Winter's Heart

## Chapter 10

#### A Plan Succeeds

Elayne’s eyes opened in darkness, staring at dim shadows dancing on misty paleness. Her face was cold, the rest of her hot and sweaty, and something confined her arms and legs. For an instant panic flared. Then she sensed Aviendha’s presence in the room, a simple, comforting awareness, and Birgitte’s, a fist of calm, controlled anger in her head. They soothed her by being there. She was in her own bedchamber, lying beneath blankets in her own bed and staring up at the taut linen canopy with hot-water bottles packed along her sides. The heavy winter bed-curtains were tied back against the carved posts, and the only light in the room came from tiny flickering flames in the fireplace, just enough to make shadows shift, not dispel them.

Without thought she reached out for the Source and found it. Touched saidar, wondrously, without drawing on it. The desire to draw deeply welled up strong in her, but reluctantly she retreated. Oh, so reluctantly, and not just because her wanting to be filled with the deeper life of saidar was often a bottomless need that must be controlled. Her greatest fear during those endless minutes of terror had not been death, but that she would never touch the Source again. Once, she would have thought that strange.

Abruptly, memory returned, and she sat up unsteadily, the blankets sliding to her waist. Immediately, she pulled them back up. The air was cold against her bare skin slick with sweat. They had not even left her a shift, and try as she would to copy Aviendha’s ease about being unclothed in front of others, she could not manage it. “Dyelin,” she said anxiously, twisting to drape the blankets around herself better. It was an awkward operation; she felt wrung out and more than a little wobbly. “And the Guardsman. Are they . . . ?”

“The man didn’t suffer a scratch,” Nynaeve said, stepping out of the shifting shadows, a shadow herself. She rested her hand on Elayne’s forehead and grunted in satisfaction at finding it cool. “I Healed Dyelin. She will need time to recover her strength fully, though. She lost a great deal of blood. You are doing well, too. For a time, I thought you were taking a fever. That can come on suddenly when you’re weakened.”

“She gave you herbs instead of Healing,” Birgitte said sourly from a chair at the foot of the bed. In the near darkness, she was just a squat, ominous shape.

“Nynaeve al’Meara is wise enough to know what she cannot do,” Aviendha said in level tones. Only her white blouse and a flash of polished silver were really visible, low against the wall. As usual, she had chosen the floor over a chair. “She recognized the taste of this forkroot in the tea and did not know how to work her weaves against it, so she did not take foolish chances.”

Nynaeve sniffed sharply. No doubt as much at Aviendha’s defense of her as Birgitte’s acidity. Perhaps more so. Nynaeve being Nynaeve, she probably would have preferred to let slide what she did not know and could not do. And she was more prickly than usual about Healing, of late. Ever since it became clear that several of the Kin were already outstripping her skill. “You should have recognized it yourself, Elayne,” she said in a brusque voice. “At any rate, greenwort and goatstongue might make you sleep, but they’re sovereign for stomach cramps. I thought you would prefer the sleep.”

Fishing leather hot-water bottles from under the covers and dropping them onto the carpets so she did not start roasting again, Elayne shuddered. The days right after Ronde Macura dosed her and Nynaeve with forkroot had been a misery she had tried to forget. Whatever the herbs were that Nynaeve had given her, she felt no weaker than the forkroot would have made her. She thought she could walk, so long as she did not have to walk far or stand long. And she could think clearly. The casements showed only thin moonlight. How deeply into the night was it?

Embracing the Source again, she channeled four threads of Fire to light first one stand-lamp, then a second. The small, mirrored flames brightened the room greatly after the darkness, and Birgitte put a hand up to shield her eyes, at first. The Captain-General’s coat truly did suit her; she would have impressed the merchants no end.

“You should not be channeling yet,” Nynaeve fussed, squinting at the sudden light. She still wore the same low-cut blue dress Elayne had seen her in earlier, with her yellow-fringed shawl caught in her elbows. “A few days to regain strength would be best, with plenty of sleep.” She frowned at the hot-water bottles tumbled on the floor. “And you need to be kept warm. Better to avoid a fever than need to Heal it.”

“I think Dyelin proved her loyalty today,” Elayne said, shifting her pillows so she could lean back against the headboard, and Nynaeve threw up her hands in disgust. A small silver tray on one of the side tables flanking the bed held a single silver cup filled with dark wine that Elayne gave a brief, mistrusting look. “A hard way to prove it. I think I have toh toward her, Aviendha.”

Aviendha shrugged. On their arrival in Caemlyn she had returned to Aiel garments with almost laughable haste, forsaking silks for algode blouses and bulky woolen skirts as though suddenly afraid of wetlander luxury. With a dark shawl tied around her waist and a dark folded kerchief holding her long hair back, she was the image of a Wise One’s apprentice, though her only jewelry was a complicated silver necklace of intricately worked discs, a gift from Egwene. Elayne still did not understand her hurry. Melaine and the others had seemed willing to let her go her own way so long as she wore wetlander clothes, but now they had her back in their grip as tightly as any novice in the hands of Aes Sedai. The only reason they allowed her to stay any time at all in the Palace—in the city, for that matter—was that she and Elayne were first-sisters.

“If you think you do, then you do.” Her tones of pointing out the obvious slid into an affectionate chiding. “But a small toh, Elayne. You had reason to doubt. You cannot assume obligation for every thought, sister.” She laughed as if suddenly seeing a wonderful joke. “That way lies too much pride, and I will have to be overproud with you, only the Wise Ones will not call to you to account for it.”

Nynaeve rolled her eyes ostentatiously, but Aviendha simply shook her head, wearily patient with the other woman’s ignorance. She had been studying more than the Power with the Wise Ones.

“Well, we wouldn’t want the pair of you being too proud,” Birgitte said with what sounded suspiciously like suppressed mirth. Her face was much too smooth, almost rigid with the effort of not laughing.

Aviendha eyed Birgitte with a wooden-faced wariness. Since she and Elayne had adopted one another, Birgitte had adopted her, too, in way. Not as a Warder, of course, but with the same elder-sister attitude she often displayed toward Elayne. Aviendha was not quite sure what to make of it, or how to respond. Joining the tiny circle who knew who Birgitte really was certainly had not helped. She bounced between fierce determination to show that Birgitte Silverbow did not overawe her and a startling meekness, with odd stops in between.

