The Path of Daggers

## Chapter 15

#### Stronger than Written Law

In the dim, cold dark of deep night, Egwene woke groggily from restless sleep and troubling dreams, the more troubling because she could not remember them. Her dreams were always open to her, as clear as printed words on a page, yet these had been murky and fearful. She had had too many of those, lately. They left her wanting to run, to escape, never able to recall what from, but always queasy and uncertain, even trembling. At least her head was not hurting. At least she could recall the dreams she knew must be significant, though not how to interpret them. Rand, wearing different masks, until suddenly one of those false faces was no longer a mask, but him. Perrin and a Tinker, frenziedly hacking their way through brambles with axe and sword, unaware of the cliff that lay just ahead. And the brambles screamed with human voices they did not hear. Mat, weighing two Aes Sedai on a huge set of balance scales, and on his decision depended . . . She could not say what; something vast; the world, perhaps. There had been other dreams, most tinged with suffering. Recently, all of her dreams about Mat were pale and full of pain, like shadows cast by nightmares, almost as though Mat himself were not quite real. That made her afraid for him, left behind in Ebou Dar, and gave her agonies of grief for sending him there, not to mention poor old Thom Merrilin. But the unremembered dreams were worse, she was sure.

The sound of low voices arguing had wakened her, and the full moon was still up outside, casting enough light for her to make out two women confronting one another at the tent’s entrance.

“The poor woman’s head pains her all day, and she gets little rest at night,” Halima whispered fiercely, fists on her hips. “Let this wait till morning.”

“I don’t propose to argue with you.” Siuan’s voice was winter itself, and she tossed back her cloak with a mittened hand as though preparing to fight. She was dressed for the weather, in stout wool no doubt worn over as many shifts as she could fit underneath. “You stand aside, and right quick, or I’ll have your guts for bait! And put on some decent clothes!”

With a soft laugh, Halima drew up and if anything planted herself more squarely in Siuan’s way. Her white nightgown clung, but was decent enough for its purpose. Though it did seem a wonder she evaded freezing in that thin silk. The coals in the tripod braziers had died down long since, and neither much-mended tent canvas nor layered carpets on the ground held in warmth any longer. Both women’s breath was pale mist.

Throwing off the blankets, Egwene sat up wearily on her narrow cot. Halima was a country woman with a skim of sophistication, and often she did not seem to realize the deference due to Aes Sedai, or indeed seem to think she need defer to anyone. She spoke to Sitters as she might to the goodwives in her own village, with a laugh and a level eye and a straightforward earthiness that sometimes shocked. Siuan spent her days giving way to women who had jumped at her word a year earlier, smiling and curtsying for nearly every sister in the camp. Many still laid much of the Tower’s troubles at her feet and thought she had hardly suffered enough to atone. Sufficient to keep anyone’s pride at a stiff prickle. Together, the pair were a lantern tossed into the back of an Illuminator’s wagon, but Egwene hoped to avoid an explosion. Besides, Siuan would not have come in the middle of the night unless it was necessary.

“Go back to bed, Halima,” Smothering a yawn, Egwene bent to fumble her shoes and stockings from beneath the cot. She did not channel a lamp alight. Better if no one noticed that the Amyrlin was awake. “Go on; you need your rest.”

Halima protested, perhaps more strongly than she should have to the Amyrlin Seat, but soon enough she was back on the tiny cot that had been squeezed into the tent for her. Very little room remained to move in, with a washstand, a stand-mirror and a real armchair, plus four large chests stacked atop one another. Those held the constant flow of clothes from Sitters who had not yet realized that however young Egwene might be, she was not young enough to be dazzled or diverted by silks and laces. Halima lay curled up, watching in the darkness, while Egwene hastily dragged an ivory comb through her hair, donned stout mittens, and pulled a fox-lined cloak over her nightgown. A thick woolen nightgown, and she would not have minded thicker in this weather. Halima’s eyes seemed to pick up the faint moonlight and shine darkly, unblinking.

