The wheel of time, p.976
The Wheel of Time, page 976
“May I make us private?” Nisao asked.
“If you wish. Have you learned something about the negotiations?” Despite Egwene’s capture, talks continued under the pavilion at the foot of the bridge in Darein. Or rather, the semblance of talks. They were a farce, a dumb-show of obstinacy, yet it was necessary to keep a close eye on the negotiators. Varilin had snatched most of that work to herself, claiming Gray Ajah prerogative, but Magla found ways to wriggle into the matter whenever she could, and so did Saroiya and Takima and Faiselle. Worse than the fact that none of them seemed to trust the others to carry out the negotiations—or much at all, for that matter—at times, all of them almost seemed to be negotiating for Elaida. Well, perhaps it was not that bad. They held fast against the woman’s ridiculous demand that the Blue Ajah be dissolved and argued, if not nearly with sufficient force, for Elaida stepping down, but if she—and Lelaine, she was forced to admit—did not stiffen their backbones now and then, they might well accede to some of Elaida’s other odious conditions. Light, at times it was as if they had forgotten the entire purpose of marching on Tar Valon! “Pour us tea,” she went on, gesturing to a painted wooden tray sitting atop two stacked chests that held a silver pitcher and several battered pewter cups, “and tell me what you’ve heard.”
The glow surrounded Nisao briefly while she warded the tent and tied off the weave. “I know nothing of the negotiations,” she said, filling two of the cups. “I want to ask you to speak to Lelaine.”
Romanda took the proffered cup and used taking a slow swallow to give herself time for thought. At least this tea had not yet turned. Lelaine? What could there be about Lelaine that required warding? Still, anything that gave her leverage against the other woman would be useful. Lelaine seemed entirely too smug of late for her to be entirely comfortable about it. She shifted on the seat cushion. “Regarding what? Why don’t you speak to her yourself? We haven’t fallen as low as it seems the White Tower has under Elaida.”
“I have spoken to her. Or rather, she has spoken to me, and rather forcefully.” Nisao sat down, and set her cup on the table while she arranged her yellow-slashed skirts with overly elaborate care. She wore a small frown. It seemed she was fiddling for time, too. “Lelaine demanded that I stop asking questions about Anaiya and Kairen,” she said finally. “According to her, their murders are Blue Ajah business.”
Romanda snorted, shifting again. The book’s wooden cover was a hard lump beneath her, its corners digging into her hip. “That is utter nonsense. But why were you asking questions? I don’t recall you being inquisitive about such matters.”
The other woman touched her cup to her lips, but if she drank, it was the tiniest sip. Lowering the cup, she almost seemed to grow taller, she sat up so straight. A sparrow becoming a hawk. “Because the Mother ordered me to.”
Romanda kept her eyebrows from rising only with an effort. So. In the beginning, she had accepted Egwene for the same reason she suspected every other Sitter had. Certainly Lelaine had done so, once she realized she could not attain the stole and staff herself. A malleable young girl would be a puppet in the hands of the Hall, and Romanda had fully intended to be the one pulling her strings. Later, it had seemed obvious that Siuan was the true puppeteer, and there had been no way to stop her short of rebelling against a second Amyrlin, which surely would have shattered the rebellion against Elaida. She hoped Lelaine had ground her teeth over that half as much as she had. Now Egwene was in Elaida’s hands, yet in several meetings she had remained cool and collected, determined in her course of action and that of the sisters outside Tar Valon’s walls. Romanda found in herself a grudging respect for the girl. Very grudging, but she could not deny it. It had to be Egwene herself. The Hall kept a tight fist on the dream ter’angreal, and though no one could find the one Leane had been loaned before that dire night, she and Siuan had been practically at each other’s throats. There was no question of Siuan slipping into Tel’aran’rhiod to tell the woman what to say. Was it possible that Nisao had come to the same conclusion about Egwene without seeing her in the Unseen World? That council had stuck very close to her.
“That is reason enough for you, Nisao?” She could hardly slip the book back out without the other woman noticing. She shifted again, but there was no comfortable position on the thing. She was going to have a bruise if this continued.