Birgitte smiled at her, an amused smile, but it faded as she picked up a narrow bundle from her lap and began unfolding the cloth with great care. By the time she revealed a dagger with a leather-wrapped hilt and a long blade, her expression was severe, and tight anger flowed through the bond. Elayne recognized the knife instantly; she had last seen its twin in the hand of a tow-headed assassin.

“They were not trying to kidnap you, sister,” Aviendha said softly.

Birgitte’s tone was grim. “After Mellar killed the first two—the second by spearing him with his sword across the width of the room like somebody in a bloody gleeman’s tale,” she held the dagger upright by the end of the hilt, “he took this from the last fellow and killed him with it. They had four near identical daggers between them. This one is poisoned.”

“Those brown stains on the blade are gray fennel mixed with powdered peach pit,” Nynaeve said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and grimaced in disgust. “One look at his eyes and tongue, and I knew that was what killed the fellow, not the knife.”

“Well,” Elayne said quietly after a moment. Well, indeed. “Forkroot so I couldn’t channel, or stand up, for that matter, and two men to hold me on my feet while the third put a poisoned dagger in me. A complicated plan.”

“Wetlanders like complicated plans,” Aviendha said. Glancing at Birgitte uneasily, she shifted against the wall and added, “Some do.”

“Simple, in its way,” Birgitte said, rewrapping the knife with as great a care as she had shown unwrapping. “You were easy to reach. Everyone knows you eat your midday meal alone.” Her long braid swung as she shook her head. “A lucky thing the first man to reach you didn’t have this; one stab, and you’d be dead. A lucky thing Mellar happened to be walking by and heard a man cursing in your rooms. Enough luck for a ta’veren.”

Nynaeve snorted. “You might be dead from a deep enough cut on your arm. The pit is the most poisonous part of a peach. Dyelin wouldn’t have had a chance if the other blades had been poisoned as well.”

Elayne looked around at her friends’ flat, expressionless faces and sighed. A very complicated plan. As if spies in the Palace were not bad enough. “A small bodyguard, Birgitte,” she said finally. “Something . . . discreet.” She should have known the woman would be prepared. Birgitte’s face did not change in the slightest, but the tiniest burst of satisfaction flared through their shared bond.

“The women who guarded you today, for a start,” she said, without so much as pretending to pause for thought, “and a few more that I’ll pick. Maybe twenty or so, altogether. Too few can’t protect you day and night, and you bloody well must be,” she put in firmly, though Elayne had not offered any protest. “Women can guard you where men can’t, and they’ll be discreet just by being who they are. Most people will think they’re ceremonial—your very own Maidens of the Spear—and we’ll give them something, a sash maybe, to make them look more so.” That earned her a very sharp look from Aviendha, which she affected not to notice. “The problem is who to command,” she said, frowning in thought. “Two or three nobles, Hunters, are already arguing for rank ‘sufficient to their station.’ The bloody women know how to give orders, but I’m not sure they know the right bloody orders to give. I could promote Caseille to lieutenant, but she’s more a bannerman at heart, I think.” Birgitte shrugged. “Maybe one of the others will show promise, but I think they are better followers than leaders.”

Oh, yes; all thought out. Twenty or so? She would have to keep a close eye on Birgitte to make sure the number did not climb to fifty. Or more. Able to guard her where men could not. Elayne winced. That probably meant guards watching her bathe at the very least. “Caseille will do, surely. A bannerman can handle twenty.” She was certain she could talk Caseille into keeping it all unobtrusive. And keeping the guards outside while she took a bath. “The man who arrived just in the nick of time. Mellar? What do you know of him, Birgitte?”

“Doilin Mellar,” Birgitte said slowly, her brows drawing down as a sharp angle. “A coldhearted fellow, though he smiles a lot. Mainly at women. He pinches serving girls, and he’s tumbled three in four days that I know of—he likes to talk about his ‘conquests’—but he hasn’t pressed anyone who said no. He claims to have been a merchant’s guard and then a mercenary, and now a Hunter for the Horn, and he certainly has the skills. Enough that I made him a lieutenant. He’s Andoran, from somewhere out west, near Baerlon, and he says he fought for your mother during the Succession, though he couldn’t have been much more than a boy at the time. Anyway, he knows the right answers—I checked—so maybe he was involved in it. Mercenaries lie about their pasts without thinking twice.”

Folding her hands on her middle, Elayne considered Doilin Mellar. She remembered only the impression of a wiry man with a sharp face, choking one of her assailants while they struggled over the poisoned dagger. A man with enough of a soldier’s skills that Birgitte had made him an officer. She was trying to make sure that as many as possible of the officers, at least, were Andoran. A rescue just in time, one man against three, and a sword hurled across the room like a spear; very much like a gleeman’s tale. “He deserves a suitable reward. A promotion to captain and command of my bodyguard, Birgitte. Caseille can be his second.”

“Are you mad?” Nynaeve burst out, but Elayne shushed her.

“I’ll feel much safer knowing he’s there, Nynaeve. He won’t try pinching me, not with Caseille and twenty more like her around him. With his reputation, they’ll watch him like hawks. You did say twenty, Birgitte? I will hold you to that.”

“Twenty,” Birgitte said absently. “Or so.” There was nothing absent about the gaze she fixed on Elayne, though. She leaned forward intently, hands on her knees. “I suppose you know what you’re doing.” Good; she was going to behave like a Warder for once instead of arguing. “Guardsman-Lieutenant Mellar becomes Guardsman-Captain Mellar, for saving the life of the Daughter-Heir. That will add to his swagger. Unless you think it’s better to keep the whole thing secret.”

Elayne shook her head. “Oh, no; not at all. Let the whole city know. Someone tried to murder me, and Lieutenant—Captain—Mellar saved my life. We will keep the poison to ourselves, though. Just in case someone makes a slip of the tongue.”

Nynaeve harrumphed and gave her a sidelong glare. “One day you will be too clever, Elayne. So sharp you cut yourself.”

“She is clever, Nynaeve al’Meara.” Rising smoothly to her feet, Aviendha settled her heavy skirts, then patted her horn-hilted belt knife. It was not so large as the blade she had worn as a Maiden, yet still a credible weapon. “And she has me to watch her back. I have permission to stay with her, now.”

Nynaeve opened her mouth angrily. And for a wonder, closed it again, composing herself visibly, smoothing her skirts and her features. “What are you all staring at?” she muttered. “If Elayne wants this fellow close enough to pinch her whenever he feels like, who am I to argue?” Birgitte’s mouth dropped open, and Elayne wondered whether Aviendha was going to choke. Her eyes were certainly popping.

