Dipping her pen, she saw a woman walk past with an infant feeding at her breast. Half hidden in the woman’s cloak, the child looked no larger than Sedrin, yet she was ignoring the line quite pointedly. “Why is that woman not in line? Is her babe too old?”
Lady a’Conlin’s smile faded, and her eyebrows rose. The temperature of her voice dropped. “I’m not accustomed to keeping track of every brat born in the camp.” She pointed imperiously at the paper on the table. The ring on that finger mounted a large but visibly flawed firedrop. “Put down my name. I want to return to the warmth of my tent.”
“I will write your name, and the other information we require, just as soon as you tell me about that woman,” Moiraine said, trying for that voice of command that Siuan used.
The attempt did not work very well. Meri a’Conlin’s brows knitted in a frown, and her lips bunched belligerently. She appeared on the point of bursting. Or striking out. Before she could do either, the round-faced serving woman spoke up hurriedly, ducking in the semblance of a curtsy every few words.
“Careme’s girl is the same age as Lord Sedrin to the day, begging your pardon for speaking, my Lady, begging your pardon, Aes Sedai. But the fellow Careme wanted to marry, he run off thinking to become a Warder, and she don’t like who she did marry half so well.” She gave an emphatic shake of her head. “Oh, she wants nothing from the White Tower, Careme don’t.”
“Even so, she will receive the bounty,” Moiraine said firmly. Tamra had said to get every name, after all. She wondered whether Careme’s love had achieved his goal. Few men possessed the necessary skills. A Warder did not simply use weapons, he was a weapon, and that was only the first requirement. “What is her full name? And the child’s.”
“She’s Careme Mowly, Aes Sedai, and her girl’s Ellya.” Wonder of wonders, Lady a’Conlin appeared content to let her serving woman answer. Not only that, her scowl had vanished, and she was studying Moiraine warily. Perhaps a firm tone was all that was needed. That and being thought Aes Sedai.
“From what town or village?” Moiraine asked, writing.
“And where exactly was your girl born?” she heard Siuan saying. Siuan had doffed her gloves, a nameday present from Moiraine, to protect them from ink stains. The impatient silk-clad woman in front of her might have been a beauty if not for an unfortunate nose. She was also quite tall, nearly a hand taller than Siuan. “In a haybarn a mile west of here? No, not the place you’d expect to give birth to your heir. Perhaps you shouldn’t have been out riding so close to your term, not to mention the fighting that was going on. Now, do you know any woman who’s had a child in the last sixteen days and isn’t here? What is her name? No backtalk, my Lady. Just answer the question.” The lady did, with no further complaint. But then, Siuan’s manner allowed for no complaints or difficulties. She neither raised her voice nor spoke harshly; she was just obviously in charge. How did she do it?
Whatever thoughts Moiraine had of adventure in hunting for the Dragon Reborn faded in short order, along with the thrill of being outside the city walls. Asking the same questions over and over and writing down the answers, carefully setting aside the filled pages to dry and starting anew on a fresh sheet, soon became boring drudgery. The only breaks in the routine were pauses to warm her hands over the brazier at her end of the table. An indescribable pleasure under the circumstances, with her fingers aching from the cold, yet hardly anything to thrill over. The only surprise was the number of women who were not Murandian. Soldiers gone to war, it seemed, frequently acquired foreign-born wives. The anvils started up again after a time, and some fellows working on a wagon began hammering away as well, trying to force a new wheel into place. The clanging threatened to give her a headache. It was all quite miserable.
She made a special effort not to take out her discontent on the women she spoke to, though a handful did try to give her cause. Some of the noblewomen had to be dissuaded from reciting their complete lineage back to Artur Hawkwing’s day and beyond, and a few of the plainly clad women wanted to argue against giving the father’s name or telling where they came from, glowering suspiciously as though this might be some sort of trick to bilk them of the coins, but it took no more than a level look to quell most. Not even Murandians wanted to go too far with women they thought Aes Sedai, a notion that was spreading fast. It made the lines move a little more smoothly, if not in any way that could be called swift.
