“And Alviarin,” Leane said in a tight voice. “And Alviarin!”
“I was afraid they’d sense me,” Siuan went on, “but there is nothing for them to sense, now. An advantage to having been … stilled, it seems.” Leane jerked her head angrily, and Siuan said, “We must use whatever advantages we can find. And be glad for them.” The last sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.
The final Warder disappeared around the distant curve, and Min swallowed the lump in her throat. “We can talk of advantages later,” she croaked, and stopped to swallow again. “Let us just go to the horses. That has to have been the worst.”
Indeed, as they hurried out of the Tower into the noonday sun, it seemed the worst must have passed. A column of smoke rising toward a cloudless sky in the east of the Tower grounds was the only sign of old trouble. Groups of men moved in the distance, but none gave a second glance to the three women as they scurried past the library, which was built like towering waves frozen in stone. A footpath led deeper into the grounds and westward, into a wood of oaks and evergreens that could have stood far from any city. Min’s steps lightened when she found the three saddled horses still tied where she and Laras had left them, in a small clearing surrounded by leatherleaf and paperbark.
Siuan went immediately to a stout, shaggy mare two hands shorter than the others. “A suitable mount for my present circumstances. And she looks more placid than the other two; I was never a good rider.” She stroked the mare’s nose, and the mare nuzzled into her palm. “What is her name, Min? Do you know?”
“Bela. She belongs to—”
“Her horse.” Gawyn stepped from behind a wide-trunked paperbark, one hand on the long hilt of his sword. The blood streaking his face made exactly the pattern Min had seen in her viewing, her first day back in Tar Valon. “I knew you must be up to something, Min, when I saw her horse.” His red-gold hair was matted with blood, his blue eyes half-dazed, but he walked toward them smoothly, a tall man with a catlike grace. A cat stalking mice.
“Gawyn,” Min began, “we—”
His sword was out of its scabbard, flicking back Siuan’s hood, sharp edge laid against the side of her throat, all faster than Min could follow. Siuan’s breath caught audibly, and she was still, looking up at him, outwardly as serene as though she yet wore the stole.
“Don’t, Gawyn!” Min gasped. “You must not!” She took a step toward him, but he flung up his free hand without looking at her, and she stopped. He was as tight as coiled steel, ready to burst out in any direction. She noticed Leane had shifted her cloak to hide one hand and prayed the woman was not fool enough to draw her belt knife.
Gawyn studied Siuan’s face, then slowly nodded. “It is you. I was not sure, but it is. This … disguise cannot—” He did not appear to move, but a sudden widening of Siuan’s eyes spoke of a keen edge pressing harder. “Where are my sister and Egwene? What have you done with them?” Most frightening to Min, with that blood-masked face and half-glazed eyes, with his body tensed almost to quivering and his hand upflung as if he had forgotten it, he never raised his voice or put any emotion into it. He only sounded tired, more tired than she had ever heard anyone sound in her life.
Siuan’s voice was nearly as neutral. “The last I heard from them, they were safe and well. I cannot say where they are, now. Would you rather they were here, in the middle of this feeding frenzy?”
“No Aes Sedai word games,” he said softly. “Tell me where they were, straight out, so I know you speak the truth.”
“Illian,” Siuan said without hesitation. “In the city itself. They are studying with an Aes Sedai named Mara Tomanes. They should still be there.”
“Not Tear,” he murmured. For a moment he appeared to think that over. Abruptly, he said, “They say you are a Darkfriend. Black Ajah, that would be, would it not?”
“If you really believe that,” Siuan said calmly, “then strike off my head.”
Min almost screamed as his knuckles whitened on his sword hilt. Slowly she reached out and rested her fingers against his outstretched wrist, careful not to make him think she meant to do anything more than touch. It was like resting her fingers on rock. “Gawyn, you know me. You can’t think I would help the Black Ajah.” His eyes never wavered from Siuan’s face, never blinked. “Gawyn, Elayne supports her and everything she’s done. Your own sister, Gawyn.” His flesh was still stone. “Egwene believes in her, too, Gawyn.” His wrist trembled under her fingers. “I swear it, Gawyn. Egwene believes.”
