Soon, Faile found herself tramping though the snow on wobbly legs with a stumbling, dull-eyed Alliandre and a scowling Maighdin, surrounded by gai'shain leading pack animals, carrying large covered baskets on their backs, dragging loaded barrows with the wheels lashed to wooden sleds. The carts and wagons had sleds or broad runners, too, with the wheels tied on top of the snow-shrouded cargo. Snow might be unfamiliar to the Shaido, but they had learned something of traveling in it. Neither Faile nor the other two bore any burdens, though the plump Amadician woman made clear that they would be expected to carry or haul tomorrow and from then on. However many Shaido were in the column, it seemed a great city on the move, if not a nation. Children up to twelve or thirteen rode on the carts and wagons, but everyone else walked. All of the men wore the cadin'sor, but most women wore skirts and blouses and shawls like the Wise Ones, and most of the men carried only a single spear or no weapon at all and looked softer than the others. Soft meaning that there were stones softer than granite.
By the time the Amadician left, without giving her name or saying much more than obey or be punished, Faile realized that she had lost sight of Bain and the rest somewhere in the falling snow. No one tried to make her keep a particular place, so she tramped wearily back and forth across the column, accompanied by Alliandre and Maighdin. Keeping her hands folded together in her sleeves made walking difficult, especially wading through snow, but it did keep them warm. Warmer than the alternative, at least. The wind made sure they kept their hoods well up. Despite the identifying golden belts, neither gai'shain nor Shaido looked at them twice. Despite crossing the column a dozen times or more, however, the search proved fruitless. There were people in white robes everywhere, more than without, and any of those deep cowls could have hidden her other companions.
"We will have to find them tonight," Maighdin said finally. She actually managed to stalk through the deep snow, if in an ungainly fashion. Her blue eyes were fierce inside the cavern of her hood, and she gripped the broad golden chain around her neck with one hand as if wanting to rip it off. "As it is, we're taking ten steps to one for everyone else. Twenty for one. It will do us little good to arrive at tonight's camp too exhausted to move."
On Faile's other side, Alliandre roused from her numbness enough to raise an eyebrow at the decisiveness in Maighdin's voice. Faile merely looked at her maid, but that was enough to set Maighdin blushing and stammering. What had gotten into the woman? Still, it might not be what she expected from a serving woman, but she could not fault Maighdin's spirit in a companion for escape. A pity the woman could not channel more. Faile had had great hopes of that once, until she learned that Maighdin possessed so little ability it was useless.
"Tonight it must be, Maighdin," she agreed. Or however many nights it took. She did not mention that. Hurriedly she surveyed the people nearest them to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. The Shaido, whether in cadin'sor or not, moved through the falling snow purposefully, pressing forward toward an unseen goal. The gai'shain—the other gai'shain—moved with a different purpose. Obey or be punished. "The way they ignore us," she went on, "it should be possible to just fall by the wayside, so long as you don't try under a Shaido's nose. If either of you finds a chance, take it. These robes will help you hide in the snow, and once you find a village, the gold they've so graciously given us will see you back to my husband. He will be following." Not too quickly, she hoped. Not too closely, at least. The Shaido had an army here. A small army, perhaps, compared to some, but larger than Perrin's.
Alliandre's face hardened in determination. "I will not leave without you," she said softly. Softly, yet in firm tones. "I will not take my oath of fealty lightly, my Lady. I will escape with you, or not at all!"
"She speaks for both of us," Maighdin said. "I may be only a simple maid," she wrung the word with scorn, "but I won't leave anyone behind to these… these bandits!" Her voice was not simply firm; it brooked no opposition. Really, after this, Lini would have to have a very long talk with her before she was fit to hold her position!
Faile opened her mouth to argue—no, to command; Alliandre was her sworn woman, and Maighdin her maid, however fire-brained captivity had made her! They would follow her orders!– but she let the words die on her tongue.
