She started to ease away, and Myrelle said, “Perhaps we should just send a message. Perhaps we should simply summon her.” Frowning, Nynaeve held her place. Her who?
“The forms must be met,” Morvrin said gruffly. “The proper ceremonies must be followed.”
Beonin spoke on her heels in firm tones. “We must meet every letter of the law. The smallest slip, it will be used against us.”
“And if we have made a mistake?” Carlinya. sounded heated for perhaps the first time in her life. “How long are we to wait? How long dare we wait?”
“As long as need be,” Morvrin said.
“As long as we must.” That from Beonin. “I have not waited this long for the biddable child just to abandon all our plans now.”
For some reason that produced a silence, although Nynaeve did hear someone murmur “biddable” again as if examining the word. What child? A novice or Accepted? It made no sense. Sisters never waited on novices or Accepted.
“We have gone too far to turn back, Carlinya,” Sheriam said finally. “Either we bring her here and make sure she does as she should, or we leave everything to the Hall and hope they do not lead us all to disaster.” From her tone, she considered that last a hope for fools.
“One slip,” Carlinya said coldly, even more coldly than usual, “and we will all end with our heads on pikes.”
“But who will put them there?” Anaiya asked thoughtfully. “Elaida, the Hall, or Rand al’Thor?”
Silence stretched, the skirts rustled, and the door opened and closed once more.
Nynaeve risked a peek. The room was empty. She made a vexed sound. That they intended to wait was small consolation; the final answer could still be anything. Anaiya’s comment showed they were still as wary of Rand as of Elaida. Maybe more. Elaida was not gathering men who could channel. And who was the “biddable child”? No, that was unimportant. They could have fifty schemes weaving she knew nothing about.
The ward winked out, and Nynaeve jumped. It was past time to be gone from here. Scrambling to her feet, she began dusting her knees vigorously as she stepped away from the wall. One step was all she took. She stopped, bent over with her hands frozen over the dirty spots on her dress, staring at Theodrin.
The apple-cheeked Domani woman met her gaze, not saying a word.
Hastily Nynaeve considered and rejected the fool claim that she had been searching for something she dropped. Instead she straightened and walked slowly by the other woman as if there was nothing to explain. Theodrin fell in beside her silently, hands folded at her waist. Nynaeve considered her options. She could hit Theodrin over the head and run. She could get back on her knees and plead. Both notions had a good deal wrong with them to her way of thinking, but she could not pull up anything in between.
“Have you been keeping calm?” Theodrin asked, looking straight ahead.
Nynaeve gave a start. That had been the other woman’s instruction to her after yesterday’s attempt to break down her block. Keep calm, very calm; think only quiet composed thoughts. “Of course,” she laughed weakly. “What could there be to upset me?”
’That is good,” Theodrin said serenely. “Today I mean to try something a little more . . . direct.”
Nynaeve glanced at her. No questions? No accusations? The way this day had been going she could not believe she was getting off so lightly.
Neither saw the woman watching them from a second-story window.
Chapter 13
Under the Dust
* * *
Wondering whether to undo her braid, Nynaeve glowered out from under a frayed red-striped towel at her dress and shift, hanging over chairbacks and dripping on the clean-swept floorboards. Another raveled towel, striped green and white and considerably larger, served her as a substitute garment. “Now we know shock doesn’t work,” she growled at Theodrin, and winced. Her jaw hurt, and her cheek still stung. Theodrin had quick reflexes and a strong arm. “I could channel now, but for a moment there, saidar was the furthest thing from my mind.” In that drenched moment of gasping for breath, when thought had fled and instinct had taken over.
“Well, channel your things dry,” Theodrin muttered.
It made Nynaeve’s jaw feel better, watching Theodrin peer into a broken triangle of mirror and finger her eye. The flesh looked a little puffy already, and Nynaeve suspected that left alone the bruise would be spectacular. Her own arm was not so weak. A bruise was the least Theodrin deserved!
Perhaps the Domani thought the same, because she sighed, “I won’t try that again. But one way or another, I will teach you to surrender to saidar without first being angry enough to bite it.”
