He stood, suddenly feeling awkward. “Look, you have done me a favor here.” He touched the Amyrlin’s paper, on the table. “A big favor. I know you’re all going to be Aes Sedai”—he stumbled a little on that—“and you will be a queen one day, Elayne, but if you ever need help, if there is ever anything I can do, I will come. You can count on it. Did I say something funny?”
Elayne had a hand over her mouth, and Egwene was struggling openly with a laugh. “No, Mat,” Nynaeve said smoothly, but her lips twitched. “Just something I have observed about men.”
“You would have to be a woman to understand,” Elayne said.
“Journey well and safely, Mat,” Egwene said. “And remember, if a woman does need a hero, she needs him today, not tomorrow.” The laughter bubbled out of her.
He stared at the door closing behind them. Women, he decided for at least the hundredth time, were odd.
Then his eye fell on Elayne’s letter, and the folded paper lying atop it. The Amyrlin’s blessed, not-to-be-understood, but welcome-as-a-fire-in-winter paper. He danced a little caper in the middle of the flowered carpet. Caemlyn to see, and a queen to meet. Your own words will free me of you, Amyrlin. And get me away from Selene, too.
“You’ll never catch me,” he laughed, and meant it for both of them. “You’ll never catch Mat Cauthon.”
CHAPTER
29
A Trap to Spring
In a corner the spit dog was lying at its ease. Glaring at it, Nynaeve mopped sweat from her forehead with her hand and leaned her back into doing the work he should have done. I’d not have put it past them to shove me in his wicker wheel instead of letting me turn this Light-forsaken handle! Aes Sedai! Burn them all! It was a measure of her upset that she used such language, and another that she did not even notice she had done it. She did not think the fire in the long, gray stone fireplace would seem any hotter if she crawled into it. She was sure the brindle dog was grinning at her.
Elayne was skimming grease out of the dripping pan under the roasts with a long-handled wooden spoon, while Egwene used its twin to baste the meat. The great kitchen went on about its midday routine around them. Even the novices had grown so used to seeing Accepted there that they hardly even glanced at the three women. Not that the cooks allowed the novices to dawdle for gawking. Work built character, so the Aes Sedai said, and the cooks saw to it that the novices built strong character. And the three Accepted, too.
Laras, the Mistress of the Kitchens—she was really the chief cook, but so many had used the other for so long that it might as well have been her title—came over to examine the roasts. And the women sweating over them. She was more than merely stout, with layers of chins, and a spotless white apron that could have made three novice dresses. She carried her own long-handled wooden spoon like a scepter. It was not for stirring, that spoon. It was for directing those under her, and smacking those who were not building character quickly enough to suit her. She studied the roasts, sniffed disparagingly, and turned her frown on the three Accepted.
Nynaeve met Laras’ look with a level look of her own and kept turning the spit. The massive woman’s face never altered. Nynaeve had tried smiling, but that did nothing to change Laras’ expression. Stopping work to speak to her, quite civilly, had been a disaster. It was bad enough being bullied and chivied by Aes Sedai. She had to put up with that, however much it rankled and burned, if she was to learn how to use her abilities. Not that she liked what she could do—it was one thing to know Aes Sedai were not Darkfriends for channeling the Power, but quite another to know she herself could channel—yet she had to learn if she was to get back at Moiraine; hating Moiraine for what she had done to Egwene and the other Emond’s Fielders, pulling their lives apart and manipulating them all for Aes Sedai purposes, was nearly all that kept her going. But to be treated as a lazy, none-too-bright child by this Laras, to be forced to curtsy and scurry for this woman she could have put in her place with a few well-chosen words back home—that made her grind her teeth almost as much as did the thought of Moiraine. Maybe if I just do not look at her. . . . No! I will be burned if I’ll drop my eyes before this . . . this cow!
Laras sniffed more loudly and walked away. She rolled from side to side as she crossed the freshly mopped gray tiles.
