Domon repeated himself, trying to speak slowly, and added, “I do be a peaceful trader, Captain. I mean no harm to you, and I have no part in your war.” He could not help eyeing the two women connected by the leash again.
“A peaceful trader?” Egeanin mused. “In that case, you will be free to go once you have sworn fealty again.” She noticed his glances and turned to smile at the women with the pride of ownership. “You admire my damane? She cost me dear, but she was worth every coin. Few but nobles own a damane, and most are property of the throne. She is strong, trader. She could have broken your ship to splinters, had I wished it so.”
Domon stared at the women and the silver leash. He had connected the one wearing the lightning with the fiery fountains in the sea, and assumed she was an Aes Sedai. Egeanin had just set his head whirling. No one could do that to ...
“She is Aes Sedai?” he said disbelievingly.
He never saw the casual backhand blow coming. He staggered as her steelbacked gauntlet split his lip.
“That name is never spoken,” Egeanin said with a dangerous softness. “There are only the damane, the Leashed Ones, and now they serve in truth as well as name.” Her eyes made ice seem warm.
Domon swallowed blood and kept his hand clenched at his sides. If he had had a sword to hand, he would not have led his crew to slaughter against a dozen armored soldiers, but it was an effort to make his voice humble. “I meant no disrespect, Captain. I know nothing of you or your ways. If I do offend, it is ignorance, no intention.”
She looked at him, then said, “You are all ignorant, Captain, but you will pay the debt of your forefathers. This land was ours, and it will be ours again. With the Return, it will be ours again.” Domon did not know what to say — Surely she can no mean that nattering about Artur Hawkwing be true? — so he kept his mouth shut. “You will sail your vessel to Falme” — he tried to protest, but her glare silenced him — “where you and your ship will be examined. If you are no more than a peaceful trader, as you claim, you will be allowed to go your way when you have sworn the oaths.”
“Oaths, Captain? What oaths?”
“To obey, to await, and to serve. Your ancestors should have remembered.”
She gathered her people — except for a single man in plain armor, which marked him of low rank as much as the depth of his bow to Captain Egeanin — and their longboat pulled away toward the larger ship. The remaining Seanchan gave no orders, only sat crosslegged on the deck and began sharpening his sword while the crew put sail on and got under way. He seemed to have no fear at being alone, and Domon would have personally thrown overboard any crewman who raised a hand to him, for as Spray made her way along the coast, the Seanchan ship followed, out in deeper water. There was a mile between the two vessels, but Domon knew there was no hope of escape, and he meant to deliver the man back to Captain Egeanin as safely as if he had been cradled in his mother's arms.
It was a long passage to Falme, and Domon finally persuaded the Seanchan to talk, a little. A darkeyed man in his middle years, with an old scar above his eyes and another nicking his chin, his name was Caban, and he had nothing but contempt for anyone this side of the Aryth Ocean. That gave Domon a moment's pause. Maybe they truly do be ... No, that do be madness. Caban's speech had the same slur as Egeanin's, but where hers was silk sliding across iron, his was leather rasping on rock, and mostly he wanted to talk about battles, drinking, and women he had known. Half the time, Domon was not certain if he were speaking of here and now, or of wherever he had come from. The man was certainly not forthcoming about anything Domon wanted to know.
Once Domon asked about the damane. Caban reached up from where he sat in front of the helmsman and put the point of his sword to Domon's throat. “Watch what your tongue touches, or you will lose it. That's the business of the Blood, not your kind. Or mine.” He grinned while he said it, and as soon as he was done, he went back to sliding a stone along his heavy, curved blade.
Domon touched the point of blood welling above his collar and resolved not to ask that again, at least.
The closer the two vessels came to Falme, the more of the tall, squarelooking Seanchan ships they passed, some under sail, but more anchored. Every one was bluffbowed and towered, as big as anything Domon had ever seen, even among the Sea Folk. A few local craft, he saw, with their sharp bows and slanted sails, darted across the green swells. The sight gave him confidence that Egeanin had spoken the truth about letting him go free.
When Spray came up on the headland where Falme stood, Domon gaped at the numbers of the Seanchan ships anchored off the harbor. He tried counting them and gave up at a hundred, less than halfway done. He had seen as many ships in one place before — in Illian, and Tear, and even Tanchico — but those vessels had included many smaller craft. Muttering glumly to himself, he took Spray into the harbor, shepherded by her great Seanchan watchdog.
Falme stood on a spit of land at the very tip of Toman Head, with nothing further west of it except the Aryth Ocean. High cliffs ran to the harbor mouth on both sides, and atop one of those, where every ship running into the harbor had to pass under them, stood the towers of the Watchers Over the Waves. A cage hung over the side of one of the towers, with a man sitting in it despondently, legs dangling through the bars.
“Who is that?” Domon asked.
Caban had finally given over sharpening his sword, after Domon had begun to wonder if he meant to shave with it. The Seanchan glanced up to where Domon pointed. “Oh. That is the First Watcher. Not the one who sat in the chair when we first came, of course. Every time he dies, they choose another, and we put him in the cage.”
“But why?” Domon demanded.
Caban's grin showed too many teeth. “They watched for the wrong thing, and forgot when they should have been remembering.”
Domon tore his eyes away from the Seanchan. Spray slid down the last real sea swell and into the quieter waters of the harbor. I do be a trader, and it is none of my business.
Falme rose from stone docks up the slopes of the hollow that made the harbor. Domon could not decide whether the dark stone houses made up a goodly sized town or a small city. Certainly he saw no building in it to rival the smallest palace in Illian.
He guided Spray to a place at one of the docks, and wondered, while the crew tied the ship fast, if the Seanchan might buy some of the fireworks in his hold. None of my business.
To his surprise, Egeanin had herself rowed to the dock with her damane. There was another woman wearing the bracelet this time, with the red panels and forked lightning on her dress, but the damane was the same sadfaced woman who never looked up unless the other spoke to her. Egeanin had Domon and his crew herded off the ship to sit on the dock under the eyes of a pair of her soldiers — she seemed to think no more were needed, and Domon was not about to argue with her — while others searched Spray under her direction. The damane was part of the search.
Down the dock, a thing appeared. Domon could think of no other way to describe it. A hulking creature with a leathery, graygreen hide and a beak of a mouth in a wedgeshaped head. And three eyes. It lumbered along beside a man whose armor bore three painted eyes, just like those of the creature. The local people, dockmen and sailors in roughly embroidered shirts and long vests to their knees, shied away as the pair passed, but no Seanchan gave them a second glance. The man with the beast seemed to be directing it with hand signals.
Man and creature turned in among the buildings, leaving Domon staring and his crew muttering to themselves. The two Seanchan guards sneered at them silently. No my business, Domon reminded himself. His business was his ship.
The air had a familiar smell of salt water and pitch. He shifted uneasily on the stone, hot from the sun, and wondered what the Seanchan were searching for. What the damane was searching for. Wondered what that thing had been. Gulls cried, wheeling above the harbor. He thought of the sounds a caged man might make. It is no my business.
Eventually Egeanin led the others back onto the dock. The Seanchan captain had something wrapped in a piece of yellow silk, Domon noted warily. Something small enough to carry in one hand, but which she held carefully in both.
He got to his feet — slowly, for the soldiers' sake, though their eyes held the same contempt Caban's did. “You see, Captain? I do be only a peaceful trader. Perhaps your people would care to buy some fireworks?”