“Pen an order for her to return immediately,” Elaida said hoarsely. The punch did not seem to help. She turned, and gave a start to find Alviarin right in front of her. Maybe there were not even one hundred—not even one hundred? at sunset, ten would have seemed madness—but she could not take the chance. “Write it out yourself, Alviarin. Now; right now.”
“And how is it to be gotten to her?” Alviarin tilted her head, icily curious. For some reason, she wore a faint smile. “None of us can Travel. The ships will put Toveine and her party ashore in Andor any day now, if they have not already. You told her to divide into small groups and avoid villages, so as to give no warning. No, Elaida, I am afraid Toveine will regather her forces near Caemlyn and attack the Black Tower without any word from us reaching her.”
Elaida gasped. The woman had just called her by name! And before she could begin to splutter with outrage, worse came.
“I think you are in great trouble, Elaida.” Cold eyes stared into Elaida’s and cold words slid smoothly from Alviarin’s smiling lips. “Sooner or later, the Hall will learn of the disaster with al’Thor. Galina might have satisfied the Hall, possibly, but I doubt Covarla will; they will want someone . . . higher . . . to pay. And sooner or later, we will all learn Toveine’s fate. It will be difficult to keep this on your shoulders then.” Casually, she adjusted the Amyrlin’s stole around Elaida’s neck. “In fact, it will be impossible if they learn any time soon. You will be stilled, made an example, the way you wanted to make Siuan Sanche. But there might be time to recover, if you listen to your Keeper. You must take good advice.”
Elaida’s tongue felt frozen. The threat could not have been clearer. “What you have heard tonight is Sealed to the Flame,” she said thickly, but she knew that the words were useless before they were out of her mouth.
“If you mean to reject my advice. . . .” Alviarin paused, then began to turn away.
“Wait!” Elaida pulled down the hand she had stretched out unaware. Stripped of the stole. Stilled. Even after that, they would make her howl. “What—?” She had to stop and swallow. “What advice does my Keeper offer?” There had to be some way to stop this.
Sighing, Alviarin came close again. Closer, in fact; much too near for anyone to stand to the Amyrlin, their skirts almost touching. “First, I fear you must abandon Toveine to whatever comes, for the moment at least. And also Galina and whoever else was taken prisoner, whether by the Aiel or the Asha’man. Any attempted rescue now must mean discovery.”
Elaida nodded slowly. “Yes. I can see that.” She could not take her horrified eyes away from the other woman’s demanding gaze. There had to be a way! This could not be happening!
“And I think it is time to reconsider your decision about the Tower Guard. Don’t you really think the Guard should be increased after all?”
“I—can see my way clear to do that.” Light, she had to think!
“So good,” Alviarin murmured, and Elaida flushed with helpless rage. “Tomorrow, you will personally search Josaine’s rooms, and Adelorna’s.”
“Why under the Light would I—?”
The woman tugged her striped stole again, roughly this time, almost as if to yank it off or saw through her neck with it. “It seems that Josaine found an angreal some years ago and never turned it in. Adelorna did worse, I fear. She removed an angreal from one of the storerooms without permission. When you have found them, you will announce their punishment immediately. Something quite stiff. And at the same time you will hold up Doraise, Kiyoshi and Farellien as models of preserving the law. You will give each a present; a fine new horse will do.”
Elaida wondered whether her eyes were going to pop right out of her face. “Why?” From time to time a sister kept an angreal to herself in defiance of the law, but the penance was seldom more than a stern slap on the knuckles. Every sister knew the temptation. And the rest! The effect was obvious. Everyone would believe Doraise and Kiyoshi and Farellien had exposed the other two. Josaine and Adelorna were Green, the others Brown, Gray and Yellow respectively. The Green Ajah would be furious. They might even try to get back at the others, which would incite those Ajahs, and. . . . “Why do you want to do this, Alviarin?”
“Elaida, it should be enough for you that it is my advice.” Mocking, honeyed ice suddenly turned to cold iron. “I want to hear you say that you will do as you are told. There’s no point in me working to keep the stole on your neck, otherwise. Say it!”
“I—” Elaida tried to look away. Oh, Light, she had to think! Her belly was clenched in a knot. “I will—do—as I—am told.”
