Picking up the top sheet from the stack of reports, she scanned it rapidly. “Apparently, despite my express order, the streets are still not being cleaned. Why?”
An uneasy light appeared in Tarna’s eyes, the first time Elaida had ever seen her look troubled. “People are frightened, Mother. They don’t leave their homes except at need, and with great reluctance even then. They say they have seen the dead walking in the streets.”
“This has been confirmed?” Elaida asked quietly. Her blood suddenly seemed chill. “Have any sisters seen them?”
“None in the Red, that I know of.” The others would speak with her as Keeper, yet not freely, not to share confidences. How under the Light was that to be mended? “But people in the city are adamant. They have seen what they’ve seen.”
Slowly, Elaida set the page down to one side. She wanted to shiver. So. She had read everything she could find concerning the Last Battle, even studies and Foretellings so old they had never been translated out of the Old Tongue and had lain covered in dust in the darkest corners of the library. The al’Thor boy had been a harbinger, but now it seemed that Tarmon Gai’don would come sooner than anyone had thought. Several of those ancient Foretellings, from the earliest days of the Tower, said the dead appearing was the first sign, a thinning of reality as the Dark One gathered himself. There would be worse before long.
“Have the Tower Guards drag able-bodied men out of their houses, if need be,” she said calmly. “I want those streets clean, and I want to hear that a start was made today. Today!”
The other woman’s pale eyebrows lifted in surprise—she had lost her usual frigid self-control!—but all she said, of course, was. “As you command. Mother.”
Elaida projected serenity, but it was a charade. What would come, would come. And she still had secured no hold on the al’Thor boy. To think she had once had him right under her hand! If only she had known then. Curse Alviarin and that triply cursed proclamation calling anathema on anyone who approached him save through the Tower. She would have recalled it, except that would seem weakness, and in any case, the damage had been done beyond simple mending. Still, soon she would have Elayne back in hand, and the Royal House of Andor was the key to winning Tarmon Gai’don. That, she had Foretold long ago. And news of rebellion against the Seanchan sweeping across Tarabon had been very pleasant reading. Not everything was a tangle of briars stabbing her from every side.
Scanning the second report, she grimaced. No one liked sewers, yet they were one-third of the life’s blood of a city, the other two being trade and clean water. Without the sewers, Tar Valon would become prey to a dozen diseases, overwhelming anything the sisters could do, not to mention even more malodorous than the rotting garbage must have made the streets already. Though trade was cut to a trickle for the moment, the water still came in at the upriver end of the island and was distributed to watertowers throughout the city, then to fountains, ornamental and plain, that anyone was free to use, but now it seemed the sewer outlets on the downriver end of the island were nearly clogged. Dipping her pen in the ink jar, she scrawled I WANT THESE CLEARED BY TOMORROW across the top of the page and signed her name below. If the clerks had any sense, the work was already underway, but she never accused clerks of having much sense.
The next report made her own eyebrows rise. “Rats inside the Tower?” That was beyond serious! This should have been on top! “Have someone check the Wards, Tarna.” Those Wardings had held since the Tower was built, but perhaps they could have weakened after three thousand years. How many of those rats were the Dark One’s spies?
A rap came at the door, followed an instant later by a plump Accepted named Anemara, who spread her striped skirts in a deep curtsy. “If it pleases you, Mother, Felaana Sedai and Negaine Sedai have brought a woman to you they found wandering in the Tower. They say she wants to present a petition to the Amyrlin Seat.”
“Tell her to wait and offer her tea, Anemara.” Tarna said briskly. “The Mother is busy—“
“No, no,” Elaida broke in. “Send them in, child. Send them in.” It had been too long since anyone had come to present her with a petition. She was of a mind to grant whatever it was. if it was not too ridiculous. Perhaps that would restart the flow. It was far too long since any sisters had come to her without being summoned, too. Perhaps the two Browns would end that drought, as well.
But only one woman entered the room, carefully closing the door behind her. By her silk riding dress and good cloak, she appeared to be a noblewoman or a prosperous merchant, a supposition supported by her confident manner. Elaida was sure she had never met the woman before, yet there seemed something vaguely familiar about that face framed by hair even fairer than Tarna’s.
Elaida stood and started around the table, hands outstretched and an unaccustomed smile on her face. She tried to make it seem welcoming. “I understand that you have a petition for me, my daughter. Tarna, pour her some tea.” The silver pot sitting on a silver tray atop the side table must still be at least warm.
“The petition, it was something I let them believe in order to reach you unbruised, Mother,” the woman replied in Taraboner accents, curtsying, and halfway through that, her face was suddenly that of Beonin Marinye.
Embracing saidar, Tarna wove a shield on the woman, but Elaida contented herself with planting her fists on her hips.
“To say that I’m surprised you dare show me your face would be an understatement, Beonin.”
“I managed to become part of what you might call the ruling council in Salidar,” the Gray said calmly. “I made sure they sat there and did nothing, and I put the rumors about that many among them were in truth your secret adherents. The sisters, they were looking at one another with so much suspicion. I think me most might have returned to the Tower soon at that point, but then other Sitters beside the Blues appeared. The next I knew, they had chosen their own Hall of the Tower, and the ruling council, it was done. Still, I continued to do what I could. I know that you commanded me to remain with them until they were all ready to return, but that must happen within days, now. If I may say, Mother, it was the most excellent decision not to try Egwene. For one thing, she has the genius for discovering new weaves, even better than Elayne Trakand or Nynaeve al’Meara. For another, before they raised her, Lelaine and Romanda struggled with one another to be named Amyrlin. With Egwene alive, they will struggle again, but neither can succeed, yes? Me, I think very soon now sisters will begin following behind me. In a week or two, Lelaine and Romanda will find themselves alone with the remainder of th