The faint sound of the gong atop the Palace’s tallest tower, tolling the hour, made her jerk. It was later than she had thought. “Nynaeve, Egwene might already be waiting for us.” None of her clothes were anywhere to be seen. “Where’s my purse? My ring is in it.” Her Great Serpent ring was on her finger, but that was not the one she meant.

“I will see Egwene alone,” Nynaeve said firmly. “You are in no condition to enter Tel’aran’rhiod. In any case, you just slept the afternoon away. You won’t go to sleep again soon, I’ll wager. And I know you’ve had no luck putting yourself into a waking trance, so that is that.” She smiled smugly, certain of her victory. She had gone cross-eyed and dizzy attempting to enter the waking trance Egwene had tried to teach them.

“You’ll wager that, will you?” Elayne murmured. “What will you bet? Because I intend to drink that,” she glanced at the silver cup on the sidetable, “and I wager I’ll go right to sleep. Of course, if you didn’t put something in it, if you didn’t intend trying to trick me into drinking it . . . Well, of course, you wouldn’t do that. So what shall we wager?”

That insufferable smile slid greasily off Nynaeve’s face, replaced by bright spots of color in her cheeks.

“A fine thing,” Birgitte said, standing. Fists on hips, she squared herself at the foot of the bed, her face and tone alike censuring. “The woman saves you a roiling belly, and you snip at her like Mistress Priss. Maybe if you drink that cup and go to sleep and forget about adventuring in the World of Dreams tonight, I’ll decide you’ve grown up enough that I can trust fewer than a hundred guards to keep you alive. Or do I need to hold your nose to make you drink?” Well, Elayne had not expected her to keep holding back for long. Fewer than a hundred?

Aviendha spun to face Birgitte before she finished, and barely waited for the last word to leave the other woman’s mouth. “You should not speak to her so, Birgitte Trahelion,” she said, drawing herself to gain the full advantage other greater height. Given the raised heels on Birgitte’s boots, it was not that much, yet with her shawl drawn tightly over her breasts, she looked very much a Wise One rather than an apprentice. Some had faces not much older than hers. “You are her Warder. Ask Aan’allein how to behave. He is a great man, yet he obeys as Nynaeve tells him.” Aan’allein was Lan, The Man Alone, his story well known and much admired among the Aiel.

Birgitte eyed her up and down as if measuring her, and adopted a lounging posture that all but lost the extra inches of her boot heels. With a mocking grin, she opened her mouth, plainly ready to prick Aviendha’s bubble if she could. She usually could. Before she said a word, Nynaeve spoke quietly and quite firmly.

“Oh, for the love of the Light, give over, Birgitte. If Elayne says she’s going, then she is going. Now, not another word out of you.” She stabbed a finger at the other woman. “Or you and I will have words, later.”

Birgitte stared at Nynaeve, her mouth working soundlessly, the Warder bond carrying an intense blend of irritation and frustration. At last, she flung herself back into her chair, legs sprawled and boots balanced on her lion-head spurs, and began a sullen muttering under her breath. If Elayne had not known her better, she would have sworn the woman was sulking. She wished she knew how Nynaeve did it. Once, Nynaeve had been as much in awe of Birgitte as Aviendha ever was, but that had changed. Completely. Now Nynaeve bullied Birgitte as readily as anyone else. And more successfully than with most. She’s a woman just like any other, Nynaeve had said. She told me so herself, and I realized she was right. As if that explained anything. Birgitte was still Birgitte.

“My purse?” Elayne said, and of all people, Birgitte went to fetch the gold-embroidered red purse from the dressing room. Well, a Warder did do that sort of thing, but Birgitte always made some comment when she did. Though perhaps her return was meant for one. She presented the purse to Elayne with a flourishing bow. And a twist of her lips for Nynaeve and Aviendha. Elayne sighed. It was not that the other women disliked one another; they really got on very well, if you ignored their little foibles. They just rubbed against each other sometimes.

The oddly twisted stone ring, strung on a plain loop of leather, lay in the bottom of the purse underneath a mix of coins, next to the carefully folded silk handkerchief full of feathers she considered her greatest treasure. The ter’angreal appeared to be stone, anyway, all flecks and stripes of blue and red and brown, but it felt as hard and slick as steel, and too heavy even for that. Settling the leather cord around her neck, and the ring between her breasts, she pulled the drawstrings tight and set the purse on the side table, taking up the silver cup instead. The fragrance was simply that of good wine, but she raised an eyebrow anyway and smiled at Nynaeve.

“I will go to my own room,” Nynaeve said stiffly. Rising from the mattress, she shared out a stern look between Birgitte and Aviendha. Somehow, the ki’sain on her forehead made it seem even more uncompromising. “The pair of you stay awake and keep your eyes open! Until you have those women around her, she is still in danger. And after, I hope I don’t have to remind you.”

“You think I do not know that?” Aviendha protested at the same time that Birgitte growled, “I’m not a fool, Nynaeve!”

“So you say,” Nynaeve answered them both. “I hope so, for Elayne’s sake. And for your own.” Gathering her shawl, she glided from the room, as stately as any Aes Sedai could wish to be. She was getting very good at that.

“You’d think she was the bloody queen here,” Birgitte muttered.

“She is the one who is overproud, Birgitte Trahelion,” Aviendha grumbled. “As proud as a Shaido with one goat.” They nodded at one another in perfect agreement.

But Elayne noticed that they had waited to speak until the door had shut behind Nynaeve. The woman who had denied so hard wanting to be Aes Sedai was becoming very much Aes Sedai. Perhaps Lan had something to with that. Coaching her, from his experience. She still had to work at staying composed, sometimes, but it seemed to come more and more easily since her peculiar wedding.

The first sip of the wine had no taste other than wine, a very good wine, but Elayne frowned at the cup and hesitated. Until she realized what she was doing, and why. The memory of forkroot hidden in her tea was still strong. What had Nynaeve put in here? Not forkroot, of course, but what? Raising the cup to take a full swallow seemed very difficult. Defiantly, she drained the wine. I was thirsty, that’s all, she thought, stretching to set the cup back on the silver tray. I certainly wasn’t trying to prove anything.

The other two women had been watching her, but as she began settling herself in a more comfortable position for sleep, they turned to one another.