Alviarin smiled that chilly smile. “You see, that did not hurt very much.” Suddenly she stepped back, spreading her skirts in a moderate curtsy. “With your permission, I will withdraw and let you find some sleep in what remains of the night. You have an early morning ahead, with orders to issue for High Captain Chubain and apartments to search. We have to decide when to let the Tower know about the Asha’man, too.” Her tone made it clear that she would decide. “And perhaps we should begin planning our next move against al’Thor. It is about time the Tower stood openly and called him to heel, don’t you think? Think well. I give you good night, Elaida.”
Dazed, wanting to sick up, Elaida watched her go. Stand openly? That would invite attack by these—what had the woman called them?—these Asha’man. This could not be happening to her. Not to her! Before she realized what she was doing, she hurled the goblet across the room to shatter against a tapestry of flowers. Seizing the pitcher with both hands, she raised it overhead with a shriek of fury and flung that too, in a spray of punch. The Foretelling had been so certain! She would . . . !
Abruptly she stopped, frowning at the tiny shards of crystals clinging to the tapestry, the larger pieces scattered across the floor. The Foretelling. Surely that had spoken of her triumph. Her triumph! Alviarin might have her minor victory, but the future belonged to Elaida. As long as Alviarin could be gotten rid of. But it had to be done quietly, in some way so that even the Hall would want silence. A way that would not point to Elaida until it was too late, should Alviarin’s sails gain wind. And suddenly the why came to her. Alviarin would not believe if she was told. No one would.
Could Alviarin have seen her smile then, the woman’s knees would have turned to jelly. Before she was done, Alviarin would envy Galina, alive or dead.
Pausing in the hallway outside Elaida’s apartments, Alviarin studied her hands by the light of the stand-lamps. They did not shake, which surprised her. She had expected the woman to fight harder, to resist longer. But it was begun, and she had nothing to fear. Unless Elaida learned that no fewer than five Ajahs had passed mention of al’Thor to her in the last few days; the deposing of Colavaere had sent every Ajah’s agent in Cairhien flying for a pen. No, if Elaida did learn, she was safe enough, with the hold she had on the woman now. And with Mesaana as patron. Elaida, though, was finished whether she realized or not. Even if the Asha’man failed to trumpet their crushing of Toveine’s expedition—and she was sure they would crush it, after what Mesaana had told her of events of Dumai’s Wells—all the eyes-and-ears in Caemlyn truly would gain wings once they learned. Lacking a miracle, such as the rebels appearing at the gates, Elaida would suffer Siuan Sanche’s fate in a matter of weeks. In any case, it had begun, and if she wished she knew what “it” was, all she really had to do was obey. And watch. And learn. Perhaps she would wear the seven-striped stole herself when all was done.
In the early morning sunlight streaming through her windows, Seaine dipped the pen, but before she could write the next word, the door to the hall opened and the Amyrlin swept in. Seaine’s thick black eyebrows rose; she would have expected anyone else at all before Elaida, perhaps not excluding Rand al’Thor himself. Still, she set the pen down and rose smoothly, pulling down the silver-white sleeves she had pushed up to keep clear of the ink. She made the degree of curtsy proper to the Amyrlin Seat from a Sitter in her own apartments.
“I do hope you haven’t fo
und any White sisters hiding away angreal, Mother.” She did hope it, quite fervently. Elaida’s descent on the Greens a few hours ago, while most of them slept, was probably still producing wails and gnashing of teeth. In living memory no one had been ordered birched for keeping back an angreal, and now there were to be two. The Amyrlin must have been in one of her infamous cold furies.
But if she had been then, no sign of it remained now. For a moment she regarded Seaine silently, cool as a winter pond in her red-slashed silks, then glided to the carved sideboard where painted ivory miniatures of Seaine’s family stood. All years dead, but she still loved every one.
“You did not stand to raise me Amyrlin,” Elaida said, picking up the picture of Seaine’s father. She set it down hastily and took up her mother instead.
Seaine’s eyebrows almost rose again, but she tried to make it a rule not to let herself be surprised more than once in a day. “I was not informed that the Hall was sitting until afterward, Mother.” After all these years, a touch of Lugard still clung to her voice.
“Yes, yes.” Abandoning the paintings, Elaida glided to the fireplace. Seaine had always had a fondness for cats, and carved wooden cats of every sort crowded the mantelpiece, some in amusing poses. The Amyrlin frowned at the display, then squeezed her eyes shut and gave her head a tiny shake. “But you remained,” she said, turning quickly. “Every Sitter who was not informed fled the Tower and joined the rebels. Except you. Why?”
