Thus she gained another nightmare to join the babe in the snow and the faceless man. She sat on the Sun Throne wearing the shawl of an Aes Sedai, and in the streets outside, the mobs were destroying the city. No Aes Sedai had been a queen in over a thousand years, and even before that, the few who admitted it openly had fared badly. But if that was the goal of the Hall of the Tower, how could she forestall it? Only by fleeing the Tower as soon as she did gain the shawl and staying away until matters resolved themselves in Cairhien. She spent most of that sleepless night praying to be tested soon. Even tomorrow would not be too soon. Light, she was not ready, but she had to escape. Somehow.
Chapter
7
The Itch
The following day brought still more names that met the criteria, and in larger number, all with vague reference to Dragonmount for the place of birth. Moiraine realized she and Siuan would never see a name with “born on the slopes of Dragonmount” attached. The Prophecies of the Dragon were known to many people, though often known wrongly, especially among the common folk, but the mountain’s connection remained in even the most nonsensical versions. No woman would want to admit that she had birthed a son who would channel the Power one day, with all that entailed, the child of her body doomed to madness and terror. How much less would she admit to bearing a child who might become the Dragon Reborn? She could not deny Dragonmount entirely, or her acquaintances might call her on it, yet “near the mountain” or “in sight of it” was safe enough. The child they sought would surely be hidden behind such a half truth.
Someone would need to visit each of those women with closer
questions, prudently phrased and carefully asked. She rehearsed those questions in her mind, the delicate probing to elicit information while giving away nothing. Rouse the mother’s suspicions, and she would lie again. And likely run as soon as the questioner’s back was turned. It would be playing Daes Dae’mar with the world at stake. Far from a task she would relish, yet how to resist imagining?
The morning also brought a visit from Tamra, who abruptly walked in just as Moiraine was slipping her little book, bearing a fresh name, back into her belt pouch. She tried to disguise the movement, make it part of her curtsy, a touch of clumsiness brought on by surprise. She thought it well done, yet she held her breath as the Amyrlin studied her. Had the other woman seen the book? Suddenly, the notion of asking forgiveness rather than permission seemed very frail. Discovery would gain them neither. In all likelihood, discovery would bring rustication, working on an isolated farm from sunrise to sunset, cut off from friends and studies, forbidden to channel. For novices and Accepted, that was the penultimate penalty, one last chance to learn correct behavior, before being sent away forever. Far worse than blistered hands, though, it would certainly separate them forever from the hunt for the child.
“I’d have thought yesterday would have sated your appetites for boredom,” Tamra said finally, and Moiraine breathed again. “Especially yours, Siuan.”
Siuan seldom blushed, but her face colored at that. Everyone knew her dislike of clerical work. Copying lines was the punishment she dreaded most.
Moiraine put in, “The lists help me govern my thoughts, Mother.” Once you began giving misleading answers, they came more and more easily, even to the Amyrlin Seat.
In truth, those thoughts still flashed into her head when least expected, lists or no lists. Thoughts of a babe in the snow and a faceless man. Equally dire, of the Sun Throne. She wanted to beg Tamra to halt that scheme, yet she knew begging would be useless. The Tower was no less implacable in its weaving than the Wheel of Time itself. In both cases, the threads were human lives, and the pattern they made more important than any individual thread.
“Very well, child. So long as your studies don’t suffer.” Tamra held out a folded paper that Moiraine had not noticed, sealed with a circle of green wax. “Take this to Kerene Nagashi. She should be in her rooms. Give it to no one else.” As if she would do that!
Some Accepted complained, very quietly and very privately, over having to climb the wide corridors that spiraled upward through the Tower, but even with a climb halfway to the top, Moiraine enjoyed any errand that took her to the Ajah quarters. A great deal could be learned through seeing people where they lived. Even Aes Sedai let their guard down in those circumstances. They did a little, at any rate; enough for one who knew how to listen and observe.
The Ajah quarters were identical in number of rooms and how they were laid out, but the details differed widely. The impression of a full-sized sword was worked into each of the huge white floorstones of the Green Ajah quarters, swords in two dozen different styles, single-edged and double, curved and straight. Every door along the hallways was carved with a sword, point-up, gilded for the rooms of Sitters and silvered or lacquered for many others. The tapestries on the walls, between tall gilded stand-lamps on bases worked in the form of stacked halberds, were of martial scenes, charging horsemen and battles and famous last stands, alternating with ancient battle standards from lands long dead, many torn and stained and all preserved through the centuries by weaves of the One Power. No Aes Sedai had ridden to war since the Trolloc Wars, but when the Last Battle came, the Battle Ajah would ride in the forefront. Until then, they fought for justice where it often could be obtained only through their Warders’ swords, but that was just what they did while they waited on Tarmon Gai’don.
Another difference here was the number of men. Not just any men, of course. Warders. Tall or short, wide or slim, even quite stout in one case, they moved like lions or leopards. None wore the distinctive cloak indoors, but the cloak was a mere decoration for a discerning eye. You could see Warders in any Ajah’s quarters, excepting the Red, but most kept rooms in the Guards’ barracks or even in the city. Greens’ Warders often lived in the same apartments as the sister!
