The Dragon Reborn twot-3

by Robert Jordan

  Egwene refused to give her the satisfaction of asking.

  "Where then?" Elayne's brow furrowed. "If I made myself known — and could make anyone believe it, in these clothes and with no escort — we would be welcomed by most of the noble Houses, and very likely in the Stone itself — there are good relations between Caemlyn and Tear — but there would be no keeping it quiet. The entire city would know before nightfall. I cannot think of anywhere else except an inn, Nynaeve. Unless you mean to go out to a farm in the country, but we will never find them from the country."

  Nynaeve glanced at Egwene. "I will know when I see it. Let me look."

  Elayne's frown swept from Nynaeve to Egwene and back again. "'Do not cut off your ears because you do not like your earrings,'" she muttered.

  Egwene put her attention firmly on the street they were riding along. I will be burned if I'll let her think I am even wondering!

  There were not a great many people out, not compared to the streets of Tar Valon. Perhaps the thick mud in the street discouraged them. Carts and wagons lurched past, most pulled by oxen with wide horns, the carter or wagoneer walking alongside with a long goad of some pale, ridged wood. No carriages or sedan chairs used these streets. The odor of fish hung in the air here, too, and no few of the men who hurried past carried huge baskets full of fish on their backs. The shops did not look prosperous; none displayed wares outside, and Egwene seldom saw anyone go in. The shops had signs — the tailor's needle and bolt of cloth, the cutler's knife and scissors, the weaver's loom, and the like — but the paint on most of them was peeling. The few inns had signs in as bad a state, and looked no busier. The small houses crowded between inns and shops often had tiles or slates missing from their roofs. This part of Tear, at least, was poor. And from what she saw on the faces, few of the people here cared to try any longer. They were moving, working, but most of them had given up. Few as much as glanced at three women riding where everyone else walked.

  The men wore baggy breeches, usually tied at the ankle. Only a handful wore coats, long, dark garments that fit arms and chest tightly, then became looser below the waist. There were more men in low shoes than in boots, but most went barefoot in the mud. A good many wore no coat or shirt at all, and had their breeches held up by a broad sash, sometimes colored and often dirty. Some had wide, conical straw hats on their heads, and a few, cloth caps that sagged down one side of the face. The women's dresses had high necks, right up to their chins, and hems that stopped at the ankle. Many had short aprons in pale colors, sometimes two or three, each smaller than the one beneath it, and most wore the same straw hats as the men, but dyed to complement the aprons.

  It was on a woman that she first saw how those who wore shoes dealt with the mud. The woman had small wooden platforms tied to the soles of her shoes, lifting them two hands out of the mud; she walked along as if her feet were planted firmly on the ground. Egwene saw others wearing the platforms after that, men as well as women. Some of the women went barefoot, but not as many as the men.

  She was wondering which shop might sell those platforms, when Nynaeve suddenly turned her black down an alleyway between a long, narrow two-story house and a stone-walled potter's shop. Egwene exchanged glances with Elayne — the Daughter-Heir shrugged — and then they followed. Egwene did not know where Nynaeve was going or why — and she meant to have words with her about it — but she did not mean to become separated, either.

  The alley suddenly let into a small yard behind the house, fenced in by the buildings around it. Nynaeve had already dismounted and tied her reins to a fig tree, where the stallion could not reach the green things sprouting in a vegetable patch that took up half the yard. A line of stones had been laid to make a path to the back door. Nynaeve strode to the door and knocked.

  "What is it?" Egwene demanded in spite of herself. "Why are we stopping here?"

  "Did you not see the herbs in the front windows?" Nynaeve knocked again.

  "Herbs?" Elayne said.

  "A Wisdom," Egwene told her as she got down from her saddle and tied Mist alongside the black. Gaidin is no good name for a horse. Does she think I don't know who she means it for? "Nynaeve has found herself a Wisdom, or Seeker, or whatever they call her here."

  A woman opened the door just enough to look out suspiciously. At first Egwene thought she was stout, but then the woman opened the door the rest of the way. She was certainly well padded, but the way she moved spoke of muscle underneath. She looked as strong as Mistress Luhhan, and some in Emond's Field claimed Alsbet Luhhan was almost as strong as her husband. It was not true, but it was not far wrong.

