“Letice Murow, Aes Sedai,” the woman said respectfully, in a lilting Murandian accent. She sounded as if she wanted to say more, perhaps to give a title, but one of the first lessons on joining the Tower was that you had left behind who you used to be. It was a hard lesson, for some, especially those who possessed titles. “I’m going to visit my sister. I haven’t seen her more than a minute since before we left Murandy.” Relatives were always put in differ?ent novice families, as were women who had known each other before being entered in the novice book. It encouraged making new friends, and cut down on the inevitable tensions when one was learning faster than the other or had a higher potential. “She’s free of classes, too, until the afternoon, and - ”
“Your sister will have to wait a while longer, child,” Leane broke in. “Hold the Amyrlin’s horse for her.”
Letice gave a start and stared at Egwene, who had finally man?aged to extract her stole. Handing Daishar’s reins to the woman, she lowered her cowl and settled the long narrow strip of cloth onto her shoulders. Light as a feather in her pouch, the stole had real weight hanging around her neck. Siuan claimed that some?times you could feel every woman who had ever worn the stole hanging from the ends of it, a constant reminder of responsibility and duty, and Egwene believed every word. The Murandian gaped at her harder than she had for Leane, and took longer to remember to curtsy. No doubt she had heard that the Amyrlin was young, but it seemed unlikely she had given a thought to how young.
“Thank you, child,” Egwene said smoothly. There had been a time when she felt strange calling a woman ten years older than herself child. Everything changed, with time. “It won’t be for long. Leane, would you ask someone to send a groom for Daishar? Now that I’m out of the saddle, I’d as soon stay out, and Letice should be allowed to see her sister.”
“I will see to it myself, Mother.”
Leane offered a fluid curtsy and moved away with never a hint that there was more between them than this chance encounter. Egwene trusted her far more than she did Anaiya or even Sheriam. She certainly kept no secrets from Leane, any more than from Siuan. But their friendship was yet another secret that had to be kept. For one thing, Leane had eyes-and-ears actually inside Tar Valon if not in the Tower itself, and their reports came to Egwene and Egwene alone. For another, Leane was much petted for accom?modating so well to her reduced status, and every sister welcomed her, if only because she was living proof that stilling, the deepest dread of any Aes Sedai, could be reversed. They welcomed her with open arms, and because shewas less, now, standing below at least half the sisters in the camp, they often spoke in front of her about matters they would never want the Amyrlin to know of. So Egwene did not so much as glance after her as she left. Instead, she, offered Letice a smile - the woman reddened and bobbed another curtsy - then entered the tent, stripping off her gloves and tucking them behind her belt.
Inside, eight mirrored stand-lamps stood along the walls between low wooden chests. One with a bit of worn gilding and the rest of painted iron, no two of the lamps had the same number of arms, but they provided good illumination, if not so bright as outside. Assorted tables that seemed to have come from seven dif?ferent farm kitchens made a row down the center of the canvas ground-cloth, the benches of the three farthest occupied by a half a dozen novices with their cloaks folded beside them, each woman surrounded by the glow of the Power. Tiana, the Mistress of Novices, hovered anxiously over them, walking between the tables, and surprisingly, so did Sharina Melloy, one of the novices acquired in Murandy.
Well, Sharina was not exactly hovering, just watching calmly, and perhaps it should not have been a surprise to find her there. A dignified, gray-haired grandmother with a tight bun on the back of her head, Sharina had run a very large family with a very firm hand, and she seemed to have adopted all of the other novices as granddaughters or grandnieces. She was the one who had organized them into those tiny families, completely on her own and appar?ently out of simple disgust at seeing everyone flounder around. Most Aes Sedai went more than a touch tight-mouthed if reminded of that, though they had accepted the form quickly enough once they realized how much easier it made keeping track and organizing classes. Tiana was inspecting the novices’ work so closely that it seemed obvious she was attempting to ignore Sha?rina’s presence. Short and slight, with large brown eyes and a dim?ple in her cheek, Tiana somehow looked young despite her ageless face, particularly alongside the taller novice’s creased cheeks and broad hips.
