Winter's Heart

by Robert Jordan

  “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.”

  “That’s madness!” Nynaeve burst out, leaning forward in her chair. Surprisingly, still the same chair. And still the same dress. Very surprising. Her hands were fists resting on her lap. “You know what it does; the Kin are proof! How many Aes Sedai live past three hundred? Or reach it? And don’t tell me I shouldn’t talk about age. That’s a ridiculous custom, and you know it. Egwene, Reanne was called Eldest because she was the oldest Kinswoman in Ebou Dar. The oldest anywhere is a woman called Aloisia Nemosni, an oil merchant in Tear. Egwene, she’s nearly six . . . hundred . . . years . . . old! When the Hall hears that, I wager they’ll be ready to put the Oath Rod on a shelf.”

  “The Light knows three hundred years is a long time,” Elayne put in, “but I can’t say I’m happy myself at the prospect of perhaps cutting my life in half, Egwene. And what of the Oath Rod and your promise to the Kin? Reanne wants to be Aes Sedai, but what happens when she swears? What about Aloisia? Will she fall over dead? You can’t ask them to swear, not knowing.”

  “I don’t ask anything.” Egwene’s face was still smooth, but her back had straightened, her voice cooled. And hardened. Her eyes augered deep. “Any woman who wants to be a sister will swear. And anyone who refuses and still calls herself Aes Sedai will feel the full weight of Tower justice.”

  Elayne swallowed hard under that steady gaze. Nynaeve’s face paled. There was no mistaking Egwene’s meaning. They were not hearing a friend now, but the Amyrlin Seat, and the Amyrlin Seat had no friends when it came time to pronounce judgment.

  Apparently satisfied with what she saw in them, Egwene relaxed. “I do know the problem,” she said in a more normal tone. More normal, but still not inviting argument. “I expect any woman whose name is in the novice book to go as far as she can, to earn the shawl if she can, and serve as Aes Sedai, but I don’t want anyone to die for it when they could live. Once the Hall learns about the Kin—once they’re over pitching fits—I think I can get them to agree that a sister who wants to retire should be able to. With the Oaths removed.” They had decided long ago that the Rod could be used to unbind as well as bind, else how could Black sisters lie?

  “I suppose that would be all right,” Nynaeve allowed judiciously. Elayne simply nodded; she was certain there was more.

  “Retire into the Kin, Nynaeve,” Egwene said gently. “That way, the Kin are bound to the Tower, too. The Kin will keep their own ways, of course, their Rule, but they will have to agree that their Knitting Circle is beneath the Amyrlin, if not the Hall, and that Kinswomen stand below sisters. I do mean them to be part of the Tower, not go their own way. But I think they will accept.”

  Nynaeve nodded again, happily, but her smile faded as the full import reached her. She spluttered indignantly. “But . . . ! Standing among the Kin is by age! You’ll have sisters taking orders from women who couldn’t even reach Accepted!”

  “Former sisters, Nynaeve.” Egwene fingered the Great Serpent ring on her right hand and sighed faintly. “Even Kinswomen who earned the ring don’t wear it. So we will have to give it up, too. We will be Kinswomen, Nynaeve, not Aes Sedai any longer.” She sounded as if she could already feel that distant day, that distant loss, but she took her hand from the ring and took a deep breath. “Now. Is there anything else? I have a long night ahead of me, and I would like to get a little real sleep before I have to face the Sitters again.”

  Frowning, Nynaeve had clenched her fist tight and laid her other hand over it to cover her rings, but she appeared ready to give up arguing over the Kin. For the time being. “Do your headaches still trouble you? I’d think if that woman’s massages did any good, you’d stop having them.”

  “Halima’s massages work wonders, Nynaeve. I couldn’t sleep at all without her. Now, is there . . . ?” She trailed off, staring toward the doors at the entrance of the throne room, and Elayne turned to look.

  A man was standing there watching, a man as tall as an Aielman, with dark red hair faintly streaked with white, but his high-collared blue coat would never be worn by an Aiel. He appeared muscular, and his hard face seemed somehow familiar. When he saw them looking, he turned and ran down the corridor out of sight.

