A Good Start
Steam, hot water, lavender soap, and quiet. Once Lan had finally gotten the country boys to quit running their mouths to their attendant at Baerlon's Stag and Lion Inn, Thom could finally enjoy his hot bath in peace.
Attempting to empty his mind and relax a little, Thom allowed his thoughts to wander, letting them float up to the surface of his consciousness and just as gently pushing them away. Thoughts of their recent journey flowed by. The boys. Lan. Moiraine.
Now, there was an interesting one. As beautiful as she was intelligent, as commanding as she was mysterious, women like her didn't just come along every day. As much as the fact that she was Aes Sedai repelled him, the rest of her beckoned him forward, piquing an interest that Thom had long since given up for dead.
Aes Sedai calm layered over Cairhienin reserve, the woman did not reveal a speck that she did not wish to reveal, either of her plan for their journey or her personal thoughts on matters. Thom wondered what lay beneath those guarded walls, wondered what it would take to dismantle them. Who was Moiraine when no one else was watching, when the cares of the world didn't rest so heavily on her shoulders, when she could be totally herself, uninhibited?
A mental image of the thought flashed across his mind—Moiraine, uninhibited, flushed, hair wild across his pillow. Fool! He immediately admonished himself, shaking his head to dispel the unbidden image. She is Aes Sedai. And either young enough to be his daughter or old enough to be his mother besides. With more important affairs to attend to than the attentions of a foolish old man.
But there were other, more achievable ways to break down her icy exterior.
Yes. If Thom Merrilin could do one thing, it would be to learn to make her laugh.
"I am ready," Moiraine said, pen poised above a fresh page in her worn notebook. "Tell me what you saw. Tell me everything." Her dark eyes bore into Min's with an intensity that belied her otherwise cool demeanor. "Both individually and together." They hadn't gotten a chance to speak in-depth about Min's visions last night before dinner and so they had agreed to meet privately to discuss them after an early breakfast today. The pair sat in the inn's private dining room, Lan casually buffing his nails with a dagger outside the closed door.
Min swallowed and started from memory, one by one. She didn't quite understand Moiraine's fixation on the three men—practically boys, really—from the backwoods of Andor, but she did want to help. And if her visions could help somehow, in ways she didn't see yet, she was happy to lend her talents to someone who could make sense of them. Methodically, she recited her visions around the Two Rivers folk one by one. If anything stood out as significant to the Aes Sedai, she gave no indication, merely jotting down Min's words as if writing down the shopping list for the market. But perhaps that was because Min hadn't gotten to the gleeman yet.
Min had begun with the boys, both because that was who Moiraine seemed most interested in and because the images swirled most potently around them, and now she wrapped up her reading of the boys with descriptions of the particular sparks that linked the three of them up, with Rand at the center. From there, she moved on to Egwene, backlit by her own sparks, in seven swirling colors, that tied her in different ways to the three.
"Nothing new surrounds Master An—Lan— since he came through here on your way down country, except for the gold sparks I see around all of you as a group now…" Min trailed off. She wasn't sure how to tell Moiraine the rest. The nonsensical images dancing about the others' heads felt impersonal, but there was something new for Moiraine and unlike most of what Min saw, she knew exactly what it meant.
"And the gleeman? Do the sparks contain him as well?" Moiraine prompted when Min trailed off.
"Yes, he's mixed up in all of it too," Min started, shifting uneasily in her chair. She wasn't sure how to share the rest. It was so personal, and the few people she did speak to about her gift got so uncomfortable when she was honest about what she saw. Everyone always thought they wanted Min to read them, but they were seldom content with the answers. It made Min hesitate to tell the rest, having gotten the impersonal bits out of the way.
Moiraine seemed to detect her hesitation. Whereas she had been mainly focused on writing, she returned Min's gaze expectantly, leaning forward as if to wrench every drop of the truth from Min's eyes.
"Yes, and?" Moiraine asked quietly, pen still at the ready even as she leaned closer.
Min took a deep breath and decided there was nothing for it but plain honesty. Moiraine clearly wanted the whole truth and she would get what she asked for. Min surmised she would be content with nothing less, and she hadn't faltered when Min read her during her last visit. "You know how I can look at two people and know they'll marry?"
Moiraine nodded almost absently as her pen returned to the paper.
"I know who Thom will marry. It's you."
Looking down at her notebook, Moiraine's expression didn't change, but her quill did pause a moment. Then it resumed.
"Anything else?" she asked briskly. "Anything we haven't covered yet? I have already written down what we were able to discuss last night."
