The Path of Daggers (38 page)

The forest gave way to a huge clearing that could have swallowed the circle back at the stable fifty times over, and Sevanna felt ill temper slipping away as she stopped to look. Low hills rose to the north, and mountains a few leagues beyond them were capped with clouds, great masses of white streaked with dark gray. She had never seen so many clouds in her life. Closer at hand, thousands of Jumai went about the day’s work. The ring of hammer on anvil rose from blacksmiths, and sheep and goats were being slaughtered for the evening meal, their bleating mixed with the laughter of the children as they ran at play. Given more time to prepare for their flight from Kinslayer’s Dagger than the other septs, the Jumai had brought the flocks gathered in Cairhien, and added to them here.

Many people had set up their tents, but there was no need. Colorful structures nearly filled the clearing like a large wetlander village, tall barns and stables, a large forge and the squat roofs that had sheltered servants, all painted red and blue, surrounding the great roof itself. The manor house that was called, three floors high beneath a dark green tile roof, all of it a paler green trimmed with yellow, atop a broad man-made stone hill ten paces tall. Jumai and
gai’shain
climbed the long ramp that led to the great building’s door and walked the ornately carved balconies that ringed it.

The stone walls and palaces she had seen in Cairhien had not impressed her half so much. This one was painted like a wagon of the Lost Ones, but even so, marvelous. She should have realized that with so many trees, these people could afford to build
anything
of wood. Could no one but she see how fat this land was? More white-clad
gai’shain
scurried about their tasks than any twenty septs had ever had before, nearly half as many as there were Jumai! No one complained about making wetlanders
gai’shain
anymore. They were so docile! A wide-eyed young man in rough-sewn white hurried past clutching a basket, gaping at the people around him and stumbling over the hem of his robe. Sevanna smiled. That one’s father had called himself the lord of this place and blustered that she and her people would be hunted down—by children, of all things!—for this outrage, yet now he wore white and worked as hard as his son, as did his wife and his daughters and his other sons. The women had possessed many fine gems and beautiful silks, and Sevanna had only taken the first pick for herself. A fat land, so soft it oozed rich oils.

The women behind her had stopped short to talk among themselves at the edge of the trees. She caught what they were saying, and it turned her mood again.

“. . . how many Aes Sedai fight for these Seanchan,” Tion was saying. “We must learn that.” Someryn and Modarra murmured agreement.

“I do not think it matters,” Rhiale put in. At least her contrariness extended to the others, too. “I do not think they will fight unless we attack them. Remember, they did nothing until we moved against them, not even to defend themselves.”

“And when they did,” Meira said sourly, “twenty-three of us died. And more than ten thousand
al-gai’d’siswai
did not return either. Here, we have little more than a third of that number even counting the Brotherless.” She soaked the last word in scorn.

“That was Rand al’Thor’s work!” Sevanna told them sharply. “Instead of thinking what he did against us, think what we can do when he is ours!”
When he is mine
, she thought. The Aes Sedai had been able to take and hold him as long as they had, and she had something the Aes Sedai had not, else they would have used it. “Remember instead that we had the Aes Sedai beaten until he took their side. Aes Sedai are nothing!”

Once again her effort to strengthen their hearts produced no visible effect. All they could remember was that the spears had been broken trying to capture Rand al’Thor, and they with them. Modarra might have been staring into the grave of all her sept, and even Tion frowned uneasily, doubtless recalling that she, too, had run like a frightened goat.

“Wise Ones,” a man’s voice said behind Sevanna, “I have been sent to ask for your judgment.”

Instantly every woman’s face regained its equanimity. What she could not do, he had done with his very presence. No Wise One would allow any but another Wise One to see her out of countenance. Alarys stopped stroking her hair, which she had pulled over her shoulder. Plainly none of them recognized him. Sevanna thought she did.

He regarded them gravely, with green eyes much older than his smooth face. He had full lips, but there was a set to his mouth, as if he had forgotten how to smile. “I am Kinhuin, of the
Mera’din
, Wise Ones. The Jumai say we may not take our full share from this place because we are not Jumai, but it is because they will have less since we are two for every Jumai
al-gai’d’siswai
. The Brotherless ask your judgment, Wise Ones.”