His eyes flickered to her, then back to Siuan. “Why shouldn’t I drag you back by the scruff of your neck? Give me a reason.”
Siuan met his stare with a good deal more calm than Min felt. “You could do it, and I suppose my struggles wouldn’t give you much more trouble than a kitten’s. Yesterday, I was one of the most powerful women in the world. Perhaps the most powerful. Kings and queens would come if I summoned them, even if they hated the Tower and all it stood for. Today, I’m afraid that I may have nothing to eat tonight, and that I’ll have to sleep under a bush. In the space of one day I’ve been reduced from the most powerful woman in the world to one hoping to find a farm where I might earn my keep in the fields. Whatever you think I have done, isn’t that a fitting punishment?”
“Perhaps,” he said after a moment. Min took a deep breath of relief as he resheathed his sword in a flowing motion. “But that is not why I will let you go. Elaida might take your head yet, and I cannot allow that. I want what you know to be there, if I need it.”
“Gawyn,” Min said, “come with us.” A Warder-trained swordsman might be useful in the days to come. “That way, you’d have her ready to hand to answer your questions.” Siuan’s gaze flickered to her, not really leaving Gawyn’s face and not exactly indignant; she pressed on anyway. “Gawyn, Egwene and Elayne believe in her. Can’t you believe, too?”
“Do not ask more than I can give,” he said quietly. “I will take you to the nearest gate. You would never get out without me. That’s all I can do, Min, and it is more than I should. Your arrest has been ordered; did you know that?” His eyes swung back to Siuan. “If anything happens to them,” he said in that expressionless voice, “to Egwene or my sister, I will find you, wherever you hide, and I will make sure the same happens to you.” Abruptly he stalked a dozen paces away and stood with his arms folded, head down as if he could not bear to look at them any longer.
Siuan half-raised a hand to her throat; a tiny line of red on the fair skin marked where his blade had rested. “I’ve been too long with the Power,” she said, a trifle unsteadily. “I had forgotten what it is like to face someone who can pick you up and snap you like a thread.” She peered at Leane then, as if seeing her for the first time, and touched her own face as though unsure what it looked like. “From what I have read it is supposed to take longer to fade, but perhaps Elaida’s rough treatment had something to do with it. A disguise, he called it, and it may serve for one.” She clambered awkwardly onto Bela’s back, handling the reins as if the shaggy mare were a spirited stallion. “Another advantage, it seems, to being … . I have to learn to say it without flinching. I have been stilled.” She said the words slowly and deliberately, then nodded. “There. If Leane is any guide, I’ve lost a good fifteen years, maybe more. I’ve known women who would pay any price for that. A third advantage.” She glanced at Gawyn. He still had his back turned, but she lowered her voice anyway. “Along with a certain loosening of the tongue, shall we say? I had not thought of Mara in years. A friend of my girlhood.”
“Will you age like the rest of us, now?” Min asked as she climbed into her saddle. Better than commenting on the lie. Better just to remember that she could lie now. Leane mounted the third mare with smooth skill and walked her in a circle, testing her step; she had surely been on a horse before.
Siuan shook her head. “I really don’t know. No stilled woman has ever lived long enough to find out. I intend to.”
“Do you mean to go,” Gawyn asked
harshly, “or sit there talking?” Without waiting for an answer, he strode off through the trees.
They heeled their mares after him, Siuan pulling her hood well forward to hide her face. Disguise or no, it seemed she was taking no chances. Leane was already shrouded as deeply in hers as she could be. After a moment, Min imitated them. Elaida wanted her arrested? That had to mean that she knew “Elmindreda” was Min. How long had the woman known? How long had Min been walking around thinking herself hidden while Elaida watched and smirked at her for a fool? It was a shivery thought.