Nisao twisted her pewter cup about on the tabletop, but she still did not look away. “It is my major reason. In the beginning, I thought she would end up as your pet. Or Lelaine’s. Later, when it was clear she had evaded both of you, I thought Siuan must be holding the leash, but I soon learned I was wrong. Siuan has been a teacher, I’m sure, and an advisor, and perhaps even a friend, but I’ve seen Egwene call her up short. No one has a leash on Egwene al’Vere. She is intelligent, observant, quick to learn and deft. She may become one of the great Amyrlins.” The bird-like sister gave a sudden, brief laugh. “Do you realize she will be the longest sitting Amyrlin in history? No one will ever live long enough to top her unless she chooses to step down early.” Smiles faded to solemnity, and perhaps worry. Not because she had skirted the edge of violating custom, however. Nisao schooled her face well, but her eyes were tight. “If we manage to unseat Elaida, that is.”
Hearing her own thoughts thrown back at her, with emendations, was unnerving. A great Amyrlin? Well! It would take many years to see whether that came about. But whether or not Egwene managed that considerable and unlikely feat, she would discover that the Hall was much less amenable once her war powers expired. Romanda Cassin certainly would be. Respect was one thing, becoming a lapdog quite another. Standing on the pretext of straightening her deep yellow skirts, she drew the book from beneath the cushion as she sat back down and tried to drop it surreptitiously. It hit the carpet with a thud, and Nisao’s eyebrows twitched. Romanda ignored that, pulling the book under the edge of the table with her foot.
“We will.” She put more confidence than she felt into that. The peculiar negotiations and Egwene’s continuing imprisonment gave her pause, forget the girl’s claims that she could undermine Elaida from within. Though it seemed half her work had been done by others, if her reporting on the situation in the Tower was accurate. But Romanda believed because she had to believe. She had no intention of living cut off from her Ajah, accepting penance until Elaida thought her fit to be fully Aes Sedai again, no intention of accepting Elaida a’Roihan as Amyrlin. Better Lelaine than that, and one argument in her own mind for raising Egwene had been that it kept the stole and staff from Lelaine. No doubt Lelaine had thought the same concerning her. “And I will inform Lelaine in no uncertain terms that you can ask any questions you wish. We must solve those murders, and the murder of any sister is every sister’s concern. What have you learned so far?” Not a proper question, perhaps, but being a Sitter gave you certain privileges. At least, she had always believed it did.
Nisao displayed no pique at being questioned, no hesitation in answering. “Very little, I fear,” she said ruefully, frowning at her winecup. “It seemed there must be some link between Anaiya and Kairen, some reason they two were picked out, but all I’ve learned so far is that they had been close friends for many years. Blues called them and another Blue sister, Cabriana Mecandes, ‘the Three,’ because they were so close. But they were all closemouthed, too. No one recalls any of them talking about their own affairs except with one another. In any event, friendship seems a feeble motive for murder. I hope I can find some reason why anyone would want to murder them, especially a man who can channel, but I confess, it’s a small hope.”
Romanda furrowed her brow. Cabriana Mecandes. She paid little attention to the other Ajahs—only the Yellow had any truly useful function; how could any of their passions compare to Healing?—yet that name chimed a small gong in the back of her head. Why? It would come to her or not. It could not be important. “Small hopes can grow surprising fruit, Nisao. That’s an old saying in Far Madding, and it’s true. Continue your investigation. In Egwene’s absence, you may report what you learn to me.”
Nisao blinked, and her jaw tightened briefly, but whether or not reporting to Romanda sat well with her, there was little she could do but obey. She could hardly claim interference in her affairs. Murder could not be one sister’s affair. Besides, Magla might have gotten her ridiculous choice for the third Yellow Sitter, yet Romanda had secured the position of First Weaver for herself easily. After all, she had been head of the Yellow before she retired, and even Magla had been unwilling to stand against her. The position carried much less power than she would have liked, but at least she could count on obedience in most things. From Yellow sisters if not Sitters, at least.
