“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 sometime, 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.
The camp was a sprawl of tents in every shape and size and color and state of repair that almost covered a broad tree-rimmed pasture, halfway between Tar Valon and Dragonmount, inside a ring of horselines and rows of wagons and carts in almost as many shapes as there were wagons and carts. Chimney smoke rose in several places a few miles beyond the treeline, but the local farmers stayed away except for selling eggs and milk and butter, or sometimes when one needed Healing from some accident, and there was no sign at all of the army Egwene had brought so far. Gareth had concentrated his forces along the river, part occupying the bridge towns on both banks and the rest in what he called reserve camps, placed where men could be rushed to help fight off any sortie in strength from the city, just in case he was wrong about High Captain Chubain. Always consider the possibility your assumptions are wrong, he had told her. No one objected to his placements, of course, not in general anyway. Any number of sisters were ready to nitpick the details, but holding the bridge towns was the only way to besiege Tar Valon, after all. By land, it was. And a good many Aes Sedai were pleased to have the soldiers out of sight if not out of mind.
Three Warders in color-shifting cloaks came riding out from the camp as Egwene and the others approached, one of them very tall and one quite short, so they seemed arranged in steps. Making their bows to Egwene and the sisters, nodding to the Warders behind, they all had that dangerous look of men so confident that they had no need to convince anyone how dangerous they were, which somehow made it all the more evident. A Warder at his ease and a lion resting on a hill, so went an old saying among Aes Sedai. The rest of it was lost in the years, but there really was no need to say more. The sisters were not entirely complacent about the safety of even a camp full of Aes Sedai, under the circumstances. Warders patrolled closely for miles in every direction, lions on the prowl.
Anaiya and the others, all but Sheriam, scattered as soon as they reached the first row of tents beyond the wagons. Each would be seeking out the head of her Ajah, ostensibly to report on Egwene’s ride to the river with Lord Gareth, and more importantly, to make sure those Ajah heads knew that some of the Sitters were talking about negotiations with Elaida and that Egwene was being firm. It would have been easier if she knew who those women were, but even oaths of fealty did not stretch to revealing that. Myrelle had nearly swallowed her tongue when Egwene suggested it. Being dropped into a job without training was hardly the best way to learn it, and Egwene knew she had oceans to learn yet about being Amyrlin. Oceans to learn, and a job of work to do at the same time.
“If you will forgive me, Mother,” Sheriam said when Beonin, the last to go, vanished among the tents trailed by her scar-faced Warder, “I have a writing table piled high with paper.” The lack of enthusiasm in her voice was understandable. The Keeper’s stole came along with ever-growing stacks of reports to be sorted and documents to be prepared. Despite her zeal for the rest of the job, which in this case was to keep the camp running, Sheriam had been heard to mutter fervent wishes, when confronted by yet another mound of papers, tha
t she was still Mistress of Novices.
Still, as soon as Egwene gave permission, she booted her black-footed dapple to a trot, scattering a covey of workmen in rough coats and mufflers wrapped around their heads, who were carrying large baskets on their backs. One fell flat on his face in the half-frozen muck that passed for a street. Sheriam’s Arinvar, a slim Cairhienin with graying temples, paused long enough to make sure the fellow was getting to his feet, then spurred his dark bay stallion after her, leaving the workman to his curses, most of which seemed to be directed at his companions’ laughter. Everyone knew that when an Aes Sedai wanted to go somewhere, you got out of the way.
What had spilled out of the fellow’s basket onto the street caught Egwene’s eye and made her shiver, a tall heap of meal crawling with weevils till it seemed there were as many moving black specks as meal. The men must all have been carrying ruined meal to the midden heaps. There was no use bothering to sift anything that infested—only someone who was starving could eat it—but too many baskets of meal and grain had to be disposed of every day. For that matter, half the barrels of salt pork and salt beef opened for use stank so that there was nothing to be done except bury them. For the servants and workmen, at least those who had experience of camp life, that was nothing new. A little worse than usual, but not unheard of. Weevils could appear any time, and merchants trying to stretch their profits always sold some rotting meat along with the good. Among the Aes Sedai, though, it was cause for deep worry. Every barrel of meat, every sack of grain or flour or meal, had been surrounded by a Keeping as soon as bought, and whatever was woven into a Keeping could not change until the weave was removed. But still the meat rotted and the insects multiplied. It was as though saidar itself was failing. You could get a sister to make jokes about the Black Ajah before you could get her to talk about that.
