Crossroads of Twilight twot-10

by Robert Jordan

  “Nonsense, nonsense,” Janya exclaimed, waving a slender hand as if to brush away the very idea. “Every girl who’s been chosen can already make three balls of fire at once, and this requires very little more of the Power. There’s no danger at all, so long as they’re under a sister’s supervision, and they always are. I’ve seen the roster. Besides, what we make in a day will bring enough to pay the army for a week or more, but the sisters alone can’t produce near that much.” Squinting slightly, she suddenly appeared to be looking through Tiana. The cascade from her tongue never slowed, yet she seemed to be talking at least half to herself. “We will have to take great care in the selling. The Sea Folk have a voracious appetite for cuendillar, and there are plenty of their ships still at Illian and Tear by all accounts — the nobles there are greedy for it, too — but even ravenous appetites have limits. I still cannot decide whether it will be best to appear with everything at once, or let it trickle out. Sooner or later, even the price of cuendillar will begin to drop.” Abruptly she blinked and peered first at Tiana then at Salita, tilting her head to one side. “You do see my point, don’t you?”

  Salita glowered and hitched her shawl up on her shoulders. Tiana threw up her hands in exasperation. Egwene held her peace. For once, she felt no shame at being praised for one of her supposed discoveries. Unlike nearly everything else except Traveling, this one actually was hers, though Moghedien had pointed the way before she escaped. The woman did not know how to actually make anything — at least, she had not revealed any such knowledge however hard Egwene had pressed her, and she had pressed very hard — but Moghedien had a wide streak of greed, and even in the Age of Legends, cuendillar had been a prized luxury. She had known enough of how it was made for Egwene to puzzle out the rest. In any case, no matter who objected or how strenuously, the need for money meant the production of cuendillar would continue. Though as far as she was concerned, the longer before any of it was sold, the better.

  Sharina slapping her hands together loudly in the back of the tent jerked everyone’s head that way. Kairen and Ashmanaille turned, too, the Blue even letting her weaves go so the goblet bounced on the tabletop with a metallic clatter. It was a sign of boredom. The process could be started over, though finding the precise point was very hard, and some sisters took every opportunity to do anything else during the hour they had to spend in the tent each day. An hour or until they completed one item start to finish, whichever came first. That was supposed to push them to try harder at increasing their skill, but few had progressed very far.

  “Bodewhin, Nicola, off to your next class,” Sharina announced. She did not speak loudly, but her voice had a strength that could have cut through a babble of voices much less the quiet of the tent. “You have just time to wash your hands and faces. Quickly, now. You don’t want any bad reports.”

  Bode — Bodewhin — moved with efficient alacrity, releasing saidar and placing her half-made cuendillar bracelet in one of the chests along the wall for someone else to finish, then gathering her cloak. Plump-cheeked and pretty, she wore her hair in a long dark braid, though Egwene was not sure she had gotten permission from the Women’s Circle. But then, that world was behind her, now. Tugging on her mittens as she hurried from the tent, Bode kept her eyes down and never glanced in Egwene’s direction. Plainly, she still did not understand why a novice could not drop by to chat with the Amyrlin Seat whenever she wanted, even if they had grown up together.

  Egwene would have loved to talk with Bode and some of the others, but an Amyrlin had lessons to learn, too. An Amyrlin had many duties, few friends, and no favorites. Besides, even the appearance of favoritism would mark the Two Rivers girls out and make their lives with the other novices a misery. And it wouldn’t do me much good with the Hall, either, she thought wryly. She did wish the Two Rivers girls understood, though.

  The other novice Sharina had named did not leave her bench or stop channeling. Nicola’s black eyes flashed at Sharina. “I could be the best at this if I was ever allowed to really practice,” she grumbled sullenly. “I’m getting better; I know I am. I can Foretell, you know.” As if the one had anything to do with the other. “Tiana Sedai, tell her I can stay longer. I can finish this bowl before my next class, and I’m sure Adine Sedai won’t mind if I’m just a little late.” If her class was any time soon, she would be more than a little late if she tarried to complete the bowl; her hour’s effort had turned only half of it white.