Frowning at the soaked garments, Nynaeve considered a moment. She had never done anything like this before. The prohibition against doing chores with the Power was strong, and with good reason. Saidar was seductive. The more you channeled, the more you wanted to channel, and the more you wanted to channel, the greater the risk that eventually you would draw too much and still or kill yourself. The sweetness of the True Source filled her easily now. Theodrin’s bucket of water had seen to that, if the rest of the morning had not. A simple weave of Water drew all the moisture from her clothes to fall on the floor in a puddle that quickly spread to join what the bucket had put there.
“I am not very good at surrendering,” she said. Unless there was no point in fighting, anyway. Only a fool went on where there was no chance at all. She could not breathe under water, she could not fly by flapping her arms — and she could not channel except when angry.
Theodrin shifted her frown from the puddle to Nynaeve and planted fists on slim hips. “I am well aware of that,” she said in a too level tone. “By all I’ve been taught, you should not be able to channel at all. I was taught you must be calm to channel, cool and serene inside, open and utterly yielding.” The glow of saidar surrounded her, and flows of Water gathered the puddle into a ball sitting incongruously on the floor. “You must surrender before you can guide. But you, Nynaeve . . . however hard you try to surrender — and I’ve seen you try — you hang on with your fingernails unless you’re furious enough to forget to.” Flows of Air lifted the wobbling ball. For a moment, Nynaeve thought the other woman meant to toss it at her, but the watery sphere floated across the room and out one of the open windows. It made a great splash falling, and a cat screamed in startled fury. Perhaps the prohibition did not apply when you reached Theodrin’s level.
“Why not leave it at that?” Nynaeve tried to sound bright, but she thought she failed. She wanted to channel whenever she pleased. But as the old saying went, “If wishes were wings, pigs would fly.”
“No use wasting — ”
“Leave that,” Theodrin said as Nynaeve started to use the weave of water on her hair. “Let go of saidar and allow it to dry naturally. And put on your clothes.”
Nynaeve’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have another surprise waiting, do you?”
“No. Now start preparing your mind. You are a flower bud feeling the warmth of the Source, ready to open to that warmth. Saidar is the river, you the bank. The river is more powerful than the bank, yet the bank contains and guides it. Empty your mind except for the bud. There is nothing in your thoughts but the bud. You are the bud . . .”
Pulling her shift over her head, Nynaeve sighed as Theodrin’s voice droned on hypnotically. Novice exercises. If those worked with her, she would have been channeling whenever she wanted long ago. She should stop this and see to what she really could do, such as convincing Elayne to go to Caemlyn. But she wanted Theodrin to be successful, even if it entailed ten buckets of water. Accepted did not walk out; Accepted did not defy. She hated being told what she could not do even worse than being told what she must.
Hours passed, with them now seated facing one another across a table that looked to have come out of a ramshackle farmhouse, hours of repeating drills that the novices were probably doing right that moment. The flower bud, and the riverbank. The summer breeze, and the ba
bbling brook. Nynaeve tried to be a dandelion seed floating on the wind, the earth drinking in spring rain, a root inching its way through the soil. All without result, or at least the result Theodrin wanted. She even suggested Nynaeve imagine herself in a lover’s arms, which turned out a disaster, since it made her think of Lan, and how dare he vanish like this! But every time frustration sparked anger like a hot coal in dry grass and put saidar in her grasp, Theodrin made her release it and start again, soothing, calming. The way the woman remained fixed on what she wanted was maddening. Nynaeve thought she could teach mules how to be stubborn. She never got frustrated; she had serenity down to an art. Nynaeve wanted to upend a bucket of cold water over her head and see how she liked it. Then again, considering the ache in her jaw, maybe that was not such a good idea.