One of the laughing men caught sight of Egwene watching them and nudged the mud-covered fellow, who moderated his language, though not very far. He even glowered as if blaming her for his fall. With her face half-hidden by her hood and the Amyrlin’s stole folded in her belt pouch, they seemed to take her for one of the Accepted, not all of whom had enough proper clothing to always dress as they should, or perhaps a visitor. Women frequently slipped into the camp, often keeping their faces hidden in public until they left again whether they wore fine silks or threadbare wool, and showing a sour expression to a stranger or an Accepted was certainly safer than grimacing at an Aes Sedai. It seemed odd not to have everyone in sight bobbing and bowing.
She had been in the saddle since before first light, and if a hot bath was out of the question—water had to be carried in from the wells that had been dug half a mile west of the camp, which made all but the most fastidious or self-absorbed sisters limit themselves—if a long hot soak was not to be had, she still would have liked to put her feet back on the ground. Or better yet, put them up on a footstool. Besides, refusing to let the cold touch you was not at all the same as warming your hands at a toasty brazier. Her own writing table would have its pile of paper, too. Last night she had told Sheriam to give her the reports on the state of wagon repairs and the supply of fodder for the horses. They would be dry and boring, but she checked on different areas every day, so she could at least tell whether what people told her was based on fact or wishes. And there were always the eyes-and-ears’ reports. What the Ajahs decided to pass along to the Amyrlin Seat made for fascinating reading when compared to what Siuan and Leane gave her from their agents. It was not so much that there were contradictions, yet what the Ajahs chose to keep to themselves could draw interesting pictures. Comfort and duty both pulled her toward her study—just another tent, really, though everyone called it the Amyrlin’s study—but this was an opportunity to look around without having everything hastily made ready ahead of her arrival. Pulling her hood a little further forward to better conceal her face, she touched her heels lightly to Daishar’s flanks.
There were few people mounted, mostly Warders, though the infrequent groom added to the traffic, leading a horse at as close to a trot as could be managed in the ankle-deep slush, but no one seemed to recognize her or her mount. In contrast to the nearly empty streets, the wooden walkways, no more than rough planks pegged atop sawn logs, shifted slightly under the weight of people. The handful of men, dotting the streams of women like raisins in a cheap cake, walked twice as fast as anyone else. Excepting Warders, men got their business among Aes Sedai done as quickly as possible. Nearly all the women had their faces hidden, their breath misting in the openings of their hoods, yet it was easy to pick out Aes Sedai from visitors whether their cloaks were plain or embroidered and lined with fur. The crowds parted in front of a sister. Anyone else had to weave her way through. Not that many sisters were about on this frigid midmorning. Most would be snug in their tents. Alone or in twos or threes, they would be reading, or writing letters, or questioning their visitors about whatever information those women had brought. Which might or might not be shared with the rest of a sister’s Ajah, much less with anyone else.
The world saw Aes Sedai as a monolith, towering and solid, or it had before the current division in the Tower became common knowledge, yet the pure fact was that the Ajahs stood apart in all but name, the Hall their only true meeting point, and the sisters themselves were little more than a convocation of hermits, speaking three words beyond what was absolutely required only with a few friends. Or with another sister they had joined in some design. Whatever else changed about the Tower, Egwene was sure that never would. There was no point pretending that Aes Sedai had ever been anything but Aes Sedai or ever would be, a great river rolling onward, all its powerful currents hidden deep, altering its course with imperceptible slowness. She had built a few hasty dams in that river, diverting a stream here and a stream there for her own purposes, yet she knew they were temporary structures. Sooner or later those deep currents would undercut her dams. She could only pray they lasted long enough. Pray, and shore up as hard as she could.
