She could not help a surge of satisfaction. Early this morning in the Sun Palace, Sorilea had demanded to know what shamed wetlanders most. Kiruna and the other sisters did not understand; they made no real efforts to see what was happening out here, perhaps fearing what they might learn, fearing the strains knowledge might put on their oaths. They still struggled to justify taking the path fate had pushed them down, but Verin already had reasons for the path she followed, and purpose. She also had a list in her pouch, ready to hand to Sorilea when they were alone. No need to let the others know. Some of the captives she had never met, but she thought that for most women, that list summed up the weaknesses Sorilea was seeking. Life was going to grow much more difficult for the women in black. And her own efforts would be aided no end, with luck.
Two great hulking Aielmen, each an axe handle wide across the shoulders, sat right outside the tent, seemingly absorbed in a game of cat’s cradle, but they had looked around immediately when her head appeared through the tentflaps. Coram had risen like a serpent uncoiling for all of his size, and Mendan waited only to tuck the string away. Had she been standing straight, her head barely would have reached the chest of either. She could have turned them both upside down and paddled them, of course. Had she dared. She had been tempted from time to time. They were her assigned guides, her protection against misunderstandings in the camp. And doubtless they reported everything she said or did. In some ways she would have preferred to have Tomas with her, but only some. Keeping secrets from your Warder was far more difficult than keeping them from strangers.
“Please tell Colinda that I’m done with Turanna Norill,” she told Coram, “and ask her to send Katerine Alruddin to me.” She wanted to deal first with the sisters who had no Warders. He nodded once before trotting off without speaking. These Aielmen were not much for civility.
Mendan settled into a crouch, watching her with startlingly blue eyes. One of them stayed with her no matter what she said. A strip of red cloth was tied around Mendan’s temples and marked with the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai. Like the other men who wore that, like the Maidens, he seemed to be waiting for her to make a mistake. Well, they were not the first, and a great way from the most dangerous. Seventy-one years had passed since she had last made a serious mistake.
She gave Mendan a deliberately vague smile and started to pull back into the tent, when suddenly something caught her eye and held her like a vise. If the Aielman had tried to cut her throat right then, she might not have noticed.
Not far from where she stood stooped over in the mouth of the tent, nine or ten women knelt in a row, rolling the grindstones on flat stone handmills much like those on any isolated farms. Other women brought grain in baskets and took away the coarse flour. The nine or ten women knelt in dark skirts and pale blouses, folded scarves holding their hair back. One, noticeably shorter than the rest, the only one with hair that did not hang to her waist or below, wore not even a single necklace or bracelet. She glanced up, the resentment on her sun-pinkened face sharpening as she met Verin’s gaze. Only for an instant, though, before she cringed hurriedly to her task.
Verin jerked back into the tent, her stomach roiling queasily. Irgain was Green Ajah. Or rather, had been Green, before Rand al’Thor stilled her. Being shielded dulled and fuzzed the bond to your Warder, but being stilled snapped it as surely as death. One of Irgain’s two apparently had fallen over dead from the shock, and the other had died trying to kill thousands of Aiel without making any effort to escape. Very likely Irgain wished she also were dead. Stilled. Verin pressed both hands to her middle. She would not sick up. She had seen worse than a stilled woman. Much worse.
“There’s no hope, is there?” Turanna muttered in a thick voice. She wept silently, staring into the silver cup in her trembling hands at something distant and horrifying. “No hope.”
“There is always a way if you only look for it,” Verin said, absently patting the woman’s shoulder. “You must always look.”
Her thoughts raced, and none touched Turanna. Irgain’s stilling made her belly feel full of rancid grease, the Light knew. But what was the woman doing grinding grain? And dressed like the Aiel women! Had she been put to work just there so Verin could see? Foolish question; even with a ta’veren as strong as Rand al’Thor only a few miles away, there was some limit to the number of coincidences she would accept. Had she miscalculated? At worst, it could not be a large error. Only, small mistakes sometimes proved as fatal as large. How long could she hold out if Sorilea decided to break her? A distressingly short time, she suspected. In some ways, Sorilea was as hard as anyone she had ever met. And not a thing she could say that would stop it. A worry for another day. There was no point getting ahead of herself.
