Winter's Heart

  “My Windfinder is not subject to your authority, Aes Sedai,” Harine said sharply, as if denying the blood connection. “Shalon must and will be returned to me at once.” Derah nodded curt agreement. Cadsuane thought the Sailmistress might do the same if Harine ordered her to jump from a cliff. In the Atha’an Miere’s hierarchy, Derah stood a long distance below Harine. And that was almost as much as Cadsuane knew of them. The Sea Folk might prove useful or might not, but she could find a way to get a grip on them in any case.

  “This is an Aes Sedai inquiry,” she replied blandly. “We must follow Tower law.” Loosely interpreted, to be sure. She had always believed the spirit of the law was far more important than the letter.

  Harine puffed up like an adder and began yet another harangue listing her rights and demands, but Cadsuane listened with half an ear.

  She could almost understand Erian, a pale, black-haired Illianer, fiercely insisting that she must be at the boy’s side when he fought the Last Battle. And Beldeine, so new to the shawl that she had not yet achieved agelessness, so determined to be everything that a Green should be. And Elza, a pleasant-faced Andoran whose eyes almost glowed when she spoke of making certain that he lived to face the Dark One. Another Green, and even more intense than most. Nesune, hunched forward to peer at her book, looked like a black-eyed bird examining a worm. A Brown, she would climb into a box with a scorpion if she wanted to study it. Sarene might be fool enough to be startled that anyone thought her pretty, much less stunning, but the White insisted on the cool precision of her logic; al’Thor was the Dragon Reborn, and logically, she must follow him. Tempestuous reasons, idiotic reasons, yet she could have accepted them, if not for the others.

  The door to the hall opened to admit Verin and Sorilea. The leathery, white-haired Aiel woman handed something small to Verin that the Brown tucked into her belt pouch. Verin was wearing a flowered brooch on her simple bronze-colored dress, the first jewelry Cadsuane had ever seen on her aside from her Great Serpent ring.

  “That will help you sleep,” Sorilea said, “but remember, just three drops in water or one in wine. A little more, and you might sleep a day or longer. Much more, and you will not wake. There is no taste to warn you, so you must be careful.”

  So Verin was having trouble sleeping, too. Cadsuane had not had a good night’s rest since the boy fled the Sun Palace. If she did not find one soon, she thought she might bite someone. Nesune and the others were eyeing Sorilea uneasily. The boy had made them apprentice themselves to the Wise Ones, and they had learned that the Aiel women took that very seriously. One snap of Sorilea’s bony fingers could end their idle morning.

  Harine leaned forward out of her chair and gave Cadsuane’s cheek a sharp tap with her fingers! “You are not listening to me,” she said harshly. Her face was a thunderhead, and that of her Sailmistress scarcely less stormy. “You will listen!”

  Cadsuane put her hands together and regarded the woman over her fingertips. No. She would not stand the Wavemistress on her head here and now. She would not send the woman back to her apartments weeping. She would be as diplomatic as Coiren could wish. Hastily she scanned through what she had heard. “You speak for the Mistress of the Ships to the Atha’an Miere, with all of her authority, which is more than I can imagine,” she said mildly. “If your Windfinder is not returned to you within the hour, you will see that the Coramoor punishes me severely. You require an apology for your Windfinder’s imprisonment. And you require me to make Lord Dobraine set aside the land promised by the Coramoor immediately. I believe that covers the essential points.” Except for the one about having her flogged!

  “Good,” Harine said, leaning back comfortably, in command now. Her smile was sickeningly self-satisfied. “You will learn that—”

  “I do not care a fig for your Coramoor,” Cadsuane continued, her voice still mild. All the figs in the world for the Dragon Reborn, but not one for the Coramoor. She did not alter her tone by a hair. “If you ever touch me again without permission, I will have you stripped, striped, bound and carried back to your rooms in a sack.” Well, diplomacy had never been her strongest point. “If you do not cease pestering me about your sister . . . Well, I might actually grow angry.” Standing, she ignored the Sea Folk woman’s indignant puffing and gaping and raised her voice to be heard at the end of the room. “Sarene!”