  "How can I help you?" the woman said in an accent like the Amyrlin's. Her gray hair was arranged in thick curls that hung down the sides of her head, and her three aprons were in shades of green, each slightly darker than the one below, but even the topmost pale. "Which one of you needs me?"

  "I do," Nynaeve said. "I need something for a queasy stomach. And perhaps one of my companions does, too. That is, if we've come to the right place?"

  "You're not Tairen," the woman said. "I should have known that by your clothes, before you spoke. I'm called Mother Guenna. I am called a Wise Woman, too, but I'm old enough not to trust that to caulk a seam. You come, and I will give you something for your stomach."

  It was a neat kitchen, though not large, with copper pots hanging on the wall, and dried herbs and sausages from the ceiling. Several tall cupboards of pale wood had doors carved with some sort of tall grass. The table had been scrubbed almost white, and the backs of the chairs were carved with flowers. A pot of fishy-smelling soup was simmering atop the stone stove, and a kettle with a spout, just beginning to steam. There was no fire on the stone hearth, for which Egwene was more than grateful; the stove added enough to the heat, though Mother Guenna seemed not to notice it at all. Dishes lined the mantel, and more were stacked neatly on shelves to either side. The floor looked as if it had just been swept.

  Mother Guenna closed the door after them, and as she was crossing the kitchen to her cupboards, Nynaeve said, "Which tea will you give me? Chainleaf? Or bluewort?"

  "I would if I had any of either." Mother Guenna rooted in the shelves a moment and came out with a stone jar. "Since I've had no time to glean of late, I will give you a brew of marshwhite leaves."

  "I am not familiar with that," Nynaeve said slowly.

  "It works as well as chainleaf, but it has a bite to the taste some don't care for." The big woman sprinkled dried and broken leaves into a blue teapot and carried it over to the fireplace to add hot water. "Do you follow the craft, then? Sit." She gestured to the table with a hand holding two blue-glazed cups shed had taken from the mantel. "Sit, and we'll talk. Which one of you has the other stomach?"

  "I am fine," Egwene said casually as she took a chair. "Are you queasy, Caryla?" The Daughter-Heir shook her head with perhaps a touch of exasperation.

  "No matter." The gray-haired woman poured out a cup of dark liquid for Nynaeve, then sat across the table from her. "I made enough for two, but marshwhite tea keeps longer than salted fish. It works better the longer it sits, too, but it also grows more bitter. Makes a race between how much you need your stomach settled and what your tongue can stand. Drink, girl." After a moment, she filled the second cup and took a sip. "You see? It will not hurt you."

  Nynaeve raised her own cup, making a small sound of displeasure at the first taste. When she lowered the cup again, though, her face was smooth. "It is just a little bitter perhaps. Tell me, Mother Guenna, will we have to put up with this rain and mud much longer?"

  The older woman frowned, parceling displeasure among the three of them before she settled on Nynaeve. "I am not a Sea Folk Windfinder, girl," she said quietly. "If I could tell the weather, I'd sooner stick live silverpike down my dress than admit it. The Defenders take that sort of thing for next to Aes Sedai work. Now, do you follow the craft or not? You look as if you have been traveling. What is good for fatigue?" she barked suddenly.


  "Flatwort tea," Nynaeve said calmly, "or andilay root. Since you ask questions, what would you do to ease birthing?"

  Mother Guenna snorted. "Apply warm towels, child, and perhaps give her a little whitefennel if it was an especially hard birth. A woman needs no more than that, and a soothing hand. Can't you think of a question any country farmwife could not answer? What do you give for pains in the heart? The killing kind."

  "Powdered gheandin blossom on the tongue," Nynaeve said crisply.

  "If a woman has biting pains in her belly and spits up blood, what do you do?"

  They settled down as if testing each other, tossing questions and answers back and forth faster and faster. Sometimes the questioning lagged a moment when one spoke of a plant the other knew only by another name, but they picked up speed again, arguing the merits of tinctures against teas, salves against poultices, and when one was better than another. Slowly, all the quick questions began shifting toward the herbs and roots one knew that the other did not, digging for knowledge. Egwene began to grow irritable listening.

