When Alliandre saw Faile approaching with Rolan, she straightened, drying her bare arms on her robe. Alliandre Maritha Kigarin, Queen of Ghealdan, Blessed of the Light, Defender of Garen’s Wall and a dozen more titles, had been an elegant, reserved woman, poised and stately. Alliandre thegai’shain was still pretty, but she wore a perpetually harried expression. With damp patches on her robes and her hands wrinkled from long immersion in the water, she could have passed for a pretty washerwoman. Watching Rolan set down the basket and smile at Faile before striding away, watching Faile return the smile, she raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“He’s the one who captured me,” Faile said, setting pieces of clothing from the basket on the table. Even here among none butgai’shain, it was best to talk while working. “He’s one of the Brotherless, and I think he doesn’t really approve of making wetlandersgai’shain. I think he may help us.”
“I see,” Alliandre said. With one hand she brushed delicately at the back of Faile’s robe.
Frowning, Faile twisted to look over her shoulder. For a moment she stared at the dirt and ash that covered her back from the shoulders down; then heat flooded her face. “I fell,” she said quickly. She could not tell Alliandre what had happened with Nadric. She did not think she could tell anyone. “Rolan offered to carry my basket.”
Alliandre shrugged. “If he helped me escape, I would marry him. Or not, as he wanted. He’s not quite pretty, but it wouldn’t be painful, and my husband, if I had one, would never have to know. If he had any sense, he would be overjoyed to have me back and ask no questions he didn’t want to hear answers to.”
Hands tightening on a silk blouse, Faile gritted her teeth. Alliandre was her liege woman, through Perrin, and she held to that well enough, at least insofar as obeying commands, but the nature of the relationship had become strained. They had agreed that they must try to think like servants, try tobe servants, if they were to survive, yet that meant that each had seen the other curtsy?ing and scurrying to obey. Sevanna’s punishments were dealt out by the nearestgai’shain to hand when she made her decision, and once Faile had been ordered to switch Alliandre. Worse, Alliandre had been ordered to return the favor twice. Holding back only meant a taste of the same for yourself plus the other woman having to endure a double dose from someone who would not spare her arm. It had to make a difference when you had twice made your liege-lady kick and shriek.
Abruptly she realized that the blouse she was gripping was one of those that had picked up extra dirt when the basket fell. Loosen?ing her grip, she examined the garment anxiously. It did not seem that she had ground the dirt in. For a moment, she felt relief, and then irritation at being relieved. Even more irritating, the relief did not go away.
“Arrela and Lacile escaped three days ago,” she said in a low voice. “They should be well away by now. Where is Maighdin?”
A worried frown appeared on the other woman’s face. “She is trying to sneak into Therava’s tent. Therava passed us with a group of Wise Ones, and from what we overheard, they seemed to be on their way to meet with Sevanna. Maighdin shoved her basket at me and said she was going to try. I think. . . . I think she’s becoming desperate enough to take too many chances,” she said with a touch of hopelessness in her own voice. “She should have been here by now.”
Faile drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. They were all becoming desperate. They had gathered supplies for their escape - knives and food, boots and men’s breeches and coats that fit near enough, all carefully hidden in the wagons; the white robes would serve as blankets, and as cloaks to hide them in the snow - but the chance to use all that preparation seemed no closer now than the day they were captured. Only two weeks. Twenty-two days to be exact. That should have not been long enough to change anything, but their pretense of being servants was changing them in spite of all they could do. Only two weeks, and they found themselves jumping to obey commands without thought, worrying over pun?ishments and whether they were pleasing Sevanna. The worst of it was, they could see themselves doing these things, knew some part of them was being molded against their wills. For now, they could tell themselves they were just doing what was needed to avoid sus?picion until they could escape, yet every day the reactions became more automatic. How long before escape was a pale dream dreamed in the night after a day of being a perfectgai’sbain in thought as well as deed? No one had dared ask that question aloud, so far, and Faile knew that she herself tried not to think it, but the question was always on the edge of her consciousness. In a way, she was afraid of it leaving. When it did, would it already have been answered?
With an effort, she forced herself back from despondency. That was the second trap, and only willpower held it open. “Maighdin knows she has to be careful,” she said in a firm voice. “She will be here soon, Alliandre.”