Still bending with spoon and greasepot, Elayne glowered after her. “If that woman strikes me but once more, I shall have Gareth Bryne arrest her and—”
“Be quiet,” Egwene whispered. She did not stop basting the roasts, and she never looked at Elayne. “She has ears like a—”
Laras turned back as if she had indeed heard, her frown deepening, and her mouth opened wide. Before a sound emerged, the Amyrlin Seat entered the kitchen like a whirlwind. Even the striped stole on her shoulders seemed to bristle. For once, Leane was nowhere to be seen.
At last, Nynaeve thought grimly. And not beforetime, either!
But the Amyrlin did not glance her way. The Amyrlin did not say a word to anyone. Running her hand across a tabletop scrubbed bone-white, she looked at her fingers and grimaced as if at filth. Laras was at her side in an instant, all smiles, but the Amyrlin’s flat stare made her swallow them in silence.
The Amyrlin stalked about the kitchen. She stared at the women slicing oatcake. She glared at the women peeling vegetables. She sneered into the soup kettles, then at the women tending them; the women became engrossed in studying the surface of the soup. Her frown set the girls carrying plates and bowls out to the dining hall to a run. Her glower put the novices darting like mice sighting a cat. By the time she had made her way half around the kitchen, every woman there was working twice as fast as she had been. By the time she completed her circuit, Laras was the only one even daring to glance at her.
The Amyrlin stopped in front of the roasting spit, fists on her hips, and looked at Laras. She only looked, expressionless, blue eyes cold and hard.
The large woman gulped, and her chins wobbled as she smoothed her apron. The Amyrlin did not blink. Laras’ eyes dropped, and she shifted heavily from foot to foot. “If the Mother will pardon me,” she said in a faint voice. Making something that might have been meant for a curtsy, she rushed away, so forgetting herself that she joined the women at one of the soup kettles and began stirring with her own spoon.
Nynaeve smiled, keeping her head down to hide it. Egwene and Elayne kept working, too, but they also kept glancing at the Amyrlin, standing with her back to them not two paces away.
The Amyrlin was spreading her stare across the entire kitchen from where she stood. “If they are this easily cowed,” she muttered softly, “perhaps they really have been getting away with too much for too long.”
Easily cowed indeed, Nynaeve thought. Pitiful excuses for women. All she did was look at them! The Amyrlin glanced over a stole-covered shoulder, caught her eye for an instant. Suddenly Nynaeve realized she was turning the spit faster. She told herself she had to pretend to be cowed like everyone else.
The Amyrlin’s gaze fell on Elayne, and abruptly she spoke, nearly loud enough to rattle the copper pots and pans hanging on the walls. “There are some words I will not tolerate in a young woman’s mouth, Elayne of House Trakand. If you let them in, I will see them scrubbed out!” Everyone in the kitchen jumped.
Elayne looked confused, and indignation crept across Egwene’s face.
Nynaeve shook her head, small frantic shakes. No, girl! Hold your tongue! Don’t you see what she is doing?
But Egwene did open her mouth, with a respectful if determined, “Mother, she did not—”
“Silence!” The Amyrlin’s roar produced another ripple of jumps. “Laras! Can you find something to teach two girls to speak when they should and say what they should, Mistress of the Kitchens? Can you manage that?”
Laras came waddling faster than Nynaeve had ever seen the woman move before, darting at Elayne and Egwene to seize an ear of each, all the while repeating, “Yes, Mother. Immediately, Mother. As you command, Mother.” She hurried
the two young women out of the kitchen as if eager to escape the Amyrlin’s stare.
The Amyrlin was now close enough to Nynaeve to touch her, but still looking over the kitchen. A young cook, turning with a mixing bowl in her hands, chanced to catch the Amyrlin’s eye. She gave a great squeak as she scuttled away across the floor.
“I did not mean for Egwene to be caught in that.” The Amyrlin barely moved her lips. It looked as if she were muttering to herself, and from the expression on her face, no one in the kitchen wanted to hear what she was saying. Nynaeve could just make out the words. “But perhaps it will teach her to think before she speaks.”
Nynaeve turned the spit and kept her head down, trying to look as if she were also muttering under her breath if anyone looked. “I thought you were going to keep a close eye on us, Mother. So we could report what we find.”