The pair of Aes Sedai channeling at the table nearest the entrance, Kairen and Ashmanaille, had an audience of two as well, Janya Frende, a Sitter for the Brown, and Salita Toranes, a Sitter for the Yellow. The Aes Sedai and the novices were all performing the same task. In front of each woman, a close net woven of Earth, Fire and Air surrounded a small bowl or cup or the like, all made by the camp’s blacksmiths, who were very puzzled at why the sisters wanted such things made of iron, not to mention having them made as finely as if they were silver. A second weave, Earth and Fire woven just so, penetrated each net to touch the object, which was slowly turning white. Very, very slowly, in every case.
Ability with the weave improved with practice, but of the Five Powers, strength in Earth was the key, and beside Egwene herself, only nine sisters in the camp - along with two of the Accepted and nearly two dozen novices - had sufficient of that to make the weaves work at all. Few among the sisters wanted to give any time to it, though. Ashmanaille, lean enough to make her seem taller than she really was, fingers tapping the tabletop on either side of the simple metal cup in front her, was frowning impatiently as the edge of whiteness crept upward past halfway. Kairen’s blue eyes were cold enough that it seemed her stare alone might shatter the tall goblet she was working on. That had only the smallest rim of white at the bottom. It must have been Kairen Egwene had seen going in.
Not everyone was unenthusiastic, though. Janya, slim in her pale bronze silks and wearing her brown-fringed shawl draped over her arms, studied what Kairen and Ashmanaille were doing with the eagerness of one who wished she could be doing the same. Janya wanted to know everything, to know how everything was done and why it happened that way. She had been extremely disappointed when she could not learn to maketer’angreal - only three sisters aside from Elayne had managed that, so far, with very spotty success - and she had made a concerted effort to learn this skill even after the testing showed she fell short of the required strength in using Earth.
Salita was the first to notice Egwene. Round-faced and almost as dark as charcoal, she eyed Egwene levelly, and the Yellow fringe of her shawl swayed slightly as she made a very precise curtsy, exact to the inch. Raised in Salidar, Salita was part of a disturbing pat?tern: too many Sitters who were too young for the position. Salita had only been Aes Sedai for thirty-five years, and rarely was a woman given a chair before wearing the shawl for a hundred or more. Siuan saw a pattern, anyway, and thought it disturbing, though she could not say why. Patterns she could not understand always disturbed Siuan. Still, Salita had stood for war against Elaida, and frequently supported Egwene in the Hall. But not always, and not in this. “Mother,” she said coolly.
Janya’s head jerked up, and she broke into a beaming smile. She also had stood for war, the only woman who had been a Sitter before the Tower divided to do so excepting Lelaine and Lyrelle, two of the Blues, and if her support for Egwene was not always unwavering, it was so here. As usual, words spilled out of her. “I will never get over this, Mother. It’s simply amazing. I know we shouldn’t be surprised any longer when you come up with some?thing no one else has thought of - sometimes I think we’ve gotten too set in our ways, too sure what can and cannot be done - but to puzzle out how to makecuendillar . . . !” She paused for breath, and Salita moved into the gap smoothly. And coldly.
“I still say it is wrong,” she said firmly. “I admit the discovery was a brilliant piece of work on your part, Mother, but Aes Sedai should not be making things for . . . sale.” Salita invested that word with all the scorn of a woman who accepted the income from her estate in Tear without ever thinking how it had been come by. The attitude was not uncommon, though most sisters lived on the Tower’s generous yearly allowance. Or had, before the Tower split apart. “On top of which,” she went on, “nearly half the sisters forced into this are Yellow. I receive complaints every day. We, at least, have more important uses for our time than making . . . trin?kets.” That earned her a hard glare from Ashmanaille, a Gray, and a frigid stare from Kairen, who was Blue, but Salita ignored them. She was one of those Yellows who seemed to think the other Ajahs were only adjuncts to her own, which of course had the only truly useful purpose among them.
“And novices should not be doing weaves of this complexity at all,” Tiana added, joining them. The Mistress of Novices was never shy about speaking up to Sitters, or to the Amyrlin, and she wore a disgruntled expression. She did not appear to realize that it deep?ened her dimple and made her look sulky. “Itis a remarkable dis?covery, and I for one have no objections to trade, but some of these girls can barely manage to make a ball of fire change color with any surety. Letting them handle weaves like this will only make it more difficult to stop them from leaping to things they can’t handie, and the Light knows, that’s difficult enough already. They may even do th