  Tiana opened her mouth, but before she could utter a word, Sharina raised one finger, then a moment later, a second. It must have had some particular significance, because Nicola went pale and let go of her weaves on the instant, leaping up so quickly that she joggled the bench, earning quick frowns from the other two novices who shared it. They bent quickly back to their work, though, and Nicola almost ran to thrust the half-done bowl into a chest before snatching up her cloak. To Egwene’s surprise, a woman she had not seen, dressed in a short brown coat and wide trousers, jumped up from where she had been sitting on the ground-cloth beyond the tables. Scowling blue-eyed daggers at everyone in sight, Areina ran out of the tent after Nicola, the two women mirror images of disgruntlement and discontent. Seeing the pair of them together made Egwene uneasy.

  “I didn’t know friends were allowed in here to watch,” she said. “Is Nicola still causing problems?” Nicola and Areina had attempted to blackmail her, and Myrelle and Nisao, but that was not what she meant. That was still another secret.

  “Better the girl’s friendly with Areina than with one of the male grooms,” Tiana said with a sniff. “We’ve had two get with child, you know, and ten more likely to. The girl needs more friends, though. Friends will do the trick with her.”

  She cut off as two more white-clad novices hurried into the tent, the pair of them squeaking and skidding to a halt when they found Aes Sedai standing right in front of them. Hastily dropping curtsies, they scuttled to the back of the tent at a gesture from Tiana and folded their cloaks on a bench before fetching a partly white goblet and an almost white cup from one of the chests.

  Sharina saw them settled to work, then gathered her own cloak and swung it around her shoulders before coming up the tent. “If you will excuse me, Tiana Sedai,” she said, making a curtsy that just came short of being to an equal, “I’ve been told off to help with the midday meal today, and I wouldn’t want to get crosswise with the cooks.” Her dark eyes rested on Egwene for a brief moment, and she nodded to herself.

  “Go on, then,” Tiana said sharply. “I would hate to hear you had been switched for being late.”

  Without turning a hair, Sharina offered her courtesies again, neither in a hurry nor dragging it out, to Tiana, to the Sitters, to Egwene — with another glance that was penetrating but too short for offense — and when the tentflap swung shut behind her, Tiana blew out her cheeks in exasperation.

  “Nicola causes less trouble than some,” she said darkly, and Janya shook her head.

  “Sharina doesn’t cause problems, Tiana.” She spoke as quickly as ever, but quietly, so her voice would not carry to the back of the tent. Disagreements between sisters were never aired in front of novices. Especially when the disagreement was over a novice. “She already knows the rules better than any Accepted, and never puts a toe over the line. She never shirks at even the dirtiest chores, either, and she’s the first to lend a hand when another novice needs one. Sharina is simply who she is. Light, you can’t allow a novice to intimidate you.”

  Tiana stiffened and opened her mouth angrily, but once Janya had the bit between her teeth, getting a word in edgewise was no easy matter. “Nicola, on the other hand, causes all sorts of problems, Mother,” the Brown rushed on. “Ever since we found out she has the Foretelling, she’s been Foretelling two or three times a day, to hear her tell it. Or rather, to hear Areina tell it. Nicola is smart enough to know everyone is aware she can’t remember what she says when she Foretells, but Areina always seems to be there to hear and remember, and help her inte
rpret. Some are the sort of thing anyone in the camp with half a brain and a credulous nature might think of — battles with the Seanchan or the Asha’man, an Amyrlin imprisoned, the Dragon Reborn doing nine impossible things, visions that might be Tarmon Gai’don or a bilious stomach — and the rest all just happen to indicate that Nicola ought to be allowed to go faster with her lessons. She’s always too greedy for that. I think even most of the other novices have stopped believing her.”

  “She also pokes her nose everywhere,” Salita put in the moment Janya gave her an opening, “her and the groom, both.” Her face remained smooth and cool, and she shifted her shawl as though that were the focus of her attention, but she rushed her words a little, perhaps fearing that the Brown would take over again. “They’ve both been switched for eavesdropping on sisters, and I myself caught Nicola trying to peek into one of the Traveling grounds. She said she just wanted to see a gateway open, but I think she was trying to learn the weave. Impatience, I can understand, but deceit cannot be tolerated. I no longer believe Nicola will attain the shawl, and frankly, I’ve begun to wonder whether she should be sent away soon rather than late. The novice book may be open to everyone,” she finished with an expressionless glance at Egwene, “but we do not have to lower our standards completely.”

