Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time 10)

“Sharina doesn’t cause problems, Tiana.” She spoke as quickly as ever, but quietly, so her voice would not carry to the back of the tent. Disagreements between sisters were never aired in front of novices. Especially when the disagreement was over a novice. “She already knows the rules better than any Accepted, and never puts a toe over the line. She never shirks at even the dirtiest chores, either, and she’s the f

irst to lend a hand when another novice needs one. Sharina is simply who she is. Light, you can’t allow a novice to intimidate you.”

Tiana stiffened and opened her mouth angrily, but once Janya had the bit between her teeth, getting a word in edgewise was no easy matter. “Nicola, on the other hand, causes all sorts of prob­lems, Mother,” the Brown rushed on. “Ever since we found out she has the Foretelling, she’s been Foretelling two or three times a day, to hear her tell it. Or rather, to hear Areina tell it. Nicola is smart enough to know everyone is aware she can’t remember what she says when she Foretells, but Areina always seems to be there to hear and remember, and help her interpret. Some are the sort of thing anyone in the camp with half a brain and a credulous nature might think of - battles with the Seanchan or the Asha’man, an Amyrlin imprisoned, the Dragon Reborn doing nine impossible things, visions that might be Tarmon Gai’don or a bil­ious stomach - and the rest all just happen to indicate that Nicola ought to be allowed to go faster with her lessons. She’s always too greedy for that. I think even most of the other novices have stopped believing her.”

“She also pokes her nose everywhere,” Salita put in the moment Janya gave her an opening, “her and the groom, both.” Her face remained smooth and cool, and she shifted her shawl as though that were the focus of her attention, but she rushed her words a lit­tle, perhaps fearing that the Brown would take over again. “They’ve both been switched for eavesdropping on sisters, and I myself caught Nicola trying to peek into one of the Traveling grounds. She said she just wanted to see a gateway open, but I think she was trying to learn the weave. Impatience, I can under­stand, but deceit cannot be tolerated. I no longer believe Nicola will attain the shawl, and frankly, I’ve begun to wonder whether she should be sent away soon rather than late. The novice book may be open to everyone,” she finished with an expressionless glance at Egwene, “but we do not have to lower our standards completely.”

Glaring, Tiana pursed her lips stubbornly, emphasizing her dimple again. You could almost forget she had worn the shawl for over thirty years and think her a novice herself. “As long as I am Mistress of Novices, the decision on whether to send a girl away is mine,” she said heatedly, “and I do not intend to lose a girl of Nicola’s potential.” Nicola would be very strong in the Power, one day. “Or Sharina’s,” she added with a grimace, hands smoothing her skirts in irritation. Sharina’s potential was nothing short of remarkable, far beyond anyone in living memory except for Nynaeve, and ahead of Nynaeve as well. Some thought she might become as strong as it was possible to be, though that was only speculation. “If Nicola has been bothering you, Mother, I will see to her.”

“I was just curious,” Egwene said carefully, swallowing a sug­gestion that the young woman and her friend both be watched closely. She did not want to talk about Nicola. It would be too easy to find herself with a choice between lying or revealing matters she dared not expose. A pity she had not allowed Siuan to arrange for two quiet deaths.

Her head jerked in shock at the thought. Had she gone that far from Emond’s Field? She knew she would have to order men to die in battle sooner or later, and she thought she might be able to order a death if the need was great enough. If one death could stop the death of thousands, or even hundreds, was it not right to order it? But the danger presented by Nicola and Areina was simply that they might reveal secrets that could inconvenience Egwene al’Vere. Oh, Myrelle and the others might be lucky to get off with a birching, and they would certainly consider that more than inconve­nient, but discomfort, however great, was not sufficient reason for killing.

Abruptly, Egwene realized that she was frowning, and Tiana and the two Sitters were watching her, Janya not bothering to hide her curiosity behind a mask of serenity. To cover herself, Egwene shifted her frown to the table where Kairen and Ashmanaille were once more at work. The white on Ashmanaille’s cup had climbed a little farther, but in just that short time, Kairen had caught up. More than caught up, in fact, since her goblet stood twice as high as the cup.

“Your skill is improving, Kairen,” Egwene said approvingly.

The Blue looked up at her, and drew a deep breath. Her oval face became an image of cool calm around those icy blue eyes. “There isn’t much skill involved, Mother. All that’s needed is to set the weave and wait.” The last word held a touch of acridness, and for that matter, there had been a slight hesitation before Mother. Kairen had been sent off from Salidar on a very important mission only to see it collapse in a shambles, though from no fault of hers, and she had returned to them in Murandy to find everything she had left behind stood on its head and a girl she remembered as a novice wearing the Amyrlin’s stole. Of late, Kairen had been spending a good deal of time with Lelaine.

