Authors: Robert Jordan
“I will consider your suggestion,” Birgitte said gravely, but there was nothing grave about the mixture of sympathy and amusement on her face. The woman knew Aes Sedai. In some ways, she knew more about Aes Sedai than any Aes Sedai.
There was nothing for it but to accept and hope. As Nynaeve started up the street, Nicola fell in beside her. “I told you to be about your duties.”
“They said to come back when I found you, Accepted. Is that one of
your herbs? Why do you use herbs? Is it because you can’t—? Forgive me, Accepted. I should not have mentioned that.”
Nynaeve blinked at the sack of goosemint in her hand—she did not remember taking it out—and stuffed it back in her pouch. She wanted to chew the whole sackful of leaves. She ignored the apology and its cause; one was surely as false as the other was deliberate. “I use herbs because Healing isn’t always necessary.” Would the Yellows disapprove if that got back to them? They were contemptuous of herbs; they only seemed interested in illnesses that did need Healing. Or those where it was not cracking pecans with a sledgehammer, anyway. What was she doing worrying over what she said to Nicola in case it should be carried to Aes Sedai? The woman was a novice, no matter how she looked at her and Elayne. It did not matter how she looked at them. “Keep quiet,” she said irritably. “I want to think.”
Nicola did keep quiet as they wended their way through the crowded streets, but it seemed to Nynaeve that the woman’s steps dragged. Perhaps it was only imagination, but Nynaeve’s knees began to ache from the effort of not outpacing her. Under no circumstances would she let Nicola see her even appear to hurry.
The situation set a slow burn inside her. Of everybody who could have been sent to fetch her, it was hard to imagine anyone worse than Nicola and her eyes. Birgitte was probably running off to find Uno right that minute. The Sitters were probably telling Tarna they were ready to kneel and kiss Elaida’s ring. Seve and Jaril were probably telling Sheriam they did not know “Marigan” from a wild goose. It had been that kind of day, and the molten sun stood only a quarter toward its peak in the cloudless sky.
Janya and Delana were waiting in the front room of the small house they shared with three other Aes Sedai. Each with her own bedroom, of course. Each Ajah had a house for its meetings, but Aes Sedai were scattered about through the village depending on when they had come in. Frowning at the floor, lips pursed, Janya appeared unaware of their arrival. Pale-haired Delana, though—her hair was so fair there was no telling whether there was white in it or not—Delana focused her equally pale blue eyes on them as soon as they set foot inside the door. Nicola jumped. Nynaeve would have felt better about that had she not done the same. Usually the stout Gray’s eyes were no different from any other Aes Sedai’s, but when she really focused on you, it was as if nothing else existed but you. Some said Delana was successful as a mediator because both sides would agree just to make her stop staring at them. You started thinking of
what you had done wrong even if you had done nothing. The list that popped into Nynaeve’s head made her curtsy as deeply as Nicola before she knew it.
“Ah,” Janya said, blinking as if they had sprung out of the floor, “there you are.”
“Forgive me for being late,” Nynaeve said hastily. Let Nicola hear whatever she wanted. Delana was staring at her, not Nicola. “I lost track of the time, and—”
“No matter.” Delana’s voice was deep for a woman, her accent a throaty echo of Uno’s Shienaran. It was oddly melodious in such a round woman, but then Delana was oddly graceful for one so stout. “Nicola, be off with you. You’ll be running errands for Faolain until your next lesson.” Nicola wasted no time dropping another curtsy and darting out. Maybe she had wanted to hear what the Aes Sedai said to Nynaeve for being late, but no one walked any lines with Aes Sedai.
Nynaeve would not have cared if Nicola sprouted wings. She had just realized there was no inkpot on the table where the Aes Sedai took their meals, no sand bowl, no pen, no paper. None of what she would need. Had she been supposed to bring it? Delana was
still
staring at her. The woman
never
stared at anyone that long. She never stared at all unless she had a reason.
“Would you like cool mint tea?” Janya said, and it was Nynaeve’s turn to blink. “I do think tea is comforting. It smooths conversation, I always find.” Not waiting for an answer, the birdlike Brown sister began filling mismatched cups from a blue-striped teapot on the sideboard. A rock stood in place of one of the sideboard’s legs. Aes Sedai might have more room, but their furnishings were just as battered. “Delana and I decided our notes could wait for another time. We will just talk, instead. Honey? I prefer it without, myself. All that sweetness ruins the flavor. Young women always want their honey. Such wonderful things, you’ve been doing. You and Elayne.” A loud throat-clearing made her look at Delana questioningly. After a moment Janya said, “Ah. Yes.”
