Middling was exactly how Elayne thought of Alise, not someone to give Reanne pause, certainly, even had she not been the Eldest of the Knitting Circle. Straight-backed, Alise appeared to be somewhere in her middle years, neither slender nor stout, tall nor short, a little gray flecking dark brown hair that was tied back with a piece of ribbon, but in a very practical manner. Her face was unremarkable, though pleasant enough, a mild face, perhaps a little long in the jaw. When she saw Reanne, she gave a fleeting look of surprise, then smiled. That smile transformed everything. It did not make her beautiful or even pretty, but Elayne felt warmed by it, comforted.
“I hardly expected to see you . . . Reanne,” Alise said, barely hesitating over the name. Obviously she was unsure whether to use Reanne’s rightful title in front of Nynaeve and Elayne and Aviendha. She studied them with quick glances as she spoke. There seemed to be a bit of Tarabon in her voice. “Berowin brought word of trouble in the city, of course, but I didn’t think it was so bad you would have to leave. Who are all these . . . ” Her words trailed off, and her eyes widened, staring beyond them.
Elayne glanced back, nearly loosing a few of the choice phrases she had picked up in various places, most recently from Mat Cauthon. She did not understand all of them, not most of them really — nobody ever wanted to explain what they meant exactly — but they did have a way of relieving emotion. The Warders had doffed their color-shifting cloaks, and the sisters had drawn up the hoods of their dust-cloaks as instructed, even Sareitha, who had no need to hide her youthful face, but Careane had not pulled hers forward far enough. It simply framed her ageless features. Not everyone would know what they were seeing, yet anyone who had been in the Tower surely would. Careane jerked the hood forward at Elayne’s glare, but the damage was done.
Others at the farm beside Alise possessed sharp eyes. “Aes Sedai!” a woman howled in tones suitable for announcing the end of the world. Perhaps she was, for her world. Shrieks spread like dust blown on the wind, and that quickly, the farm became a kicked anthill. Here and there a woman simply fainted dead away, but most ran wildly, screaming, dropping what they carried, bumping into one another, falling down and scrambling up to run on. Flapping ducks and chickens and short-horned black goats darted wildly to avoid being trampled. In the midst of it all, some women stood gaping, plainly those who had come to the retreat with no knowledge of the Kin, though a few of them began to move hurriedly, too, caught up in the frenzy.
Light!” Nynaeve barked, yanking her braid. “Some of them are running into the olive groves! Stop them! The last thing we want is a panic! Send the Warders! Quick, quick!” Lan raised a questioning eyebrow, but she waved a peremptory hand at him. “Quick! Before they all run away!” With a nod that seemed to begin as a shake of his head, he sent Mandarb galloping after the other men, curving to avoid the spreading pandemonium among the buildings.
Elayne shrugged at Birgitte, then motioned her to follow. She agreed with Lan. It seemed a bit late to try stopping a panic, and Warders on horseback attempting to herd frightened women probably was not the best way. But she could not see how to change matters now, and there was no point letting them run off into the countryside. They would all want to hear the news she and Nynaeve brought.
Alise gave no sign of running, or even fidgeting. Her face paled slightly, but she stared up at Reanne with a steady gaze. A firm gaze. “Why?” she breathed. “Why, Reanne? I could not have imagined you doing this! Did they give you bribes? Offer immunity? Will they let you walk free while we pay the price? They probably won’t allow it, but I vow I’ll ask them to let me call you down. Yes, you! The rules apply even to you, Eldest! If I can find a way to manage it, I vow you won’t walk away from this smiling!” A very firm gaze. Steely, in fact.
“It isn’t what you think,” Reanne said hurriedly, dismounting and dropping her reins. She caught both of Alise’s hands in hers despite the other woman’s efforts to free them. “Oh, I did not want it to be like this. They know, Alise. About the Kin. The Tower has always known. Everything. Almost everything. But that isn’t what is important.” Alise’s eyebrows tried to climb onto her scalp at that, but Reanne rushed on, beaming eagerly from under her large straw hat. “We can go back, Alise. We can try again. They said we can.” The farm buildings seemed to be emptying as well, women rushing out to learn what the commotion was, then joining the flight without a pause for more than hiking skirts. Shouts from the olive groves said the Warders were at work, but not how much they were achieving. Perhaps not a great deal. Elayne sensed growing frustration from Birgitte, and irritation. Reanne eyed the turmoil and sighed. “We must gather them in, Alise. We can go back.”
