Dragon will excuse me, I must run if I am to obey his command.” Which she did, lifting her skirts to her knees and darting out of the room. Rand shook his head and did up the last buttons himself.
In truth, he felt good. Except about Min, of course. Sorilea had promised. Min had promised. Once he fended off Coiren’s inevitable questions as to whether he had decided to return to Tar Valon with her, he was going to sit Min down and . . . He was not sure what. But Alanna was another day closer. A short time of listening to Coiren, and he would go work the sword for an hour.
Demandred, Lews Therin snarled. He wanted Ilyena! As usual, the thought of Ilyena sent him off into distant weeping and moaning. Ilyena! Oh, Light, Ilyena!
Rand took the Dragon Scepter into the anteroom. Wondering who Coiren would bring, he sat in the tall chair on the dais to keep from pacing. Not over the Aes Sedai. Over Min. She knew he needed her. She knew that.
At last one of the doors opened just enough to admit a woman, but it was Chiad, not Min. “The Aes Sedai are here, Car’a’carn.” She said the title stiffly, still not sure about a wetlander as the chief of chiefs, and for that matter, still not certain how to see him as the son of a Maiden.
Rand nodded, shifting himself upright and standing the Dragon Scepter erect on his knee. “Send them in.” He was going to speak sharply to Min about this. Giving all her time to the Wise Ones.
Coiren glided in like a plump self-important swan, followed by Galina and another raven-haired, hard-eyed woman with an Aes Sedai face. They were all in shades of gray today, chosen he suspected because it would not show the dust. To his surprise, once more serving women with light dustcloaks hanging down their backs came behind the Aes Sedai, a full dozen laboring under the weight of two brass-bound chests, neither small. Some of the young women glanced at him, but most had their heads down, in concentration on their burdens or maybe in fear.
Rand’s lip very nearly curled before he could stop it. They really did think they could buy him.
“A pity your Green sister is not here today,” Galina said.
His eyes whipped from the serving women to her. All three Aes Sedai were staring at him intently. How could they possibly know about Alanna?
There was no time for wondering, though; almost at the same instant, his skin began to tingle.
Fury leaped inside him, and in Lews Therin too. Rand seized saidin nearly out of Lews Therin’s teeth. White-hot rage roiled along the boundaries of the Void, and contempt, as he glared at Coiren and Galina and whoever the third was. Coiren’s soft round jaw was set with determination; the other two actually smiled, eagerly and not at all pleasantly. They were as much fools as Merana and that lot.
The shield sliding between him and the True Source was like the closing of a sluice gate; the flow of saidin vanished, leaving only the filthy residue of the taint. Beside that, the air seeming to turn solid around him from his ankles to his head was as nothing. That shield made his eyes bulge; it was impossible. No three women could block him from the Source once he had taken hold of saidin, not unless they were as strong as Semirhage or Mesaana or . . . He reached for the Source, battered at that invisible stone wall, harder, harder. Lews Therin was snarling like a beast, battering, clawing frantically. One of them had to be able to reach saidin; one of them had to be able to break a buffer held by only three.
The block had only been in place moments when one of the serving women stepped up beside Galina, and Rand felt the blood drain from his face. Four sets of eyes in four ageless faces examined him.
“It is a great pity that it came to this.” In those calm, rolling tones, Coiren might better have been addressing a gathering than one man. “I very much wanted you to come to Tar Valon on your own, but it became obvious you only intended to put us off. I suppose that you have had some contact from those poor fools who fled after the Sanche woman was stilled. Did you really believe they could offer you anything? As against the White Tower?” She actually sounded disappointed in him.
His eyes were the only part of him that could move; they slid toward the serving women, busy around one of the chests. It stood open, and they were lifting out a shallow tray. Some of those faces looked young, but the others . . . They were all Aes Sedai, he was sure, the five young women only new enough that they had not yet assumed the agelessness, five to look at him and lull his suspicions while the others hid their faces. Fifteen Aes Sedai. Thirteen to link and weave a shield no man could break, and two to bind him. Thirteen to . . . Lews Therin fled screaming.
Galina plucked the Dragon Scepter from Rand’s hand, shaking her head over it. “I am in charge now, Coiren.” She never even looked at him; he might as well have been part of the chair. “It was agreed, if it came to this, the Red Ajah would take charge.” Handing the Dragon Scepter to the other black-haired woman in gray, she said, “Put this somewhere, Katerine. It might make an amusing souvenir for the Amyrlin.”
Red Ajah. Sweat oozed down Rand’s face. If only the Maidens outside would walk in now, Wise Ones, Sulin, anybody who could scream a warning, rouse the palace. Thirteen Aes Sedai, and Red Ajah in charge. Had he been able to open his mouth, he would have howled.
Bain looked
up in surprise when the doors opened — Rand al’Thor had received the Aes Sedai a very little while ago — and automatically averted her eyes when she saw the serving women bringing out the chests. One of the black-haired Aes Sedai planted herself in front of her, and Bain hurriedly straightened from her crouch by the door. She hardly knew what to make of the tale the other Maidens had told her in Caemlyn, the things only chiefs and Wise Ones had known once, but this woman’s dark eyes seemed to know all about how the Aiel had failed so long ago. Those eyes held Bain’s till she was only vaguely aware of the other night-haired Aes Sedai confronting Chiad, and the pompous one leading the women away down the corridor with the chests. Bain wondered whether the Aes Sedai facing her meant to kill her for the Aiel’s failure. Surely they would have begun killing before now if they intended to — surely they knew — but this woman’s dark eyes glittered with a hardness that surely presaged death. Bain was not afraid to die; she only hoped she would have time to veil first.
“It seems young Master al’Thor is accustomed to coming and going from Cairhien when he chooses,” the Aes Sedai told her in a voice like stone. “We are not accustomed to anyone walking away from us rudely. If he returns to the palace in the next few days, we will return also. If not . . . Our patience is not infinite.” She glided away, she and the other, after the women with the chests.
Bain exchanged quick looks with Chiad, and they hurried into Rand al’Thor’s chambers.
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Perrin demanded. Loial’s ears twitched toward him, but the Ogier kept his eyes on the stones board as firmly as Faile did. She smelled . . . Perrin could make out nothing in the jumble of scents from her; that jumble made him want to bite his hands.