The Path of Daggers (48 page)

Snorting loudly, Siuan kicked her skirts, and nearly fell as her shoes skidded. Snow beaten down by countless feet had quickly become a rough sheet of ice. Egwene was picking her own way cautiously. Every day brought broken bones that travel-weary sisters had to Heal. Half abandoning her cloak, she offered an arm as much for the support she might receive as give. Siuan took it, muttering.

“By the time I finished cleaning the man’s spare boots and second saddle, it was too late to tramp back through this. Not that he offered more than blankets in a corner; not Gareth Bryne! Made me dig them out of the chest myself, while
he
went off the Light knows where! Men are a trial, and that one the worst!” Without a pause for breath, she changed the subject. “You shouldn’t let that Halima sleep in your tent. She’s another pair of ears you have to be careful of, and snoopy with it. Besides, you’re lucky you don’t walk in to find her
entertaining
some soldier.”

“I am very glad that Delana can spare Halima nights,” Egwene said firmly. “I need her. Unless you think Nisao’s Healing might do better with my headaches a second time around.” Halima’s fingers seemed to draw the pain out through her scalp; without that, she would not be able to sleep at all. Nisao’s effort had had no effect whatsoever, and she was the only Yellow Egwene dared approach with the problem. As for the rest. . . . She made her voice sterner still. “I am surprised you’re still listening to that gossip, daughter. The fact that men like looking at a woman doesn’t mean she invites it, as you should know well. I’ve seen more than a few looking at you and grinning.” Taking that tone came easier than it once had.

Siuan gave her a startled sidelong glance and, after a moment, grumbled an apology. It might have been sincere. Egwene accepted it, either way. Lord Bryne was very bad for Siuan’s temper, and tossing Halima into the bargain, Egwene thought it a good job she was not pushed into taking a stricter stance. Siuan herself had said that she should not put up with nonsense, and she surely could not afford to put up with it from Siuan, of all people.

Trudging arm-in-arm, they went on in silence, the cold fogging their breath and seeping through their flesh. The snow was a curse and a lesson. She could still hear Siuan going on about what she called the Law of Unintended Consequences, stronger than any written law.
Whether or not what you do has the effect you want, it will have three at least you never expected, and one of those usually unpleasant
.

The first, feeble rains had brought astonishment, for all Egwene had already informed the Hall that the Bowl of the Winds had been found and used. That was almost as much as she could risk letting them know of what Elayne had told her in
Tel’aran’ rhiod;
too much of what had happened in Ebou Dar was just the thing to cut her feet out from under her here, and her position was precarious enough as it was. An explosion of joy erupted at those first sprinkles. They had halted the march at midday, and there had been bonfires and feasting in the drizzle, prayers of thanksgiving among the sisters and dancing among the servants and the soldiers. For that matter, some of the Aes Sedai had danced, too.

A few days later, the soft rains became downpours, and then howling tempests. The temperature slid downward, plummeted, and tempests became blizzards. Now, the distance once covered in a day, with Egwene gritting her teeth over how slowly they moved, took five when the sky held only clouds, and when the snows fell, they did not move at all. Easy enough to think of three unintended consequences, or more, and the snow might well be the least unpleasant.

As they approached the small, patched tent called the Amyrlin’s Study, a shadow moved beside one of the tall wagons, and Egwene’s breath caught. The shadow became a figure who slipped back her hood enough to reveal Leane’s face, then pulled back into darkness.

“She’ll keep a watch and let us know if anybody comes,” Siuan said softly.

“That’s good,” Egwene muttered. The woman
could
have told her in advance. She had half been afraid it was Romanda or Lelaine!

The Amyrlin’s Study was dark, but Lord Bryne stood waiting patiently inside, wrapped in his cloak, a shadow among shadows. Embracing the Source, Egwene channeled, not to light the lantern hanging from the center-pole or one of the candles, but to make a small sphere of pale light that she suspended in the air over the folding table she used as a writing desk. Very small, and very pale; unlikely to be noticed from outside, and quick as thought to extinguish. She could not afford discovery.