Now that they knew who he was, some could not hide their dislike of the men who had abandoned clan and sept to come to the Shaido rather than follow Rand al’Thor, a wetlander and no true
Car’a’carn
, as they thought. Tion’s face merely went flat, but Rhiale’s eyes flashed, and Meira teetered on the edge of a scowl. Only Modarra showed concern, but then, she would have tried to settle a dispute between treekillers.

“These six Wise Ones will give judgment after hearing both sides,” Sevanna told Kinhuin with a graveness to match his.

The other women looked at her, barely concealing their surprise that she intended to stand aside. It had been she who arranged for ten times the number of
Mera’din
to accompany the Jumai as went with any other sept. She really had suspected Caddar, if not of what he had done, and she had wanted as many spears around her as possible. Besides, they could always die in place of Jumai.

She affected surprise at the others’ surprise. “It would not be fair for me to take part since my own sept is involved,” she told them before turning back to the green-eyed man. “They will give fair judgment, Kinhuin. And I am certain they will speak in favor of the
Mera’din
.”

The other women gave her hard looks before Tion motioned abruptly for Kinhuin to lead the way. He had to tear his eyes away from Sevanna to comply. Wearing a faint smile—he had been staring at her, not Someryn—she watched them vanish into the mass of people moving about the manor grounds. For all their misliking the Brotherless—and her making predictions to the man about their decision—the chances were they
would
decide that way. Either Way, Kinhuin would remember and tell the others of his so-called society. The Jumai were already in her belt pouch, but anything that tied the
Mera’din
to her was welcome.

Turning, Sevanna strode back into the trees, though not toward the stable. Now that she was alone, she could see to something much more important than the Brotherless. She checked what she had tucked into her skirt at the small of her back, where her shawl hid it. She would have felt if it slipped a hair, but she wanted to touch its smooth length with her fingers. No Wise One would dare think her less than they, once she used that, perhaps today. And one day, it would give her Rand al’Thor. After all, if Caddar had lied in one thing, maybe he had lied in others.

Through a blur of tears Galina Casban glared at the Wise One shielding her. As if there were any need for the slender woman’s shield. Right then she could not have so much as embraced the Source. Sitting cross-legged on the ground between two squatting Maidens, Belinde adjusted her shawl and gave a thin smile, as if she knew Galina’s thoughts. Her face was narrow and foxlike, and her hair and eyebrows had been bleached nearly white by the sun. Galina wished she had crushed her skull instead of merely slapping her.

It had not been an attempt at escape, merely more frustration than she could bear. Her days began and ended with exhaustion, every day more than the last. She could not remember how long since they had stuffed her into that coarse black robe; the days ran together like an everlasting stream. A week? A month? Maybe not that long. Surely not more. She wished she had never touched Belinde. If the woman had not stuffed rags into her mouth to silence her sobbing, she would have begged to be allowed to carry rocks again, or move a pile of pebbles stone by stone, or any of the tortures they filled her hours with. Anything rather than this.

Only Galina’s head stuck out of the leather sack that hung suspended from the stout limb of an oak. Directly beneath the sack, coals glowed in a bronze brazier, a slow burn, heating the air inside the sack. She huddled in that sweltering heat with her thumbs tied to her toes, sweat slicking her nakedness. Her hair clung damply to her face, and she panted, nostrils flaring for air, when she was not sobbing. Even so, this would have been better than the endless, senseless, backbreaking labor they subjected her to except for one thing. Before snugging the neck of the sack beneath her chin, Belinde had emptied a pouch of some fine powder over her, and as she had begun to sweat, it had begun to burn like pepper flung in the eyes. It seemed to coat her from the shoulders down, and, oh, Light, it burned!

That she called on the Light measured her desperation, but they had not broken her for all their trying. She
would
get free—she would!—and once she did, she would make these savages pay in blood! Rivers of blood! Oceans! She would have them all skinned alive! She would . . . ! Flinging back her head, she howled; the wadded rags in her mouth muffled the sound, but she howled, and she did not know whether it was a shriek of rage or a scream for mercy.