  Glaring, Tiana pursed her lips stubbornly, emphasizing her dimple again. You could almost forget she had worn the shawl for over thirty years and think her a novice herself. “As long as I am Mistress of Novices, the decision on whether to send a girl away is mine,” she said heatedly, “and I do not intend to lose a girl of Nicola’s potential.” Nicola would be very strong in the Power, one day. “Or Sharina’s,” she added with a grimace, hands smoothing her skirts in irritation. Sharina’s potential was nothing short of remarkable, far beyond anyone in living memory except for Nynaeve, and ahead of Nynaeve as well. Some thought she might become as strong as it was possible to be, though that was only speculation. “If Nicola has been bothering you, Mother, I will see to her.”

  “I was just curious,” Egwene said carefully, swallowing a suggestion that the young woman and her friend both be watched closely. She did not want to talk about Nicola. It would be too easy to find herself with a choice between lying or revealing matters she dared not expose. A pity she had not allowed Siuan to arrange for two quiet deaths.

  Her head jerked in shock at the thought. Had she gone that far from Emond’s Field? She knew she would have to order men to die in battle sooner or later, and she thought she might be able to order a death if the need was great enough. If one death could stop the death of thousands, or even hundreds, was it not right to order it? But the danger presented by Nicola and Areina was simply that they might reveal secrets that could inconvenience Egwene al’Vere. Oh, Myrelle and the others might be lucky to get off with a birching, and they would certainly consider that more than inconvenient, but discomfort, however great, was not sufficient reason for killing.

  Abruptly, Egwene realized that she was frowning, and Tiana and the two Sitters were watching her, Janya not bothering to hide her curiosity behind a mask of serenity. To cover herself, Egwene shifted her frown to the table where Kairen and Ashmanaille were once more at work. The white on Ashmanaille’s cup had climbed a little farther, but in just that short time, Kairen had caught up. More than caught up, in fact, since her goblet stood twice as high as the cup.

  “Your skill is improving, Kairen,” Egwene said approvingly.

  The Blue looked up at her, and drew a deep breath. Her oval face became an image of cool calm around those icy blue eyes. “There isn’t much skill involved, Mother. All that’s needed is to set the weave and wait.” The last word held a touch of acridness, and for that matter, there had been a slight hesitation before Mother. Kairen had been sent off from Salidar on a very important mission only to see it collapse in a shambles, though from no fault of hers, and she had returned to them in Murandy to find everything she had left behind stood on its head and a girl she remembered as a novice wearing the Amyrlin’s stole. Of late, Kairen had been spending a good deal of time with Lelaine.

  “She is improving; in some things,” Janya said with a pointed frown for the Blue sister. Janya might have been as sure as any other Sitter that the Hall was getting a puppet when they raised Egwene, but she seemed to have accepted that Egwene did wear the stole, and deserved the proper respect from everyone. “Of course, I doubt she’ll catch Leane unless she applies herself, much less yourself, Mother. Young Bodewhin might catch her, in fact. I wouldn’t want to be outdone by a novice, myself, but I suppose some don’t feel that way.” A stain of red crept into Kairen’s cheeks, and her eyes dropped to the goblet.

  Tiana sniffed. “Bodewhin’s a good girl, but she spends more time giggling and playing with the other novices than applying herself if Sha — ” She inhaled sharply. “If she isn’t watched. Yesterday, she and Althyn Conly tried two items at once, just to see what would happen, and the things fused together in a solid lump. Useless for sale, of course, unless you find someone who wants a pair of half-iron cuendillar cups joined at angles. And the Light knows what might have happened to the girls. They didn’t seem to be harmed, but who can say about the next time?”

  “Make sure there isn’t a next time,” Egwene said absently, her attention on Kairen’s cup. The line of white crept upward steadily. When Leane did this weave, black iron turned to white cuendillar as if the iron were sinking quickly into milk. For Egwene herself, the change was faster than the blink of an eye, black to white in a flash. It would have to be Kairen and Leane, but even Leane was barely fast enough. Kairen needed time to improve. Days? Weeks? Whatever was necessary, because anything less meant disaster, for the women involved and for the men who would die fighting in the streets of Tar Valon and maybe for the Tower. Suddenly Egwene was glad she had approved Beonin’s suggestion. Telling Kairen why she needed to try harder might have spurred her efforts, but this was another secret that had to be kept until the time came to unveil it to the world.

