Winter's Heart (34 page)

“You’d think she was the bloody queen here,” Birgitte muttered.

“She is the one who is overproud, Birgitte Trahelion,” Aviendha grumbled. “As proud as a Shaido with one goat.” They nodded at one another in perfect agreement.

But Elayne noticed that they had waited to speak until the door had shut behind Nynaeve. The woman who had denied so hard wanting to be Aes Sedai was becoming very much Aes Sedai. Perhaps Lan had something to do with that. Coaching her, from his experience. She still had to work at staying composed, sometimes, but it seemed to come more and more easily since her peculiar wedding.

The first sip of the wine had no taste other than wine, a very good wine, but Elayne frowned at the cup and hesitated. Until she realized what she was doing, and why. The memory of forkroot hidden in her tea was still strong. What had Nynaeve put in here? Not forkroot, of course, but what? Raising the cup to take a full swallow seemed very difficult. Defiantly, she drained the wine.
I was thirsty, that’s all
, she thought, stretching to set the cup back on the silver tray.
I certainly wasn’t trying to
prove
anything.

The other two women had been watching her, but as she began settling herself in a more comfortable position for sleep, they turned to one another.

“I’ll keep watch in the sitting room,” Birgitte said. “I have my bow and quiver in there. You stay here in case she needs you for anything.”

Rather than arguing, Aviendha drew her belt knife and knelt, ready to spring up again, off to one side, where she would see anyone coming through the door before they saw her. “Knock twice, then once, and name yourself before you enter,” she said. “Otherwise, I will assume it is an enemy.” And Birgitte nodded as if that were the most reasonable thing in the world.

“This is sil—” Elayne smothered a yawn behind her hand. “Silly,” she finished when she could speak again. “No one is going to try to—” Another yawn, and she could have put her fist into her mouth! Light, what
had
Nynaeve put in that wine? “To kill me—tonight,” she said drowsily, “and you—both know—” Her eyelids were leaden, sliding down despite every effort to keep them open. Unconsciously snuggling her face into her pillow, she tried to finish what she had been about to say, but . . .

She was in the Grand Hall, the throne room of the Palace. In the Grand Hall’s reflection in
Tel’aran’rhiod.
Here, the twisted stone ring that felt too heavy for its size in the waking world seemed light enough to float up from between her breasts. There was light, of course, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was not like sunlight, or lamps, but even if it was night here, too, there was always enough of that odd light to see. As in a dream. The ever-present sensation of unseen eyes watching was not dreamlike—more like a nightmare—but she had grown accustomed to that.

Great audiences were held in the Grand Hall, foreign ambassadors formally received, important treaties and declarations of war announced to gathered dignitaries, and the long chamber suited its name and function. Empty of people save for her, it seemed cavernous. Two rows of thick gleaming white columns, ten spans high, marched the length of the room, and at one end, the Lion Throne stood atop a marble dais, with red carpeting climbing the white steps from the red-and-white floor tiles. The throne was sized for a woman, but still massive on its heavy lion-pawed legs, carved and gilded, with the White Lion picked out in moonstones on a field of rubies at the top of its high back, announcing that whoever sat there ruled a great nation. From large, colored windows set in the arched ceiling high overhead, the queens who had founded Andor stared down, their images alternating with the White Lion and scenes of the battles they had fought to build Andor from a single city in Artur Hawkwing’s shattering empire into that nation. Many lands that had come out of the War of the Hundred Years no longer existed, yet Andor had survived the thousand years since and prospered. Sometimes Elayne felt those images judging her, weighing her worth to follow in their footsteps.

No sooner did she find herself in the Grand Hall than another woman appeared, sitting on the Lion Throne, a dark-haired young woman in flowing red silk embroidered in silver lions on the sleeves and hem, with a strand of firedrops as large as pigeon’s eggs around her neck and the Rose Crown sitting on her head. One hand resting lightly on the lion-headed arm of the throne, she gazed regally about the Hall. Then her eyes fell on Elayne, and recognition dawned, along with confusion. Crown and firedrops and silks vanished, replaced by plain woolens and a long apron. An instant later, the young woman vanished, too.

Elayne smiled in amusement. Even scullions dreamed of sitting on the Lion Throne. She hoped the young woman had not been wakened in fright by the start she received, or at least that she had gone on to another pleasant dream. A safer dream than
Tel’aran’rhiod.

