It was hardly a group that could escape notice, so many women traveling with so few men for guards, not to mention twenty dark Windfinders, awkward on their horses and as bright as exotically plumaged birds, and nine Aes Sedai, six of them recognizably so to anyone who knew what to look for. Though one did ride with a leather sack over her head, of course. As if that would not attract eyes by itself. Elayne had hoped to reach Caemlyn unnoticed, but that no longer seemed possible. Still, there was no reason that anyone would suspect that the DaughterHeir, Elayne Trakand herself, was one of this group. In the beginning, she thought that the greatest difficulty they might face would be someone who opposed her claims learning of her presence, sending armed men to try taking her into custody until the succession was settled.
In truth, she expected the first trouble to come from the footsore craftswomen and nobles, proud women all, and none used to tramping dusty hills. Especially since Merilille’s maid had her own plump mare to ride. The few farm wives among them did not seem to mind too much, but nearly half their number were women who possessed lands and manors and palaces, and most of the rest could have afforded to buy an estate if not two or three. They included two goldsmiths, three weavers who owned over four hundred looms between them, a woman whose manufactories produced a tenth of all the lacquerware Ebou Dar produced, and a banker. They walked, their possessions strapped to their backs, while their horses bore packsaddles laden with food. There was real need. Every last coin in everyone’s purse had been pooled together and given into Nynaeve’s tightfisted keeping, but all might not be sufficient to buy food, fodder and lodgings for so large a party all the way to Caemlyn. They did not seem to understand. They complained loudly and incessantly through the first day’s march. Loudest of all was a slim lady with a thin scar on one cheek, a sternfaced woman named Malien, who was nearly bent double under the weight of a huge bundle containing a dozen or more dresses and all the changes that went with them.
When they made camp that first night, with their cook fires glowing in the twilight and everyone full of beans and bread if not entirely satisfied with them, Malien gathered the noblewomen around her, their silks more than travelstained. The craftswomen joined in, too, and the banker, and the farmers stood close. Before Malien could say a word, Reanne strode into the group. Her face full of smile lines, in plain brown woolens with her skirts sewn up on the left to expose bright layered petticoats, she might have been one of the farm women.
“If you wish to go home,” she announced in that surprisingly high voice, “you may do so at any time. I regret that we must keep your horses, though. You will be paid for them as soon as can be arranged. If you choose to remain, please remember that the rules of the farm still apply.” A number of the women around her gaped. Malien was not alone in opening her mouth angrily.
Alise just seemed to appear at Reanne’s side, fists planted on her hips. She was not smiling now. “I said the last ten to be ready would do the washing up,” she told them firmly. And she named them off; Jillien, a plump goldsmith; Naiselle, the cooleyed banker; and all eight of the nobles. They stood staring at her until she clapped her hands and said, “Don’t make me invoke the rule on failure to do your share of the chores.”
Malien, wideeyed and muttering in disbelief, was the last to dart off and begin gathering dirty bowls, but the next morning she pared her bundle down, leaving lacetrimmed silk dresses and shifts to be trampled on the hillside as they departed. Elayne continued to expect an explosion, but Reanne kept a firm hand on them, Alise kept a firmer, and if Malien and the others glared and muttered over the grease stains that grew on their clothes day by day, Reanne had only to speak a few words to send them to their work. Alise only had to clap her hands.
If the rest of the journey could have gone as smoothly, Elayne would have been willing to join those women in their greasy labors. Long before reaching Caemlyn, she knew that for a fact.
Once they reached the first narrow dusty road, little more than cart track, farms began to appear, thatched stone houses and barns clinging to the hillsides or nestled in hollows. From then on, whether the land was hilly or flat, forested or cleared, they rarely spent many hours beyond sight of a farm or a village. At each of those, while the local folk goggled at the very strange strangers, Elayne tried to learn how much support House Trakand had, and what concerned the people most. Addressing those concerns would be important in making her claim to the throne strong enough to stand, as important as the backing of other Houses. She heard a great deal, if not always what she wished to hear. Andorans claimed the right to speak their minds to the Queen herself; they were hardly shy with a young noblewoman, no matter how peculiar her traveling companions.
In a village called Damelien, where three mills sat beside a small river shrunken to leave their tall waterwheels dry, the squarejawed innkeeper at The Golden Sheaves allowed as how he thought Morgase had been a good queen, the best that could be, the best that ever was. “Her daughter might’ve been a good ruler, too, I suppose,” he muttered, thumbing his chin. “Pity the Dragon Reborn killed them. I suppose he had to — the Prophecies or some such — but he had no call to dry up the rivers, now did he? How much grain did you say your horses need, my lady? It’s dreadful dear, mind.”
A hardfaced woman, in a worn brown dress that hung on her as if she had lost weight, surveyed a field surrounded by a low stone wall, where the hot wind sent sheets of dust marching into the woods. The other farms around Buryhill looked as bad or worse. “That Dragon Reborn’s got no right to do this to us, now has he? I ask you!” She spat and frowned up at Elayne in her saddle. “The throne? Oh, Dyelin’s as good as any, now Morgase and her girl are dead. Some around here still speak up for Naean or Elenia, but I’m for Dyelin. Any lookout, Caemlyn’s a long way off. I’ve got crops to worry about. If I ever make another crop.”
“Oh, it’s true, my lady, so it is; Elayne’s alive,” a gnarled old carpenter told her in Forel Market. He was bald as a leather egg, his fingers twisted with age, but the work standing among the shavings and sawdust that littered his shop looked as fine as any Elayne had seen. She was the only person in the shop besides him. From the look of the village, half the residents had left. “The Dragon Reborn is having her brought to Caemlyn so he can put the Rose Crown on her head himself,” he allowed. “The news is all over. ’Tisn’t right, if you ask me. He’s one of them blackeyed Aielmen, I hear. We ought to march on Caemlyn and drive him and all them Aiel back where they come from. Then Elayne can claim the throne her own self. If Dyelin lets h