Lord of Chaos

## Chapter 35

#### In the Hall of the Sitters

Egwene stared at Sheriam, wondering whether she was supposed to laugh. Maybe in her time with the Aiel she had forgotten what passed for humor among Aes Sedai. Sheriam stared back with that ageless, imperturbable face, tilted green eyes not seeming to blink. Egwene looked at the others. Seven faces with no expression, just an air of waiting. Siuan might have been smiling faintly, but the “smile” could as easily have been the natural curve of her lips. Wavering lamplight made their features suddenly strange and inhuman.

Egwene’s head felt light, her knees weak. Without thinking she let herself thump down in the straight-backed chair. She stood right up again, too. That certainly cleared her mind; a little, anyway. “I am not even Aes Sedai,” she said breathlessly. That seemed noncommittal enough. It had to be some sort of joke, or . . . or . . . or something.

“That can be gotten around,” Sheriam said firmly, jerking the bow of her pale blue sash tighter for emphasis.

Beonin’s honey-colored braids swayed as she nodded. “The Amyrlin Seat, she is Aes Sedai—the law is quite clear; several places it is stated, ‘The Amyrlin Seat as Aes Sedai’—but nowhere is it said that it is necessary to be Aes Sedai to become Amyrlin.” Any Aes Sedai would be familiar with Tower law, but as mediators, Grays had to know the law of every land, and Beonin took on a lecturing tone, as though explaining something that none knew as well as she. “The law that sets forth how the Amyrlin is to be chosen, it merely says ‘The woman who is summoned,’ or ‘she who stands before the Hall’ or the like. From beginning to end, the words ‘Aes Sedai’ are mentioned not once. Never. Some might say that the intent of the framers, it must be considered, but it is clear, whatever the intent of the women who wrote the law, that—” She frowned as Carlinya cut her off.

“No doubt they thought it was understood to such a degree that there was no need to state it. Logically, however, a law means what it says, whatever the framers thought they meant.”

“Laws seldom have much concern with logic,” Beonin said acidly. “In this case, however,” she conceded after a moment, “you are quite correct.” To Egwene, she added, “And the Hall, they see it so also.”

They were all serious, even Anaiya, when she said, “You will be Aes Sedai, child, just as soon as you are raised Amyrlin Seat. That is the long and short of it.” Even Siuan, despite that tiny smile. It was a smile.

“You can take the Three Oaths as soon as we are back in the Tower,” Sheriam told her. “We considered having you speak them anyway, but without the Oath Rod, it might be taken for a sham. Best to wait.”

Egwene almost sat down again before catching herself. Maybe the Wise Ones had been right; maybe traveling through Tel’aran’rhiod in the flesh had done something to her mind. “This is madness,” she protested. “I can’t be Amyrlin. I’m . . . I’m . . . ” Objections piled up on her tongue in a tangle that let nothing out. She was too young; Siuan herself had been the youngest Amyrlin ever, and she was thirty when raised. She had barely begun her training, no matter what she knew about the World of Dreams; Amyrlins were knowledgeable and experienced. And wise; they were certainly supposed to be wise. All she felt was confounded and muddled. Most women spent ten years as a novice and ten as Accepted. True, some moved faster, even much faster. Siuan had. But she herself had been a novice less than a year, and Accepted an even shorter time. “It’s impossible!” was the best she could manage finally.

Morvrin’s snort reminded her of Sorilea. “Settle yourself down, child, or I’ll see to it myself. This is no time for you to grow fluttery, or start fainting on us.”

“But I wouldn’t know what to do! Not the first thing!” Egwene drew a deep breath. It did not really calm her racing heart, but it helped. A little. Aiel heart. Whatever they did, she would not let them bully her. Eyeing Morvrin’s bluff, hard face, she added, She can skin me, but she can’t bully me. “This is ridiculous is what it is. I won’t paint myself for a fool in front of everybody, and that is what I’d be doing. If this is why the Hall summoned me, I’ll tell them no.”

“I fear that is not an option,” Anaiya sighed, smoothing her robe, a surprisingly frilly thing in rose silk, with delicate ivory lace bordering every edge. “You cannot refuse a summons to become Amyrlin any more than you could a summons for trial. The words of the summons are even the same.” That was heartening; oh, yes, it was.

“The choice is the Hall’s now.” Myrelle sounded a touch sad, which did nothing for Egwene’s spirits.

Suddenly smiling, Sheriam put an arm around Egwene’s shoulders; “Do not worry, child. We will help you, and guide you. That is why we are here.”

Egwene said nothing. She could think of nothing to say; maybe obeying the law was not being bullied, but it felt much the same. They took silence for assent, and she supposed it was. Without delay, Siuan was sent off, grumbling at being handed the task, to wake the Sitters personally and let them know Egwene had arrived.