When her howls died and her head fell forward, Belinde and the Maidens were on their feet, and Sevanna was with them. Galina attempted to stifle her sobbing in front of the golden-haired woman, but she could as soon have plucked the sun from the sky with her fingers.

“Listen to her whine and snivel,” Sevanna sneered, coming to look up at her. Galina tried to put an equal contempt in her own stare. Sevanna decked herself with enough jewelry for ten women! She wore her blouse unlaced to nearly bare her bosom, except for all those mismatched necklaces, and breathed deep when men looked at her! Galina tried, but contempt was hard to manage with tears rolling down her cheeks along with her sweat. She shook with weeping, making the sack sway.

“This
da’tsang
is tough as an old ewe,” Belinde cackled, “but I always found even the toughest old ewe was made tender if cooked slowly, with the right herbs. When I was a Maiden, I softened Stone Dogs with enough cooking.” Galina closed her eyes.
Oceans
of blood, to pay for . . . !

The sack lurched, and Galina’s eyes popped open as it began to settle. The Maidens had undone the rope running over the limb, and the pair of them were lowering her slowly. Frantically she thrashed about, trying to look down, and almost began sobbing anew, with relief, when she saw that the brazier had been moved aside. With Belinde’s talk of cooking. . . . That would be Belinde’s fate, Galina decided. Tied to a spit and turned over a fire until her juices dripped! That to begin!

With a thud that made Galina grunt, the leather bag hit the ground and toppled over. As unconcerned as if they were handling a sack of potatoes, the Maidens tumbled her out onto the brown weeds, sliced the cords that held her thumbs and toes, plucked the gag from between her teeth. Dirt and dead leaves stuck to the sweat coating her.

She very much wanted to stand, to meet them all eye-to-eye and glare-for-glare. Instead, she rose only as far as hands and knees, then dug her fingers into the mulch of the forest floor, dug her toes in. Any farther, and she would not be able to stop her hands from flying to soothe her red, flaming skin. Her sweat felt like the juice of ice peppers. All she could do was crouch there and quiver, try to work some moisture back into her mouth and daydream of what she would do to these savages.

“I believed you were stronger than this,” Sevanna said above her in thoughtful tones, “but perhaps Belinde is right. Perhaps you are soft enough, now. If you swear to obey me, you can stop being
da’tsang
. Perhaps you will not even have to be
gai’shain
. Will you swear to obey me in all things?”

“Yes!” The hoarse word flew from Galina’s tongue without hesitation, though she had to swallow before speaking more. “I will obey you! I swear it!” And so she would obey. Until they gave the opening she needed. Was this all that had been necessary? An oath she would have made the first day? Sevanna would learn what it was like to hang over hot coals. Oh, yes, she. . . .

“Then you will not object to swearing your oath on this,” Sevanna said, tossing something down in front of her.

Galina’s scalp crawled as she stared at it. A white rod like polished ivory, a foot long and no thicker than her wrist. Then she saw the flowing marks carved into the end toward her, numerals used in the Age of Legends. One hundred eleven. She had thought it was the Oath Rod, somehow stolen from the White Tower. That also was marked, but with the numeral three, which some thought stood for the Three Oaths. Maybe this was not what it seemed. Maybe. Yet no hooded viper from the Drowned Lands coiled there could have frozen her so still.

“A fine oath, Sevanna. When did you intend to tell the rest of us?”

That voice jerked Galina’s head up. It could have pulled her eyes away from a hooded viper, too.

Therava appeared among the trees leading a dozen cold-faced Wise Ones. When they stopped behind her, confronting Sevanna, every woman present except for the Maidens had been there when Galina was sentenced to wear the black robe. A word from Therava, a short nod from Sevanna, and the Maidens departed swiftly. Sweat still oozed from Galina, but suddenly the air seemed cold.

Sevanna glanced at Belinde, who avoided her eye. Sevanna’s lip curled, half sneer, half snarl, and she planted fists on hips. Galina did not understand where she found the nerve, a woman who could not channel at all. Some of these women possessed not inconsiderable strength. No, she could not afford to think of them only as wilders if she was to escape and have her revenge. Therava and Someryn were stronger than any woman in the Tower, and any of them could have been Aes Sedai easily.