“She is improving; in some things,” Janya said with a pointed frown for the Blue sister. Janya might have been as sure as any other Sitter that the Hall was getting a puppet when they raised Egwene, but she seemed to have accepted that Egwene did wear the stole, and deserved the proper respect from everyone. “Of course, I doubt she’ll catch Leane unless she applies herself, much less yourself, Mother. Young Bodewhin might catch her, in fact. I wouldn’t want to be outdone by a novice, myself, but I suppose some don’t feel that way.” A stain of red crept into Kairen’s cheeks, and her eyes dropped to the goblet.

Tiana sniffed. “Bodewhin’s a good girl, but she spends more time giggling and playing with the other novices than applying herself if Sha - ” She inhaled sharply. “If she isn’t watched. Yester­day, she and Althyn Conly tried two items at once, just to see what would happen, and the things fused together in a solid lump. Useless for sale, of course, unless you find someone who wants a pair of half-iron cuendillar cups joined at angles. And the Light knows what might have happened to the girls. They didn’t seem to be harmed, but who can say about the next time?”

“Make sure there isn’t a next time,” Egwene said absently, her attention on Kairen’s cup. The line of white crept upward steadily. When Leane did this weave, black iron turned to white cuendillar as if the iron were sinking quickly into milk. For Egwene herself, the change was faster than the blink of an eye, black to white in a flash. It would have to be Kairen and Leane, but even Leane was barely fast enough. Kairen needed time to improve. Days? Weeks? Whatever was necessary, because anything less meant disaster, for the women involved and for the men who would die fighting in the streets of Tar Valon and maybe for the Tower. Suddenly Egwene was glad she had approved Beonin’s suggestion. Telling Kairen why she needed to try harder might have spurred her efforts, but this was another secret that had to be kept until the time came to unveil it to the world.

CHAPTER 18

A Chat with Siuan

Daishar had been taken away when Egwene left the tent, of course, but the seven-striped stole hanging from the opening of her cowl worked better than an Aes Sedai’s face at making a way through the crowd. She moved in a ripple of curt­sies, with the occasional bow thrown in from a Warder, or a crafts­man who had some task among the sister’s tents. Some novices squeaked when they saw the Amyrlin’s stole, and whole families stepped hurriedly off the walkway, making their deep curtsies in the mire of the street. Since she had been forced to order punish­ment for some of the Two Rivers women, word had spread among the novices that the Amyrlin was as hard as Sereille Bagand, and it was best to avoid incurring her temper, which could spring up like wildfire. Not that most of them knew enough history to have any real idea who Sereille had been, but her name had been a byword of iron-handed strictness in the Tower for a hundred years, and the Accepted made sure that novices absorbed tidbits like that. It was a good thing that Egwene’s cowl hid her face. By the tenth time a novice family leaped out of her way like frightened hares, she was gritting her teeth so hard that seeing her face would have cemented her reputation for chewing iron and spitting nails. She had the horrible feeling that in a few hundred years, Accepted would be using her name to frighten novices the way they used Sereille’s n

ow. Of course, there was the little matter of securing the White Tower first. Small irritations had to wait. She thought she could have spit nails without the iron.

The crowds thinned to nothing around the Amyrlin’s study, which was just a peaked canvas tent with patched brown walls, despite the name. Like the Hall, it was a place to be avoided unless you had business there or were summoned. No one was simply asked to the Hall of the Tower or the Amyrlin’s study. The most innocuous invitation to either was a summons, a fact that turned that simple tent into a haven. Sweeping through the entry flaps, she swung her cloak off with a feeling of relief. A pair of braziers made the tent deliciously warm after outside, and they gave off very little smoke. A touch of sweet scent lingered from the dried herbs that had been sprinkled on the glowing embers.

“The way those fool girls behave, you would think I - ” she began in a growl, and cut off abruptly.

She was not surprised to see Siuan standing beside the writing table in plain blue wool, finely cut but simple, a wide tooled-leather folder held to her chest. Most sisters still seemed to believe, like Delana, that she was reduced to instructing Egwene in proto­col and running errands, grudgingly in both cases, but she was always there bright and early, which seemed to have gone unno­ticed so far. Siuan had been an Amyrlin who chewed iron, though no one would believe who did not already know. Novices pointed her out as often as they did Leane, but with an air of doubt that she really was who the sisters said. Pretty, if not quite beautiful, with a delicate mouth and dark glossy hair to her shoulders, Siuan looked even younger than Leane, only a few years older than Egwene. She could have been taken for one of the Accepted without the blue-fringed shawl draped across her arms. That was why she never went without the shawl, to avoid embarrassing mistakes. Her eyes had not changed any more than her spirit, however, and they were icy blue awls aimed at the woman whose presence was a surprise.

Halima was certainly welcome, yet Egwene had not expected to see her stretched out on the brightly colored cushions that were piled along one side of the tent, her head propped on one hand.