Seaine spread her hands. “What else could I do but stay, Mother? The Tower must be whole.” Whoever the Amyrlin, she added to herself. And what’s wrong with my cats, if I may ask? Not that she ever would aloud, of course. Sereille Bagand had been a fierce Mistress of Novices before being raised Amyrlin Seat, the very year she herself earned the shawl, and a fiercer Amyrlin than Elaida could be with a sore tooth. Seaine had had the proprieties driven into her too hard and deep for mere years to shift, or any dislike for the woman who wore the stole. One did not have to like an Amyrlin.
“The Tower must be whole,” Elaida agreed, rubbing her hands together. “It must be whole.” Now, why was she nervous? She had ninety-nine kinds of temper, all hard as a knife and twice as sharp, but nervous the woman was not. “What I say to you now is Sealed to the Flame, Seaine.” Her mouth twisted wryly, and she shrugged, giving her stole an irritable twitch. “If I knew how to make the seal stronger, I would,” she said, dry as yesterday’s dust.
“I will hold your words in my heart, Mother.”
“I want you—I command you—to undertake an inquiry. And you must indeed hold it in your heart. The wrong ear hearing of it might mean death, and disaster for the whole Tower.”
Seaine’s eyebrows twitched. Death and disaster for the whole Tower? “In my heart,” she said again. “Will you sit yourself, Mother?” That was proper, in her own apartments. “May I pour you some mint tea? Or plum punch?”
Waving away the offer of refreshment, Elaida took the most comfortable chair, carved by Seaine’s father as a gift when she received the shawl, though of course the cushions had been replaced many times since. The Amyrlin made the country chair seem a throne, all stiff back and iron countenance. Most ungraciously, she did not give permission for Seaine to sit, too, so Seaine folded her hands and remained standing.
“I have thought long and hard on treason, Seaine, since my predecessor and her Keeper were allowed to escape. Helped to escape. Treason must have been at the core of that, and I fear only a sister, or sisters, could have effected it.”
“That would certainly be a possibility, Mother.”
Elaida frowned at the interruption. “We can never be sure who has the shadow of treason in her heart, Seaine. Why, I suspect that someone arranged for an order of mine to be countermanded. And I have reason to believe that someone has communicated privately with Rand al’Thor; to what end, I cannot say, but that surely is treason against me, and against the Tower.”
Seaine waited for more, but the Amyrlin only looked back at her, slowly smoothing her red-slashed skirts. “Exactly what inquiry do you wish me to make, Mother?” she asked cautiously.
Elaida bounded to her feet. “I charge you to follow the stench of treason, no matter where it leads or how high, even to the Keeper herself. Yes, even to her. What you find, whoever it leads to, you will bring before the Amyrlin Seat alone, Seaine. No one else must know. Do you understand me?”
“I understand your commands, Mother.”
Which, she thought, once Elaida had departed even more swiftly than she had come, was about all she did understand. In order to think she took the chair the Amyrlin had vacated, fists pressed beneath her chin in just the way her father had always sat thinking. Everything fell to logic, eventually.
She would not have stood against Siuan Sanche—she had proposed the girl as Amyrlin in the first place!—but once it was done and all the forms were followed, however sparely, aiding her escape certainly had been treason, and deliberately countermanding an Amyrlin’s order just as much. Possibly communicating with al’Thor was, too; that depended on what was communicated, with what intent. Finding who had changed the Amyrlin’s command would be difficult without knowing what command. At this late date learning who might have helped Siuan escape stood about as much chance of success as learning who might be writing to al’Thor. So many pigeons flew into and out of the Tower cotes every day that at times the sky seemed to be raining feathers. If Elaida knew more than she had said, she had certainly gone around the barn. This all made very little sense. Treason ought to make Elaida boil with rage, but she had not been angry. She had been nervous. And anxious to be gone. And secretive, as if she did not want to tell everything she knew or suspected. Almost as though she was afraid to. What kind of treason would make Elaida nervous or afraid? Death and disaster for the whole Tower.
