The Wheel of Time, page 367
CHAPTER 47
The Truth of a Viewing
The papers scattered on Siuan Sanche’s desk held little real interest for her, but she persevered. Others handled the day-to-day routine of the White Tower, of course, to leave the Amyrlin Seat free for important decisions, but her habit had always been to check one or two things at random each day, with no notice beforehand, and she would not break it now. She would not let herself be distracted by worries. Everything was sailing along according to plan. Shifting her striped stole, she dipped her pen carefully in the ink and ticked off another corrected total.
Today she was examining lists of kitchen purchases, and the mason’s report on an addition to the library. The sheer number of petty peculations people thought they could slip by always amazed her. So did the number that escaped notice by the women who oversaw these matters. For instance, Laras seemed to think watching accounts was beneath her since her title had been changed officially from simple chief cook to Mistress of the Kitchens. Danelle, on the other hand, the young Brown sister who was supposed to be watching Master Jovarin, the mason, was most likely letting herself be distracted by the books the fellow kept finding for her. That was the only way to explain her failure to question the number of workmen Jovarin claimed to have hired, with the first shipments of stone from Kandor just arriving at Northharbor. He could rebuild the entire library with that many men. Danelle was simply too dreamy, even for a Brown. Perhaps a little time on a farm working penance would wake her. Laras would be more difficult to discipline; she was not Aes Sedai, so her authority with undercooks and scullions and potboys could be swamped all too easily. But perhaps she, too, could be sent for a “rest” in the country. That would . . . .
With a snort of disgust Siuan threw her pen down, grimacing at the blot it made on a page of neatly totaled columns. “Wasting my time deciding whether to send Laras out to pull weeds,” she muttered. “The woman is too fat to bend over far enough!”
It was not Laras’s weight that had her temper jumping, and she knew it; the woman was no heavier now than she had always been, or so it seemed, and it never interfered with her running the kitchens. There was no news. That was what had her flapping like a fisher-bird whose catch had been stolen. One message from Moiraine that the al’Thor boy had Callandor, then nothing in the weeks since, although rumors in the streets were already beginning to get his name right. Still nothing.
Lifting the hinged lid of the ornately carved blackwood box where she kept her most secret papers, she rummaged inside. A small warding woven around the box ensured no hand but hers could safely open it.
The first paper she pulled out was a report that the novice who had seen Min’s arrival had vanished from the farm she had been sent to, and the woman who owned the farm, too. Hardly unheard of for a novice to run away, but the farmer leaving too was troublesome. Sahra would have to be found, certainly—she had not progressed far enough in her training to be let loose—but there was no real reason to keep the report in the box. It mentioned neither Min’s name nor the reason the girl had been sent to hoe cabbages, but she put it back anyway. These were days to take care that might seem unreasonable at another time.
A description of a gathering in Ghealdan to listen to this man who called himself the Prophet of the Lord Dragon. Masema, it seemed his name was. Odd. That was a Shienaran name. Nearly ten thousand people had come to listen to him speak from a hillside, proclaiming the return of the Dragon, a speech followed by a battle with soldiers trying to disperse them. Aside from the fact that the soldiers apparently got the worst of it, the interesting thing was that this Masema knew Rand al’Thor’s name. That definitely went back into the box.
A report that nothing had yet been found of Mazrim Taim. No reason for that to be in there. Another on worsening conditions in Arad Doman and Tarabon. Ships vanishing along the Aryth Ocean coast. Rumors of Tairen incursions into Cairhien. She was getting into the habit of putting everything in this box; none of that needed to be kept secret. Two sisters had vanished in Illian, and another in Caemlyn. She shivered, wondering where the Forsaken were. Too many of her agents had gone silent. There were lionfish out there, and she was swimming in darkness. There it was. The silk-thin slip of paper crackled as she unrolled it.
The sling has been used. The shepherd holds the sword.
