Basel Gill poured some water from the pitcher into the porcelain wash basin and cupped his hands, splashing water into his face. He removed his linen nightgown and put it on the bed, before searching out his clothes in the dim light. He quickly donned his undershirt, shirt, pants, socks and shoes and he was about to leave his room when he turned on his heel and went back. He got a piece of red cloth that hung over the back of a plain chair. He quickly tied it around his arm. As he stumbled down the corridor from his room and down the back stairs to the kitchen, he mused to himself. He wasn't quite sure how the practice of showing your allegiance had happened either. One day, there had been men wearing white armbands and cockades, proclaiming that the Queen had failed them and how her rule was ineffective and inadequate. As a counter-movement, there had been others who had begun red armbands and cockades. As a good queen's man, of course, he wore the red.
The voices of dissent were still quiet, but it was curious that they seemed to fall along the exact old lines that they did prior to Morgase seizing the throne. Trakand, Carand, Renshar, Traemane, Mantear and their supporters on the one side, wearing red, and Arymilla Marne, Elenia Sarand's and Naean Arawn's supporters wearing white. Basel shook his head. The Third Succession war was a good twenty-eight years in the past. Morgase wasn't anywhere near the end of her life yet and Elayne would surely make a fine Queen one day, her being trained by the Aes Sedai and all. Why was conflict starting again along those old lines?
His thoughts were brutally interrupted as he entered the kitchen and saw a rat scurry towards another door. He would have to see if he could get a ratter to come with his little ratter dogs.