The Gathering Storm

by Robert Jordan

  When she’d first been Healed, her reduced power had been a disappointment. But that was changing. Yes, it was infuriating to be beneath so many, to lack respect from those around her. However, because she was weaker in power, many seemed to assume she was weaker in political skill as well! Could people really forget so quickly? She was finding her new status among the Aes Sedai to be liberating.

  “Yes,” Lelaine said as she nodded to another group of novices, “I believe that it is time to send envoys to the kingdoms that al’Thor hasn’t conquered. We may not hold the White Tower itself, but that is no reason to abandon our political stewardship of the world.”

  “Yes, Lelaine,” Siuan said. “But are you certain that Romanda won’t argue against that?”

  “Why would she?” Lelaine said dismissively. “It wouldn’t make sense.”

  “Little Romanda does makes sense,” Siuan said. “I think she disagrees just to spite you. But I did see her chatting with Maralenda earlier in the week.”

  Lelaine frowned. Maralenda was a distant cousin to the Trakand line.

  Siuan covered a smile. It was amazing how much you could accomplish when people dismissed you. How many women had she dismissed because they lacked visible power? How often had she been manipulated much as she now manipulated Lelaine?

  “I shall look into it,” Lelaine said. It didn’t matter what she discovered; as long as she was kept busy worrying about Romanda, she wouldn’t be able to spend as much time stealing power from Egwene.

  Egwene. The Amyrlin needed to hurry up and finish with her plotting in the White Tower. What good would it do to undermine Elaida if the Aes Sedai outside crumbled while Egwene wasn’t watching? Siuan could only keep Romanda and Lelaine distracted for so long, particularly now that Lelaine held such a distinct advantage. Light! Some days, she felt that she was trying to juggle buttered live silverpike.

  Siuan checked the position of the sun behind that dockmaster’s sky. It was late afternoon. “Fish guts,” she muttered. “I’ll need to be going, Lelaine.”

  Lelaine glanced at her. “You have washing, I presume? For that ruffian of a general of yours?”

  “He’s not a ruffian,” Siuan snapped, then cursed herself. She’d lose much of her advantage if she kept snapping at those who thought themselves her betters.

  Lelaine smiled, eyes twinkling as if she knew something special. Insufferable woman. Friend or not, Siuan had half a mind to wipe . . .

  No. “I apologize, Lelaine,” Siuan forced out. “I get on edge, thinking of what that man demands of me.”

  “Yes,” Lelaine said, downturning her lips. “I’ve considered on this, Siuan. The Amyrlin may have suffered Bryne’s bullying of a sister, but I won’t stand for it. You’re one of my attendants now.”

  One of your attendants? Siuan thought. I thought that I was just supposed to support you until Egwene returned.

  “Yes,” Lelaine mused, “I should think it’s time to put an end to your servitude to Bryne. I shall pay off your debt, Siuan.”

  “Pay off my debt?” Siuan said, feeling a moment of panic. “Is that wise? Not that I wouldn’t mind being free of that man, of course, but my position offers me quite useful opportunities for listening in on his plans.”

  “Plans?” Lelaine asked, frowning.

  Siuan cringed inwardly. The last thing she wanted was to imply wrongdoing on Bryne’s part. Light, the man was strict enough to make Warders look sloppy in keeping their oaths.

  She should just let Lelaine end this foolish servitude, but the thought made her stomach churn. Bryne was already disappointed that she’d broken her oath to him months before. Well, she hadn’t broken that oath—she’d just postponed her period of service. But try convincing the stubborn fool of that fact!

  If she took the easy way out now, what would he think of her? He’d think that he’d won, that she’d proven herself unable to keep her word. There was no way she’d let that happen.

  Besides, she wasn’t about to let Lelaine be the one who freed her. That would just move her debt from Bryne to Lelaine. The Aes Sedai would collect it in far more subtle ways, but each coin would end up being paid one way or another, if only through demands of loyalty.

  “Lelaine,” Siuan said softly, “I don’t suspect the good general of anything. However, he controls our armies. Can he really be trusted to do as required without any supervision?”

