“A good plan, I think,” Vandene said when she finished. “Yes, it will do nicely.” Others were not so agreeable.
“It isn’t a plan, it’s bloody madness!” Birgitte said sharply. Arms folded beneath her bosom, she scowled down at Elayne, the bond such a turmoil of emotions that Elayne could barely make them out. “The four of you enter the house alone. Alone! That isn’t a plan. It’s flaming insanity! Warders are supposed to guard their Aes Sedai’s backs. Let us come with you.” The other Warders put in emphatic agreements, but at least she was not trying to stop the whole thing any more.
“There are four of us,” Elayne told her. “We can watch our own backs. And sisters do not ask their Warders to face other sisters.” Birgitte’s face darkened. “If I need you, I’ll shout so loud you’d be able to hear me if you were back here in the palace. The Warders remain outside!” she added when Birgitte opened her mouth. The bond filled with frustration, but Birgitte’s jaw snapped shut.
“Perhaps this man can be trusted,” Sareitha said, glancing at Hark with no trust at all, “but even if he heard correctly, nothing says there are still only two sisters in the house. Or any. If they have gone, there’s no danger, but if others have joined them, we might as well put our necks in a noose and spring the trap ourselves.”
Careane folded her sturdy arms and nodded. “The danger is too great. You yourself told us that when they fled the Tower, they stole a number of ter’angreal, some very dangerous indeed. I’ve never been called a coward, but I don’t fancy trying to sneak up on someone who might have a rod that can make balefire.”
“He could hardly have misheard something as simple as ‘there are only two of us,’” Elayne replied firmly. “And they spoke as if they didn’t expect any others.” Burn her, considering her standing with respect to them, they should have been jumping to obey rather than arguing. “In any case, this isn’t a discussion.” A pity both objected. If only one had, it could have been a clue. Unless they both were Black Ajah. A bone-freezing thought, that, yet her plan took the possibility into account. “Falion and Marillin won’t know we are coming until it’s too late. If they’re gone, we’ll arrest this Shiaine, but we are going.”
It was a larger party than Elayne had expected that rode out of the Queen’s Stableyard behind her and Hark. Birgitte had insisted on bringing fifty Guardswomen, though all they would be doing was missing sleep, a column of twos in red-lacquered helmets and breastplates, black in the night, that snaked along the palace behind the Aes Sedai and Warders. Reaching the front of the palace, they skirted the edge of the Queen’s Plaza, the great oval crowded now with rude shelters that housed sleeping Guardsmen and nobles’ armsmen. Men were billeted everywhere room could be found, but there were insufficient basements and attics and spare rooms near enough the palace, and the parks where circles of Kinswomen would take the men to the places where they were needed. The fighting they did was afoot, on the walls, so their horses were all picketed in nearby parks and in the larger palace gardens. A few sentries shifted as they passed, heads swiveling to follow, but with her hood up, all they could be sure of was that a large contingent of Guardswomen were escorting a party through the night. The sky to the east was still dark, but it must be less than two hours till first light. The Light send dawn would see Falion and Marillin in custody. And one more. At least one more.
Winding streets led over and around the hills past narrow, tile-covered towers that would glitter with a hundred colors when the sun rose and glittered faintly in the cloud-dappled moonlight, past silent shops and lightless inns, simple stone houses with slate roofs and small palaces that might have fit in Tar Valon. The ring of horseshoes on the paving stones and the faint creak of saddle leather sounded loud in the silence. Except for an occasional dog that slunk away into the deeper shadows of alleys, nothing else moved. The streets were dangerous at this hour, but no footpad would be mad enough to come in sight of so large a party. Half an hour after leaving the Royal Palace, Elayne rode Fireheart through the Mondel Gate, a wide, twenty-foot-high arch in the Inner City’s tall white wall. Once there would have been Guardsmen on duty there, to keep the peace, but the Queen’s Guards were spread too thin now for that.
Almost as soon as they were into the New City, Hark turned east into a warren of streets that meandered in every direction through the city’s hills. He rode awkwardly, on a bay mare that had been found for him. Cutpurses seldom spent time in the saddle. Some of the streets were quite narrow here, and it was in one of those that he finally drew rein, surrounded by stone houses of two or three or even four stories. Birgitte raised a hand to halt the column. The sudden silence seemed deafening.
“It’s just around that corner there, it is, my Lady, the other side of the street,” Hark said in a near whisper, “but if we go riding out there, they might hear us or see us. Pardon, my Lady, but if these Aes Sedai are what you says they are, I don’t want them seeing me.” He scrambled down from his saddle clumsily and looked up her, wringing his hands, his moonshadowed face anxious.
Dismounting, Elayne led Fireheart to the corner and peeked around the corner of a narrow, three-story house. The houses along the other street stood dark except for one, four substantial stories of stone with the closed gate of a stableyard beside it. Not an ornate building, but large enough for a wealthy merchant or banker. Bankers and merchants were unlikely to be awake at this hour, however.
“There,” Hark whispered hoarsely, pointing. He stood far back, so he had to learn forward to point. He really did fear being seen. “The one with the light on the second floor, it is.”
“Best to find out if anyone else is awake in there,” Vandene said, peering past Elayne. “Jaem? Don’t go inside the house.” Elayne expected the lean old Warder to sneak across the street, but he just strolled out holding his cloak close around him against the early morning chill. Even the dangerous grace of a Warder appeared to have deserted him. Vandene seemed to sense her surprise.
“Skulking draws the eye and creates suspicion,” she said. “Jaem is just a man walking, and if it’s early to be out in the streets, he isn’t sneaking, so anyone who sees him will think of some mundane reason for him to be out.”
Reaching the stableyard gate, Jaem pulled it open and walked through as if he had a perfect right. Long minutes passed before he came back out, shutting the gate carefully behind him, and strolled back along the street. He rounded the corner and the leopard-like gra
