A Crown of Swords (70 page)

Nynaeve looked at Elayne.

“Nynaeve, one woman channeling doesn’t mean—” The feel changed, swelling for a moment, then subsiding, lower than before. “Even two women
doesn’t mean anything,” Elayne protested, but she sounded doubtful. “That was the most ill-mannered maid I’ve ever seen.” She took a tall-backed red chair, and after a moment Nynaeve sat too, but she perched on the edge. From eagerness, not nerves. Not nerves at all.

The room was not grand, but the blue-and-white floor tiles glistened, and the pale green walls looked freshly painted. No trace of gilt showed anywhere, of course, yet fine carving covered the red chairs arrayed along the walls and several small tables of a darker blue than the tiles. The lamps hanging from sconces were clearly brass, polished till they shone. Carefully arranged evergreen branches filled the swept hearth, and the lintel above the fireplace was carved, not plain stonework. The carving seemed an odd choice—what people around Ebou Dar called the Thirteen Sins; a man with eyes that nearly filled his whole face for Envy, a fellow with his tongue hanging to his ankles for Gossip, a snarling, sharp-toothed man clutching coins to his chest for Greed, and so on—but all in all, it satisfied her very much. Whoever could afford that room could afford fresh plaster outside, and the only reason not to put it up was to keep low, avoiding notice.

The maid had left the door open, and suddenly voices coming up the hall drifted through.

“I cannot believe you brought them here.” The speaker’s tone was tight with incredulity and anger. “You know how careful we are, Setalle. You know more than you should, and you surely know that.”

“I am very sorry, Reanne,” Mistress Anan answered stiffly. “I suppose I didn’t think. I . . . submit myself, both to stand surety for these girls’ behavior and to your judgment.”

“Of course not!” Reanne’s tone was high with shock, now. “That is to say. . . . I mean, you shouldn’t have, but. . . . Setalle, I apologize for raising my voice. Say you forgive me.”

“You have no reason to apologize, Reanne.” The innkeeper managed to sound rueful and reluctant at the same time. “I did wrong to bring them.”

“No, no, Setalle. I shouldn’t have spoken to you so. Please, you must forgive me. Please do.”

The Anan woman and Reanne Corly entered the sitting room, and Nynaeve blinked in surprise. From the exchange, she had expected someone younger than Setalle Anan, but Reanne had hair more gray than not and a face full of what might have been smile lines, though they were creased in worry now. Why would the older woman humble herself so to the younger, and why would the younger allow it, however halfheartedly? Customs were different here, the Light knew, some more different than she
liked to think about, yet not this much, surely. Of course, she had never gone very far toward being humble with the Women’s Circle back home, but this. . . .

Of course, Reanne could channel—she had expected that; hoped for it, anyway—but she had not expected the strength. Reanne was not as strong as Elayne, or even Nicola—burn that wretched girl!—but she easily equaled Sheriam, say, or Kwamesa or Kiruna. Not many women possessed so much strength, and for all she herself bettered it by a fair margin, she was surprised to find it here. The woman must be one of the wilders; the Tower would have found a way to keep its hands on a woman like this if they had to hold her in a novice dress her whole life.

Nynaeve rose as they came through the doorway, smoothing her skirts. Not from nervousness, certainly; certainly not. Oh, but if only this came out right. . . .

Reanne’s sharp blue eyes studied the two of them with the air of someone who had just found a pair of pigs in her kitchen, fresh from the sty and dripping mud. She dabbed at her face with a tiny handkerchief, though the interior of the house was cooler than outside. “I suppose we’ll have to do something with them,” she murmured, “if they are what they claim.” Her voice was quite high even now, musical and almost youthful. As she finished speaking she gave a small start for some reason and eyed the innkeeper sideways, which set off another round of Mistress Anan’s reluctant apologies and Mistress Corly’s flustered attempts to deflect them. In Ebou Dar, when folk were truly being polite, apologies back and forth could flow for an hour.

Elayne had risen too, wearing a slightly fixed smile. She raised an eyebrow at Nynaeve, cupped her elbow in one hand and laid a finger against her cheek.