Theodrin Healed that ache before Nynaeve left, which was about the extent of her abilities in that Talent. After a moment, Nynaeve gave Healing in return. Theodrin’s eye had turned a brilliant purple, and she really hated not leaving it to remind the woman to have a little care what she did in the future, but turnabout was fair, and Theodrin’s gasping shivers as the flows of Spirit, Air and Water ran through her were some recompense for Nynaeve’s own gasps when that bucket had emptied over her. Of course, she shivered too, at her own Healing, but you could not have everything.
Outside, the sun stood halfway down toward the western horizon. Down the street, a ripple of bows and curtsies moved through the crowd, and then the shifting throng opened to reveal Tarna Feir, gliding along like a queen walking through a pigsty, the red-fringed shawl looped over her arms like a blatant banner. Even at fifty paces her attitude was plain in the way she held her head, the way she kept her skirts out of the dust, the way she ignored even those making courtesy as she passed. The first day there had been many fewer courtesies and much more bluster, but an Aes Sedai was an Aes Sedai, to the sisters in Salidar anyway. To drive that home, two Accepted, five novices and near a dozen serving men and women were spending what would have been their free hours hauling kitchen garbage and chamber-pot emptyings out to the woods and burying them.
As Nynaeve slipped away, before Tarna could see her in turn, her stomach growled loudly enough for a fellow with a basket of turnips on his back to give her a startled look. Breakfast time had gone in Elayne’s attempt to pierce the ward, the midday meal in Theodrin’s exercises. And she was not finished with the woman today. Theodrin’s instructions had been not to sleep tonight. Perhaps exhaustion would work where shock had not. Any block can be broken, Theodrin had said, her voice all implacable confidence, and I will break yours. It only takes once. One time channeling without anger, and saidar will be yours.
At the moment all Nynaeve wanted to be hers was some food. The scullions were already cleaning up, of course, and almost done, but the smell of mutton stew and roast pig hanging around the kitchens made her nose twitch. She had to settle for two pitiful apples, a bit of goat cheese and a heel of bread. The day was not getting any better.
Back in their room she found Elayne sprawled atop her bed. The younger woman glanced at her without raising her head, then rolled her eyes back up to stare at the cracked ceiling. “I have had the most miserable day, Nynaeve,” she sighed. “Escaralde insists on learning to make ter’angreal when she isn’t strong enough, and Varilin did something — I don’t know what — and the stone she was working on turned into a ball of . . . well, it wasn’t quite flame . . . right in her hands. Except for Dagdara, I think she’d have died; no one else there could have Healed her, and I don’t think there was time to fetch someone who could. Then I was thinking about Marigan — if we can’t learn how to detect a man channeling, maybe we can learn to detect what he’s done; I seem to remember Moiraine implying that was possible. I think I do — anyway, I was thinking about her, and somebody touched me on the shoulder, and I screamed like I’d been stuck with a needle. It was just some poor carter wanting to ask me about a fool rumor, but I frightened him so, he nearly ran.”
She drew breath finally, and Nynaeve abandoned the notion of throwing her last apple core at her and darted into the momentary quiet. “Where is Marigan?”
“She was finished tidying — and took her time about it, too — so I sent her off to her own room. I am still wearing the bracelet. See?” She waved her arm in the air and let it fall back to the mattress, but the flow of words did not slow. “She was going on in that awful whining way about how we should run off to Caemlyn, and I just could not stand it another minute, not on top of everything else. My novice class was a disaster. That horrible Keatlin woman — the one with the nose? — kept muttering about how she’d never let a girl order her around back home, and Faolain came stalking up demanding to know why I had Nicola in the class — how was I supposed to know Nicola was meant to be running errands for her? — then Ibrella decided to see how big a flame she could make and nearly set the whole class on fire, and Faolain dressed me down right in front of everybody for not keeping my class under control, and Nicola said she —”
Nynaeve gave up trying to get a word in edgewise — maybe she should have thrown the apple core — and just shouted. “I think Moghedien’s right!”
That name shut the other woman’s mouth, and sat her up staring, too. Nynaeve could not help looking around to see if anyone had overheard, even if they were in their own room.
’That is foolish, Nynaeve.”
