“Why should you be sorry?” Elayne wore a broad smile. “You are supposed to take over, Egwene.”
Nynaeve gave her braid a yank, then glared at it. “Nothing seems to work! Why can’t I get angry? Oh, you can keep her forever, for all of me. We couldn’t take her to Ebou Dar, anyway. Why can’t I get angry? Oh, blood and bloody ashes!” Her eyes went wide as she realized what she had said, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
Egwene glanced at Moghedien. The woman was busily setting the winecups upright again and pouring wine with a smell of sweet spices, but something had come through the bracelet while Nynaeve was talking. Shock, perhaps? Maybe she would prefer the mistresses she knew to one who threatened death in almost her first breath.
A firm knock sounded at the door, and Egwene hastily released saidar, the opening to the Waste vanished. “Come.”
Siuan took one step into the study and stopped, taking in Moghedien, the bracelet on Egwene’s wrist, Nynaeve and Elayne. Shutting the door, she made a curtsy as minimal as anything from Romanda or Lelaine. “Mother, I’ve come to instruct you in etiquette, but if you would rather I returned later . . .?” Her eyebrows rose, calmly questioning.
“Go,” Egwene told Moghedien. If Nynaeve and Elayne were willing to let her run loose, the a’dam must limit her, if not as much as one with a leash. Fingering the bracelet — she hated the thing, but she intended to wear it day and night — she added, “But keep yourself available. I’ll treat trying to escape the same as a lie.” Fear gushed through the a’dam as Moghedien scurried out. That could be a problem. How had Nynaeve and Elayne lived with those torrents of dread? Still, that was for later.
Facing Siuan, she folded her arms beneath her breasts. “This won’t do, Siuan. I know everything. Daughter.”
Siuan tilted her head. “Sometimes knowing gives no advantage whatsoever. Sometimes it only means sharing the danger.”
“Siuan!” Elayne said, half-shocked and half-warning, and to Egwene’s surprise Siuan did something she had never expected to see Siuan Sanche do. She blushed.
“You can’t expect me to become somebody else overnight,” the woman muttered grumpily.
Egwene suspected Nynaeve and Elayne could help with what she had to do, but if she was really going to be Amyrlin, she had to do it alone. “Elayne, I know you want to get out of that Accepted’s dress. Why don’t you do that? And then see what you find out about lost Talents. Nynaeve, you do the same.”
A look passed between them, then they glanced at Siuan and rose to make perfect curtsies, respectfully murmuring, “As you command, Mother.” There was no evidence of any impression on Siuan; she stood watching Egwene with a wry expression while they left.
Egwene embraced saidar again, briefly, to slide her chair back into place behind the table, then adjusted her stole and sat. For a long moment she regarded Siuan silently. “I need you,” she said at last. “You know what it is to be Amyrlin, what the Amyrlin can and cannot do. You know the Sitters, how they think, what they want. I need you, and I mean to have you. Sheriam and Romanda and Lelaine may think I still wear novice white under this stole — maybe they all do — but you are going to help me show them differently. I’m not asking you, Siuan. I — will — have — your — help.” All there was to do then was wait.
Siuan regarded her, then gave a slight shake of her head and laughed softly. “They made a very bad mistake, didn’t they? Of course, I made it first. The plump little grunter for the table turns out to be a live silverpike as long as your leg.” Spreading her skirts wide, she made a deep curtsy, inclining her head. “Mother, please allow me to serve, and advise.”
“So long as you know it’s only advice, Siuan. I have too many people already who think they can tie strings to my arms and legs. I won’t put up with it from you.”
“I’d as soon try tying strings to myself,” Siuan said dryly. “You know, I never really liked you. Maybe it was because I saw too much of myself in you.”
“In that case,” Egwene said in just as dry a tone, “you can call me Egwene. When we’re alone. Now sit down and tell me why the Hall is still sitting here, and how I can get them moving.”
Siuan started to pull one of the chairs over before remembering she could move it with saidar now. “They are sitting because once they move, the White Tower really is broken. As for how to get them moving, my advice . . . ” Her advice took a long time. Some of it went along lines Egwene had already thought of, and all of it seemed good.
