Winter's Heart (29 page)

She bared her teeth, but it was all her own fault, one way and another. After all, she was the one who had hammered at the Kin that they ought to show some backbone instead of groveling to Aes Sedai. Well, they certainly had stopped groveling. Instead, they were all too likely to hold sisters up to the standard of their Rule. And find the sister wanting! It might not be Nynaeve’s fault, exactly, that she appeared to be little more than twenty—she had slowed early—but age was important to the Kin, and she had chosen to spend most of her time with them. She was not jerking her braid, just pulling at it so steadily it must be ready to pull free of her scalp.

“And those cursed Sea Folk! Wretched women! Wretched; wretched; wretched! If it wasn’t for that
bloody
bargain . . . ! The last thing I need on my hands is a couple of whining, bleating novices!” Kirstian’s lips thinned for an instant, and Zarya’s dark eyes flashed indignation before she managed to assume meekness again. A semblance of it. They had sense enough to know that novices did not open their mouths to Aes Sedai, though.

Elayne shoved down the desire to smooth everything over. She wanted to slap Kirstian and Zarya both. They had complicated everything by not keeping their mouths shut in the first place. She wanted to slap Nynaeve. So she finally had been cornered by the Windfinders, had she? That earned no sympathy. “I’m not
playing
at anything, Nynaeve, and you well know it! I have asked your advice often enough!” Drawing a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. The servants she could see beyond Vandene and the two novices had paused in their work to goggle at the cluster of women. She doubted they more than noticed Lan, impressive as he was. Arguing Aes Sedai were something to watch, and stay clear of. “Someone has to take charge of them,” she said more quietly. “Or do you think you can just tell them to forget all this? Look at them, Nynaeve. Left to themselves, they
will be trying to find out who it is in a heartbeat. They wouldn’t have gone to Vandene unless they thought she would let them help.” The pair became pictures of wide-eyed novice innocence, with just a hint of offense at an unjust accusation. Elayne did not believe it. They had had a lifetime to work on disguising themselves.

“And why not?” Nynaeve said after a moment, shifting her shawl. “Light, Elayne, you have to remember they aren’t what we normally expect in novices.” Elayne opened her mouth in protest—what we normally expect, indeed!—Nynaeve might never have been a novice, but she had been Accepted not all that long ago; a whining, bleating Accepted, often enough, too!—she opened her mouth, and Nynaeve went right on. “Vandene can make good use of them, I’m sure,” she said. “And when she isn’t, she can give them regular lessons. I remember someone telling me you’ve taught novices before, Vandene. There. It’s settled.”

The two novices smiled broad, eager smiles of anticipation—they all but rubbed their hands together in satisfaction—but Vandene scowled. “I do not need novices getting under my feet while I—”

“You’re just as blind as Elayne,” Nynaeve broke in. “They have experience making Aes Sedai take them for something other than what they are. They can work at your direction, and that will give you time to sleep and eat. I don’t believe you’re doing either.” She drew herself up, draping her shawl across her shoulders and along her arms. It was quite a performance. Short as she was, no taller than Zarya and markedly shorter than Vandene or Kirstian, she managed to seem the tallest one there by inches. It was a skill Elayne wished she could master. Although she would not try in a dress cut that way. Nynaeve was in danger of coming right out. Still, that did not diminish her presence. She was the essence of command. “You will do it, Vandene,” she said firmly.

Vandene’s scowl faded slowly, but fade it did. Nynaeve stood higher in the Power than she, and even if she never consciously thought of the fact, deeply ingrained custom made her yield, however unwillingly. By the time she turned to the two women in white, her face was as near composed as it had been since Adeleas’ murder. Which just meant that the judge might not order an execution right now. Later, perhaps. Her gaunt face was calm, and starkly grim.

“I did teach novices for a time,” she said. “A short time. The Mistress of Novices thought I was too hard on my students.” The pair’s eagerness cooled a bit. “Her name was Sereille Bagand.” Zarya’s face went as pale as Kirstian’s, and Kirstian swayed as if suddenly dizzy. As Mistress of Novices
and later Amyrlin Seat, Sereille was a legend. The sort of legend that made you wake in the middle of the night sweating. “I do eat,” Vandene said to Nynaeve. “But everything tastes like ashes.” With a curt gesture at the two novices, she led them away past Lan. They were staggering slightly as they followed.