  Lelaine sniffed. “I’m not certain any man can be trusted without direction.”

  “I hate doing his laundry,” Siuan said. Well, she did. Even if she wouldn’t be stopped from doing it for all of the gold in Tar Valon. “But if the duty keeps me close, with a listening ear. . . .”

  “Yes,” Lelaine said, nodding slowly. “Yes, I see that you are right. I will not forget your sacrifice, Siuan. Very well, you are dismissed.”

  Lelaine turned, glancing down at her hand, as if longing for something. Probably wishing for the day when—as Amyrlin—she could offer her Great Serpent ring for a kiss when she parted ways with another sister. Light, but Egwene needed to return soon. Buttered silverpike! Buttered, flaming silverpike!

  Siuan made her way toward the edge of the Aes Sedai camp. Bryne’s army surrounded the Aes Sedai camp in a large ring, but she was on the far side of the ring from Bryne. It would take a good half-hour to walk to his command post. Fortunately, she found a wagon driver who was taking a load of supplies, brought through a gateway, to the army. The short, grizzled man immediately agreed to let her ride with the turnips, though he did seem puzzled why she didn’t go get a horse, as befitted an Aes Sedai’s station. Well, it wasn’t that far, and riding with vegetables was a fate far less undignified than being forced to jounce around on the back of a horse. If Gareth Bryne wanted to complain about her tardiness, then he’d get an earful, he would!

  She settled back against a lumpy sack of turnips, brown-skirted legs hanging over the back of the wagon. As the cart rolled up a slight incline, she could see over the Aes Sedai camp—with its white tents and citylike organization. Ringed around it was the army, with smaller tents in neat straight lines, and ringed around them was a growing ring of camp followers.

  Beyond it all, the landscape was brown, the winter snows melted, but spring sprouts scarce. The countryside was pocketed with thickets of scrub oak; shadows in valleys and twisting lines of chimney smoke pointed to distant villages. It was surprising how familiar, how welcome, these grasslands felt. When she had first come to the White Tower, she’d been sure she’d never come to love this landlocked countryside.

  Now she had lived much more of her life in Tar Valon than she had in Tear. It was difficult at times to recall that girl who had sewn nets and gone on early-morning trawling trips with her father. She’d become something else, a woman who traded in secrets rather than fish.

  Secrets, those powerful, dominating secrets. They had become her life. No love save for youthful dalliances. No time for entanglements, or much room for friendships. She’d focused on only one thing: finding the Dragon Reborn. Helping him, guiding him, hopefully controlling him.

  Moiraine had died following that same quest, but at least she had been able to go out and see the world. Siuan had grown old—in spirit, if not in body—cooped up in the Tower, pulling her strings and nudging the world. She’d done some good. Time would tell if those efforts had been enough.

  She didn’t regret her life. Yet, at this moment, passing army tents—holes and broken ruts in the path shaking the cart, making it rattle like dried fishbones in a kettle—she envied Moiraine. How often had Siuan bothered to look out of her window toward the beautiful green landscape, before it all had started going sickly? She and Moiraine had fought so hard to save this world, but they had left themselves without anything to enjoy in it.

  Perhaps Siuan had made a mistake in staying with the Blue, unlike Leane, who had taken the opportunity in their stilling and Healing to change to the Green Ajah. No, Siuan thought, wagon rattling, smelling of bitter turnips. No, I’m still focus
ed on saving this blasted world. There would be no switching to the Green for her. Though, thinking of Bryne, she did wish that the Blue were a little more like the Green in certain ways.

  Siuan the Amyrlin hadn’t had any time for entanglements, but what of Siuan the attendant? Guiding people with quiet manipulations required a lot more skill than bullying them with the power of the Amyrlin Seat, and it was proving more fulfilling. But it also left her without the crushing weight of responsibility she’d felt during her years leading the White Tower. Was there, perhaps, room in her life for a few more changes?

  The wagon reached the far side of the army camp, and she shook her head at her own foolishness as she hopped down, then nodded her thanks to the wagon driver. Was she a girl, barely old enough for her first full-day blackfish trawl? There was no use in thinking of Bryne that way. At least not right now. There was too much to do.