The Hall of the Tower had voted as she had expected, unanimously and with no need for arm-twisting, much less invoking her authority. If a man had drawn Callandor, he must be the Dragon Reborn, and that man had to be guided by the White Tower. Three Sitters for three different Ajahs had proposed holding all plans close in the Hall before she even suggested it; the surprise had been that one was Elaida, but then the Reds would surely want the tightest hawsers possible kept on a man who could channel. The sole problem had been to stop a delegation from being sent to Tear to take him in hand, and that had not really been difficult, not when she was able to say that her news came from an Aes Sedai who had already managed to put herself close to the man.
But what was he doing now? Why had Moiraine not sent further word? Impatience hung so thick in the Hall now that she almost expected the air to sparkle. She kept a tight hold on her anger. Burn the woman! Why hasn’t she sent word?
The door crashed open, and she straightened furiously as more than a dozen women strode into her study, led by Elaida. All wore their shawls, most red-fringed, but cool-faced Alviarin, a White, was at Elaida’s side, and Joline Maza, a slender Green, and plump Shemerin of the Yellow came close behind with Danelle, her big blue eyes not dreamy at all. In fact, Siuan saw at least one woman from every Ajah except the Blue. Some looked nervous, but most wore grim determination, and Elaida’s dark eyes held stern confidence, even triumph.
“What is the meaning of this?” Siuan snapped, slapping the blackwood box shut with a sharp crack. She bounced to her feet and strode around the desk. First Moiraine and now this! “If this is about Tairen matters, Elaida, you know better than to bring others into it. And you know better than to walk in here as if this were your mother’s kitchen! Make your apologies and leave before I make you wish you were an ignorant novice again!”
Her cold rage should have sent them scurrying, but though a few shifted uneasily, none made a move toward the door. Little Danelle actually smirked at her. And Elaida calmly reached out and pulled the striped stole from Siuan’s shoulders. “You will not need this any longer,” she said. “You were never fit for it, Siuan.”
Shock turned Siuan’s tongue to stone. This was madness. This was impossible. In a rage she reached for saidar—and suffered her second shock. A barrier lay between her and the True Source, like a wall of thick glass. She stared at Elaida in disbelief.
As if to mock her, the radiance of saidar sprang up around Elaida. She stood helpless as the Red sister wove flows of Air around her from shoulders to waist, crushing her arms to her side. She could barely breathe. “You must be mad!” she rasped. “All of you! I’ll have your hides for this! Release me!” No one answered; they almost seemed to ignore her.
Alviarin ruffled through the papers on the table, quickly yet unhurriedly. Joline and Danelle and others began tilting up the books on the reading stands, shaking them to see if anything fell out from between the pages. The White sister gave a small hiss of vexation at not finding what she sought on the table, then flipped open the lid of the blackwood box. Instantly the box flared in a ball of flame.
Alviarin leaped back with a cry, shaking a hand where blisters were already forming. “Warded,” she muttered, as close to open anger as a White ever came. “So small that I never felt it until too late.” Nothing remained of the box and its contents but a heap of gray ash atop a square charred into the tabletop.
Elaida’s face showed no disappointment. “I promise you, Siuan, that you will tell me every word that burned, who it was meant for, and to what purpose.”
“You must be taken by the Dragon!” Siuan snapped. “I will have your hide for this, Elaida. All of your hides! You will be lucky if the Hall of the Tower doesn’t vote to still all of you!”
Elaida’s tiny smile did not touch her eyes. “The Hall convened not an hour ago—enough Sitters to meet our laws—and by unanimous vote, as required, you are no longer Amyrlin. It is done, and we are here to see it enforced.”
Siuan’s stomach turned to ice, and a small voice in the back of her head shrieked, What do they know? Light, how much do they know? Fool! Blind, fool woman! She kept her face smooth, though. This was not the first hard corner she had ever been in. A fifteen-year-old girl with nothing but her bait knife, hauled into an alley by four hard-eyed louts with their bellies full of cheap wine—that had been harder to escape than this. So she told herself.
