A Crown of Swords (89 page)

Unshed tears shone in Reanne’s eyes. Elayne was not sure, but she thought the woman whispered, “I can be Green.” It was hard not to rush over and throw her arms around her.

None of the other Aes Sedai showed any signs of giving way to emotion, and Merilille certainly was of sterner stuff. “If I may ask a question, Elayne? Reanne, how many . . . of you will we be taking in?” Doubtless that pause covered a change from “how many wilders and failures.”

If Reanne noticed or suspected, she ignored it or did not care. “I cannot believe there are any who would refuse the offer,” she said breathlessly. “It may take some time to send word to everyone. We remain spread out, you see, so. . . .” She laughed, a touch nervously and still not far from tears. “. . . so Aes Sedai would not notice us. At present there are one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three names on the roll.”

Most Aes Sedai learned to cover shock with an outward show of calm, and only Sareitha allowed her eyes to widen. She also mouthed silent words, but Elayne knew her well enough to read her lips.
Two thousand wilders! Light help us!
Elayne made a great show of adjusting her skirts until she was sure her own face was under control. Light help them, indeed.

Reanne misunderstood the silence. “You expected more? Accidents do take some every year, or natural deaths, as with everyone else, and I fear the Kin have grown fewer in the last thousand years. Perhaps we have been too cautious in approaching women when they leave the White Tower, but there has always been the fear that one of them might report being questioned, and . . . and. . . .”

“We are not disappointed in the least,” Elayne assured her, making soothing gestures. Disappointed? She very nearly giggled hysterically. There were nearly twice as many Kinswomen as there were Aes Sedai! Egwene could never say she had not done her part to bring women who could channel to the Tower. But if the Kin refused wilders. . . . She must stick to the point; conscripting the Kin had only been incidental. “Reanne,” she said gently, “do you think perhaps you might happen to recall where the Bowl of the Winds is, now?”

Reanne blushed a sunset. “We’ve never touched them, Elayne Sedai. I don’t know why they were gathered. I’ve never heard of this Bowl of the Winds, but there is a storeroom such as you describe over—”

Belowstairs, a woman channeled briefly. Someone screamed in purest terror.

Elayne was on her feet in a flash, as were they all. From somewhere in that feathered dress, Birgitte produced a dagger.

“That must have been Derys,” Reanne said. “She’s the only other one here.”

Elayne darted forward and caught her arm as she started for the door. “You aren’t Green yet,” she murmured, and was rewarded with a lovely dimpled smile, surprised and pleased and diffident all at once. “We will handle this, Reanne.”

Merilille and the others arrayed themselves to either side, ready to follow Elayne out, but Birgitte was at the door before any of them, grinning as she put hand to latch. Elayne swallowed and said nothing. That was the Warder’s honor, so the Gaidin said; first to go in, last to come out. But she still filled herself with
saidar
, ready to crush anything that threatened her Warder.

The door opened before Birgitte could lift the latch.

Mat sauntered in, pushing the slender maid Elayne remembered ahead of him. “I thought you might be here.” He grinned insolently, ignoring Derys’ glares, and went on, “When I found a bloody great lot of Warders drinking at my least favorite tavern. I’ve just come back from following a woman to the Rahad. To the top floor of a house with nobody living on it, to be precise. After she left, the floor was so dusty, I could see right away which room she’d gone to. There’s a flaming big rusted lock on the door, but I’ll bet a thousand crowns to a kick in the bottom, your Bowl is behind it.” Derys aimed a kick at him, and he pushed her away, pulling a small knife from his belt to bounce on his palm. “Will one of you tell this wildcat watchdog whose side I’m on? Women with knives make me uneasy, these days.”

“We already know all about that, Mat,” Elayne said. Well, they had been just about to learn all about it, and the stunned look on his face was
priceless.
She felt something from Birgitte. The other woman gazed at her without any particular expression, but that little knot of emotion in the back of Elayne’s head radiated disapproval. Aviendha probably would not think much of it, either. Opening her mouth was one of the most difficult things Elayne had ever done. “I must thank you, though, Mat. It is entirely due to you that we have found what we were looking for.” His gaping astonishment was almost worth the agony.

He closed his mouth quickly, though opening it again to say, “Then let’s hire a boat and fetch this bloody Bowl. With any luck, we can leave Ebou Dar tonight.”

“That is ridiculous, Mat. And don’t tell me I’m demeaning you. We are not crawling about the Rahad in the dark, and we are not leaving Ebou Dar until we have used the Bowl.”

He tried to argue, of course, but Derys took the opportunity of his attention being elsewhere to try kicking him again. He dodged around Birgitte, yelping for somebody to help him, while the slender woman darted after him.

“He is your Warder, Elayne Sedai?” Reanne asked doubtfully.

“Light, no! Birgitte is.” Reanne’s mouth fell open. Having answered a question, Elayne asked one, a question she could not have brought herself to ask another sister. “Reanne, if you don’t mind telling me, how old are you?”

The woman hesitated, glancing at Mat, but he was still dodging to keep a grinning Birgitte between him and Derys. “My next naming day,” Reanne said as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world, “will be my four hundred and twelfth.”

