The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  There were two dark-haired women in the shop. One, young and thin and trying to wipe her nose surreptitiously with the back of her hand, held a bolt of pale red silk clutched anxiously to her bosom. Her hair was a mass of long curls to her shoulders, in the Amadician fashion, but it seemed a tangle beside the other woman’s neat array. The other, handsome and in her middle years, was assuredly the seamstress, as proclaimed by the large bristling pincushion fastened to her wrist. Her dress was of a good green wool, well cut and well made to show her skill, but only lightly worked with white flowers around the high neck so as not to overshadow her patrons.

  When Nynaeve and Elayne walked in, both women gaped as if none had entered in a year. The seamstress recovered first, regarding them with careful dignity as she made a slight curtsy. “May I serve you? I am Ronde Macura. My shop is yours.”

  “I want a dress embroidered with yellow roses on the bodice,” Nynaeve told her. “But no thorns, mind,” she added with a laugh. “I don’t heal very fast.” What she said did not matter, so long as she included “yellow” and “heal” in it. Now, if only that bunch of flowers was not happenstance. If that was the case, she would have to find some reason not to buy a dress with roses. And a way to keep Elayne from recounting the whole miserable experience to Thom and Juilin.

  Mistress Macura stared at her for a moment with dark eyes, then turned to the thin girl, pushing her toward the back of the shop. “Go on to the kitchen, Luci, and make a pot of tea for these good ladies. From the blue canister. The water’s hot, thank the Light. Go on, girl. Put that down and stop gawking. Quickly, quickly. The blue canister, mind. My best tea,” she said, turning back to Nynaeve as the girl vanished through a door at the rear. “I live over the shop, you see, and my kitchen is in the back.” She was smoothing her skirts nervously, thumb and forefinger of her right hand forming a circle. For the Great Serpent ring. There would be no need for an excuse about the dress, it seemed.

  Nynaeve repeated the sign, and after a moment Elayne did, too. “I am Nynaeve, and this is Elayne. We saw your signal.”

  The woman fluttered as if she might fly away. “The signal? Ah. Yes. Of course.”

  “Well?” Nynaeve said. “What is the urgent message?”

  “We should not talk about that out here . . . uh . . . Mistress Nynaeve. Anyone might walk in.” Nynaeve doubted that. “I will tell you over a nice cup of tea. My best tea, did I say?”

  Nynaeve exchanged looks with Elayne. If Mistress Macura was this reluctant to speak her news, it must be appalling indeed.

  “If we may just step into the back,” Elayne said, “no one will hear but us.” Her regal tone made the seamstress stare. For a moment, Nynaeve thought it might cut through her nervousness, but the next instant the fool woman was babbling again.

  “The tea will be ready in a moment. The water’s already hot. We used to get Taraboner tea through here. That is why I am here, I suppose. Not the tea, of course. All the trade that used to be, and all the news that came both ways with the wagons. They—you are mainly interested in outbreaks of disease, or a new kind of illness, but I find that interesting myself. I dabble a little with—” She coughed and rushed on; if she smoothed her dress any harder, she would wear a hole in it. “Some about the Children, of course, but they—you—are not much interested in them, really.”

  “The kitchen, Mistress Macura,” Nynaeve said firmly as soon as the other woman paused for breath. If the woman’s news made her this afraid, Nynaeve would brook no more delay in hearing it.

  The door at the back opened enough to admit Luci’s anxious head. “It’s ready, Mistress,” she announced breathlessly.

  “This way, Mistress Nynaeve,” the seamstress said, still rubbing the front of her dress. “Mistress Elayne.”

  A short hallway led past narrow stairs to a snug, beam-ceilinged kitchen, with a steaming kettle sitting on the hearth and tall cupboards everywhere. Copper pots hung between the back door and a window that looked out into a small yard with a high wooden fence. The small table in the middle of the floor held a brilliant yellow teapot, a green honey jar, three mismatched cups in as many colors, and a squat blue pottery canister with the lid beside it. Mistress Macura snatched the canister, lidded it, and hastily put it into a cupboard that held more in two dozen shades and hues.

