Egwene slapped a hand down on the table hard enough to rat?tle the stone inkwell and the sand jar. “Have your forgotten how to be courteous to an Aes Sedai, child?” she said sharply.
Emara went pale - the Amyrlin did have a reputation, after all - and hastily made an even deeper curtsy for Theodrin, who acknowledged it with a wooden nod before gliding from the tent a good deal more swiftly than she had entered.
What Emara stammered out, in an Illianer accent made thickerby nerves, was a request from Lelaine to meet with the Amyrlin. Romanda and Lelaine had been much less formal, once, appearing unannounced and whenever they wished, but the declaration of war on Elaida had changed a great deal. Not everything, but enough to go on with. Egwene returned the same reply to Lelaine that she had to Romanda, though in a more clipped tone, and Emara almost fell over making her curtsy and practically ran out of the tent. One more nail fastening together the legend of Egwene al’Vere, the Amyrlin Seat who made Sereille Bagand look like a goose-down pillow.
As soon as the Accepted was gone, Egwene raised her hand and frowned at what it had covered. The folded square of paper that Theodrin had deposited on the table while kissing her ring. Her frown deepened when she opened it. The script that covered the small page managed to flow while being precise, but there was an inkblot on one edge. Theodrin was very neat. Perhaps she was try?ing to conform to the general view of Browns.
Romanda has sent two sisters to Travel to Cairhien and investigate some tale that has the Yellow Sitters buzzing. I don’t know what the rumor is, Mother, but I will find out. I heard one of them mention Nynaeve, not as if she were in Cairhien, but as if the rumor was somehow connected to her.
The fool woman had even signed her name!
“What is that, Mother?”
Egwene gave a start of surprise, and barely caught the folding chair leg before it dropped her onto the carpets. She refocused her scowl on Siuan, who stood just inside the entry flaps with her blue-fringed shawl on her arms and her leather folders pressed to her breasts. The blue-eyed woman’s eyebrows raised slightly at Egwene’s startlement.
“Here,” Egwene said irritably, thrusting the paper at her. This was no time to be jumping and twitching! “You know about Kairen?” Of course, she must, but Egwene still said, “Have you made the necessary changes?” Necessary changes. Light, she sounded as pompous as Romanda. Shewas on edge. Only at the last did she think to embracesaidar and weave a ward against eavesdropping; only after the ward was in place did she think that today might not be the best time for anyone to think she had private matters to discuss with Siuan.
Siuan was not on edge. She had weathered storms. And managed to recover from drowning, some might say. Today was only a little windy, to her. “No need until we know for sure about the boats, Mother,” she replied calmly, setting her folders on the table and neatly squaring them between the inkwell and the sand jar. “The less time Bode has to think about it, the less chance she’ll panic.” Calm as a pond. Even two murdered sisters could not ruffle Siuan. Or send?ing a novice of only a few months to replace one of them.
A frown creased her forehead as she read the note, though. “First Faolain goes into hiding,” she growled at the paper, “and now Theodrin brings this to you instead of to me. That fool girl has less brains than a fisher-bird! You’d think she wants someone to find out she’s keeping an eye on Romanda for you.” Keeping an eye. A polite way of saying “spy.” They were both practiced in euphemisms. That went with being Aes Sedai. Today, euphemisms grated on Egwene.
“Perhaps she does want to be discovered. Perhaps she’s tired of Romanda telling her what to do, what to say, what to think. I had an Accepted in here whosneered at Theodrin’s shawl, Siuan.”
The other woman made a dismissive gesture. “Romanda tries to tell everyone what to do. And what to think. As for the rest, things will change once Theodrin and Faolain can swear on the Oath Rod. I don’t suppose anyone will actually insist they be tested for the shawl now. Until then, they must take what comes.”
“That isn’t good enough, Siuan.” Egwene managed to keep her tone level, but it took an effort. She had at least suspected what she was letting those two in for when she told them to attach them?selves to Romanda and Lelaine. She had needed to know what the Sitters were scheming at, and still needed to know, yet she had a duty to them. They had been the first to swear fealty to her, and of their own free will. Besides which. . . . “Much of what’s said about Theodrin and Faolain can be said of me, too. IfAccepted can show them disrespect. . . .” Well, she had no fear ofthat. The sisters were another matter. Especially the Sitters. “Siuan, I have no hope at all of uniting the Tower if Aes Sedai doubt me.”
