Winter's Heart

a chair. 'She recognized the taste of this forkroot in the tea and did not know how to work her weaves against it, so she did not take foolish chances.'

Nynaeve sniffed sharply. No doubt as much at Aviendha's defense of her as Birgitte's acidity. Perhaps more so. Nynaeve being Nynaeve, she probably would have preferred to let slide what she did not know and could not do. And she was more prickly than usual about Healing, of late. Ever since it became clear that several of the Kin were already outstripping her skill. 'You should have recognized it yourself, Elayne,' she said in a brusque voice. 'At any rate, greenwort and goatstongue might make you sleep, but they're sovereign for stomach cramps. I thought you would prefer the sleep.'

Fishing leather hot-water bottles from under the covers and dropping them onto the carpets so she did not start roasting again, Elayne shuddered. The days right after Ronde Macura dosed her and Nynaeve with forkroot had been a misery she had tried to forget. Whatever the herbs were that Nynaeve had given her, she felt no weaker than the forkroot would have made her. She thought she could walk, so long as she did not have to walk far or stand long. And she could think clearly. The casements showed only thin moonlight. How deeply into the night was it?

Embracing the Source again, she channeled four threads of Fire to light first one stand-lamp, then a second. The small, mirrored flames brightened the room greatly after the darkness, and Birgitte put a hand up to shield her eyes, at first. The Captain-General's coat truly did suit her; she would have impressed the merchants no end.

'You should not be channeling yet,' Nynaeve fussed, squinting at the sudden light. She still wore the same low-cut blue dress Elayne had seen her in earlier, with her yellow-fringed shawl caught in her elbows. 'A few days to regain strength would be best, with plenty of sleep.' She frowned at the hot-water bottles tumbled on the floor. 'And you need to be kept warm. Better to avoid a fever than need to Heal it.'

'I think Dyelin proved her loyalty today,' Elayne said, shifting her pillows so she could lean back against the headboard, and Nynaeve threw up her hands in disgust. A small silver tray on one of the side tables flanking the bed held a single silver cup filled with dark wine that Elayne gave a brief, mistrusting look. 'A hard way to prove it. I think I have toh toward her, Aviendha.'

Aviendha shrugged. On their arrival in Caemlyn she had returned to Aiel garments with almost laughable haste, forsaking silks for algode blouses and bulky woolen skirts as though suddenly afraid of wetlander luxury. With a dark shawl tied around her waist and a dark folded kerchief holding her long hair back, she was the image of a Wise One's apprentice, though her only jewelry was a complicated silver necklace of intricately worked discs, a gift from Egwene. Elayne still did not understand her hurry. Melaine and the others had seemed willing to let her go her own way so long as she wore wetlander clothes, but now they had her back in their grip as tightly as any novice in the hands of Aes Sedai. The only reason they allowed her to stay any time at all in the Palace—in the city, for that matter—was that she and Elayne were first-sisters.

'If you think you do, then you do.' Her tones of pointing out the obvious slid into an affectionate chiding. 'But a small toh, Elayne. You had reason to doubt. You cannot assume obligation for every thought, sister.' She laughed as if suddenly seeing a wonderful joke. 'That way lies too much pride, and I will have to be overproud with you, only the Wise Ones will not call to you to account for it.'

Nynaeve rolled her eyes ostentatiously, but Aviendha simply shook her head, wearily patient with the other woman's ignorance. She had been studying more than the Power with the Wise Ones.

'Well, we wouldn't want the pair of you being too proud,' Birgitte said with what sounded suspiciously like suppressed mirth. Her face was much too smooth, almost rigid with the effort of not laughing.

Aviendha eyed Birgitte with a wooden-faced wariness. Since she and Elayne had adopted one another, Birgitte had adopted her, too, in way. Not as a Warder, of course, but with the same elder-sister attitude she often displayed toward Elayne. Aviendha was not quite sure what to make of it, or how to respond. Joining the tiny circle who knew who Birgitte really was certainly had not helped. She bounced between fierce determination to show that Birgitte Silverbow did not overawe her and a startling meekness, with odd stops in between.