“If I come stare at you every day, Daughter, some would grow suspicious.” The Amyrlin kept up her study of the kitchen. Most of the women seemed to be avoiding even looking in her direction for fear of incurring her wrath. “I planned to have you brought to my study after the midday meal. To scold you for not choosing your studies, so I implied to Leane. But there is news that could not wait. Sheriam found another Gray Man. A woman. Dead as last week’s fish, and not a mark on her. She was laid out as if resting, right in the middle of Sheriam’s bed. Not very pleasant for Sheriam.”
Nynaeve stiffened, and the spit halted for a moment before she put it back to revolving. “Sheriam had a chance to see the lists Verin gave to Egwene. So did Elaida. I make no accusations, but they had the chance. And Egwene said Alanna . . . behaved oddly, too.”
“She told you of that, did she? Alanna is Arafellin. They have strange ideas about honor and debts in Arafel.” She shrugged dismissively, but said, “I suppose I can keep an eye on her. Have you learned anything useful yet, child?”
“Some,” Nynaeve muttered grimly. What about keeping an eye on Sheriam? Maybe she didn’t just find that Gray Man. The Amyrlin could watch Elaida, too, for that matter. So Alanna really did. . . . “I do not understand why you trust Else Grinwell, but your message was helpful.”
In short, quick sentences, Nynaeve told of the things they had found in the storeroom under the library, making it seem only she and Egwene had gone, and added the conclusions they had reached concerning them. She did not mention Egwene’s dream—or whatever it had been; Egwene insisted it had been real—of Tel’aran’rhiod. Nor did she speak of the ter’angreal Verin had given Egwene. She could not make herself entirely trust the woman wearing the seven-striped stole—or any woman who could wear the shawl, for that matter—and it seemed best to keep some things in reserve.
When she was done, the Amyrlin was silent so long that Nynaeve began to think the woman had not heard. She was about to repeat herself, a little louder, when the Amyrlin finally spoke, still hardly moving her lips.
“I sent no message, Daughter. The things Liandrin and the others left were searched thoroughly, and burned after nothing was found. No one would use Black Ajah leavings. As for Else Grinwell. . . . I remember the girl. She could have learned, had she applied herself, but all she wanted was to smile at the men at the Warders’ practice yard. Else Grinwell was put on a trading vessel and sent back to her mother ten days ago.”
Nynaeve tried to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat. The Amyrlin’s words made her think of bullies taunting smaller children. The bullies were always so contemptuous of the littler children, always so sure the small ones were too stupid to realize what was happening, that they made little effort to disguise their snares. That the Black Ajah was so contemptuous of her made her blood boil. That they could set this snare filled her stomach with ice. Light, if Else was sent away. . . . Light, anybody I talk to could be Liandrin, or any of the others. Light!
The spit had stopped. Hastily she started it turning once more. No one seemed to have noticed, though. They were all still doing their best not to look at the Amyrlin.
“And what do you mean to do about this . . . so-obvious trap?” the Amyrlin said softly, still staring over the kitchen, away from Nynaeve. “Do you mean to fall into this one, too?”
Nynaeve’s face reddened. “I know this trap for a trap. Mother. And the best way to catch whoever set a trap is to spring it and wait for him—or her—to come.” It sounded weaker than it had when she had said it to Egwene and Elayne, after what the Amyrlin had just told her, but she still meant it.
“Perhaps so, child. Perhaps it is the way to find them. If they do not come and find you held tightly in their net.” She gave a vexed sigh. “I will put gold in your room for the journey. And I will let it be whispered about that I have sent you out to a farm to hoe cabbages. Will Elayne be going with you?”
Nynaeve forgot herself enough to stare at the Amyrlin, then hurriedly put her eyes back on her hands. Her knuckles were white on the spit handle. “You scheming old. . . . Why all the pretense, if you knew? Your sly plots have had us squirming nearly as much as the Black Ajah has. Why?” The Amyrlin’s face had tightened, enough to make her force a more respectful tone. “If I may ask, Mother.”