As Nisao untied her ward against eavesdropping and let it dissipate, Theodrin popped into the tent. She was wearing her shawl spread across her shoulders and down her arms to display the long fringe, as newly raised sisters often did. The willowy Domani had chosen Brown after Egwene granted her that shawl, but the Brown had not known what to do with her despite finally accepting her. They had seemed ready to largely ignore her, entirely the wrong thing, so Romanda had taken her in. Theodrin tried to behave as if she really were Aes Sedai, yet she was a bright, levelheaded girl for all that. She spread her brown woolen skirts in a curtsy. A small curtsy, but a curtsy. She was well aware that she had no right to the shawl until she had been tested. And passed. It would have been cruel not to make sure she understood.
“Lelaine has called a sitting of the Hall,” she said breathlessly. “I couldn’t find out why. I ran to tell you, but I didn’t want to intrude while the ward was up.”
“And rightly not,” Romanda said. “Nisao, if you will excuse me, I must see what Lelaine is about.” Gathering her yellow-fringed shawl from atop one of the chests holding her clothing, she arranged it over her arms and checked her hair in the cracked mirror before herding the others outside and seeing them on their way. It was not so much that she thought Nisao would have looked for what had made that thud if left in the tent alone, but it was better to take no chances. Aelmara would replace the book where it belonged, with several similar volumes in the chest that held Romanda’s personal possessions. That had a very stout lock with only two keys, one kept in her belt pouch, the other in Aelmara’s.
The morning was crisp, yet spring had arrived with a rush. The dark clouds massing behind Dragonmount’s shattered peak would deliver rain rather than snow, though not on the camp, it was to be hoped. Many of the tents leaked, and the camp streets were a bog already. Horse carts making deliveries splashed mud from their high wheels as they made new ruts, driven by women for the most part, and a few gray-haired men. Male access to the Aes Sedai camp was strictly limited, now. Even so, nearly every sister she saw glided along the uneven wooden walkways wrapped in the light of saidar and followed by her Warder if she had one. Romanda refused to embrace the Source whenever she went outside—someone had to set an example of proper behavior with every sister in the camp on tenterhooks—yet she was very conscious of the lack. Conscious of the lack of a Warder, too. Keeping most men out of the camp was all very well, but a murderer was unlikely to pay any heed to the restriction.
Ahead, Gareth Bryne rode out of a crossing street, a stocky man with mostly gray hair, his breastplate strapped over a buff-colored coat and his helmet hanging from his saddle bow. Siuan was with him, swaying on a plump shaggy mare and looking such a pretty girl that it was almost possible to forget she had been hard-bitten and sharp-tongued as Amyrlin. Easy to forget she was still an accomplished schemer. Blues always were. The mare plodded along, but Siuan nearly fell off before Bryne reached out to steady her. At the edge of the Blue quarters—the camp was laid out in rough approximation of the Ajah quarters in the Tower—he dismounted long enough to help her down, then climbed back into his bay’s saddle and left her standing there holding the mare’s reins and gazing after him. Now, why would she do that? Blacking the man’s boots, doing his laundry. That relationship was abhorrent. The Blue should put an end to it, and to the Pit of Doom with custom. However strong, custom should not be abused to hold all Aes Sedai up to ridicule.
Turning her back on Siuan, she started toward the pavilion that served as their temporary Hall of the Tower. As pleasant as it was to meet in the true Hall, not to mention under Elaida’s very nose, few sisters could manage to put themselves to sleep at any hour, so the pavilion must continue to serve. She glided along the walkway without haste. She was not about to be seen hurrying to answer Lelaine’s call. What could the woman want now?
A gong sounded, magnified with the Power so it carried across the camp clearly—another of Sharina’s suggestions—and suddenly the walkways were crowded with novices hurrying to their next class or to chores, all clustered by family. Those families of six or seven always attended class together, did chores together, in fact, did everything together. It was an effective way to manage so many novices—nearly fifty more had wandered into the camp in just the last two weeks, pushing the total back near a thousand in spite of runaways, and almost a quarter of those were young enough to be proper novices, more than the Tower had held in centuries!—yet she wished it were not Sharina’s work. The woman had not even suggested it to the Mistress of Novices. She had organized the thing herself and presented it to Tiana whole and complete! The novices, some of them graying or with lines in their faces so that it was difficult to think of them as children despite their white dresses, squeezed to the edge of the walkway to let sisters pass while they offered curtsies, but none stepped into the muddy street to make more room. Sharina again. Sharina had spread the word that she did not want to see the girls dirtying their nice white woolens unnecessarily. It was enough to make Romanda grind her teeth. The novices who curtsied to her straightened hurriedly and practically ran.
