Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight

“Matherin has always maintained faith with Trakand,” Elayne told him, “and I put my trust that it always will. I value Lord Aedmun’s loyalty, Master Ros, and yours.”

She did not insult Matherin, and him, by promising to remember or offering rewards, yet Master Ros’ broad smile said she had already given him as much reward as he desired. Matherin would receive rewards, if they were earned, but they could not be held out as if offering to buy a horse.

Thumping along on his crutch, Master Ros bowed her to the door, and bowed her out onto the broad granite step where servants wearing heavy coats waited in the bitter cold with a stirrup cup of hot spiced wine that she rejected with a murmur. Until she had a chance to adjust to the sharp air, she wanted both hands to hold her cloak closed. Aviendha would probably have found a way to make her drop it anyway. She took a cup, after wrapping her shawl around her head and shoulders, the only concession she made to the icy morning. She was ignoring the cold, of course. Elayne was the one who had taught her how. Elayne tried again to push the cold away, and to her surprise, it receded. Not all the way—she still felt chilly—but it was better than freezing.

The sky was clear, the sun bright as it sat over the mountains, but storm clouds could come boiling across the surrounding peaks at any time. It would be best to reach their first destination today as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Fireheart, her tall black gelding, was living up to his name, rearing and snorting gouts of steamy breath as if he had never worn a bridle before, and Aviendha’s leggy arch-necked gray had taken it into her head to imitate him, dancing in the knee-deep snow and trying to go anywhere except where the groom tried to lead her. She was a more spirited animal than Elayne would have chosen for her sister, yet Aviendha herself had insisted after learning the mare’s name. Siswai meant spear, in the Old Tongue. The grooms seemed capable women, but they appeared to think they needed to calm the animals before handing them over. It was all Elayne could do not to snap at them that she had managed Fireheart before they ever saw him.

Her escort was already mounted, to avoid standing in the snow, twenty-odd riders in the white-collared red coats and brightly burnished breastplates and helmets of the Queen’s Guard. Master Ros’ doubt might be explained by the fact that the riders’ coats were silk, as were their red breeches with the white stripe up each leg, and by the pale lace they wore at neck and cuff. They certainly appeared more ceremonial than effective. Or it might have been that they were all women. Women were uncommon in jobs that required using weapons, just the occasional merchants’ guard or a rare woman who turned up in an army during time of war, and Elayne had never heard of a group of all-female soldiers before she created one. Except the Maidens, of course, but they were Aiel and a different matter. She hoped people would think them an affectation on her part, and largely decorative with all the lace and silk. Men tended to underestimate a woman carrying weapons until they faced one, and even most other women tended to think her a brainless fool. Bodyguards usually tried to appear so ferocious that no one would dare trying to get past them, but her enemies would just find a new way to attack if she stood the whole Queen’s Guard around her shoulder-to-shoulder. A bodyguard her enemies would dismiss until it was too late for more than regrets was her aim. She intended to make their uniforms more elaborate, partly to feed those misconceptions and partly to feed the women’s pride as soldiers marked out from the rest, but she herself had no doubts. Every one of them, from merchants’ guards to Hunters of the Horn, had been carefully chosen for her skills, experience and courage. She was ready to put her life in their hands. She already had.

A lean woman wearing a lieutenant’s two golden knots on the shoulder of her red cloak saluted Elayne with an arm across her chest, and her roan gelding tossed his head, making the silver bells in his mane chime faintly, as if he too were saluting. “We are ready, my Lady, and the area is clear.” Caseille Raskovni was one of those who had been a merchant’s guard, and her Arafellin accents were not those of an educated woman, but her voice was brisk and no-nonsense. She used the proper form of address, and would until Elayne was crowned, yet she was ready to fight to gain that crown for Elayne. Very, very few, male or female, signed the roster of the Queen’s Guard these days unless they were ready for that. “The men Master Ros handed over are ready, too. As ready as they’ll ever be.” Clearing his throat, the man shifted his crutch and took to studying the snow in front of his boots.

Elayne could see what Caseille meant. Master Ros had scraped together eleven men from the manor to send to Caemlyn and outfitted them with halberds and short-swords and what armor he could find, nine antique helmets without faceguards and seven breastplates with dents that made them vulnerable. Their mounts were not bad, though hairy with their winter coats, but even huddled as their riders were in thick cloaks, she could see that eight were unlikely to need to shave above once in a week, if that. The men Master Ros had described as being experienced had wrinkled faces and bony hands and probably not a full set of teeth between them. He had not been lying or trying to stint; Aedmun would have gathered all the fit men in the area to take with him and outfitted them in the best he had. The story had been the same everywhere. Apparently a great number of hale and hearty men scattered the length of Andor were trying to reach her in Caemlyn. And none of them likely to get into the city until all was decided, now. She could search every day without finding a single band. Still, this little bunch held their halberds as if they knew how to use them. Then again, that was not hard to do sitting a saddle at rest with the halberd’s butt tucked in your stirrup. She could have managed that.

“We have visited nineteen of these manors, sister,” Aviendha said softly, moving closer until their shoulders touched, “and counting these, we have gathered two hundred and five boys too young to be blooded and old men who should have laid down the spear long ago. I have not asked before. You know your people and your ways. Is this worth the time you give it?”

“Oh, yes, sister.” Elayne kept her voice just as low, so the one-legged former soldier and the servants could not overhear. The best of people could turn muleheaded if they realized you wanted them to behave a certain way. Particularly if they realized that the help they had painfully gathered and offered, and you had accepted, was not what you were after at all. “Everyone in that village down by the river knows I’m here by now, and so do half the farms for miles. By noon, the other half will know, and by tomorrow, the next village over, and more farms. News travels slowly in winter, especially in this country. They know I’ve spoken my claim to the throne, yet if I gain the throne tomorrow or die tomorrow, they might not learn of it before the middle of spring, maybe not even until summer. But today they know that Elayne Trakand is alive that she visited the manor in silks and jewels and summoned men to her banner. People twenty miles from here will claim they saw me and touched my hand. Few people can say that without speaking in favor of whoever they claim to have seen, and when you speak in favor of someone, you convince yourself to favor them. There are men and women in nineteen places around Andor talking about how they saw the Daughter-Heir just this last week, and every day the area that talk covers spreads like an inkblot.

If I had time, I’d visit every village in Andor. It won’t make a hair of difference in what happens in Caemlyn, but it may make all the difference after I win.” She would not admit to any possibility other than winning. Especially not given who would take the throne if she failed. “Most Queens in our history spent the first years of their rule gathering the people solidly behind them, Aviendha, and some never did, but harder times than these are coming. I may not have one year before I need every Andoran to stand behind me. I can’t wait until I have the throne. Harder times are coming, and I have to be ready. Andor has to be ready, and I must make it so,” she finished firmly.