A green-eyed Warder who made up for his lack of height through width glanced at her as he strode by quickly, as if on an errand. Three others, standing together, fell silent at her approach, their quiet conversation taken up again after she passed. One wore silver bells in his dark Arafellin braids, one had a thick Taraboner mustache, and the third was very dark, perhaps a Tairen or a southern Altaran, yet aside from the grace of their movements, there was another thing they shared with each other, and with the heavyset man, and with every man to be seen here. Once, while hawking with cousins, she had looked into the eyes of a caped eagle, with its ruff of black feathers around its head. Meeting a Warder’s gaze was akin to that. Not fierce, but full of self-knowledge, absolutely aware of their own capabilities, their capacity for violence.
And yet, it was a violence in restraint, disciplined by their own wills and their bonds to their Aes Sedai. Here, they were simply going about their daily lives. A lean man, his head shaven except for a Shienaran topknot, was resting against a wall with one booted foot up, tuning a fiddle and ignoring the good-natured gibing of another Warder, who said that it sounded like a wet cat caught in a net. Two others, in shirtsleeves, were practicing with wooden swords in a broad side corridor, the bundled lathes clattering with each swift blow.
Rina Hafden, who somehow made a square face lovely and a stocky build both elegant and graceful, was urging them on with a wide smile, calling, “Well struck, Waylin! Oh, very well struck, Elyas!” For size, they might have been twins, though one was dark and clean-shaven, the other fair, with a short beard. Grinning, they moved faster and faster. Their sweat-sodden shirts clung to broad shoulders and backs, yet the pair seemed fresh and untired.
Through an open door, Moiraine saw a round-faced Warder playing a stately melody on a flute while gray-haired Jala Bandevin, an imposing woman despite standing near a hand shorter than Moiraine, attempted to teach a new Warder the steps of a court dance. He had to be new, a blushing, pale-haired boy of no more than twenty, yet no man gained the bond unless he already possessed all the requisite skills. All save dancing, at least.
Kerene’s door, bearing a sword lacquered in red, gold and black, also stood open, with the sounds of merry music coming out. Moiraine had no idea what the lacquering meant, or the colors, and she suspected she never would unless she chose the Green. That would not be, yet she disliked not knowing. Once she identified something she did not know, the ignorance became an itch on her shoulder blade, just beyond reach. Not for the first time, she filed the swords in the back of her mind, beside many other things seen in Ajah quarters. The itch receded, yet she knew it would return when next she saw these doors.
The few tapestries in Kerene’s sitting room were scenes of war or hunting, but most of the wall space was given over to bookshelves carved in the styles of half a dozen countries. Along with a few books, they held a large lion’s skull and an even bigger from a bear, glazed bowls, vases in odd shapes, daggers adorned with gems and gold and daggers with plain wooden hilts, one with just the nub of a broken blade. A blacksmith’s hammer with the head split in two lay next to a cracked wooden bowl that held a single fat firedrop, fine enough to grace a crown. A gilded barrel clock with the hands frozen at just before noon, or midnight, stood beside a steel-backed gauntlet stained black with what Moiraine was sure was blood. They and all the rest were mementos of well over a hundred years wearing the shawl.
Of memories before the shawl, there were few. Just a row of painted miniatures on the wave-carved mantel over the fireplace, showing a plainly dressed, dignified man, a plump, smiling woman, and five children, three of them girls. They were Kerene’s family, long since passed into the grave along with her nieces and nephews, and their children, and their children’s children and more. That was the pain bor
ne by Aes Sedai. Families died, and everything you knew vanished. Except the Tower. The White Tower always remained.
Two of Kerene’s Warders were in the sitting room with her. Massive Karile, whose hair and beard gave him the aspect of a golden-maned lion, was reading a book in front of the fireplace with his boots resting on the ornate brass fender, a feather of blue smoke rising from the bowl of his long-stemmed pipe. Stepin, looking more a clerk than a Warder, with his narrow shoulders and sad brown eyes, sat on a stool playing a lively jig on a twelve string bittern, fingers flashing as skillfully as any hired musician’s. Neither man stopped what he was doing for the arrival of an Accepted.
Kerene herself stood working at an embroidery frame mounted on a stand. It always seemed incongruous to see a Green doing needlework. Especially when, as now, the subject was a field of wildflowers. How did that accord with the violence and death decorating her walls? A tall, slim woman, Kerene looked exactly what she was, her ageless face strong and beautiful, her nearly black eyes pools of serenity. Even here, she wore a riding dress, the divided skirts slashed with emerald green, and her dark hair, lightly touched with white, was cut shorter than either Karile’s or Stepin’s, above her shoulders, and gathered in a thick braid. No doubt it was easier to care for while traveling, cut like that. Kerene seldom remained in the Tower long before setting out again. She placed her needle on the embroidery frame, took the letter, and broke the green sealing wax with a thumb. Tamra always sealed her messages to sisters with wax in the Ajah color of the recipient. Of all Ajahs and none.
Whatever Tamra had written was quickly read, and no change came to Kerene’s face, but before the Green finished, Stepin leaned his bittern against a side table and began buttoning up his coat. Karile placed his book on a shelf, tapped the dottle from his pipe onto the hearth and stuffed the pipe into a capacious coat pocket. That was all, but they were plainly waiting and ready. Despite his sad eyes, Stepin did not look a clerk any longer. They were both leopards awaiting the command to hunt.
“Will there be a reply, Aes Sedai?” Moiraine asked.
“I’ll carry it myself, child,” Kerene replied, starting for the door with a brisk stride that made her silk skirts rasp softly. “Tamra wants me urgently,” she told the two Warders, who were heeling her like hunting hounds, “but she doesn’t say why.”
Moiraine allowed herself a brief smile. As with servants, sisters often forgot Accepted had ears. Sometimes, the best way to learn was to keep silent and listen.