"I forgot to put the book back in the proper place,'' she said in a voice like crystal chimes, turning back toward the tentflap. "Sevanna will have me beaten if she sees it out of place when she wakes."
"She's lying," Maighdin growled, and Dairaine darted for outside.
That was enough to convince Faile. She grabbed the woman's cowl and hauled her back into the tent. Dairaine opened her mouth to scream, but Alliandre clapped her hand over it, and the three of them wrestled the woman to the blanket-strewn ground-cloth. It took all three. Dairaine was small, but she writhed like a snake, tried to claw at them, to bite. While the other two held the woman down, Faile produced the second knife she had secured, a quite serviceable dagger with a ridged steel hilt and a blade longer than her hand, and began slicing strips from one of the blankets.
"How did you know?" Alliandre said, struggling to contain one of Dairaine's arms while keeping her mouth covered without being bitten. Maighdin had taken care of the woman's legs by sitting on them and had her other arm twisted to her shoulder blades. Dairaine still managed to twist, if uselessly.
"She was frowning, but when she spoke, her face went smooth. I could just make it out. If she were really worried about being beaten, she'd have frowned harder, not stopped." The golden-haired woman was not a very skilled lady's maid, yet she was a very observant one.
"But what made her suspicious?"
Maighdin shrugged. "Maybe one of us looked surprised, or guilty. Though I can't say how she could have noticed without any light."
Soon enough they had Dairaine trussed up with her ankles and wrists tied together behind her back. She would not wriggle far like that. A wadded length torn from her shift and tied in place with another piece of blanket served for a gag that let her emit only grunts. She twisted her head to glare up at them. Faile could not see her face very well, but the woman's expression had to be either glaring or pleading, and Dairaine only pleaded with Shaido. She used her position as one of Sevanna's gai'shain to bully gai'shain who were not, and her tale-carrying to bully those who were. The trouble was, they could not leave her here. Someone might come at any moment to summon one of them to serve Sevanna.
"We can kill her and hide the body," Alliandre suggested, smoothing her long hair. It had become disarrayed in the struggle.
"Where?" Maighdin said, combing her own sun-gold hair with her fingers. She did not sound a lady's maid speaking to a queen. Prisoners were equals in their captivity or else they aided their captors. It had taken time to teach Alliandre that. "It has to be somewhere she won't be found for at least a day. Sevanna might send men after Galina to bring us back if we're suspected of killing one of her belongings." She vested that word with all the scorn it would bear. "And I don't trust Galina not to let them bring us back."
Dairaine began struggling against her bonds again and grunting harder than ever. Maybe she had decided to plead after all.
"We aren't going to kill her," Faile told them. She was being neither squeamish nor merciful. There simply was nowhere they could be sure a body would remain hidden long enough, not that they could reach without being seen. "I'm afraid our plans have changed a little. Wait here."
Ducking outside, where the sky was indeed beginning to pearl, she found what had made Dairaine suspicious. Bain and Chiad were there in their plain white robes as expected, to escort them as far as the meeting place. Rolan and his friends might not be done breakfasting yet—she hoped they were not; they might do something foolish and ruin everything—and Bain and Chiad had volunteered to divert any men who tried to interfere with them. She had not been able to make herself ask how they intended to do that. Some sacrifices deserved a veil of secrecy. And all of a heart's gratitude. Two gai'shain holding wicker baskets were not enough to rouse suspicion in the Cairhienin woman, but thirty or forty gai'shain were, crowding the narrow muddy lane through the gai'shain tents.
Aravine's plump plain face watched her from a white cowl, and Lusara's beautiful one. Alvon was there with his son Theril in their robes of muddy tentcloth, and Alainia, a plump Amadician silversmith in dirty coarse white linen, and Dormin, a stocky Cairhienin bootmaker, and Corvila, a lean weaver from right here in Altara, and. . . .