Delana had pulled one of the chairs from the table into the middle of the bare floor. One cane-bottomed chair. From the moment Janya mentioned conversation Nynaeve had known that that was not at all what was going to happen. Delana motioned to the chair, and Nynaeve took a seat on the very edge of it, accepted a cup on a chipped saucer from Janya with a murmured “Thank you, Aes Sedai.” She did not have long to wait.
“Tell us about Rand al’Thor,” Janya said. She appeared ready to say
more, but Delana cleared her throat again; Janya blinked and fell silent, sipping her tea. They stood to either side of Nynaeve’s chair. Delana glanced at her, then sighed and channeled the third cup to herself. It floated across the room. Delana fixed on her again in that way that seemed to bore holes in your head, Janya apparently lost in thought and maybe not seeing her at all.
“I’ve told you everything I know,” Nynaeve sighed. “Well, told Aes Sedai, anyway.” She had, too. Nothing she knew could harm him—not any more than knowing what he was, anyway—and it might help if she could make the sisters see him as a man. Not a man who could channel; just a man. Not an easy task with the Dragon Reborn. “I don’t know any more.”
“Don’t sulk,” Delana snapped. “And don’t fidget.”
Nynaeve set her cup back in the saucer and wiped her wrist on her skirt.
“Child,” Janya said, her tone all compassion, “I know you think you’ve told all you know, but Delana. . . . I cannot think you would hold back on purpose—”
“Why would she not?” Delana barked. “Born in the same village. Watched him grow up. Her loyalties may be more to him than to the White Tower.” That razor gaze descended on Nynaeve again. “Tell us something you haven’t told before. I’ve heard all your stories, girl, so I will know.”
“Try, child. I’m sure you don’t want to make Delana angry with you. Why—” Janya cut off at another throat-clearing.
Nynaeve hoped they thought her teacup rattling meant she was rattled as well. Dragged here terrified—no, not terrified, but worried at least—over how angry they might be, and now this. Being around Aes Sedai taught you to listen carefully. You still might not catch what they really meant, but you had a better chance than if you listened with half an ear, the way most people usually did. Neither one had really said they thought she was keeping anything back. They just intended to frighten her on the chance that they might shake something else loose. She was not afraid of them. Well, not much. She was furious.
“When he was a boy,” she said carefully, “he would accept his punishment without any argument if he thought he deserved it, but if he didn’t think so, he fought every step of the way.”
Delana snorted. “You’ve told that to everyone who would listen. Something else. Quickly!”
“You can lead him, or convince him, but he won’t be pushed. He digs in his heels if he thinks you’re—”
“And that.” Hands on broad hips, Delana bent down until her head was level with Nynaeve’s. Nynaeve almost wished she had Nicola staring at her again. “Something you’ve not told every cook and laundress in Salidar.”
“Do try, child,” Janya said, and for a wonder left it at that.
They dug away, Janya prompting sympathetically, Delana boring without mercy, and Nynaeve brought up every scrap she could remember. It earned her no respite; every scrap had been told so many times before she could identify them by taste. As Delana kindly pointed out. Well, not so kindly. By the time Nynaeve managed to take a sip of her tea, it tasted stale, and the sweetness almost curled her tongue. Janya apparently really did believe young women liked lots of honey. The morning passed slowly. Very slowly.
“This is taking us nowhere,” Delana said at last, glaring at Nynaeve as if it were all her fault.
“May I go then?” Nynaeve asked wearily. Every drop of sweat that drenched her seemed to have been squeezed out. She felt limp. She also wanted to slap both those cool Aes Sedai faces.
Delana and Janya exchanged glances. The Gray shrugged and walked over to the sideboard for another cup of tea. “Of course you may,” Janya said. “I know this must have been difficult for you, but we really do need to know Rand al’Thor better than he knows himself if we are to decide what’s best. Otherwise, everything could turn to catastrophe. Oh, my, yes. You’ve done very well, child. But then, I never expected any less of you. Anyone who can make the discoveries you’ve made, with your handicap . . . why, I expect nothing less than excellence from you. And to think. . . .”
