The Maidens let Meilan ride through when Rand nodded, but closed behind him to exclude the rest, a fact the High Lord did not notice at first. When he did, his dark eyes smoldered angrily. He was often angry, Meilan was, since Rand had first come to the Stone of Tear.
The noise began to abate with the Tairen arrival, fading to a dull murmur by the time Meilan made a rigid bow to Rand from his saddle. His gaze flickered to Aviendha before he decided to ignore her, just as he was trying to ignore the Maidens. “The Light illumine you, my Lord Dragon. Be you well come to Cairhien. I must apologize for the peasants, but I was unaware you meant to enter the city now. Had I known, they would have been cleared. I meant to give you a grand entry, befitting the Dragon Reborn.”
“I have had one,” Rand said, and the other man blinked.
“As you say, my Lord Dragon.” He went on after a moment, his tone making it clear that he did not understand. “If you will accompany me to the Royal Palace, I have arranged a small greeting. Small indeed, I fear, since I had no warning of you, yet by this even I will make sure —”
“Whatever you have arranged now will do,” Rand cut in, and received another bow and a thin, oily smile for reply. The fellow was all subservience now, and in an hour he would be talking as to someone too feeblewitted to understand facts held under his nose, but beneath it all lay a contempt and hatred that he believed Rand did not see although they shone in his eyes. Contempt because Rand was not a lord — not truly, as Meilan saw it, by birth — and hatred because Meilan had had the power of life and death before Rand came, with few his equal and none his superior. To believe that the Prophecies of the Dragon would be fulfilled someday was one thing; to have them fulfilled, and his own power diminished by them, was quite another.
There was a moment of confusion before Rand made Sulin allow the other Tairen lords to bring their horses in behind Asmodean and Pevin's banner. Meilan would have had the Defenders clear the way again, but Rand curtly ordered that they follow behind the Maidens. The soldiers obeyed, faces unchanging beneath the rims of their helmets, though their whiteplumed officer shook his head, and the High Lord put on a condescending smile. That smile faded when it became clear that the crowds opened up easily ahead of the Maidens. That they did not have to club a path through, he attributed to the Aiel reputation for savagery, and frowned when Rand made no reply. One thing Rand made note of: Now that he had Tairens with him, the cheers did not rise again.
The Royal Palace of Cairhien occupied the highest hill of the city, exactly in the center, square and dark and massive. In fact, between the palace in all its levels and the stonefaced terracing, it was hard to say there was a hill there at all. Lofty colonnaded walks and tall narrow windows, high above the ground, did no more to relieve the rigidity than did gray, stepped towers precisely placed in concentric squares of increasing height. The street became a long, broad ramp leading up to tall bronze gates, and a huge square courtyard beyond lined with Tairen soldiers standing like statues, spears slanted. More stood on the overlooking stone balconies.
A ripple of murmurs ran through the ranks at the appearance of the Maidens, but it was quickly stilled in chanted shouts of “All glory to the Dragon Reborn! All glory to the Lord Dragon and Tear! All glory to the Lord Dragon and the High Lord Meilan!” From Meilan's expression, you would have thought it all spontaneous.
Darkgarbed servants, the first Cairhienin Rand had seen in the palace, rushed out with worked golden bowls and white linen cloths as he swung a leg over the high pommel and slid from his saddle. Others came to take reins. He took the excuse of bathing his face and hands in cool water to leave Aviendha to climb down by herself. Trying to help her down might have ended with them both flat on the paving stones.
Unprompted, Sulin chose out twenty Maidens besides herself to accompany him within. On the one hand, he was glad she did not want to keep every last spear around him. On the other hand, he wished Enaila, Lamelle and Somara were not among the twenty. The considering looks they gave him — especially Lamelle, a lean, strongjawed woman with dark red hair, nearly twenty years older than he — made him grind his teeth while trying to smile reassuringly. Somehow Aviendha must have managed to speak to them, and to Sulin, behind his back. I may not be able to do anything about the Maidens, he thought grimly as he tossed a linen towel back to one of the serving men, but burn me if there isn't one Aiel woman who'll learn I'm the Car'a'carn!
The other High Lords greeted him at the foot of the broad gray stairs that led up from the courtyard, all in colorful silk coats and satin stripes and silverworked boots. It was plain that none were aware Meilan had gone to meet him until after the fact. Potatofaced Torean, oddly languid for such a lumpy man, sniffed anxiously at a scented handkerchief. Gueyam, oiled beard making his head seem even balder, clenched fists the size of small hams and glared at Meilan even as he bowed to Rand. Simaan's sharp nose seemed to quiver in outrage; Maraconn, with blue eyes rare in Tear, compressed his thin lips until they almost disappeared; and while Hearne's narrow face was all smiles, he tugged unconsciously at one earlobe as he did when furious. Only bladeslender Aracome showed no outward emotion, but then he almost always kept his anger well banked until ready to let it burst into flame.
It was too good an opportunity to miss. Silently thanking Moiraine for her, lessons — it was easier to trip a fool than to knock him down, she said — Rand clasped Torean's pudgy hand warmly and clapped Gueyam on the point of a thick shoulder, returned Hearne's smile with one warm enough for a close companion and nodded silently to Aracome with a seemingly significant glance. Simaan and Maraconn he all but ignored after one look as flat and cool as a deep winter pond for each.
