Winter's Heart (47 page)

The morning ritual with her dresser’s razor was soothing, and she needed that today. Last night, she had given a command in anger. No command should be issued in anger. She felt almost
sei’mosiev,
as if she had lost honor. Her balance was disturbed, and that boded as ill for the Return as a loss of
sei’taer,
albatross or no albatross.

Selucia wiped away the last of the lather with a warm damp cloth, then used a dry cloth, and finally powdered her smooth scalp lightly with a brush. When her dresser stepped back, Tuon rose and let her elaborately
embroidered blue silk dressing gown slide to the gold-and-blue patterned carpet. Instantly the cool air pebbled her dark bare skin. Four of her ten maids rose gracefully from where they had been kneeling against the walls, clean-limbed and comely in their filmy white robes. All had been purchased for their appearance as much as their skills, and they were very skilled. They had become used to the motions of the ship during the long voyage from Seanchan, and they scurried to fetch the garments that had already been laid out atop the carved chests and bring them to Selucia. Selucia never allowed the
da’covale
to actually dress her, not so much as stockings or slippers.

When she settled a pleated gown the color of well-aged ivory over Tuon’s head, the younger woman could not help comparing the two of them in the tall mirror fastened to the inner wall. Golden-haired Selucia possessed a stately, cream-skinned beauty and cool blue eyes. Anyone might have taken her for one of the Blood, and of high rank, rather than
so’jhin,
if the left side of her head had not been shaved. A notion that would have shocked the woman to the quick, expressed aloud. The very idea of any stepping above her appointed station horrified Selucia. Tuon knew she herself would never have such a commanding presence. Her eyes were too large, and a liquid brown. When she forgot to keep a stern mask, her heart-shaped face belonged on a mischievous child. The top of her head barely came to Selucia’s eyes, and her dresser was not a tall woman. Tuon could ride with the best, she excelled at wrestling and the use of suitable weapons, but she had always had to exercise her mind to impress. She had trained that tool as hard as she had trained at every other talent combined. At least the wide, woven belt of gold emphasized her waist enough that she would not be taken for a boy in a dress. Men watched when Selucia passed by, and Tuon had overheard some murmur about her full breasts. Perhaps that had nothing to do with a commanding presence, but it would have been nice to possess a little more bosom.

“The Light be upon me,” Selucia murmured, sounding amused, as the
da’covale
hurried back to kneel upright against the walls. “You’ve done that every morning since the first day your head was shaved. Do you still think after three years that I’ll leave a patch of stubble?”

Tuon realized that she had rubbed a hand across her bare scalp. Searching for stubble, she admitted to herself ruefully. “If you did,” she said with mock severity, “I would have you beaten. A repayment for all the times you used a switch on me.”

Placing a rope of rubies around Tuon’s neck, Selucia laughed. “If you pay me back for all that, I’ll never be able to sit down again.”

Tuon smiled. Selucia’s mother had given her to Tuon for a cradle-gift, to be her nursemaid, and more important, her shadow, a bodyguard no one knew about. The first twenty-five years of Selucia’s life had been training for those jobs, training in secret for the second. On Tuon’s sixteenth naming day, when her head was first shaved, she had made the traditional gifts of her House to Selucia, a small estate for the care she had shown, a pardon for the chastisements she had given, a sack of one hundred golden thrones for each time she had needed to punish her charge. The Blood assembled to watch her presented as an adult for the first time had been impressed by all those sacks of coin, more than many of them could have laid hand on themselves. She had been . . . unruly . . . as a child, not to mention headstrong. And the last traditional gift: the offer for Selucia to choose where she would be appointed next. Tuon was not sure whether she or the watching crowd had been more astonished when the dignified woman turned her back on power and authority, and asked instead to be Tuon’s dresser, her chief maid. And her shadow still, of course, though that was not made public. She herself had been delighted.

