Crossroads of Twilight

shoulders hastily. A fire blazed on the stone hearth, but the room was nowhere near warm, and recently she could not seem to ignore the cold with any reliability. The girl bobbed as she asked whether she could fetch men to carry down the chests if it pleased Her Majesty. The first time she had done that, Elayne had gently explained that she was not yet Queen, but Elsie seemed horrified at the idea of addressing her simply as my Lady, or even as Princess, though in truth the last was considered very old-fashioned. Proper or not, it usually pleased Elayne to hear someone acknowledge her right to the throne, but this morning she was too tired to be anything but anxious to be on the road. Suppressing a yawn, she told Elsie curtly to fetch the men and be quick about it, and turned for the paneled door. The girl rushed to open it for her, which took longer than if she had done it herself, with a curtsy before opening and yet another after. Her divided silk skirts whispered furiously against each other as she strode out of the room tugging on her red riding gloves. If Elsie had delayed her one more second, she thought she would have screamed.

It was the girl who shrieked, however, before Elayne had gone three paces, a horrified howl that sounded ripped from her throat. The cloak flared as Elayne spun around, embracing the True Source, feeling the richness of saidar flood through her. Elsie was standing on the strip of carpet that ran along the middle of the pale brown floor tiles, staring the other way down the hall with both hands pressed to her mouth. Two crossing corridors opened in that direction, but there was not another soul in sight.

“What is it, Elsie?” Elayne demanded. She had several weaves already on the edge of forming, ranging from a simple net of air to a fireball that would have demolished half the walls in front of her, and in her present humor, she wanted to use one of them, to strike out with the Power. Her moods were uncertain of late, to say the least.

The girl looked back over one shoulder, trembling, and if her eyes had been wide before, they bulged now. Her hands remained clamped to mouth as if to prevent another scream. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, tall and plump-bosomed in House Matherin’s gray-and-blue livery, she was not really a girl — Elsie might be four or five years older than herself — but the way she behaved made it difficult to think of her any other way.

“What is it, Elsie? And don’t tell me it was nothing. You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

The girl flinched. “I did,” she said unsteadily. That she gave Elayne no title showed just how unsteady she was. “Lady Nelein, as was Lord Aedmun’s grandmother. She died when I was little, but I remember even Lord Aedmun tiptoed around her temper, and the maids used to jump if she looked at them, and other ladies who visited, too, and the lords, as well. Everybody was afraid of her. She was right there in front of me, and she scowled so furious — ” She broke off, blushing, when Elayne laughed.

It was more a laugh of relief than anything else. The Black Ajah had not somehow followed her to Lord Aedmun’s manor. There were no assassins waiting with knives in their fists, no sisters loyal to Elaida wanting to whisk her back to Tar Valon. Sometimes she dreamed about those things, about all of them in the same dream. She released saidar, reluctantly as always, regretful as that fullness of joy and life drained out of her. Matherin supported her, but Aedmun might have taken it amiss if she had ruined half his home place.

“The dead cannot harm the living, Elsie,” she said gently. The more gently because she had laughed, not to mention wanting to box the ninny’s ears. “They’re not of this world anymore, and they can’t touch anything in it, including us.” The girl nodded, and dropped another curtsy, but by the size of her eyes and the trembling of her lips she was unconvinced. Elayne had no time to cosset her, though. “Fetch the men for my cases, Elsie,” she said firmly, “and don’t worry about ghosts.” With yet another curtsy the girl dashed off, her head swiveling anxiously in case the Lady Nelein leaped out of the paneled walls. Ghosts! The fool girl was a ninny!

Matherin was an old House, if not large or strong, and the main stairs, leading down to the entry hall, were broad and trimmed with marble railings. The entry hall itself was a generous space, with gray-and-blue floor tiles and mirrored oil lamps hanging on chains from the ceiling twenty feet above. There was nothing in the way of gilding and little inlay, but ornately carved chests and cabinets stood along the sides of the hall, and two wall hangings were displayed on one wall. One showed men hunting leopards from horseback, a chancy business at best, and the other women of House Matherin presenting a sword to the first Queen of Andor, an event that Matherin treasured and that might or might not have actually happened.

