The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

“The Amyrlin will be seeing all three, Nynaeve. Ta’veren are not so common that she would miss the chance to see three together in one place. Perhaps she will give them a few words of encouragement, since they are riding with Ingtar to hunt those who stole the Horn. They will be leaving about the time we do, so you had better hurry with any farewells.”

  Nynaeve dashed to the nearest arrowslit and peered down at the outer courtyard. Horses were everywhere, pack animals and saddle horses, and men hurrying about them, calling to each other. The only clear space was where the Amyrlin’s palanquin stood, its paired horses waiting patiently without any attendants. Some of the Warders were out there, looking over their mounts, and on the other side of the courtyard, Ingtar stood with a knot of Shienarans around him in armor. Sometimes a Warder or one of Ingtar’s men crossed the paving stones to exchange a word.

  “I should have gotten the boys away from you,” she said, still looking out. Egwene, too, if I could do it without killing her. Light, why did she have to be born with this cursed ability? “I should have taken them back home.”

  “They are more than old enough to be off apron strings,” Moiraine said dryly. “And you know very well why you could never do that. For one of them, at least. Besides, it would mean leaving Egwene to go to Tar Valon alone. Or have you decided to forgo Tar Valon yourself? If your own use of the Power is not schooled, you will never be able to use it against me.”

  Nynaeve spun to face the Aes Sedai, her jaw dropping. She could not help it. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Did you think I did not know, child? Well, as you wish it. I take it that you are coming to Tar Valon? Yes, I thought so.”

  Nynaeve wanted to hit her, to knock away the brief smile that flashed across the Aes Sedai’s face. Aes Sedai had not been able to wield power openly since the Breaking, much less the One Power, but they plotted and manipulated, pulled strings like puppetmasters, used thrones and nations like stones on a stones board. She wants to use me, too, somehow. If a king or a queen, why not a Wisdom? Just the way she’s using Rand. I’m no child, Aes Sedai.

  “What are you doing with Rand, now? Have you not used him enough? I don’t know why you have not had him gentled, now the Amyrlin’s here with all those other Aes Sedai, but you must have a reason. It must be some plot you’re hatching. If the Amyrlin knew what you were up to, I wager she’d—”

  Moiraine cut her off. “What possible interest could the Amyrlin have in a shepherd? Of course, if he were brought to her attention in the wrong way, he might be gentled, or even killed. He is what he is, after all. And there is considerable anger about last night. Everyone is looking for whom to blame.” The Aes Sedai fell silent, and let the silence stretch. Nynaeve stared at her, grinding her teeth.

  “Yes,” Moiraine said finally, “much better to let a sleeping lion sleep. Best you see to your packing, now.” She moved off in the direction Lan had gone, seeming to glide across the floor.

  Grimacing, Nynaeve swung her fist back against the wall; the ring dug at her palm. She opened her hand to look at it. The ring seemed to heat her anger, focus her hate. I will learn. You think because you know, you can escape me. But I will learn better than you think, and I will pull you down for what you’ve done. For what you’ve done to Mat, and to Perrin. For Rand, the Light help him and the Creator shelter him. Especially for Rand. Her hand closed around the heavy circlet of gold. And for me.

  Egwene watched the liveried maid folding her dresses into a leather-covered travel chest, still a little uncomfortable, even after nearly a month’s practice, with someone else doing what she could very well have done herself. They were such beautiful dresses, all gifts from the Lady Amalisa, just like the gray silk riding dress she wore, though that was plain except for a few white morningstar blossoms worked on the breast. Many of the dresses were much more elaborate. Any one of them would shine at Sunday, or at Bel Tine. She sighed, remembering that she would be in Tar Valon for the next Sunday, not Emond’s Field. From the little Moiraine had told her of novice training—almost nothing, really—she expected she might not be home for Bel Tine, in the spring, or even the Sunday after that.

  Nynaeve put her head into the room. “Are you ready?” She came the rest of the way in. “We must be down in the courtyard soon.” She wore a riding dress, too, in blue silk with red loversknots on the bosom. Another gift from Amalisa.