Egwene did not think the woman jealous of her place near the Amyrlin Seat, casual as it was, and the Light knew she did not carry gossip, but Halima had an innocent curiosity about everything, whether or not it was any of her business. Reason enough to hear Siuan out elsewhere. Everyone knew now that Siuan had thrown in her lot with Egwene, after a fashion, as they thought, sullenly and grudgingly. A figure of some amusement and occasional pity, Siuan Sanche, reduced to attaching herself to the woman who held the title once hers, and that woman no more than a puppet once the Hall finished fighting over who would pull her cords. Siuan was human enough to harbor sparks of resentment, but so far they had managed to keep secret that her advice was far from grudging. So she endured pity and snickers as best she could, and everyone believed her as changed by her experiences as her face. That belief had to be maintained, or Romanda and Lelaine and very likely the rest of the Hall, too, would find ways to separate her—and her advice—from Egwene.

The cold outside slapped Egwene in the face and flooded under her cloak; her nightgown might as well have been Halima’s for all the protection it offered. Despite stout leather and good wool, her feet felt as if they were bare. Tendrils of frosty air curled around her ears, mocking the thick fur lining her hood. Yearning for her bed as she was, ignoring the iciness took all the concentration she could muster. Clouds scudded across the sky, and moon-shadows floated over the gleaming white that covered the ground, a smooth sheet broken by the dark mounds of tents and the taller shapes of canvas-topped wagons that now had long wooden runners in place of wheels. Many of the wagons were no longer parked apart from the tents, but left where they had been unloaded; no one had the heart to make the wagon drivers put out even that much extra effort at the end of the day. Nothing moved except those pale sliding shadows. The wide runnels that had been trampled through the camp for paths lay empty. The silence was crisp and so deep that she almost regretted breaking it.

“What is it?” she asked softly, casting a wary glance at the small tent nearby shared by her maids, Chesa, Meri, and Selame. That was as still and dark as the others. Exhaustion made as thick a blanket over the camp as the snow. “Not another revelation like the Kin, I hope.” She clicked her tongue in vexation. She was spent, too, by long freezing days in the saddle and not enough real sleep, or she would not have said that. “I’m sorry, Siuan.”

“No need to apologize, Mother.” Siuan kept her voice down as well, and glanced about to see whether anyone might be watching from the shadows besides. Neither wanted to find herself discussing the Kin with the Hall. “I know I should have told you beforehand, but it seemed a small thing. I never expected those girls to even speak to one of them. There’s so much to tell you. I have to try to pick and choose what’s important.”

With an effort, Egwene managed not to sigh. That was almost word for word the apology Siuan had offered before. Several times. What she meant was that she was trying to force-feed Egwene over twenty years of experience as Aes Sedai, more than ten of that as Amyrlin, and do it in months. At times Egwene felt like a goose being fattened for market. “Well, what’s important tonight?”

“Gareth Bryne’s waiting in your study.” Siuan did not raise her voice, but it took on an edge, as always when she spoke of Lord Bryne. She tossed her head angrily inside the deep hood of her cloak, and made a sound like a cat spitting. “The man came in dripping snow, scooped me out of my bedding, and barely gave me time to dress before hauling me up behind his saddle. He told me nothing; just tossed me down at the edge of camp and sent me to fetch you like I was a serving girl!”

Firmly, Egwene stifled a rising hope. There had been too many disappointments, and whatever had brought Bryne in the middle of the night was much more likely to be a potential disaster than what she wished for. How far yet to the border with Andor? “Let’s see what he wants.”

Starting off toward the tent everyone named the Amyrlin’s Study, she held her cloak close. She did not shiver, but refusing to let heat or cold touch you did not make them go away. You could ignore them right up to the moment sunstroke cooked your brain or frostbite rotted your hands and feet. She considered what Siuan had said.

“You weren’t sleeping in your own tent here?” she said carefully. The other woman’s relation to Lord Bryne was that of a servant, in a very peculiar way, but Egwene hoped Siuan was not letting her stubborn pride lead her into letting him take advantage. She could not imagine it, of him or her, yet not so long ago she could not have imagined Siuan accepting any part of the situation. She still could not understand why.