It took quite a while for her to run down and let Nynaeve stagger outside. Stagger she did, on wobbly knees. Everybody was talking about her. Of course they were. She should have listened to Elayne and begun leaving all the so-called discoveries to her. Moghedien was right. Sooner or later they were going to start probing for how she did it. So they had to decide what was best, to avoid catastrophe. No clue there to what they intended toward Rand.
A glance at the sun, almost overhead, told her she was already late for her appointment with Theodrin. At least she had a good excuse this time.
Theodrin’s house—hers and two dozen other women’s—lay beyond the Little Tower. Nynaeve slowed as she came abreast of the onetime inn. The gaggle of Warders out front near Gareth Bryne were evidence the meeting still went on. A residue of anger enabled her to see the ward, a close flat dome mostly of Fire and Air with touches of Water, shimmering to her
eyes over the entire building, the knot holding it in tantalizing fashion. Touching that knot would be as good as offering her hide to a tannery; there were plenty of Aes Sedai in the crowded street. Now and then some of the Warders moved back and forth through the shimmer, invisible to them, as one group broke up and another formed. The same ward Elayne had failed to penetrate. A shield against eavesdropping. With the Power.
Theodrin’s house stood a hundred paces or so farther up the street, but Nynaeve turned into the yard beside a thatch-roofed house just two beyond the former inn. A rickety wooden fence enclosed the tiny plot of withered weeds behind the house, but it had a gate, hanging on one hinge that was nearly all rust. It squealed murderously when she shifted the gate. She looked around hastily—no one at any of the windows; no one in the street could see her—gathered her skirts and darted through into the narrow alleyway that eventually ran by the room she shared with Elayne.
For a moment she hesitated, wiping sweaty palms on her dress, remembering what Birgitte had said. She knew she was a coward at heart, much as she hated the fact. Once she had thought herself brave enough. Not a hero, like Birgitte, but brave enough. The world had taught her better. Just thinking of what the sisters would do if they caught her—made her want to turn around and run to Theodrin. The chance was vanishingly small that she could actually find a window on the very room where the Sitters were. Impossibly small.
Trying to work some moisture back into her mouth—how could her mouth be so dry when the rest of her was so damp?—she crept closer. One day she wanted to know what it was like to be brave, like Birgitte or Elayne, instead of a coward.
The ward did not tingle when she stepped through. It did not feel like anything at all. She had known it would not. Touching it could do no harm, but she flattened herself against the rough stone wall. Bits of creeper clinging to its cracks brushed her face.
Slowly she edged along to the nearest casement window—and nearly turned around and left right then. It was shut tight, all the glass gone, replaced by oiled cloth that might let in light but certainly did not allow her to see anything. Or hear anything; at least, if there was anybody on the other side, no noise escaped. Taking a deep breath, she inched to the next window. One pane had been replaced here too, but the remainder showed a battered once-ornate table covered with papers and inkpots, a few chairs, and an otherwise empty room.
Muttering a curse she had heard from Elayne—the girl had a surprising
stock of such tucked away—she felt her way along the rough stone. The third window was swung out. She pressed her nose close. And jerked back. She had not really believed she would find anything, but Tarna was in there. Not with Sitters, but Sheriam and Myrelle and the rest of that lot. If her heart had not been pounding so hard, she would have heard the murmur of their voices before she looked.
Kneeling down, she moved as close to the casement as she could without being seen by those inside. The bottom of the window rubbed against her head.
“. . . sure that is the message you wish me to carry back?” That steely voice had to be Tarna’s. “You request more time to consider? What is there to consider?”
“The Hall—” Sheriam began.
“The
Hall
,” the Tower envoy scoffed. “Do not believe me blind to where power lies. That so-called
Hall
thinks what you six tell them to think.”
“The Hall, it has asked for more time,” Beonin said firmly. “Who can say what decision they will reach?”
“Elaida will have to wait to hear their decision,” Morvrin said in a fair imitation of Tarna’s icy tone. “Can she not wait a small time to see the White Tower whole once more?”
Tarna’s reply was even colder, though. “I will carry your . . . the
Hall’s
. . . message to the Amyrlin. We shall see what she thinks of it.” A door opened and closed with a sharp bang.