CHAPTER 52
Elayne settled herself in Glimmer's saddle. The mare was one of the prizes of the royal stable; she was of fine Saldaean stock with a brilliant white mane and coat. The saddle itself was rich, the leather trimmed with wine- red and gold. It was the sort of saddle you used when parading.
Birgitte rode Rising, a tall dun gelding, also one of the fastest in the royal stables. The Warder had chosen both horses. She expected to have to run.
Birgitte wore one of Elayne's foxhead copies, though it had a different shape, a thin silver disc with a rose on the front. Elayne carried another wrapped in cloth inside her pocket.
She'd tried making another this morning, but it had melted, nearly setting her dresser on fire. She was having a great deal of difficulty without the original to study. Her dreams of arming all of her personal Guards with medallions was looking less and less possible, unless she somehow managed to persuade Mat to give her the original again.
Her honor guard fell into mounted ranks around her and Birgitte in the Queen's Plaza. She was bringing only a hundred soldiers—seventy-five Guardsmen and an inner ring of twenty-five Guardswomen. It was a tiny force, but she'd have gone without those hundred if she'd been able to get away with it. She couldn't afford to be seen as a conqueror.
'I don't like this,' Birgitte said.
'You don't like anything, lately,' Elayne said. 'I swear, you're becoming more irritable by the day.'
'It's because you're becoming more foolhardy by the day.'
'Oh, come now. This is hardly the most foolhardy thing I've done.'
'Only because you've set a very high benchmark for yourself, Elayne.'
'It will be fine,' Elayne said, glancing southward.
'Why do you keep looking in that direction?'
'Rand,' Elayne said, feeling that warmth again, pulsing from the knot of emotions in her mind. 'He's getting ready for something. He feels troubled. And peaceful at the same time.' Light, but that man could be confusing.
The meeting would happen in one day, if his original deadline still held. Egwene was right; breaking the seals would be foolish. But Rand would see reason.
Alise rode up to her, accompanied by three Kinswomen. Sarasia was a plump woman with a grandmotherly air; dark-skinned Kema kept her black hair in three long braids, and prim Nashia with a youthful face wore a baggy dress.
The four took up positions beside Elayne. Only two of them were strong enough for a gateway—many of the Kin were weaker than most Aes Sedai. But that would be enough, assuming Elayne had trouble embracing the Source.
'Can you do something to prevent archers from hitting her?' Birgitte asked Alise. 'Some kind of weave?'
Alise cocked her head thoughtfully. 'I know of one that might help,' she said, 'but I've never tried it.'
Another Kinswoman wove a gateway up ahead. It opened to a span of rough, brown-grassed land outside of Cairhien. A much larger army waited there, wearing the cuirasses and bell-shaped helmets of Cairhienin troops. The officers were easy to spot with their dark clothing, in the colors of the Houses they served. They wore con rising over their backs.
Tall, narrow-faced Lorstrum sat his mount at the front of his army, which wore dark green with crimson slashes; Bertome was on the other side. Their forces looked to be about the same size. Five thousand each. The other four Houses had fielded smaller armies.
'If they wanted to take you captive,' Birgitte said grimly, 'you're handing them the chance.'
'There's no way to do this and remain safe, not unless I want to hide in my palace and send my troops in. That would only lead to rebellion in Cairhien and potential collapse in Andor.' She glanced at the Warder. 'I'm Queen now, Birgitte. You're not going to be able to keep me from danger, no more than you could keep a lone soldier safe on the battlefield.'
Birgitte nodded. 'Stay close to me and Guybon.'
Guybon approached, on a large dappled gelding. With Birgitte on one side of her and Guybon on the other— and with both of their horses taller than Elayne's—a would-be assassin would have great difficulty picking her off without first hitting her friends.
So it would be for the rest of her life. She nudged Glimmer into motion, and her troop made its way through the gateway and onto Cairhienin soil. The noblemen and noblewomen ahead bowed or curtsied from horseback, and those oblations were deeper this time than they had been when meeting Elayne in her throne room. The show had begun.
The city was just ahead, walls still blackened from fires during the fight with the Shaido. Elayne could sense Birgitte's tension as the gateway vanished behind. The Kin around Elayne embraced the source, and Alise wove an unfamiliar weave, placing it in the air around the inner ring of troops. It made a small—but swift—wind spinning in the air.
Birgitte's anxiety was contagious, and Elayne found herself holding her reins in a tight grip as Glimmer moved forward. The air was drier here in Cairhien, with a faint dusty scent to it. The sky was overcast.
The Cairhienin troops formed around her small group of Andorans in white and red. Most of the Cairhienin forces were foot, though there was some heavy cavalry, horses in shiny barding and men carrying lances pointed high into the air. All marched in perfect lines, protecting Elayne. Or keeping her captive.
Lorstrum moved his bay stallion closer to Elayne's outer ranks. Guybon glanced at her, and she nodded, so the captain allowed him to approach.
'The city is nervous, Your Majesty,' Lorstrum said. Birgitte was still careful to keep her mount between his and Elayne's. 'There are… unfortunate rumors surrounding your ascension.'
Rumors you probably initiated, Elayne thought, before you decided to support me instead. 'Surely they won't rise against your troops?'
'I hope they will not.' He eyed her from under his flat cap of forest green. He wore a black coat that went down to his knees and slashes of color across it all the way down, to denote his House. It was the type of clothing he'd wear if going to a ball. That projected a sense of confidence. His force wasn't seizing the city, it was escorting the new queen with an honorary parade. 'It is unlikely that there will be armed resistance. But I wanted to warn you.'
Lorstrum nodded to her with respect. He knew she was manipulating him, but he also accepted that manipulation. She would have to keep a careful watch on him in the years to come.
Cairhien was such a boxish city, all straight lines and fortified towers. Though some of its architecture was beautiful, there was no comparing the place to Caemlyn or Tar Valon. They rode directly in through the northern gates, the River Alguenya to their right.
Crowds waited inside. Lorstrum and the others had done their work well. There were cheers, probably started by carefully placed courtiers. As Elayne entered the city, the cheers grew louder. That surprised her. She had expected hostility. And yes, there was some of that—the occasional thrown piece of refuse, hurled from the back of the crowd. She caught a jeer here and there. But most seemed pleased.
As she rode down that broad passageway, lined with the rectangular buildings Cairhienin favored, she realized that perhaps these people had been waiting for an event like this. Talking of it, spreading tales. Some of those tales had been hostile, and those were what Norry had reported. But they now seemed to her more a sign of worry than hostility. Cairhien had been too long without a monarch, their king dead by unknown hands, the Lord Dragon seemingly abandoning them.
Her confidence grew. Cairhien was a wounded city. The burned and broken remnants of the Foregate outside. Cobbles had been torn up to be thrown from the walls. The city had never fully recovered from the Aiel War, and the unfinished Topless Towers—symmetrical in design, but woefully forlorn in appearance—were a lofty declaration of that fact.