There had been Amyrlins who reigned in strength, Amyrlins who managed an even balance with the Hall, and Amyrlins who had had as little power as she, or less upon rare occasions, well-hidden in the secret histories of the White Tower. Several had frittered away power and influence, falling from strength to weakness, but in over three thousand years, precious few had managed to move in the other direction. Egwene very much wished she knew how Myriam Copan and the rest of that bare handful had managed. If anyone had ever thought to write that down, the pages were long lost.

Bowing respectfully, Bryne showed no surprise at her caution. He knew what she put at hazard, meeting him secretly. To a very large degree, she trusted this sturdy, heavily graying man with the bluff, weathered face, and not only because she had to. His cloak was thick red wool, lined with marten and bordered with the Flame of Tar Valon, a gift from the Hall, yet he had made plain a dozen times in the past weeks that whatever the Hall thought—and he was not blind enough to have missed that!—she was the Amyrlin, and he followed the Amyrlin. Oh, he had never said so right out, but with carefully worded hints that left no doubts. Expecting more would have been expecting too much. There were nearly as many undercurrents in the camp as there were Aes Sedai, some strong enough to pull him down. Several strong enough to mire her deeper than she was, if the Hall learned of this meeting. She trusted him further than anyone except Siuan and Leane, or Elayne and Nynaeve, maybe further than any of the sisters who had sworn fealty to her in secret, and she wished she had the courage to trust him more. The ball of white light cast weak, fitful shadows.

“You have news, Lord Bryne?” she asked, stifling hope. She could think of a dozen possible messages that might bring him in the night, each with its own set of pitfalls and snares. Had Rand decided to add more crowns to that of Illian, or the Seanchan somehow captured still another city, or the Band of the Red Hand suddenly moved on its own instead of shadowing the Aes Sedai, or. . . .

“An army lies north of us, Mother,” he replied calmly. His leather-gauntleted hands rested lightly atop his long sword hilt. An army to the north, a little more snow, all the same. “Andorans, mainly, but with a goodly number of Murandians. My deep scouts brought the news less than an hour ago. Pelivar leads, and Arathelle is with him, the High Seats of two of the strongest Houses in Andor, and they’ve brought twenty more at least. They’re pushing south hard, it seems. If you keep on as you are, which I advise against, we should meet head-on in two days, three at the outside.”

Egwene kept her face smooth, suppressing her relief. What she had been hoping for, waiting for; what she had begun to fear might never come. Surprisingly, it was Siuan who gasped, and clapped a mittened hand over her mouth too late. Bryne cocked an eyebrow at her, but she recovered quickly, putting on Aes Sedai serenity so thick you almost forgot her youthful face.

“Do you have qualms at fighting your fellow Andorans?” she demanded. “Speak up, man. I’m not your washwoman here.” Well, there was a small crack in that serenity.

“As you command, Siuan Sedai.” Bryne’s tone held no scrap of mockery, yet Siuan’s mouth began to tighten, her outward coolness evaporating fast. He made her a small bow, workmanlike but acceptable. “I will fight whoever the Mother wishes me to fight, of course.” Even here, he would not be more forthcoming. Men learned caution around Aes Sedai. So did women. Egwene thought caution had become a second skin for her.

“And if we don’t keep on?” she said. So much planning, just her and Siuan and sometimes Leane, and now she still had to feel out each step as carefully as on those icy paths outside. “If we stop here?”

He did not hesitate. “If you have a way to bring them around without fighting, all well and good, but some time tomorrow they’ll reach an excellent position to defend, one flank held by the River Armahn, the other by a large peat bog, and small streams in front to break up attacks. Pelivar will settle in there to wait; he knows the work. Arathelle will have her part if there’s talking, but she’ll leave the pikes and swords to him. We can’t reach it ahead of him, and anyway, the terrain is no use to us there, with him to the north. If you mean to fight, I advise making for that ridge we crossed two days back. We can reach it in good order ahead of them if we start at dawn, and Pelivar would think twice about coming at us there if he had three times the numbers he does.”

Wriggling near-frozen toes inside her stockings, Egwene let out an annoyed sigh. There was a difference between not letting cold touch you and not feeling it. Picking her way carefully, not letting herself be distracted by the chill, she asked, “
Will
they talk, offered the chance?”

