“The situation, it has altered,” Beonin persisted. She stretched a hand toward Egwene, almost pleading. “Elaida would not have made the proclamation she did concerning the Dragon Reborn unless she had him in hand, one way or another. That flare of saidar was a warning. The Forsaken must be moving, and the White Tower, it must be—”
“Enough,” Egwene cut in. “You are willing to open negotiations with Elaida? With the Sitters still in the Tower?” she amended. Elaida would never talk.
“Yes,” Beonin said fervently. “Matters can be arranged to everyone’s satisfaction. I know they can.”
“Then you have my permission.”
Immediately everyone but Beonin began talking frantically on top of one another, trying to dissuade her, telling her this was insanity. Anaiya shouted as loudly as Sheriam, gesturing emphatically, and Delana’s eyes bulged in what looked like near terror. Some of the outriders began looking toward the sisters as much as they watched the farms they were riding past, and there was a stir among the Warders, who certainly had no need of their bonds at the moment to know their Aes Sedai were agitated, but they held their places. Wise men kept their noses out of the way when Aes Sedai began raising their voices.
Egwene ignored the shouts and arm-waving. She had considered every possibility she could think of for ending this struggle with the White Tower whole and united. She had talked for hours with Siuan, who had more reason than anyone to want to unseat Elaida. If it could have saved the Tower, Egwene would have surrendered to Elaida, forget whether the woman had come to the Amyrlin Seat legally. Siuan had nearly had apoplexy at the suggestion, yet she had agreed, reluctantly, that preserving the Tower superseded every other consideration. Beonin wore such a beautiful smile, it seemed a crime to quench it.
Egwene raised her voice just enough to be heard over the others. “You will approach Varilin and the others Delana named, and arrange to approach the White Tower. These are the terms I will accept: Elaida is to resign and go into exile.” Because Elaida would never accept back the sisters who had rebelled against her. An Amyrlin had no say over how an Ajah governed itself, but Elaida had declared that the sisters who fled the Tower were no longer members of any Ajah. According to her, they would have to beg readmittance to their Ajahs, after serving a penance under her direct control. Elaida would not reunite the Tower, only shatter it worse than it already was. “Those are the only terms I will accept, Beonin. The only terms. Do you understand me?”
Beonin’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she would have fallen from her horse if Morvrin had not caught her, muttering under her breath as she held the Gray upright and slapped her face, not lightly. Everyone else stared at Egwene as though they had never seen her before. Even Delana, who must have planned for something like this to happen from the first word she had said. They had come to a halt with Beonin’s fainting fit, and the ring of soldiers around them drew up at a shouted command from Lord Gareth. Some stared toward the Aes Sedai, their anxiety plain even with their faces hidden behind the bars of their helmets.
“It’s time to get back to camp,” Egwene said. Calmly. What had to be done had to be done. Perhaps surrender would have healed the Tower, but she could not believe it. And now it might come down to Aes Sedai facing one another in the streets of Tar Valon, unless she could find a way to make her plan succeed. “We have work to do,” she said, gathering her reins, “and there isn’t much time left.” She prayed there was enough.
CHAPTER
17
Secrets
Once Delana was sure that her noxious seed had taken root, she murmured that it might be best if they were not seen arriving back at the camp together and slipped away, pushing her mare to a quick trot through the snow and leaving the rest of them to ride on in uneasy silence except for the crunch of the horses’ hooves. The Warders maintained their distance behind, and the escorting soldiers had their attention back on the farms and thickets, without so much as a glance toward the Aes Sedai that Egwene could see, now. Men never knew when to keep their mouths shut, though. Telling a man to be quiet only made him gossip all the harder, just to close friends he could trust, to be sure, as if they in turn would not tell everyone who would listen. The Warders might be different—Aes Sedai always insisted they were, those who had Warders—but no doubt the soldiers would talk of sisters arguing, and no doubt they would say Delana had been sent off with a flea in her ear. The woman had planned this very carefully. Worse than fireweed or stranglervine could grow if that seed was allowed to sprout, but the Gray Sitter had sheltered herself from blame very neatly. Truth almost always did come out in the end, but by the end, truth was often so wrapped around with rumors and speculation and absolute lies that most people never did believe it.