Her eyes kept drifting to the women she saw walking by who were great with child. Some paused to look at the table as though thinking of their turn to stand in line. One of them might be the mother of the Dragon Reborn, at least if she chose to journey to Dragonmount to give birth for some reason. The only two infants born that day, after Gitara’s Foretelling, were girls and, like every other newborn, birthed within a mile of the camp. Some other Accepted was going to find the boychild without knowing what she had found. She herself likely would not hear of it for years. Light, but it hardly seemed fair. She knew, and it meant nothing.
Coming onto midday, Moiraine looked up to find a slim young woman in dark wool standing before her with a blanket-wrapped child in the crook of her arm.
“Susa Wynn, Aes Sedai,” the woman said meekly. “That’s me. This is my Cyril,” she added, stroking the boy’s head.
Moiraine might have had no experience of babies, but she could tell a child of six or seven months from a newborn. As she opened her mouth to tell the woman not to try her for a fool, Siuan laid a hand briefly on her arm. That was all—Siuan never stopped questioning the woman whose name she was writing—but it made Moiraine take another look. Susa Wynn was not slim, she was near to gaunt, with deep shadows beneath her eyes and a lost, desperate look about her. Her dress and cloak were worn and much-darned. Neatly darned, but in places there seemed to be more darning than original dress.
“The father’s name?” Moiraine asked, playing for time to decide. This child was too old by far, and that was that. Except….
“Jac, Aes Sedai. Jac Wynn. He….” Tears welled in the woman’s sunken eyes. “Jac died before the fighting even started. Slipped in the snow and cracked his head on a stone. Hardly seems right, to come all this way and die for slipping in the snow.” The baby began to cough, a chesty sound, and Susa bent over him anxiously.
Moiraine was not certain whether it was the child’s cough, or the tears, or a dead husband, but she entered the woman’s particulars carefully. The Tower could afford a hundred gold crowns for a woman and child who might die without some sort of help. The child seemed plump enough, true, but Susa clearly was starving. And Meri a’Conlin intended to frame her coins. It was all she could do not to demand to know who Jac Wynn had served. Whoever it was should never have allowed matters to come to this state! Noble blood carried as many responsibilities as rights! More, as she had been taught. On top of that, where were the woman’s friends? Murandians!
“The Light bless you, Aes Sedai.” Susa tried to gulp back more tears and failed. She did not sob; the tears simply spilled down her cheeks. “The Light shine on you forever.”
“Yes, yes,” Moiraine said gently. “Do you have a Reader in this camp?” No, Murandians had another name for women who knew herbs and cures. What was it? Verin Sedai had lectured on the subject the first year she and Siuan were Accepted. “A Wisdom? A Wise Woman?” At Susa’s nod, she took her purse from her belt pouch and pressed a silver penny into the woman’s free hand. “Take your child to her.”
That brought still more weeping and more thanks, and an attempt to kiss her hand that she barely avoided. Light, Susa was not her liege woman. It was hardly decent.
“With the bounty to come,” Siuan whispered once Susa had finally gone, “the Wise Woman would have given credit.” She did not move her eyes from what she was writing in a precise hand, but what Moiraine could see of her face expressed disapproval. Siuan was very careful with the little money she had.
Moiraine sighed—done was done—and then again when she realized that a flurry of
whispers was rushing along the two lines of women. Word that one of the “Aes Sedai” had accepted Susa Wynn’s child spread like wildfire in dry grass, and in no time she saw women hurrying to join the end of the line, at least one leading her child by the hand.
“My Danil, he’s been real peaky lately, Aes Sedai,” the roundfaced woman in front of her said with a hopeful smile. And a glint of avarice in her pale eyes. The infant cradled in her arms made happy, burbling noises. “I surely wish I could afford to see the Wise Woman.” The woman’s gray woolen dress looked almost new.