Kneeling, she put a little effort into comforting Turanna, but not too much. Soothing words that sounded as hollow to her as they did to Turanna, judging by the bleakness in her eyes. Nothing could change Turanna’s circumstances except Turanna, and that had to come from within herself. The White sister just wept harder, making no sound as her shoulders shook, tears streaming down her face. The entry of two Wise Ones and a pair of young Aielmen who could not straighten up inside the tent was something of a relief. For Verin, anyway. She rose and curtsied smoothly, but none of them had any interest in her.
Daviena was a green-eyed woman with yellow-red hair, Losaine gray-eyed with dark hair that only showed glints of red in the sun, both head-and-shoulders taller than she, both wearing the expressions of women given a grimy task they wished on someone else. Neither could channel strongly enough to have any certainty of holding Turanna by herself, but they linked as though they had been forming circles all their lives, the light of saidar around one seeming to blend with that around the other despite the fact that they stood apart. Verin forced her face into a smile to keep from frowning. Where had they learned that? She would have wagered all she possessed that they had not known how only a few days ago.
Everything went quickly then, and smoothly. As the crouching men lifted Turanna to her feet by the arms, she let the silver cup fall. Empty, luckily for her. She did not struggle, which was just as well, considering that either could have carried her off under one arm like a sack of grain, but her mouth hung open, emitting a wordless keening. The Aiel paid no heed. Daviena, focusing the circle, assumed the shield, and Verin let go of the Source completely. None of them trusted her enough to let her hold saidar without a known reason, no matter what oaths she had sworn. Neither appeared to notice, but they surely would have had she held on. The men hauled Turanna away, her bare feet dragging across the layered carpets that floored the tent, and the Wise Ones followed them out. And that was that. What could be done with Turanna had been done.
Letting out a long breath, Verin sagged onto one of the bright, tasseled cushions. A fine golden ropework tray sat on the carpets next to her. Filling one of the mismatched silver cups from a pewter pitcher, she drank deeply. This was thirsty work, and tiring. Hours of daylight remained, yet she felt as if she had carried a heavy chest twenty miles. Over hills. The cup went back onto the tray, and she pulled the small, leather-bound notebook from behind her belt. It always took a little time for them to fetch those she asked for. A few moments to peruse her notes—and make some—would not be amiss.
There was no need for notes about the captives, but the sudden appearance of Cadsuane Melaidhrin, three days ago now, gave cause for concern. What was Cadsuane after? The woman’s companions could be dismissed, but Cadsuane herself was a legend, and even the believable parts of the legend made her very dangerous indeed. Dangerous and unpredictable. She took a pen from the small wooden writing case she always carried, reached toward the stoppered ink bottle in its scabbard. And another Wise One entered the tent.
Verin scrambled to her feet so quickly that she dropped her notebook. Aeron could not channel at all, yet Verin made a much deeper curtsy for the graying woman than she had for Daviena and Losaine. At the bottom of her dip, she let go of her skirts to reac
h for her book, but Aeron’s fingers reached it first. Verin straightened, calmly watching the taller woman thumb through the pages.
Sky blue eyes met hers. A winter sky. “Some pretty drawings and a great deal about plants and flowers,” Aeron said coldly. “I see nothing concerning the questions you were sent to ask.” She thrust the book at Verin more than handed it to her.
“Thank you, Wise One,” Verin said meekly, tucking the book back safely behind her belt. She even added another curtsy for good measure, just as deep as the first. “I have the habit of noting down what I see.” One day she would have to write out the cipher she used in her notebooks—a lifetime’s worth of them filled cupboards and chests in her rooms above the White Tower library—one day, but she hoped not soon. “As for the . . . um . . . prisoners, so far they all say variations of the same thing. The Car’a’carn was to be housed in the Tower until the Last Battle. His . . . um . . . mistreatment . . . began because of an escape attempt. But you know that already, of course. Never fear, though; I’m sure I will learn more.” All true, if not all of the truth; she had seen too many sisters die to risk sending others to the grave without a very good reason. The trouble was deciding what might cause that risk. The manner of young al’Thor’s kidnapping, by an embassy supposedly treating with him, enraged the Aiel to the point of murder, yet what she called his “mistreatment” barely angered them at all as far as she could tell.