  The slender Taraboner whirled from her embroidery, beaded braids clicking, and hurried to Cadsuane’s side, barely hesitating before spreading her dark gray skirts in a curtsy. The Wise Ones had had to teach them to leap when a Wise One spoke, but more than custom made them leap for her. There truly were advantages to being a legend, especially an unpredictable legend.

  “Escort these two to their rooms,” Cadsuane commanded. “They wish to fast and meditate on civility. See that they do. And if they offer one uncivil word, spank them both. But be diplomatic about it.”

  Sarene gave a start, half opening her mouth as if to protest the illogic of that, but one glance at Cadsuane’s face and she quickly turned to the Atha’an Miere women, gesturing for them to rise.

  Harine sprang to her feet, her dark face hard and scowling. Before she could utter a word of her no doubt furious tirade, though, Derah touched her arm and leaned close to whisper into her ring-heavy ear behind a cupped hand covered with dark tattoos. Whatever the Sailmistress had to say, Harine closed her mouth. Her expression certainly did not soften, yet she eyed the sisters at the far end of the room and after a moment curtly motioned Sarene to lead the way. Harine might pretend that it was her decision to leave, but Derah followed so close on her heels she appeared to be herding her and shot an uneasy glance back over her shoulder before the door shut her from sight.

  Cadsuane almost regretted giving that frivolous order. Sarene would do exactly as she had been told. The Sea Folk women were an irritant, and useless thus far, besides. The irritation must be removed so she could concentrate on what was important, and if she found a use for them, tools needed to be shaped one way or another. She was too angry with them to care how that was done, and it might as well begin now as later. No, she was angry with the boy, but she could not lay hands on him yet.

  With a loud harrumph, Sorilea turned from watching Sarene and the Atha’an Miere go and directed her scowl at the sisters gathered at the end of the solar. Bracelets clattered on her wrists as she adjusted her shawl. Another woman not in her best temper. The Sea Folk had peculiar notions of “Aiel savages”—though in truth not that much stranger than some Cadsuane herself had believed before meeting Sorilea—and the Wise One did not like them a hair.

  Cadsuane went to meet her with a smile. Sorilea was not a woman you made come to you. Everyone thought they were becoming friends—which they might yet, she realized in surprise—but no one knew of their alliance. Eben appeared with his tray, and appeared relieved when she set her half-empty goblet on it.

  “Late last night,” Sorilea said as the red-coated boy hurried back to Daigian, “Chisaine Nurbaya asked to serve the Car’a’carn.” Disapproval lay heavy in her voice. “Before first light, Janine Pavlara asked, then Innina Darenhold, then Vayelle Kamsa. They had not been allowed to speak to one another. There could be no collusion. I accepted their pleas.”

  Cadsuane made a vexed sound. “I suppose you already have them serving penance,” she murmured, thinking hard. Nineteen sisters had been prisoners in the Aiel camp, nineteen sisters sent by that fool Elaida to kidnap the boy, and now they all had sworn to follow him! These last were the worst. “What could make Red sisters swear fealty to a man who can channel?”

  Verin began to make an observation, but fell silent for the Aiel woman. Strangely, Verin had taken to her own enforced apprenticeship like a heron to the marsh. She spent more time in the Aiel camp than out of it.

  “Not penance, Cadsuane Melaidhrin.” Sorilea made a dismissive gesture with one sinewy hand in another rattle of gold and ivory bracelets. “They are attempting to meet toh that cannot be met. As foolish in its
way as our naming them da’tsang in the first place, but perhaps they are not beyond redemption if they are willing to try,” she allowed grudgingly. Sorilea more than merely disliked those nineteen sisters. She gave a thin smile. “In any event, we will teach them much they need to learn.” The woman seemed to believe all Aes Sedai could do with time apprenticing under the Wise Ones.