“Perhaps in small doses, spread over sixteen years,” she said. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she held her smile long enough to make sure there was no sting in her words, then replaced it with sternness. She certainly felt more affection for the woman who had raised her than for the mother she had seen only twice a year before becoming an adult, or the brothers and sisters she had been taught from her first steps to battle for their mother’s favor. Two of them had died in those struggles, so far, and three had tried to kill her. A sister and a brother had been made
da’covale
and had their names stricken from the records as firmly as if it had been discovered they could channel. Her place was far from secure even now. A single misstep could see her dead, or worse, stripped and sold on the public block. Blessings of the Light, when she smiled, she still looked sixteen! At best!

Chuckling, Selucia turned to take the close-fitting cap of golden lace from its red-lacquered stand on the dressing table. The sparse lace would expose most of her shaven scalp, and mark her with the Raven-and-Roses. Perhaps she was not
sei’mosiev,
but for the sake of the
Corenne,
she had to restore her balance. She could ask Anath, her
Soe’feia,
to administer a penance, but it was less than two years since Neferi’s unexpected death, and she still was not entirely comfortable with her replacement. Something told
her she must do this on her own. Perhaps she had seen an omen she had not recognized consciously. Ants were not likely on a ship, but several sorts of beetle might be.

“No, Selucia,” she said quietly. “A veil.”

Selucia’s mouth tightened in disapproval, but she replaced the cap on its stand silently. In private, as now, she had license to free her tongue, yet she knew what could be spoken and what not. Tuon had only ever had to have her punished twice, and Light’s truth, she had regretted it as much as Selucia. Wordlessly, her dresser produced a long sheer veil, draping it over Tuon’s head and securing it with a narrow band of golden braid set with rubies. Even more transparent than the
da’covale
’s robes, the veil did not hide her face at all. But it hid what was most important.

Laying a long, gold-embroidered blue cape on Tuon’s shoulders, Selucia stepped back and bowed deeply, the end of her golden braid touching the carpet. The kneeling
da’covale
bowed their faces to the deck. Privacy was about to end. Tuon left the cabin alone.

In the second cabin stood six of her
sul’dam,
three to either side, with their charges kneeling in front of them on the wide, polished planks of the deck. The
sul’dam
straightened when they saw her, proud as the silver lightning in the red panels on their skirts. The gray-clad
damane
knelt erect, full of their own pride. Except for poor Lidya, who crouched over her knees and tried to press her tearstained face against the deck. Ianelle, holding the red-haired
damane
’s leash, scowled down at her.

Tuon sighed. Lidya had been responsible for her anger last night. No, she had caused it, but Tuon herself was responsible for her own emotions. She had commanded the
damane
to read her fortune, and she should not have ordered her caned because she disliked what she heard.

Bending, she cupped Lidya’s chin, laying long red-enameled fingernails against the
damane
’s freckled cheek, and drew her up to sit on her heels. Which produced a wince and a fresh set of tears that Tuon carefully wiped away with her fingers as she pulled the
damane
upright on her knees. “Lidya is a good
damane,
Ianelle,” she said. “Paint her welts with tincture of sorfa and give her lionheart for the pain until the welts are gone. And until they
are
gone, she is to have a sweet custard with every meal.”

“As the High Lady commands,” Ianelle replied formally, but she smiled slightly. All the
sul’dam
were fond of Lidya, and she had not liked punishing the
damane.
“If she gets fat, I will take her for runs, High Lady.”

Lidya twisted her head around to kiss Tuon’s palm and murmured, “Lidya’s mistress is kind. Lidya will not get fat.”

Making her way along the two lines, Tuon spoke a few words to each
sul’dam
and petted each of the
damane.
The six she had brought with her were her best, and they beamed at her with a fondness equal to hers for them. They had competed eagerly to be chosen. Plump, yellow-haired Dali and Dani, sisters who hardly needed a
sul’dam
’s direction. Charral, her hair as gray as her eyes, but still the most agile in her spinning. Sera, with red ribbons in her tightly curled black hair, the strongest, and proud as a
sul’dam.
Tiny Mylen, shorter even than Tuon herself. Mylen was Tuon’s special pride among the six.