“I trust I don’t have to ask whether any of you had heard about this before.” Egwene said that quite casually, seemingly studying the countryside as they rode, but she was pleased when everyone denied it outright with considerable indignation, including Beonin, who was working her jaw and glaring at Morvrin. Egwene trusted them as far as she dared—they could not have given her their oaths without meaning to hold to every word; not unless they were Black Ajah, a niggling possibility that accounted for most of her caution—yet even oaths of fealty left room for the most loyal people doing the worst possible thing in the belief that it was in your best interest. And people who had been coerced into their oaths could be adept at spotting the gaps and leeways.
“The real question,” she continued, “is what was Delana after?” She had no need to explain, not for these women, every one experienced in the Game of Houses. If all Delana had wanted was to stop negotiations with Elaida while keeping her own name out of it, she could simply have spoken to Egwene alone at any time. Sitters needed no excuse to come to the Amyrlin’s study. Or she could have used Halima, who slept on a pallet in Egwene’s tent most nights despite being Delana’s secretary. Egwene was troubled with headaches, and some nights only Halima’s massages could soothe them so she could sleep. For that matter, an anonymous note might have been sufficient to make her present the Hall with an edict forbidding negotiations. The touchiest quibbler would have to admit that talks to end the war certainly touched on the war. But plainly Delana wanted Sheriam and the others to know, too. Her tale-bearing was an arrow aimed at another target.
“Strife between the Ajah heads and the Sitters,” Carlinya said, as cool as the snow. “Perhaps strife between the Ajahs.” Casually adjusting her cloak, intricately embroidered white-on-white but lined with dense black fur, she might have been discussing the price of a spool of thread. “Why she wants these things, I can’t begin to say, but those will be the results, unless we are very careful, and she could not know we would be careful, or that we have any reason to be, so logically one or both must be her aim.”
“The first answer that comes to mind isn’t always correct, Carlinya,” Morvrin said. “There’s no saying that Delana thought her actions through as carefully as you have, or that she thought along the same lines.” The stout Brown believed more in common sense than logic, or so she said, but in truth she seemed to blend the two, a combination that made her very hardheaded, and suspicious of quick or easy answers. Which was not a bad thing to be. “Delana may be trying to sway some among the Sitters on some issue that’s important to her. Maybe she hopes to get Elaida declared Black Ajah after all. No matter the results, her goal may be something we don’t even suspect. Sitters can be as petty as anyone else. For all we know, she might have a grudge against one of those she named dating back to when she was a novice and they taught her. Better to concentrate on what will come of it than to worry about why until we know more.” Her tone was as placid as her broad face, but Carlinya’s cool composure flickered to cool disdain for a moment. Her rationality made few concessions for human foibles. Or for anyone disagreeing with her.
Anaiya laughed, a sound of almost motherly amusement that made her bay dance a few steps before she reined him back to a walk. A motherly far
mwife amused by the antics of others in the village. Even some sisters were foolish enough to dismiss her that easily. “Don’t sulk, Carlinya. You are very probably right. No, Morvrin, she probably is. In any event, I believe we can squash any hopes she has for discord.” That did not sound amused at all. No Blue was amused by anything that might hamper pulling Elaida down.
Myrelle gave a savage nod of agreement, then blinked in surprise when Nisao said, “Can you afford to stop this, Mother?” The tiny Yellow did not speak up often. “I don’t mean whatever Delana is trying to do. If we can settle on what that is,” she added quickly, making a gesture at Morvrin, who had opened her mouth again. Nisao looked a child alongside the other women, but it was a peremptory gesture. She was Yellow, after all, with all the self-assurance that implied, and unwilling to step back for anyone in most circumstances. “I mean the talk of parley with the Sitters in the Tower.”
For a moment, everyone gaped at her, even Beonin.