  CHAPTER 18

  A Chat with Siuan

  Daishar had been taken away when Egwene left the tent, of course, but the seven-striped stole hanging from the opening of her cowl worked better than an Aes Sedai’s face at making a way through the crowd. She moved in a ripple of curtsies, with the occasional bow thrown in from a Warder, or a craftsman who had some task among the sister’s tents. Some novices squeaked when they saw the Amyrlin’s stole, and whole families stepped hurriedly off the walkway, making their deep curtsies in the mire of the street. Since she had been forced to order punishment for some of the Two Rivers women, word had spread among the novices that the Amyrlin was as hard as Sereille Bagand, and it was best to avoid incurring her temper, which could spring up like wildfire. Not that most of them knew enough history to have any real idea who Sereille had been, but her name had been a byword of iron-handed strictness in the Tower for a hundred years, and the Accepted made sure that novices absorbed tidbits like that. It was a good thing that Egwene’s cowl hid her face. By the tenth time a novice family leaped out of her way like frightened hares, she was gritting her teeth so hard that seeing her face would have cemented her reputation for chewing iron and spitting nails. She had the horrible feeling that in a few hundred years, Accepted would be using her name to frighten novices the way they used Sereille’s now. Of course, there was the little matter of securing the White Tower first. Small irritations had to wait. She thought she could have spit nails without the iron.

  The crowds thinned to nothing around the Amyrlin’s study, which was just a peaked canvas tent with patched brown walls, despite the name. Like the Hall, it was a place to be avoided unless you had business there or were summoned. No one was simply asked to the Hall of the Tower or the Amyrlin’s study. The most innocuous invitation to either was a summons, a fact that turned that simple tent into a haven. Sweeping through the entry flaps, she swung her cloak off with a feeling of relief. A pair of braziers made the tent deliciously warm after out
side, and they gave off very little smoke. A touch of sweet scent lingered from the dried herbs that had been sprinkled on the glowing embers.

  “The way those fool girls behave, you would think I — ” she began in a growl, and cut off abruptly.

  She was not surprised to see Siuan standing beside the writing table in plain blue wool, finely cut but simple, a wide tooled-leather folder held to her chest. Most sisters still seemed to believe, like Delana, that she was reduced to instructing Egwene in protocol and running errands, grudgingly in both cases, but she was always there bright and early, which seemed to have gone unnoticed so far. Siuan had been an Amyrlin who chewed iron, though no one would believe who did not already know. Novices pointed her out as often as they did Leane, but with an air of doubt that she really was who the sisters said. Pretty, if not quite beautiful, with a delicate mouth and dark glossy hair to her shoulders, Siuan looked even younger than Leane, only a few years older than Egwene. She could have been taken for one of the Accepted without the blue-fringed shawl draped across her arms. That was why she never went without the shawl, to avoid embarrassing mistakes. Her eyes had not changed any more than her spirit, however, and they were icy blue awls aimed at the woman whose presence was a surprise.

  Halima was certainly welcome, yet Egwene had not expected to see her stretched out on the brightly colored cushions that were piled along one side of the tent, her head propped on one hand.

  Where Siuan was pretty, the sort of young woman — seemingly young, at least — who made men and women alike smile at her, Halima was stunning, with big green eyes in a perfect face and a full firm bosom, the sort who made men swallow and other women frown. Not that Egwene frowned, or believed the tales carried by women jealous of the way Halima attracted men just by being. She could not help the way she looked, after all. But even if her position as Delana’s secretary was plainly a matter of charity by the Gray sister — a poorly educated country woman, Halima formed her letters with the awkwardness of a young child — Delana usually kept her busy all day with some sort of make-work. She seldom appeared before time for bed, and then it was nearly always because she had heard Egwene had one of her heads. Nisao could do nothing with those headaches, even using the new Healing, but Halima’s massages worked wonders even when the pain had Egwene whimpering.