Dark shapes approaching through the tide of Shaido and the falling snow resolved into a cluster of Aielwomen with their shawls framing their faces. Therava led them. A murmured word from her, and the others slowed to keep pace behind while Therava joined Faile and her companions. That was to say, she walked alongside them. Her fierce eyes seemed to chill even Maighdin's enthusiasm, not that she gave them more than a glance. To her, they were not worth looking at.
"You are thinking of escape," she began. No one else opened her mouth, but the Wise One added, "Do not try denying it!" in a scornful voice.
"We will try to serve as we should, Wise One," Faile said carefully. She kept her head down in her cowl and made sure not to meet the taller woman's eyes.
"You know something of our ways." Therava sounded surprised, but it vanished quickly. "Good. But you take me for a fool if you think I believe you will serve meekly. I see spirit in the three of you, for wetlanders. Some never try to escape, but only the dead succeed. The living are always brought back. Always."
"I will heed your words, Wise One," Faile said humbly. Always? Well, there had to be a first time. "We all will."
"Oh, very good," Therava murmured. "You might even convince someone as blind as Sevanna. Know this, however, gai'shain. Wetlanders are not as others who wear white. Rather than being released at the end of a year and a day, you will serve until you are too bent and withered to work. I am your only hope of avoiding that fate."
Faile stumbled in the snow, and if Alliandre and Maighdin had not caught her windmilling arms, she would have fallen. Therava gestured impatiently for them to keep moving. Faile felt sick. Therava would help them escape? Chiad and Bain claimed the Aiel knew nothing of the Game of Houses and scorned wetlanders for playing it, but Faile recognized the currents swirling around her now. Currents that would pull all of them under if she misstepped.
"I do not understand, Wise One." She wished her voice did not sound so hoarse, suddenly.
Perhaps that very hoarseness convinced Therava, though. People like her believed in fear as a motivation before any other. At any rate, she smiled. It was not a warm smile, just a curving of thin lips, and the only emotion it conveyed was satisfaction. "All three of you will watch and listen while you serve Sevanna. Each day a Wise One will question you, and you will repeat every word Sevanna said, and who she spoke to. If she talks in her sleep, you will repeat what she mumbles. Please me, and I will see that you are left behind."
Faile wanted no part of this, but refusal was out of the question. If she refused, none of them would survive the night. She was certain of that. Therava would take no chances. They might not even survive until nightfall; this snow would hide three white-clad corpses quickly, and she very much doubted that anyone within sight would so much as protest if Therava decided to slit a few throats then and there. Everyone was focused on moving forward through the snow in any case. They might not even see.
"If she learns of it…" Faile swallowed. The woman was asking them to walk out on a crumbling cliff. No, she was ordering them to. Did the Aiel kill spies? She had never thought to ask Chiad or Bain that. "Will you protect us, Wise One?"
The hard-faced woman caught Faile's chin with steely fingers, pulling her to a halt, pulling her up on her toes. Therava's eyes caught hers just as tightly. Faile's mouth went dry. That stare promised pain. "If she learns of it, gai'shain, I will trice you up for cooking myself. So make sure she does not. Tonight you will serve in her tents. You and a hundred others, so you will not have many labors to distract you from what is important."
A moment's careful study of the three of them, and Therava gave a satisfied nod. She saw three soft wetlanders, too weak to do anything but obey. Without another word sh
e released Faile and turned away, and in moments she and the other Wise Ones were swallowed by the snow.
For a time, the three women struggled on in silence. Faile did not bring up anyone escaping alone, much less give orders. She was certain that if she did, the others would balk again. Aside from anything else, complying now would make it seem Therava had changed their minds, that fear other had. Faile knew enough of the other two women to be sure they would die before admitting that the woman frightened them. Therava certainly frightened her. And I'd swallow my tongue before admitting it aloud, she thought wryly.
"I wonder what she meant by… cooking," Alliandre said finally. "Whitecloak Questioners sometimes turn prisoners over a fire on a spit, I've heard." Maighdin wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering, and Alliandre freed a hand from her sleeves long enough to pat the other woman's shoulder. "Do not worry. If Sevanna has a hundred servants, we may never get close enough to hear anything. And we can choose what we report, so it cannot be traced back to us."