“I’ll keep watch in the sitting room,” Birgitte said. “I have my bow and quiver in there. You stay here in case she needs you for anything.”

Rather than arguing, Aviendha drew her belt knife and knelt ready to spring up again, off to one side, where she would see anyone coming through the door before they saw her. “Knock twice, then once, and name yourself before you enter,” she said. “Otherwise, I will assume it is an enemy.” And Birgitte nodded as if that were the most reasonable thing in the world.

“This is sil—” Elayne smothered a yawn behind her hand. “Silly,” she finished when she could speak again. “No one is going to try to—” Another yawn, and she could have put her fist into her mouth! Light, what had Nynaeve put in that wine? “To kill me—tonight,” she said drowsily, “and you—both know—” Her eyelids were leaden, sliding down despite every effort to keep them open. Unconsciously snuggling her face into her pillow, she tried to finish what she had been about to say, but . . .

She was in the Grand Hall, the throne room of the Palace. In the Grand Hall’s reflection in Tel’aran’rhiod. Here, the twisted stone ring that felt too heavy for its size in the waking world seemed light enough to float up from between her breasts. There was light, of course, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was not like sunlight, or lamps, but even if it was night here, too, there was always enough of that odd light to see. As in a dream. The ever-present sensation of unseen eyes watching was not dreamlike—more like a nightmare—but she had grown accustomed to that.

Great audiences were held in the Grand Hall, foreign ambassadors formally received, important treaties and declarations of war announced to gathered dignitaries, and the long chamber suited its name and function. Empty of people save for her, it seemed cavernous. Two rows of thick gleaming white columns, ten spans high, marched the length of the room, and at one end, the Lion Throne stood atop a marble dais, with red carpeting climbing the white steps from the red-and-white floor tiles. The throne was sized for a woman, but still massive on its heavy lion-pawed legs, carved and gilded, with the White Lion picked out in moonstones on a field of rubies at the top of its high back, announcing that whoever sat there ruled a great nation. From large, colored windows set in the arched ceiling high overhead, the queens who had founded Andor stared down, their images alternating with the White Lion and scenes of the battles they had fought to build Andor from a single city in Artur Hawkwing’s shattering empire into that nation. Many lands that had come out of the War of the Hundred Years no longer existed, yet Andor had survived the thousand years since and prospered. Sometimes Elayne felt those images judging her, weighing her worth to follow in their footsteps.

No sooner did she find herself in the Grand Hall than another woman appeared, sitting on the Lion Throne, a dark-haired young woman in flowing red silk embroidered in silver lions on the sleeves and hem, with a strand of firedrops as large as pigeon’s eggs around her neck and the Rose Crown sitting on her head. One hand resting lightly on the lion-headed arm of the throne, she gazed regally about the Hall. Then her eyes fell on Elayne, and recognition dawned, along with confusion. Crown and firedrops and silks vanished, replaced by plain woolens and a long apron. An instant later, the young woman vanished, too.

Elayne smiled in amusement. Even scullions dreamed of sitting on the Lion Throne. She hoped the young woman had not been wakened in fright by the start she received, or at least that she had gone on to another pleasant dream. A safer dream than Tel’aran’rhiod.

Other things shifted in the throne room. The elaborately worked stand-lamps standing in rows down the chamber seemed to vibrate against the tall columns. The great arched doors stood now open, now closed, in the blink of an eye. Only things that had stood in one place for a goodly time had a truly permanent reflection in the World of Dreams.

Elayne imagined a stand-mirror, and it was before her, reflecting her image in high-necked green silk worked in silver across the bodice, with emeralds in her ears and smaller ones strung in her red-gold curls. She made the emeralds disappear from her hair, and nodded. Fit for the Daughter-Heir, but not too ostentatious. You had to be careful of how you imagined yourself, here, or else . . . Her modest green silk gown became the snug, form-hugging folds of a Taraboner gown, then flashed to dark, wide Sea Folk trousers and bare feet, complete with golden earrings and nose ring and chain full of medallions, and even dark tattoos on her hands. But without a blouse, the way the Atha’an Miere went at sea. Cheeks coloring, she hastily returned everything to how it had been, then changed the emerald earrings for plain silver hoops. The simpler you imagined your garb, the easier it was to maintain.

Letting the stand-mirror disappear—she just had to stop concentrating on it—she looked up at those stern faces overhead. “Women have taken the throne as young as I,” she told them. Not very many, though; only seven who had managed to wear the Rose Crown for very long. “Women younger than I.” Three. And one of those lasted barely a year. “I don’t claim I will be as great as you, but I will not make you ashamed, either. I will be a good queen.”

“Talking to windows?” Nynaeve said, making Elayne start in surprise. Using a copy of the ring Elayne wore next to her skin, she appeared misty, almost transparent. Frowning, she tried to stride toward Elayne and staggered, nearly tripped by the hobbling skirt of a deep blue Taraboner dress that was much tighter than the one Elayne had imagined on herself. Nynaeve gaped down at the thing, and abruptly it was an Andoran gown in the same colored silk, embroidered in gold on the sleeves and atop the bodice. She still went on about “good, stout Two Rivers wool” being good enough for her, but even here where she could appear in it if she wished, she almost never did.

“What did you put in that wine, Nynaeve?” Elayne asked. “I went out like a snuffed candle.”

“Don’t try to change the subject. If you are talking to windows, you should really be asleep instead of here. I’ve half a mind to order you—”

“Please don’t. I’m not Vandene, Nynaeve. Light, I don’t even know half the customs Vandene and the others take for granted. But I would rather not disobey you, so don’t, please.”

Nynaeve glowered at her, giving her braid one firm tug. Details of her dress changed, the skirts growing a trifle fuller, the embroidery’s pattern altering, the high neck sinking, then rising again, sprouting lace. She was just not very good at the necessary concentration. The red dot on her forehead never wavered, though.

“Very well,” she said calmly, the scowl vanishing. Her yellow-fringed shawl appeared on her shoulders, and her face took on something of the Aes Sedai agelessness. There were wings of white at her temples. Her words contrasted with her appearance and composed tone, though. “Let me do the talking when Egwene gets here. I mean about what happened today. You always end up chattering as if you’re brushing each other’s hair for bed. Light! I don’t want her coming to the Amyrlin with me, and you know she will be all over both of us if she finds out.”