Other things shifted in the throne room. The elaborately worked stand-lamps standing in rows down the chamber seemed to vibrate against the tall columns. The great arched doors stood now open, now closed, in the blink of an eye. Only things that had stood in one place for a goodly time had a truly permanent reflection in the World of Dreams.

Elayne imagined a stand-mirror, and it was before her, reflecting her image in high-necked green silk worked in silver across the bodice, with emeralds in her ears and smaller ones strung in her red-gold curls. She made the emeralds disappear from her hair, and nodded. Fit for the Daughter-Heir, but not too ostentatious. You had to be careful of how you imagined yourself, here, or else. . . . Her modest green silk gown became the snug, form-hugging folds of a Taraboner gown, then flashed to dark, wide Sea Folk trousers and bare feet, complete with golden earrings and nose ring and chain full of medallions, and even dark tattoos on her hands. But without a blouse, the way the Atha’an Miere went at sea. Cheeks coloring, she hastily returned everything to how it had been, then changed the emerald earrings for plain silver hoops. The simpler you imagined your garb, the easier it was to maintain.

Letting the stand-mirror disappear—she just had to stop concentrating on it—she looked up at those stern faces overhead. “Women have taken the throne as young as I,” she told them. Not very many, though; only seven who had managed to wear the Rose Crown for very long. “Women younger than I.” Three. And one of those lasted barely a year. “I don’t claim I will be as great as you, but I will not make you ashamed, either. I
will
be a good queen.”

“Talking to
windows?
” Nynaeve said, making Elayne start in surprise. Using a copy of the ring Elayne wore next to her skin, she appeared misty, almost transparent. Frowning, she tried to stride toward Elayne and staggered, nearly tripped by the hobbling skirt of a deep blue Taraboner dress that was much tighter than the one Elayne had imagined on herself. Nynaeve gaped down at the thing, and abruptly it was an Andoran gown in the same colored silk, embroidered in gold on the sleeves and atop the bodice. She still went on about “good, stout Two Rivers wool” being good enough for her, but even here where she could appear in it if she wished, she almost never did.

“What
did
you put in that wine, Nynaeve?” Elayne asked. “I went out like a snuffed candle.”

“Don’t try to change the subject. If you are talking to windows, you should
really
be asleep instead of here. I’ve half a mind to order you—”

“Please don’t. I’m not Vandene, Nynaeve. Light, I don’t even
know
half the customs Vandene and the others take for granted. But I would rather not disobey you, so don’t, please.”

Nynaeve glowered at her, giving her braid one firm tug. Details of her dress changed, the skirts growing a trifle fuller, the embroidery’s pattern altering, the high neck sinking, then rising again, sprouting lace. She was just not very good at the necessary concentration. The red dot on her forehead never wavered, though.

“Very well,” she said calmly, the scowl vanishing. Her yellow-fringed shawl appeared on her shoulders, and her face took on something of the Aes Sedai agelessness. There were wings of white at her temples. Her words contrasted with her appearance and composed tone, though. “Let me do the talking when Egwene gets here. I mean about what happened today. You always end up chattering as if you’re brushing each other’s hair for bed. Light! I don’t want her coming to the Amyrlin with
me
, and you know she will be all over both of us if she finds out.”

“If I find out what?” Egwene said. Nynaeve’s head whipped around, eyes panic-stricken, and for a moment her fringed shawl and silk gown were replaced by an Accepted’s banded white. Even the
ki’sain
went. Just a moment, and she was back as she had been except for the white in her hair, yet that was enough to put a rueful expression on Egwene’s face. She knew Nynaeve very well. “If I find out what, Nynaeve?” she asked firmly.

Elayne drew a deep breath. She had not intended to hold anything back, exactly. Not anything important to Egwene, anyway. But in her present mood, Nynaeve was likely to babble everything, or else grow stubborn and try insisting there was nothing to find out. Which would only make Egwene dig harder.

