Rand snatched the invitations — there had been so many — without looking at them, took the innkeeper's arm, and turned him toward the door to the hall. “Thank you, Master Cuale, for taking the trouble. If you'll leave us alone, now, please...”
“But, my Lord,” Cuale protested, “these are from — ”
“Thank you.” Rand pushed the man into the hall and pulled the door shut firmly. He tossed the parchments onto the table. “He hasn't done that before. Loial, do you think he was listening at the door before he knocked?”
“You are starting to think like these Cairhienin.” The Ogier laughed, but his ears twitched thoughtfully and he added, “Still, he is Cairhienin, so he may well have been. I don't think we said anything he should not have heard.”
Rand tried to remember. None of them had mentioned the Horn of Valere, or Trollocs, or Darkfriends. When he found himself wondering what Cuale could make of what they actually had said, he gave himself a shake. “This place is getting to you, too,” he muttered to himself.
“My Lord?” Hurin had picked up the sealed parchments and was gazing wideeyed at the seals. “My Lord, these are from Lord Barthanes, High Seat of House Damodred, and from” — his voice dropped with awe — “the King.”
Rand waved them away. “They still go in the fire like the rest. Unopened.”
“But, my Lord!”
“Hurin,” Rand said patiently, “you and Loial between you have explained this Great Game to me. If I go wherever it is they've invited me, the Cairhienin will read something into it and think I am part of somebody's plot. If I don't go, they'll read something into that. If I send back an answer, they will dig for meaning in it, and the same if I don't answer. And since half of Cairhien apparently spies on the other half, everybody knows what I do. I burned the first two, and I will burn these, just like all the others.” One day there had been twelve in the pile he tossed into the commonroom fireplace, seals unbroken. “Whatever they make of it, at least it's the same for everybody. I am not for anyone in Cairhien, and I am not against anyone.”
“I have tried to tell you,” Loial said, “I don't think it works that way. Whatever you do, Cairhienin will see some sort of plot in it. At least, that is what Elder Haman always said.”
Hurin held the sealed invitations out to Rand as if offering gold. “My Lord, this one bears the personal seal of Galldrian. His personal seal, my Lord. And this one the personal seal of Lord Barthanes, who is next to the King himself in power. My Lord, burn these, and you make enemies as powerful as you can find. Burning them's worked so far because the other Houses are all waiting to see what you're up to, and thinking you must have powerful allies to risk insulting them. But Lord Barthanes — and the King! Insult them, and they'll act for sure.”
Rand scrubbed his hands through his hair. “What if I refuse them both?”
“It won't work, my Lord. Every last House has sent you an invitation, now. If you decline these — well, for sure at least one of the other Houses will figure, if you're not allied with the King or Lord Barthanes, then they can answer your insult of burning their invitation. My Lord, I hear the Houses in Cairhien use killers, now. A knife in the street. An arrow from a rooftop. Poison slipped in your wine.”
“You could accept them both,” Loial suggested. “I know you don't want to, Rand, but it might even be fun. An evening at a lord's manor, or even at the Royal Palace. Rand, the Shienarans believed in you.”
Rand grimaced. He knew it had been chance that the Shienarans thought he was a lord; a chance likeness of names, a rumor among the servants, and Moiraine and the Amyrlin stirring it all. But Selene had believed it, too. Maybe she'll be at one of these.
Hurin was shaking his head violently, though. “Builder, you don't know Daes Dae'mar as well as you think you do. Not the way they play it in Cairhien, not now. With most Houses, it wouldn't matter. Even when they're plotting against each other to the knife, they act like they aren't, out where everybody can see. But not these two. House Damodred held the throne until Laman lost it, and they want it back. The King would crush them, if they weren't nearly as powerful as he is. You can't find bitterer rivals than House Riatin and House Damodred. If my Lord accepts both, both Houses will know it as soon as he sends his answers, and they'll both think he's part of some plot by the other against them. They'll use the knife and the poison as quick as look at you.”
“And I suppose,” Rand growled, “if I only accept one, the other will think I'm allied with that House.” Hurin nodded. “And they will probably try to kill me to stop whatever I'm involved in.” Hurin nodded again. “Then do you have any suggestion as to how I avoid any of them wanting to see me dead?” Hurin shook his head. “I wish I'd never burned those first two.”
“Yes, my Lord. But it wouldn't have made much difference, I'm guessing. Whoever you accepted or rejected, these Cairhienin would see something in it.”
Rand held out his hand, and Hurin laid the two folded parchments in it. The one was sealed, not with the Tree and Crown of House Damodred, but with Barthanes's Charging Boar. The other bore Galldrian's Stag. Personal seals. Apparently he had managed to rouse interest in the highest quarters by doing nothing at all.
“These people are crazy,” he said, trying to think of a way out of this.
“Yes, my Lord.”
“I will let them see me in the common room with these,” he said slowly. Whatever was seen in the common room at midday was known in ten Houses before nightfall, and in all of them by daybreak next. “I won't break the seals. That way, they will know I have not answered either one yet. As long as they are waiting to see which way I jump, maybe I can earn a few more days. Ingtar has to come soon. He has to.”
“Now that is thinking like a Cairhienin, my Lord,” Hurin said, grinning.
Rand gave him a sour look, then stuffed the parchments into his pocket on top of Selene's letters. “Let's go, Loial. Maybe Ingtar has arrived.”
When he and Loial reached the common room, no man and woman in it looked at Rand. Cuale was polishing a silver tray as if his life depended on its gleam. The serving girls hurried between the tables as if Rand and the Ogier did not exist. Every last person at the tables stared into his or her mug as if the secrets of power lay in wine or ale. No