“If I find out what?” Egwene said. Nynaeve’s head whipped around, eyes panic-stricken, and for a moment her fringed shawl and silk gown were replaced by an Accepted’s banded white. Even the ki’sain went. Just a moment, and she was back as she had been except for the white in her hair, yet that was enough to put a rueful expression on Egwene’s face. She knew Nynaeve very well. “If I find out what, Nynaeve?” she asked firmly.

Elayne drew a deep breath. She had not intended to hold anything back, exactly. Not anything important to Egwene, any way. But in her present mood, Nynaeve was likely to babble everything, or else grow stubborn and try insisting there was nothing to find out. Which would only make Egwene dig harder.

“Someone put forkroot in my midday tea,” she said, and went on succinctly about the men with their daggers and Doilin Mellar’s fortuitous appearance, and how Dyelin had proved herself. For good measure she added the news of Elenia and Naean, and the First Maid’s search for spies in the Palace, and even Zarya and Kirstian being assigned to Vandene, and the attack on Rand and his disappearance. Egwene appeared to be unruffled by the recital—she even cut Elayne short about Rand, saying she already knew—but she gave a dismissive shake of her head at hearing that Vandene had made no progress in learning who the Black sister was, and that was of the gravest concern to her. “Oh, and I’m to have a bodyguard,” Elayne finished. “Twenty women, commanded by Captain Mellar. I don’t think Birgitte will find me any Maidens, but she will come close.”

A backless armchair appeared behind Egwene, and she sat without looking for it. She was much more skilled here than Elayne or Nynaeve. She wore a dark green woolen riding dress, fine and well-cut but unadorned, likely what she had worn awake that day. And it remained a green woolen riding dress. “I would tell you to join me in Murandy tomorrow—tonight,” she said, “if the arrival of the Kinswomen would not light a wildfire among the Sitters.”

Nynaeve had recovered herself, though she gave her skirts an unneeded adjusting shake. The embroidery on her dress was silver, now. “I thought you had the Hall of the Tower under your thumb, now.”

“That’s very much like having a ferret under your thumb,” Egwene said dryly. “It twists and writhes and wriggles around to nip at your wrist. Oh, they do just as I say when it concerns the war with Elaida—they can’t get around that, however much they grumble over the expense of more soldiers!—but the agreement with the Kin is no part of the war, or letting the Kin learn the Tower had known about them all along. Or thought it did. The entire Hall would have apoplexy, just at finding out how much they didn’t know. They are trying very hard to find a way to stop accepting new novices.”

“They can’t, can they?” Nynaeve demanded. She made a chair for herself, but it was a copy of Egwene’s when she looked to make sure it was there, a three-legged stool as she began to sit, and a ladder-backed farm chair by the time she settled on it. Her dress had divided skirts, now. “You made a proclamation. Any woman of any age, if she tested true. All you have to do is make another, about the Kin.” Elayne made her own seat a copy of one of the chairs in her sitting room. Much easier to hold onto.

“Oh, an Amyrlin’s proclamation is as good as law,” Egwene said. “Until the Hall sees a way around it. The newest complaint is that we only have sixteen Accepted. Though most sisters do treat Faolain and Theodrin as if they were still Accepted. But even eighteen isn’t near sufficient to give the novice lessons that Accepted are supposed to handle. Sisters have to take them, instead. I think some were hoping the weather would hold the numbers down, but it hasn’t.” She smiled suddenly, a light of mischief in her dark eyes. “There’s one new novice I’d like you to meet, Nynaeve. Sharina Melloy. A grandmother. I think you’ll agree she’s a remarkable woman.”

Nynaeve’s chair disappeared completely, and she hit the floor with an audible smack. She hardly seemed to notice, sitting there and staring at Egwene in astonishment. “Sharina Melloy?” she said in a shaky voice. “She’s a novice?” Her dress was a style Elayne had never seen before, with flowing sleeves and a deeply scooped neck worked with flowers in embroidery and seed pearls. Her hair flowed to her waist, held by a cap of moonstones and sapphires on golden wires no thicker than threads. And there was a plain golden band on her left forefinger. Only the ki’sain and her Great Serpent ring remained the same.

Egwene blinked. “You know the name?”

Getting to her feet, Nynaeve stared at her dress. She held up her left hand and touched the plain gold ring almost hesitantly. Strangely, she left everything as it was. “It might not be the same woman,” she muttered. “It couldn’t be!” Making another chair like Egwene’s, she frowned at it as if commanding it to stay, but it still had a high back and carving by the time she sat. “There was a Sharina Melloy . . . It was during my test for Accepted,” she said in a rush, “I don’t have to talk about that; it’s the rule!”

“Of course you don’t,” Egwene said, though the look she gave Nynaeve was certainly as strange as Elayne knew her own must be. Still, there was nothing to be done; when Nynaeve wanted to be stubborn, she could teach mules.

“Since you brought up the Kin, Egwene,” Elayne said, “have you thought further on the Oath Rod?”

Egwene raised one hand as if to stop her, but her reply was calm and level. “There’s no need to think further, Elayne. The Three Oaths, sworn on the Oath Rod, are what make us Aes Sedai. I didn’t see that, at first, but I do, now. The very first day we have the Tower, I will swear the Three Oaths, on the Oath Rod.”

“That’s madness!” Nynaeve burst out, leaning forward in her chair. Surprisingly, still the same chair. And still the same dress. Very surprising. Her hands were fists resting on her lap. “You know what it does; the Kin are proof! How many Aes Sedai live past three hundred? Or reach it? And don’t tell me I shouldn’t talk about age. That’s a ridiculous custom, and you know it. Egwene, Reanne was called Eldest because she was the oldest Kinswoman in Ebou Dar. The oldest anywhere is a woman called Aloisia Nemosni, an oil merchant in Tear. Egwene, she’s nearly six . . . hundred . . . years . . . old! When the Hall hears that, I wager they’ll be ready to put the Oath Rod on a shelf.”

“The Light knows three hundred years is a long time,” Elayne put in, “but I can’t say I’m happy myself at the prospect of perhaps cutting my life in half, Egwene. And what of the Oath Rod and your promise to the Kin? Reanne wants to be Aes Sedai, but what happens when she swears? What about Aloisia? Will she fall over dead? You can’t ask them to swear, not knowing.”