Snorting loudly, Siuan kicked her skirts, and nearly fell as her shoes skidded. Snow beaten down by countless feet had quickly become a rough sheet of ice. Egwene was picking her own way cautiously. Every day brought broken bones that travel-weary sisters had to Heal. Half abandoning her cloak, she offered an arm as much for the support she might receive as give. Siuan took it, muttering.

“By the time I finished cleaning the man’s spare boots and second saddle, it was too late to tramp back through this. Not that he offered more than blankets in a corner; not Gareth Bryne! Made me dig them out of the chest myself, while he went off the Light knows where! Men are a trial, and that one the worst!” Without a pause for breath, she changed the subject. “You shouldn’t let that Halima sleep in your tent. She’s another pair of ears you have to be careful of, and snoopy with it. Besides, you’re lucky you don’t walk in to find her entertaining some soldier.”

“I am very glad that Delana can spare Halima nights,” Egwene said firmly. “I need her. Unless you think Nisao’s Healing might do better with my headaches a second time around.” Halima’s fingers seemed to draw the pain out through her scalp; without that, she would not be able to sleep at all. Nisao’s effort had had no effect whatsoever, and she was the only Yellow Egwene dared approach with the problem. As for the rest . . . She made her voice sterner still. “I am surprised you’re still listening to that gossip, daughter. The fact that men like looking at a woman doesn’t mean she invites it, as you should know well. I’ve seen more than a few looking at you and grinning.” Taking that tone came easier than it once had.

Siuan gave her a startled sidelong glance and, after a moment, grumbled an apology. It might have been sincere. Egwene accepted it, either way. Lord Bryne was very bad for Siuan’s temper, and tossing Halima into the bargain, Egwene thought it a good job she was not pushed into taking a stricter stance. Siuan herself had said that she should not put up with nonsense, and she surely could not afford to put up with it from Siuan, of all people.

Trudging arm-in-arm, they went on in silence, the cold fogging their breath and seeping through their flesh. The snow was a curse and a lesson. She could still hear Siuan going on about what she called the Law of Unintended Consequences, stronger than any written law. Whether or not what you do has the effect you want, it will have three at least you never expected, and one of those usually unpleasant.

The first, feeble rains had brought astonishment, for all Egwene had already informed the Hall that the Bowl of the Winds had been found and used. That was almost as much as she could risk letting them know of what Elayne had told her in Tel’aran’rhiod; too much of what had happened in Ebou Dar was just the thing to cut her feet out from under her here, and her position was precarious enough as it was. An explosion of joy erupted at those first sprinkles. They had halted the march at midday, and there had been bonfires and feasting in the drizzle, prayers of thanksgiving among the sisters and dancing among the servants and the soldiers. For that matter, some of the Aes Sedai had danced, too.

A few days later, the soft rains became downpours, and then howling tempests. The temperature slid downward, plummeted, and tempests became blizzards. Now, the distance once covered in a day, with Egwene gritting her teeth over how slowly they moved, took five when the sky held only clouds, and when the snows fell, they did not move at all. Easy enough to think of three unintended consequences, or more, and the snow might well be the least unpleasant.

As they approached the small, patched tent called the Amyrlin’s Study, a shadow moved beside one of the tall wagons, and Egwene’s breath caught. The shadow became a figure who slipped back her hood enough to reveal Leane’s face, then pulled back into darkness.

“She’ll keep a watch and let us know if anybody comes,” Siuan said softly.

“That’s good,” Egwene muttered. The woman could have told her in advance. She had half been afraid it was Romanda or Lelaine!

The Amyrlin’s Study was dark, but Lord Bryne stood waiting patiently inside, wrapped in his cloak, a shadow among shadows. Embracing the Source, Egwene channeled, not to light the lantern hanging from the centerpole or one of the candles, but to make a small sphere of pale light that she suspended in the air over the folding table she used as a writing desk. Very small, and very pale; unlikely to be noticed from outside, and quick as thought to extinguish. She could not afford discovery.

