A Crown of Swords

## Chapter 24

#### The Kin

Incredible, Reanne thought, watching from a window as the two strange girls vanished down the street among the tradesmen and beggars and occasional sedan chairs. She had returned to the meeting room as soon as the pair was escorted from it. She did not know what to make of them, and their persistent claims in the face of all reason were only part of her confusion.

“They did not perspire,” Berowin whispered at her shoulder.

“Yes?” She would have arranged for the news to reach the Tarasin Place in the next hour if she had not given her word. And if not for the danger. Fear bubbled in her middle, the same panic that had overtaken her after one passage through the silver arches when she went to test for Accepted. Just as she had every time it had stirred in the years since, she took a fresh grip on herself; in truth, she did not realize that the fear she might run screaming again had long since conquered any possibility that she would. She prayed that those girls would abandon their insanity. She prayed that if they did not, they were caught far from Ebou Dar and either kept silent or were not believed. Precautions would have to be taken, safeguards carried out that had not been used in years. Aes Sedai were as near omnipotent as made no difference, though. That, she knew in her bones.

“Eldest, could it be possible that the older of the two really is . . . ? We channeled, and . . . ”

Berowin trailed off miserably, but Reanne did not need to consider, not even setting aside the younger girl. Why would any Aes Sedai pretend to be less, so much less? Besides, any real Aes Sedai would have put them all on their knees begging mercy, not stood there so submissively.

“We did not channel in front of an Aes Sedai,” she said firmly. “We broke no rule.” Those rules applied to her as strictly as anyone else; the very first was that they were all one, even those set above for a time. How could it have been otherwise, when those who were above must eventually step down? Only through movement and change could they remain hidden.

“But some of the rumors do mention a girl as Amyrlin, Eldest. And she knew—”

“Rebels.” Reanne put into that all the outraged disbelief she felt. That anyone should dare to rebel against the White Tower! It was hardly strange for unbelievable tales to attach to anyone like that.

“What about Logain, and the Red Ajah?” Garenia demanded, and Reanne fixed her with a stare. The woman had gotten herself another cup of tea before coming back up, and she managed to sip defiantly.

“Whatever the truth, Garenia, it is not our place to criticize anything Aes Sedai might do.” Reanne’s mouth tightened. That hardly squared with what she felt toward the rebels, but how could any Aes Sedai do such a thing?

The Saldaean bent her neck in acquiescence, though, and perhaps to hide the sullen twist of her mouth. Reanne sighed. She herself had given up dreams of the Green Ajah long long ago, but there were those like Berowin who believed, secretly they thought, that somehow they might one day return to the White Tower, somehow yet become Aes Sedai. And then there were women like Garenia, almost as poor at keeping their wishes secret, though those wishes were ten times as forbidden. They actually would have accepted wilders, and even gone out to find girls who could be taught!

Garenia was not done; she always skirted the edges of discipline, and frequently stepped over. “What of this Setalle Anan, then? Those girls know about the Circle. The Anan woman must have told them, though how she knows . . . ” She shuddered in a way that would have been entirely too ostentatious for most others, but she had never been able to conceal her emotions. Even when she should. “Whoever betrayed us to her must be found, and her betrayal punished too. She’s an innkeeper, and she must be taught to guard her tongue!” Berowin gasped, wide-eyed with shock, and dropped into a chair so hard she nearly bounced.

“Remember who she is, Garenia,” Reanne said sharply. “If Setalle had betrayed us, we would be crawling to Tar Valon, begging forgiveness the whole way.” When she first came to Ebou Dar, she had been told the story of a woman made to crawl to the White Tower, and nothing she had seen since of Aes Sedai made her question it in the least. “She has kept the few secrets she knows from gratitude, and I doubt that has faded. She would have died in her first childbirth if the Kin had not helped her. What she knows comes from careless tongues, when it was thought she could not hear, and the owners of those tongues were punished more than twenty years ago.” Still, she wished there was some way she could bring herself to ask Setalle to be more circumspect. She must have spoken carelessly in front of those girls.

The woman bowed her head again, but her mouth was set stubbornly. At least part of this turn, Reanne decided, Garenia would spend at the retreat, and she would have special instructions to relay with her own stubborn mouth. Alise seldom required more than a week to make a woman decide stubbornness did not pay.