  “I hope you will continue to watch them all closely,” Cadsuane said. “Especially these last four.” She was sure they would keep that ridiculous oath, if not always in ways the boy would like, but there was always the possibility that one or two might be Black Ajah. Once she had thought herself on the point of rooting out the Black only to watch her quarry slip through her fingers like smoke, her bitterest failure except possibly for failing to learn what Caraline Damodred’s cousin had been up to in the Borderlands until the knowledge was years too late to do any good. Now, even the Black Ajah seemed a diversion from what was truly important.

  “Apprentices are always watched closely,” the weathered woman replied. “I think I must remind these others to be grateful for being allowed to loll about like clan chiefs.”

  The remaining four sisters in front of the fireplace rose with alacrity at her approach, made deep curtsies, and listened carefully to what she told them in a low voice with much finger shaking. Sorilea might think she had much to teach them, but they had already learned that an Aes Sedai shawl offered no protection to a Wise One’s apprentice. Toh seemed a great deal like penance to Cadsuane.

  “She is . . . formidable,” Verin murmured. “I am very glad she is on our side. If she is.”

  Cadsuane gave her a sharp look. “You have the appearance of a woman with something to say that you don’t want to. About Sorilea?” That alliance was very vaguely defined. Friendship or no friendship, she and the Wise One still might turn out to be aiming at different goals.

  “Not that,” the stout little woman sighed. Despite a square face, tilting her head to one side made her look like a very plump sparrow. “I know it was not my business, Cadsuane, but Bera and Kiruna were getting nowhere with our guests, so I had a little talk alone with Shalon. After a little gentle questioning, she spilled out the whole story, and Ailil confirmed everything once she realized I already knew. Soon after the Sea Folk first arrived here, Ailil approached Shalon hoping to learn what they wanted with young al’Thor. For her part, Shalon wanted to learn whatever she could about him, and about the situation here. That led to meetings, which led to friendship, which led to them becoming pillow friends. As much from loneliness as anything else, I suspect. In any case, that was what they were hiding more than their mutual snooping.”

  “They put up with days under the question to hide that?” Cadsuane said incredulously. Bera and Kiruna had had the pair howling!

  Verin’s eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth. “Cairhienin are prim and prudish, Cadsuane, in public at least. They might carry on like rabbits when the curtains are drawn, but they wouldn’t admit to touching their own husbands if anyone might overhear! And the Sea Folk are almost as straitlaced. At least, Shalon is married to a man with duties elsewhere, and breaking marriage vows is a very serious crime. A breach of proper discipline, it seems. If her sister found out, Shalon would be—‘Windfinder on a rowboat,’ I think her exact words were.”

  Cadsuane was aware of her hair ornaments swaying as she shook her head. When the two women had been discovered right after the attack on the Palace, bound and gagged and stuffed under Ailil’s bed, she had suspected they knew more of the attack than they were admitting. Once they refused to say why they had been meeting in secret, she was sure. Perhaps even that they were involved in some way, though the attack apparently was the work of renegade Asha’man. Supposedly renegade, at least. All that time and effort wasted on nothing. Or perhaps not quite nothing, if they were so desperate to keep things hidden.

  “Return the Lady Ailil to her apartments with apologies for her treatment, Verin. Give her very . . . tenuous . . . assurances that her confidences will be kept. Be sure she is aware just how tenuous. And suggest strongly that she might wish to keep me abreast of anything she hears concerning her brother.” Blackmail was a tool she disliked using, but she had already used it on the three Asha’man, and Toram Riatin might still cause trouble even if his rebellion did seem to have evaporated. In truth, she cared little who sat on the Sun Throne, yet the plots and schemes of those who considered thrones important often had a way of interfering with more significant matters.

  Verin smiled, her bun bobbing as she nodded. “Oh, yes, I think that will work very nicely. Especially since she dislikes her brother intensely. The same for Shalon, I suppose? Except that you will want to hear of events among the Atha’an Miere? I’m not certain how far she will betray Harine, no matter the consequences to herself.”

  “She will betray what I require her to betray,” Cadsuane said grimly. “Keep her until tomorrow, late.” Harine must not be allowed to think for a moment that her demands were being met. The Sea Folk were another tool to be used on the boy, no more. Everyone and everything had to be viewed in that light.

