Amylia jumped, then gathered her bronze-colored skirts to her knees and went racing for the table where the wine pitchers sat. Badly wrong, it appeared. Harine wondered how long Zaida would continue to allow her to wear dresses rather than trousers, which were much more practical shipboard. It would surely be a shock to her when they passed beyond sight of land and blouses were abandoned.
Of the Brown Ajah, Amylia had wanted to study the Atha’an Miere, but she was given little time for study. Her purpose was to work, and Zaida saw that she did. She was there to teach the Windfinders all that the Aes Sedai knew. She still dithered over that, but shorebound instructors, rare as they were, ranked barely a whisker above the deckhands— in the beginning, the woman apparently had believed her dignity fully equal to Zaida’s if not more!—and the deckmaster’s flail laid with some frequent regularity across her rump supposedly was changing her mind, if slowly. Amylia had actually tried to desert three times! Strangely, she did not know how to make a gateway, knowledge that carefully was being kept from her, and she should have known she was being watched too closely to bribe her way onto a bumboat. Well, she was unlikely to try again. Reportedly she had been told that a fourth attempt would earn a public strapping this time followed by being hung by her ankles in the rigging. No one would risk that shame, surely. Sailmistresses and even Wavemistresses had been reduced to deckhands and gone willingly after that, eager to lose themselves and their disgrace in the mass of men and women hauling lines and handling sail.
Removing the cushion from the seat of her chair and dropping it disdainfully on the deck, Harine took her place at the bottom of the left-hand row, Shalon at her back. She was the least senior except for Mareil, seated across from her. But then, Zaida would have sat only one chair farther up had she not gained the sixth fat golden earring for each ear and the chains that connected them. Her lobes might still be sore from the piercings. A pleasant thought.
“As he makes us wait, perhaps we should make him wait when he finally does appear.” With an untouched goblet in hand, she waved away the anxious Aes Sedai, who scurried over to Mareil. Foolish woman. Did she not know she should have served the Mistress of the Ships first and then followed with the Wavemistresses by seniority?
Zaida toyed with her piercework scent box, hanging on a very heavy golden chain around her neck. She wore a wide, close-fitting collar of heavy gold links, too, a gift from Elayne of Andor. “He comes from the Coramoor,” she said dryly, “whom you were supposed to stick to like a barnacle.” Her voice never hardened, but every word cut at Harine. “This man will be as close as I can come to speaking to the Coramoor without dire need, since you agreed he did not have to attend me more than three times in any period of two years. Because of you, I must accept this man’s discourtesy if he turns out to be a scabrous drunkard who must run to the rail and empty his stomach every second sentence. The ambassador I send to the Coramoor will be someone who knows how to obey her orders.” Pelanna tittered and smirked. She thought everyone was like herself.
Shalon squeezed Harine’s shoulder reassuringly, but she did not need it. Stay with the Coramoor? There was no way she could explain to anyone, even Shalon, Cadsuane’s rude methods of enforcing her will or her total lack of respect for Harine’s dignity. She had been an ambassador from the Atha’an Miere in name, and forced to dance to any tune the Aes Sedai piped. She was willing to admit, if only to herself, that she had almost wept with relief when she realized that cursed woman was going to let her leave. Besides, that girl’s visions always came true. So the Aes Sedai said, and they could not lie. It was enough.
Turane slipped into the cabin and bowed to Zaida. “The Coramoor’s emissary has arrived, Shipmistress. He … he stepped out of a gateway on the quarterdeck.” That created murmurs among the Windfinders, and Amylia jerked as though she had felt the deckmaster’s flail again.
“I hope he did not damage your deck too badly, Turane,” Zaida said. Harine sipped wine to hide her small smile. Apparently the man was to be made to wait a little, at least.
“Not at all, Shipmistress.” Turane sounded surprised. “The gateway opened a good foot above the deck, and he stepped through from one of the city’s docks.”
“Yes,” Shalon whispered. “I can see how to do that.” She thought anything to do with the Power was wonderful.
“That must have a shock, seeing a stone dock above your quarterdeck,” Zaida said. “Very well. I will see whether the Coramoor has sent me a scabrous drunkard. Send him in, Turane. But do not rush. Amylia, am I to get any wine before nightfall?”
The Aes Sedai gasped and, making little whimpers as if on the point of tears, rushed to fetch a goblet as Turane bowed and left. Light, what had Amylia done?
Long moments passed, and Zaida had her wine well before a large man with dark hair curling to his broad shoulders entered the cabin. He certainly was not scabrous, nor did he appear drunk. The high collar of his black coat held a silver pin in the shape of a sword on one side, and on the other a red-and-gold pin shaped like one of the creatures that entwined the Coramoor’s forearms. A dragon. Yes, that was what it was called. A round pin fastened to his left shoulder showed three golden crowns against blue enamel. A sigil, perhaps? Was he a shorebound noble? Could the Coramoor actually have done Zaida honor in sending this man? Knowing Rand al’Thor as she did, she doubted it had been intentional. It was not that he tried to dishonor anyone, yet he cared little for the honors of others.
He bowed to Zaida, handling the sword at his side smoothly, but he failed to touch heart and lips and forehead. Still, some shortcomings had to be overlooked with the shorebound. “I apologize if I arrive late, Shipmistress,” he said, “but it seemed unnecessary to come before all of your number were here.” He must have a very good looking glass to have observed that from the docks.
Studying him up and down with a frown, Zaida sipped her wine. “You have a name?”
“I am Logain,” he said simply.
Half the women in the room exhaled sharply, and most of the rest let their jaws drop. More than one slopped wine from her goblet. Not Zaida, and not Harine, but the others. Logain. That was a name known even to the Atha’an Miere.
“May I speak, Shipmistress?” Amylia asked breathily. She was clutching the porcelain pitcher so hard that Harine feared it might shatter in her hands, but the woman had learned enough sense to say no more until Zaida nodded. Then words spilled from her in a breathless rush. “This man was a false Dragon. He was gentled for it. How it is he can channel again, I cannot know, but he channels saidin. Saidin! He is tainted, Shipmistress. If you deal with him, you will incur the wrath of the White T