Siuan snorted forcefully. “Mother, by now even Lelaine and Romanda know you’re the Amyrlin Seat in truth, whether or not they’ll admit it. That pair wouldn’t have fallen in line with Deane Aryman. I think they’re beginning to see you as another Edarna Noregovna.”
“That’s as may be,” Egwene said dryly. Deane was considered theWhiteTower’s savior, after Bonwhin’s disaster with Artur Hawkwing. Edarna was believed to have been the most politically skilled woman ever to hold the staff and stole. Both had been very strong Amyrlins. “But as you’ve reminded me, I have to make sure I don’t end up like Shein Chunk.” Shein had begun as a strong Amyrlin, firmly in charge of the Tower and the Hall, and ended as a puppet doing exactly as she was told.
Siuan nodded, in approval and agreement. She really was teach?ing Egwene the Tower’s history, and she often brought up Amyr?lins who had misstepped fatally. Including herself. “This is another matter, though,” she muttered, tapping the note against her fin?gers. “When I lay my hands on Theodrin, I’ll make her wish she was a novice. And Faolain! If they think they can shirk off now, I swear, I’ll gut the pair of them like grunters on the dock!”
“You’ll gut who?” Sheriam asked as she walked in through the ward in a gust of cold air.
Egwene’s chair almost dropped her onto the carpets again. She needed to get a chair that did not try to fold up every time she moved. She was willing to bet Edarna never jumped as if she had it choak down her back.
“No one who concerns you,” Siuan said calmly, putting the paper to one of the table-lamp’s flames. It burned quickly, right to her fingertips, and then she mashed it out between her hands and brushed the ash away. Only Egwene, Siuan and Leane knew the truth of Faolain and Theodrin. And the two sisters themselves, of course. Though there was a great deal neither of them knew, either.
Sheriam accepted the rebuff with equanimity. The fire-haired woman seemed to have recovered completely from her collapse in the Hall. At least, she had recovered her outer dignity, for the most part. Watching Siuan burn the note, her tilted green eyes might have tightened a little, and she did touch the narrow blue stole hanging from her shoulders as if to remind herself that it was there. She did not have to accept Siuan’s orders - putting her Keeper in that position had seemed too harsh to Egwene, in the end - but Sheriam knew very well that Siuan had no need to accept her orders either, which had to gall her now that Siuan stood so far beneath her in the Power. Knowing there were secrets she was not privy to had to gall her, as well. Sheriam would have to live with it though.
She also had brought a paper, which she laid on the table in front of Egwene. “I met Tiana on the way here, Mother, and told her I’d give this to you.”
“This” was the day’s report on runaways, though those no longer came every day, or even every week, since the novices had been organized into families. Cousins supported one another through frustrations and tears, and managed to talk one another out of the worst mistakes, like running away. There was only one name on the page. Nicola Treehill.
Egwene sighed and set the paper down. She would have thought Nicola’s greed for learning would have kept her feet still no matter how frustrated the woman grew. And yet, she could not say she was sorry to see the end of her. Nicola was conniving and unscrupulous, willing to try blackmail or whatever else she thought would advance her. Very likely she had had help. Areina would not have balked at stealing horses for the pair of them to flee.
Abruptly, the date beside the name caught her eye. Two dates, actually, marked as questions. Months were seldom named, much less days numbered, except in official documents and treaties. Signed, sealed and witnessed in the city ofIllianon the twelfth day of Saven, this Year of Grace. . . . And for reports of this nature, and entering a woman’s name in the novice book. For common use, so many days before this feastday or after that sufficed. Written out, dates always looked a little strange to her. She had to count on her fingers to be sure of what she saw.
“Nicola ran away three or four days ago, Sheriam, and Tiana is just reporting it? She isn’t even sure whether itwas three days or four?”
“Nicola’s cousins covered for her, Mother.” Sheriam shook her head ruefully. Strangely, her small smile seemed amused, though.
Or even admiring. “Not from love; apparently, they were glad to see the child go and afraid she’d be brought back. She was quite overbearing about her Talent at Foretelling. I’m afraid Tiana is very upset with them. None will be sitting comfortably in their classes today, or for days to come, I fear. Tiana says she intends to give them each a dose of the strap instead of breakfast every day till Nicola is found. I think she might relent, though. With Nicola gone so long before her flight was discovered, it may be some time before s