Merilille fainted dead away.

E
laida do Avriny a’Roihan sat regally in the Amyrlin Seat, the tall vinecarved chair painted now in only six colors instead of seven, a six-striped stole on her shoulders, and ran her gaze around the circular Hall of the Tower. The Sitters’ painted chairs had been rearranged along the stair-fronted dais that encircled the chamber beneath the great dome, spaced out to account for only six Ajahs instead of seven now, and eighteen Sitters stood obediently. Young al’Thor knelt quietly beside the Amyrlin Seat; he would not speak unless given leave, which he would not receive today. Today, he was merely another symbol of her power, and the twelve most favored Sitters glowed with the link that she herself controlled to keep him safe.

“The greater consensus is achieved, Mother,” Alviarin said meekly at her shoulder, bowing humbly against the Flame-topped staff.

Down on the floor, below the dais, Sheriam screamed wildly and had to be restrained by the Tower Guard at her side. The Red sister shielding her sneered in contempt. Romanda and Lelaine clung to a cold outward dignity, but most of the others shielded and guarded on the floor wept quietly, perhaps in relief that only four women had been given the ultimate penalty, perhaps in fear of what else was to come. The most ashen faces belonged to the three who had dared sit in a rebel Hall for the now-dissolved Blue. Every rebel had been cast out from her Ajah until Elaida granted permission to request reacceptance, but the onetime Blues knew they confronted difficult years working their way into her good graces, years before they
would be allowed to enter any Ajah at all. Until then, they lay in the palm of her hand.

She stood, and it seemed the One Power flowing through her from the circle was a manifestation of her power. “The Hall concurs with the will of the Amyrlin Seat. Let Romanda be the first to be birched.” Romanda’s head jerked; let her see how much dignity she could retain until her stilling. Elaida gestured curtly. “Take the prisoners away, and bring in the first of the poor deluded sisters who followed them. I will accept their submission.”

There was a cry among the prisoners, and one tore free from the guard gripping her arm. Egwene al’Vere threw herself onto the steps at Elaida’s feet, hands outstretched, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Forgive me, Mother!” the girl wept. “I repent! I will submit; I do submit. Please, do not still me!” Brokenly, she sagged facedown, shoulders shaking with sobs. “Please, Mother! I repent! I do!”

“The Amyrlin Seat can show mercy,” Elaida said exultantly. The White Tower had to lose Lelaine and Romanda and Sheriam as examples, but she could keep this girl’s strength. She
was
the White Tower. “Egwene al’Vere, you have rebelled against your Amyrlin, but I will show mercy. You will be dressed in novice white again, until I myself judge you ready to be raised further, but this very day you shall be the first to take a Fourth Oath on the Oath Rod, of fealty and obedience to the Amyrlin Seat.”

The prisoners began falling on their knees, crying out to be allowed to take that oath, to prove their true submission. Lelaine was one of the first, and neither Romanda nor Sheriam the last. Egwene crawled up the steps to kiss the hem of Elaida’s dress.

“I yield myself to your will, Mother,” she murmured through her tears. “Thank you. Oh, thank you!”

Alviarin seized Elaida’s shoulder, shook her. “Wake up, you fool woman!” she growled.

Elaida’s eyes popped open to the dim light of a single lamp held by Alviarin, bending over her bed with a hand on her shoulder. Still only half-awake, she mumbled, “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Please wake up, Mother,’ ” Alviarin replied coolly. “Covarla Baldene has returned from Cairhien.”

Elaida shook her head, trying to clear away the tag end of the dream. “So soon? I did not expect them for another week at least. Covarla, you say? Where is Galina?” Foolish questions; Alviarin would not know what she meant.

But in that cool crystalline tone, the woman said, “She believes Galina dead or a prisoner. I fear the news is . . . not good.”

What Alviarin should or should not know rushed out of Elaida’s head. “Tell me,” she demanded, throwing off the silk sheet, but as she rose and belted a silk robe over her nightdress, she heard only snatches. A battle. Hordes of Aiel women channeling. Al’Thor gone. Disaster. Distractedly, she noticed that Alviarin was neatly garbed in a silver-embroidered white dress, with the Keeper’s stole around her neck. The woman had waited till she clothed herself to bring her this!

The case clock in her study softly chimed Second Low as she entered the sitting room. The small hours of the morning; the worst time to receive dire news. Covarla rose hastily from one of the red-cushioned armchairs, her implacable face sagging with weariness and worry, and knelt to kiss Elaida’s ring. Her dark riding dress still bore the dust of travel, and her pale hair needed a brush, but she had donned the shawl she had worn as long as Elaida had been alive.

Elaida barely waited for the woman’s lips to touch the Great Serpent before pulling her hand away. “Why were you sent?” she said curtly. Snatching up her knitting from where she had left it in a chair, she sat and began to work the long ivory needles. Knitting served many of the same purposes as fondling her carved ivory miniatures, and she surely needed soothing now. Knitting helped her think, too. She had to think. “Where is Katerine?” If Galina was dead, Katerine should have taken charge ahead of Coiren; Elaida had made it clear that once al’Thor was taken, the Red Ajah was in charge.