As they caught up to Gawyn at a graveled path, twenty or more young men appeared, striding toward them, some perhaps a few years older than he, others little more than boys. Min suspected some of those last did not have to shave yet, at least not regularly. All carried swords at their belts or on their backs, though, and three or four had breastplates. More than one sported a bloody bandage, and most wore clothes spotted with blood. Each had the same unblinking stare as Gawyn. At the sight of him they stopped, clapping right fists to chests. Without slowing, Gawyn acknowledged the salute with a nod, and the young men fell in behind the women’s horses.
“The students?” Siuan murmured. “They also took part in the fighting?”
Min nodded, keeping her face expressionless. “They call themselves the Younglings.”
“A fitting name.” Siuan sighed.
“Some are no more than children,” Leane muttered.
Min was not about to tell them that Warders from the Blue and Green Ajahs had planned to free them before they were stilled, and might have succeeded if Gawyn had not roused the students, “children” too, and led them into the Tower to stop it. The fighting had been among the deadliest, student against teacher and no mercy, no quarter.
The tall, bronze-studded Alindrelle Gates stood open, but guarded heavily. Some guards wore the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests; others had workmen’s coats, and mismatched breastplates and helmets. Guardsmen, and fellows who had come disguised as masons. Both sorts looked hard and resourceful, used to their weapons, but they kept apart, eyeing each other distrustfully. A grizzled officer stood out from the Tower guardsmen with his arms folded and watched Gawyn and the others approach.
“Writing materials!” Gawyn snapped. “Quickly!”
“Well, you must be these Younglings I’ve heard of,” the grizzled man said. “A fine bunch of bloody young cockerels, but I’ve had orders to let no one leave the Tower grounds. Signed by the Amyrlin Seat herself. Who do you think you are to countermand that?”
Gawyn raised his head slowly. “I am Gawyn Trakand of Andor,” he said softly. “And I mean to see these women leave, or you dead.” The other Younglings moved up behind him, spreading out to face the guards with hands on swords, unblinking, perhaps not caring that they were outnumbered.
The grizzled man shifted uneasily, and one of the others muttered, “He’s the one they say killed Hammar and Coulin.”
After a moment, the officer jerked his head toward the guardhouse, and one of the guardsmen ran inside, returning with a lapdesk, a small red stick of sealing wax burning in a brass holder at one corner. Gawyn let the man hold the desk while he scribbled furiously.
“This will let you past the bridge guards,” he said, letting a pool of red wax drip beneath his signature. He pressed his signet ring into it firmly.
“You killed Coulin?” Siuan said in a cold tone fitting her former office. “And Hammar?”
Min’s heart sank. Be quiet, Siuan! Remember who you are now, and be quiet!
Gawyn spun to face the three women, his eyes like blue fire. “Yes,” he grated. “They were my friends, and I respected them, but they sided with … with Siuan Sanche, and I had to—” Abruptly he shoved the paper he had sealed into Min’s hand. “Go! Go, before I change my mind!” He slapped her mare, then darted to slap the other two as Min’s horse leaped through the open gates. “Go!”
Min let her horse cross the great plaza surrounding the Tower grounds at a quick trot, Siuan and Leane right behind her. The plaza was empty, and so were the streets beyond. The ring of their horses’ hooves on the paving stones echoed hollowly. Whoever had not already fled the city was hiding.
She studied Gawyn’s paper as they rode. The blob of red wax bore the imprint of a charging boar. “This just says we have permission to leave. We could use it to board a ship as well as at the bridges.” It seemed smart to be going a way no one knew, not even Gawyn. She did not really think he would change his mind, but he was brittle, ready to shatter at the wrong blow.
“That might be a good idea,” Leane said. “I always thought Galad was the more dangerous of those two, but I am no longer sure. Hammar, and Coulin … .” She shivered. “A ship would take us farther, faster than these horses can.”
Siuan shook her head. “Most of the Aes Sedai who fled will have crossed the bridges, for sure. That is the quickest way out of the city if someone might be chasing you, quicker than waiting while a ship’s crew casts off. I must stay close to Tar Valon if I’m to gather them in.”
“They won’t follow you,” Leane said in a monotone freighted with meaning. “You have no right to the stole any longer. Not even to the shawl or the ring.”
