In this case, it was probably both.
Aviendha hesitated beside the tent’s barrel of fresh water. “I suppose that we will not have time for a bath.”
“Oh, you like baths now?”
“I have accepted them as a part of life,” she said. “If I am going to live in the wetlands, then I will adopt some wetlander customs. When they are not foolish.” Her tone indicated that most of them were.
“What’s wrong?” Rand asked, stepping up to her.
“Wrong?”
“Something bothers you, Aviendha. I can see it in you, feel it in you.”
She looked him over with a critical eye. Light, but she was beautiful. “You were much easier to manage before you received the ancient wisdom of your former self, Rand al’Thor.”
“I was?” he asked, smiling. “You didn’t act that way at the time.”
“That was when I was as a new child, inexperienced in Rand al’Thor’s boundless capacity to be frustrating.” She dipped her hands into the water and washed her face. “It is well; if I had known some of what was to come with you, I might have put on the white and never removed it.”
He smiled, then channeled, weaving Water and drawing the liquid from the barrel in a stream. Aviendha stepped back, watching with curiosity.
“You no longer seem bothered by the idea of a man channeling,” he noted as he fanned the water out into the air and heated it with a thread of Fire.
“There is no longer a reason to be bothered. If I were to be uncomfortable with you channeling, I would be behaving like a man refusing to forget a woman’s shame after her toh has been met.” She eyed him.
“I can’t imagine anyone being that crass,” he said, tossing aside his robe and stepping up to her. “Here. This is a relic from that ‘ancient wisdom’ you apparently find so frustrating.”
He brought the water in, warmed perfectly, and shattered it into a thick misting spray that wove about them in a rush. Aviendha gasped, clutching his arm. She might be growing more comfortable with wetlander ways, but water still made her both uncomfortable and reverent.
Rand snatched some soap with Air and shaved it into part of the mix of water, sending a spinning whirl of bubbles around them, swirling up their bodies and pulling their hair into the air, twisting Aviendha’s about like a column before dropping it back lightly to her shoulders.
He used another wave of warm water to remove the soap, then pulled most of the wetness away, leaving them damp but not soaked. He dumped the water back into the barrel and, with a hint of reluctance, released saidin.
Aviendha was panting. “That … That was completely crackbrained and irresponsible.”
“Thank you,” he said, fetching a towel and tossing it to her. “You would consider most of what we did during the Age of Legends to be crackbrained and irresponsible. That was a different time, Aviendha. There were many more channelers, and we were trained from a young age. We didn’t need to know things like warfare, or how to kill. We had eliminated pain, hunger, suffering, war. Instead, we used the One Power for things that might seem common.”
“You’d only assumed that you’d eliminated war,” Aviendha said with a sniff. “You were wrong. Your ignorance left you weak.”
“It did. I can’t decide if I would have changed things, though. There were many good years. Good decades, good centuries. We believed we were living in paradise. Perhaps that was our downfall. We wanted our lives to be perfect, so we ignored imperfections. Problems were magnified through inattention, and war might have become inevitable if the Bore hadn’t ever been made.” He toweled himself dry.
“Rand,” Aviendha said, stepping up to him. “Today, I will require a boon.” She laid her hand on his arm. The skin of her hand was rough, callused from her days as a Maiden. Aviendha would never be a milk-softened lady like those from the courts of Cairhien and Tear. Rand liked that just fine. Hers were hands that had known work.
“What boon?” he asked. “I’m not certain I could deny you anything today, Aviendha.”
“I’m not yet certain what it will be.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You needn’t understand,” she said. “And you needn’t promise me you will agree. I felt I needed to give you warning, as one does not ambush a lover. My boon will require you to change your plans, perhaps in a drastic way, and it will be important.”
“All right…”
She nodded, as mystifying as ever, and began gathering up her clothing to dress for the day.
* * *
Egwene strode around a frozen pillar of glass in her dream. It almost looked like a column of light. What did it mean? She could not interpret it.