  "After you give him the boneknit," Mother Guenna was saying, "you wrap the broken limb in toweling soaked in water where you've boiled blue goatflowers — only the blue, mind!" — Nynaeve nodded impatiently — "and as hot as he can stand it. One part blue goatflowers to ten of water, no weaker. Replace the towels as soon as they stop steaming, and keep it up all day. The bone will knit twice as fast as with boneknit alone, and twice as strong."

  "I will remember that," Nynaeve said. "You mentioned using sheepstongue root for eye pain. I've never heard —"

  Egwene could stand it no longer. "Maryim," she broke in, "do you really believe you'll ever need to know these things again? You are not a Wisdom any longer, or have you forgotten?"

  "I have not forgotten anything," Nynaeve said sharply. "I remember a time when you were as eager to learn new things as I am."

  "Mother Guenna," Elayne said blandly, "what do you do for two women who cannot stop arguing?"

  The gray-haired woman pursed her lips and frowned at the table. "Usually, men or women, I tell them to stay away from each other. That is the best thing, and the easiest."

  "Usually?" Elayne said. "What if there is a reason they cannot stay apart. Say they are sisters."

  "I do have a way to make an arguer stop," the big woman said slowly. "It is not something I urge anyone to try, but some do come to me." Egwene thought there was a suspicion of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "I charge a silver mark each for women. Two for men, because men make more fuss. There are some will buy anything, if it costs enough."

  "But what is the cure?" Elayne asked.

  "I tell them they have to bring the other one here with them, the one they argue with. Both expect me to quiet the other's tongue." Despite herself, Egwene was listening. She noticed Nynaeve seemed to be paying sharp attention, as well. "When they have paid me," Mother Guenna continued, flexing one hefty arm, "I take them out back and stick their heads in my rain barrel till they agree to stop their arguing."

  Elayne burst out laughing.

  "I think I may have done something very like that myself," Nynaeve said in a voice that was much too light. Egwene hoped her own expression looked nothing like Nynaeve's.

  "I'd not be surprised if you have." Mother Guenna was grinning openly now. "I tell them the next time I hear they've been arguing, I will do it for free, but I'll use the river. It is remarkable how often the cure works, for men especially. And it is remarkable what it has done for my reputation. For some reason, none of the people I cure this way ever tells anyone else the details, so someone asks for the cure every few months. If you've been fool enough to eat mudfish, you do not go around telling people. I trust none of you have any wish to spend a silver mark."

  "I think not," Egwene said, and glared at Elayne when she went off in peals of laughter again.

  "Good," the gray-haired woman said. "Those I cure of arguing have a tendency to avoid me like stingweed caught in their nets, unless they actually take sick, and I am enjoying your company. Most of those who come at present want something to take away bad dreams, and they grow sour when I have nothing to give them." For a moment she slipped into a frown, rubbing her temples. "It is good to see three faces that do not look as if there is nothing left but to jump over the side and drown. If you are staying long in Tear, you must come see me again. The girl called you Maryim? I am Ailhuin. The next time, we'll talk over some good Sea Folk tea instead of something that curdles your tongue. Light, but I hate the taste of marshwhite; mudfish would taste sweeter. In fact, if you have time to stay now, I'll brew a pot of Tremalking black. Not long till supper, either. It's just bread and soup and cheese, but you are welcome."

  "That would be very nice, Ailhuin," Nynaeve said. "Actually… Ailhuin, if you have a spare bedroom, I'd like to hire it for the three of us."

  The big woman looked at each of them without saying anything. Getting to her feet, she tucked the pot of marshwhite tea away in the herb cupboard, then fetched a red teapot and a pouch from another. Only when she had brewed a pot of Tremalking black, put four clean cups and a bowl of honeycomb on the table along with pewter spoons, and reclaimed her chair did she speak.

  "I've three empty bedrooms upstairs, now my daughters are all married. My husband, the Light shine on him, was lost in a storm in the Fingers of the Dragon near twenty years ago. There need be no talk of hiring, if I decide to let you have the rooms. If, Maryim." Stirring honey into her tea, she studied them again.