“And why would we want to allow that?” Anaiya said finally, in a dangerous voice. “We didn’t come all this way to talk to Elaida.” She was a farmwife with a cleaver hidden behind her back and a mind to use it, now.
Nisao looked up at her and sniffed dismissively. “I didn’t say we wanted it. I asked whether we dare stop it.”
“I hardly see the difference.” Sheriam’s voice was icy, and her face pale. With anger, Egwene thought, but it might have been fear.
“Then think for a while, and you might see it,” Nisao said dryly. Dry the way a knife blade was dry, and equally cutting. “At present, talk of negotiations is limited to five Sitters, and very quiet, but will it remain so? Once word spreads that talks were proposed and rejected, how long before despair sets in? No, hear me out! We all set off full of righteous fury for justice, yet here we sit, staring at the walls of Tar Valon, while Elaida sits in the Tower. We’ve been here nearly two weeks, and for all anyone can see, we may be here two years, or twenty. The longer we sit with nothing happening, the more sisters will start making excuses for Elaida’s crimes. The more they’ll start thinking that we have to mend the Tower, never mind the cost. Do you want to wait until sisters start slipping back to Elaida one by one? I myself do not fancy standing on the riverbank defying the woman with just the Blue Ajah and the rest of you for company. Negotiations will at least let everyone see that something is happening.”
“No one is going to return to Elaida,” Anaiya protested, shifting on her saddle, but she wore a troubled frown, and she sounded as if she could see it happening. The Tower beckoned to every Aes Sedai. Very likely even Black sisters yearned for the Tower to be whole again. And there it stood, just a few miles away, but seemingly out of reach.
“Talk could buy time, Mother,” Morvrin said reluctantly, and no one could put as much reluctance in her voice as she. Her frown was thoughtful, and not at all pleased. “A few more weeks, and Lord Gareth might be able to find the ships he needs to block the harbors. That will alter everything, in our favor. With no way for food to get in or mouths to get out, the city will be starving inside a month.”
Egwene hung on to a smooth face with an effort. There was no real hope of ships to block the harbor, though none of them knew that. Gareth had made it plain enough to her, however, long before leaving Murandy. Originally, he had hoped to buy vessels while they marched north along the Erinin, using them to ferry supplies until they reached Tar Valon, then sinking them in the harbor mouths. Using gateways to reach Tar Valon had put paid to that in more ways than one. Word of the siege had left the city with the first ships sailing after the army arrived, and now, as far north and south as he had sent riders, ship captains were carrying out their business ashore by boat, from anchorages well out in the river. No captain was willing to risk the chance her ship would simply be seized. Gareth made his reports only to her, and his officers only to him, yet any sister could have known if she talked with a few soldiers.
Fortunately, even sisters looking for Warders rarely spoke to soldiers. They were generally accounted a thieving, unlettered lot who only bathed by accident, when they had to wade a stream. Not the kind of man any sister spent time with except when compelled to. It made keeping secrets easier, and some secrets were essential. Including, sometimes, secrets kept from those seemingly on your side. She could remember not thinking that way, but that was a part of the innkeeper’s daughter she had been obliged to leave behind. This was another world, with very different rules from Emond’s Field. A misstep there meant a summons to the Women’s Circle. Here, a misstep meant death or worse, and for more than herself.
“The Sitters remaining in the Tower should be willing to talk,” Carlinya put in, with a sigh. “They have to know that the longer the siege lasts, the more chance Lord Gareth will find his ships. I cannot think how long they will continue talking, though, when they realize we do not mean to surrender.”
“Elaida will insist on that,” Myrelle muttered, yet she did not seem to be arguing, just talking to herself, and Sheriam shivered, drawing her cloak around her as though she had let the cold touch her.
Only Beonin looked happy, sitting eager and upright in her saddle, dark honey hair framing a wide smile inside her hood. She did not press her case, however. She was good at negotiation, so everyone said, and knew when to wait.