Maighdin laughed bitterly inside her white hood. "You think we still have small choices. We have none. You need to learn about having no choices. That woman didn't pick us out because we have spirit." She almost spat the word. "I'll wager every one of Sevanna's other servants has had that lecture from Therava, too. If we miss a word we should have heard, you can be sure she'll know of it."
"You may be right," Alliandre allowed after a moment. "But you will not speak to me again in that fashion, Maighdin. Our circumstances are trying, to say the least, but you will remember who I am."
"Until we escape," Maighdin replied, "you are Sevanna's servant. If you don't think of yourself as a servant every minute, then you might as well climb onto that spit. And leave room for the rest of us, because you will put us on it, as well."
Alliandre's cowl hid her face, but her back grew stiffer with every word. She was intelligent, and knew how to do what she must, but she had a queen's temper when she did not control it.
Faile spoke before she could erupt. "Until we manage to get away, we are all servants," she said firmly. Light, the last thing she needed was the pair of them squabbling. "But you will apologize, Maighdin. Now!" Head averted, her serving woman mumbled something that might have been an apology. She let it pass for one, in any case. "As for you, Alliandre, I expect you to be a good servant." Alliandre made a noise, a half-protest, that Faile ignored. "If we are to have any chance of escape, we must do as we are told, work hard, and attract as little attention as possible." As if they had not already attracted what seemed all the attention in the world. "And we will tell Therava every time Sevanna sneezes. I don't know what Sevanna will do if she finds out, but I think we all have a good idea of what Therava will do if we displease her."
That was enough to settle them all back into muteness. They did all have a good idea of what Therava would do, and killing might not be the worst of it.
The snow faded away to a few scattered flakes by midday. Dark roiling clouds still hid the sun, but Faile decided it must be near enough midday, because they were fed. No one stopped moving, but hundreds of gai'shain made their way through the column with baskets and scrips full of bread and dried beef, and water bags that contained water this time, cold enough to make her teeth ache. Strangely, she felt no more hungry than hours of walking through snow would account for. Perrin had been Healed once, she knew, and he had been ravenous for two days. Perhaps it was because her injuries had been so much less than his. She noticed that Alliandre and Maighdin ate no more than she.
Healing made her think of Galina, all the same questions that boiled down to an incredulous why? Why would an Aes Sedai—she must be Aes Sedai—why would she toady for Sevanna and Therava? For anyone? An Aes Sedai might help them escape. Or she might not. She might betray them, if it suited her purposes. Aes Sedai did what they did, and you had no alternative but to accept that unless you were Rand al'Thor. But he was ta'veren, and the Dragon Reborn on top of it; she was a woman with very few resources at the moment, and a considerable danger hanging over her head. Not to mention the heads of those she was responsible for. Any help would be welcome, from anyone. The brisk breeze failed while she prodded at Galina from every angle she could think of, and the snow came again, growing heavier, until she could not see ten paces. She could not decide whether to trust the woman.
Abruptly she became aware of another white-robed woman watching her, almost hidden by the snow. Not enough snow to mask that wide, jeweled belt, though. Faile touched her companions on the arm and nodded toward Galina.
When Galina saw she had been seen, she came to trudge along between Faile and Alliandre. She still did not move with any grace in the snow, but she seemed more used to walking in it than they. There was nothing of fawning about her, now. Her round face was hard within her hood, her eyes sharp. But she did keep turning her head, darting wary glances to see who else was nearby. She looked like a housecat pretending to be a leopard. "You know who I am?" she demanded, but in a voice that would have been inaudible ten feet off. "What I am?"
"You seem to be Aes Sedai," Faile said carefully. "On the other hand, you have a very peculiar place here for an Aes Sedai." Neither Alliandre nor Maighdin gave the slightest start of surprise. Plainly they had already seen the Great Serpent ring that Galina was thumbing nervously.