Before she could inform Garenia, though, Derys was curtsying in the doorway, announcing Sarainya Vostovan. As usual, Sarainya swept right in before Reanne could say to admit her. In some ways, the strikingly handsome woman made Garenia appear supple, despite keeping the form of every rule exactly. Reanne was sure she would have worn her hair in braids and bells given the choice, and never mind how that would have looked with her red belt. But then, given the choice she would not have served even one turn with the belt.

Sarainya did curtsy at the door, of course, and kneel before her, head lowered, but fifty years had not made her forget that she would have been a woman of considerable power had she been able to make herself return home to Arafel. Curtsy and the rest all were concessions. When she spoke, in that husky, forceful voice, whether the woman would ever reconcile herself and the problem of Garenia left Reanne’s mind.

“Callie is dead, Eldest Sister. Her throat was cut and she apparently had been robbed even of her stockings, but Sumeko says that it was the One Power killed her.”

“That is impossible!” Berowin burst out. “No Kinswoman would do such a thing!”

“An Aes Sedai?” Garenia said, hesitant for once. “But how? The Three Oaths. Sumeko must be wrong.”

Reanne raised a hand for silence. Sumeko was never wrong, not in this area. She would have been Yellow Ajah had she not broken down completely while testing for the shawl, and although it was forbidden, despite countless penances, she worked to learn more whenever she thought no one was watching. No Aes Sedai could have done this, obviously, and no Kinswoman would have, but . . . Those girls, so insistent, knowing what they should not. The Circle had lasted too long, offered succor to too many women, to be destroyed now.

“This is what must be done,” she told them. That flutter of fear began again, but for once she hardly noticed.

Nynaeve stalked away from the small house in outrage. It was incredible! Those women did have a guild; she knew they did! Whatever they said, she was sure they knew where the Bowl was, too. She would have done whatever was necessary to bring them to tell her. Pretending docility before them for a few hours would have been a deal easier than putting up with Mat Cauthon for the Light knew how many days.

I could have been as acquiescent as they wanted, she thought irritably. They’d have thought I was a pliable old slipper! I could have . . . That was a lie, and it did not take a foul, remembered taste to convince her. Given half a chance, she would have shaken every one of those women till they told her what she wanted to know. She would have given them Aes Sedai till they squeaked!

She scowled sideways at Elayne. The other woman seemed lost in thought. Nynaeve wished she did not know what the woman was thinking about. A wasted morning, and not far short of complete humiliation. She did not like being in the wrong. She was not yet used to admitting she was, really. And now she was going to have to apologize to Elayne. She truly hated apologizing. Well, it would be bad enough back in their rooms. With Birgitte and Aviendha still out, it was to be hoped. She was not about to begin in the street, with who knew who streaming by. The throng had thickened, though the sun hardly seemed much higher through the wheeling clouds of seabirds that cried overhead.

Finding their way was not easy, after all those twists and turns. Nynaeve had to ask directions half a dozen times, while Elayne stared in another direction, pretending indifference. She stalked along across bridges, ducked around wagons and carts, jumped out of the way of racing sedan chairs that wove through the crowds, wished Elayne would say something. Nynaeve knew how to nurse a grudge, and the longer she herself kept silent, the worse it was when she spoke, so the longer Elayne walked without speaking, the darker became the image in her mind of how it was going to be back in their rooms. That made her furious. She had admitted she was wrong, if only to herself. Elayne had no right to make her suffer this way. She began wearing such a face that even people who did not notice their rings gave them a clear path. People who did notice usually seemed to find an urgent need to be a street away. Even some sedan-chair bearers skirted around her.

“How old did Reanne look to you?” Elayne asked suddenly. Nynaeve nearly jumped. They were almost back to Mol Hara.

“Fifty years. Maybe sixty. I don’t see it matters.” She ran her eyes over the crowd to see if anyone was close enough to hear. A passing hawker, her tray displaying a bitter little yellow fruit called a lemon, tried to swallow her cry in mid-shout when Nynaeve’s gaze rested on her for a moment, with the result that she doubled over her tray coughing and choking. Nynaeve sniffed. The woman probably had been eavesdropping, if not planning to cut a purse. “They are a guild, Elayne, and they do know where the Bowl is. I just know they do.” That was not what she had intended to say at all. If she apologized for dragging Elayne into this now, maybe it would not be so bad.