  “Sit, please,” she said, filling the cups. “Please.”

  Nynaeve took a ladder-back chair next to Elayne, and the seamstress set cups in front of them, flitting to one of the cupboards for pewter spoons.

  “The message?” Nynaeve said as the woman sat down across from them. Mistress Macura was too nervous to touch her own teacup, so Nynaeve stirred a little honey into hers and took a sip; it was hot, but had a cool, minty aftertaste. Hot tea might settle the woman’s nerves, if she could be made to drink.

  “A pleasant taste,” Elayne murmured over the edge of her cup. “What sort of tea is it?”

  Good girl, Nynaeve thought.

  But the seamstress’s hands only fluttered beside her cup. “A Taraboner tea. From near the Shadow Coast.”

  Sighing, Nynaeve took another swallow to settle her own stomach. “The message,” she said insistently. “You did not hang that signal to invite us for tea. What is your urgent news?”

  “Ah. Yes.” Mistress Macura licked her lips, eyed them both, then said slowly, “It came near a month ago, with orders that any sister passing through heard it at all costs.” She wet her lips again. “All sisters are welcome to return to the White Tower. The Tower must be whole and strong.”

  Nynaeve waited for the rest, but the other woman fell silent. This was the dire message? She looked at Elayne, but the heat seemed to be catching up to the girl; drooping in her chair, she was staring at her hands on the table. “Is that all of it?” Nynaeve demanded, and surprised herself by yawning. The heat must be reaching her, too.

  The seamstress only watched her, intently.

  “I said,” Nynaeve began, but suddenly her head felt too heavy for her neck. Elayne had slumped onto the table, she realized, eyes closed and arms hanging limply. Nynaeve stared at the cup in her hands with horror. “What did you give us?” she said thickly; that minty taste was still there, but her tongue felt swollen. “Tell me!” Letting the cup fall, she levered herself up against the table, knees wobbling. “The Light burn you, what?”

  Mistress Macura scraped back her chair and stepped out of reach, but her earlier nervousness was now a look of quiet satisfaction.

  Blackness rolled in on Nynaeve; the last thing she heard was the seamstress’s voice. “Catch her, Luci!”

  CHAPTER

  10

  Figs and Mice

  Elayne realized that she was being carried upstairs by her shoulders and ankles. Her eyes opened, she could see, but the rest of her body might as well have belonged to someone else for all the control she had over it. Even blinking was slow. Her brain felt crammed full of feathers.

  “She’s awake, Mistress!” Luci shrilled, nearly dropping her feet. “She’s looking at me!”

  “I told you not to worry.” Mistress Macura’s voice came from above her head. “She cannot channel, or twitch a muscle, not with forkroot tea in her. I discovered that by accident, but it has certainly come in handy.”

  It was true. Elayne sagged between them like a doll with half the stuffing gone, bumping her bottom along the steps, and she could as well have run as channel. She could sense the True Source, but trying to embrace it was like trying to pick up a needle on a mirror with cold-numbed fingers. Panic welled up, and a tear slid down her cheek.

  Perhaps these women meant to turn her over to the Whitecloaks for execution, but she could not make herself believe that the Whitecloaks had women setting traps in the hope that an Aes Sedai might wander in. That left Darkfriends, and almost certainly serving the Black Ajah right along with the Yellow. She would surely be put in the hands of the Black Ajah unless Nynaeve had escaped. But if she was to escape, she could not count on anyone else. And she c
ould neither move nor channel. Suddenly she realized that she was trying to scream, and producing only a thin, gurgling mewl. Halting it took all the strength she had left.

  Nynaeve knew all about herbs, or claimed she did; why had she not recognized whatever that tea was? Stop this whining! The small, firm voice in the back of her head sounded remarkably like Lini. A shoat squealing under a fence just attracts the fox, when it should be trying to run. Desperately, she set herself to the simple task of embracing saidar. It had been a simple task, but now she might as well have been attempting to reach saidin. She kept on, though; it was the only thing she could do.