The vision changed, and she found a sphere. The world, she knew somehow. Cracking. Frantic, she tied it with cords, striving to hold it together. She could keep it from breaking, but it took so much effort …
She faded from the dream and started awake. She embraced the Source immediately and wove a light. Where was she?
She was wearing a nightgown and lying in bed back in the White Tower. Not her own rooms, which were still in disrepair following the assassins’ attack. Her study had a small sleeping chamber, and she’d bedded down in that.
Her head pounded. She could vaguely remember growing bleary-eyed the night before, listening in her tent at the Field of Merrilor to reports of Caemlyn’s fall. At some point during the late hours of the night, Gawyn had insisted that Nynaeve make a gateway back to the White Tower so Egwene could sleep in a bed, rather than on a pallet on the ground.
She grumbled to herself, rising. He’d probably been right, though she could remember feeling distinctly annoyed at his tone. Nobody had corrected him on it, not even Nynaeve. She rubbed at her temples. The headache wasn’t as bad as those she’d had when Halima had been “caring” for her, but it did hurt mightily. Undoubtedly, her body was expressing displeasure at the lack of sleep she’d given it in recent weeks.
A short time later—dressed, washed and feeling a little better—she left her rooms to find Gawyn sitting at Silviana’s desk, looking over a report, ignoring a novice who was lingering near the doorway.
“She’d hang you out the window by your toes if she saw you doing that,” Egwene said dryly.
Gawyn jumped. “It’s not a report from her stack,” he protested. “It’s the latest news from my sister about Caemlyn. It came by gateway for you just a few minutes ago.”
“And you’re reading it?”
He blushed. “Burn me, Egwene. It’s my home. It wasn’t sealed. I thought…”
“It’s all right, Gawyn,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s see what it says.”
“There’s not much,” he said with a grimace, handing it to her. At a nod from him the novice scurried away. A short time later, the girl came back with a tray of wizened bellfruit, bread and a pitcher of milk.
Egwene sat down at her desk in the study to eat, feeling guilty as the novice left. The bulk of the Tower’s Aes Sedai and soldiers camped in tents on the Field of Merrilor while she dined on fruit, no matter how old, and slept in a comfortable bed?
Still, Gawyn’s arguments had made sense. If everyone thought she was in her tent on the Field, then potential killers would strike there. After her near-death at the hands of the Seanchan assassins, she was willing to accept a few extra precautions. Particularly those that helped her get a good night’s sleep.
“That Seanchan woman,” Egwene said, staring into her cup. “The one with the Illianer. Did you speak with her?”
He nodded. “I have some Tower guards watching the pair. Nynaeve vouched for them, in a way.”
“In a way?”
“She called the woman several variations of wool-headed, but said she probably wouldn’t do you any intentional harm.”
“Wonderful.” Well, Egwene could make use of a Seanchan who was willing to talk. Light. What if she had to fight them and the Trollocs at the same time?
“You didn’t take your own advice,” she said,
noting Gawyn’s red eyes as he sat down in the chair in front of her desk.
“Someone had to watch the door,” he said. “Calling for guards would have let everyone know that you were not at the Field.”
She took a bite of her bread—what had it been made of?—and looked over the report. He was right, but she didn’t like the idea of him going without sleep on a day like this. The Warder bond would only help him so far.
“So the city is truly gone,” she said. “Walls breached, palace seized. The Trollocs didn’t burn all of the city, I see. Much of it, but not all.”
“Yes,” Gawyn said. “But it is obvious that Caemlyn is lost.” She felt his tension through the bond.
“I’m sorry.”
“Many people escaped, but it’s hard to say what the city population was before the attack, with so many refugees. Hundreds of thousands are likely dead.”
Egwene breathed out. A large army’s worth of people, wiped out in one night. That was probably only the start of the brutality to come. How many had died in Kandor so far? They could only guess.
Caemlyn had held much of the Andoran army’s food supply. She felt sick, thinking of so many people—hundreds of thousands of them—stumbling across the landscape away from the burning city. Yet that thought was less terrifying than the risk of starvation to Elayne’s troops.