Many had thought it odd when Tuon tested for
sul’dam
on reaching adulthood, though none could gainsay her, then. Except her mother, who had allowed it by remaining silent. Actually becoming a
sul’dam
was unthinkable, of course, but she found as much enjoyment in training
damane
as in training horses, and she was as good at one as the other. Mylen was the proof of that. The pale little
damane
had been half-dead with shock and fear, refusing to eat or drink, when Tuon bought her on the docks at Shon Kifar. The
der’sul’dam
all had despaired, saying she would not live long, but now Mylen smiled up at Tuon and leaned forward to kiss her hand before she even reached to stroke the
damane
’s dark hair. Once skin and bones, she was becoming a trifle plump. Instead of rebuking her, Catrona, who held her leash, let a smile crease her usually stern black face and murmured that Mylen was a perfect
damane.
It was true, no one would believe now that once she had called herself Aes Sedai.

Before leaving, Tuon gave a few orders concerning the
damane
’s diet and exercise. The
sul’dam
knew what to do, just like the other twelve in Tuon’s entourage, or they would not have been in her service, but she believed no one should be allowed to own
damane
unless they took an active interest. She knew the quirks of every one of hers as well as she knew her own face.

In the outer cabin, the Deathwatch Guards, lining the walls in armor lacquered blood red and nearly black green, stiffened at her entrance. That is, they stiffened if statues could be said to stiffen. Hard-faced men, they and five hundred more like them had been charged personally with Tuon’s safety. Any or all would die to protect her. They would die if she did. Every man had volunteered, asked to be in her guard. Seeing the veil, grizzled Captain Musenge ordered only two to accompany her on deck, where two dozen Ogier Gardeners in the red-and-green made a line to either side of the doorway, great black-tasseled axes upright in front of them and grim eyes watching for any danger even here. They would not die if she did, but
they also had asked to be in her guard, and she would rest her life in any of those huge hands without a qualm.

The ribbed sails on the
Kidron
’s three tall masts were taut with the cold wind that drove the vessel toward the land that lay ahead, a dark shore near enough that she could make out hills and headlands. Men and women filled the deck, all of the Blood on the vessel in their finest silks, ignoring the wind that whipped their cloaks as they ignored the barefoot men and women of the ship’s crew who darted between them. Some of the nobles were much too ostentatious about ignoring the crew, as though they could run the ship while kneeling or bowing every two paces. Prepared for prostration, the Blood made slight bows instead, one equal to another, when they saw her veil. Yuril, the sharp-nosed man everyone thought was her secretary, went to one knee. He was her secretary, of course, but also her Hand, commanding her Seekers. The Macura woman flung herself down prostrate and kissed the deck before a few quiet words from Yuril made her get back to her feet blushing and smoothing her pleated red skirts. Tuon had been uncertain about taking her into service, back in Tanchico, but the woman had pleaded like a
da’covale.
She hated Aes Sedai in her bones, for some reason, and despite the rewards already given for her extremely valuable information, she hoped to do them more injury.

Bowing her head to the Blood, Tuon climbed to the quarterdeck followed by the two Deathwatch Guards. The wind made handling her cape difficult, and pressed her veil against her face one moment, then flailed it over her head the next. It did not matter; that she wore it was sufficient. Her personal banner, two golden lions harnessed to an ancient war-cart, flew at the stern above the six helmsmen struggling to control the long tiller. The Raven-and-Roses would have been packed away as soon as the first crewman to see her veil could pass the word.
Kidron
’s captain, a wide, weathered woman with white hair and the most incredible green eyes, bowed as Tuon’s slipper touched the quarterdeck then immediately returned her attention to her ship.

Anath was standing by the railing, in unrelieved black silk, outwardly undisturbed by the chill wind in spite of her lack of a cloak or cape. A slender woman, she would have been tall even for a man. Her charcoal-dark face was beautiful, but her large black eyes seemed to pierce like awls. Tuon’s
Soe’feia,
her Truthspeaker, named by the Empress, might she live forever, when Neferi died. A surprise, with Neferi’s Left Hand trained and ready to replace her, but when the Empress spoke from the Crystal Throne,
her word was law. You certainly were not supposed to be
afraid
of your
Soe’feia,
yet Tuon was, a little. Joining the woman, she gripped the railing, and had to loosen her hands before she broke a lacquered nail. That would have meant very bad luck.