There had been Amyrlins who reigned in strength, Amyrlins who managed an even balance with the Hall, and Amyrlins who had had as little power as she, or less upon rare occasions, well-hidden in the secret histories of the White Tower. Several had frittered away power and influence, falling from strength to weakness, but in over three thousand years, precious few had managed to move in the other direction. Egwene very much wished she knew how Myriam Copan and the rest of that bare handful had managed. If anyone had ever thought to write that down, the pages were long lost.

Bowing respectfully, Bryne showed no surprise at her caution. He knew what she put at hazard, meeting him secretly. To a very large degree, she trusted this sturdy, heavily graying man with the bluff, weathered face, and not only because she had to. His cloak was thick red wool, lined with marten and bordered with the Flame of Tar Valon, a gift from the Hall, yet he had made plain a dozen times in the past weeks that whatever the Hall thought—and he was not blind enough to have missed that!—she was the Amyrlin, and he followed the Amyrlin. Oh, he had never said so right out, but with carefully worded hints that left no doubts. Expecting more would have been expecting too much. There were nearly as many undercurrents in the camp as there were Aes Sedai, some strong enough to pull him down. Several strong enough to mire her deeper than she was, if the Hall learned of this meeting. She trusted him further than anyone except Siuan and Leane, or Elayne and Nynaeve, maybe further than any of the sisters who had sworn fealty to her in secret, and she wished she had the courage to trust him more. The ball of white light cast weak, fitful shadows.

“You have news, Lord Bryne?” she asked, stifling hope. She could think of a dozen possible messages that might bring him in the night, each with its own set of pitfalls and snares. Had Rand decided to add more crowns to that of Illian, or the Seanchan somehow captured still another city, or the Band of the Red Hand suddenly moved on its own instead of shadowing the Aes Sedai, or . . .

“An army lies north of us, Mother,” he replied calmly. His leather-gauntleted hands rested lightly atop his long sword hilt. An army to the north, a little more snow, all the same. “Andorans, mainly, but with a goodly number of Murandians. My deep scouts brought the news less than an hour ago. Pelivar leads, and Arathelle is with him, the High Seats of two of the strongest Houses in Andor, and they’ve brought twenty more at least. They’re pushing south hard, it seems. If you keep on as you are, which I advise against, we should meet head-on in two days, three at the outside.”

Egwene kept her face smooth, suppressing her relief. What she had been hoping for, waiting for; what she had begun to fear might never come. Surprisingly, it was Siuan who gasped, and clapped a mittened hand over her mouth too late. Bryne cocked at eyebrow at her, but she recovered quickly, putting on Aes Sedai serenity so thick you almost forgot her youthful face.

“Do you have qualms at fighting your fellow Andorans?” she demanded. “Speak up, man. I’m not your washwoman here.” Well, there was a small crack in that serenity.

“As you command, Siuan Sedai.” Bryne’s tone held no scrap of mockery, yet Siuan’s mouth began to tighten, her outward coolness evaporating fast. He made her a small bow, workmanlike but acceptable. “I will fight whoever the Mother wishes me to fight, of course.” Even here, he would not be more forthcoming. Men learned caution around Aes Sedai. So did women. Egwene thought caution had become a second skin for her.

“And if we don’t keep on?” she said. So much planning, just her and Siuan and sometimes Leane, and now she still had to feel out each step as carefully as on those icy paths outside. “If we stop here?”

He did not hesitate. “If you have a way to bring them around without fighting, all well and good, but some time tomorrow they’ll reach an excellent position to defend, one flank held by the River Armahn, the other by a large peat bog, and small streams in front to break up attacks. Pelivar will settle in there to wait; he knows the work. Arathelle will have her part if there’s talking, but she’ll leave the pikes and swords to him. We can’t reach it ahead of him, and anyway, the terrain is no use to us there, with him to the north. If you mean to fight, I advise making for that ridge we crossed two days back. We can reach it in good order ahead of them if we start at dawn, and Pelivar would think twice about coming at us there if he had three times the numbers he does.”