“I did say you could begin,” Egwene said. Not that she had meant it for more than a setdown, yet if you were going to live by the Three Oaths, then you had to stand by what you said. She could not wait to hold the Oath Rod. It would be so much easier, then. “Just make sure you’re very careful what you say. Unless they think we all grew wings to fly here, they must suspect we’ve rediscovered Traveling, but they can’t be certain unless someone confirms it. It’s better for us if they stay uncertain. That must be one secret you hold as tightly as you hold the secret of our ferrets in the Tower.”
Myrelle and Anaiya jerked at that, and Carlinya looked around as though fearful, though neither Warders nor soldiers were close enough to hear unless someone shouted. Morvrin merely took on an even more sour expression. Even Nisao looked a little ill, though she had had nothing to do with the decision to send sisters back to the Tower in secret, supposedly answering Elaida’s summons. The Hall might be happy to learn that ten sisters were in the Tower trying to undermine Elaida however they could, even if the effort had borne no apparent fruit so far, but the Sitters would most definitely be unhappy at realizing that it had been kept secret because these women feared that some of the Sitters might actually be Black Ajah. As well for Sheriam and the others to reveal their oaths to Egwene as reveal that. The results for them might not be very different. The Hall had not ordered anyone birched yet, but the way most Sitters chafed at the bit over Egwene’s control of the war, it could hardly come as a surprise if they jumped at the chance to show they still had some authority while simultaneously expressing their displeasure forcefully.
Beonin was apparently the only one who had opposed that decision—at least, until it became apparent the others were going ahead anyway—but she drew a shuddering breath, too, and a tightness settled around her eyes. In her case, the sudden realization of just what she had undertaken might have played its part, too. Just finding someone in the Tower who was willing to talk might prove a daunting task. Eyes-and-ears inside Tar Valon could offer only hearsay about events inside the Tower; news of the Tower itself came only in dribs and drabs, from sisters venturing into Tel’aran’rhiod to glimpse fleeting reflections of the waking world, but every last one of those scraps told of Elaida ruling by edict and caprice, with not even the Hall daring to stand against her. Beonin’s face took on a grayish tinge, till she began to appear more sickly than Nisao. Anaiya and the others looked as bleak as death.
A wave of gloom rose in Egwene. These were among the strongest against Elaida, even the foot-dragging Beonin, who always wanted to talk rather than act. Well, Grays were noted for believing that anything could be solved with enough talk. They should try that on a Trolloc sometim
e, or just a footpad, and see how far they got! Without Sheriam and the rest, resistance to Elaida would have fallen apart before it ever had a chance to coalesce. It nearly had anyway. But Elaida was as firmly seated in the Tower as ever, and after all they had gone through, all they had done, it seemed that even Anaiya saw it all melting away into disaster.
No! Drawing a deep breath, Egwene straightened her shoulders and sat erect in her saddle. She was the lawful Amyrlin, no matter what the Hall had thought they were getting when they raised her, and she had to keep the rebellion against Elaida alive to have any hope of healing the Tower. If that required a pretense of negotiations, it would not be the first time Aes Sedai had pretended to aim at one thing while targeting another. Whatever was required to keep the rebellion alive and pull Elaida down, she would do. Whatever was required.
“Stretch the talks out as long as you can,” she told Beonin. “You can talk about anything, so long as you keep the secrets that need keeping, but agree to nothing, and keep them talking.” Swaying in her saddle, the Gray definitely looked sicker than Anaiya. She almost appeared ready to empty her stomach.
When the camp came into sight, with the sun nearly halfway to its noonday peak, the escort of lightly armored horsemen broke away back toward the river, leaving Egwene and the sisters to ride the last mile across the snow followed by the Warders. Lord Gareth paused as if he wanted to speak with her once more, but finally he turned his bay east after the cavalry, trotting to catch up as they vanished beyond a long, coppiced stand of trees. He would not bring up their disagreement, or their discussions, where anyone else could hear, and he believed that Beonin and the others were just what everyone else thought them, the Ajahs’ watchdogs. She felt a little sad at holding things back from him, but the fewer who knew a secret, the more likely it would remain secret.
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