Valda stiffened slightly. Rhadam Asunawa might be the High Inquisitor, but he was still a Questioner. And Valda was a Lord Captain, Anointed of the Light, not “my son.” “Not that I have noticed,” he said flatly.

Asunawa sighed. His gaunt face was a picture of martyred suffering, so that his sweat might have been taken for tears, but his deep-set eyes seemed to burn with the heat that had boiled away all his spare flesh. His cloak bore only the crook, no flaring golden sun, as though he stood outside the Children. Or perhaps above. “The times are troubled. The Fortress of the Light harbors a witch.”

Valda suppressed a wry look before it formed. Cowards or not, Questioners could be dangerous even to a Lord Captain. The man might never be able to hang an Amyrlin, but he probably dreamed of being the first to hang a queen. Valda did not care whether Morgase died, provided it was not before all the use was wrung out of her. He said nothing, and Asunawa’s thick gray eyebrows drew down until he seemed to peer out of caverns.

“The times are troubled,” he said again, “and Niall must not be allowed to destroy the Children of the Light.”

For long minutes Valda examined the painting. Perhaps the artist had been good, perhaps not; he knew nothing of such things and cared even less. The fellow had gotten the weapons and armor right on the guards, though, and the rope and scaffold looked real. Those were things he knew. “I am prepared to listen,” he said finally.

“Then we will talk, my son. Later, where there are fewer eyes to see and ears to hear. The Light illumine you, my son.” Asunawa strode away without another word, white cloak billowing slightly and the sound of his boots echoing as if he was trying to drive every step into the stone. Some of the Children bowed deeply as he passed.

From a narrow window high above the courtyard Niall watched Valda dismount and speak to young Bornhald, then stalk away in a fury. Valda was always in a fury. Had there been some means to bring the Children home from Tar Valon and leave Valda there, Niall would have jumped at it. The man was a fair enough battle commander, but better suited to rousing mobs. His notion of tactics was the charge, and of strategy—the charge.

Shaking his head, Niall made his way to his audience chamber. He had more important things than Valda to concern him. Morgase was still resisting like an army on the heights with water and high morale. She refused to admit she held a valley floor with no way out, and it was her enemy who had the heights.