Wriggling near-frozen toes inside her stockings, Egwene let out an annoyed sigh. There was a difference between not letting cold touch you and not feeling it. Picking her way carefully, not letting herself be distracted by the chill, she asked, “Will they talk, offered the chance?”

“Probably, Mother. The Murandians hardly count; they’re just there for whatever advantage they can wring out of the situation, same as their countrymen under me. It’s Pelivar and Arathelle who matter. If I had to wager, I’d say they only mean to keep you out of Andor.” He shook his head grimly. “But they’ll fight if they have to, if they must, maybe even if it means facing Aes Sedai instead of just soldiers. I expect they’ve heard the same tales we have about that battle out east somewhere.”

“Fish guts!” Siuan growled. So much for calm. “Half-baked rumors and raw gossip are no proof there was any battle, you lummox, and if there was, sisters wouldn’t have gotten themselves mixed up in it!” The man truly was an occasion of sin for her.

Strangely, Bryne smiled. He often did when Siuan showed her temper. Anywhere else, on anyone else, Egwene would have called the smile fond. “Better for us if they believe,” he told Siuan mildly. Her face darkened so, you might have thought he had sneered at her.

Why did a normally sensible woman let Bryne get under her skin? Whatever the reason, Egwene had no time for it tonight. “Siuan, I see someone forgot to take away the mulled wine. It can’t have soured in this weather. Warm it for us, please.” She did not like setting the other woman down in front of Bryne, but she had to be reined in, and this seemed the gentlest way to do it. Really, they should not have left the silver pitcher on her table.

Siuan did not quite flinch, but from her stricken expression, quickly smoothed over, you would never have believed she washed the man’s smallclothes. Without comment she channeled slightly to reheat the wine in the silver pitcher, quickly filled two clean worked-silver cups, and handed the first to Egwene. She kept the second, staring at Lord Bryne as she sipped and leaving him to pour for himself.

Warming her mittened fingers on her own cup, Egwene felt a flash of irritation. Maybe it was part of Siuan’s long-delayed reaction to the death of her Warder. She still became weepy for no visible reason now and then, though she tried to hide it. Egwene put the matter out of her head. Tonight, that was an anthill beside mountains.

“I want to avoid a battle if I can, Lord Bryne. The army is for Tar Valon, not fighting a war here. Send to arrange a meeting as soon as possible for the Amyrlin Seat with Lord Pelivar and Lady Arathelle and anyone else you think you should be present. Not here. Our ragged camp won’t impress them very much. As soon as possible, mind. I wouldn’t object to tomorrow, if it could be set.”

“That’s sooner than I can manage, Mother,” he said mildly. “If I send riders out as soon as I return to camp, I doubt they can be back with an answer much before tomorrow night.”

“Then I suggest you return quickly.” Light, but her hands and feet felt cold. And the pit of her stomach, too. But her voice kept its calm. “And I want you to keep that meeting, and the existence of their army, from the Hall as long as possible.”

This time, she was asking him to take as great a risk as she did. Gareth Bryne was one of the best generals living, but the Hall chafed that he did not run the army to suit them. They had been grateful for his name in the beginning, for it helped draw soldiers to their cause. Now the army had more than thirty thousand armed men, with more coming even since the snows had started, and they thought that maybe they did not need Lord Gareth Bryne any longer. And of course, there were those who believed they never had needed him. They would not simply send him away for this. If the Hall chose to act, he might well go to the headsman for treason.

He did not blink, and he did not ask questions. Perhaps he knew she would not give answers. Or maybe he thought he knew them. “There isn’t much traffic between my camp and yours, but too many men know already to keep a secret long. I will do what I can, though.”

As simple as that. The first step down a road that would see her on the Amyrlin Seat in Tar Valon, or else deliver her firmly into the grasp of the Hall, with nothing left to decide except whether it was Romanda or Lelaine who told her what to do. Somehow, such a pivotal moment should have been accompanied by fanfares of trumpets, or at the least, thunder in the sky. It was always that way in stories.