“Probably, Mother. The Murandians hardly count; they’re just there for whatever advantage they can wring out of the situation, same as their countrymen under me. It’s Pelivar and Arathelle who matter. If I had to wager, I’d say they only mean to keep you out of Andor.” He shook his head grimly. “But they’ll fight if they have to, if they must, maybe even if it means facing Aes Sedai instead of just soldiers. I expect they’ve heard the same tales we have about that battle out east somewhere.”

“Fish guts!” Siuan growled. So much for calm. “Half-baked rumors and raw gossip are no proof there
was
any battle, you lummox, and if there was, sisters wouldn’t have gotten themselves mixed up in it!” The man truly was an occasion of sin for her.

Strangely, Bryne smiled. He often did when Siuan showed her temper. Anywhere else, on anyone else, Egwene would have called the smile fond. “Better for us if they believe,” he told Siuan mildly. Her face darkened so, you might have thought he had sneered at her.

Why did a normally sensible woman let Bryne get under her skin? Whatever the reason, Egwene had no time for it tonight. “Siuan, I see someone forgot to take away the mulled wine. It can’t have soured in this weather. Warm it for us, please.” She did not like setting the other woman down in front of Bryne, but she had to be reined in, and this seemed the gentlest way to do it. Really, they should not have left the silver pitcher on her table.

Siuan did not quite flinch, but from her stricken expression, quickly smoothed over, you would never have believed she washed the man’s small-clothes. Without comment she channeled slightly to reheat the wine in the silver pitcher, quickly filled two clean worked-silver cups, and handed the first to Egwene. She kept the second, staring at Lord Bryne as she sipped and leaving him to pour for himself.

Warming her mittened fingers on her own cup, Egwene felt a flash of irritation. Maybe it was part of Siuan’s long-delayed reaction to the death of her Warder. She still became weepy for no visible reason now and then, though she tried to hide it. Egwene put the matter out of her head. Tonight, that was an anthill beside mountains.

“I want to avoid a battle if I can, Lord Bryne. The army is for Tar Valon, not fighting a war here. Send to arrange a meeting as soon as possible for the Amyrlin Seat with Lord Pelivar and Lady Arathelle and anyone else you think should be present. Not here. Our ragged camp won’t impress them very much. As soon as possible, mind. I wouldn’t object to tomorrow, if it could be set.”

“That’s sooner than I can manage, Mother,” he said mildly. “If I send riders out as soon as I return to camp, I doubt they can be back with an answer much before tomorrow night.”

“Then I suggest you return quickly.” Light, but her hands and feet felt cold. And the pit of her stomach, too. But her voice kept its calm. “And I want you to keep that meeting, and the existence of their army, from the Hall as long as possible.”

This time, she was asking him to take as great a risk as she did. Gareth Bryne was one of the best generals living, but the Hall chafed that he did not run the army to suit them. They had been grateful for his name in the beginning, for it helped draw soldiers to their cause. Now the army had more than thirty thousand armed men, with more coming even since the snows had started, and they thought that maybe they did not need Lord Gareth Bryne any longer. And of course, there were those who believed they never had needed him. They would not simply send him away for this. If the Hall chose to act, he might well go to the headsman for treason.

He did not blink, and he did not ask questions. Perhaps he knew she would not give answers. Or maybe he thought he knew them. “There isn’t much traffic between my camp and yours, but too many men know already to keep a secret long. I will do what I can, though.”

As simple as that. The first step down a road that would see her on the Amyrlin Seat in Tar Valon, or else deliver her firmly into the grasp of the Hall, with nothing left to decide except whether it was Romanda or Lelaine who told her what to do. Somehow, such a pivotal moment should have been accompanied by fanfares of trumpets, or at the least, thunder in the sky. It was always that way in stories.

Egwene let the ball of light vanish, but as Bryne turned to leave, she caught his arm. It was like catching a thick tree branch through his coat. “A thing I have been meaning to ask you, Lord Bryne. You can’t want to take men worn down by marching right into a siege of Tar Valon. How long would you want to rest them before you began?”

For the first time, he paused, and she wished she still had the light to see his face. She thought he frowned. “Even leaving people in the pay of the Tower out of it,” he said at last, slowly, “news of an army flies as fast as a falcon. Elaida will know to the day when we’ll arrive, and she won’t give us an hour. You know she’s increasing the Tower Guard? To fifty thousand men, apparently. But a month, if I could, to rest and recover. Ten days would do, but a month would be better.”