  Mistress Macura, at least, seemed to have no worry. As soon as they had dropped Elayne onto a narrow bed in a small, close room with one window, she hustled Luci right out again with not even a backward glance. Elayne’s head had fallen so she could see another cramped bed, and a highchest with tarnished brass pulls on the drawers. She could move her eyes, but shifting her head was beyond her.

  In a few minutes the two women returned, puffing, with Nynaeve slung between them, and heaved her onto the other bed. Her face was slack, and glistening with tears, but her dark eyes . . . Fury filled them, and fear, too, Elayne hoped anger was uppermost; Nynaeve was stronger than she, when she could channel; perhaps Nynaeve could manage where she was failing miserably, time after time. Those had to be tears of rage.

  Telling the thin girl to stay there, Mistress Macura hurried out once more, this time coming back with a tray that she placed atop the highchest. It held the yellow teapot, one cup, a funnel and a tall hourglass. “Now Luci, mind you pour a good two ounces into each of them as soon as that hourglass empties. As soon, mind!”

  “Why don’t we give it to them now, Mistress?” the girl moaned, wringing her hands. “I want them to go back to sleep. I don’t like them looking at me.”

  “They would sleep like the dead, girl, and this way we can let them rouse just enough to walk when we need them to. I will dose them more properly when it’s time to send them off. They’ll have headaches and stomach cramps to pay for it, but no more than they deserve, I suppose.”

  “But what if they can channel, Mistress? What if they do? They’re looking at me.”

  “Stop blathering, girl,” the older woman said briskly. “If they could, don’t you think they would have by now? They are helpless as kittens in a sack. And they will stay that way as long you keep a good dose in them. Now, you do as I told you, understand? I must go tell old Avi to send off one of his pigeons, and make a few arrangements, but I will be back as soon as I can. You had better brew another pot of forkroot just in case. I’ll go out the back. Close up the shop. Someone might wander in, and that would never do.”

  After Mistress Macura left, Luci stood staring at them for a while, still wringing her hands, then finally scurried out herself. Her sniffling faded down the stairs.

  Elayne could see sweat beading on Nynaeve’s brow; she hoped it was effort, not the heat. Try, Nynaeve. She herself reached for the True Source, fumbling clumsily through the wads of wool that seemed to pack her head, failed, tried again and failed, tried again. . . . Oh, Light, try, Nynaeve! Try!

  The hourglass filled her eyes; she could not look at anything else. Sand pouring down, each grain marking another failure on her part. The last grain dropped. And Luci did not come.

  Elayne strained harder, for the Source, to move. After a bit the fingers of her left hand twitched. Yes! A few minutes more, and she could lift her hand; only a feeble inch before it fell again, but it had lifted. With an effort, she could turn her head.

  “Fight it,” Nynaeve mumbled thickly, barely intelligible. Her hands were gripping the coverlet under her tightly; she seemed to be trying to sit up. Not even her head lifted, but she was trying.

  “I am,” Elayne tried to say; it sounded more like a grunt to her ears.

  Slowly she managed to raise her hand to where she could see it, and hold it there. A thrill of triumph shot through her. Stay afraid of us, Luci. Stay down there in the kitchen a little while longer, and . . .

  The door banged open, and sobs of frustration racked her as Luci dashed in. She had been so close. The girl took one look at them and with a yelp of pure terror darted for the highchest.

  Elayne tried to fight her, but thin as she was, Luci batted her floundering hands away effortlessly, forced the funnel between her teeth just as easily. The girl panted as if running. Cold, bitter tea filled Elayne’s mouth. She stared up at the girl in a panic that Luci’s face shared. But Luci held Elayne’s mouth shut and stroked her throat with a grim if fearful determination until she swallowed. As darkness overwhelmed Elayne, she could hear liquid sounds of protest coming from Nynaeve.

  When her eyes opened again, Luci was gone, and the sands trickled through the glass again. Nynaeve’s dark eyes were bulging, whether in fear or anger, Elayne could not have said. No, Nynaeve would not give in. That was one of the things she admired in the other woman. Nynaeve’s head could have been on the chopping block and she would not give up. Our heads are on the block!

