out. "The Black Ajah." Siuan flinched, then nodded, glowering.
Any sister grew angry at the suggestion there was a secret Ajah hidden inside
the others, dedicated to the Dark One. Most sisters refused to listen. The White
Tower had stood for the Light for over three thousand years. But some sisters
did not deny the Black straight out. Some believed. Very few would admit it even
to another sister, though. Moiraine did not want to admit it to herself.
Siuan plucked at the ties on her bundle, but she went on in a brisk voice. "I
don't think they have our names — Tamra never really thought us part of it —
else I'd have had an "accident", too. Just before I left, I slipped a note with
my suspicions under Sierin's door. Only, I didn't know how much to trust her.
The Amyrlin Seat! I wrote with my left hand, but I was shaking so hard, no one
could recognize my writing if I'd used my right. Burn my liver! Even if we knew
who to trust, we have bilge water for proof."
"Enough for me. If they know everything, all the women Tamra chose, there may be
none left except us. We will have to move fast if we have a hope of finding the
boy first." Moiraine tried for a vigorous tone, too. It was gratifying that
Siuan only nodded. She would not give up for all her talk of shaking, and she
never considered that Moiraine might. Most gratifying. "Perhaps they know us,
and perhaps not. Perhaps they think they can leave two new sisters for last. In
any case, we cannot trust anyone but ourselves." Blood drained from her face.
"Oh, Light! I just had an encounter at the inn, Siuan."
She tried to recall every word, every nuance, from the moment Merean first
spoke. Siuan listened with a distant look, filing and sorting. "Cadsuane could
be one of Tamra's chosen," she agreed when Moiraine finished. "Or she could be
Black Ajah." She barely hesitated over the words. "Maybe she's just trying to
get you out of the way until she can dispose of you without rousing suspicion.
The trouble is, any of them could be either." Leaning across her bundle, she
touched Moiraine's knee. "Can you bring your horse from the stable without being
seen? I have a good mount, but I don't know if she can carry both of us. We
should be hours from here before they know we're gone."
Moiraine smiled in spite of herself. She very much doubted the good mount. Her
friend's eye for horseflesh was no better than her seat in the saddle, and
sometimes Siuan fell off nearly before the animal moved. The ride north must
have been agony. And full of fear. "No one knows you are here at all, Siuan,"
she said. "Best if it stays so. You have your book? Good. If I remain until
morning, I will have a day's start on them instead of hours. You go on to
Chachin now. Take some of my coin." By the state of Siuan's dress, she had spent
the last part of that trip sleeping under bushes. A fisherman's daughter had no
estates to provide gold. "Start looking for the Lady Ines, and I will catch you
up there."
It was not that easy, of course. Siuan had a stubborn streak as wide as the
Erinin. Quite aside from that, as novice and Accepted it had been the
fisherman's daughter who led, not the king's niece, something that had startled
Moiraine at first, until she realized that it felt natural somehow. Siuan had
been born to lead.
"I have enough for my needs," she grumbled, but Moiraine insisted on handing her
half the coins in her purse, and when Moiraine reminded her of their pledge
during their first months in the Tower, that what one owned belonged to the
other as well, she muttered, "We swore we'd find beautiful young princes to
bond, too, and marry them besides. Girls say all sort of silly things. You watch
after yourself, now. You leave me alone in this, and I'll wring your neck."
Embracing to say good bye, Moiraine found it hard to let go. An hour ago, her
worries had been whether she might be stuck away on a farm, or at worse birched.
Now . . . The Black Ajah. She wanted to empty her stomach. If only she had
Siuan's courage. Watching Siuan slip down the alley adjusting that bundle on her
back again, Moiraine wished she was Green. Only Greens bonded more than one
Warder, and she would have liked at least three or four to guard her back right
then.
Walking back up the street, she could not help looking at everyone she passed,
man or woman. If the Black Ajah — her stomach twisted every time she thought
that name — if they were involved, then ordinary Darkfriends were, too. No one
denied that some misguided people believed the Dark One would give them
immortality, people who would kill and do every sort of evil to gain that
hoped-for reward. And if any sister could be Black Ajah, anyone she met could be
a Darkfriend. She hoped Siuan remembered that.
As she approached The Gates of Heaven, a sister appeared in the inn's doorway.
Part of a sister, at least; all she could see was an arm with a fringed shawl
over it. A tall man who had just come out, his hair in two belled braids, turned
back to speak for a moment, but the shawl-draped arm gestured peremptorily, and
he strode past Moiraine wearing a scowl. She would not have thought twice of it
if not for thinking about the Black Ajah and Darkfriends. The Light knew, Aes
Sedai did speak to men, and some did more than speak. She had been thinking of
Darkfriends, though. And Black sisters. If only she could have made out the
colour of that fringe. She hurried the last thirty-odd paces frowning.