Color bloomed in Galina's cheeks, and she tried to make it out as anger. "What I do here is of great importance to the Tower, child," she said coldly. Her expression said she had reasons they could not begin to comprehend. Her eyes darted, trying to pierce the falling snow. "I must not fail. That is all you need to know."
"We need to know whether we can trust you," Alliandre said calmly. "You must have trained in the Tower or you would not know Healing, but women earn the ring without earning the shawl, and I cannot believe you are Aes Sedai." It seemed Faile had not been the only one puzzling over the woman.
Galina's plump mouth hardened, and she clenched a fist at Alliandre, to threaten or show her ring, or both. "You think they will treat you differently because you wear a crown? Because you used to wear one?" There was no doubt of her anger, now. She forgot to keep lockout for listeners, and her voice was acid. Spittle flew with the force of her tirade. "You will bring Sevanna wine and wash her back just like the rest. Her servants are all nobles, or rich merchants, or men and women who know how to serve nobles. Every day she has five of them scrapped, to encourage the rest, so they all carry tales to her hoping to curry favor. The first time you try to escape, they will switch the soles of your feet until you cannot walk, and tie you twisted up like a blacksmith's puzzle to carry on a cart until you can. The second time will be worse, and the third worse again. There is a fellow here who used to be a Whitecloak. He tried to escape nine times. A hard man, but the last time they brought him back, he was begging and crying before they even began stripping him for punishment."
Alliandre did not take the harangue well. She puffed up indignantly, and Maighdin growled, "Was that what happened to you? Whether Aes Sedai or Accepted, you are a disgrace to the Tower!"
"Be silent when your betters speak, wilder!" Galina snapped.
Light, if this went any further, they would be screaming at one another next. "If you mean to help us escape, then say so," Faile told the silk-clad Aes Sedai. She did not really doubt that about the woman. Just everything else. "If not, what do you want with us?"
Ahead of them a wagon loomed out of the snow, leaning where one of the sleds had come loose. Directed by a Shaido with the arms and shoulders of a blacksmith, gai'shain were rigging a lever to hoist the wagon enough for the sled to be lashed back in place. Faile and the others kept silent as they passed.
"Is this really your liege lady, Alliandre?" Galina demanded once they were out of earshot of the men around the wagon. Her face was still flushed with anger, her tone slicing. "Who is she that you would swear to her?"
"You can ask me," Faile said coldly. Burn Aes Sedai and their bloody secrecy! Sometimes she thought an Aes Sed
ai would not tell you the sky was blue unless she saw advantage in it. "I am the Lady Faile t'Aybara, and that's as much as you need to know. Do you mean to help us?"
Galina stumbled to one knee, peering at Faile so hard that she began to wonder whether she had made a mistake. A moment later, she knew she had.
Regaining her feet, the Aes Sedai smiled unpleasantly. She no longer seemed angry. In fact, she looked as pleased as Therava had, and worse, in much the same way. "t'Aybara," she mused. "You are Saldaean. There is a young man, Perrin Aybara. Your husband? Yes, I see I've hit the target. That would explain Alliandre's oath, certainly. Sevanna has grandiose plans for a man whose name is linked to your husband. Rand al'Thor. If she knew she had you in her hands… Oh, never fear she will learn from me." Her gaze hardened, and suddenly she seemed a leopard in truth. A starving leopard. "Not if you all do as I tell you. I will even help you get away."
"What do you want of us?" Faile said, more insistently than she felt. Light, she had been angry at Alliandre for drawing attention to them by naming herself, and now she had done the same. Or worse. And I thought I was concealing myself by hiding my father's name, she thought bitterly.
"Nothing too trying," Galina replied. "You marked Therava, of course? Of course, you did. Everyone notices Therava. She keeps something in her tent, a smooth white rod about a foot long. It is in a red chest with brass banding that is never locked. Bring it to me, and I will take you with me when I go."
"A small thing to do, it seems," Alliandre said doubtfully. "But if so, why do you not take it yourself?"
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