Nynaeve cleared her throat. “Mistress Corly, my name is Nynaeve al’Meara, and this is Elayne Trakand. We are looking for—”

“Setalle has told me all about you,” the blue-eyed woman cut in ominously. However many gray hairs on her head, Nynaeve suspected she was also hard as a stone fence. “Abide with patience, girl, and I’ll deal with you directly.” She turned back to Setalle, blotting her cheeks with the handkerchief. Barely suppressed diffidence once more tinged her voice. “Setalle, if you will please excuse me, I must question these girls, and—”

“Look who is returned after all these years,” a short, stout woman in her middle years blurted as she barged into the room, nodding at her companion. Despite her red-belted Ebou Dari dress and a tanned face that glistened
damply, her accents were pure Cairhienin. Her equally sweaty companion, in the dark, plainly cut woolens of a merchant, was a head taller, no older than Nynaeve, with dark tilted eyes, a strongly hooked nose, and a wide mouth. “It’s Garenia! She—” The flow of words terminated abruptly in confusion as the stout woman realized others were present.

Reanne clasped her hands as if in prayer, or perhaps because she wanted to hit someone. “Berowin,” she said with an edge, “one day you will run right off a cliff before you see it under your feet.”

“I am sorry, Eld—” Blushing, the Cairhienin lowered her eyes. The Saldaean became intent on fiddling with a circle of red stones pinned at her breast.

For Nynaeve’s part, she gave Elayne a triumphant look. Both newcomers could channel, and
saidar
was still being wielded somewhere in the house. Two more, and while Berowin was not very strong, Garenia stood even above Reanne; she could match Lelaine or Romanda. Not that that mattered, of course, yet this made at least five. Elayne’s chin set stubbornly, but then she sighed and gave a small nod. Sometimes it took the most incredible effort to convince her of anything.

“Your name is Garenia?” Mistress Anan said slowly, frowning at the woman in question. “You look very much like someone I met once. Zarya Alkaese.”

Dark tilted eyes blinked in surprise. Plucking a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her sleeve, the Saldaean merchant touched her cheeks. “That is my grandmother’s sister’s name,” she said after a moment. “I’m told I favor her strongly. Was she well when you saw her? She forgot her family completely after she went off to become Aes Sedai.”

“Your grandmother’s sister.” The innkeeper laughed softly. “Of course. She was well when I saw her, but that was a long time ago. I was younger than you are now.”

Reanne had been hovering at her side, all but grabbing her elbow, and now she leaped in. “Setalle, I truly am sorry, but I really must ask you to excuse us. You will forgive me not showing you to the door?”

Mistress Anan made her own apologies, as if she was at fault because the other woman could not escort her down, and departed with a last, very dubious look at Nynaeve and Elayne.

“Setalle!” Garenia exclaimed as soon as the innkeeper was gone. “That was Setalle Anan? How did she—? Light of Heaven! Even after seventy years, the Tower would—”

“Garenia,” Mistress Corly said in an extremely sharp tone. Her stare
was sharper still, and the Saldaean’s face reddened. “Since you two are here, we can make up the three for questioning. You girls stay where you are and keep silent.” That last was for Nynaeve and Elayne. The other women withdrew to a corner in a huddle and began conversing in soft murmurs.

Elayne moved nearer Nynaeve. “I did not like being treated as a novice when I was a novice. How long do you intend to continue this farce?”

Nynaeve hissed at her for quiet. “I’m trying to listen, Elayne,” she whispered.

Using the Power was out of the question, of course. The three would have known on the instant. Fortunately, they wove no barriers, perhaps not knowing how, and sometimes their voices rose just enough.

“. . . said they may be wilders,” Reanne said, and shock and revulsion bloomed on the other women’s faces.

“Then we show them the door,” Berowin said. “The back door. Wilders!”

“I still want to know who this Setalle Anan is,” Garenia put in.

“If you can’t keep your mind on the straight,” Reanne told her, “perhaps you should spend this turn on the farm. Alise knows how to concentrate a mind wonderfully. Now. . . .” The words dropped back to a buzz.

Another maid appeared, a slender woman, pretty except for a sullen expression, with a rough gray woolen dress and a long white apron. Setting a green-lacquered tray on one of the small tables, she surreptitiously wiped her cheeks with a corner of her apron and began fussing with blue-glazed cups and a matching teapot. Nynaeve’s eyebrows rose. This woman could channel, too, if not to any high degree. What was she doing as a servant?

Garenia glanced over her shoulder, and gave a start. “What did Derys do to earn penance? I thought fish would sing the day she cracked a rule, much less broke one.”

