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The wheels dropped into a large hole where paving stones had been pried up in one of the riots; the cart fell away beneath her. She almost bit her tongue as she and the cart bed met again with a hard smack. Egeanin and her casual arm-folding! Grabbing the edge of the cart bed, she frowned at the Seanchan woman. And found her tight-lipped and holding on with both hands also.
"Not quite the same as standing on deck after all," Egeanin said with a shrug.
Nynaeve grimaced slightly and tried to edge away from the Seanchan woman, though how she might manage it without climbing into Elayne's lap was difficult to see. "I am going to speak to Master Bayle Domon," she muttered meaningfully, just as if the cart had not been her suggestion in the first place. Another lurch clicked her teeth shut.
They all three wore drab brown wool, thin-woven but coarse and not very clean, poor farm women's dresses like shapeless sacks compared with the clinging silks of Rendra's taste. Refugees from the countryside earning a meal as they could; that was what they were supposed to be. Egeanin's relief at her first sight of the dresses had been quite evident, and almost as strange as her presence on the cart. Elayne would not have thought the latter conceivable.
There had been quite a lot of discussion – that was what the men called it – in the Chamber of Falling Blossoms, but she and Nynaeve had countered most of their fool objections and ignored the rest. The two of them had to enter the Panarch's Palace, and as soon as possible. That was when Domon had raised another objection, one not as silly as the rest.
"You can no go into the palace alone," the bearded smuggler muttered, staring at his fists on the table. "You say you will no cha
"You are a fool, Illianer," Juilin said contemptuously before she or Nynaeve could open their mouths. "You think the Taraboners will allow you to wander about the palace as you wish? A scruffy smuggler from Illian? I know the ways of servants, how to duck my head and make some empty-headed noble think..." He cleared his throat hastily, and hurried on without looking at Nynaeve – or at her! "I should be the one to go with them."
Thom laughed at the other two men. "Do you think either of you could pass for a Taraboner? I can; these will do in a pinch." He knuckled his long mustaches. "Besides, you ca
"You all know what you have to do," Nynaeve snapped, "and you ca
"I can accompany you," Egeanin a
Elayne was simply startled at the offer, but Nynaeve, the corners of her mouth going white, looked ready to drub the woman for it. "You think we would trust you, Seanchan?" she said coldly. "Before we leave, you'll be locked securely in a storeroom however much talk it —"
"I give oath by my hope of a higher name," Egeanin broke in, putting her hands over her heart, one atop the other, "that I will not betray you in any way, that I will obey you and guard your backs until you are safely out of the Panarch's Palace." Then she bowed three times, deeply and formally. Elayne had no idea what "hope of a higher name" meant, but the Seanchan woman certainly made it sound binding.
"She can do it," Domon said with slow reluctance. He eyed Egeanin and shook his head. "Fortune prick me if there be more than two or three of my men I would wager on, coin for coin, against her."
Nynaeve frowned at her hand gripping half a dozen of her long braids, then quite deliberately gave them a yank.
"Nynaeve," Elayne told her firmly, "you yourself said you would like another pair of eyes, and I definitely would. Besides which, if we are to do this without cha
Nynaeve glared at Egeanin, frowned at Elayne, and then stared at the men as if they had plotted this behind her back. At last, though, she nodded.
"Good," Elayne said. "Master Domon, that means three sets of dresses, not two. Now, the three of you had best be off. We want to be on our way by daybreak."
The cart jerking to a halt brought Elayne out of her reverie.
Dismounted Whiteeloaks were questioning Domon. Here the street ran into a square behind the Panarch's Palace, a much smaller square than the one in front. Beyond, the palace stood in piles of white marble, slender towers banded with lacy stonework, snowy domes capped with gold and topped by golden spires or weather vanes. The streets to either side were much wider than most in Tanchico, and straighter.
The slow clop-clop of a horse's hooves on the square's broad paving stones a
Egeanin had her face right down, too, but Nynaeve frowned openly after the Inquisitor. "That man is very worried about something," she murmured. "I hope he's not heard —"
"The Panarch is dead!" a man's voice shouted from somewhere across the square. "They've killed her!"
There was no telling who had shouted, or where. The streets Elayne could see were blocked by Whitecloaks on horses.
Looking back down the street the cart had just climbed, she wished the guards would question Domon more quickly. People were gathering down at the first bend, milling about and peering up toward the square. It seemed Thom and Juilin had made a good job of seeding their rumors during the night. Now if only things did not erupt while they sat out here in the middle of it. If a riot started now... The only thing that kept her hands from shaking was her double grip on the cart bed. Light, a mob out here and the Black Ajah inside, maybe Moghedien... I'm so frightened my mouth is dry. Nynaeve and Egeanin were watching the crowd growing down the street, too, and not even blinking, much less trembling. I will not be a coward. I will not!
The cart rumbled forward, and she heaved a sigh of relief. It took her a moment to realize she had heard twin echoes from the other two women.
Before gates not much wider than the cart Domon was questioned again, by men in pointed helmets, their breastplates embossed with a tree painted gold. Soldiers of the Panarch's Legion. The questions were shorter this time; Elayne thought she saw a small purse change hands, and then they were inside, rumbling across the rough-paved yard outside the kitchens. Except for Domon, the sailors remained out with the soldiers.