Very occasionally one of the Accepted appeared in the throng, with the seven bands of color on the hood of her white cloak, but most by far were novices in unadorned white wool. Only a handful of the twenty-one Accepted in the camp actually possessed banded cloaks, and they saved their few banded dresses for teaching classes or attending sisters, yet great efforts had been made to see that every novice was dressed in white at all times, even if she only had one change. The Accepted inevitably tried to move with the swanlike glide of Aes Sedai, and one or two nearly managed despite the tilting of the walkways underfoot, but the novices darted along almost as quickly as the few men, scurrying on errands or hurrying to classes in groups of six or seven.
Aes Sedai had not had so many novices to teach in a very long time, not since before the Trolloc Wars, when there had been many more Aes Sedai as well, and the result of finding themselves with near a thousand students had been utter confusion until they were organized into these “families.” The name was not strictly official, yet it was used even by Aes Sedai who still disliked taking any woman who asked. Now every novice knew where she was supposed to be and when, and every sister could at least find out. Not to mention that the number of runaways had declined. That was always a concern for Aes Sedai, and several hundred of these women might well attain the shawl. No sister wanted to lose one of those, or any, for that matter, not before the decision was made to send a woman away. Women still slipped off occasionally after realizing that the training was harder than they had expected and the road to an Aes Sedai’s shawl longer, but quite apart from the families making it easier to keep track, running away seemed to be less attractive to women who had five or six cousins, as they were called, to lean on.
Well short of the big square pavilion that served as the Hall of the Tower, she turned Daishar down a side street. The walkway in front of the pale brown canvas pavilion was empty—the Hall was not a place anyone approached without business there—but the much-patched side curtains were kept down without a re
ason to make the workings of the Hall public, so there was no telling who might step out. Any Sitter would recognize Daishar at a glance, and some Sitters she would as soon avoid even more than others. Lelaine and Romanda, for example, who resisted her authority as instinctively as they opposed each other. Or any of those who had begun talking of negotiations. It was too much to believe that they were just hoping to rally spirits, or they would not have kept to whispers. The courtesies had to be maintained, though, no matter how often she wished she could box someone’s ears, yet no one could think she was being snubbed if Egwene did not see her.
A faint silvery light flashed behind a tall canvas wall just ahead of her, surrounding one of the camp’s two Traveling grounds, and a moment later two sisters emerged from behind one of the flaps. Neither Phaedrine nor Shemari was strong enough to weave a gateway by herself, but linked she thought they could just manage one big enough to walk through. Heads close together in deep conversation, strangely they were just pinning on their cloaks. Egwene kept her face averted anyway as she rode by. Both of the Browns had taught her as a novice, and Phaedrine still seemed surprised that Egwene was Amyrlin. Lean as a heron, she was quite capable of wading out into the muck to ask whether Egwene needed assistance. Shemari, a vigorous square-faced woman who looked more like a Green than a librarian, was always beyond proper in her behavior. Much beyond. Her deep curtsies, suitable for a novice, carried at least a suggestion of mockery no matter how smooth her expression, not least because she had been known to curtsy when she saw Egwene a hundred paces away.
Where had they been, she wondered. Somewhere indoors, perhaps, or at least warmer than the camp. No one really kept track of the sisters’ comings and goings, of course, not even the Ajahs. Custom ruled everyone, and custom strongly discouraged direct questions about what a sister was doing or where she was going. Most likely, Phaedrine and Shemari had been to hear from some of their eyes-and-ears face to face. Or maybe to look at a book in some library. They were Brown. But she could not help thinking of Nisao’s comment about sisters slipping away to Elaida. It was quite possible to hire a boatman to make the crossing to the city, where dozens of tiny water gates gave entrance to anyone who wished it, but with a gateway, there was no need to risk exposure by riding to the river and asking after boats. Just one sister returning to the Tower with the knowledge of that weave would give away their largest advantage. And there was no way to stop it. Except to keep heart in the opposition to Elaida. Except to make the sisters believe there could be a quick end to this. If only there was a way to a quick end.
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