  “Nearly, Nynaeve. I am almost sorry to be going. I don’t suppose we’ll have many chances in Tar Valon to wear the nice dresses Amalisa gave us.” She gave an abrupt laugh. “Still, Wisdom, I won’t miss being able to bathe without looking over my shoulder the whole time.”

  “Much better to bathe alone,” Nynaeve said briskly. Her face did not change, but after a moment her cheeks colored.

  Egwene smiled. She’s thinking about Lan. It was still odd to think of Nynaeve, the Wisdom, mooning after a man. She did not think it would be wise to put it to Nynaeve in quite that way, but of late, sometimes the Wisdom acted as strangely as any girl who had set her heart on a particular man. And one who doesn’t have enough sense to be worthy of her, at that. She loves him, and I can see he loves her, so why can’t he have sense enough to speak up?

  “I don’t think you should call me Wisdom any longer,” Nynaeve said suddenly.

  Egwene blinked. It was not required, exactly, and Nynaeve never insisted on it unless she was angry, or being formal, but this. . . . “Why ever not?”

  “You are a woman, now.” Nynaeve glanced at her unbraided hair, and Egwene resisted the urge to hurriedly twist it into a semblance of a braid. Aes Sedai wore their hair any way they wanted, but wearing hers loose had become a symbol of starting on a new life. “You are a woman,” Nynaeve repeated firmly. “We are two women, a long way from Emond’s Field, and it will be longer still before we see home again. It will be better if you simply call me Nynaeve.”

  “We will see home again, Nynaeve. We will.”

  “Don’t try to comfort the Wisdom, girl,” Nynaeve said gruffly, but she smiled.

  There was a knock at the door, but before Egwene could open it, Nisura came in, agitation all over her face. “Egwene, that young man of yours is trying to come into the women’s apartments.” She sounded scandalized. “And wearing a sword. Just because the Amyrlin let him enter that way. . . . Lord Rand should know better. He is causing an uproar. Egwene, you must speak to him.”

  “Lord Rand,” Nynaeve snorted. “That young man is growing too big for his breeches. When I get my hands on him, I’ll lord him.”

  Egwene put a hand on Nynaeve’s arm. “Let me speak to him, Nynaeve. Alone.”

  “Oh, very well. The best of men are not much better than housebroken.” Nynaeve paused, and added half to herself, “But then, the best of them are worth the trouble of housebreaking.”

  Egwene shook her head as she followed Nisura into the hall. Even half a year before, Nynaeve would never have added the second part. But she’ll never housebreak Lan. Her thoughts turned to Rand. Causing an uproar, was he? “House break him?” she muttered. “If he hasn’t learned manners by this time, I’ll skin him alive.”

  “Sometimes that is what it takes,” Nisura said, walking quickly. “Men are never more than half-civilized until they’re wedded.” She gave Egwene a sidelong glance. “Do you intend to marry Lord Rand? I do not mean to pry, but you are going to the White Tower, and Aes Sedai seldom wed—none but some of the Green Ajah, that I’ve ever heard, and not many of them—and. . . .”

  Egwene could supply the rest. She had heard the talk in the women’s apartments about a suitable wife for Rand. At first it had caused stabs of jealousy, and anger. He had been all but promised to her since they were children. But she was going to be an Aes Sedai, and he was what he was. A man who could channel. She could marry him. And watch him go mad, watch him die. The only way to stop it would be to have him gentled. I can’t do that to him. I can’t! “I do not know,” she said sadly.

  Nisura nodded. “No one will poac
h where you have a claim, but you are going to the Tower, and he will make a good husband. Once he has been trained. There he is.”

  The women gathered around the entrance to the women’s apartments, both inside and out, were all watching three men in the hallway outside. Rand, with his sword buckled over his red coat, was being confronted by Agelmar and Kajin. Neither of them wore a sword; even after what had happened in the night, these were still the women’s apartments. Egwene stopped at the back of the crowd.

  “You understand why you cannot go in,” Agelmar was saying. “I know that things are different in Andor, but you do understand?”

  “I didn’t try to go in.” Rand sounded as if he had explained all this more than once already. “I told the Lady Nisura I wanted to see Egwene, and she said Egwene was busy, and I’d have to wait. All I did was shout for her from the door. I did not try to enter. You’d have thought I was naming the Dark One, the way they all started in on me.”