“I suppose they are,” Elayne said absently. “I suppose they might. How is it that she can have aged so?”

Nynaeve stopped dead in the middle street. After all that arguing, after getting them thrown out, she supposed? “Well, I suppose she aged the same way as the rest of us, a day at a time. Elayne, if you believed, why did you announce who you were like Rhiannon at the Tower?” She rather liked that; according to the story, what Queen Rhiannon got was far from what she had wanted.

The question did not seem to register with Elayne, for all her education. She pulled Nynaeve to one side as a curtained green carriage rumbled past—the street was not very wide there—over to the front of a seamstress’s shop with a wide doorway showing several dressmaker’s forms clothed in half-done dresses.

“They were not going to tell us anything, Nynaeve, not if you got down on your knees and begged.” Nynaeve opened her mouth indignantly, then snapped it shut. She had never said anything about begging. Anyway, why should she have been the only one? Better any woman at all than Mat Cauthon. Elayne had a fly up her nose, though, and was not to be distracted. “Nynaeve, she must have slowed like everyone else. How old is she, to look fifty or sixty?”

“What are you talking about?” Without thinking Nynaeve noted the location in a corner of her mind; the seamstress’s work looked quite good, worth closer examination. “She probably doesn’t channel any more than she can help, afraid as she is of being mistaken for a sister. She wouldn’t have wanted her face too smooth, after all.”

“You never listened in class, did you?” Elayne murmured. She saw the plump seamstress beaming in the doorway, and drew Nynaeve toward the corner of the building. Considering the amount of lace the seamstress wore on her own dress, the bodice buried in it and paces of it drooping over her exposed petticoats, she would bear close watching if Nynaeve did order anything. “Forget clothes for one moment, Nynaeve. Who is the oldest Accepted you remember?”

She gave Elayne a very level look. The woman made it sound as if she never thought of anything else! And she had too listened. Sometimes. “Elin Warrel, I think. She’s about my age, I think.” Of course, the seamstress’s own dress would look fine with a more modest neckline and much less lace. In green silk. Lan liked green, though she certainly was not going to choose her dresses for him. He liked blue, as well.

Elayne barked such a laugh that Nynaeve wondered whether she had spoken aloud. Coloring fiercely, she tried to explain—she was sure she could; by Bel Tine—but the other woman gave her no opportunity for a word. “Elin’s sister came to visit her just before you first arrived at the Tower, Nynaeve. Her younger sister. The woman had gray hair. Well, some of it was. She must have been over forty, Nynaeve.”

Elin Warrel was past forty? But . . . ! “What are you saying, Elayne?”

No one was close enough to listen, and no one seemed to be giving them a second glance except the still hopeful seamstress, but Elayne lowered her voice to a whisper. “We slow, Nynaeve. Somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, we begin aging more slowly. How much depends on how strong we are, but when doesn’t. Any woman who can channel does it. Takima said she thought it was the beginning of achieving the ageless look, though I don’t think anyone has ever reached that until they’ve worn the shawl at least a year or two, sometimes five or more. Think. You know any sister with gray hair is old, even if you aren’t supposed to mention it. So if Reanne slowed, and she must have, how old is she?”

Nynaeve did not care how old Reanne was. She wanted to cry. No wonder everyone refused to believe her age. It explained why the Women’s Circle back home had looked over her shoulder as if unsure she was old enough to be trusted fully. Achieving a sister’s ageless face was all very well, but how long before she had her gray hairs?

Blinking, she turned away angrily. And something struck her a glancing blow on the back of the head. Staggering, she rounded on Elayne in astonishment. Why had the woman hit her? Only, Elayne lay in a heap, eyes closed and a nasty purple lump rising on her temple. Groggily, Nynaeve fell to her knees and gathered her friend into her arms.

“Your friend must be taken ill,” a long nosed woman said, kneeling beside them, careless of a yellow dress that showed far too much bosom even by Ebou Dari standards. “Let me help.”

A tall fellow, handsome in his embroidered silk vest except for a rather oily grin, bent to take Nynaeve’s shoulders. “Here, I have a carriage. We’ll take you somewhere more comfortable than a paving stone.”