Where Siuan was pretty, the sort of young woman - seemingly young, at least - who made men and women alike smile at her, Halima was stunning, with big green eyes in a perfect face and a full firm bosom, the sort who made men swallow and other women frown. Not that Egwene frowned, or believed the tales carried by women jealous of the way Halima attracted men just by being. She could not help the way she looked, after all. But even if her posi­tion as Delana’s secretary was plainly a matter of charity by the Gray sister - a poorly educated country woman, Halima formed her letters with the awkwardness of a young child - Delana usually kept her busy all day with some sort of make-work. She seldom appeared before time for bed, and then it was nearly always because she had heard Egwene had one of her heads. Nisao could do noth­ing with those headaches, even using the new Healing, but Halima’s massages worked wonders even when the pain had Egwene whimpering.

“I told her you wouldn’t have time for visits this morning, Mother,” Siuan said sharply, still glaring at the woman on the cushions as she took Egwene’s cloak with her free hand, “but I might as well have played cat’s cradle with myself as opened my mouth.” Hanging the cloak on the rustic cloak stand, she snorted contemptuously. “Maybe if I wore breeches and had a mustache, she’d pay mind.” Siuan seemed to believe every one of the rumors about Halima’s supposed depredations among the prettier craftsmen and soldiers.

Strangely, Halima seemed amused by her reputation. She might even have enjoyed it. She laughed, low and throaty, and stretched on the cushions like a cat. She did have an unfortunate liking for low-cut bodices, incredible in this weather, and she nearly came out of her blue-slashed green silk. Silk was hardly the usual garb for a secretary, but Delana’s charity ran deep, or her debt to Hali­ma did.

“You seemed worried this morning, Mother,” the green-eyed woman murmured, “and you slipped out so early for your ride, try­ing not to wake me. I thought you might like to talk. You wouldn’t get so many headaches if you talked over your worries more. At least you know you can talk to me.” Eyeing Siuan, who was peering down her nose disdainfully, Halima gave another smoky laugh. “And you know I don’t want anything from you, unlike some.” Siuan snorted again, and deliberately busied herself with placing the folder on the writing table just so between the stone inkwell and the sand jar. She even fiddled with the pen-rest.

With an effort, Egwene managed not to sigh. Just. Halima did ask for nothing beyond a pallet in Egwene’s tent, so she could be on hand when one of Egwene’s headaches came on, and sleeping there must have given difficulties with carrying out her duties for Delana. Besides, Egwene liked her earthy outspoken manner. It was very easy to talk to Halima and forget for a little while that she was the Amyrlin Seat, a relaxation she could not have even with Siuan. She had fought too hard for recognition as Aes Sedai and Amyrlin, and her grip on that recognition was too tenuous. Every slip from being Amyrlin would make the next slip easier, and the next, and the next after that, until she was back to being regarded as a child at play. That made Halima a luxury to be treasured quite apart from what her fingers could do to Egwene’s headaches. To her annoyance, though, every other woman in the camp appeared to share Siuan’s view, with the possible exception of Delana. The Gray seemed too prudish to employ a lightskirt, no matter what charity she thought she owed. In any case, whether the woman chased men, or even tripped them up, was beside the point now.

“I’m afraid I do have work, Halima,” she said, tugging off her gloves. A mountain of work, most days. There was no sign of Sheriam’s reports on the table yet, of course, but she would be sending them soon, along with a few petitions she thought merited Egwene’s attention. Just a few; ten or twelve appeals for redress of grievances, with Egwene expected to pass the Amyrlin’s judgment on each. You could not do that without study, and questions, not and hand down a just decision. “Perhaps you can have dinner with me.” If she finished in time to do more than eat at her table right there in her study. It was getting on toward midday already. “We can talk then.”

Halima sat up abruptly, eyes flashing and full lips compressed, but her scowl vanished as quickly as it had come. A smoldering remained in her eyes, though. Had she been a cat, she would have had her back arched and her tail like a bottle-brush. Rising grace­fully to her feet on the layered carpets, she smoothed her dress over her hips. “Very well, then. If you’re certain you don’t want me to stay.”

With remarkable timing, a dull throb began behind Egwene’s eyes, an all too familiar precursor to a blinding headache, but she shook her head anyway and repeated that she had work to do. Halima hesitated a moment longer, her mouth going tight once more, hands fisting in her skirts, then she snatched her fur-lined silk cloak from the cloak stand and stalked out of the tent without bothering to pull the garment around her shoulders. She could do herself an injury going about like that in the cold.

“That fishwife temper will get her in trouble sooner or later,” Siuan muttered before the entry flaps stopped swaying. Scowling after Halima, she twitched her shawl up onto her shoulders. “The woman holds it in around you, but she doesn’t mind giving me the rough side of her tongue. Me or anybody else. She’s been heard screaming at Delana. Who ever heard of a secretary screaming at her employer, and a sister at that? A Sitter! I don’t understand why Delana puts up with her.”