“That’s all very well for you and some of the others,” Alise said doubtfully. “If it’s true. What about the rest of us? The Tower would not have let me stay as long as I did had I been quicker to learn.” She darted a frown at the now well-hooded sisters, and the stare she returned to Reanne held no little anger. “What would we go back for? To be told again we aren’t strong enough and be sent on our way? Or will they just keep us as novices the rest of our lives? Some might accept that, but I won’t. What for, Reanne? What for?”
Nynaeve climbed down, tugging her mare forward at the end of her reins, and Elayne imitated her, though leading Lioness more easily. “To be part of the Tower, if that’s what you wish,” Nynaeve said impatiently before even reaching the two Kinswomen. “Maybe to be Aes Sedai. Myself, I don’t know why you have to be a certain strength, if you can pass the fool tests. Or don’t go back; run away, for all I care. Once I’m done here, anyway.” Planting her feet, she pulled off her hat and planted her fists on her hips. “This is wasting time, Reanne, and we have work to do. Are you sure there’s anybody here we can use? Speak up. If you’re not sure, then we might as well get on with it. The hurry might be out of the way, but now we have the thing, I’d as soon it was over and done with.”
When she and Elayne were introduced as Aes Sedai, the Aes Sedai who had given the promises, Alise made a choked sound and began smoothing her woolen skirts as though her hands wanted to latch on to Reanne’s throat. Her mouth opened angrily — then snapped shut without a sound when Merilille joined them. That stern gaze did not fade completely, but it became mixed with a touch of wonder. And more than a touch of wariness.
“Nynaeve Sedai,” Merilille said calmly, “the Atha’an Miere are . . . impatient . . . to be off their horses. I think some may ask for Healing.” A brief smile flickered across her lips.
That settled that question, though Nynaeve grumbled extravagantly about what she was going to do to the next person who doubted her. Elayne might have said a few choice words herself, but the truth was, Nynaeve looked more than a little silly carrying on that way with Merilille and Reanne both waiting attentively for her to finish and Alise staring at all three. That settled it, or perhaps it was the Windfinders, afoot and pulling their horses behind them. Every shred of grace had vanished during the ride, worn away by hard saddles — their legs seemed as stiff as their faces — yet no one could mistake them for anything but who they were.
“If there are twenty Sea Folk this far from the sea,” Alise muttered, “I’ll believe anything.” Nynaeve snorted but said nothing, for which Elayne was grateful. The woman seemed to be having a hard enough time accepting even with Merilille naming them Aes Sedai. Neither tirade nor tantrum would help.
“Then Heal them,” Nynaeve told Merilille. Their eyes went to the hobbling women together, and Nynaeve added, “If they ask. Politely.” Merilille smiled again, but Nynaeve had already abandoned the Sea Folk and gone back to frowning at the now all but empty farm. A few goats still trotted around a farmyard littered with dropped wash and rakes and brooms, spilled buckets and baskets, not to mention the crumpled forms of Kinswomen who had fainted, and a handful of chickens had gone back to scratching and pecking, but the only conscious women still in sight among the farm buildings were plainly not of the Kin. Some wore embroidered linen or silk and some rough
country woolens, yet the fact that they had not run spoke that much of them. Reanne said that at any given time as many as half those at the farm might fall into that group. Most appeared stunned.
Despite her grumbling, Nynaeve wasted no time taking charge of Alise. Or perhaps Alise took charge of Nynaeve. It was difficult to tell, since the Kinswoman showed little of the deference toward Aes Sedai that the Knitting Circle did. Perhaps she was still just too numbed by the sudden turn of events. In any case, they moved off together, Nynaeve leading her mare and gesturing with the hat in her other hand, instructing Alise on how to bring in the scattered women and what to do with them once they were collected. Reanne had been sure that at least one woman strong enough to join the circle was there, Garenia Rosoinde, and possibly two more. In truth, Elayne was hoping they had all gone. Alise alternated between nodding and giving Nynaeve very level looks that Nynaeve seemed not to notice.