“I don’t ask anything.” Egwene’s face was still smooth, but her back had straightened, her voice cooled. And hardened. Her eyes augered deep. “Any woman who wants to be a sister will swear. And anyone who refuses and still calls herself Aes Sedai will feel the full weight of Tower justice.”

Elayne swallowed hard under that steady gaze. Nynaeve’s face paled. There was no mistaking Egwene’s meaning. They were not hearing a friend now, but the Amyrlin Seat, and the Amyrlin Seat had no friends when it came time to pronounce judgment.

Apparently satisfied with what she saw in them, Egwene relaxed. “I do know the problem,” she said in a more normal tone. More normal, but still not inviting argument. “I expect any woman whose name is in the novice books to go as far as she can, to earn the shawl if she can, and serve as Aes Sedai, but I don’t want anyone to die for it when they could live. Once the Hall learns about the Kin—once they’re over pitching fits—I think I can get them to agree that a sister who wants to retire should be able to. With the Oaths removed.” They had decided long ago that the Rod could be used to unbind as well as bind, else how could Black sisters lie?

“I suppose that would be all right,” Nynaeve allowed judiciously. Elayne simply nodded; she was certain there was more.

“Retire into the Kin, Nynaeve,” Egwene said gently. “That way, the Kin are bound to the Tower, too. The Kin will keep their own ways, of course, their Rule, but they will have to agree that their Knitting Circle is beneath the Amyrlin, if not the Hall, and that Kinswomen stand below sisters. I do mean them to be part of the Tower, not go their own way. But I think they will accept.”

Nynaeve nodded again, happily, but her smile faded as the full import reached her. She spluttered indignantly. “But . . . ! Standing among the Kin is by age! You’ll have sisters taking orders from women who couldn’t even reach Accepted!”

“Former sisters, Nynaeve.” Egwene fingered the Great Serpent ring on her right hand and sighed faintly. “Even Kinswomen who earned the ring don’t wear it. So we will have to give it up, too. We will be Kinswomen, Nynaeve, not Aes Sedai any longer.” She sounded as if she could already feel that distant day, that distant loss, but she took her hand from the ring and took a deep breath. “Now. Is there anything else? I have a long night ahead of me, and I would like to get a little real sleep before I have to face the Sitters again.”

Frowning, Nynaeve had clenched her fist tight and laid her other hand over it to cover her rings, but she appeared ready to give up arguing over the Kin. For the time being. “Do your headaches still trouble you? I’d think if that woman’s massages did any good, you’d stop having them.”

“Halima’s massages work wonders, Nynaeve. I couldn’t sleep at all without her. Now, is there . . . ?” She trailed off, staring toward the doors at the entrance of the throne room, and Elayne turned to look.

A man was standing there watching, a man as tall as an Aielman, with dark red hair faintly streaked with white, but his high-collared blue coat would never be worn by an Aiel. He appeared muscular, and his hard face seemed somehow familiar. When he saw them looking, he turned and ran down the corridor out of sight.

For an instant, Elayne gaped. He had not just accidentally dreamed himself into Tel’aran’rhiod, or he would have vanished by now, but she could still hear his boots, loud on the floor tiles. Either he was a dreamwalker—rare among men, so the Wise Ones said—or he had a ter’angreal of his own.

Leaping to her feet, she ran after him, but as fast as she was, Egwene was faster. One instant Egwene was behind, the next she was standing in the doorway, peering the way the man had gone. Elayne tried thinking of herself standing beside Egwene, and she was. The corridor was silent, now, and empty except for stand-lamps and chests and tapestries, all flickering and shifting.

“How did you do that?” Nynaeve demanded, running up with her skirts hoisted above her knees. Her stockings were silk, and red! Hastily letting her skirts fall when she realized Elayne had noticed her stockings, she peered down the hallway. “Where did he go? He could have heard everything! Did you recognize him? He reminded me of someone; I don’t know who.”

“Rand,” Egwene said. “He could have been Rand’s uncle.”

Of course, Elayne thought. If Rand had a mean uncle.

A metallic click echoed from the far end of the throne room. The door into the dressing rooms behind the dais, closing. Doors were open or closed or sometimes in between in Tel’aran’rhiod; they did not swing shut.

“Light!” Nynaeve muttered. “How many people have been eavesdropping on us? Not to mention who, and why?”

“Whoever they are,” Egwene replied calmly, “they apparently don’t know Tel’aran’rhiod as well as we do. Not friends, safe to say, or they wouldn’t be eavesdropping. And I think they may not be friends to one another, otherwise, why listen from opposite ends of the room? That man was wearing a Shienaran coat. There are Shienarans in my army, but you both know them all. None resemble Rand.”

Nynaeve sniffed. “Well, whoever he is, there are too many people listening at corners. That’s what I think. I want to be back in my own body, where all I have to worry about are spies and poisoned daggers.”

Shienarans, Elayne thought. Borderlanders. How could that have slipped her mind? Well, there had been the little matter of forkroot. “There is one more thing,” she said aloud, though in a careful voice she hoped would not carry, and related Dyelin’s news of Borderlanders in Braem Wood. She added Master Norry’s correspondence, too, all the while trying to watch both ways along the corridor and the throne room as well. She did not want to be caught napping by another spy. “I think those rulers are in Braem Wood,” she finished, “all four of them.”

“Rand,” Egwene breathed, sounding irritated. “Even when he can’t be found he complicates things. Do you have any idea whether they came to offer him allegiance or try to hand him over to Elaida? I can’t think of any other reasons for them to march a thousand leagues. They must be boiling shoes for soup by now! Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep an army supplied on the march?”

“I think I can find out,” Elayne said. “Why, I mean. And at the same time . . . You gave me the idea, Egwene.” She could not help smiling. Something good had come of today. “I think I might just be able to use them to secure the Lion Throne.”

Asne examined the tall embroidery frame in front of her and gave a sigh that turned into a yawn. The flickering lamps gave a poor light for this, but that was not the reason her birds all seemed lopsided. She wanted to be in her bed, and she despised embroidery. But she had to be awake, and this was the only way to avoid conversation with Chesmal. What Chesmal called conversation. The smugly arrogant Yellow was intent on her own embroidery, on the other side of the room, and she assumed that anyone who took up a needle had her own keen interest in the work. On the other hand, Asne knew, if she rose from her chair, Chesmal would soon start regaling her with tales of her own importance. In the months since Moghedien vanished, she had heard Chesmal’s part in putting Tamra Ospenya to the question at least twenty times, and how Chesmal had induced the Reds to murder Sierin Vayu before Sierin could order her arrest perhaps fifty! To hear Chesmal tell it, she had saved the Black Ajah single-handed, and she would tell it, given half a chance. That sort of talk was not only boring, it was dangerous. Even deadly, if the Supreme Council learned of it. So Asne stifled another yawn, squinted at her work, and pushed the needle through the tightly stretched linen. Perhaps if she made the redbird larger, she could even up the wings.