Gold and ivory bracelets clattered softly as Aeron adjusted her dark shawl. She peered down as though trying to read Verin’s thoughts. Aeron seemed to stand high among the Wise Ones, and while Verin occasionally had seen a smile crease those dark-tanned cheeks, a warm and easy smile, it was never directed at an Aes Sedai. We never suspected that you would be the ones to fail, she had told Verin somewhat murkily. There had been nothing unclear in the rest of it, however. Aes Sedai have no honor. Give me one hair of suspicion, and I will strap you till you cannot stand, with my own hands. Give me two hairs, and I will stake you out for the vultures and the ants. Verin blinked up at her, trying to appear open. And meek; she must not forget meek. Docile, and compliant. She did not feel fear. In her time she had faced harder stares, from women—and men—without so much as Aeron’s slim compunction about ending her life. But a good deal of effort had gone into being sent to ask those questions. She could not afford to waste it now. If only these Aiel let more show on their faces.
Abruptly she became aware that they were no longer alone in the tent. Two flaxen-haired Maidens had entered with a black-robed woman a hand shorter than either. They were half-holding her upright. At one side stood Tialin, a lanky redhead wearing a grim expression behind the light of saidar, shielding the black-robed prisoner. The sister’s hair hung in sweat-soaked ringlets to her shoulders and strands that clung to her face, which bore so much dirt that Verin did not recognize her at first. High cheekbones, but not very high, a nose with just the hint of a hook to it, and the slightest tilt to the brown eyes. . . . Beldeine. Beldeine Nyram. She had instructed the girl in a few novice classes.
“If I may ask,” she said carefully, “why was she brought? I asked for another.” Beldeine had no Warder despite being Green—she had been raised to the shawl barely three years ago, and Greens were often especially choosy about their first—but if they started bringing whoever they selected, the next might have two or three Warders. She thought she could deal with two more today, but not if either had even one Warder. And she doubted they would give her a second chance at any of them.
“Katerine Alruddin escaped last night,” Tialin nearly spat, and Verin gasped.
“You let her escape?” she burst out without thinking. Tiredness gave no excuse, but the words spilled from her tongue before she could stop them. “How could you be so foolish? She’s Red! And neither a coward nor weak in the Power! The Car’a’carn could be in danger! Why were we not told of this when it happened?”
“It was not discovered until this morning,” one of the Maidens growled. Her eyes could have been polished sapphires. “A Wise One and two Cor Darei were poisoned, and the gai’shain who brought them drink was found with his throat cut.”
Aeron arched an eyebrow at the Maiden coldly. “Did she speak to you, Carahuin?” Both Maidens suddenly became engrossed in the task of keeping Beldeine on her feet. Aeron merely glanced at Tialin, but the red-haired Wise One lowered her gaze. Verin was the next recipient of those attentions. “Your concern for Rand al’Thor does you . . . honor,” Aeron said grudgingly. “He will be guarded. You have no need to know more. Or so much.” Abruptly her tone hardened. “But apprentices do not use that tone with Wise Ones, Verin Mathwin Aes Sedai.” The last words were a sneer.
Smothering a sigh, Verin all but fell into another deep curtsy, a part of her wishing she were even as slim as she had been on arriving in the White Tower. She was not really constructed for all this bending and bobbing. “Forgive me, Wise One,” she said humbly. Escaped! The circumstances made everything plain, to her if not to the Aiel. “Apprehension must have loosened my wits.” A pity she had no way to make sure Katerine met with a fatal accident. “I will do my best to remember in the future.” Not so much as the flicker of an eyelash told whether Aeron accepted that. “May I assume her shield, Wise One?”
Aeron nodded without looking at Tialin, and Verin quickly embraced the Source, taking up the shield Tialin released. It never ceased to amaze her that women who could not channel gave orders so freely to women who could. Tialin was not much weaker in the Power than Verin, yet she watched Aeron nearly as warily as the Maidens did, and when the Maidens hurried out of the tent at a gesture of Aeron’s hand, leaving Beldeine wavering where she stood, Tialin was only a step behind.