Now, in the wait while the gathering was done, seemed a good time to do a bit more searching through the panniers, but when Elayne turned toward the packhorses, which were just beginning to be lead toward the farm buildings, she noticed the Knitting Circle, Reanne and the whole lot of them, making their own way into the farm on foot, some hurrying toward women lying on the ground, others toward those standing about gaping. The whole lot of them, and no sign of Ispan. It took only a glance to find her, though. Between Adeleas and Vandene, each holding an arm as they half-dragged her along, their dust-cloaks streaming behind.
The white-haired sisters were linked, the glow of saidar somehow encompassing them both without including Ispan. There was no way to tell which led the small circle and held the shield on the Darkfriend, but not even one of the Forsaken could have broken it. They stopped to speak to a stout woman in plain brown wool, who gaped at the leather sack covering Ispan’s head but still curtsied and pointed toward one of the white-plastered buildings.
Elayne exchanged angry glances with Aviendha. Well, hers was angry, anyway. Sometimes Aviendha gave away no more than a stone. Handing their horses over to two of the palace stablemen, they hurried after the three. Some of the women who were not of the Kin tried to question them about what was happening, a few in rather overbearing fashion, but Elayne gave them short shrift, leaving behind a wake of indignant sniffs and snorts. Oh, what she would not give to have the ageless face already! That tweaked a thread in the back of her thoughts, but it vanished as soon as she tried to examine it.
When she pushed open the plain wooden door where the trio had vanished, Adeleas and Vandene had Ispan seated in a ladder-back chair with her head bare, the sack lying atop a narrow trestle table with their linen cloaks. The room possessed only one window, set in the ceiling, but with the sun still high it let in a good light. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with large copper pots and big white bowls. By the smell of bread baking, the only other door led into a kitchen.
Vandene looked around sharply at the sound of the door, but seeing them, she smoothed her face to a total lack of expression. “Sumeko said the herbs Nynaeve gave her were wearing off,” she said, “and it seemed best to question her a little before fuzzing her brain again. We do seem to have time, now. It would be good to know what the . . . the Black Ajah,” her mouth twisted in distaste, “was up to in Ebou Dar. And what they know.”
“I doubt they are aware of this farm, since we were not,” Adeleas said, tapping a finger thoughtfully on her lips as she studied the woman in the chair, “but it is better to be sure than to weep later, as our father used to say.” She might have been examining an animal she had never seen before, a creature she could not fathom existing.
Ispan’s lip curled. Sweat rolled down her bruised face, and her dark, beaded braids were disheveled and her clothing all disarrayed, but despite bleary eyes, she was not nearly so woozy as she had been. “The Black Ajah, it is a fable, and a filthy one,” she sneered, a trifle hoarsely. It must have been very hot inside that leather sack, and she had had no water since leaving the Tarasin Palace. “Me, I am surprised that you will give it voice. And to cast the charge on me! What I have done, I have done on the orders of the Amyrlin Seat.”
“Elaida?” Elayne spat incredulously. “You have the nerve to claim that Elaida ordered you to murder sisters and steal from the Tower? Elaida ordered what you did in Tear and Tanchico? Or do you mean Siuan? Your lies are pathetic! You’ve forsaken the Three Oaths, somehow, and that names you Black Ajah.”
“I do not have to answer the questions from you,” Ispan said sullenly, hunching her shoulders. “You are rebels against the lawful Amyrlin Seat. You will be punished, perhaps stilled. Especially if you harm me. I serve the true Amyrlin Seat, and you will be punished severely if you harm me.”
“You will answer any questions my near-sister asks.” Aviendha tested her belt knife on a thumbnail, but her eyes were on Ispan’s. “Wetlanders fear pain. They do not know how to embrace it, accept it. You will answer as you are asked.” She did not glare or snarl, she just spoke, but Ispan shrank back in the chair.
“I fear that is proscribed, even were she not an initiate of the Tower,” Adeleas said. “We are forbidden to shed blood in questioning, or to allow others to do so in our name.” She sounded reluctant, though whether over the prohibition or over admitting that Ispan was an initiate, Elayne could not say. She herself had not really considered that Ispan might still be considered one. There was a saying that no woman was finished with the Tower until it was finished with her, but truthfully, once the White Tower touched you, it never was finished.