“Stubborn woman,” Nynaeve grumbled, frowning at the retreating backs, but there was more than a hint of sympathy in her voice. “I know a dozen herbs that would help her sleep, but she won’t touch them. I’ve half a mind to slip something into her evening wine.”

A wise ruler
, Elayne thought,
knows when to speak and when not.
Well, that was wisdom in anyone. She did not say that Nynaeve calling anyone stubborn was the rooster calling the pheasant proud. “Do you know what Reanne’s news is?” she said instead. “Good news—‘of a sort’—so I understand.”

“I haven’t seen her this morning,” the other woman muttered, still peering after Vandene. “I haven’t been out of my rooms.” Abruptly she gave herself a shake, and for some reason frowned suspiciously at Elayne. And then at Lan, of all things. Unperturbed, he continued to stand guard.

Nynaeve claimed her marriage was glorious—she could be
shockingly
frank about it with other women—but Elayne thought she must be lying to cover up disappointment. Very likely Lan was ready for an attack, ready to fight, even when asleep. It would be like lying down beside a hungry lion. Besides, that stone face was enough to chill any marriage bed. Luckily, Nynaeve had no idea what she thought. The woman actually smiled. An amused smile, oddly. Amused, and . . . could it be condescending? Of course not. Imagination.

“I know where Reanne is,” Nynaeve said, settling her shawl back down to her elbows. “Come with me. I’ll take you to her.”

Elayne knew exactly where Reanne would be, since she was not closeted with Nynaeve, but once again she schooled her tongue, and let Nynaeve lead her. A sort of penance for arguing earlier, when she should have tried to make peace. Lan followed, those cold eyes scanning the halls. The servants they passed flinched when Lan’s gaze fell on them. A youngish, pale-haired woman actually gathered her skirts and ran, bumping into a stand-lamp and setting it rocking in her flight.

That reminded Elayne to tell Nynaeve about Elenia and Naean, and about the spies. Nynaeve took it quite calmly. She agreed with Elayne that they would know soon enough who had rescued the two women, with a dismissive sniff for Sareitha’s doubts. For that matter, she expressed surprise that they had not been taken right from Aringill long since. “I couldn’t
believe they were still there when we arrived in Caemlyn. Any fool could see they would be brought here sooner or later. Much easier to get them out of a small town.” A small town. Aringill would have seemed a great city to her, once. “As for spies . . .” She frowned at a lanky, gray-haired man filling a gold-worked stand-lamp with oil, and shook her head. “Of course there are spies. I knew there must be, right from the start. You just have to watch what you say, Elayne. Don’t say anything to anyone you don’t know well unless you don’t mind everyone knowing.”

When to speak and when not,
Elayne thought, pursing her lips. Sometimes that could be a true penance, with Nynaeve.

Nynaeve had her own information to impart. Eighteen of the Kin who had accompanied them to Caemlyn were no longer in the Palace. They had not run away, though. Since none was strong enough to Travel, Nynaeve had woven the gateways herself, sending them deep into Altara and Amadicia and Tarabon, into the Seanchan-held lands where they would try to find any of the Kin who had not already fled and bring them back to Caemlyn.

It would have been nice if Nynaeve had thought to inform her yesterday, when they left, or better yet, when she and Reanne reached the decision to send them, but Elayne did not mention that. Instead, she said, “That’s very brave of them. Avoiding capture won’t be easy.”

“Brave, yes,” Nynaeve said, sounding irritated. Her hand crept up to her braid again. “But that isn’t why we chose them. Alise thought they were the most likely to run if we didn’t give them something to do.” Glancing over her shoulder at Lan, she snatched her hand back down. “I don’t see how Egwene means to do it,” she sighed. “All very well to say every one of the Kin will be ‘associated’ with the Tower somehow, but how? Most aren’t strong enough to earn the shawl. Many can’t even reach Accepted. And they certainly won’t stand for being novices or Accepted the rest of their lives.”

This time Elayne said nothing because she did not know what to say. The promise had to be kept; she had made it herself. In Egwene’s name, true, and at Egwene’s order, but she had spoken the words herself, and she would not break her word. Only, she did not see how to keep it unless Egwene came up with something truly wonderful.