“Go away,” Nynaeve told them politely. “We don’t need your help.”

The man kept trying to raise her to her feet, though, to guide her toward a red carriage, where a startled-appearing woman in blue beckoned vigorously. The long-nosed woman actually tried to lift Elayne, thanking the man for his help and chattering how his carriage sounded a fine idea. A crowd of onlookers seemed to have gathered out of air in a semicircle, women murmuring sympathy about fainting from the heat, men offering to help carry the ladies. A scrawny fellow, bold as you please, reached for Nynaeve’s purse almost right under her nose.

Her head still swam enough to make embracing saidar difficult, but if all those nattering folk had not fueled her temper, what she saw lying in the street would have. An arrow with a blunt stone head. The one that had grazed her or the one that had struck Elayne. She channeled, and the scrawny cutpurse doubled over, clutching himself and squealing like a pig in briars. Another flow, and the long-nosed woman fell over backward with a shriek twice as high. The man in the silk vest apparently decided they did not need his help after all, because he turned and ran for the carriage, but she gave him a dose anyway. He out-bellowed any outraged bull as the woman in the carriage hauled him in by his vest.

“Thank you, but we don’t need any help,” Nynaeve shouted. Politely.

Few remained to hear. Once it became clear that the One Power was being used—and folk suddenly leaping about and yelling for no visible cause made it clear enough to most—they hurried elsewhere. The long-nosed woman gathered herself up and actually jumped onto the back of the red carriage, clinging precariously as the dark-vested driver whipped the horses away through the crowd, people leaping aside. Even the cutpurse hobbled off as fast as he could.

Nynaeve could not have cared less had the earth opened and swallowed the whole lot. Chest aching, she ran fine flows of Wind and Water, Earth, Fire and Spirit mixed and blended, through Elayne. It was a simple weave, no bother despite her faint dizziness, and the result let her breathe again. The bruise was not serious; the bones of Elayne’s skull were unbroken. Normally, she would have redirected those same flows into much more complex weaves, the Healing she had discovered herself. At the moment, simpler weaves were all she could manage, though. With just Spirit, Wind and Water, she wove the Healing that Yellows had used since time immemorial.

Elayne’s eyes shot open wide, and with a gasp that seemed to take all the air in her, she convulsed like a netted trout, slippered heels drumming on the pavement. That only lasted a moment, of course, but in that moment the bruise shrank and vanished.

Nynaeve helped her to her feet—and a woman’s hand appeared, holding a pewter cup full of water. “Even an Aes Sedai might be thirsty after that,” the seamstress said.

Elayne reached for it, but Nynaeve laid fingers on her wrist. “No, thank you.” The woman shrugged, and as she turned away, Nynaeve added in a different tone, “Thank you.” It seemed to come easier the more you said it; she was not sure she liked that.

That ocean of lace heaved as the seamstress shrugged again. “I make dresses for anyone. I can do better for your coloring than that.” She vanished back into her shop. Nynaeve frowned after her.

“What happened?” Elayne demanded. “Why wouldn’t you let me take a drink? I’m thirsty and hungry.”

With a last frown for the seamstress, Nynaeve bent to pick up the arrow.

The other woman needed no explanations. Saidar shone around her in a flash. “Teslyn and Joline?”

Nynaeve shook her head; the slight wooziness seemed to be fading. She did not think those two would stoop to this. She did not think so. “What about Reanne?” she said quietly. The seamstress was back in the doorway, still hopeful. “She might want to make sure we leave. Or worse, maybe Garenia.” That was almost as chilling as Teslyn and Joline. And twice as infuriating.

Somehow Elayne managed to look pretty while scowling. “Whoever it was, we will settle them. You’ll see.” The scowl faded. “Nynaeve, if the Circle does know where the Bowl is, we can find it, but . . . ” She bit her lip, hesitating. “I only know one way to be sure.”

Nynaeve nodded slowly, though she would rather have eaten a handful of dirt. Today had seemed so bright for a time, but then it had spiraled into darkness, from Reanne to . . . Oh, Light, how long before she had her gray hair?

“Don’t cry, Nynaeve. Mat can’t possibly be that bad. He’ll find it for us in a few days, I know.”

Nynaeve only cried harder.