She drew up a note to Silviana, requiring her to send all sisters strong enough to provide Healing for the refugees, and gateways to carry them to Whitebridge. Perhaps she could deliver supplies there, though the White Tower was strained as it was.
“Did you see the note at the bottom?” Gawyn asked.
She had not. She frowned, then scanned a sentence added at the bottom in Silviana’s hand. Rand al’Thor had demanded that everyone meet with him by …
She looked up at the room’s old, freestanding wooden clock. The meeting was in a half-hour. She groaned, then began shoveling the rest of her breakfast into her mouth. It wasn’t dignified, but Light burn her if she was going to meet with Rand on an empty stomach.
“I’m going to throttle that boy,” she said, wiping her face. “Come on, let’s move.”
“We could always be last,” Gawyn said, rising. “Show him he doesn’t order us about.”
“And allow him the chance to meet with everyone else while I’m not there to counter what he has to say? I don’t like it, but Rand holds the reins right now. Everyone’s too curious to see what he’s going to do.”
She made a gateway back to her tent, into the corner that she’d set aside for Traveling. She and Gawyn stepped through and left the tent, into the clamor of the Field of Merrilor. People shouted outside; with a distant thunder of hooves, troops cantered and galloped as they took positions for the meeting. Did Rand realize what he’d done here? Putting soldiers together like this, leaving them edgy and uncertain, was like tossing a handful of fireworks into a stewpot and setting it onto the stove. Eventually, things were going to start exploding.
Egwene needed to manage the chaos. She strode out of her tent, Gawyn a step behind and to her left, and smoothed her face. The world needed an Amyrlin.
Silviana waited outside, dressed formally with stole and staff, as if she were going to a meeting of the Hall of the Tower.
“See to this, once the meeting starts,” Egwene said, handing her the note.
“Yes, Mother,” the woman said, then fell into step just behind Egwene and to her right. Egwene didn’t need to look to know that Silviana and Gawyn were pointedly ignoring each other.
At the west side of her camp, Egwene found a cluster of Aes Sedai arguing with one another. She passed through them and pulled silence in her wake. A groom brought her horse Sifter, a testy dapple gelding, and as she mounted, she looked at the Aes Sedai. “Sitters only.”
That produced a sea of calm, orderly complaints, each made with an Aes Sedai sense of authority. Each woman thought she had a right to be at the meeting. Egwene stared at them, and the women slowly came into line. They were Aes Sedai; they knew that squabbling was beneath them.
The Sitters gathered, and Egwene looked out over the Field of Merrilor as she waited. It was a large triangular area of Shienaran grassland, bounded on two sides by converging rivers—the Mora and the Erinin—and on the other by woods. The grass was broken by Dashar Knob, a rocky outcrop about a hundred feet high, with cliff walls, and on the Arafellin side of the Mora by Polov Heights, a flat-topped hill about forty feet high, with gradual slopes on three sides and a steeper slope on the river side. Southwest of Polov Heights lay an area of bogs, and nearby, the River Mora’s shallows, known as Hawal Ford, a convenient crossing place between Arafel and Shienar.
There was an Ogier stedding nearby, opposite some old stone ruins to the north. Egwene had paid her respects soon after arriving, but Rand had not invited the Ogier to his meeting.
Armies were converging. Borderlander flags came in from the west, where Rand had made his camp. Perrin’s own flag flew among those. Odd, that Perrin should have a flag.
From the south, Elayne’s procession wound its way toward the meeting place, smack in the middle of the Field. The Queen rode at the front. Her palace had burned, but she kept her eyes forward. Between Perrin and Elayne, the Tairens and Illianers—Light, who had let those armies camp so near one another?—marched in separate columns, both bringing almost their entire forces.
Best to be quick. Her presence would calm the rulers, perhaps prevent problems. They wouldn’t like being near so many Aiel. Each clan but the Shaido was represented. She still didn’t know if they’d support Rand or her. Some of the Wise Ones seemed to have listened to Egwene’s pleas, but she had received no commitments.