Nynaeve did not know whether Elayne meant the suggestion or speaking Moghedien’s name aloud, and she did not intend to inquire. Sitting on her own bed opposite Elayne, she adjusted her skirts. “No, it isn’t. Any day now Jaril and Seve will tell somebody Marigan isn’t their mother, if they haven’t already. Are you ready for the questions that will bring? I’m not. Any day some Aes Sedai is going to start digging into how I can discover anything without being in a fury from sunup to sundown. Every second Aes Sedai I speak to mentions it, and Dagdara has been looking at me in a funny way lately. Besides, they aren’t going to do anything here but sit. Unless they decide to go back to the Tower. I sneaked up and listened to Tarna talking with Sheriam —”
“You what?’
“I sneaked up and listened,” Nynaeve said levelly. “The message they’re sending to Elaida is that they need more time to consider. That means they’re at least considering forgetting about the Red Ajah and Logain. How they can, I don’t know, but they must be. If we stay here much longer, we may end up handed to Elaida as a present. At least if we go now we can tell Rand not to count on any Aes Sedai being behind him. We can tell him not to trust any Aes Sedai.”
Frowning prettily, Elayne folded her legs beneath her. “If they’re still considering, it means they haven’t decided. I think we should stay. Maybe we can help them decide the right way. Besides, unless you mean to talk Theodrin into coming along, you’ll never break through your block if we go.”
Nynaeve ignored that. A fine lot of good Theodrin had done so far. Buckets of water. No sleep tonight. What next? The woman had as good as said she meant to try anything and everything until she found what worked. Anything and everything took in too much to Nynaeve’s way of thinking. “Help them decide? They won’t listen to us. Siuan hardly listens to us, and if she has us by the scruff of the neck, we at least have her by the toe.”
“I still think we should stay. At least until the Hall does decide. Then, if worse comes to worst, we can at least tell Rand a fact and not a maybe.”
“How are we supposed to find out? We can’t count on me finding the right window to listen at twice. If we wait until they announce it, we may be under guard. Me, at least. There isn’t an Aes Sedai doesn’t know Rand and I both come from Emond’s Field.”
“Siuan will tell us before anything is announced,” the fool girl said calmly. “You don’t think she and Leane will go meekly back to Elaida, do you?”
There was that. Elaida would have Siuan and Leane’s heads before they could curtsy. “That still doesn’t consider Jaril and Seve,” she persisted.
/> “We will think of something. In any case, they aren’t the first refugee children cared for by somebody not related to them.” Elayne probably thought her dimpled smile was reassuring. “All we need do is put our heads to it. At the very least, we should wait for Thom to return from Amadicia. I cannot leave him behind.”
Nynaeve threw up her hands. If looks reflected character, Elayne should have looked like a mule carved in stone. The girl had made Thom Merrilin a replacement for the father who died when she was little. She also sometimes seemed to think he could not find his way to the dinner table unless she held his hand.
The only warning Nynaeve had was the feel of saidar being embraced close by, then the door swung open on a flow of Air, and Tarna Feir stepped into the room. Nynaeve and Elayne popped to their feet. An Aes Sedai was an Aes Sedai, and some of those burying refuse were there on Tarna’s word alone.
The yellow-haired Red sister scrutinized them, her face arrogant winter marble. “So. The Queen of Andor and the crippled wilder.”
“Not yet, Aes Sedai,” Elayne replied with a cool politeness. “Not until I am crowned in the Great Hall. And only if my mother is dead,” she added.
Tarna’s smile could have frozen a snowstorm. “Of course. They tried to keep you a secret, but whispers do get about.” Her gaze took in the narrow beds and the rickety stool, the clothes on their wall pegs and the cracked plaster. “I should think you would have better quarters, considering all the miraculous things you’ve done. Were you in the White Tower where you belong, I would not be surprised to see you both tested for the shawl by now.”
“Thank you,” Nynaeve said, to show she could be as civil as Elayne. Tarna looked at her. Those blue eyes made the rest of that face seem warm. “Aes Sedai,” Nynaeve added hastily.