They represented not a tenth part of those who had sworn to her, but a gathering of gai'shain this large would have planted suspicion in a stone. At least when added to the three of them being dressed. Dairaine likely had heard who had been summoned to Sevanna this morning. How had they learned she was leaving today? It was too late to worry about that. If any Shaido knew, they would all have been dragged from the tent before this.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"We wanted to see you go, my Lady," Theril said in his rough, barely intelligible accents. "We were very careful to come by ones and twos." Lusara nodded happily, and she was not the only one.
"Well, we can say goodbye now," Faile said firmly. No need to tell them how close they had come to ruining the escape. "Until I come back for you." If her father would not give her an army, then Perrin would. His friendship with Rand al'Thor would provide it. Light, where was he? No! She had to be glad he had not caught up yet, had not gotten himself killed trying to sneak into the camp and rescue her. She had to be glad, and not think of what might be delaying him.
"Now go before someone sees you here and runs to tell tales. And don't talk to anyone about this." Her adherents were safe enough, otherwise she would already be chained, but there were too many like Dairaine among the gai'shain, and not only among the long-held Cairhienin. Some people naturally set to licking wrists wherever they were.
They bowed or curtsied or knuckled their foreheads, just as if nobody might be poking their heads out to see, and scattered in every direction with chagrined expressions. They really had expected to watch her leave! She had no time to fritter away on exasperation. Hurrying to Bain and Chiad, she hastily explained the situation inside the tent.
They exchanged glances when she finished and put down the baskets to free fingers for Maiden handtalk. She avoided looking at their hands, since they plainly wanted privacy. Not that she could have understood much in any case. Their hands moved very fast. Flame-haired Bain with her dark blue eyes stood nearly half a hand taller than she, gray-eyed Chiad just a finger taller. They were her close friends, but they had adopted each other as first-sisters, and that created bonds closer than any friendship.
''We will take care of Dairaine Saighan," Chiad said at last. "But it means you must go into the town alone.''
Faile sighed, but there was no helping it. Perhaps Rolan was already awake. He could be watching her that minute. He always seemed to appear out of nowhere when she needed him. Surely he would not interfere with her leaving, not when he had promised to take her when he himself left. Yet he still had hopes, so long as she wore white. Him and his kissing games! He might want to keep her in gai'shain robes a little longer. When men wanted to help, they always thought their way was the only way.
Bain and Chiad ducked into the small peaked tent, and Alliandre and Maighdin came out. There really was not room inside for five. Maighdin went around the side of the tent and returned with a basket like those the other women had been carrying. Dirty gai'shain robes bulged out of the top of each, making them appear loads of laundry, but beneath were dresses that came near enough fitting, a hatchet, a sling, cords for making snares, flint and steel, packets of flour, meal, dried beans, salt and yeast, a few coins they had been able to find, everything they would need to make their way west to find Perrin. Galina would take them out of the camp, but there was no saying which direction her "Aes Sedai business" would take her then. They had to be self-reliant from the start. Faile would not put it past the Aes Sedai to abandon them as soon as she was able.
Maighdin stood over her basket with an air of determination, her jaw set and her eyes firm, but Alliandre's face was wreathed in smiles.
"Try not to look so happy," Faile told her. Wetlander gai'shain seldom smiled, and never so joyful
ly.
Alliandre tried to moderate her expression, but every time she smoothed her smiles away, they crept back. "We're escaping today," she said. "It's hard not to smile."
"You'll stop if some Wise One sees you and decides to find out why you're happy."
"We're hardly likely to meet a Wise One among the gai'shain tents or in Maiden," the woman said through a smile. Determined or not, Maighdin nodded agreement.
Faile gave up. In truth, she felt a little giddy herself in spite of Dairaine. They were escaping today.
Bain came out of the tent, holding the tentflap for Chiad, who was carrying on her back a blanket-wrapped bundle just large enough to be a small woman doubled-up. Chiad was strong, but she had to lean forward a little to support the weight.