The house became a whirlwind before Siuan made it out the door. Egwene’s riding dress came in for considerable discussion—none of which she was part of—and a plump serving woman was roused from her nap in a chair in a back room and sent off, with dire warnings if she breathed a word, to fetch every Accepted’s dress she could find that might come close to fitting Egwene. She tried on eight, right there in the front room, before finding one that did fit, after a fashion. It was too tight in the bosom, but thankfully loose in the hips. All the time the serving woman was bringing in dresses and Egwene was trying them on, Sheriam and the others took turns running out to dress themselves, and in between lectured her on what was going to happen, what she had to do and say.

They made her repeat everything back. The Wise Ones thought saying something once was sufficient, and woe to the apprentice who failed to listen and hear. Egwene remembered some of what she had to say from a novice lecture in the Tower, and she got it word perfect the first time, but the Aes Sedai went over everything again and again, and then again. Egwene could not understand. With anyone else but Aes Sedai, she would have said they were nervous, calm faces or no. She began to wonder whether she was making some mistake, and started emphasizing different words.

“Say them as you are told,” Carlinya snapped like a cracking icicle, and Myrelle, sounding hardly less cold, said, “You cannot afford a mistake, child. Not one!”

They put her through it five more times, and when she protested that she had given back every word correctly, listed who would stand where and who would say what just the way they had told her, she thought Morvrin might box her ears if Beonin or Carlinya did not first. In the event, their frowns were as hard as slaps, and Sheriam looked at her as if she were a novice being sulky. Egwene sighed and began yet again. “I enter with three of you escorting me . . . ”

It was a silent procession that made its way through the nearly empty, moon-shadowed streets. Few of the scattered people still out so much as glanced at them; six Aes Sedai with one lone Accepted in their midst might or might not be a common sight here, but apparently it was not odd enough to occasion comment. Windows that had been lit were dark now; quiet lay on the town so their footsteps sounded distinctly on the hard dirt. Egwene fingered the Great Serpent ring, firmly back in place on her left hand. Her knees were trembling. She had been prepared to face anything, but her list of “anything” had never included this.

In front of a rectangular three-story stone building, they stopped. The windows were all dark, but by moonlight it had the look of an inn. Carlinya, Beonin and Anaiya were to remain here, and the first two at least were not much pleased; they made no complaint, as they had not back at the house, but they adjusted their skirts unnecessarily and held their heads stiffly erect, not looking at Egwene.

Anaiya stroked Egwene’s hair soothingly. “It will go well, child.” She carried a bundle under her arm, the dress Egwene would put on after everything was over. “You are a quick study.”

Inside the stone building a gong sounded deeply, once, twice, a third time. Egwene very nearly jumped. Silence for the space of a heartbeat; then the gong repeated its brazen song. Myrelle smoothed her dress unconsciously. Once more silence, followed by the triple call.

Sheriam opened the door, and Egwene followed her in with Myrelle and Morvrin on her heels. The way they surrounded her, Egwene could not help thinking, was like guards set to make sure she did not run away.

The large, high-ceilinged room inside was not dark, far from it. Lamps lined the mantels of four wide stone fireplaces, and more lined the stairs leading to the next floor and the railed walkway overlooking the room. A tall branched stand-lamp, mirrored to increase the light, stood in each corner of the room. Blankets tacked over the window kept all that light in.

Nine chairs made a row down either side of the room, facing inward in groups of three. The women in them, the Sitters for the six Ajahs represented in Salidar, wore their shawls and dresses in the colors of their Ajahs. Their heads swiveled toward Egwene, faces showing nothing but cool serenity.

At the far end of the room was another chair, standing on a small dais more like a flat box. A tall heavy chair, the legs and uprights carved in spirals, it had been painted dark yellow in imitation of gilt. A stole lay across the arms, striped with seven colors. It seemed miles from where Egwene stood to that stole.

“Who comes before the Hall of the Tower?” Romanda demanded in a high, clear voice. She sat just below the golden chair, opposite the three Blue sisters. Sheriam stepped smoothly aside, revealing Egwene.

“One who comes obediently, in the Light,” Egwene said. Her voice should have been shaking. Surely they were not really going to do this.

“Who comes before the Hall of the Tower?” Romanda demanded again.

“One who comes humbly, in the Light.” Any moment this would turn into her trial for pretending to be Aes Sedai. No, not that; they would just have shielded her and locked her away until time if that was the case. But surely . . .

“One who comes at the summons of the Hall, obedient and humble in the Light, asking only to accept the will of the Hall.”