Reanne Corly was just where Elayne had known she would be, in a small room with two narrow windows looking down on a small, fountained courtyard deep in the Palace, though the fountain was dry, this time of year, and the glass casements made the room a little stuffy. The floor was plain dark tile with no carpet, and for furnishings there were only a narrow
table and two chairs. There were two people with Reanne when Elayne entered. Alise Tenjile, in simple high-necked gray, looked up from where she stood at the end of the table. Seemingly in her middle years, she was a woman of pleasant, unremarkable appearance who was quite remarkable indeed once you came to know her and could be very unpleasant indeed when it was called for. A single glance, and she returned to her study of what was going on at the table. Aes Sedai, Warders and Daughter-Heirs did not impress Alise, not any longer. Reanne herself was sitting on one side of the table, her face creased and her hair more gray than not, in a green dress more elaborate than Alise’s; she had been put out of the Tower after failing her test for Accepted, and offered a second chance, she had already adopted the colors of her preferred Ajah. Across from her sat a plump woman in plain brown wool, her face set in stubborn defiance and her dark eyes locked on Reanne, avoiding the silvery segmented
a’dam
lying like a snake between them on the table. Her hands stroked the edge of the tabletop, though, and Reanne wore a confident smile that deepened the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.

“Don’t tell me you have made one of them see reason,” Nynaeve said before Lan had even shut the door behind them. She scowled at the woman in brown as though she wanted to box her ears if not worse, then glanced at Alise. Elayne thought Nynaeve was a little in awe of Alise. The woman was far from strong in the Power—she would never attain the shawl—but she had a way of taking charge when she wanted to and making everyone around her accept it. Including Aes Sedai. Elayne thought she might be just a little in awe of Alise herself.

“They still deny they can channel,” Alise muttered, folding her arms beneath her breasts, and frowned at the woman facing Reanne. “They can’t, really, I suppose, but I can feel . . . something. Not quite the spark of a woman born to it, but almost. It’s as if she were right at the brink of being able to channel, one foot poised to step over. I have never sensed anything like it before. Well. At least they don’t try to attack us with their fists anymore. I think I put them straight on that, at least!” The woman in brown flashed a sullen, angry glare at her, but jerked her eyes away from Alise’s firm gaze, her mouth twisting in a sickly grimace. When Alise set somebody straight, they were set very straight indeed. Her hands continued to shift along the tabletop; Elayne did not think she was aware of it.

“They still deny seeing the flows, too, but they’re trying to convince themselves,” Reanne said in her high, musical voice. She continued to meet
the other’s obstinate stare with a smile. Any sister might have envied Reanne’s serenity and presence. She had been Eldest of the Knitting Circle, the highest authority among the Kin. According to their Rule, the Knitting Circle existed only in Ebou Dar, but she was still the oldest among those in Caemlyn, a hundred years older than any Aes Sedai in living memory, and she could match any sister with her air of calm command. “They claim we trick them with the Power, use it to make them believe the
a’dam
can hold them. Sooner or later, they will run out of lies.” Drawing the
a’dam
to her, she opened the collar’s catch with a deft motion. “Shall we try again, Marli?” The woman in brown—Marli—still avoided looking at the length of silver metal in Reanne’s hands, but she stiffened and her hands fluttered on the table’s edge.

Elayne sighed. What a gift Rand had sent her. A gift! Twenty-nine Seanchan
sul’dam
neatly held by
a’dam,
and five
damane
—she hated that word; it meant Leashed One, or simply Leashed; but that was what they were—five
damane
who could not be uncollared for the simple reason that they would try to free the Seanchan women who had held them prisoner. Leopards tied with string would have been a better gift. At least leopards could not channel. They had been given into the Kin’s keeping because no one else had the time.

Still, she had seen right away what to do with the
sul’dam.
Convince them that they could learn to channel, then send them back to the Seanchan. Apart from Nynaeve, only Egwene, Aviendha and a few of the Kin knew her plan. Nynaeve and Egwene were doubtful, but however hard the
sul’dam
tried to hide what they were once they were returned, eventually one would slip. If they did not just report everything right away. Seanchan were peculiar; even the Seanchan among the
damane
truly believed that any woman who could channel had to be collared for the safety of everyone else.
Sul’dam,
with their ability to control women wearing the
a’dam,
were highly respected among the Seanchan. The knowledge that
sul’dam
themselves were able to channel would shake the Seanchan to their core, maybe even break them apart. It had seemed so simple, in the beginning.