  “Women have their own ways,” Kajin said. He was tall for a Shienaran, almost as tall as Rand, lanky and sallow. His topknot was black as pitch. “They set the rules for the women’s apartments, and we abide by them even when they are foolish.” A number of eyebrows were raised among the women, and he hastily cleared his throat. “You must send a message in if you wish to speak to one of the women, but it will be delivered when they choose, and until it is, you must wait. That is our custom.”

  “I have to see her,” Rand said stubbornly. “We’re leaving soon. Not soon enough for me, but I still have to see Egwene. We will get the Horn of Valere and the dagger back, and that will be the end of it. The end of it. But I want to see her before I go.” Egwene frowned; he sounded odd.

  “No need to be so fierce,” Kajin said. “You and Ingtar will find the Horn, or not. And if not, then another will retrieve it. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and we are but threads in the Pattern.”

  “Do not let the Horn seize you, Rand,” Agelmar said. “It can take hold of a man—I know how it can—and that is not the way. A man must seek duty, not glory. What will happen, will happen. If the Horn of Valere is meant to be sounded for the Light, then it will be.”

  “Here is your Egwene,” Kajin said, spotting her.

  Agelmar looked around, and nodded when he saw her with Nisura. “I will leave you in her hands, Rand al’Thor. Remember, here, her words are law, not yours. Lady Nisura, do not be too hard on him. He only wished to see his young woman, and he does not know our ways.”

  Egwene followed Nisura as the Shienaran woman threaded her way through the watching women. Nisura inclined her head briefly to Agelmar and Kajin; she pointedly did not include Rand. Her voice was tight. “Lord Agelmar. Lord Kajin. He should know this much of our ways by now, but he is too big to spank, so I will let Egwene deal with him.”

  Agelmar gave Rand a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “You see. You will speak with her, if not exactly in the way you wished. Come, Kajin. We have much to see to yet. The Amyrlin still insists on. . . .” His voice trailed away as he and the other man left. Rand stood there, looking at Egwene.

  The women were still watching, Egwene realized. Watching her as well as Rand. Waiting to see what she would do. So I’m supposed to deal with him, am I? Yet she felt her heart going out to him. His hair needed brushing. His face showed anger, defiance, and weariness. “Walk with me,” she told him. A murmur started up behind them as he walked down the hall beside her, away from the women’s apartments. Rand seemed to be struggling with himself, hunting for what to say.

  “I’ve heard about your . . . exploits,” she said finally. “Running through the women’s apartments last night with a sword. Wearing a sword to an audience with the Amyrlin Seat.” He still said nothing, only walked along frowning at the floor. “She didn’t . . . hurt you, did she?” She could not make herself ask if he had been gentled; he looked anything but gentle, but she had no idea what a man looked like afterwards.

  He gave a jerk. “No. She didn’t. . . . Egwene, the Amyrlin. . . .” He shook his head. “She didn’t hurt me.”

  She had the feeling he had been going to say something else entirely. Usually she could ferret out whatever he wanted to hide from her, but when he really wanted to be stubborn, she could more easily dig a brick out of a wall with her fingernails. By the set of his jaw, he was at his most stubborn right now.

  “What did she want with you, Rand?”

  “Nothing important. Ta’veren. She wanted to see ta’veren.” His face softened as he looked down at her. “What about you, Egwene? Are you all right? Moiraine said you would be, but you were so still. I thought you were dead, at first.”

  “Well, I’m not.” She laughed. She could not remember anything that had happened after she had asked Mat to go to the dungeons with her, not until waking in her own bed that morning. From what she had heard of the night, she was almost glad she could not remember. “Moiraine said she would have left me a headache for being foolish if she could have Healed the rest and not that, but she couldn’t.”

  “I told you Fain was dangerous,” he muttered. “I told you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “If that’s the way you are going to talk,” she said firmly, “I will give you back to Nisura. She won’t talk to you the way I am. The last man who tried to push his way into the women’s apartments spent a month up to his elbows in soapy water, helping with the women’s laundry, and he was only trying to find his betrothed and make up an argument. At least he knew enough not to wear his sword. The Light knows what they’d do to you.”