Aviendha was already down, pacing restlessly in the hall, and Elayne sighed at the sight. They would have shared a room, if not for the implication that Matherin could not provide adequately for two visitors of note, but Aviendha did not really understand that the smaller the House, the loftier the pride. Often, the smaller Houses possessed little more. Pride, she should have understood, since a fierce pride and strength all but shone from her. Straight-backed and even taller than Elayne, a thick dark shawl draped over her pale blouse and a folded gray head scarf holding back her long reddish hair, she was the very picture of a Wise One despite only a year older than Elayne. Wise Ones who could channel often appeared to be much younger than they were, and Aviendha had the dignity. At this moment she did, anyway, though the pair of them had giggled together often enough. Of course, her only jewelry was a long, silver Kandori necklace, an amber brooch in the shape of a turtle and a wide ivory bracelet, and Wise Ones always wore festoons of necklaces and bracelets, but Aviendha was not a Wise One yet, merely an apprentice. Elayne never thought of Aviendha as merely anything, but it did present problems now and then. Sometimes she thought the Wise Ones considered her an apprentice of some sort as well, or at least a student. A silly thought, to be sure, but sometimes…

As Elayne reached the foot of the stairs, Aviendha adjusted her shawl and asked, “Did you sleep well?” Her tone was untroubled, but anxiety nestled around her green eyes. “You did not send for wine to help you sleep, did you? I made sure your wine was watered when we ate, but I saw you looking at the wine pitcher.”

“Yes, Mother,” Elayne said in a sickly sweet voice. “No, Mother. I was wondering how Aedmun got his hands on such a fine vintage, Mother. It was a shame to water it. And I drank the goat’s milk before I went to sleep.” If anything brought her to birthing sickness, it would be goat’s milk! And to think she used to like it.

Aviendha planted her fists on her hips, such an embodiment of indignation that Elayne had to laugh. There were inconveniences to being with child, ranging from abrupt swings in her temper to tenderness in her breasts to always being tired, but the coddling was the worst, in some ways. Everyone in the Royal Palace knew she was pregnant — a good many had known before she did, courtesy of Min’s viewing and Min being too free with her tongue — and she did not think she could have been so mothered when she was an infant. Still, she put up with all the bother with as much grace as she could muster. Usually, she did. They were only trying to be helpful. She just wished every woman she knew did not believe that pregnancy had made her brainless. Nearly every woman she knew. Those who had never borne a child themselves were the worst.

Thinking of her baby — at times she wished Min had said whether it would be a boy or girl, or rather that Aviendha or Birgitte could recall exactly what Min actually had said; Min was always right, but the three of them had consumed a great deal wine that night, and Min had been gone from the palace long before Elayne herself knew to ask — thinking of the child growing in her always made her think of Rand, just as thinking of him made her think of the babe. One followed the other as surely as cream rose in the milkpan. She missed Rand terribly, and yet she could not miss him. A part of him, the sense of him, rode always in the back of her head unless she masked the bond, right alongside her sense of Birgitte, her other Warder. The bond had its limits, however. He was somewhere to the west, far enough that she could tell little more than that he was alive. Nothing more, really, though she thought she would know if he had been badly injured. She was not sure she wanted to know what he was up to. He had been far to the south for a long time after leaving her, and now, just this morning, he had Traveled to the west. It was disconcerting, really, to feel him in one direction and then suddenly have him off in another, even farther away. He could be pursuing enemies or running from enemies or any one of a thousand things. She hoped very much it was something innocuous that made him Travel. He was going to die on her all too soon — men who could channel always died of it — but she wanted so very much to keep him alive as long as possible.

“He is well,” Aviendha said almost as though she could read her mind. They had their own shared sense of one another since their mutual adoption as first-sisters, but it did not go as far as the Warder bond they and Min shared with Rand. “If he allows himself to be killed, I will cut off his ears.”

Elayne blinked, then laughed again, and after a startled glance, Aviendha joined in. It was not that funny, except maybe to an Aiel — Aviendha’s sense of humor was very odd — but Elayne could not stop laughing, and Aviendha seemed as helpless. Shaking with mirth, they hugged one another and hung on. Life was very strange. Had anyone told her a few years ago that she would share a man with another woman —