Merean and Larelle were seated together by themselves near the door, both still
wearing their shawls. Few sisters did that except for ceremony, or for show.
Both women were watching Cadsuane go into that private sitting room, followed by
a pair of grey-haired men who looked as hard as last year's oak. She still wore
her shawl, too, with the white Flame of Tar Valon bright on her back. It could
have been any of them. Cadsuane might be looking for another Warder; Greens
always seemed to be looking. Moiraine did not know whether Merean and Larelle
had Warders. The fellow's scowl might have been for hearing he did not measure
up. There were a hundred possible explanations, and she put the man out of her
head. The sure dangers were real enough without inventing more.
Before she was three steps into the common room, Master Helvin bustled up in a
green-striped apron, a bald man nearly as wide as he was tall, and handed her a
new irritation. With three more Aes Sedai stopping at his inn, he need to
shuffle the beds, as he put it. The Lady Alys would not mind sharing hers,
certainly, under the circumstances. Mistress Palan was a most pleasant woman.
Haesel Palan was a rug-merchant from Murandy with the lilt of Lugard in her
voice. Moiraine heard more of it than she wanted from the moment she stepped
into the small room that had been hers alone. Her clothes had been moved from
the wardrobe to pegs on the wall, her comb and brush displaced from the
washstand for Mistress Palan's. The plump woman might have been diffident with
"Lady Alys", but not with a wilder who everybody said was off in the morning to
become a novice in the White Tower. She lectured Moiraine on the duties of a
nov
ice, all of it wrong. She followed Moiraine down to dinner and gathered other
traders of her acquaintance at the table, every woman of them eager to share
what she knew of the White Tower. Which was nothing at all. They shared it in
great detail, though. Moiraine thought to escape by retiring early, but Mistress
Palan appeared almost as soon as she had her dress off and talked until she
dropped off to sleep.
It was not an easy night. The bed was narrow, the woman's elbows sharp and her
feet icy despite thick blankets that trapped the warmth of the small stove under
the bed. The rainstorm that had threatened all day broke, wind and thunder
rattling the shutters for hours. Moiraine doubted she could have slept in any
event. Darkfriends and the Black Ajah danced in her head. She saw Tamra being
dragged from her sleep, dragged away to somewhere secret and tortured by women
wielding the Power. Sometimes the women wore Merean's face, and Larelle's, and
Cadsuane's, and every sister's she had ever seen. Sometimes Tamra's face became
her own.
When the door creaked slowly open in the dark hours of morning, Moiraine
embraced the Source in a flash. Saidar filled her to the point where the
sweetness and joy came close to pain. Not as much of the Power as she would be
able to handle in another year, much less five, yet a hair more would burn the
ability out of her now, or kill her. One was as bad as the other, but she wanted
to draw more, and not just because the Power always made you want more.
Cadsuane put her head in. Moiraine had forgotten her promise, her threat.
Cadsuane saw the glow, of course, could feel how much she held. "Fool girl," was
all the woman said before leaving.
Moiraine counted to one hundred slowly, then swung her feet out from under the
covers. Now was as good a time as any. Mistress Palan heaved on to her side and
began to snore. Channelling Fire, Moiraine lit one of the lamps and dressed
hurriedly. A riding dress, this time. Reluctantly she decided to abandon her
saddlebags along with everything else she had to leave behind. Anyone who saw
her moving about might not think too much of it even at this time of the
morning, but not if she had saddlebags over her shoulder. All she took was what
she could fit into the pockets sewn inside her cloak, little more than some
spare stockings and a clean shift. Mistress Palan was still snoring as she
closed the door behind her.
The skinny groom on night duty was startled to see her with the sky just
beginning to turn grey, but a silver penny had him knuckling his forehead and
saddling her bay mare. She regretted leaving her packhorse behind, but not even
a fool noble — she heard the fellow mutter — that would take a pack animal for a
morning jaunt. Climbing into Arrow's high-cantled saddle, she gave the man a
cool smile instead of the second penny he would have received without the
comment, and rode slowly out into damp, empty streets. Just out for a ride,
however early. It looked to be a good day. The sky looked rained out, for one
thing, and there was little wind.
The lamps were still lit all along the streets and alleys, leaving no more than
the palest shadow anywhere, yet the only people to be seen were the Night
Watch's patrols and the Lamplighters, heavily armed as they made their rounds to
make sure no lamp went out. A wonder that people could live so close to the
Blight that a Myrddraal could step out of any dark shadow. No one went out in
the night, though. Not in the Borderlands.