“And if she is caught?”
“She won’t be!” Faile said sharply. If she was. . . . No. She had to think of victory, not defeat. Faint hearts never won.
Washing the silk was time-consuming. The buckets of water they fetched from the cistern pumps were icy cold, but hot water scooped from the copper kettle brought the temperature in the washtubs up to lukewarm. You could not wash silk in hot water. Sinking your hands into the washtubs felt wonderful in the cold, but you always had to take them out again, and then the cold was twice as bitter. There was no soap, not that was mild enough any?way, so each skirt and blouse had to be submersed one by one and delicately scrubbed against itself. Then it was laid on a piece of toweling and gently rolled up to squeeze out as much water as possible. The damp garment was dipped again, in another wash-tub that was filled with a mixture of vinegar and water - that reduced fading and enhanced the gloss of the silk - then rolled up in toweling again. The wet toweling was wrung out hard and spread in the sun to dry wherever there was room, while each piece of silk was hung on a horizontal pole, slung in the shade of a rough canvas pavilion erected at the edge of the square, and smoothed by hand to rub out wrinkles. With luck, nothing would need ironing. Both of them knew how silk had to be cared for, but ironing it needed experience neither of them had. None of Sevanna’sgai’shain did, not even Maighdin, though she had been a lady’s maid even before entering Faile’s service, but Sevanna did not accept excuses. Every time Faile or Alliandre went to hang another garment, they checked those already there and smoothed any that seemed to need it.
Faile was adding hot water to a washtub when Alliandre said bitterly, “Here comes the Aes Sedai.”
Galina was Aes Sedai, complete with the ageless face and a golden Great Serpent ring on her finger, but she wore whitegai’shain robes, too - in silk as thick as anyone else’s wool, no less! - along with a wide, elaborate belt of gold and firedrops that cinched her waist tightly and a tall matching collar around her neck, jewels fit for a monarch. She was Aes Sedai, and sometimes rode out from the camp alone, but she always returned, and she jumped when any Wise One crooked a finger, especially Therava, whose tent she often shared. In a way, that last was the strangest thing of all. Galina knew who Faile was, knew who her husband was and Perrin’s connection toRandal’Thor, and she threatened to reveal it to Sevanna unless Faile and her friends stole something from the very tent she slept in. That was the third trap lying in wait for them. Sevanna was obsessed with al’Thor, insanely con?vinced that she could somehow marry him, and if she learned about Perrin, Faile would never be allowed far enough out of her sight to think of escape. She would be staked out like a goat to draw a lion.
Faile had seen Galina slinking and cowering, but now the sister glided through the square like a queen disdaining the rabble around her, an Aes Sedai to the hilt. There were no Wise Ones here for her simper at. Galina was pretty, but nowhere near beautiful, and Faile did not understand what Therava saw in her, unless it was simply the pleasure of dominating an Aes Sedai. That still left the question of why the woman remained when Therava seemed to take every opportunity to humiliate her.
Stopping a pace from the table, Galina surveyed them with a small smile that might have been called pitying. “You are not pro?gressing very far in your work,” she said. She was not speaking of the laundry.
It was Faile’s place to do the talking, but Alliandre spoke up, even more bitterly than before. “Maighdin went to fetch your ivory rod this morning, Galina. When will we see some of the help you promised?” Help in their escape was the carrot Galina offered along with the stick of threatening Faile’s exposure. So far, how?ever, they had seen only the stick.
“She went to Therava’s tent this morning?” Galina whispered, the blood draining from her face.
It dawned on Faile that the sun was halfway down to the hori?zon in the west, and her heart began to thud painfully. Maighdin should have joined them long since.
The Aes Sedai seemed even more shaken than she. “This morn?ing?” Galina repeated, looking over her shoulder. She gave a start and a cry when Maighdin suddenly appeared out of the throng ofgai’shain crowding the square.
Unlike Alliandre, the golden-haired woman had grown tougher by the day since their capture. She was no less desperate, but she seemed to focus it all into determination. She always had a presence that belonged more to a queen than a lady’s maid, though most lady’s maids had it, but now she stumbled past them, dull-eyed, and plunged her hands into a water bucket, cupping a double handful to her mouth to drink thirstily, then scrubbing the back o