Birgitte smiled at her, an amused smile, but it faded as she picked up a narrow bundle from her lap and began unfolding the cloth with great care. By the time she revealed a dagger with a leather-wrapped hilt and a long blade, her expression was severe, and tight anger flowed through the bond. Elayne recognized the knife instantly; she had last seen its twin in the hand of a tow-headed assassin.

'They were not trying to kidnap you, sister,' Aviendha said softly.

Birgitte's tone was grim. 'After Mellar killed the first two—the second by spearing him with his sword across the width of the room like somebody in a bloody gleeman's tale,' she held the dagger upright by the end of the hilt, 'he took this from the last fellow and killed him with it. They had four near identical daggers between them. This one is poisoned.'

'Those brown stains on the blade are gray fennel mixed with powdered peach pit,' Nynaeve said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and grimaced in disgust. 'One look at his eyes and tongue, and I knew that was what killed the fellow, not the knife.'

'Well,' Elayne said quietly after a moment. Well, indeed. 'Forkroot so I couldn't channel, or stand up, for that matter, and two men to hold me on my feet while the third put a poisoned dagger in me. A complicated plan.'

'Wetlanders like complicated plans,' Aviendha said. Glancing at Birgitte uneasily, she shifted against the wall and added, 'Some do.'

'Simple, in its way,' Birgitte said, rewrapping the knife with as great a care as she had shown unwrapping. 'You were easy to reach. Everyone knows you eat your midday meal alone.' Her long braid swung as she shook her head. 'A lucky thing the first man to reach you didn't have this; one stab, and you'd be dead. A lucky thing Mellar happened to be walking by and heard a man cursing in your rooms. Enough luck for a ta'veren.'

Nynaeve snorted. 'You might be dead from a deep enough cut on your arm. The pit is the most poisonous part of a peach. Dyelin wouldn't have had a chance if the other blades had been poisoned as well.'

Elayne looked around at her friends' flat, expressionless faces and sighed. A very complicated plan. As if spies in the Palace were not bad enough. 'A small bodyguard, Birgitte,' she said finally. 'Something… discreet.' She should have known the woman would be prepared. Birgitte's face did not change in the slightest, but the tiniest burst of satisfaction flared through their shared bond.

'The women who guarded you today, for a start,' she said, without so much as pretending to pause for thought, 'and a few more that I'll pick. Maybe twenty or so, altogether. Too few can't protect you day and night, and you bloody well must be,' she put in firmly, though Elayne had not offered any protest. 'Women can guard you where men can't, and they'll be discreet just by being who they are. Most people will think they're ceremonial—your very own Maidens of the Spear—and we'll give them something, a sash maybe, to make them look more so.' That earned her a very sharp look from Aviendha, which she affected not to notice. 'The problem is who to command,' she said, frowning in thought. 'Two or three nobles, Hunters, are already arguing for rank 'sufficient to their station.' The bloody women know how to give orders, but I'm not sure they know the right bloody orders to give. I could promote Caseille to lieutenant, but she's more a bannerman at heart, I think.' Birgitte shrugged. 'Maybe one of the others will show promise, but I think they are better followers than leaders.'

Oh, yes; all thought out. Twenty or so? She would have to keep a close eye on Birgitte to make sure the number did not climb to fifty. Or more. Able to guard her where men could not. Elayne winced. That probably meant guards watching her bathe at the very least. 'Caseille will do, surely. A bannerman can handle twenty.' She was certain she could talk Caseille into keeping it all unobtrusive. And keeping the guards outside while she took a bath. 'The man who arrived just in the nick of time. Mellar? What do you know of him, Birgitte?'

'Doilin Mellar,' Birgitte said slowly, her brows drawing down as a sharp angle. 'A coldhearted fellow, though he smiles a lot. Mainly at women. He pinches serving girls, and he's tumbled three in four days that I know of—he likes to talk about his 'conquests'—but he hasn't pressed anyone who said no. He claims to have been a merchant's guard and then a mercenary, and now a Hunter for the Horn, and he certainly has the skills. Enough that I made him a lieutenant. He's Andoran, from somewhere out west, near Baerlon, and he says he fought for your mother during the Succession, though he couldn't have been much more than a boy at the time. Anyway, he knows the right answers—I checked—so maybe he was involved in it. Mercenaries lie about their pasts without thinking twice.'

Folding her hands on her middle, Elayne considered Doilin Mellar. She remembered only the impression of a