“Look there,” Saerin said, pulling up beside Egwene. “Did you invite the Sea Folk?”
Egwene shook her head. “No. I thought there was little chance they’d side against Rand.” In truth, after her meeting with the Windfinders in Tel’aran’rhiod, she hadn’t wanted to swim in negotiations with them again. She was afraid she’d wake up and find that she’d traded away not only her firstborn, but the White Tower itself.
They put up quite a show, appearing through gateways near Rand’s camp, wearing their colorful clothing, Wavemistresses and Swordmasters as proud as monarchs.
Light, Egwene thought. I wonder how long it’s been since a meeting of this scale occurred. Nearly every nation was represented, and then some, considering the Sea Folk and the Aiel. Only Murandy, Arad Doman and the Seanchan-held lands were missing.
The last of the Sitters finally mounted and pulled up beside her. Eager to move forward, but not daring to show it, Egwene started a slow ride toward the meeting place. Bryne’s soldiers fell in and formed an escort of tromping boots and pikes held high. Their white tabards were emblazoned with the Flame of Tar Valon, but they did not outshine the Aes Sedai. The way they marched accented the women at their center. Other armies relied on the strength of arms. The White Tower had something better.
Each army converged on the meeting place, the center of the field, where Rand had ordered no tents erected. So many armies together on ground perfect for a charge. This had better not go wrong.
Elayne set precedent by leaving the vast bulk of her force halfway there, continuing on with a smaller guard of about a hundred men. Egwene did the same. Other leaders began to trickle forward, their retinues coming to rest in a large ring around the central field.
Sunlight shone down upon Egwene as she approached the center. She couldn’t help but notice the large, perfectly broken circle of clouds above the field. Rand did affect things in strange ways. He needed no announcement to say that he was in attendance, no banner. The clouds pulled back and sunlight shone down when he was near.
It did not seem that he’d arrived at the center yet, however. She met up with Elayne. “Elayne, I’m sorry,” she said, not for the first time.
The golden-haired woman kept her eyes forward. “The city is lost, but the city is not the nation. We must have this meetin
g, but do so quickly, so that I can return to Andor. Where is Rand?”
“Taking his time,” Egwene said. “He’s always been like that.”
“I have spoken to Aviendha,” Elayne said, her bay horse shifting and snorting. “She spent last night with him, but he wouldn’t tell her what he intends this day.”
“He has mentioned demands,” Egwene said, watching the rulers gather with their retinues. Darlin Sisnera, King of Tear, was first. He would support her, for all the fact that he owed Rand his crown. The Seanchan threat still bothered him deeply. The middle-aged man with a dark, pointed beard was not particularly handsome, but self-composed and sure of himself. He bowed from horseback to Egwene, and she held out her ring.
He hesitated, then dismounted and came forward, bowing his head and kissing the ring. “The Light illumine you, Mother.”
“I am glad to see you here, Darlin.”
“So long as your promise holds. Gateways to my homeland should the moment require it.”
“It will be done.”
He bowed again, eyeing a man riding up toward Egwene from the other side. Gregorin, Steward of Illian, was Darlin’s equal in many ways—but not all. Rand had named Darlin Steward of Tear, but the High Lords had asked for him to be crowned king. Gregorin remained merely a Steward. The tall man had lost weight recently, his round face—with its customary Illianer beard—starting to look sunken. He didn’t wait for Egwene to prod him; he swung from his horse and seized her hand, executing a flourishing bow and a kiss to the ring.
“I’m pleased the two of you could put aside differences to join me in this endeavor,” Egwene said, drawing their attention away from glares at one another.
“The Lord Dragon’s intentions are … troubling,” Darlin said. “He chose me to lead Tear because I opposed him when I felt it necessary. I believe he will listen to reason if I present it to him.”
Gregorin snorted. “The Lord Dragon do be perfectly reasonable. We do need to offer a good argument, and I do think he will listen.”
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