Among the Grays below Romanda a dark, slender woman stood. As the youngest Sitter, Kwamesa spoke the ritual question that dated to the Breaking of the World. “Are there any present save women?”

Romanda flung back her shawl deliberately and left it over the back of her chair as she stood. As eldest, she would answer first. Just as deliberately she unfastened her dress and pushed it down to her waist along with her shift; “I am a woman,” she pronounced.

Carefully, Kwamesa laid her own shawl across her chair and stripped to the waist. “I am a woman,” she said.

The others rose then and began baring themselves, each announcing, once she was showing proof, that she was a woman. Egwene struggled a little with the snug-bodiced Accepted’s dress that had been found for her, and had to have Myrelle’s help with the buttons, but quickly they four were as bare as anyone else.

“I am a woman,” Egwene said with the others.

Kwamesa walked slowly around the room, pausing before each woman for an almost insultingly direct stare, then halted in front of her own chair again and announced that there were none present but women. The Aes Sedai sat and most began pulling up their bodices. Not in haste, exactly, but few wasting any time either. Egwene almost shook her head. She could not cover until later in the ceremony. Long ago, Kwamesa’s question would have required more proof; in those days, formal ceremonies were held “clad in the Light,” which was to say in nothing but your own skin. What would these women make of an Aiel sweat tent or a Shienaran bath?

There was no time for thought.

“Who stands for this woman,” Romanda said, “and pledges for her, heart for heart, soul for soul, life for life?” She sat erect and supremely dignified, her plump bosom remaining bare.

“I so pledge,” Sheriam said firmly, followed a moment later by the strong voices of Morvrin and Myrelle in turn.

“Come forward, Egwene al’Vere,” Romanda commanded sharply. Egwene walked forward three paces and knelt; she felt numb. “Why are you here, Egwene al’Vere?”

She really was numb; she could not feel anything. She could not remember her responses, either, but somehow they rolled from her tongue. “I was summoned by the Hall of the Tower.”

“What do you seek, Egwene al’Vere?”

“To serve the White Tower, nothing more and nothing less.” Light, they were going to do it!

“How would you serve, Egwene al’Vere?”

“With my heart and my soul and my life, in the Light. Without fear or favor, in the Light.”

“Where would you serve, Egwene al’Vere?”

Egwene breathed deeply. She could still stop this idiocy. She could not possibly be up to actually . . . “In the Amyrlin Seat, if it pleases the Hall of the Tower.” Her breath froze. Too late for turning back now. Maybe it had been too late in the Heart of the Stone.

Delana was the first to stand, then Kwamesa and Janya, more, until nine Sitters stood before their chairs, signifying acceptance. Romanda was still firmly in her seat. Nine of eighteen. The acceptance had to be unanimous—the Hall always sought consensus; in the end, all votes were unanimous, though it could take a great deal of talking to make it so—but there would be no talking aside from the ceremonial phrases tonight, and this was one short of outright rejection. Sheriam and the others had ridiculed her suggestion that that might happen, and did so so quickly that she might have worried if the whole thing was not so ridiculous, but they had warned her almost in passing that this could occur. Not a rejection, but a statement that the Sitters who remained in their chairs did not mean to be lapdogs. Only a gesture, a token, according to Sheriam, but looking at Romanda’s stern face, and Lelaine’s, scarcely less so above her bare chest, Egwene was not certain of that at all. They had said it might be as many as three or four, too.

Without a word the standing women retook their places. No one spoke, but Egwene knew what to do. Her numbness had vanished.

Rising, she moved toward the nearest Sitter, a sharp-faced Green named Samalin who had stayed in her chair. As Egwene went to her knees again in front of Samalin, Sheriam knelt beside her, a wide basin of water in her hands. Ripples danced on the surface of the water. Sheriam appeared cool and dry, while Egwene was beginning to glisten with sweat, but Sheriam’s hands were trembling. Morvrin knelt and handed Egwene a cloth, Myrelle waiting at her side with lengths of toweling over her arm. Myrelle looked angry for some reason.

“Please allow me to serve,” Egwene said. Looking straight ahead, Sarnalin raised her skirts to her knees. Her feet were bare. Egwene washed each foot and patted it dry, then moved to the next Green, a slightly plump woman named Malind. Sheriam and the others had given her all the Sitters’ names. “Please allow me to serve.” Malind had a pretty face with full lips and dark eyes that looked as if they liked to smile, but she was not smiling now. She was one of those who had stood, but her feet were bare too.

Every Sitters’ feet were, all the way around the room. As Egwene washed all those feet, she wondered whether the Sitters had known how many would remain sitting. Plainly they had known some would, that this service would be required. She knew little more of how the Hall of the Tower worked than had been in that novice lecture. For all practical purposes, she knew nothing. All she could do was go on.