  "What will make you decide?" Nynaeve asked quietly.

  Ailhuin continued to stir, as if she had forgotten to drink. "Three young women, riding fine horses. I don't know much about horses, but those look as fine as what the lords and ladies ride, to me. You, Maryim, know enough of the craft that you ought to have hung herbs in your window already, or should be choosing where to do it. I've never heard of a woman practicing the craft too far from where she was born, but by your tongue, you are a long way." She glanced at Elayne. "Not many places with hair that color. Andor, I'd say, by your speech. Fool men are always talking about finding a yellow-haired Andor girl. What I want to know is why? Running away from something? Or running after something? Only, you don't look like thieves to me, and I never heard of three women chasing after a man together. So tell me why, and if I like it, the rooms are yours. If you want to pay something, you buy a bit of meat now and then. Meat is dear since the trade up to Cairhien fell away. But first the why, Maryim."

  "We are chasing after something, Ailhuin," Nynaeve said. "Or rather, after some people." Egwene schooled herself to stillness and hoped she was doing as well as Elayne, who was sipping her tea as if she were listening to talk about dresses. Egwene did not believe Ailhuin Guenna's dark eyes missed a great deal. "They stole some things, Ailhuin," Nynaeve went on. "From my mother. And they did murder. We are here to see justice done."

  "Burn my soul," the large woman said, "have you no menfolk? Men are not good for much beyond heavy hauling and getting in the way, most of the time — and kissing and such — but if there's a battle to be fought or a thief to catch, I say let them do it. Andor is as civilized as Tear. You are not Aiel."

  "There was no one else but us," Nynaeve said. "Those who might have come in our place were killed."

  The three murdered Aes Sedai, Egwene thought. They could not have been Black Ajah. But if they had not been killed, the Amyrlin would not have been able to trust them. She's trying to keep to the bloody Three Oaths, but she is skirting it close.

  "Aaah," Ailhuin said sadly. "They killed your men? Brothers, or husbands, or fathers?" Spots of color bloomed in Nynaeve's cheeks, and the older woman mistook the emotion. "No, don't tell me, girl. I'll not pull up old grief. Let it lie on the bottom till it melts away. There, there, you calm yourself." It was an effort for Egwene not to growl with disgust.

  "I must tell you this," Nynaeve said in a stiff voice. The red still colored her face. "These murderers and thieves are Darkfriends. They are
women, but they are as dangerous as any swordsman, Ailhuin. If you wondered why we did not seek an inn, that is why. They may know we follow, and they may be watching for us."

  Ailhuin waved it all away with a sniff. "Of the four most dangerous folk I know, two are women who never carry as much as a knife, and only one of the men is a swordsman. As for Darkfriends… Maryim, when you are as old as I, you'll learn that false Dragons are dangerous, lionfish are dangerous, sharks are dangerous, and sudden storms out of the south; but Darkfriends are fools. Filthy fools, but fools. The Dark One is locked up where the Creator put him, and no Fetches or fangfish to scare children will get him out. Fools don't frighten me unless they're working the boat I'm riding. I suppose you don't have any proof you could take to the Defenders of the Stone? It would be just your word against theirs?"

  What is a "Fetch"? Egwene wondered. Or a "fangfish," for that matter.

  "We will have proof when we find them," Nynaeve said. "They will have the things they stole, and we can describe them. They are old things, and of little value to anyone but us, and our friends."

  "You would be surprised what old things can be worth," Ailhuin said dryly. "Old Leuese Mulan pulled up three heartstone bowls and a cup in his nets last year, down in the Fingers of the Dragon. Now, instead of a fishing smack, he owns a ship trading up the river. Old fool did not even know what he had till I told him. Very likely there's more right where those came from, but Leuese couldn't even remember the exact spot. I do not know how he ever managed to get a fish into his net. Half the fishing boats in Tear were down there for months afterwards, dragging for cuendillar, not grunts or flatfish, and some had lords saying where to pull the nets. That's what old things can be worth, if they are old enough. Now, I've decided you do need a man in this, and I know just the one."