In her room in the Little Tower, Romanda poured mint tea for three other Sitters, only one a Yellow. The room was in the back, but the sounds of festival penetrated; Romanda ignored them studiously. These three had been ready to support her for the Amyrlin Seat; voting for the girl had been as much a way to keep Lelaine from being raised as anything else. Lelaine would burn if she ever knew that. Now that Sheriam had her child Amyrlin installed, these three were still willing to listen. Especially after the business of raising Accepted to the shawl by decree. That had to be Sheriam’s doing; she and her little clique had pampered all four; it had been their notion to lift Theodrin and Faolain above the other Accepted, and they had suggested it for Elayne and Nynaeve as well at one time. Frowning, she wondered what was keeping Delana, but she began talking anyway, after sheathing the room in saidar against eavesdropping. Delana would just have to catch up when she came. The important thing was that Sheriam was going to learn she had not gained as much power as she thought by snatching the job of Keeper.
In a house halfway across Salidar, Lelaine was serving chilled wine to four Sitters, only one from her own Blue Ajah. Saidar laced the room against listeners. The sounds of celebration made her smile. The four women with her had suggested she try for the Amyrlin Seat herself, and she had not been reluctant, but a failure would have meant Romanda being raised instead, which would have pained Lelaine as much as being exiled. How Romanda would gnash her teeth if she ever learned they had all voted for the child just to keep the stole from Romanda’s own shoulders. What they had gathered to discuss, though, was how to lessen Sheriam’s influence now she had managed to grab the Keeper’s stole. That farce of raising Accepted to Aes Sedai by the girl’s decree! Sheriam’s head must have swollen to madness. As the talk went on, Lelaine began to wonder where Delana was. She should have been there by now.
Delana sat in her room, staring at Halima perched on the edge of Delana’s bed. The name Aran’gar was never to be used; sometimes Delana was afraid Halima would know if she even thought it. The ward against eavesdropping was small, enclosing just the pair of them. “That is madness,” she managed at last. “Don’t you understand? If I continue to try supporting every faction, they will catch me out sooner or later!”
“Everyone must take some risks.” The firmness of the woman’s voice belied the smile on that lush mouth. “And you will continue to press for gentling Logain again. That, or killing him.” A slight grimace actually made the woman more beautiful somehow. “If they ever brought him out of that house, I would attend to it myself.”
Delana could not imagine how, but she would not doubt the woman until she failed. “What I don’t understand is why you are so afraid of a man with six sisters shielding him from sunup to sunup.”
Halima’s green eyes blazed as she leaped to her feet. “I am not afraid, and don’t you ever suggest it! I want Logain severed or dead, and that is all you have to know. Do we understand one another?”
Not for the first time Delana considered killing the other woman, but as always she had a sinking certainty that she would be the one to die. Somehow Halima knew when she embraced saidar, even if Halima could not channel herself. The worst of it was the possibility that because Halima needed her, she would not kill her; Delana could not imagine what she might do instead, but the very vagueness of the threat made her shudder. She should be able to kill the woman right there, right then. “Yes, Halima,” she said meekly, and hated herself for it.
“So good of you,” Siuan murmured, hold
ing her cup for Lelaine to add a small splash of brandy in her tea. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, giving the light a reddish cast, but the streets outside were still raucous. “You have no idea how tiring it is trying to teach that girl etiquette. She seemed to think as long as she behaves like a Wisdom from back home, everything will be fine. The Hall is supposed to be the Women’s Circle or some such thing.”
Lelaine made sympathetic noises over her own tea. “You say she was complaining about Romanda?”
Siuan shrugged. “Something about Romanda insisting we stay here instead of marching for Tar Valon, as near as I could make out. Light, the girl has a temper like a fisherbird in mating season. I almost wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, but of course, she does wear the stole, now. Well, once I finish my lectures I’m done with her. Do you remember . . .?”