“I may no longer wear the stole,” Siuan replied just as flatly, “but I still know how to ready a crew for a storm. And since I cannot wear the stole, I must see they choose the right woman in my place. I’ll not let Elaida get away with calling herself the Amyrlin. It has to be someone strong in the Power, someone who sees things the right way.”
“Then you mean to go on aiding this … this Dragon!” Leane snapped.
“What else would you have me do? Curl up and die?”
Leane shuddered as if she had been struck in the face, and they rode in silence for a time. All of those fabulous buildings around them, like wind-sculpted cliffs and waves and great flights of birds, loomed frighteningly with no people in the streets save themselves, and one lone fellow who came darting around a corner up ahead, scuttling from doorway to doorway as if scouting their way for them. He did not lessen the emptiness, only emphasized it.
“What else can we do?” Leane said eventually. She rode slumped in her saddle now like a sack of grain. “I feel so … empty. Empty.”
“Find something to fill it up,” Siuan told her firmly. “Anything. Cook for the hungry, tend the sick, find a husband and raise a houseful of children. Me, I mean to see Elaida does not get away with this. I could almost forgive her, if she truly believed I had endangered the Tower. Almost, I could. Almost. But she has been filled with envy since the day I was raised Amyrlin instead of her. That drives her as much as anything else, and for that I mean to pull her down. That is what fills me, Leane. That, and the fact that Rand al’Thor must not fall into her hands.”
“Perhaps that will be enough.” The coppery-skinned woman sounded doubtful, but she straightened. The contrast between her obvious experience and Siuan’s precarious seat on the shorter mare made her look as if she must be the leader. “But how can we even begin? We have three horses, the clothes on our backs, and whatever Min has in her purse. Hardly enough to challenge the Tower.”
“I am glad you did not decide on a husband and home. We will find other—” Siuan grimaced. “We will find Aes Sedai who fled, find what we need. We may have more than you think, Leane. Min, what does that pass Gawyn gave us say? Does it mention three women? What? Quickly, girl.”
Min glared at her back. Siuan had been peering at the darting man ahead, a large, dark-haired fellow, dressed well but plainly in somber browns. The woman sounded as if she were still Amyrlin. Well, I wanted her to find her backbone, didn’t I?
Siuan turned to stare at her with those sharp blue eyes; somehow they seemed no less intimidating than before. “‘The bearers are authorized to depart Tar Valon on my authority,’” Min quoted hastily from memory. “‘Who impedes them will answer to me.’ Signed—”
“I know his name,” Siuan snapped. “Follow me.?
?? She heeled Bela’s flanks, nearly losing her seat when the shaggy mare lumbered to a slow gallop. She hung on, though, bouncing awkwardly and drumming her heels for more speed.
Min exchanged one startled look with Leane, and they were both galloping after her. The man looked back at the sound of running hooves and began to run himself, but Siuan cut Bela in front of him; he bounced off the mare with a grunt. Min reached them just in time to hear Siuan say, “I did not think to meet you here, Logain.”
Min gaped. It was him. Those despairing eyes and that once handsome face framed by dark hair curling to his broad shoulders were unmistakable. Just who they needed to find. A man the Tower wanted very likely as much as Siuan.
Logain slumped to his knees as though his fatigued legs would not hold him any longer. “I cannot harm anyone now,” he said tiredly, staring at the paving stones beneath Bela’s hooves. “I just wanted to get away, to die somewhere in peace. If you only knew what it was like to have lost … .” Leane sawed her reins angrily as he trailed off; he began again without noticing. “The bridges are all guarded. They will let no one across. They did not know me, but they would not let me cross. I have tried them all.” Abruptly he laughed, wearily, but as if it were very funny indeed. “I have tried them all.”
“I think,” Min said carefully, “we should be going. He probably wants to avoid those who must be looking for him.” Siuan shot her a look that almost made her rein her horse back, all icy eyes and hard chin. It would not have been dreadful if the woman had retained a little of the uncertainty she displayed previously.
Raising his head, the big man looked from one of them to the next, a slow frown forming. “You are not Aes Sedai. Who are you? What do you want of me?”