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All in all, the war camp was less impressive than Elaida had hoped. Pockmarked mud sucked at her heeled boots as she threaded her way between the clutches of white canvas tents to the more richly embroidered dark blue one bearing the white keyhole of House Trakand.
“There aren't very many soldiers,” she commented to the man who had been introduced as their general—Brian? Bran? Something like that. He was not very impressive, at any rate. A blademaster, she could see from the sword at his hip, but what need was there for a blademaster if the man was supposed to be leading armies, not fighting duels?
He only grunted in response, likely because he agreed with her but could not say it. Rounding the tent in silence, he finally drew back the heavy blue tent flap and bowed. “This is her, Aes Sedai,” he said.
Elaida swept inside, though her entrance was lamentably undermined by the need to wipe her boots on the rug clearly laid out for the purpose at the door. It was something she had thought she had left behind in her girlhood in Murandy, a discomfort appropriate for a minor noblewoman, perhaps, but not for an Aes Sedai nor for a queen. She had been in the camp for less than an hour, and every step stoked her resolve to win the Lion Throne even higher, just to be free of this indignity. Of course, far more pressing reasons urged her on as well.
The Morgase Trakand who bent over a laden camp table was not much changed since she had left the Tower as an Accepted the year before. Her golden hair draped across her shoulders as she rose at the noise of Elaida’s boots scraping. The moustached man who sat at the camp chair—a gilded camp chair was still a camp chair—remained seated.
“Elaida Sedai,” Morgase said, bowing her head slightly. “I heard that you were in the camp. Forgive me, but I did not expect you to be the Tower’s choice.” Her tone held no great affection for Elaida, but it did convey recognition. That could not be helped; if only that foretelling had come earlier, Elaida would have been kinder to the woman in her novice classes. A pity that Morgase had no talent.
Nevertheless, Elaida held her face high against Morgase’s implication, wishing that agelessness had graced it already. Instead of answering, she embraced saidar, letting vast quantities surge through her, reveling in the currents, though showing nothing on her face. Morgase’s eyes widened slightly as Elaida sent weaves snaking through the tent, carrying a warm breeze. A small show would not impress the woman, familiar as she was with the Tower, but even newly raised, Elaida’s strength surpassed most of those at the Tower. Her finesse did as well, she fancied. She made sure that one flow jostled the moustache of the man who still had not risen to greet her. She did not know him, but she did not need him.
“I found the chill in here oppressive.” Elaida slipped off her damp cloak. It steamed slightly in the now balmy warmth of the tent. In the inner pocket, she’d carefully stashed a single rose. She had painstakingly transported it unwilted all the way from Tar Valon. “From what I like to call my personal garden at the Tower,” she said, presenting it to Morgase. That garden was nothing more than a few planters she had had the gardeners install in her quarters upon being raised a few short months before, but Morgase did not need to know that. “For the future bearer of the Rose Crown.”
Morgase, newly cheeks flushed from the heat, picked up the flower and gave Elaida an evaluative look.
It was fortunate, poetic even, that her talents lay in flower tending.
“Thom, could you give us a moment, please,” Morgase called to the seated man.
“My lady, I may be able to offer some—” he began.
“Later,” she said in dismissal. He nodded and left with a sour look to Elaida.
She would have to deal with him, whoever he was, later. He had the queen’s ear, it seemed, but not to the exclusion of sense. Hopefully that was all that he had.
“He would be my court bard, should I have a court,” Morgase explained in the man’s wake. “Please, Elaida Sedai, sit. What news from Tar Valon?” She offered the chair the man had just vacated.
Elaida’s eyebrows rose, but she decided not to comment. She laid her cloak across the bard’s chair, selected another, and sat with her hands folded demurely. “The hope is that your ascension will be the news, or at least that is my hope.”
“Am I to think that your presence here means that the Tower has decided to show its hand and that I am the fortunate recipient of its favor?” Morgase joined her around the low table.
Elaida could not hold back a scoff. “The Tower showed its hand the moment it let you leave in anything but disgrace to contend for the crown.”
Candlelight glinted off Morgase’s Great Serpent ring as she twisted the rose in her fingers. “And now they have sent a Red sister to aid me? I did not spend long in Tar Valon, but this strikes me as unusual.”
“I requested the assignment personally, and I was granted it. I have no little standing in the White Tower.” Other sisters would think it crass to allude to her power, but Elaida needed to dispel the memory of herself in an accepted dress teaching the High Seat of House Trakand to channel colored balls from both of their minds.
“I cannot help but feel…” Morgase adjusted her hair, blown out of place by the warm breeze that still circled the tent. She sighed with finality. “I hold the Tower in great esteem, and I myself am a testament to the closeness between the Aes Sedai and Andor. However, I am not Aes Sedai. Clearly.” She nodded pointedly at the glow of saidar around Elaida. “I would not presume to rule without an Aes Sedai at my side, and yet… Elaida Sedai, have you advised a monarch before?”
“You are not yet a monarch,” Elaida replied archly. The upstart would-be queen was considering putting her out? After all of the effort Elaida had put in to get herself appointed as the advisor to Morgase, when her sisters had raised much the same objections? How much easier this might have been, then and now, if she could reveal her foretelling! But she knew when to be prudent. And she knew also that disclosing the foretelling back in Tar Valon would have guaranteed that this post would have gone to someone more senior. Elaida could trust only herself with a task of this import.
Morgase set the rose down on the table between them. The two women stared at each other. Were she not furious, Elaida would have granted that Morgase’s glare was impressive.
“I would put a problem to you and ask your advice, then,” Morgase said, breaking the silence before Elaida could. “You have seen my forces. I have a modest army, a distinguished general, and my House’s name. On any given day, at least a half dozen of the major Houses oppose me. What do you see as the greatest risk to my ability to take the Rose Crown?”
“Cairhien,” Elaida said simply. The test was demeaning, yet the answer was obvious enough that she would humor the woman.
Morgase’s brows raised in interest. “What is your reasoning?”
“If you had Cairhien as your personal ally, the other Houses would pose no threat at all. And if you win the throne and Cairhien is your enemy, you will not keep it for long. Mordrellan’s rule was secure in large part because she managed to resolve the war with Cairhien. Hurting Mantear would have amounted to antagonizing Cairhien as well. Now, with Tigraine gone, the treaty holds, yes, but the alliance lacks the marriage to Taringail. That was always its lynchpin. Any House could fill that void. I suspect that some are already attempting to do so.”
“Taringail is undoubtedly a problem. What do you propose?”
“You could kill him,” Elaida said, “or you could wed him.”
Elaida thought that a smile played at Morgase’s lips, but it was gone before she could be sure. “In truth, my own thoughts had begun to extend in both of those directions. We may yet prove to work well together,” Morgase mused. “And of the Houses?”
“Of course you should not ignore the other Houses. Continue your diplomatic missions with them, of necessity. Send that bard, whatever he is called. Perhaps he can be more useful there than here.” Morgase sniffed at that. Well, let her keep her playthings, just as long as she also kept Elaida. “But the key is Cairhien. Your personal efforts should be directed there. And mine.”
“There are sensitivities with the Houses which I would not expect you to understand yet. Still, I think I may welcome your perspective on certain issues.” She picked up a letter and shifted closer to Elaida. “This report on troop movements by House Marne, for instance. What do you make of it?” Elaida withheld her retort at the barb and bent over the letter in turn.
Morgase would need to learn her place, but Elaida had earned hers. She would be Aes Sedai advisor to the royal line of Andor, and if the Last Battle ended in victory, the world would have her to thank.