  For an instant, Elayne gaped. He had not just accidentally dreamed himself into Tel’aran’rhiod, or he would have vanished by now, but she could still hear his boots, loud on the floor tiles. Either he was a dreamwalker—rare among men, so the Wise Ones said—or he had a ter’angreal of his own.

  Leaping to her feet, she ran after him, but as fast as she was, Egwene was faster. One instant Egwene was behind, the next she was standing in the doorway, peering the way the man had gone. Elayne tried thinking of herself standing beside Egwene, and she was. The corridor was silent, now, and empty except for stand-lamps and chests and tapestries, all flickering and shifting.

  “How did you do that?” Nynaeve demanded, running up with her skirts hoisted above her knees. Her stockings were silk, and fed! Hastily letting her skirts fall when she realized Elayne had noticed her stockings, she peered down the hallway. “Where did he go? He could have heard everything! Did you recognize him? He reminded me of someone; I don’t know who.”

  “Rand,” Egwene said. “He could have been Rand’s uncle.”

  Of course, Elayne thought. If Rand had a mean uncle.

  A metallic click echoed from the far end of the throne room. The door into the dressing rooms behind the dais, closing. Doors were open or closed or sometimes in between in Tel’aran’rhiod; they did not swing shut.

  “Light!” Nynaeve muttered. “How many people have been eavesdropping on us? Not to mention who, and why?”

  “Whoever they are,” Egwene replied calmly, “they apparently don’t know Tel’aran’rhiod as well as we do. Not friends, safe to say, or they wouldn’t be eavesdropping. And I think they may not be friends to one another, otherwise, why listen from opposite ends of the room? That man was wearing a Shienaran coat. There are Shienarans in my army, but you both know them all. None resemble Rand.”

  Nynaeve sniffed. “Well, whoever he is, there are too many people listening at corners. That’s what I think. I want to be back in my own body, where all I have to worry about are spies and poisoned daggers.”

  Shienarans, Elayne thought. Borderlanders. How could that have slipped her mind? Well, there had been the little matter of forkroot. “There is one more thing,” she said aloud, though in a careful voice she hoped would not carry, and related Dyelin’s news of Borderlanders in Braem Wood. She added Master Norry’s correspondence, too, all the while trying to watch both ways along the corridor and the throne room as well. She did not want to be caught napping by another spy. “I think those rulers are in Braem Wood,” she finished, “all four of them.”

  “Rand,” Egwene breathed, sounding irritated. “Even when he can’t be found he complicates things. Do you have any idea whether they came to offer him allegiance or try to hand him over to Elaida? I can’t think of any other reasons for them to march a thousand leagues. They must be boiling shoes for soup by now! Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep an army supplied on the march?”

  “I think I can find out,” Elayne said. “Why, I mean. And at the same time. . . . You gave me the idea, Egwene.” She could not help smiling. Something good had come of today. “I think I might just be able to use them to secure the Lion Throne.”

  Asne examined
the tall embroidery frame in front of her and gave a sigh that turned into a yawn. The flickering lamps gave a poor light for this, but that was not the reason her birds all seemed lopsided. She wanted to be in her bed, and she despised embroidery. But she had to be awake, and this was the only way to avoid conversation with Chesmal. What Chesmal called conversation. The smugly arrogant Yellow was intent on her own embroidery, on the other side of the room, and she assumed that anyone who took up a needle had her own keen interest in the work. On the other hand, Asne knew, if she rose from her chair, Chesmal would soon start regaling her with tales of her own importance. In the months since Moghedien vanished, she had heard Chesmal’s part in putting Tamra Ospenya to the question at least twenty times, and how Chesmal had induced the Reds to murder Sierin Vayu before Sierin could order her arrest perhaps fifty! To hear Chesmal tell it, she had saved the Black Ajah single-handed, and she would tell it, given half a chance. That sort of talk was not only boring, it was dangerous. Even deadly, if the Supreme Council learned of it. So Asne stifled another yawn, squinted at her work, and pushed the needle through the tightly stretched linen. Perhaps if she made the redbird larger, she could even up the wings.