Egwene let the ball of light vanish, but as Bryne turned to leave, she caught his arm. It was like catching a thick tree branch through his coat. “A thing I have been meaning to ask you, Lord Bryne. You can’t want to take men worn down by marching right into a siege of Tar Valon. How long would you want to rest them before you began?”

For the first time, he paused, and she wished she still had the light to see his face. She thought he frowned. “Even leaving people in the pay of the Tower out of it,” he said at last, slowly, “news of an army flies as fast as a falcon. Elaida will know to the day when we’ll arrive, and she won’t give us an hour. You know she’s increasing the Tower Guard? To fifty thousand men, apparently. But a month, if I could, to rest and recover. Ten days would do, but a month would be better.”

She nodded, releasing him. That casual question about the Tower Guard hurt. He was aware that the Hall and the Ajahs told her what they wanted her to know and no more. “I suppose you’re right,” she said evenly. “There’ll be no time for rest once we reach Tar Valon. Send your fastest riders. There won’t be any difficulty, will there? Pelivar and Arathelle will hear them out?” She did not feign the touch of anxiety. More than her plans might be ruined if they had to fight now.

Bryne’s tone did not alter a whit that she could tell, but somehow, he sounded soothing. “So long as there is light enough for them to see the white feathers, they’ll recognize a truce and listen. I’d better go, Mother. It’s a long way and hard riding, even for men with extra horses.”

As soon as the tentflap fell behind him, Egwene let out a long breath. Her shoulders were tight, and she expected her head to start aching any moment. Bryne usually made her feel relaxed, absorbing his sureness. Tonight, she had had to manipulate him, and she thought he knew it. He was very observant for a man. But too much was at stake to trust him more, until he made an open declaration. Maybe an oath like the one Myrelle and the others had given. Bryne followed the Amyrlin, and the army followed Bryne. If he thought she was going to throw men away uselessly, a few words from him could hand her to the Hall trussed like a pig on a platter. She drank deeply, feeling the warmth of the spiced wine spread through her.

“Better for us if they believed,” she muttered. “I wish there was something for them to believe. If I do nothing else, Siuan, I hope at least I can free us from the Three Oaths.”

“No!” Siuan barked. She sounded scandalized. “Even trying could be disastrous, and if you succeeded . . . The Light help us, if you succeeded, you would destroy the White Tower.”

“What are you talking about? I try to follow the Oaths, Siuan, since we’re stuck with them—for now—but the Oaths won’t help us against the Seanchan. If sisters have to be in danger of their lives before they can fight back, it’s only a matter of time before we are all dead or collared.” For a moment she could feel the a’dam around her throat again, turning her into a dog on a leash. A well-trained and obedient dog. She was glad of the darkness, now, hiding her trembles. Shadows obscured Siuan’s face, save for a soundlessly working jaw.

“Don’t you look at me like that, Siuan.” It was easier to be angry than afraid, easy to mask fear in anger. She would never be collared like that again! “You’ve taken every advantage since you were freed from the Oaths. If you hadn’t lied in your teeth, we’d all be in Salidar, without an army, sitting on our hands and waiting for a miracle. Well, you would be. They’d never have summoned me to be Amyrlin without your lie about Logain and the Reds. Elaida would reign supreme, and in a year, nobody would remember how she usurped the Amyrlin Seat. She’d destroy the Tower, for sure. You know she’d mishandle everything about Rand. I would not be surprised if she had tried to kidnap him by now, except that she’s concerned with us. Well, maybe not kidnap, but she’d have done something. Likely, Aes Sedai would be fighting Asha’man today, and never mind Tarmon Gai’don waiting over the horizon.”

“I have lied when it seemed necessary,” Siuan breathed. “When it seemed expedient.” Her shoulders hunched, and she sounded as though she were confessing crimes she did not want to admit to herself. “Sometimes I think it’s become too easy for me to decide that it’s necessary and expedient. I’ve lied to almost everyone. Except you. But don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me. To nudge you toward a decision, or away from one. It wasn’t wanting to keep your trust that stopped me.” Siuan’s hand stretched out in the dark, pleading. “The Light knows what your trust and friendship mean to me, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t knowing that you’d have the hide off me in strips, or send me away, if you found out. I realized that I had to hold on to the Oaths with somebody, or I’d lose myself completely. So I don’t lie to you, or to Gareth Bryne, whatever it costs. And as soon I can, Mother, I will swear the Three Oaths on the Oath Rod again.”