  It made her ashamed that she was so much weaker than Nynaeve. She was supposed to be Queen of Andor one day, and she wanted to howl with terror. She did not, even in her head—doggedly she went back to trying to force her limbs to move, to trying to touch saidar—but she wanted to. How could she ever be a queen, when she was so weak? Again she reached for the Source. Again. Again. Racing the grains of sand. Again.

  Once more the glass emptied itself without Luci. Ever so slowly, she reached the point where she could raise her hand again. And then her head! Even if it did flop back immediately. She could hear Nynaeve muttering to herself, and she could actually understand most of the words.

  The door crashed open once more. Elayne lifted her head to stare at it despairingly—and gaped. Thom Merrilin stood there like the hero of one of his own tales, one hand firmly gripping the neck of a Luci near fainting, the other holding a knife ready to throw. Elayne laughed delightedly, though it came out more like a croak.

  Roughly, he shoved the girl into a corner. “You stay there, or I’ll strop this blade on your hide!” In two steps he was at Elayne’s side, smoothing her hair back, worry painting his leathery face. “What did you give them, girl? Tell me, or—!”

  “Not her,” Nynaeve muttered. “Other one. Went away. Help me up. Have to walk.”

  Thom left her reluctantly, Elayne thought. He showed Luci his knife again threateningly—she cowered as if she never meant to move again—then made it disappear up his sleeve in a twinkling. Hauling Nynaeve to her feet, he began walking her up and down the few paces the room allowed. She sagged against him limply, shuffling.

  “I am glad to hear this frightened little cat didn’t trap you,” he said. “If she had been the one . . .” He shook his head. No doubt he would think just as little of them if Nynaeve told him the truth; Elayne certainly did not intend to. “I found her rushing up the stairs, so panicked she did not even hear me behind her. I am not so glad that another one got away without Juilin seeing her. Is she likely to bring others back?”

  Elayne rolled over onto her side. “I do not think so, Thom,” she mumbled. “She can’t let—too many people—know about herself.” In another minute she might be able to sit up. She was looking right at Luci; the girl flinched and tried to shrink through the wall. “The Whitecloaks—would take her as—quickly as they would us.”

  “Juilin?” Nynaeve said. Her head wavered as she glared up at the gleeman. She had no trouble speaking, though. “I told the pair of you to stay with the wagon.”

  Thom blew out his mustaches irritably. “You told us to put up the supplies, which did not take two men. Juilin followed you, and when none of you came back, I went looking for him.” He snorted again. “For all he knew, there were a dozen men in here, but he was ready to come in after you alone. He is tying Skulker in the back. A good thing I decided to ride in. I think we’ll need the horse to get you two out of here.”

  Elayne
found that she could sit up, barely, pulling herself hand over hand along the coverlet, but an effort to stand nearly put her flat again. Saidar was as unobtainable as ever; her head still felt like a goose-down pillow. Nynaeve was beginning to hold herself a little straighter, to lift her feet, but she still hung on Thom.

  Minutes later Juilin arrived, pushing Mistress Macura ahead of him with his belt knife. “She came through a gate in the back fence. Thought I was a thief. It seemed best to bring her on in.”

  The seamstress’s face had gone so pale at the sight of them that her eyes seemed darker, and about to come out of her head besides. She licked her lips and smoothed her skirt incessantly, and cast quick little glances at Juilin’s knife as if wondering whether it might not be best to run anyway. For the most part, though, she stared at Elayne and Nynaeve; Elayne thought it an even chance whether she would burst into tears or swoon.

  “Put her over there,” Nynaeve said, nodding to where Luci still shivered in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees, “and help Elayne. I never heard of forkroot, but walking seems to help the effects pass. You can walk most things off.”

  Juilin pointed to the corner with his knife, and Mistress Macura scurried to it and sat herself down beside Luci, still wetting her lips fearfully. “I—would not have done—what I did—only, I had orders. You must understand that. I had orders.”

  Gently helping Elayne to her feet, Juilin supported her in walking the few steps available, crisscrossing the other pair. She wished it were Thom. Juilin’s arm around her waist was much too familiar.

  “Orders from whom?” Nynaeve barked. “Who do you report to in the Tower?”

  The seamstress looked sick, but she clamped her mouth shut determinedly.