Smiling inside, Siuan watched Lelaine drinking it all in with the tea. Only the first sentence had really been important. The bit about a temper was her own addition, but it might make some of the Sitters walk a little more carefully around Egwene. Besides, she suspected it might be true. She would never be Amyrlin again herself, and she was fairly certain that trying to manipulate Egwene would be as futile as trying to manipulate herself had been, and as painful, yet teaching an Amyrlin to be Amyrlin . . . She looked forward to that as much as she had anything in a long time. Egwene al’Vere would be an Amyrlin to make thrones tremble.
“But what about my block?” Nynaeve said, and Romanda frowned at her. They were in Romanda’s room in the Little Tower, and this was when Romanda was supposed to have her according to the schedule the Yellows had set up. The music and laughter outside seemed to irritate the Yellow.
“You weren’t so eager earlier. I heard that you told Dagdara you were Aes Sedai too and she could find a lake and douse her head.”
Heat rose in Nynaeve’s face. Trust her temper to get in the way. “Maybe I just realized that being Aes Sedai doesn’t mean I can channel any more easily than before.”
Romanda sniffed. “Aes Sedai. You have a long way to go for that, whatever . . . Very well, then. Something we haven’t tried before. Jump up and down on one foot. And talk.” She sat down in a carved armchair near the bed, still frowning. “Gossip, I think. Talk about light things. For instance, what was it the Amyrlin said Lelaine wanted to talk about?”
For a moment Nynaeve stared back indignantly. Jump on one foot? That was ridiculous! Still, she was not really here about her block anyway. Lifting her skirts, she began jumping. “Egwene . . . the Amyrlin . . . didn’t say much. Something about having to stay put in Salidar . . . ” This had better work, or Egwene was going to hear a few choice words, Amyrlin or no.
“I think this one will work better, Sheriam,” Elayne said, handing over a twisted blue-and-red flecked ring of what had been stone this morning. In truth, it was no different from any other she had made. They stood apart from the crowd, at the mouth of a narrow alley lit by the red sun. Behind them fiddles squealed and flutes sang.
“Thank you, Elayne.” Sheriam tucked the ter’angreal into her belt pouch without even looking at it. Elayne had caught Sheriam in a pause from dancing, her face a little flushed beneath all that cool Aes Sedai serenity, but the clear green gaze that had made Elayne’s knees shake as a novice was fixed on her face; “Why do I get the feeling this is not your only reason for coming to see me?”
Elayne grimaced, twisting the Great Serpent ring on her right hand. The right hand; she just had to remember she was Aes Sedai too, now. “It’s Egwene. The Amyrlin, I guess I should say. She’s worried, Sheriam, and I was hoping you could help her. You are the Keeper, and I did not know who else to go to. I don’t have the straight of it completely. You know how Egwene is; she wouldn’t complain if her foot was cut off. It’s Romanda, I think, though she did mention Lelaine. One or both have been at her, I think, about staying here in Salidar, about not moving yet because it’s too dangerous.”
’That is good advice,” Sheriam said slowly. “I don’t know about dangerous, but that is the advice I would give her myself.”
Elayne spread her hands in a helpless shrug. “I know. She told me you did, but . . . She didn’t say it right out, but I think she’s a little afraid of those two. I know she’s Amyrlin now, but I think they make her feel a novice. I think she’s afraid if she does what they want — even if it is good advice — they will expect her to do the same next time. I think . . . Sheriam, she is afraid she won’t be able to say no the next time if she says yes now. And . . . and I am afraid of it, too. Sheriam, she’s the Amyrlin Seat; she shouldn’t be under Romanda’s thumb, or Lelaine’s, or anybody’s. You are the only one who can help her. I do not know how, but you are.”
Sheriam was quiet so long that Elayne began to think the other woman was going to tell her every word was ludicrous. “I will do what I can,” Sheriam said at last.
Elayne stifled a relieved sigh before she realized it would not have mattered.