“Why?” Egwene asked quietly. Siuan had considered lying to her? She would have had her hide for that. But her anger was gone. “I don’t condone lying, Siuan. Not normally. It’s just that sometimes, it really is necessary.” Her time with the Aiel flashed through her mind. “So long as you’re willing to pay for it, anyway. I’ve seen sisters take on penance for smaller things. You are one of the first of a new sort of Aes Sedai, Siuan, free and unbound. I believe you when you say you won’t lie to me.” Or to Lord Bryne? Odd, that. “Why give up your freedom?”

“Give up?” Siuan laughed. “I’ll be giving up nothing.” Her back straightened, and her voice began to gain strength, and then passion. “The Oaths are what make us more than simply a group of women meddling in the affairs of the world. Or seven groups. Or fifty. The Oaths hold us together, a stated set of beliefs that bind us all, a single thread running through every sister, living or dead, back to the first to lay her hands on the Oath Rod. They are what make us Aes Sedai, not saidar. Any wilder can channel. Men may look at what we say from six sides, but when a sister says, ‘This is so,’ they know it’s true, and they trust. Because of the Oaths. Because of the Oaths, no queen fears that sisters will lay waste to her cities. The worst villain knows he’s safe in his life with a sister unless he tries to harm her. Oh, the Whitecloaks call them lies, and some people have strange ideas about what the Oaths entail, but there are very few places an Aes Sedai cannot go, and be listened to, because of the Oaths. The Three Oaths are what it is to be Aes Sedai, the heart of being Aes Sedai. Throw that on the rubbish heap, and we’ll be sand washing away in the tide. Give up? I will be gaining.”

Egwene frowned. “And the Seanchan?” What it was to be Aes Sedai. Almost from the day she first arrived in Tar Valon, she had worked to be Aes Sedai, but she had never really thought about what it was that made a woman Aes Sedai.

Once more Siuan laughed, though this time it was a touch wry, and weary. She shook her head, and darkness or no, looked tired. “I don’t know, Mother. The Light help me, I don’t. But we survived the Trolloc Wars, and Whitecloaks, and Artur Hawkwing, and everything in between. We can find a way to deal with these Seanchan. Without destroying ourselves.”

Egwene was not so sure. Many of the sisters in camp thought the Seanchan were such a danger that besieging Elaida should wait. As if waiting would not cement Elaida on the Amyrlin Seat. Many others seemed to think that simply uniting the White Tower again, at whatever price, would make the Seanchan vanish. Survival lost some of its attraction if it was survival on a leash, and Elaida’s would not be much less confining than the Seanchan’s. What it was to be Aes Sedai.

“There’s no need to keep Gareth Bryne at arm’s length,” Siuan said suddenly. “The man’s a walking tribulation, it’s true. If he doesn’t count as penance for my lies, being flayed alive wouldn’t do. One of these days, I’ll box his ears every morning and twice at evenings, on general principle, but you can tell him everything. It would help, if he understood. He’s taking you on trust, and it ties his stomach in knots, wondering whether you know what you’re doing. He doesn’t let on, but I see.”

Suddenly, pieces clicked in Egwene’s mind like a blacksmith’s puzzle coming undone. Shocking pieces. Siuan was in love with the man! Nothing else made sense. Everything she knew between them altered. Not necessarily for the better. A woman in love often put her brains on the shelf when she was around the man in question. As she herself was all too well aware. Where was Gawyn? Was he well? Was he warm? Enough of that. Too much, in light of what she had to say. She put on her best Amyrlin’s voice, sure and in command. “You can box Lord Bryne’s ears or bed him, Siuan, but you will watch yourself with him. You will not let slip things he mustn’t know yet. Do you understand me?”