“Enough to meet the laws?” she sneered. “A bare minimum, heavy with your friends and those you can influence or bully.” That Elaida had been able to convince even a relatively small number of Sitters was enough to dry her throat, but she would not let it show. “When the full Hall meets, with all the Sitters, you’ll learn your mistake. Too late! There has never been a rebellion inside the Tower; a thousand years from now they’ll be using your fate to teach novices what happens to rebels.” Tendrils of doubt crept onto some of those faces; it seemed Elaida did not have as tight a grip on her conspirators as she thought. “It’s time to stop trying to hack a hole in the hull, and start bailing. Even you can still mitigate your offense, Elaida.”
Elaida waited with chill calm until she was done. Then her full-armed slap exploded across Siuan’s face; she staggered, silver-black flecks dancing in her vision.
“You are finished,” Elaida said. “Did you think I—we—would allow you to destroy the Tower? Bring her!”
Siuan stumbled as two of the Reds pushed her forward. Barely keeping her feet, she glared at them, but went as they directed. Who did she need to get word to? Whatever charges had been brought, she could counter them, given time. Even charges involving Rand; they could not fasten more than rumors to her, and she had played the Great Game too long to be beaten by rumors. Unless they had Min; Min could clothe rumors in truth. She ground her teeth. Burn my soul, I’ll use this lot for fish bait!
In the antechamber, she stumbled again, but not from pushing, this time. She had half-hoped that Leane had been away from her post, but the Keeper stood as Siuan did, arms stiffly at her sides, mouth working soundlessly, furiously, around a gag of Air. She had certainly sensed Leane being bound and never realized it; in the Tower, there was always the feel of women channeling.
Yet it was not the sight of Leane that made her miss her step, but the tall, slender gray-haired man stretched on the floor with a knife rising from his back. Alric had been her Warder for close to twenty years, never complaining when her path kept them in the Tower, never muttering when being the Amyrlin’s Warder sent him hundreds of leagues from her, a thing none of the Gaidin liked.
She cleared her throat, but her voice was still husky when she spoke. “I’ll have your hide salted and stretched in the sun for this, Elaida. I swear it!”
“Consider your own hide, Siuan,” Elaida said, moving closer to stare her in the eyes. “There is more to this than has been revealed so far. I know it. And you are going to tell me every last scrap of it. Every—last—scrap.” The sudden quiet in her voice was more frightening than all her hard stares had been. “I promise it, Siuan. Take her below!”
Clutching bolts of blue silk, Min strolled in through the North Gate near midday, her simper all ready for the guards with the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests, the girlish swirl of her green skirts that Elmindreda would give. She had actually begun before she realized there were no guards. The heavy iron-strapped door of the star-shaped guardhouse stood open; the guardhouse itself looked empty. It was impossible. No gate to the Tower grounds was ever unguarded. Halfway to the huge bone-white shaft of the Tower itself, a plume of smoke was rising above the trees. It seemed to be near the quarters for the young men who studied under the Warders. Maybe the fire had pulled the guards away.
Still feeling a little uneasy, she started down the unpaved path through the wooded part of the grounds, shifting the bolts of silk. She did not really want another dress, but how could she refuse when Laras pressed a purse of silver into her hands and told her to use it for this silk the stout woman had seen; she claimed it was just the color to set off “Elmindreda’s” complexion. Whether or not she wanted her complexion set off was less important than keeping Laras’s goodwill.
A rattle of swords reached her ears through the trees. The Warders must have their students practicing harder than usual.
It was all very irritating. Laras and her beauty hints, Gawyn and his jokes, Galad paying her compliments and never realizing what his face and smile did to a woman’s pulse. Was this how Rand wanted her? Would he actually see her, if she wore dresses and simpered at him like a brainless chit?
