Lan POV#

During their last two nights on the road Alys plagues Lan with fleas and blackflies.[1] He cannot wait to be rid of her. At noon they cross the Bridge of Sunrise into Chachin. Glad to be rid of her, he gallops Cat Dancer into the city and Ryne and Bukama follow and they head to the Aesdaishar Palace. It is adorned with banners of the prancing Red Horse. At the gates to the palace, a dozen guards block their way. Lan introduces himself and an old comrade, Jurad Shiman welcomes them greeting Lan with Tai'shar Malkier. The shatayan herself, Mistress Romera takes them to their rooms. Ryne and Bukama get small rooms, but Lan gets three spacious rooms, two serving women, Anya and Esne, and an errand boy named Bulen. Anya informs him that Queen Ethenielle is in the south but her Prince Consort Brys, her Swordbearer and general, is in residence. Edeyn Arrel is also at the palace. In no time, she sends a message for Lan to call on her. He has no intention of meeting her in private because she is his carneira. He assumes ko'di to calm himself. Later, Mistress Romera summons him to an audience with Brys. They are old friends having saved each other's lives in the Blight. In the meeting hall there are numerous men wearing hadori and women wearing ki'sain. Brys' and Ethenielle's second son Diryk is extremely lucky. He fell off a balcony and lived. He quizzes Lan until his father sends him to his tutor Mistress Tuval.

Among the other nobles is Edeyn ti Gemallen Arrel.[2] She still wears the white ki'sain of a widow. When Lan greets her she kneels and pledges fealty to Lan as king of Malkier. Lan and Brys go to a private balcony for a long talk. They discuss the Aiel War and rumors of a man who can channel.[3] Brys tells Lan of a message from Ethenielle that two Aes Sedai caught an impostor in a village to the south.[4] When Lan returns to his rooms he finds Edeyn waiting for him. She plans for him to marry her seventeen-year-old daughter Iselle. She still holds his daori, the braid of hair from one's carneira cut at their first time. This means that he still owes her. She takes him to bed.
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