Her brow furrowed as she studied the Black sister, so bedraggled and still so sure of herself. Ispan sat up a little straighter, and darted glances full of amused contempt at Aviendha — and Elayne. She had not been so poised earlier, when she thought it was Nynaeve and Elayne alone who had her; regained composure had come with remembering that there were older sisters present. Sisters who would hold White Tower law as part of themselves. That law forbade not only shedding blood, but breaking bones and a number of other things that any Whitecloak Questioner would be more than ready to do. Before any session began, Healing had to be given, and if the questioning started after sunrise, it had to end before sundown; if after sunset, then before sunrise. The law was even more restrictive when it came to initiates of the Tower, the sisters and Accepted and novices, banning the use of saidar in questioning, punishment, or penance. Oh, a sister might flick a novice’s ear with the Power if she was exasperated, or even give her a swat on the bottom, but not very much more. Ispan smiled at her. Smiled! Elayne took a deep breath.
“Adeleas, Vandene, I want you to leave Aviendha and me alone with Ispan.” Her stomach tried to tie itself into a knot. There had to be a way to press the woman sufficiently to learn what was needed without breaking Tower law. But how? People who were to be questioned by the Tower usually began talking before a finger was laid on them — everyone knew that no one held out against the Tower; no one! — but they were very seldom initiates. She could hear another voice, not Lini’s this time, but her mother’s. What you order done, you must be willing to do with your own hand. As a queen, what you order done, you have done. If she did break the law . . . Her mother’s voice again. Even a queen cannot be above the law, or there is no law. And Lini’s. You can do whatever you wish, child. So long as you’re willing to pay the price. She dragged her hat off without untying the ribbons. Keeping her voice steady took an effort. “When we are — when we are done talking with her, you can take her back to the Knitting Circle.” Afterward, she would submit herself to Merilille. Any five sisters could sit in judgment to set a penance, if they were asked.
Ispan’s head swung, swollen eyes going from Elayne to Aviendha and back, slowly widening until the whites showed all the around. She was not so sure of herself now.
Silent glances passed between Vandene and Adeleas, in the manner of people who had spent so much time together they hardly needed to speak aloud any longer; then Vandene took Elayne and Aviendha each by an arm. “If I m
ay speak with you outside a moment,” she murmured. It sounded a suggestion, but she was already urging them to the door.
Outside in the farmyard, perhaps two dozen or so Kinswomen were huddled together like sheep. Not all wore Ebou Dari clothes, but two had the red belts of Wise Women, and Elayne recognized Berowin, a stout little woman who normally showed a pride far greater than her strength in the Power. Not now. Like the rest, her face was frightened, her eyes darting, despite the entire Knitting Circle surrounding them and talking urgently. Down the way, Nynaeve and Alise were trying to herd perhaps twice as many women inside one of the larger buildings. “Trying” did seem to be the word.
“ . . . don’t care what estates you hold,” Nynaeve was shouting at a proud-necked woman in pale green silk. “You get in there and stay in there, out of the way, or I’ll kick you inside!”
Alise simply seized the green-clad woman by the scruff of the neck and ran her through the doorway despite voluble and heated protests. There was a loud squawk like a huge goose being stepped on, then Alise reappeared, dusting her hands. The others seemed to give no trouble after that.
Vandene released them, studying their eyes. The glow still enveloped her, yet Adeleas must have been focusing their combined flows. Vandene could have maintained the shield, once woven, without being able to see it, but had she been the one, it was much likelier that Adeleas would have brought them out. Vandene could have gone several hundred paces before the link began to attenuate — it would not break if she and Adeleas went to opposite corners of the earth, though it would have been useless long before that — but she remained close to the door. She seemed to sort words in her head.
“I’ve always thought it best if women with experience handle this sort of thing,” she said finally. “The young can easily be caught up in hot blood. Then they do too much. Or sometimes, they realize they can’t bring themselves to do enough. Because they haven’t really seen enough, yet. Or worst of all, they find a . . . taste for it. Not that I believe either of you has that flaw.” She gave Aviendha a weighing glance without pausing; Aviendha hastily sheathed her belt knife. “Adeleas and I have seen enough to know why we must do what must be done, and we left hot blood behind long ago. Perhaps you will leave this to us. Much better that way, all around.” Vandene seemed to take the recommendation as accepted. She nodded and turned back toward the door.