He has no right to expect it, she thought furiously. It was all his fault. She would not be there now, wearing a fool dress and smiling like an idiot, if not for him. I wear coat and breeches, and that is that! Maybe I’ll wear a dress once in a while—maybe!—but not to make some man look at me! I wager he’s staring at some Tairen woman with half her bosom exposed right this minute. I can wear a dress like that. Let’s see what he thinks when he sees me in this blue silk. I’ll have a neckline down to—What was she thinking? The man had robbed her of her wits! The Amyrlin Seat was keeping her here, useless, and Rand al’Thor was addling her brain! Burn him! Burn him for doing this to me!
The clash of swords came again from the distance, and she stopped as a horde of young men burst out of the trees ahead of her carrying spears and bared blades, Gawyn at their head. She recognized others from among those who had come to study with the Warders. Shouts rose somewhere else in the grounds, a roar of angry men.
“Gawyn! What is happening?”
He whirled at the sound of her voice. Worry and fear filled his blue eyes, and his face was a mask of determination not to give in to them. “Min. What are you doing—? Get out of the grounds, Min. It is dangerous.” A handful of the young men ran on, but most waited impatiently for him. It seemed to her that most of the Warders’ students were there.
“Tell me what’s happening, Gawyn!”
“The Amyrlin was deposed this morning. Leave, Min!”
The bolts of silk fell from her hands. “Deposed? It can’t be! How? Why? In the name of the Light, why?”
“Gawyn!” one of the young men called, and others took it up, brandishing their weapons. “Gawyn! The White Boar! Gawyn!”
“I have no time,” he told her urgently. “There’s fighting everywhere. They say Hammar is trying to break Siuan Sanche free. I have to go to the Tower, Min. Leave! Please!”
He turned and set out at a run toward the Tower. The others followed, bristling with upraised weapons, some still shouting, “Gawyn! The White Boar! Gawyn! Forward the Younglings!”
Min stared after them. “You did not say what side you are on, Gawyn,” she whispered.
The sounds of fighting were louder, clearer now that she was paying attention, and the shouts and yells, the clash of steel on steel, seemed to come from every direction. The clamor made her skin crawl and her knees shake; this could not be happening, not here. Gawyn was right. It would be much the safer thing, much the smarter, to leave the Tower grounds immediately. Only there was no telling when or if she would be allowed back, and she could not think of much good she could do outside.
“What good can I do inside?” she asked herself fiercely.
But she did not turn back toward the gate. Leaving the silk where it lay, she hurried into the trees, looking for a place to hide. She did not think anyone would spit “Elmindreda” like a goose—shivering, she wished she had not thought of it that way—but there was no use in taking foolish chances. Sooner or later the fighting had to die down, and by that time she needed to decide what to do next.
In the pitch blackness of the cell, Siuan opened her eyes, stirred, winced, and was still. Was it morning yet outside? The questioning had gone on for a long time. She tried to forget pain in the luxury of knowing she was still breathing. The rough stone beneath her scraped her welts and bruises, though, those on her back. Sweat stung all of them—she felt a solid mass of pain from knees to shoulders—and made her shiver in the cold air, besides. They could have left me my shift, at least. The air smelled of old dust and dried mold, of age. One of the deep cells. No one had been confined down here since Artur Hawkwing’s time. Not since Bonwhin.
She grimaced into the dark; there was no forgetting. Clamping her teeth, she pushed up to a sitting position on the stone floor and felt around her for a wall to lean against. The stone blocks of the wall were cool against her back. Small things, she told herself. Think of small things. Heat. Cold. I wonder when they’ll bring me some water. If they will.
She could not help feeling for her Great Serpent ring. It was no longer on her finger. Not that she expected it; she thought she remembered when they had ripped it off. Things had grown hazy after a time. Thankfully, blessedly hazy. But she remembered telling them everything, eventually. Almost everything. The triumph of holding back a scrap here, a bit there. In between howling answers, eager to answer if only they would stop, even for a little while, if only . . . . She wrapped her arms around herself to stop her shudders; it did not work very well. I will remain calm. I am not dead. I must remember that above everything else. I am not dead.
“Mother?” Leane’s unsteady voice came out of the darkness. “Are you awake, Mother?”