Like the pieces of a blacksmith’s puzzle, all fell into place, and Seaine’s eyebrows tried to climb onto her scalp. It fit; it all fit. She felt the blood draining from her face; her hands and feet were suddenly icy. Sealed to the Flame. She had said she would keep this in her heart, but everything had changed since she spoke those words. She only let herself be afraid when it was logical to be, and right then, she was terrified. She could not face this alone. But who? Under the circumstances, who? This answer came much more easily. Gathering herself took a little time, but she hurried from her rooms and out of the White quarters walking a good deal faster than she usually did.
Servants scurried through the corridors as always, though she walked so quickly that she was past most before they could begin bow or curtsy, but there seemed fewer sisters about than the early hour could account for. Many fewer. Yet if most were staying close to their quarters for some reason, the few she saw made up for it in one way. Sisters swanned along the tapestry-hung hallways, faces all serenity, and their eyes seemed to have steam behind them. Here and there two or three women spoke together, with sharp eyes darting to see who might be listening. Always two or three of the same Ajah. Even yesterday, she was sure she had still seen women sharing friendship between Ajahs. Whites were supposed to put emotion away entirely, but she had never seen the reason for blinding herself, as some did. Suspicion made the air in the Tower like hot jelly. Not a new thing, unfortunately—the Amyrlin had begun it with her harsh measures, and the rumors about Logain had only exacerbated the situation—but this morning seemed worse than ever.
Talene Minly came around a corner ahead of her, her shawl not just across her shoulders, but spread down her arms as though to display the green fringe. For that matter, she realized that every Green she had seen this morning wore her shawl. Talene, golden-haired and statuesque and lovely, had stood to depose Siuan, but she had come to the Tower while Seaine was Accepted, and that decision had not dented their long friendship. Talene had had reasons Seaine accepted if not agreed with. Today, her friend stopped, watching her warily. So many sisters seemed to watch one another that way of late. Another time, she would have stopped, but not with what made her
head want to burst open like a spoiled melon. Talene was a friend, and she thought she could be sure of her, but thinking was not enough for this. Later, if possible, she would approach Talene. Hoping it would be possible, she hurried past with only a nod.
In the Red quarters, the mood was even worse, the air thicker. As with the other Ajahs, there were many more rooms than there were sisters to fill them now—that had been so long before the first rebel fled—but the Red was the largest of the Ajahs, and sisters filled the levels still in use. Reds frequently wore their shawls when there was no need, but now every last woman sported her red fringe like a banner. Conversations stopped as Seaine approached, and cold eyes followed her in a bubble of icy silence. She felt an invader deep in enemy country as she crossed those peculiar floor tiles, white with the teardrop Flame of Tar Valon in red. But then, any part of the Tower might be enemy country. Looking another way, those scarlet flames might be taken for red Dragon’s Fangs. She had never believed those irrational tales about the Reds and false Dragons, but. . . . Why would none of them deny it?
She had to ask directions. “I will not disturb her if she is busy,” she said. “We were close friends, once, and I would like us to be again. Now more than ever, the Ajahs cannot afford to drift apart.” All true, though the Ajahs seemed to be splitting apart rather than drifting, but the Domani woman listened with a face that could have been cast in copper. There were not many Domani Reds, and those few usually meaner than snakes caught in a fence.
“I will show you, Sitter,” the woman said at last, and not very respectfully. She led the way, then watched while Seaine knocked on the door, as though she could not be trusted here alone. The door panels were carved with the Flame, too, lacquered the color of fresh blood.
“Come!” a brisk voice called from within. Seaine opened the door hoping she was right.
“Seaine!” Pevara exclaimed cheerfully. “What brings you here this morning? Come! Shut the door and sit!” It was as if all the years since they were novice and Accepted together had melted away. Quite plump and not tall—in truth, for a Kandori, she was short—Pevara was also quite pretty, with a merry twinkle in her dark eyes and a ready smile. It was sad that she had chosen Red, no matter how good her reasons, because she still liked men. The Red did attract women who were naturally suspicious of men, of course, but others chose it because the task of finding men who could channel was important. Whether they liked men, or disliked them, or did not care one way or the other in the beginning, however, not many women could belong to the Red for long without taking a jaundiced view of all men. Seaine had reason to believe Pevara had served a penance shortly after attaining the shawl for saying that she wished she had a Warder; since reaching the safer heights of the Hall, she had openly said Warders would make the Red Ajah’s work easier. Not that that had any part in Seaine trusting her. Of all the sisters in the Tower, though, Pevara was the one she was sure she could trust with this.
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