"Why is she so still?" Faile asked. She had no fear they had killed Dairaine. They were fierce about following the rules for gai'shain, and violence was forbidden. But that blanket could have been full of wood for all that it moved.
Bain spoke softly, an amused light in her eyes. "I stroked her hair and told her I would be very upset if I had to hurt her. Simple truth, considering how much toh even slapping her would cost me."
Chiad chuckled. "I think Dairaine Saighan thought we were threatening her. I think she will be very quiet and very still until we let her go." She shook with silent laughter.
Aiel humor was still a mystery to Faile. She knew they would be punished severely for this, though. Aiding an escape attempt was dealt with as harshly as trying to escape.
"You have all my gratitude," she said, "you and Chiad both, now and forever. I have great toh." She kissed Bain lightly on the cheek, which made the woman blush as red as her hair, of course. Aiel were almost prudishly restrained in public. In some ways.
Bain glanced at Chiad, and a faint smile appeared on her lips. "When you see Gaul, tell him Chiad is gai'shain to a man with strong hands, a man whose heart is fire. He will understand. I need to help her carry our burden to a safe place. May you always find water and shade, Faile Bashere." She touched Faile's cheek lightly with her fingertips. "One day, we will meet again." Going over to Chiad, she took one end of the blanket, and they hurried away carrying it between them.
Gaul might understand, but Faile did not. Not the heart of fire, anyway, and she doubted that Manderic's hands interested Chiad in the slightest. The man had bad breath and started getting drunk as soon as he woke unless he was going on a raid or hunting. But she put Gaul and Manderic out of her mind and shouldered her basket. They had wasted too much time already.
The sky was beginning to take on the appearance of actual daylight, and gai'shain were stirring among the wildly diverse tents of the camp close on Maiden's walls, scurrying off to be about some chore or at least carrying something to give a semblance of working, but none paid any mind to three women in white carrying baskets of laundry toward the town's gates. There always seemed to be laundry to be done, even for Sevanna's gai'shain. There were far too many wetlander gai'shain for Faile to know everyone, and she saw no one she knew until they came on Arrela and Lacile, shifting from foot to foot with baskets on their shoulders.
Taller than most Aiel women and dark, Arrela kept her black hair cut as short as any Maiden and strode like a man when she walked. Lacile was short and pale and slim, and had red ribbons tied in her hair, which was not much longer. Her walk was graceful in robes, and had been a scandalous sway when she had worn breeches. Their sighs of relief were nearly identical, though. "We thought something had happened," Arrela said.
"Nothing we couldn't handle." Faile told her.
"Where are Bain and Chiad?" Lacile asked anxiously.
"They have another task," Faile said. "We go alone."
They exchanged glances, and their sighs were far from relieved this time. Of course Rolan would not interfere. Not with them getting away. Of course not.
The iron-strapped gates of Maiden stood open, shoved back against the granite walls, as they had since the city fell. Rust had turned the broad iron straps brown, and the hinges were so rusty that pushing the gates shut again might be impossible. Pigeons nested in the gray stone towers flanking them, now.
They were the first to arrive. At least, Faile could see no one ahead of them down the street. As they walked through the gates, she retrieved her dagger from the pocket inside her sleeve and held it with the blade pressed against her wrist, pointing up her arm.
The other women made similar motions, if not so deftly. Without Bain and Chiad, and hoping that Rolan and his friends were otherwise occupied, they had to provide their own protection. Maiden was not as dangerous for a woman—for a gai'shain woman; Shaido who tried to prey on their own got short shrift—not as dangerous as the Shaido portion of the camp, yet women had been assaulted there, sometimes by groups of men. The Light send if they were accosted, it was only by one or two. One or two they might catch by surprise and kill before they realized these gai'shain had teeth. If there were more than two, they would do what they could, but an Aiel weaver or potter was as dangerous as most trained armsmen. Baskets or no baskets, they walked on their toes, heads swiveling, ready to spring in any direction.