  The click of the doorlatch brought both women’s heads up. The two servants knew not to bother them, and in any case, the woman and her husband should be fast asleep. Asne embraced saidar, readying a weave that would sear an intruder to the bone, and the glow surrounded Chesmal, too. If the wrong person stepped through that door, they would regret it until they died.

  It was Eldrith, gloves in hand, with her dark cloak still hanging down her back. The plump Brown’s dress was dark, too, and unadorned. Asne hated wearing plain woolens, but they did need to avoid notice. The drab clothes suited Eldrith.

  She stopped at the sight of them, blinking, a momentary look of confusion on her round face. “Oh, my,” she said. “Who did you think I was?” Throwing her gloves onto the small table by the door, she suddenly became aware of her cloak and frowned as if just realizing she had worn it upstairs. Carefully unpinning the silver brooch at her neck, she tossed the cloak onto a chair in a tumbled heap.

  The light of saidar winked out around Chesmal as she twisted her embroidery frame aside so she could stand. Her stern face made her seem taller than she was, and she was a tall woman. The brightly colored flowers she had embroidered might have been in a garden. “Where have you been?” she demanded. Eldrith stood highest among them, and Moghedien had left her in charge besides, but Chesmal had begun taking only cursory notice if that. “You were supposed to be back by afternoon, and the night is half gone!”

  “I lost track of the hour, Chesmal,” Eldrith replied absently, appearing lost in thought. “It has been a long time since I was last in Caemlyn. The Inner City is fascinating, and I had a delightful meal at an inn I remembered. Though I must say, there were fewer sisters about then. No one recognized me, however.” She peered at her brooch as though wondering where it had come from, then tucked it into her belt pouch.

  “You lost track,” Chesmal said flatly, lacing her fingers together at her waist. Perhaps to keep them from Eldrith’s throat. Her eyes glittered with anger. “You lost track.”

  Once more Eldrith blinked, as if startled to be addressed. “Oh. Were you afraid Kennit had found me again? I assure you, since Samara I have been quite careful at keeping the bond masked.”

  At times, Asne wondered how much of Eldrith’s apparent vagueness was real. No one so unaware of the world around her could have survived this long. On the other hand, she had been unfocused enough to let the masking slip more than once before they reached Samara, enough for her Warder to track her. Obedient to Moghedien’s orders to await her return, they had hidden through the riots after her departure, waited while the so-called Prophet’s mobs swept south into Amadicia, stayed in that wretched, ruined town even after Asne became convinced that Moghedien had abandoned them. Her lip curled at the memory. What had sparked the decision to leave was the arrival of Eldrith’s Kennit in the town, sure that she was a murderer, half convinced she was Black Ajah, and determined to kill her no matter the consequences to himself. Not surprisingly, she had been unwilling to face those consequences herself, and refused to let anyone kill the man. The only alternative was to flee. Then again, Eldrith was the one who had pointed out Caemlyn as their only hope.

  “Did you learn anything, Eldrith?” Asne asked politely. Chesmal was a fool. However tattered the world seemed at the moment, affairs would right themselves. One way or another.

  “What? Oh. Only that the pepper sauce wasn’t as good as I remembered. Of course, that was fifty years ago.”

  Asne suppressed a sigh. Perhaps after all it was time for Eldrith to have an accident.

  The door opened and Temaile slipped into the room so silently they were all caught by surprise. The diminutive fox-faced Gray had tossed a robe embroidered with lions over her shoulders, but it gaped down the front, exposing a cream-colored silk nightdress that molded itself to her indecently. Draped over one hand she carried a bracelet made of twisted glass rings. They looked and felt like glass, at least, but a hammer could not have chipped one.