  Beyond Verin, Corele slipped into the sunroom and shut the door carefully behind her as if hoping not to disturb anyone. That was not her way. Boyishly slim, with thick black eyebrows and a mass of glossy black hair flowing down her back that gave her a wild appearance no matter how neat her clothes were, the Yellow was much more likely to sweep into a room laughing. Rubbing the end of her upturned nose, she looked at Cadsuane hesitantly, with none of the usual sparkle in her blue eyes.

  Cadsuane made a peremptory gesture at her, and Corele drew a breath and glided across the carpets gripping her yellow-slashed blue skirts with both hands. Eyeing the sisters clustered around Sorilea at the far end of the room, and Daigian playing cat’s cradle with Eben at the other end, she spoke in a soft voice that carried the lilting accents of Murandy.

  “I have the most wonderful news, Cadsuane.” By the sound of her, she was not all certain how wonderful it was. “I know you said I should keep Damer busy here in the Palace, but he insisted on looking at the sisters still in the Aiel camp. Mild-tempered as he is, he’s very insistent when he wants to be, and sure as the sun there’s nothing can’t be Healed. And, well, the fact of it is, he’s gone and Healed Irgain. Cadsuane, it’s as if she’d never been . . .” She trailed off, unable to say the word. It hung in the air even so. Stilled.

  “Wonderful news,” Cadsuane said flatly. It was. Every sister carried the fear somewhere deep inside that she might be cut off from the Power. And now a way to Heal what could not be Healed had been discovered. By a man. There would be tears and recriminations before this was done with. In any case, while every sister who heard would consider it a world-shaking discovery—in more ways than one; a man!—it was a storm in a teacup compared to Rand al’Thor. “I suppose she is offering herself up to be beaten like the others?”

  “She won’t need to,” Verin said absently. She was frowning at an inkstain on her finger, but she seemed to be studying something beyond. “The Wise Ones apparently decided that Rand had punished Irgain and the other two sufficiently when he . . . did what he did. At the same time they were treating the others like worthless animals, they have been working to keep those three alive. I heard talk about finding Ronaille a husband.”

  “Irgain knows all about the oaths the others swore.” Corele’s voice took on tones of amazement. “She started weeping for the loss of her Warders almost as soon as Damer finished with her, but she’s ready to swear, too. The thing of it is, Damer wants to try with Sashalle and Ronaille, too.” Surprisingly, she drew herself up almost defiantly. She had always been as arrogant as any other Yellow, but she had always known where she stood with Cadsuane. “I can’t see letting a sister remain in that condition if there’s a way out, Cadsuane. I want to let Damer try his hand with them.”

  “Of course, Corele.” It seemed some of Damer’s insistence was rubbing off on her. Cadsuane was willing to let that g
o, so long as it did not go too far. She had begun gathering sisters she trusted, those here with her and others, the day she first heard of strange events in Shienar—her eyes and ears had kept watch on Siuan Sanche and Moiraine Damodred for years without learning anything useful until then—yet just because she trusted them did not mean she intended to let them start going their own way. Too much lay at stake. But in any case, she could not leave a sister like that, either.

  The door banged open to admit Jahar at a run, the silver bells on the ends of his dark braids jangling. Heads turned to look at the youth in the well-fitted blue coat Merise had chosen for him—even Sorilea and Sarene stared—but the words that came out of him in a rush drove away thoughts of how pretty his sun-dark face was.

  “Alanna’s unconscious, Cadsuane. She just collapsed in the hallway. Merise had her taken to a bedchamber and sent me for you.”

  Riding over exclamations of shock, Cadsuane gathered Corele and Sorilea—who could not be left behind in this—and ordered Jahar to lead the way. Verin came as well, and Cadsuane did not stop her. Verin had a way of noticing what others missed.

  The black-liveried servants had no idea who or what Jahar was, but they stepped lively to get out of Cadsuane’s way as she walked quickly along behind him. She would have told him to be quicker about it, but any faster, and she would have had to run. Before she had gone very far, a short man with the front of his head shaved, in a dark coat with horizontal stripes of color down the front, stepped into her path and bowed. She had to stop for him.