That was all it needed for the moment, beyond watching their eyes shift and faces tighten in thought. They had played Daes Dae'mar, the Game of Houses, their entire lives, and being among Cairhienin, who could read volumes in a raised eyebrow or a cough, had only heightened their sensitivity. Each man knew Rand had no reason to be friendly toward him, but each had to wonder if his own greeting was only to cover something real with someone else. Simaan and Maraconn appeared the most worried, yet the others eyed those two perhaps the most suspiciously of all. Perhaps his coolness had been the true cover. Or maybe that was what they were meant to think.
For himself, Rand thought that Moiraine would be proud of him, and so would Thom Merrilin. Even if none of these seven was actively plotting against him at the moment — something he did not think even Mat would bet on — men in their positions could do much to disrupt his plans without being seen to, and they would do so from habit if for no other reason. Or they would have. He had them off balance now. If he could keep them that way, they would be too busy watching each other, and too afraid of being watched in turn, to trouble him. They might even obey for once without finding a hundred reasons why things should be done differently from what he wanted. Well, that might be asking too much.
His satisfaction slipped when he saw Asmodean's sardonic grin. Worse was Aviendha's wondering stare. She had been in the Stone of Tear; she knew who these men were, and why he had sent them here. I do what I must, he thought sourly, and wished it did not sound as if he were trying to excuse himself.
“Inside,” he said, more sharply than he intended, and the seven High Lords jumped as if suddenly recalling who and what he was.
They wanted to crowd around him as he climbed the stairs, but except for Meilan to show the way, the Maidens simply made a solid circle around him, and the High Lords brought up the rear with Asmodean and the lesser lords. Aviendha stuck close by... of course, and Sulin was on his other side, Somara and Lamelle and Enaila right behind him. They could have reached out and touched his back without stretching. He gave Aviendha an accusing look, and she arched her eyebrows at him so questioningly that he almost believed she had nothing to do with it. Almost.
The corridors of the palace were empty except for darkliveried servants who bowed almost chest to knees or curtsied just as deeply as he passed, but when he entered the Grand Hall of the Sun he discovered that the Cairhienin nobility had not been excluded from the palace entirely.
“The Dragon Reborn comes,” intoned a whitehaired man just inside the huge gilded doors worked with the Rising Sun. His red coat embroidered with sixpointed stars in blue, a little large on him after his time in Cairhien, marked him for an upper servant of Meilan's House. “All hail the Lord Dragon Rand al'Thor. All glory to the Lord Dragon.”
A quick roar filled the chamber to its anglevaulted ceiling, fifty paces up. “Hail the Lord Dragon Rand al'Thor! All glory to the Lord Dragon! The Light illumine the Lord Dragon!” The silence that followed seemed twice as still by comparison.
Between massive square columns of marble thick streaked with blue so deep it was almost black stood more Tairens than Rand expected, ranks of Lords and Ladies of the Land dressed in their finest, in peaked velvet hats and coats with puffy, striped sleeves, in colorful gowns and lace ruffs and closefitting caps intricately embroidered or sewn with pearls or small gems.
To their rear were the Cairhienin, darkly garbed except for slashes of color across the breast of gown or kneelength coat. The more stripes in House colors, the higher the rank of the wearer, but men and women with color from neck to waist or lower stood behind Tairens clearly of minor Houses, with yellow embroidery instead of threadofgold and wool instead of silk. No few of the Cairhienin men had shaved and powdered the front of their heads; all of the younger men had.
The Tairens looked expectant, if uneasy; the Cairhienin faces could have been chiseled from ice. There was no way to say who had cheered and who not, but Rand suspected most of those cries had come from the front rows.
“A good many wished to serve you here,” Meilan murmured as they made their way up the bluetiled floor with its great golden mosaic of the Rising Sun. A ripple of silent curtsies and bows followed.
Rand only grunted. They wished to serve him? He did not need Moiraine to know that these lesser nobles hoped to become greater on estates carved out of Cairhien. No doubt Meilan and the other six had already intimated if not promised which lands would be whose.
At the far end of the Grand Hall, the Sun Throne itself stood centered atop a wide dais of deep blue marble. Even here Cairhienin restraint held, for a throne at any rate. The great heavyarmed chair glittered with gilt and golden silk, but somehow it seemed to be all plain vertical lines, except for the wavyrayed Rising Sun that would stand above the head of whoever sat on it.
That was meant to be him, Rand realized long before reaching the nine steps to the dais. Aviendha climbed up with him, and Asmodean, as his bard, was allowed up as well, but Sulin quickly arrayed the other Maidens around the dais, their casually held spears blocking Meilan as well as the rest of the High Lords. Frustration painted those Tairen faces. The Hall was so quiet that Rand could hear himself breathe.
“This belongs to someone else,” he said finally. “Besides, I've spent too long in the saddle to welcome such a hard seat. Bring me a comfortable chair.”
There was a moment of shocked silence before a murmur ran through the Hall. Meilan suddenly wore such a look of speculation, quickly suppressed, that Rand nearly laughed. Very likely Asmodean was right about the man. Asmodean himself was eyeing Rand with barely hidden surmise.
It was some minutes before the fellow in the starembroidered coat ran up panting, followed by two darkliveried Cairhienin carrying a highbacked chair piled with silkcovered cushions, and pointed out where to place it with a great many worried glances at Rand. Vertical lines of gilt ran up the chair's heavy legs and back, but it seemed insignificant in front of the Sun Throne.