Ahead of her, she spotted Sharina herself, talking to Tiana, who was shrouded in the glow of saidar. Doing all of the talking, with Tiana merely nodding now and then. There was nothing disrespectful in Sharina’s demeanor, but despite novice white, with her creased face and gray hair in a tight bun on the back of her head, she looked exactly what she was, a grandmother. And Tiana had an unfortunately youthful appearance. Something about her bone structure and large brown eyes overwhelmed the ageless look of Aes Sedai. Lack of disrespect or no, there was too much appearance of a woman instructing her granddaughter to suit Romanda. As she approached them, Sharina offered a proper curtsy—a very proper curtsy, Romanda had to admit—and hurried off the other way to join her own family, waiting for her. Were there fewer lines in her face than there had been? Well, there was no saying what might happen when a woman began with the Power at her age. Sixty-seven and a novice!
“Is she giving you difficulties?” she asked, and Tiana leaped as though an icicle had slid down the back of her dress. The woman lacked the dignity, the gravity, necessary in a Mistress of Novices. At times, she seemed smothered by the number of her charges, too. And she was much too lenient besides, accepting excuses where there could be none.
She recovered quickly, however, falling in beside Romanda, though she smoothed her dark gray skirts unnecessarily. “Difficulties? Of course not. Sharina is the best-behaved novice in the book. Truth to tell, most are well-behaved. The greatest number sent to my study are mothers upset because their daughters are learning faster than they or have a higher potential, or aunts with the same complaint of nieces. They seem to believe the matter can be rectified somehow. They can be surprisingly adamant about it until I set them straight about being adamant with any sister. Although a good many have been sent to me more than once, I fear. A handful still seem surprised that they can be switched.”
“Is that so,” Romanda said absently. Her eye had caught pale-haired Delana hurrying in the same direction, gray-fringed shawl looped over her arms and her so-called secretary striding at her side. Delana wore an almost somber dark gray, but the Saranov trollop was in blue-slashed green silk that left half her bosom on display and fit much too snugly over hips that she rolled blatantly. Of late, the pair of them seemed to have abandoned the story that Halima was merely Delana’s servant. Indeed, the woman was gesturing emphatically while Delana merely nodded in the meekest manner imaginable. Meek! It was always a mistake to choose a pillow-friend who did not wear the shawl. Especially if you were fool enough to let her take the lead.
“Sharina isn’t only well-behaved,” Tiana continued blithely, “she is showing a great skill with Nynaeve’s new way of Healing. Like a number of the older novices. Most were village Wise Women of one sort or another, though I don’t see how that can have any bearing. One was a noble in Murandy.”
Romanda tripped over her own heel and staggered two steps, arms flailing for balance, before she could catch herself and gather her shawl. Tiana put a hand on her arm to steady her, murmuring about the unevenness of the walkway’s planking, but she shook it off. Sharina had a gift for the new Healing? And a number of the older women? She herself had learned the new way, but while it was different enough from the old that the second-learned weave limitation seemed not to apply, she had no great gift for it. Not nearly what she had for the old method.
“And why are novices being allowed to practice that, Tiana?”
Tiana flushed, as well she should. Such weaves were much too complex for novices, not to mention dangerous if misapplied. Done improperly, Healing could kill rather than cure. The woman channeling as well as the patient. “I can hardly stop them from seeing Healing done, Romanda,” she said defensively, moving her arms as if adjusting a shawl she was not wearing. “There are always broken bones or some fool who’s managed to cut himself badly, not to mention all the illness we have to deal with lately. Most of the older women only have to see a weave once to have it down.” Abruptly, for a bare instant, red returned to her cheeks. Smoothing her face, she drew herself up, and defensiveness fell away from her voice. “In any event, Romanda, I shouldn’t need to remind you that the novices and Accepted are mine. As Mistress of Novices, I decide what they can learn and when. Some of those women could test for Accepted today, after only months. When it comes to the Power, at least. If I choose not to make them twiddle their thumbs idly, it is my decision to make.”