Siuan jerked stiffly erect. “I’m not in the habit of letting my tongue flap like a torn sail, Mother,” she said heatedly.

“I’m very glad to hear it, Siuan.” Despite their looking only a few years apart, Siuan was old enough to be her mother, yet at that moment Egwene felt as though their ages had been reversed. This might be the first time that Siuan had ever had to manage with a man not as Aes Sedai, but as a woman. A few years of thinking I loved Rand, Egwene thought wryly, a few months of dangling by my toes for Gawyn, and I know all there is to know.

“I think we’re done here,” she went on, slipping an arm through Siuan’s. “Almost. Come.”

The walls of the tent had seemed little protection, yet stepping outside brought a renewed assault by winter’s teeth. The moonlight was almost bright enough to read by, reflected off the snow, but that glow seemed cold. Bryne had vanished as if he had never been. Leane appeared long enough to say she had seen no one, her slimness swallowed in layers of wool, then hurried off into the night looking about her. No one knew of any connection between Leane and Egwene, and everyone thought Leane and Siuan were practically at daggers’ points.

Gathering her cloak as best she could one-handed, Egwene focused on ignoring the icy chill as she and Siuan walked in the opposite direction from Leane. Ignoring the chill, and keeping an eye out for anyone who happened to be out. Not that anyone who was outside now was likely to be there by happenstance.

“Lord Bryne was right,” she told Siuan, “about it being better if Pelivar and Arathelle believed those stories. Or at least if they were uncertain. Too uncertain to fight, or do anything except talk. Do you think they would welcome a visit from Aes Sedai? Siuan, are you listening to me?”

Siuan gave a start, and stopped staring into the distance ahead of them. She had been walking ahead without missing a step, but now she slipped and nearly sat down in the frozen path, barely regaining her balance in time to keep from pulling Egwene down. “Yes, Mother. Of course I’m listening. They might not be exactly welcoming, but I doubt they’ll turn sisters away.”

“Then I want you to wake Beonin, Anaiya, and Myrelle. They are to ride north inside the hour. If Lord Bryne expects a reply as soon as tomorrow evening, time is short.” A pity she had not found out exactly where this other army was located, but asking Bryne might have roused suspicion. Finding it should not be too hard for Warders, and those three sisters had five between them.

Siuan listened in silence to her instructions. Not only those three were to be rooted out of their sleep. Come dawn, Sheriam and Carlinya, Morvrin and Nisao would all know what to say over breakfast. Seeds had to be planted, seeds that could not have been placed earlier for fear of them sprouting too soon, but now they had all too little time to grow.

“It will be a pleasure to haul them out of their blankets,” Siuan said when she was done. “If I have to tramp around in this . . . ” Releasing Egwene’s arm, she started to turn away, then stopped, her face serious, even grim. “I know you want to be a second Gerra Kishar—or maybe Sereille Bagand. You have it in you to match either. But be careful you don’t turn out to be another Shein Chunla. Good night, Mother. Sleep well.”

Egwene stood watching her go, a cloak-shrouded figure sometimes skidding on the path and muttering angrily almost loud enough to make out. Gerra and Sereille were remembered as among the greatest Amyrlins. Both had raised the influence and prestige of the White Tower to levels seldom equaled since before Artur Hawkwing. Both controlled the Tower itself, too, Gerra by skillfully playing one faction in the Hall against another, Sereille by the sheer force of her will. Shein Chunla was another matter, one who had squandered the power of the Amyrlin Seat, alienating most of the sisters in the Tower. The world believed that Shein had died in office, close on four hundred years ago, but the deeply hidden truth was that she had been deposed and sent into exile for life. Even the secret histories treaded lightly in certain areas, yet it was fairly obvious that, after the fourth plot to restore her to the Amyrlin Seat was uncovered, the sisters guarding Shein had smothered her in her sleep with a pillow. Egwene shivered, and told herself it was the cold.

Turning, she began making her slow way back to her tent alone. Sleep well? The fat moon hung low in the sky, and there were hours yet till sunrise, but she was not sure she was going to be able to sleep at all.