"No, Moiraine, that's all I have for now. I'll let you know if anything changes," Min replied, relieved that Moiraine did not seem upset with her.
"Thank you, Min," Moiraine responded, gathering her things. "I know that your visions can be difficult or unpleasant to process, but your gift helps further the work of the Light, and your talent is appreciated."
With that, she glided to the door and collected Lan on her way out. Together they returned to their rooms to prepare for a day visiting the Blues' eyes-and-ears network in Baerlon, and hopefully taking in some of the local cuisine while they were out.
Egwene had already left for the day, so when Moiraine closed the door behind her, she stood gratefully alone in the small room. If she had maintained her calm exterior, it did not match what she experienced inside. It was not the part about Thom that had shocked her; it was the marriage part. Marriage had never entered her mind. No, that was not quite accurate; she actively did not wish to be married. Since Gitara's Foretelling, her course in life had stretched before her as straight and precise as an arrow, pointed toward finding and protecting the Dragon Reborn. Toward finding Rand or Mat or Perrin. That goal left no room for anything—or anyone—else. Which had never discontented her; most Aes Sedai outside of the Greens never married anyway. Marriage?
To Thom? Thomdril Merrilin. It was not as though she had not appreciated his quick wit and his startling blue eyes, but she had the sense to hold the man at length. For hidden purposes of his own, he masqueraded as a gleeman now, but Moiraine could never forget that name or the man who bore it. Not that she had ever been particularly close to her half-brother Taringail, but fifteen years ago she had certainly taken note of the man most likely to be his killer.
Yes, perhaps the Thom part vexed her as much as the marriage part.
"The Wheel weaves as the wheel wills," she told herself aloud, as she had told her travelling companions many times. She wryly suspected that the phrase convinced and comforted her now as much as it did the Two Rivers folk. Releasing her grip from her silk skirts, she shook her head, poured a little water into the chipped basin, and splashed some onto her face. She took a few deep breaths and resolved to trust in Min and the Pattern. It certainly was not the first thread of the weave that she did not understand, after all.
Settling a light cloak over her squared shoulders, she made her way back to the common room, taking some more calming breaths and willing the flush creeping up her cheeks to recede. Lan had not come down yet, so she stood off to the side of the emptying common room, alone but for a few patrons getting a late start to their breakfast. And of all people, Thom, burn the man! No doubt preparing for a day of common room entertainment. Grateful that her high-necked blue gown concealed the flush creeping back up her throat, her eyes cast about for something, anything to occupy her for the few moments until Lan would surely appear in the doorway. The bond let her know he remained upstairs, but surely any moment now… Where was that inn cat? Cirri, she believed his name was.
Displayed on the wall near her head hung, of all things in a town increasingly besieged by Whitecloaks, an old map of Tar Valon, which her eyes began tracing. Her casual examination of the map belied her racing thoughts as she nonchalantly eyed the ink drawing. Tucked inside two folds of the Erinin, the island city appeared as a vertical oval with pointed ends, its banks forming protective lips around the White Tower grounds, a grand avenue creating a slit from top to bottom, and North Harbor, small and round, sat nestled at the apex of the slit.
Noticing Moiraine regarding the map, Thom sidled over.
"You know, they say most men can't find North Harbor," he observed casually. Too casually.
Failing to quash the grin blooming on her lips, Moiraine suddenly appeared to be preoccupied with smoothing a skirt that had apparently gone wrinkled in the last few seconds. The allusion to such an intimate topic after Min's revelation rocked her all over again, but she could not help finding it amusing in spite of herself. Having lain with both women and men in her lifetime, Thom's quip was perhaps closer to the truth than even he realized. She took a minute to regain composure. When she met his blue gaze again, her lips had been tamed but her eyes were smiling. Very well, she thought. Min's vision comes a little clearer into focus already.
"You only think you know of which you speak, gleeman," she replied coolly, her tone mismatched with the warmth of her gaze, yet both communicating that she took his meaning precisely. At that moment, Lan blessedly appeared at the bottom of the stairs, ready to be off with Moiraine for the day. She acknowledged Lan and headed toward him, fixing Thom for the briefest moment with a sidelong glance and wickedly arched brow as if to say she saw exactly what he was doing.
Well, perhaps he shouldn't read so deeply into it, Thom thought. Then again, she was Aes Sedai and Cairhienin and a woman. Perhaps he should read very deeply into it. Or perhaps that was exactly what she wanted him to think. He shook himself, then went to gather his cloak and instruments for a day performing in the sleepy hamlet that the country folk were calling a city.
Well. He had failed to elicit a laugh, he thought. But he was off to a good start.