  “Everybody wants to do something to me,” he growled. “Everybody wants to use me for something. Well, I won’t be used. Once we find the Horn, and Mat’s dagger, I’ll never be used again.”

  With an exasperated grunt, she caught his shoulders and made him face her. She glared up at him. “If you don’t start talking sense, Rand al’Thor, I swear I will box your ears.”

  “Now you sound like Nynaeve.” He laughed. As he looked down at her, though, his laughter faded. “I suppose—I suppose I’ll never see you again. I know you have to go to Tar Valon. I know that. And you’ll become an Aes Sedai. I am done with Aes Sedai, Egwene. I won’t be a puppet for them, not for Moiraine, or any of them.”

  He looked so lost she wanted to put his head on her shoulder, and so stubborn she really did want to box his ears. “Listen to me, you great ox. I am going to be an Aes Sedai, and I’ll find a way to help you. I will.”

  “The next time you see me, you will likely want to gentle me.”

  She looked around hastily; they were alone in their stretch of the hall. “If you don’t watch your tongue, I will not be able to help you. Do you want everyone to know?”

  “Too many know already,” he said. “Egwene, I wish things were different, but they aren’t. I wish. . . . Take care of yourself. And promise me you won’t choose the Red Ajah.”

  Tears blurred her vision as she threw her arms around him. “You take care of yourself,” she said fiercely into his chest. “If you don’t, I’ll—I’ll. . . .” She thought she heard him murmur, “I love you,” and then he was firmly unwrapping her arms, gently moving her away from him. He turned and strode away from her, almost running.

  She jumped when Nisura touched her arm. “He looks as if you set him a task he won’t enjoy. But you mustn’t let him see you cry over it. That negates the purpose. Come. Nynaeve wants you.”

  Scrubbing her cheeks, Egwene followed the other woman. Take care of yourself, you wool-headed lummox. Light, take care of him.

  CHAPTER 9

  Leavetakings

  The outer courtyard was in ordered turmoil when Rand finally reached it with his saddlebags and the bundle containing the harp and flute. The sun climbed toward midday. Men hurried around the horses, tugging at saddle girths and pack harness, voices raised. Others darted with last-minute additions to the packsaddles, or water for the men working, or dashed off to fetch something just remembered. But everyone seemed to know exactly what
they were doing and where they were going. The guardwalks and archers’ balconies were crowded again, and excitement crackled in the morning air. Hooves clattered on the paving stones. One of the packhorses began kicking, and stablemen ran to calm it. The smell of horses hung thick. Rand’s cloak tried to flap in the breeze that rippled the swooping-hawk banners on the towers, but his bow, slung across his back, held it down.

  From outside the open gates came the sounds of the Amyrlin’s pikemen and archers forming up in the square. They had marched around from a side gate. One of the trumpeters tested his horn.

  Some of the Warders glanced at Rand as he walked across the courtyard; a few raised eyebrows when they saw the heron-mark sword, but none spoke. Half wore the cloaks that were so queasy-making to look at. Mandarb, Lan’s stallion, was there, tall, and black, and fierce-eyed, but the man himself was not, and none of the Aes Sedai, none of the women, were in evidence yet either. Moiraine’s white mare, Aldieb, stepped daintily beside the stallion.

  Rand’s bay stallion was with the other group on the far side of the courtyard, with Ingtar, and a bannerman holding Ingtar’s Gray Owl banner, and twenty other armored men with lances tipped with two feet of steel, all mounted already. The bars of their helmets covered their faces, and golden surcoats with the Black Hawk on the chest hid their plate-and-mail. Only Ingtar’s helmet had a crest, a crescent moon above his brow, points up. Rand recognized some of the men. Rough-tongued Uno, with a long scar down his face and only one eye. Ragan and Masema. Others who had exchanged a word, or played a game of stones. Ragan waved to him, and Uno nodded, but Masema was not the only one who gave him a cold stare and turned away. Their packhorses stood placidly, tails swishing.

  The big bay danced as Rand tied his saddlebags and bundle behind the high-cantled saddle. He put his foot in the stirrup and murmured, “Easy, Red,” as he swung into the saddle, but he let the stallion frisk away some of his stable-bound energy.