This part of the town had not been burned, yet it had a look of desolation. Broken dishes and pottery crunched beneath their soft white boots. Bits of clothing, cut off men and women made gai'shain, still littered the gray paving stones. Those sorry, bedraggled rags had lain first in the snow and then in the rain for well over a month, and she doubted any ragpicker would have gathered them, now. Here and there lay children's toys, a wooden horse or a doll whose paint was beginning to flake, dropped by the very young who had been allowed to flee, like the very old, the ill and infirm. Slate-roofed buildings of wood or stone along the street showed gaping holes where their doors and windows had been. Along with anything the Shaido considered valuable or useful, the town had been stripped of every easily removable piece of wood, and only the fact that tearing down houses was less efficient than cutting firewood in the surrounding forests had spared the wooden structures themselves. Those openings minded Faile of eye sockets in skulls. She had walked along this street countless times, yet this morning, they seemed to be watching her. They made her scalp crawl.
Halfway across the town, she looked back toward the gates, no more than a hundred and fifty paces behind. The street was still empty for the moment, but soon the first white-clad men and women would materialize with their water buckets. Fetching water was a task that began early and lasted all day. They had to hurry, now. Turning down a narrower side street, she started to walk faster, although she had trouble keeping her basket balanced. The others must have been having the same difficulty, yet no one complained. They had to be out of sight before those gai'shain appeared.
There was no reason for any gai'shain entering the town to leave the main street until they reached the cistern below the fortress. An attempt to curry favor or just a careless word could send Shaido into the town hunting for them, and there was only one way out, short of climbing onto the walls and dropping ten paces to the ground hoping that no one broke a leg.
At a now signless inn, three stories of stone and empty windows, she darted into the common room followed by the others. Lacile set down her basket and pressed herself against the doorframe to keep watch up the street. The beam-ceilinged room was bare to the dusty floorboards, and the stone fireplaces were missing their andirons and firetools. The railing had been stripped from the staircase at the back of the room, and the door to the kitchen was gone, too. The kitchen was just as empty. She had checked. Pots and knives and spoons were useful.
Faile lowered her basket to the floor and hurried to the side of the staircase. It was a sturdy piece of work, of heavy timbers and made to last for generations. Tearing it down would have been nearly as hard as tearing down a house. She felt underneath, along the top of the wide outer support, and her hand closed on the wrist-thick, not quite glassy rod. It had seemed as good a hiding place as she could find, a place no one would have
any reason to look, but she was surprised to find she had been holding her breath.
Lacile remained by the doorway, but the others hurried to Faile without their baskets.
"At last," Alliandre said, gingerly touching the rod with her fingertips. "The price of our freedom. What is it?"
"An angreal," Faile said, "or perhaps a ter'angreal. I don't know for certain, except that Galina wants it very badly, so it must be one or the other."
Maighdin put her hand on the rod boldly. "It could be either," she murmured. "They often have an odd feel. So I've been told, anyway." She claimed never to have been to the White Tower, but Faile was not so sure as she once had been. Maighdin could channel, but so weakly and with so much difficulty that the Wise Ones saw no danger in letting her walk free. Well, as free as any gai'shain was. Her denials might well be a matter of shame. Faile had heard that women who had been put out of the Tower because they could not become Aes Sedai sometimes denied ever having gone in order to hide their failure.
Arrela gave a shake of her head and backed away a step. She was Tairen, and despite traveling with Aes Sedai, she was still uncomfortable over the Power or anything to do with it. She looked at the smooth white rod as if at a red adder and licked her lips. "Galina might be waiting on us. She might get angry if we make her wait long."
"Is the way still clear, Lacile?" Faile asked as she stuck the rod far down into her basket. Arrela exhaled heavily, clearly as relieved at having the thing out of her sight as she had been to see Faile earlier.