Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

“Because she is Aes Sedai, sleepyhead,” Siuan said, joining them. “Two sleepyheads,” she added with a glance at Elayne. “You’ll catch minnows if you keep doing that.” Elayne snapped her mouth shut and gave the woman her coldest stare. As usual, it slid off like rain from a glazed roof tile. “Tarna is Aes Sedai, my girls,” Siuan went on, peering toward the waiting horses. Or maybe it was the clean cart that had been pulled in front of the stone building that had her eye. “An Aes Sedai is Aes Sedai, and nothing changes that.” Nynaeve gave her

a look she did not see.

Elayne was glad Nynaeve held her tongue; the obvious reply would have been hurtful. “What was the toll last night?”

Siuan answered without looking away from where Tarna would appear. “Seven dead, here in the village. Nearly a hundred in the soldiers’ camps. All those swords and axes and the like lying about, and no one to channel them down. There are sisters out there now, Healing.”

“Lord Gareth?” Elayne asked, a touch anxiously. The man might be cold toward her now, but once he had had a warm smile for a child and a pocket that always held hard candies.

Siuan snorted so hard that people turned around to look. “That one,” she muttered. “A lionfish would break its teeth on the man.”

“You seem in a fine temper this morning,” Nynaeve said. “Have you finally learned what the Tower’s message is? Gareth Bryne asked you to marry him? Somebody died and left you —?”

Elayne tried not to look at Nynaeve; even the sound of a yawn made her jaws creak.

Siuan gave Nynaeve a level look, but for once Nynaeve met it just as flatly, if a bit watery-eyed.

“If you’ve learned something,” Elayne broke in before they could stare one another senseless, “tell us.”

“A woman who claims to be Aes Sedai when she isn’t,” Siuan murmured as though voicing an idle thought, “is neck-deep in a boiling kettle, true enough, but if she’s claimed a particular Ajah, that Ajah has first call on her. Has Myrelle ever told you about the woman she caught claiming to be a Green in Chachin? A former novice who failed her test for Accepted. Ask her, some time when she has an hour or two. It will take that long to tell. The fool girl probably wished she had been stilled before Myrelle was done, stilled and her head cut off as well.”

For some reason the threat had no more effect than the glare had on Nynaeve, not even a quiver. Perhaps they were both just too tired. “You tell me what you know,” Elayne said in a low voice, “or the next time we’re alone, I will teach you to sit up straight, and you can run whining to Sheriam if you want.” Siuan’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly Elayne yelped, clapping a hand to her hip.

Siuan drew back the hand that had delivered the pinch without any try at stealth. “I don’t take well to threats, girl. You know as well as I do what Elaida said; you saw it before anyone here.”

“Come back; all is forgiven?” Nynaeve said incredulously.

“More or less. With a load of fish guts about the Tower needing to be whole more now than ever, and a bit of slippery eeling about no one needing to fear except those who ‘have placed themselves in true rebellion.’ The Light knows what that means. I don’t.”

“Why are they keeping it secret?” Elayne demanded. “They can’t possibly think anyone will go back to Elaida. All they need do is trot out Logain.” Siuan said nothing, only frowned at the waiting Warders.

“I still don’t see why they’re asking for more time,” Nynaeve muttered. “They know what they have to do.” Siuan kept silent, but Nynaeve’s eyebrows rose slowly. “You didn’t know their answer.”

“I do now.” Siuan clipped the words, and said something under her breath about “weak-kneed fools.” Elayne agreed silently.

Suddenly the front door of the onetime inn opened. Half a dozen Sitters came out in their fringed shawls, one from each Ajah, then Tarna, followed by the rest. If the waiting folk had expected some sort of ceremony, they were sorely disappointed. Climbing into her saddle, Tarna ran her eyes slowly over the Sitters, glanced at the crowd with an unreadable face, then heeled the gelding to a walk. Her encircling escort of Warders moved with her. A concerned buzz, like the sound of disturbed bees, rose from the onlookers as they gave way.

The murmuring lasted until Tarna passed from sight, out of the village, and Romanda climbed up onto the cart, smoothly hitching her yellow-fringed shawl into place. Dead silence fell. By tradition the eldest Sitter made pronouncements from the Hall. Romanda did not move like an old woman, of course, and her face was as ageless as any, yet even streaks of gray hair marked considerable age on an Aes Sedai, and the bun gathered at the nape of her neck was pale gray without a trace of anything darker. Elayne wondered how old she was, but asking an Aes Sedai’s age was about the rudest thing possible.

Romanda wove simple flows of Air to make her high soprano voice carry; it came to Elayne as if she had been face-to-face with the woman. “Many of you have been worried these last few days, but needlessly. Had Tarna Sedai not come to us, we would have sent missives to the White Tower ourselves. After all, we can hardly be said to be hiding here.” She paused as if to give the crowd time to laugh, but they merely stared at her, and she adjusted her shawl. “Our purpose here has not changed. We seek truth and justice, to do what is right . . . “

“Right for who?” Nynaeve murmured.

“ . . . and we shall neither flag nor fail. Go about your tasks as you have, assured that you remain sheltered beneath our hands, now and after our assured return to our proper places in the White Tower. The Light shine upon you all. The Light shine upon all of us.”

The murmuring rose again, and the crowd began milling slowly, as Romanda climbed down. Siuan’s face might have been carved from stone; her lips were pinched bloodless. Elayne wanted to ask questions, but Nynaeve hopped off the stoop and began pushing toward the three-story stone building. Elayne followed quickly. Last night Nynaeve had been ready to toss out what they had learned with never a care; it had to be presented carefully if it was to be any use in swaying the Hall. And it certainly seemed they did need swaying. Romanda’s announcement had been a wagonload of nothing. It had certainly upset Siuan.

Wriggling between two hefty fellows who were glaring at Nynaeve’s back — she had stepped on toes to get by — Elayne glanced over her shoulder and caught Siuan watching her and Nynaeve. For just a moment; as soon as the woman realized she had been seen, she pretended to spot someone in the crowd and jumped down as if going to them. Frowning, Elayne hurried on. Was Siuan upset, or was she not? How much of her irritation and ignorance were really pretense? Nynaeve’s notion of running off to Caemlyn — Elayne was not sure she had given it up yet — was worse than silly, but she herself was looking forward to Ebou Dar, to doing something of real use. All these secrets and suspicions were an itch she could not reach. If only Nynaeve did not put her foot in it.

She caught up to Nynaeve just as the other woman caught Sheriam, near the cart Romanda had spoken from. Morvrin was there too, and Carlinya, all three in their shawls. All the Aes Sedai wore shawls this morning. Carlinya’s short hair, worked into a cap of dark curls, was the only sign of their near disaster in Tel’aran’rhiod.

“We need to speak to you alone,” Nynaeve told Sheriam. “In private.”

Elayne sighed. Not the best beginning, but not the worst, either.

Sheriam studied the two of them for a moment, then glanced at Morvrin and Carlinya and said, “Very well. Inside.”

When they turned, Romanda was between them and the door, a solidly handsome, dark-eyed woman with her yellow-fringed shawl, all flowers and vines except for the Flame of Tar Valon, high between her shoulders. Ignoring Nynaeve, she smiled warmly at Elayne, one of those smiles Elayne had come to expect, and dread, from Aes Sedai. For Sheriam and Carlinya and Morvrin, though, her face was very different. She stared at them, expressionless, head erect, until they dipped slight curtsies and murmured, “By your leave, Sitter.” Only then did she move aside, and even then she sniffed loudly.