Berowin sniffed loudly, but her reply was barely audible. “She wanted to marry. She will advance a turn and go with Keraille the day after the Feast of the Half Moon. That will settle for Master Denal.”

“Perhaps you both wish to hoe the fields for Alise?” Reanne spoke dryly, and the voices fell again.

Nynaeve felt a rush of exultation. She did not care much for rules, at least for other people’s rules—other people rarely saw the situation as clearly as she, and thus made stupid rules; why should that woman, Derys, not marry if she wished, for example?—but rules and penances spoke of a society. She
was
right. And another thing. She nudged Elayne until the other woman bent her head.

“Berowin’s wearing a red belt,” she whispered. That indicated a Wise Woman, one of Ebou Dar’s fabled healers, their care known far and wide as the next best to being Healed by an Aes Sedai, curing just about anything. Supposedly it was all done with herbs and knowledge, but. . . . “How many Wise Women have we seen, Elayne? How many could channel? How many were Ebou Dari, or even Altaran?”

“Seven, counting Berowin” was the slow answer, “and only one I was sure was from here.” Hah! The others plainly had not been. Elayne took a deep breath, though she went on softly. “
None
had anywhere near these women’s strength, though.” At least she had not suggested they were mistaken somehow; all of those Wise Women had been able. “Nynaeve, are you really suggesting that the Wise Women . . .
all
the Wise Women . . . are . . . ? That would be
beyond
incredible.”

“Elayne, this city has a guild for the men who sweep the squares every night! I think we’ve just found the Ancient Muckety-muck Sisterhood of Wise Women.”

The stubborn woman shook her head. “The Tower would have had a hundred sisters here years ago, Nynaeve. Two hundred. Anything of the sort would have been squashed flat in short order.”

“Maybe the Tower doesn’t know,” Nynaeve said. “Maybe the guild keeps low enough that the Tower never thought they were worth troubling. There’s no law against channeling if you aren’t Aes Sedai, only against claiming to be Aes Sedai, or misusing the Power. Or bringing discredit.” That meant doing anything that might possibly cast a bad light on real Aes Sedai, should anyone happen to think you were one, which was going pretty far, to her way of thinking. The real trouble, though, was that she did not believe it. The Tower seemed to know everything, and they probably would break up a quilting circle if the women in it could channel. Yet there had to be some explanation for. . . . Only half-aware, she felt the True Source being embraced, but suddenly she became very aware. Her mouth fell open as a flow of Air snared her braid right at the base of her skull and ran her across the room on her toes. Elayne ran right beside her, red-faced with fury. The worst of it was, they were both shielded.

The short run ended when they were allowed to settle their heels in front of Mistress Corly and the other two, all three seated against the wall in red chairs, all surrounded by the glow of
saidar
.

“You were told to be quiet,” Reanne said firmly. “If we decide to help you, you will have to learn that we expect strict obedience no less than the
White Tower itself.” She imbued those last words with a tone of reverence. “I will tell you that you would have been treated more gently if you had not come to us in this irregular fashion.” The flow gripping Nynaeve’s braid vanished. Elayne tossed her head angrily as she was released.

Appalled astonishment became fiery outrage as Nynaeve realized that Berowin held her shield. Most Aes Sedai she had met stood above Berowin; nearly all. Gathering herself, she strained to reach the Source, expecting the weaves to shatter. She would at least show these women she would not be. . . . The weaves . . . stretched. The round Cairhienin woman smiled, and Nynaeve’s face darkened. The shield stretched further, further, bulging like a ball. It would not break. That was impossible. Anyone could block her from the Source if they caught her by surprise, of course, and someone weaker could hold the shield once woven, but not
this
much weaker. And a shield did not bend that far without breaking. It was impossible!

“You could burst a blood vessel if you keep at that,” Berowin said, almost companionably. “We do not try to reach above our station, but skills are honed with time, and this was always nearly a Talent with me. I could hold one of the Forsaken.”

Scowling, Nynaeve gave over. She could wait. Since she had no choice, she could.

Derys came bearing her tray, distributing cups of dark tea. To the three seated women. She never so much as glanced at Nynaeve or Elayne before making a perfect curtsy and returning to her table.

“We could have been drinking blueberry tea, Nynaeve,” Elayne said, shooting such a look at her that she came close to stepping back. Maybe it would be best not to wait too long.