Moiraine’s temper flared, and for once, she made no effort to force it down. “I could Heal him,” she replied coolly. “Of course, he is very young. He might not survive. Very likely not.” At that age, he certainly would not survive the rigors of Healing, and besides, that was one of the few weaves that Accepted were forbidden to make without a sister watching. A mistake with Healing could harm more than the weaver. The woman did not know any of that, however, and when Moiraine stretched out a gloved hand, she jerked back, clutching the infant protectively, her eyes nearly coming out of her head with fright.
“No, Aes Sedai. Thank you, but no. I…I’ll scrape together the coin, I will.”
Temper faded—it never lasted long—and for a moment, Moiraine felt ashamed of herself. Only for a moment. The Tower could afford to be generous, yet no one could be allowed to take Aes Sedai for fools. A good part of the Tower’s power came from the belief that sisters were the very opposite of fools in every way. Whispers again flashed down the lines, and the woman leading her child by the hand scurried away more quickly than she had come. At least that would not have to be dealt with. There would have been no way to avoid harsh words with someone who thought the Tower could be gulled so easily.
“Well done,” Siuan murmured, her pen scratching away. “Very well done.”
“Danil,” Moiraine said, writing. “And your name?” Her smile was for the compliment, but Danil’s mother seemed to take it as a sign of forgiveness, offering her answers in a relieved voice. Moiraine was glad to hear it. Many people feared the White Tower, occasionally with reason—the Tower could be stern when it must—but fear was a poor tool, and one that always cut the user eventually. She had learned that long before coming to the Tower.
Once the sun passed its zenith, Siuan and she went to fetch the food from their saddlebags. There was certainly no point in asking one of Steler’s men to do it. They were already squatting on their heels, making a meal from dried meat and flatbread, not far from where their mounts were tethered on one of the horselines. None looked ready to stir a foot short of being attacked. But Steler bowed his head to her and Siuan as they turned from their mounts, only the slightest bob, yet approving she thought. Men were decidedly…odd.
With less than half the women’s names recorded, she expected grumbling at least, but those remaining scattered to find their own food without a single complaint. A dark woman with a Tairen accent brought a battered tin teapot filled to the brim with hot, dark tea to the table, and a pair of green mugs with cracked glazing, and a lean, gray-haired woman brought two steaming wooden tankards that gave off the scent of hot spiced wine. Her leathery face looked as though a smile had never touched it.
“Susa Wynn’s too proud to take more than a little food from anybody, except for her babe,” she said, in a deep voice for a woman, as she set the tankards down. “What you did was kindly done, and well.” With a nod, she turned and strode away across the snow, her back as straight as a Guardsman on parade. That was certainly a peculiar manner with an Aes Sedai.
“She knows who we really are,” Siuan said softly, picking up the tankard in both hands to let the warmth soak in. Moiraine did the same, gloves or no. Poor Siuan’s fingers must have been freezing.
“She will not tell,” Moiraine said after a moment, and Siuan nodded. Not that the truth would cause any real problems, not with Steler and his men present, but it was better to avoid the embarrassment. To think that one of the commoners would know an Aes Sedai’s face when none of the noblewomen had. An Aes Sedai’s face or an Accepted’s dress. Or both. “She went to the Tower when she was young, I think.” A woman who could not be taught to channel was sent away, yet she would have seen Aes Sedai and Accepted.
Siuan gave her a sideways look, as though she had said water was wet. Sometimes it could be irritating when Siuan puzzled things out ahead of her.
They spoke little while they ate their bread and fruit and cheese. Novices were expected to keep silent during meals, and Accepted to maintain a measure of dignity, so they had grown accustomed to eating quietly. The wine they barely touched—Accepted had wine with meals, but watered, and it would never do for one of them to grow tipsy—yet Moiraine was surprised to find that she had devoured every scrap of the meal she had been certain was too much. Perhaps being out in the cold had increased her appetite.
She was folding up the cloths the food had been bundled in—and wishing there had been a few more of the dried apricots—when Siuan suddenly muttered, “Oh, no.”
Moiraine looked up, and her heart sank.