Aeron did not go, however, not immediately. “You will not speak of Katerine Alruddin to the Car’a’carn,” she said. “He has enough to occupy his thoughts without giving him trifles to worry over.”
“I will say nothing to him about her,” Verin agreed quickly. Trifles? A Red with Katerine’s strength was no trifle. Perhaps a note. It needed thought.
“Be certain to hold your tongue, Verin Mathwin, or you will use it to howl.”
There seemed nothing to say to that, so Verin concentrated on meekness and docility, making yet another curtsy. Her knees wanted to groan.
Once Aeron departed, Verin allowed herself a sigh of relief. She had been afraid Aeron intended to remain. Gaining permission to be alone with the prisoners had required nearly as much effort as getting Sorilea and Amys to decide they needed to be questioned, and by someone intimate with the White Tower. If they ever learned they had been guided to that decision. . . . It was a worry for another day. She seemed to be piling up a great many of those.
“There’s enough water to wash your face and hands, at least,” she told Beldeine mildly. “And if you wish, I will Heal you.” Every sister she had interviewed had carried at least a few welts. The Aiel did not beat the prisoners except for spilling water or balking at a task—the haughtiest words of defiance earned only scornful laughter, if that—but the black-robed women were herded like animals, a tap of the switch for go or turn or stop, and a harder tap if they did not obey quickly enough. Healing made other things easier, too.
Filthy, sweaty, wavering like a reed in the wind, Beldeine curled her lip. “I would rather bleed to death than be Healed by you!” she spat. “Maybe I should have expected to see you groveling to these wilders, these savages, but I never thought you would stoop to revealing Tower secrets! That ranks with treason, Verin! With rebellion!” She grunted contemptuously. “I suppose if you didn’t shy at that, you’ll stop at nothing! What else have you and the others taught them besides linking?”
Verin clicked her tongue irritably, not bothering to set the young woman straight. Her neck ached from looking up at Aiel—for that matter, even Beldeine stood a hand or more taller than she—her knees ached from curtsying, and entirely too many women who should know better had flung blind contempt and foolish pride at her today. Who
should know better than an Aes Sedai that a sister had to wear many faces in the world? You could not always overawe people, or bludgeon them, either. Besides, far better to behave as a novice than be punished like one, especially when it earned you only pain and humiliation. Even Kiruna had to see the sense of that eventually.
“Sit down before you fall down,” she said, suiting her own words. “Let me guess what you’ve been doing today. By all that dirt, I’d say digging a hole. With your bare hands, or did they let you use a spoon? When they decide it’s finished, they will just make you fill it again, you know. Now, let me see. Every part I can see of you is grubby, but that robe is clean, so I expect they had you digging in your skin. Are you sure you don’t want Healing? Sunburn can be painful.” She filled another cup with water and wafted it across the tent on a flow of Air to hover in front of Beldeine. “Your throat must be parched.”
The young Green stared unsteadily at the cup for a moment; then suddenly her legs gave way and she collapsed onto a cushion with a bitter laugh. “They . . . water me frequently.” She laughed again, though Verin could not see the joke. “As much as I want, so long as I swallow it all.” Studying Verin angrily, she paused, then went on in a tight voice. “That dress looks very nice on you. They burned mine; I saw them. They stole everything except this.” She touched the golden Great Serpent around her left forefinger, a bright golden gleam among the dirt. “I suppose they couldn’t find quite enough nerve for that. I know what they’re trying to do, Verin, and it won’t work. Not with me, not with any of us!”
She was still on her guard. Verin set the cup down on the flowered carpet beside Beldeine, then took up her own and sipped before speaking. “Oh? What are they trying to do?”
This time, the other woman’s laugh was brittle as well as harsh. “Break us, and you know it! Make us swear oaths to al’Thor, the way you did. Oh, Verin, how could you? Swearing fealty! And worse, to a man, to him! Even if you could bring yourself to rebel against the Amyrlin Seat, against the White Tower . . .” She made the two sound much the same. “. . . how could you do that!”
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