  “You’ve been to Tel’aran’rhiod,” Eldrith said, frowning at the ter’angreal. She did not speak forcefully, though. They were all a little afraid of Temaile since Moghedien had made them observe the last of Liandrin being broken. Asne had lost track of how often she had killed or tortured in the hundred and thirty-odd years since she gained the shawl, but she had seldom seen anyone so . . . enthusiastic . . . as Temaile. Watching Temaile and trying to pretend not to, Chesmal seemed unaware that she was licking her lips nervously. Asne hurriedly put her own tongue back behind her teeth and hoped no one had noticed. Eldrith certainly had not. “We agreed not to use those,” she said, not very far short of pleading. “I’m certain it was Nynaeve who wounded Moghedien, and if she can best one of the Chosen in Tel’aran’rhiod, what chance do we have?” Rounding on the others, she attempted a scolding tone. “Did you two know about this?” She had managed to sound peevish.

  Chesmal met Eldrith’s stare indignantly, while Asne gave her surprised innocence. They had known, but who was going to stand in Temaile’s way? She doubted very much that Eldrith would have made more than a token protest had she been there.

  Temaile knew exactly her effect on them. She should have hung her head at Eldrith’s lecture, fainthearted as it was, and apologized for going against her wishes. Instead, she smiled. That smile never reached her eyes, though, large and dark and much too bright. “You were right, Eldrith. Right that Elayne would come here, and right that Nynaeve would come with her, it seems. They were together, and it is clear they are both in the Palace.”

  “Yes,” Eldrith said, squirming slightly under Temaile’s gaze. “Well.” And she licked her lips, and shifted her feet, too. “Even so, until we can see how to get at them past all those wilders—”

  “They are wilders, Eldrith.” Temaile threw herself down in a chair, limbs sprawling carelessly, and her tone hardened. Not enough to seem commanding, but still more than merely firm. “There are only three sisters to trouble us, and we can dispose of them. We can take Nynaeve, and perhaps Elayne in the bargain.” Abruptly she leaned forward, hands on the arms of the chair. Disarrayed clothing or not, there was no shred of indolence about her now. Eldrith stepped back as though pushed by Temaile’s eyes. “Else why are we here, Eldrith? It is what we came for.”

  No one had anything to say to that. Behind them lay a string of failures—in Tear, in Tanchico—that might well cost them their lives when the Supreme Council laid hands on them. But not if they had one of the Chosen for a patron, and if Moghedien had wanted Nynaeve so badly, perhaps another of them would, too. The real difficulty would be finding one of the Chosen to present with their gift. No one but Asne seemed to have considered that part of it.

  “There were others, there,” Temaile went on, leaning back once more. She sounded almost bored. “Spying on our two Accepted. A ma
n who let them see him, and someone else I could not see.” She pouted irritably. At least, it would have been a pout except for her eyes. “I had to stay behind a column so the girls would not see me. That should please you, Eldrith. That they did not see me. Are you pleased?”

  Eldrith almost stammered getting out how pleased she was.

  Asne let herself feel her four Warders, coming ever closer. She had stopped masking herself when they left Samara. Only Powl was a Friend of the Dark, of course, yet the others would do whatever she said, believe whatever she told them. It would be necessary to keep them concealed from the others unless absolutely necessary, but she wanted armed men close at hand. Muscles and steel were very useful. And if worse came to worst, she could always reveal the long, fluted rod that Moghedien had not hidden so well as she thought she had.

  The early morning light in the sitting room’s windows was gray, an earlier hour than the Lady Shiaine usually rose, but this morning she had been dressed while it was still full dark. The Lady Shiaine was how she thought of herself, now. Mili Skane, the saddler’s daughter, was almost completely forgotten. In every way that mattered, she really was the Lady Shiaine Avarhin, and had been for years. Lord Willim Avarhin had been impoverished, reduced to living in a ramshackle farmhouse and unable to keep even that in good repair. He and his only daughter, the last of a declining line, had stayed in the country, far from anywhere their penury might be exposed, and now they were only bones buried in the forest near that farmhouse, and she was the Lady Shiaine, and if this tall, well-appointed stone house was not a manor, it still had been the property of a well-to-do merchant. She was long dead, too, after signing over her gold to her “heir.” The furnishings were well made, the carpets costly, the tapestries and even the seat cushions embroidered with thread-of-gold, and the fire roared in a wide blue-veined marble fireplace. She had had the once-plain lintel carved with Avarhin’s Heart and Hand row on row.