  She walked along the perimeter of the camp, army tents to her left. It was growing dark, and lanterns burning precious oil illuminated disorganized shanties and tents to her right. Ahead of her, a small circular palisade rose on the army side. It didn’t enclose the entire army—in fact, it was only big enough for several dozen officer tents and some larger command tents. It was to act as a fortification in an emergency, but always as a center of operations—Bryne felt it good to have a physical barrier separating the larger camp from the place where he held conference with his officers. With the confusion of the civilian camp, and with such a long border to patrol, it would be too easy for spies to approach his tents otherwise.

  The palisade was only about three-quarters done, but work was progressing quickly. Perhaps he would choose to surround the entire army, eventually, if the siege continued long enough. For now, Bryne felt that the small, fortified command post would not only suggest security to the soldiers, but also lend them a sense of authority.

  The eight-foot wooden stakes rose from the ground ahead, a line of sentinels standing side by side, points raised to the sky. While holding a siege one generally had a lot of manpower for work like this. The guards at the palisade gate knew to let her pass, and she quickly made her way to Bryne’s tent. She did have washing to do, but most of it would probably have to wait until the morning. She was supposed to meet Egwene in Tel’aran’rhiod as soon as it grew dark, and the glow of the sunset was already beginning to fade.

  Bryne’s tent, as usual, shone with only a very faint light. While people outside squandered their oil, he scrimped. Most of his men lived better than he did. Fool man. Siuan pushed her way into the tent without calling. If he was foolish enough to change without going behind the screen, then he was foolish enough to be seen doing it.

  He was seated at his desk working by the light of a solitary candle. He appeared to be reading scout reports.

  Siuan sniffed, letting the tent flaps droop closed behind her. Not a single lamp! That man! “You will ruin your eyes reading by such poor light, Gareth Bryne.”

  “I have read by the light of a single candle for most of my life, Siuan,” he said, turning over a page and not looking up. “And I’ll have you know that my eyesight is the same as it was when I was a boy.”

  “Oh?” Siuan said. “So you’re saying that your eyesight was poor to begin with?”

  Bryne grinned, but continued his reading. Siuan sniffed again, loudly, to make sure he heard. Then she wove a globe of light and sent it hovering over beside his desk. Fool man. She wouldn’t have him going so blind he fell in battle to an attack he didn’t see. After setting the light beside his head—perhaps too close for him to be comfortable with it without scooting over—she walked over to pluck clothing off the drying line she’d strung across the center of the tent. He’d voiced no complaint about her using the inside of his tent for drying laundry, and hadn’t taken it down. That was a disappointment. She’d been anticipating chastising him for that.

  “A woman from the camp outside approached me today,” Bryne said, shifting his chair to the side, then picking up another stack of pages. “She offered me laundry service. She’s organizing a group of washwomen in the camp, and she claimed that she could do my wash more quickly and effectively than a single distracted maidservant could.”

  Siuan froze, sparing a glance at Bryne, who was looking through his papers. His strong jaw was lit on the left by the even white light of her globe and on the right by the flickering orange candlelight. Some men were made weak by age, others were made to look tired or slovenly. Bryne had simply become distinguished, like a pillar, crafted by a master stonemason, then left to the elements. Age hadn’t reduced Bryne’s effectiveness or his strength. It had simply given him character, dusting his temples with silver, creasing his firm face with lines of wisdom.

  “And what did you tell this woman?” she asked.

  Bryne turned a page over. “I told her that I was satisfied with my laundry.” He looked up at her. “I have to say, Siuan, that I’m surprised. I had assumed that an Aes Sedai would know little of work such as this, but rarely have my uniforms known such a perfect combination of stiffness and comfort. You are to be commended.”

  Siuan turned away from him, hiding her blush. Fool man! She had caused kings to kneel before her! She manipulated the Aes Sedai and planned for the deliverance of mankind itself! And he complimented her on her laundering skills?

