“I have heard,” Amys said slowly, “that some of those who run after the bleakness have gone to the Lost Ones and asked to be taken in.” A long silence followed. They knew now that the Tuatha’an had the same descent as themselves, that they had broken away before the Aiel crossed the Spine of the World into the Waste, but if anything the knowledge had only deepened their aversion.
“He brings change,” Melaine whispered harshly into the steam.
“I thought you were reconciled to the changes he brings,” Egwene said, sympathy welling up in her voice. It must be very hard to have your whole life stood on end. She half-expected to be told to hold her tongue again, but no one did.
“Reconciled,” Bair said, as though tasting the word. “Better to say we endure them, as best we can.”
“He transforms everything.” Amys sounded troubled. “Rhuidean. The Lost Ones. The bleakness, and telling what should not have been told.” The Wise Ones—all the Aiel, for that matter—still had difficulty speaking of that.
“The Maidens cluster about him as though they owe more to him than to their own clans,” Bair added. “For the first time ever, they have allowed a man beneath a Roof of the Maidens.” For a moment Amys looked about to say something, but whatever she knew about the inner workings of Far Dareis Mai she shared with no one but those who were or had been Maidens of the Spear.
“The chiefs no longer listen to us as they did,” Melaine muttered. “Oh, they ask our advice as always—they have not become complete fools—but Bael will no longer tell me what he has said to Rand al’Thor, or Rand al’Thor to him. He says I must ask Rand al’Thor, who tells me to ask Bael. The Car’a’carn, I can do nothing about, but Bael . . . He has always been a stubborn, infuriating man, yet now he is beyond all bounds. Sometimes I want to thump his head with a stick.” Amys and Bair chuckled as if that were a fine joke. Or perhaps they just wanted to laugh to forget the changes for a time.
“There are only three things you can do with a man like that,” Bair chortled. “Stay away from him, kill him, or marry him.”
Melaine stiffened, her sun-dark face going red. For a moment Egwene thought the golden-haired Wise One was about to let fly words hotter than her face. Then a biting gust announced Aviendha’s return carrying a worked silver tray holding a yellow-glazed teapot, delicate cups of golden Sea Folk porcelain, and a stone jar of honey.
She s
hivered as she poured—no doubt she had not bothered to wrap anything around herself out there—and hurriedly passed around the cups and the honey. She did not fill cups for herself and Egwene until Amys told her she could, of course.
“More steam,” Melaine said; the chill air seemed to have cooled her temper. Aviendha set down her cup untouched and scrambled for the gourd, plainly trying to make up for her lapse with the tea.
“Egwene,” Amys said, sipping her tea, “how would Rand al’Thor take it if Aviendha asked to sleep in his sleeping chamber?” Aviendha froze with the gourd in her hands.
“In his—?” Egwene gasped. “You cannot ask her to do such a thing! You cannot!”
“Fool girl,” Bair muttered. “We do not ask her to share his blankets. But will he think that is what she asks? Will he even allow it? Men are strange creatures at the best, and he was not raised among us, so he is stranger still.”
“He certainly would not think any such thing,” Egwene spluttered, then more slowly, “I don’t think he would. But it isn’t proper. It just isn’t!”
“I ask that you not require this of me,” Aviendha said, sounding more humble than Egwene would have believed she could. She was sprinkling water in jerky motions, sending up increasing clouds of steam. “I have been learning a great deal the past days, not having to spend time with him. Since you have allowed Egwene and Moiraine Sedai to help me with channeling, I learn even faster. Not that they teach any better than you, of course,” she added hastily, “but I want very much to learn.”
“You will still learn,” Melaine told her. “You will not have to stay every hour with him. As long as you apply yourself, your lessons will not be much slowed. You do not study while you sleep.”
“I cannot,” Aviendha mumbled, head down over the water gourd. More loudly, and more firmly, she added, “I will not.” Her head came up, and her eyes were blue-green fire. “I will not be there when he summons that flip-skirt Isendre to his blankets again!”
Egwene gaped at her. “Isendre!” She had seen—and heartily disapproved of—the scandalous way the Maidens kept the woman naked, but this! “You can’t really mean he—”
“Be silent!” Bair snapped like a whip. Her blue-eyed stare could have chipped stone. “Both of you! You are both young, but even the Maidens should know men can be fools, especially when they are not attached to a woman who can guide them.”
“I am glad,” Amys said dryly, “to see you no longer hold your emotions so tightly, Aviendha. Maidens are as foolish as men when it comes to that; I remember it well, and it embarrasses me still. Letting emotions go clouds judgment for a moment, but holding them in clouds it always. Just be sure you do not release them too often, or when it is best to keep control of them.”
Melaine leaned forward on her hands, until it seemed the sweat dripping from her face must fall on the hot kettle. “You know your fate, Aviendha. You will be a Wise One of great strength and great authority, and more besides. You already have a strength in you. It saw you through your first test, and it will see you through this.”
“My honor,” Aviendha said hoarsely, then swallowed, unable to go on. She crouched there, huddling around the gourd as if it contained the honor she wanted to protect.
“The Pattern does not see ji’e’toh,” Bair told her, with only a hint of sympathy, if that. “Only what must and will be. Men and Maidens struggle against fate even when it is clear the Pattern weaves on despite their struggles, but you are no longer Far Dareis Mai. You must learn to ride fate. Only by surrendering to the Pattern can you begin to have some control over the course of your own life. If you fight, the Pattern will still force you, and you will find only misery where you might have found contentment instead.”
To Egwene, that sounded very much like what she had been taught concerning the One Power. To control saidar, you first had to surrender to it. Fight, and it would come wildly, or overwhelm you; surrender and guide it gently, and it did as you wished. But that did not explain why they wanted Aviendha to do this thing. She asked as much, adding again, “It is not proper.”
Instead of answering, Amys said, “Will Rand al’Thor refuse to allow her? We cannot force him.” Bair and Melaine were looking at Egwene as intently as Amys.
They were not going to tell her why. It was easier to make a stone talk than to get something out of a Wise One against her will. Aviendha was studying her toes in sulky resignation; she knew the Wise Ones would get what they wanted, one way or another.
“I don’t know,” Egwene said slowly. “I do not know him as well as I used to.” She regretted that, but so much had happened, quite aside from her realizing that she did not love him as more than a brother. Her training, in the Tower as well as here, had changed things just as much as him being who he had become. “If you give him a good reason, perhaps. I think he likes Aviendha.” The young Aiel woman heaved a heavy sigh without looking up.
“A good reason,” Bair snorted. “When I was a girl, any man would have been overjoyed to have a young woman show that much interest in him. He would have gone to pick the flowers for her bridal wreath himself.” Aviendha started, and glared at the Wise Ones with some of her old spirit. “Well, we will find a reason even someone raised in the wetlands can accept.”