Two sisters were riding into the camp, slowly picking their way between the tents and wagons. In the current state of affairs, women dressed in silk yet moving about the countryside without an entourage had to be sisters, and these were followed by just one man, a dark fellow in a cloak that shifted colors and blended with what lay behind him so that parts of him and parts of his black gelding seemed not to be there at all. His eyes never rested long in one place; he made the Tower guards seem half-asleep lapdogs compared to a hunting leopard. A Warder’s cloak was a disconcerting sight, and murmurs rose in the camp, people gaping and pointing. The blacksmiths lowered their hammers in silence once more.
It was not the appearance of just any sisters that made Moiraine’s stomach feel hollow. She recognized the faces framed by the hoods of their cloaks. Meilyn Arganya, with her silver-gray hair and thrusting chin, was one of the most respected women in the Tower. It was said that no one had a bad word for Meilyn. By herself, she would not have given Moiraine a moment’s pause. The other, however, was Elaida a’Roihan. Light, what was she doing here? Elaida had become advisor to the Queen of Andor nearly three years ago. She did return to the Tower for occasional visits, to confer with the Amyrlin on events in Andor, but Siuan and Moiraine always learned of her arrival very quickly, to their regret.
They offered curtsies as soon as the sisters came near, and Siuan burst out with, “We have permission to be here.” Even Meilyn might become upset if she began to berate them only to learn she had no cause. Elaida would be furious; she absolutely hated looking foolish. “The Amyrlin Seat ordered us—”
“We know about that,” Meilyn cut in mildly. “The way word is spreading, I suspect the cats in Seleisin know by now.” From her tone, you could not say whether she agreed with Tamra’s decision. Meilyn’s smooth face never showed any hint of emotion. Her startling blue eyes held serenity as a cup held water. With a dark-gloved hand she carefully adjusted one of her divided skirts, so slashed with white that it seemed white trimmed with blue. She was one of the relatively few Whites to have a Warder; wrapped up in questions of rationality and philosophy, the greater number saw no need. Moiraine wished she would dismount. Meilyn’s dappled gelding was tall, and she herself was as tall as most men. Most Cairhienin men, at least. Looking up at her in the saddle threatened to give Moiraine an ache in her neck.
“You are surprised to see me?” Elaida said, looking down from her fine-ankled bay mare. Her brocaded dress was not a muted red or a faint red, but a bright hue, as though she were screaming her Ajah to the world. Her cloak, lined with black fur, was exactly the same shade. A color fit for a Tinker’s wagon, Moiraine thought. Elaida was smiling, yet that failed to lessen the severity of her face. She might have been beautiful except for that. Everything about her was severe. “I reached Tar Valon just before the Aiel, and I’ve been busy since, but never fear, I will call on both of y
ou.”
Moiraine had been sure her heart could sink no further, but she had been mistaken. It was very hard not to groan in despair.
Meilyn sighed. “You pay these girls too much mind, Elaida. They’ll get above themselves if they start thinking they’re your pets. They may already.”
Moiraine exchanged shocked glances with Siuan. Pets? Goats staked out for lions, perhaps, but never pets.
Since gaining the shawl, Elaida had never deferred to anyone other than the Amyrlin Seat or a Sitter that Moiraine had seen, yet she bowed her head and murmured, “As you say, Meilyn. But it seems possible they might test before the end of the year. I expect them to, and I expect them to pass easily. I’ll accept nothing less from either.” Even that lacked her usual intensity. Normally, Elaida seemed as stiff-necked as a bull. Normally, she browbeat everyone who crossed her path.
The White sister gave a slight shrug, as though the matter was not important enough to say more. “Do you children have everything you need? Good. Some of you children came very poorly prepared, I must say. How many names do you have left to take here?”
“About fifty, Meilyn Sedai,” Siuan told her. “Maybe a few more.”
Meilyn glanced up at the sun, its fall toward the western horizon well begun. The dark clouds that threatened snow were moving south, leaving behind clear sky. “In that case, write quickly. You must be back in the Tower before dark, you know.”
“Are all the camps like this?” Moiraine asked. “I would think that men fighting a war would have their minds on that, not on….” She trailed off, her face heating.
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