Which was why she was surprised to see she was not the first to reach the
western gates. Slowing Arrow, she stayed well back from the three very large men
waiting with a packhorse behind their mounts. Their attention was all on the
barred gates, with now and again a word shared with the gate guards. They barely
glanced at her. The lamps here showed their faces clearly. A grizzled old man
and a hard-faced young one wearing braided leather cords tied around their
heads. Malkieri? She thought that was what that meant. The third was an
Arafellin with belled braids. The same fellow she had seen leaving The Gates of
Heaven.
By the time the bright sliver of sunrise allowed the gates to be swung open,
several merchants' trains had lined up to depart. The three men were first
through, but Moiraine let a train of a dozen wagons behind eight-horse teams
rumble ahead of her before she followed across the bridge and on to the road
through the hills. She kept the three in sight, though. They were heading in the
same direction so far, after all.
They moved quickly, good riders who barely shifted a rein, but a trot suited
her. The more distance she put between herself and Cadsuane, the better. The
merchants' wagons fell back out of sight long before they reached the first
village near midday, a small cluster of tile-roofed stone houses around a tiny
inn on a forested hill slope. Moiraine paused long enough to ask whether anyone
knew a woman named Avene Sahera. The answer was no, and she galloped on, not
slowing until the three men appeared on the hard-packed road ahead, their horses
still in that ground-eating pace. Maybe they knew nothing more than the name of
the sister the Arafellin had spoken to, but anything at all she learned about
Cadsuane or the other two would be to the good.
She formulated several plans for approaching them, and discarded each. Three men
on a deserted forest road could well decide a young woman alone was a good
opportunity, especially if they were what she feared. Handling them presented no
problem, if it came to it, but she wanted to avoid that. Woods gave way to
scattered farms, and farms faded to more woods. A red-crested eagle soared
overhead and became a shape against the descending sun.
As her shadow stretched out behind her, she decided to forget the men and find a
place to sleep. With luck she might see more farms soon, and if a little silver
did not bring a bed, a hayloft would have to do.
Ahead, the three men stopped, conferring for a moment, then one took the
packhorse and turned aside into the forest. The others dug in their heels and
galloped on.
Moiraine stared after them. The Arafellin was one of the pair rushing off, but
if they were travelling together, maybe he had mentioned meeting an Aes Sedai to
his companion. And one man would certainly be less trouble than three, if she
was careful. Riding to where rider and packhorse had vanished, she dismounted.
Tracking was a thing most ladies left to their huntsmen, but she had taken an
interest in the years when climbing trees and getting dirty had seemed equal
fun. Broken twigs and kicked winter-fall leaves left a trail a child could have
followed. A hundred paces or so into the forest, she spotted a pond in a hollow
through the trees. The fellow had already unsaddled and hobbled his bay — a
fine-looking animal — and was setting the packsaddle on the ground. It was the
younger of the Malkieri. He looked even larger, this close. Unbuckling his
swordbelt, he sat down facing the pond, laid sword and belt beside him, and put
his hands on his knees. He seemed to be staring off across the water,
still
glittering through the late afternoon shadows. He did not move a muscle.
Moiraine considered. Plainly he had been left to make camp. The others would
come back. A question or two would not take long, though. And if he was unnerved
a little — say at finding a woman suddenly standing right behind him — he might
answer before he thought. Tying Arrow's reins to a low branch, she gathered her
cloak and skirts and moved forward as silently as possible. A low hummock stood
humped up behind him, and she stepped up on to that. Added height could help. He
was a very tall man. And it might help if he found her with her beltknife in one
hand and his sword in the other. Channelling, she whisked the scabbarded blade
from his side. Every little bit of shock she could manage for him He moved
faster than thought. Her grasp closed on the scabbard, and he uncoiled,
whirling, one hand clutching the scabbard between hers, the other seizing the
front of her dress. Before she could think to channel, she was flying through
the air. She had just time to see the pond coming up at her, just time to shout
something, she did not know what, and then she struck the surface flat, driving
all the wind out of her, struck with a great splash and sank. The water was
freezing! Saidar fled in her shock.
Floundering to her feet, she stood up to her waist in the icy water, coughing,
wet hair clinging to her face, sodden cloak dragging at her shoulders. Furiously
she twisted around to confront her attacker, furiously embraced the Source once
more. The test for the shawl required channelling with absolute calm under great
stress, and far worse than this had been done to her then. She turned, prepared
to knock him down and drub him till he squealed!
He stood shaking his head and frowning at the spot where she had stood, a long
stride from where he had sat. When he deigned to notice her, he came to the edge
of the pond and bent to stretch out a hand. "Unwise to try separating a man from
his sword," he said, and after a glance at the coloured slashes on her dress,
added, "My Lady." Hardly an apology. His startlingly blue eyes did not quite
meet hers. If he was hiding mirth . . . !
Muttering under her breath, she splashed awkwardly to where she could take his
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