“Someone put forkroot in my midday tea,” she said, and went on succinctly about the men with their daggers and Doilin Mellar’s fortuitous appearance, and how Dyelin had proved herself. For good measure she added the news of Elenia and Naean, and the First Maid’s search for spies in the Palace, and even Zarya and Kirstian being assigned to Vandene, and the attack on Rand and his disappearance. Egwene appeared to be unruffled by the recital—she even cut Elayne short about Rand, saying she already knew—but she gave a dismissive shake of her head at hearing that Vandene had made no progress in learning who the Black sister was, and that was of the gravest concern to her. “Oh, and I’m to have a bodyguard,” Elayne finished. “Twenty women, commanded by Captain Mellar. I don’t think Birgitte will find me any Maidens, but she will come close.”

A backless armchair appeared behind Egwene, and she sat without looking for it. She was much more skilled here than Elayne or Nynaeve. She wore a dark green woolen riding dress, fine and well-cut but unadorned, likely what she had worn awake that day. And it remained a green woolen riding dress. “I would tell you to join me in Murandy tomorrow—tonight,” she said, “if the arrival of the Kinswomen would not light a wildfire among the Sitters.”

Nynaeve had recovered herself, though she gave her skirts an unneeded adjusting shake. The embroidery on her dress was silver, now. “I thought you had the Hall of the Tower under your thumb, now.”

“That’s very much like having a ferret under your thumb,” Egwene said dryly. “It twists and writhes and wriggles around to nip at your wrist. Oh, they do just as I say when it concerns the war with Elaida—they can’t get around that, however much they grumble over the expense of more soldiers!—but the agreement with the Kin is no part of the war, or letting the Kin learn the Tower had known about them all along. Or thought it did. The entire Hall would have apoplexy, just at finding out how much they didn’t know. They are trying very hard to find a way to stop accepting new novices.”

“They can’t, can they?” Nynaeve demanded. She made a chair for herself, but it was a copy of Egwene’s when she looked to make sure it was there, a three-legged stool as she began to sit, and a ladder-backed farm chair by the time she settled on it. Her dress had divided skirts, now. “You made a proclamation. Any woman of any age, if she tested true. All you have to do is make another, about the Kin.” Elaine made her own seat a copy of one of the chairs in her sitting room. Much easier to hold onto.

“Oh, an Amyrlin’s proclamation is as good as law,” Egwene said. “Until the Hall sees a way around it. The newest complaint is that we only have sixteen Accepted. Though most sisters do treat Faolain and Theodrin as if they were still Accepted. But even eighteen isn’t near sufficient to give the novice lessons that Accepted are supposed to handle. Sisters have to take them, instead. I think some were hoping the weather would hold the numbers down, but it hasn’t.” She smiled suddenly, a light of mischief in her dark eyes. “There’s one new novice I’d like you to meet, Nynaeve. Sharina Melloy. A grandmother. I think you’ll agree she’s a remarkable woman.”

Nynaeve’s chair disappeared completely, and she hit the floor with an audible smack. She hardly seemed to notice, sitting there and staring at Egwene in astonishment. “Sharina Melloy?” she said in a shaky voice. “She’s a novice?” Her dress was a style Elayne had never seen before, with flowing
sleeves and a deeply scooped neck worked with flowers in embroidery and seed pearls. Her hair flowed to her waist, held by a cap of moonstones and sapphires on golden wires no thicker than threads. And there was a plain golden band on her left forefinger. Only the
ki’sain
and her Great Serpent ring remained the same.

Egwene blinked. “You know the name?”

Getting to her feet, Nynaeve stared at her dress. She held up her left hand and touched the plain gold ring almost hesitantly. Strangely, she left everything as it was. “It might not be the same woman,” she muttered. “It couldn’t be!” Making another chair like Egwene’s, she frowned at it as if commanding it to stay, but it still had a high back and carving by the time she sat. “There was a Sharina Melloy. . . . It was during my test for Accepted,” she said in a rush, “I don’t have to talk about that; it’s the rule!”

“Of course you don’t,” Egwene said, though the look she gave Nynaeve was certainly as strange as Elayne knew her own must be. Still, there was nothing to be done; when Nynaeve wanted to be stubborn, she could teach mules.

“Since you brought up the Kin, Egwene,” Elayne said, “have you thought further on the Oath Rod?”

Egwene raised one hand as if to stop her, but her reply was calm and level. “There’s no need to think further, Elayne. The Three Oaths, sworn on the Oath Rod, are what make us Aes Sedai. I didn’t see that, at first, but I do, now. The very first day we have the Tower, I will swear the Three Oaths, on the Oath Rod.”