  The thing was, from Bryne, that was an honest and meaningful compliment. He didn’t look down on washwomen, or on runner boys. He treated all with equity. A person didn’t gain stature in Gareth Bryne’s eyes by being a king or queen; one gained stature by keeping to one’s oaths and doing one’s duty. To him, a compliment on laundry well done was as meaningful as a medal awarded to a soldier who had stood his ground before the enemy.

  She glanced back at him. He was still watching her. Fool man! She hurriedly took down another of his shirts and began folding it.

  “You never did explain to my satisfaction why you broke your oath,” he said.

  Siuan froze, looking at the back wall of the tent, splayed with shadows of the still-hanging laundry. “I thought that you understood,” she said, continuing to fold. “I had important information for the Aes Sedai in Salidar. Besides, I couldn’t very well let Logain run about free, now could I? I had to find him and get him to Salidar.”

  “Those are excuses,” Bryne said. “Oh, I know that they’re true. But you’re Aes Sedai. You can cite four facts and use them to hide the real truth as effectively as another might use lies.”

  “So you claim I’m a liar?” she demanded.

  “No,” he said. “Just an oathbreaker.”

  She glanced at him, eyes widening. Why, she’d let him hear the rough side of. . . .

  She hesitated. He was watching her, bathed in the glow of the two lights, eyes thoughtful. Reserved, but not accusatory. “That question drove me here, you know,” he said. “It’s why I hunted you all that way. It’s why I finally swore to these rebel Aes Sedai, though I had little wish to be pulled into yet another war at Tar Valon. I did it all because I needed to understand. I had to know. Why? Why did the woman with those eyes—those passionate, haunting eyes—break her oath?”

  “I told you I was going to return to you and fulfill that oath,” Siuan said, turning away from him and snapping a shirt in front of her to unwrinkle it.

  “Another excuse,” he said softly. “Another answer from an Aes Sedai. Will I ever have the full truth from you, Siuan Sanche? Has anyone ever had it?” He sighed, and she heard papers rustle, the candle’s light flickering in the faint stir of his movements as he turned back to his reports.

  “When I was still an Accepted in the White Tower,” Siuan said softly, “I was one of four people present when a Foretelling announced the imminent birth of the Dragon Reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount.”

  His rustling froze.

  “One of the three others present,” Siuan continued, “died on the spot. Another died soon after. I’m confident that she—the Amyrlin Seat herself—was murdered by the Black A
jah. Yes, it exists. If you tell anyone that I admitted that fact, I’ll have your tongue.

  “Anyway, before she died, the Amyrlin sent Aes Sedai out hunting the Dragon. One by one, those women vanished. The Blacks must have tortured their names out of Tamra before killing her. She would not have given up those names easily. I still shiver, sometimes, thinking about what she must have gone through.

  “Soon, there were just the two of us left who knew. Moiraine and me. We weren’t supposed to hear the Foretelling. We were just Accepted, in the room by happenstance. I believe that Tamra was somehow able to withhold our names from the Blacks, for if she hadn’t, we’d have undoubtedly been murdered like the others.

  “That left two of us. The only two in all of the world who knew what was coming. At least, the only two who served the Light. And so I did what I had to, Gareth Bryne. I dedicated my life to preparing for the Dragon’s coming. I swore to see us through the Last Battle. To do whatever was necessary—whatever was necessary—to bear the burden I had been given. There was only one other person I knew I could trust, and she is now dead.”

  Siuan turned, meeting his eyes across the tent. A breeze rippled the walls and fluttered the candle, but Bryne sat still, watching her.

  “So you see, Gareth Bryne,” she said. “I had to delay fulfilling my oath to you because of other oaths. I swore to see this through to the end, and the Dragon has not yet met his destiny at Shayol Ghul. A person’s oaths must follow their order of importance. When I swore to you, I did not promise to serve you immediately. I was intentionally careful on that point. You will call it an Aes Sedai wordplay. I would call it something else.”

  “Which is?” he asked.

  “Doing what was necessary to protect you, your lands and your people, Gareth Bryne. You blame me for the loss of a barn and some cows. Well, then I suggest that you consider the cost to your people should the Dragon Reborn fail. Sometimes, prices must be paid so that a more important duty can be served. I would expect a soldier to understand that.”