The click of the doorlatch brought both women’s heads up. The two servants knew not to bother them, and in any case, the woman and her husband should be fast asleep. Asne embraced saidar, readying a weave that would sear an intruder to the bone, and the glow surrounded Chesmal, too. If the wrong person stepped through that door, they would regret it until they died.

It was Eldrith, gloves in hand, with her dark cloak still hanging down her back. The plump Brown’s dress was dark, too, and unadorned. Asne hated wearing plain woolens, but they did need to avoid notice. The drab clothes suited Eldrith.

She stopped at the sight of them, blinking, a momentary look of confusion on her round face. “Oh, my,” she said. “Who did you think I was?” Throwing her gloves onto the small table by the door, she suddenly became aware of her cloak and frowned as if just realizing she had worn it upstairs. Carefully unpinning the silver brooch at her neck, she tossed the cloak onto a chair in a tumbled heap.

The light of saidar winked out around Chesmal as she twisted her embroidery frame aside so she could stand. Her stern face made her seem taller than she was, and she was a tall woman. The brightly colored flowers she had embroidered might have been in a garden. “Where have you been?” she demanded. Eldrith stood highest among them, and Moghedien had left her in charge besides, but Chesmal had begun taking only cursory notice if that. “You were supposed to be back by afternoon, and the night is half gone!”

“I lost track of the hour, Chesmal,” Eldrith replied absently, appearing lost in thought. “It has been a long time since I was last in Caemlyn. The Inner City is fascinating, and I had a delightful meal at an inn I remembered. Though I must say, there were fewer sisters about then. No one recognized me, however.” She peered at her brooch as though wondering where it had come from, then tucked it into her belt pouch.

“You lost track,” Chesmal said flatly, lacing her fingers together at her waist. Perhaps to keep them from Eldrith’s throat. Her eyes glittered with anger. “You lost track.”

Once more Eldrith blinked, as if startled to be addressed. “Oh. Were you afraid Kennit had found me again? I assure you, since Samara I have been quite careful at keeping the bond masked.”

At times, Asne wondered how much of Eldrith’s apparent vagueness was real. No one so unaware of the world around her could have survived this long. On the other hand, she had been unfocused enough to let the masking slip more than once before they reached Samara, enough for her Warder to track her. Obedient to Moghedien’s orders to await her return, they had hidden through the riots after her departure, waited while the so-called Prophet’s mobs swept south into Amadicia, stayed in that wretched, ruined town even after Asne became convinced that Moghedien had abandoned them. Her lip curled at the memory. What had sparked the decision to leave was the arrival of Eldrith’s Kennit in the town, sure that she was a murderer, half convinced she was Black Ajah, and determined to kill her no matter the consequences to himself. Not surprisingly, she had been unwilling to face those consequences herself, and refused to let anyone kill the man. The only alternative was to flee. Then again, Eldrith was the one who had pointed out Caemlyn as their only hope.

“Did you learn anything, Eldrith?” Asne asked politely. Chesmal was a fool. However tattered the world seemed at the moment, affairs would right themselves. One way or another.

“What? Oh. Only that the pepper sauce wasn’t as good as I remembered. Of course, that was fifty years ago.”

Asne suppressed a sigh. Perhaps after all it was time for Eldrith to have an accident.

The door opened and Temaile slipped into the room so silently they were all caught by surprise. The diminutive fox-faced Gray had tossed a robe embroidered with lions over her shoulders, but it gaped down the front, exposing a cream-colored silk nightdress that molded itself to her indecently. Draped over one hand she carried a bracelet made of twisted glass rings. They looked and felt like glass, at least, but a hammer could not have chipped one.

“You’ve been to Tel’aran’rhiod,” Eldrith said, frowning at the ter’angreal. She did not speak forcefully, though. They were all a little afraid of Temaile since Moghedien had made them observe the last of Liandrin being broken. Asne had lost track of how often she had killed or tortured in the hundred and thirty-odd years since she gained the shawl, but she had seldom seen anyone so . . . enthusiastic . . . as Temaile. Watching Temaile and trying to pretend not to, Chesmal seemed unaware that she was licking her lips nervously. Asne hurriedly put her own tongue back behind her teeth and hoped no one had noticed. Eldrith certainly had not. “We agreed not to use those,” she said, not very far short of pleading. “I’m certain it was Nynaeve who wounded Moghedien, and if she can best one of the Chosen in Tel’aran’rhiod, what chance do we have?” Rounding on the others, she attempted a scolding tone. “Did you two know about this?” She had managed to sound peevish.

Chesmal met Eldrith’s stare indignantly, while Asne gave her surprised innocence. They had known, but who was going to stand in Temaile’s way? She doubted very much that Eldrith would have made more than a token protest had she been there.

Temaile knew exactly her effect on them. She should have hung her head at Eldrith’s lecture, fainthearted as it was, and apologized for going against her wishes. Instead, she smiled. That smile never reached her eyes, though, large and dark and much too bright. “You were right, Eldrith. Right that Elayne would come here, and right that Nynaeve would come with her, it seems. They were together, and it is clear they are both in the Palace.”

“Yes,” Eldrith said, squirming slightly under Temaile’s gaze. “Well.” And she licked her lips, and shifted her feet, too. “Even so, until we can see how to get at them past all those wilders—”

“They are wilders, Eldrith.” Temaile threw herself down in a chair, limbs sprawling carelessly, and her tone hardened. Not enough to seem commanding, but still more than merely firm. “There are only three sisters to trouble us, and we can dispose of them. We can take Nynaeve, and perhaps Elayne in the bargain.” Abruptly she leaned forward, hands on the arms of the chair. Disarrayed clothing or not, there was no shred of indolence about her now. Eldrith stepped back as though pushed by Temaile’s eyes. “Else why are we here, Eldrith? It is what we came for.”