Leaning forward, Egwene rested her arms along the sides of the copper tub and let Chesa’s chatter flow over her as the woman scrubbed her back. She had dreamed of a real bath, but actually sitting in the soapy water, scented with a floral oil, felt strange after Aiel sweat tents. She had taken her first step as Amyrlin, marshaled her outnumbered army and begun her attack. She remembered hearing Rhuarc say once that when battle began, a battle leader no longer had any real control of events. Now all she could do was wait. “Even so,” she said softly, “I think the Wise Ones would be proud.”
Chapter 38
A Sudden Chill
* * *
The blazing sun still climbed behind him, and Mat was glad his broad-brimmed hat gave a little shade on his face. This Altaran forest was winter-bare and more than winter-brown, with pines and leatherleafs and other evergreens looking sere, and oak and ash and sweetgum naked. Noon yet to come, the worst heat beyond that, and already the day was like riding through an oven. His coat was slung atop his saddlebags, but sweat made his fine linen shirt cling. Pips’ hooves crunched on dead ferns and fallen leaves thick atop the leaf mold, and the Band moved in a crackle from the forest floor. Few birds appeared, quick flashes between the branches, and not a squirrel. There were flies, though, and bitemes, as if this were the heart of summer instead of less than a month to the Feast of Lights. No different from what he had seen back on the Erinin, really, but finding it here too made him uneasy. Was the whole world really burning up?
Aviendha strode along beside Pips with her bundle on her back, apparently unconcerned by dying trees or biting flies, and making considerably less noise than the horse despite her skirts. Her eyes scanned the surrounding trees as though she did not trust the Band’s scouts and flankers to keep them out of an ambush. She had not accepted a ride once, which he had not expected anyway, seeing how Aiel felt about riding, but she had made no trouble either, unless sharpening her knife every time they halted could be considered provocative. There had been the incident with Olver, of course. Riding the high-stepping gray gelding Mat had found him among the remounts, Olver kept a wary eye on her. He had tried to stick his belt knife in her the second night, shouting about Aiel killing his father. Of course, she only took it away from him, but even after Mat cuffed him and tried to explain the difference between Shaido and other Aiel — something Mat was not all that sure he understood himself — Olver glared at her constantly. He did not like Aiel. For Aviendha’s part, Olver seemed to make her uneasy, which Mat did not understand at all.
The trees stood tall enough to have allowed a breeze to stir under the sparse canopy overhead, but the Red Hand banner hung limp, and so did the two he had dug out once Rand put them through that gateway into a night-covered meadow, a Dragon banner, the red-and-gold shape hidden in white folds, and one of those the Band called Al’Thor’s Banner, the ancient Aes Sedai symbol also thankfully wrapped inside. A grizzled senior bannerman had the Red Hand, a fellow with narrow eyes and more scars than Daerid who insisted on actually
carrying the banner a part of each day, which few bannermen did. Talmanes and Daerid had supplied second squadmen for the other two, fresh-faced young men who had shown themselves steady enough for a little responsibility.
Three days they had come across Altara, three days in forest without sight of a single Dragonsworn — or anyone else for that matter — and Mat hoped to stretch their loneliness at least through this fourth before reaching Salidar. Aside from Aes Sedai, there was the problem of how to keep Aviendha from Elayne’s throat. He had few doubts why she kept sharpening that knife; the edge glittered like gemstones. He was very much afraid he was going to end taking the Aiel woman to Caemlyn under guard, with the bloody Daughter-Heir demanding he hang her every step of the way. Rand and his bloody women! In Mat’s view, anything that slowed the Band and kept him from the stew he expected in Salidar was to the good. Halting early and marching late helped. So did the supply wagons at the rear, slow as they were in the forest. But the Band could ride only so slowly. All too soon Vanin was sure to find something.
As if thinking his name had been a summons, the fat scout appeared through the trees ahead with four riders. He had gone out before dawn with six.
Mat raised a clenched fist, signaling a halt, and murmurs passed down the column. His first order on leaving the gateway had been “no drums, no trumpets, no flutes and no bloody singing,” and if there had been a few glum faces in the beginning, after the first day in that wooded terrain, where you could never see clearly more than a hundred paces and seldom so far, no one objected at all.