The Amyrlin snorted. “Putting Morgase back on the proper path whether she wants to go or not will be hard enough without her thinking I’ve sent her daughter to sea in a leaky skiff. This way I can say straight out that it was none of my doing. It may be a bit hard on Elayne, when she finally has to face her mother, but I have three hounds, now, not two. I told you I’d have a hundred if I could.” She adjusted her stole on her shoulders. “This has gone on long enough. If I stay this close to you, it may be noticed. Have you anything more to tell me? Or to ask? Make it quick, Daughter.”
“What is Callandor, Mother?” Nynaeve asked.
This time it was the Amyrlin who forgot herself, half turning toward Nynaeve before jerking herself back. “They cannot be allowed to have that.” Her whisper was barely audible, as if meant for her own ears alone. “They cannot possibly take it, but. . . .” She took a deep breath, and her soft words firmed enough to be clear to Nynaeve, if to no one two paces further away. “No more than a dozen women in the Tower know what Callandor is, and perhaps as many outside. The High Lords of Tear know, but they never speak of it except when a Lord of the Land is told on being raised. The Sword That Cannot Be Touched is a sa’angreal, girl. Only two more powerful were ever made, and thank the Light, neither of those was ever used. With Callandor in your hands, child, you could level a city at one blow. If you die keeping that out of the Black Ajah’s hands—you, and Egwene, and Elayne, all three—you’ll have done a service to the whole world, and cheap at the price.”
“How could they take it?” Nynaeve asked. “I thought only the Dragon Reborn could touch Callandor.”
The Amyrlin gave her a sideways look sharp enough to carve the roasts on the spit. “They could be after something else,” she said after a moment. “They stole ter’angreal here. The Stone of Tear holds nearly as many ter’angreal as the Tower.”
“I thought the High Lords hated anything to do with the One Power,” Nynaeve whispered incredulously.
“Oh, they do hate it, child. Hate it, and fear it. When they find a Tairen girl who can channel, they bundle her onto a ship for Tar Valon before the day is done, with hardly time to speak goodbyes to her family.” The Amyrlin’s murmur was bitter with memory. “Yet they hold one of the most powerful focuses of the Power the world has ever seen, inside their precious Stone. It is my belief that is why they have collected so many ter’angreal—and indeed, anything to do with the Power—over the years, as if by doing so they can diminish the existence of the thing they cannot rid themselves of, the thing that reminds them of their own doom every time they enter the Heart of the Stone. Their fortress that has broken a hundred armies will fall as one of the signs the Dragon is Reborn. Not even the only sign; just one. How that must rankle their proud hearts. Their downfall will not even be the one great sign of the world’s change. They cannot even ignore it
by staying out of the Heart. That is where Lords of the Land are raised to High Lords, and where they must perform what they call the Rite of the Guarding four times a year, claiming that they guard the whole world against the Dragon by holding Callandor. It must bite at their souls like a bellyful of live silverpike, and no more than they deserve.” She gave herself a shake, as if realizing she had said far more than she had intended. “Is that all, child?”
“Yes, Mother,” Nynaeve said. Light, it always comes back to Rand, doesn’t it? Always back to the Dragon Reborn. It was still an effort to think of him that way. “That’s all.”
The Amyrlin shifted her stole again, frowning at the frenzied scurry in the kitchen. “I’ll have to set this aright. I needed to speak to you without delay, but Laras is a good woman, and she manages the kitchen and the larders well.”
Nynaeve sniffed, and addressed her hands on the spit handle. “Laras is a sour lump of lard, and too handy with that spoon by half.” She thought she had muttered it under her breath, but she heard the Amyrlin chuckle wryly.
“You are a fine judge of character, child. You must have done well as the Wisdom of your village. It was Laras who went to Sheriam and demanded to know how long you three are to be kept to the dirtiest and hardest work, without a turn at lighter. She said she would not be a party to breaking any woman’s health or spirit, no matter what I said. A fine judge of character, child.”
Laras came back into the kitchen doorway then, hesitating to enter her own domain. The Amyrlin went to meet her, smiles replacing her frowns and stares.
“It all looks very well to me, Laras.” The Amyrlin’s words came loud enough for the entire kitchen to hear. “I see nothing out of place, and everything as it should be. You are to be commended. I think I will make Mistress of the Kitchens a formal title.”