No one had anything to say to that. Behind them lay a string of failures—in Tear, in Tanchico—that might well cost them their lives when the Supreme Council laid hands on them. But not if they had one of the Chosen for a patron, and if Moghedien had wanted Nynaeve so badly, perhaps another of them would, too. The real difficulty would be finding one of the Chosen to present with their gift. No one but Asne seemed to have considered that part of it.

“There were others there,” Temaile went on, leaning back once more. She sounded almost bored. “Spying on our two Accepted. A man who let them see him, and someone else I could not see.” She pouted irritably. At least, it would have been a pout except for her eyes. “I had to stay behind a column so the girls would not see me. That should please you, Eldrith. That they did not see me. Are you pleased?”

Eldrith almost stammered getting out how pleased she was.

Asne let herself feel her four Warders, coming ever closer. She had stopped masking herself when they left Samara. Only Powl was a Friend of the Dark, of course, yet the others would do whatever she said, believe whatever she told them. It would be necessary to keep them concealed from the others unless absolutely necessary, but she wanted armed men close at hand. Muscles and steel were very useful. And if worse came to worst, she could always reveal the long, fluted rod that Moghedien had not hidden so well as she thought she had.

The early-morning light in the sitting room’s windows was gray, an earlier hour than the Lady Shiaine usually rose, but this morning she had been dressed while it was still full dark. The Lady Shiaine was how she thought of herself, now. Mili Skane, the saddler’s daughter, was almost completely forgotten. In every way that mattered, she really was the Lady Shiaine Avarhin, and had been for years. Lord Willim Avarhin had been impoverished, reduced to living in a ramshackle farmhouse and unable to keep even that in good repair. He and his only daughter, the last of a declining line, had stayed in the country, far from anywhere their penury might be exposed, and now they were only bones buried in the forest near that farmhouse, and she was the Lady Shiaine, and if this tall, well-appointed stone house was not a manor, it still had been the property of a well-to-do merchant. She was long dead, too, after signing over her gold to her “heir.” The furnishings were well made, the carpets costly, the tapestries and even the seat cushions embroidered with thread-of-gold, and the fire roared in a wide blue-veined marble fireplace. She had had the once-plain lintel carved with Avarhin’s Heart and Hand row on row.

“More wine, girl,” she said curtly, and Falion scurried with the tall-necked silver pitcher to refill her goblet with steaming spiced wine. The livery of a maid, with the Red Heart and Golden Hand on her breast, suited Falion. Her long face was a stiff mask as she hurried to replace the pitcher on the drawered highchest and take up her place beside the door.

“You play a dangerous game,” Marillin Gemalphin said, rolling her own goblet between her palms. A skinny woman with lifeless pale brown hair, the Brown sister did not look an Aes Sedai. Her narrow face and wide nose would have fitted better above Falion’s livery than it did above her fine blue wool, and that was suitable only for a middling merchant. “She is shielded somehow, I know, but when she can channel again, she will make you howl for this.” Her thin lips quirked in a humorless smile. “You may find yourself wishing you could howl.”

“Moridin chose this for her,” Shiaine replied. “She failed in Ebou Dar, and he ordered her punished. I don’t know the details and don’t want to, but if Moridin wants her nose ground in the mud, I’ll push it so deep she is breathing mud a year from now. Or do you suggest I disobey one of the Chosen?” She barely suppressed a shudder at the very thought. Marillin tried to hide her expression in drinking, but her eyes tightened. “What about you, Falion?” Shiaine asked. “Would you like me to ask Moridin to take you away? He might find you something less onerous.” Mules might sing like nightingales, too.

Falion did not even hesitate. She bobbed a maid’s straight-backed curtsy, her face going even paler than it already was. “No, mistress,” she said hastily. “I am content with my situation, mistress.”

“You see?” Shiaine said to the other Aes Sedai. She doubted very much that Falion was anything approaching content, but the woman would accept whatever was handed out rather than face Moridin’s displeasure directly. For the same reason, Shiaine would rule her with a very heavy hand. You never knew what one of the Chosen might learn of, and take amiss. She herself thought her own failure was buried deep, but she would take no chances. “When she can channel again, she won’t have to be a maid all the time, Marillin.” Anyway, Moridin had said Shiaine could kill her if she wished. There was always that, if her position began to chafe too much. He had said she could kill both sisters, if she wished.

“That’s as may be,” Marillin said darkly. She cast a sidelong glance at Falion and grimaced. “Now, Moghedien instructed me to offer you what assistance I thought I could give, but I’ll tell you right now, I won’t enter the Royal Palace. The whole city has too many sisters in it for my taste, but the Palace is stuffed with wilders on top. I wouldn’t get ten feet without someone knowing I was there.”

Sighing, Shiaine leaned back and crossed her legs, idly kicking a slippered foot. Why did people always think you did not know as much as they? The world was full of fools! “Moghedien ordered you to obey me, Marillin. I know, because Moridin told me. He did not say so right out, but I think when he snaps his fingers, Moghedien jumps.” Talking about the Chosen this way was dangerous, but she had to make matters clear. “Do you want to tell me again what you won’t do?”

The narrow-faced Aes Sedai licked her lips, darting another glance at Falion. Did the woman fear she would end up that way? Truth to tell, Shiaine would have traded Falion for a proper lady’s maid in a heartbeat. Well, as long as she could retain her other services. Very likely, they both would have to die when this was finished. Shiaine did not like leaving loose ends.

“I wasn’t lying about that,” Marillin said slowly. “I really wouldn’t get ten feet. But there’s a woman already in the Palace. She can do what you need. It may take time to make contact, though.”

“Just make sure it’s not too long a time, Marillin.” So. One of the sisters in the Palace was Black Ajah, was she? She would have to be Aes Sedai, not just a Darkfriend, to do what Shiaine needed.

The door opened, and Murellin looked in questioningly, his heavily muscled bulk almost filling the doorway. Beyond him, she could make out another man. At her nod, Murellin stepped aside and motioned Daved Hanlon to enter, closing the door behind him. Hanlon was swathed in a dark cloak, but he snaked out one hand to cup Falion’s bottom through her dress. She glared at him bitterly, but did not move away. Hanlon was part of her punishment. Still, Shiaine had no wish to watch him fondle the woman.

“Do that later,” she ordered. “Did it go well?”

A broad smile split his axe-like face. “It went exactly as I planned it, of course.” He threw one side of the dark cloak over his shoulder, revealing golden knots of rank on his red coat. “You are speaking to the Captain of the Queen’s Bodyguard.”