She washed and dried the last foot—it belonged to Janya, who was frowning as if thinking of something else entirely; at least she had stood—and dropping the cloth in the washbasin, returned to her place at the foot of the rows and knelt. “Please allow me to serve.” One more chance.

Once again Delana was first to rise, but Samalin was right behind her this time. No one sprang to her feet, yet one by one they stood, until only Lelaine and Romanda remained sitting, looking at each other, not Egwene. Finally, Lelaine gave the ghost of a shrug, pulled up her bodice unhurriedly, and rose. Romanda turned her head and looked at Egwene. She stared so long that Egwene became conscious of the sweat running down between her breasts and along her ribs. At last, in stately slowness, Romanda reclothed herself and joined the others. Egwene heard a gasp of relief from behind her, where Sheriam and the others were waiting.

It was not over, of course. Romanda and Lelaine came together to lead her up to the yellow-painted chair. She stood before it while they pulled up her bodice and draped the stole of the Amyrlin Seat around her shoulders while they and all the Sitters said, “You are raised to the Amyrlin Seat, in the glory of the Light, that the White Tower may endure forever. Egwene al’Vere, the Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon, the Amyrlin Seat.” Lelaine removed Egwene’s Great Serpent ring from her left hand and gave it to Romanda, who slipped it onto Egwene’s right. “May the Light illumine the Amyrlin Seat and the White Tower.”

Egwene laughed. Romanda blinked, Lelaine gave a start, and they were not the only ones. “I just remembered something,” she said, then added, “daughters.” That was what the Amyrlin called Aes Sedai. What she had remembered was what came next. She could not help thinking it was payment for easing her way through Tel’aran’rhiod. Egwene al’Vere, the Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon, the Amyrlin Seat, managed to sit in that hard wooden chair without letting herself down gingerly, and without wincing. She considered both triumphs of will.

Sheriam and Myrelle and Morvrin glided forward—whoever had gasped, there was no telling now by their serene faces—and the Sitters formed a line behind them stretching toward the door. It was done in order of age, with Romanda at the very end.

Sheriam spread her skirts in a deep curtsy. “Please allow me to serve, Mother.”

“You may serve the Tower, daughter,” Egwene replied as gravely as she could. Sheriam kissed her ring and stepped aside, as Myrelle made her curtsy.

Down the line it went. There were some surprises in the arrangements. None of the Sitters were really young despite their Aes Sedai faces, but pale-haired Delana, whom Egwene had thought must be nearly as old as Romanda, stood less than halfway down the line, while Lelaine and Janya, both quite pretty women without a touch of gray in their dark hair, both came just ahead of the white-haired Yellow. Each made her curtsy and kissed Egwene’s ring with absolutely no expression—though some did glance at Egwene’s banded hem—and left the room by a rear door without another word. Normally there would have been more, but the rest of the ceremony was to wait on morning.

At last Egwene was alone with the three women who had pledged for her. She was still not sure what that meant. Myrelle went to let in the other three as Egwene stood. “What would have happened if Romanda hadn’t stood?” Supposedly there would have been one more chance, one more round of foot-washing and asking to be allowed to serve, but she was sure that if Romanda had voted no the second time, she would have the third.

“Then she very probably would have been raised Amyrlin herself in a few days,” Sheriam replied. “Her or Lelaine.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Egwene said. “What would have happened to me? Would I just have gone back to being Accepted?” Anaiya and the others came hurrying up, smiling, and Myrelle began helping Egwene out of the banded white dress and into a pale green silk that she would wear only long enough to reach her bed. It was late, but the Amyrlin could not walk about in the dress of an Accepted.

“Very probably,” Morvrin answered after a moment. “I can’t say whether that would be luck or not, being an Accepted that every Sitter knew had almost had the Amyrlin Seat.”

“It has seldom happened,” Beonin said, “but a woman refused the Amyrlin Seat is usually exiled. The Hall strives for harmony, and she could not help being a source of disharmony.”

Sheriam looked straight into Egwene’s eyes as if to impress her words. “We surely would have been exiled. Myrelle and Morvrin and I for certain, since we stood pledge for you, and likely Carlinya and Beonin and Anaiya as well.” Her smile was abrupt. “But it did not happen that way. The new Amyrlin is supposed to spend her first night in contemplation and prayer, but once Myrelle finishes with those buttons, it might be best if we gave at least a little of it to telling you how matters stand in Salidar.”

They were all looking at her. Myrelle was behind her, doing up the last button, but she could feel the woman’s eyes. “Yes. Yes, I think that might be best.”