The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) Page 172

On the other side of wall was a small yard where weeds stuck up between cobblestones. The tall stone house — three broad, palegray stories, with wide windows and scrollworked eaves and gables, roofed in dark red tiles — must have been one of the finest in Samara. Once the gate was closed behind them, Ragan spoke softly. “There have been attempts to kill the Prophet.”

It took Nynaeve a moment to realize that he was explaining why their weapons had been taken. “But you are his friends,” she protested. “You all followed Rand to Falme together.” She was not about to start calling him the Lord Dragon.

“That's why we're bloody let in at all,” Uno said dryly. “I told you we don't see everything the way... the Prophet does.” The slight pause, and the quick halfglance back at the gate to see if anyone was listening, spoke volumes. It had been Masema, before. And Uno was clearly a man who did not temper his tongue easily.

“Just watch what you say for once,” Ragan told her, “and likely you will get the help you want.” She nodded, as agreeably as anyone could wish — she knew sense when she heard it, even if he had no right to offer it — and he and Uno exchanged doubtful glances. She was going to stuff these two into a sack with Thom and Juilin and switch anything that stuck up.

Fine house as it might be, the kitchen was dusty, and empty except for one bony, grayhaired woman, her drab gray dress and white apron the only clean things in sight as they walked through. Sucking her teeth, the old woman hardly glanced up from stirring a small kettle of soup over a tiny blaze in one of the wide stone fireplaces. Two battered pots hung on hooks where twenty could have, and, a cracked pottery bowl on a bluelacquered tray stood on the broad table.

Beyond the kitchen, moderately fine hangings decorated the walls. Nynaeve had developed something of an eye in the last year, and these scenes of feasts and hunts for deer and bear and boar were only good, not excellent. Chairs and tables and chests lined the halls, dark lacquer streaked with red, inlaid with motherofpearl. Hangings and furniture alike were also dusty, and the redandwhite tiled floor had had only a halfhearted lick with a broom. Cobwebs decorated the corners and cornices of the high plaster ceiling.

There were no other servants — or anyone else — in sight until they came to a weedy fellow sitting on the floor beside an open door, his grimy red silk coat much too large for him and at odds with a filthy shirt and worn woolen breeches. One of his cracked boots had a large hole in the sole; a toe poked through another in the other one. He held up a hand, whispering, “The Light shine on you, and praise the name of the Lord Dragon?” He made it sound a question, querulously twisting a narrow face as unwashed as his shirt, but then he did the same with everything. “The Prophet can't be disturbed now? He's busy? You'll have to wait a bit?” Uno nodded patiently, and Ragan leaned against the wall; they had been through this before.

Nynaeve did not know what she had expected of the Prophet, not even now that she was aware who he was, but certainly not filth. That soup had smelled like cabbage and potatoes, hardly the fare for a man who had an entire city dancing for him. And only two servants, both of whom could well have come from the rudest huts outside the city.

The skinny guard, if such he was — he had no weapon; perhaps he was not trusted either — seemed to have no objection when she moved to where she could see through the doorway. The man and woman inside could not have been more different. Masema had shaved even his topknot, and his coat was plain brown wool, heavily wrinkled but clean, although his kneehigh boots were scuffed. Deepset eyes turned his permanently sour look to a scowl, and a scar made a pale triangle on his dark cheek, a near mirror image of Ragan's, only more faded with age and a hair nearer the eye. The woman, in elegantly goldembroidered blue silk, was short of her middle years and quite lovely despite a nose perhaps too long for beauty. A simple blue net cap gathered dark hair spilling almost to her waist, but she wore a broad necklace of gold and firedrops with a matching bracelet, and gemmed rings decorated nearly every finger. Where Masema seemed poised to rush at something, teeth bared, she bore herself with stately reserve and grace.

“...so many follow wherever you go,” she was saying, “that order flies over the wall when you arrive. People are not safe in themselves or their property —”

“The Lord Dragon has broken all bonds of law, all bonds made by mortal men and women.” Masema's voice was heated, but intense, not angry. “The Prophecies say that the Lord Dragon will break all chains that bind, and it is so. The Lord Dragon's radiance will protect us against the Shadow.”

“It is not the Shadow that threatens here, but cutpurses and slipfingers and headcrackers. Some who follow you — many — believe that they can take what they wish from whoever has it without payment or leave.”

“There is justice in the hereafter, when we are born again. Concern with things of this world is useless. But very well. If you wish earthly justice” — his lip curled contemptuously —“let it be this. Henceforth, a man who steals will have his right hand cut off. A man who interferes with a woman, or insults her honor, or commits murder will be hung. A woman who steals or commits murder will be flogged. If any accuses and finds twelve who will agree, it will be done. Let it be so.”

“As you say, of course,” the woman murmured. Aloof elegance remained on her face, but she sounded shaken. Nynaeve did not know how Ghealdanin law ran, but she did not think it could be so casual as that. The woman took a deep breath. “There is still the matter of food. It becomes difficult to feed so many.”

“Every man, woman and child who has come to the Lord Dragon must have a full belly. It must be so! Where gold can be found, food can be found, and there is too much gold in the world. Too much concern with gold.” Masema's head swung angrily. Not angry with her, but in general. He looked to be searching for those who concerned themselves with gold so he could unleash fury on their heads. “The Lord Dragon has been Reborn. The Shadow hangs over the world, and only the Lord Dragon can save us. Only belief in the Lord Dragon, submission and obedience to the word of the Lord Dragon. All else is useless, even where it is not blasphemy.”

“Blessed be the name of the Lord Dragon in the Light.” It had the sound of a rote reply. “It is no longer simply a matter of gold, my Lord Prophet. Finding and transporting food in