New Spring: The Novel

had that many Warders, of course, but that was Alanna, always exaggerating.

Tamra slapped her palms together, quieting gigglers and laughers alike at a stroke. There were limits to her indulgence. 'You will all take great care, and heed the soldiers escorting you.' There were no smiles, now. Her voice was firm. The Amyrlin Seat brooked no nonsense from rulers; she certainly would not from Accepted. 'The Aiel are not the only danger outside Tar Valon's walls. Some may think you are Aes Sedai, and you may let them so long as you aren't foolish enough to claim that you are.' That deepened the stillness; claiming to be Aes Sedai when you were not violated a Tower law that was enforced strictly, even against women who were not initiates of the Tower. 'But there are ruffians who will see only a youthful woman's face. Easy prey, they might think, if not for your escort. Better to remove temptation and avoid the problem altogether. And don't forget that there are Children of the Light in the army. A Whitecloak will know an Accepted's dress when he sees one, and if he can safely put an arrow through her back, it will please him as much as if she were Aes Sedai.'

It hardly seemed possible the room could grow any quieter, yet it did. Moiraine thought she could have heard people breathing, except that no one seemed to be breathing. When an Aes Sedai went out into the world and vanished, as sometimes happened, the first thought was always the Whitecloaks. The Children called Aes Sedai Darkfriends and claimed that touching the One Power was blasphemy punishable by death, a sentence they were all too willing to carry out. No one could understand why they had come to help defend Tar Valon. No one among the Accepted, at least.

The Amyrlin ran her eyes slowly along the rows. At last she gave a nod, satisfied that her warning had sunk in. 'Horses are being saddled for you at the West Stable. There will be food for midday in the saddlebags, and everything else you will need. Now, return to your rooms, put on stout shoes, and fetch your cloaks. It will be a long day for you, and cold. Go in the Light.' It was a dismissal, and they offered curtsies almost as one, but as they began moving toward the door to the corridor, she added, as though it had just occurred to her, 'Oh, yes.' The words jerked everyone to a halt. 'When you record the woman's name, also put down the infant's name and sex, the day he or she was born, and exactly where. The Tower's records must be complete in this matter. You may go.' Just as though what she had left till last was not the most important thing. That was how Aes Sedai hid things in plain sight. Some said Aes Sedai had invented the Game of Houses.

Moiraine could not help exchanging excited glances with Siuan. Siuan absolutely hated anything that smacked of clerical work, but she wore a wide grin. They were going to help find the Dragon Reborn. Just his name, of course, and his mother's name, but it was as near to an adventure as Accepted could dare to hope for.

CHAPTER 4

Leaving the Tower

Moiraine's room was little different from Siuan's. Her small square table, with four books lying on it, and the two cushionless straight-backed chairs could have come from the same farmhouse that had provided Siuan's. Her bed was narrower, her Illianer carpet round and flowered, and darned in several places, while on her washstand, it was the basin that had taken a blow some time in the past. The mirror had a crack in one corner. Apart from that, they could have been the same room. She did not bother with starting a fire. She had banked her coals more carefully than Siuan, but there was no time to so much as take the edge off the room's chill.

Reaching into the back of her wardrobe, slightly larger than Siuan's but just as plain, she brought out a stout pair of shoes that made her grimace. Ugly things, made of leather much thicker than her slippers. The laces could have done to mend a saddle. But the shoes would keep her feet dry in the snow, and her slippers would not. Adding a pair of woolen stockings, she sat on the edge of her unmade bed to pull them on over those she was already wearing. For a moment, she considered donning a second shift, as well. However cold it was inside the Tower, it would be colder where she was going. But time was short. And besides, she did not want to take off her dress in that icy air. Surely recording names would be done in some sort of shelter, with a fire or a brazier for warmth. Of course it would. Most people in the camps likely would take them for sisters, just as Tamra had suggested.

Next out of the wardrobe came a narrow, worked-leather belt with silver buckle and a plain scabbard holding a slim, silver-mounted dagger, its blade a little longer than her hand. She had not worn that since arriving in the Tower, and it felt awkward at first, hanging at her waist. Perhaps she was forbidden to use the Power to defend herself, but the dagger would do nicely, if need be. Transferring her belt pouch from the white leather belt she had laid on the bed, she thought for a moment. It was all very well for Tamra to say that everything they needed would be waiting, but depending on someone else, even the Amyrlin Seat, to provide everything was unwise. She tucked her ivory comb and ivory-handled hairbrush into a leather scrip. No matter how urgent the need to gather names, she doubted that any Accepted who let herself go untidy for long would escape sharp words at best. Her good riding gloves, dark blue leather with just a touch of embroidery on the back, followed, plus a small sewing kit in a carved blackwood box, a ball of stout twine, two pairs of spare stockings in case those she was wearing got wet, several kerchiefs in various sizes, and a number of other items that might be useful, including a little knife that folded, for trimming quill pens, in the event that was what they found themselves using. Sisters would never be forced to put up with such an inconvenience, but they were not sisters.

Hanging the scrip from one shoulder, she gathered her cloak, with its banded hem and another band bordering the hood, and rushed out just in time to see Meidani and Brendas go scurrying through the doorway that led off the gallery, cloaks flaring behind them. Siuan was waiting impatiently, a scrip on her shoulder, too, beneath her cloak, and her blue eyes sparkling with excitement. She was not alone in being caught up in the moment. On the other side of the gallery, Katerine Alruddin popped out of her room, demanding at the top of her lungs that Carlinya return her sewing kit, then darted back inside without waiting for an answer.

'Alanna, Pritalle, can one of you lend me a pair of clean stockings?' someone called from below.

'I loaned you a pair yesterday, Edesina,' came a reply from above.

Doors banged throughout the well as women rushed out to shout for Temaile or Desandre, Coladara or Atuan or a score of others to return this or that borrowed item or lend something. Had a sister been present, the cacophony would put them all in the soup kettle to their necks, on a hot fire.

'What kept you, Moiraine?' Siuan said breathlessly. 'Come on before we're left behind.' She set off at a rapid stride, as though she really expected the Guardsmen to be gone if they did not hurry. There was no chance of that, of course, but Moiraine did not dawdle. She was not about to drag her feet at a chance to leave the city. Especially not at this chance.

Outside, the sun was still well short of halfway to its noonday peak. Thickening dark gray clouds rolled across the sky. They might have more snowfall today. That would not make the task ahead any easier. The walk was easy, since the wide, graveled path through the trees that led to the West Stable, beyond the Tower wing that held the Accepted's quarters, had been cleared. Not for the convenience of the Accepted, of course; most of the sisters kept their horses in the West Stable, and workmen shoveled that path clean two or three times a day if necessary.

The stable itself was three sprawling stories of gray stone, larger than the main stables of the Sun Palace, the wide stone-paved stableyard in front of it almost filled by a crowd of rough-coated grooms and saddled horses and helmeted Tower Guards who wore gray steel breastplates over nearly black coats and equally dark cloaks worked with the white teardrop of the Flame of Tar Valon. Seven-striped tabards over the breastplates marked out bannermen and the lone officer. Brendas and Meidani were climbing into their saddles, and half a dozen other Accepted, cloaked and hooded in a strung-out line, were already riding toward the Sunset Gate surrounded by their Guards. Moiraine felt a moment of irritation that so many had beaten her and Siuan down. Had they packed nothing, to be so quick? But they did not know what they really were looking for. That buoyed her spirits again.

Pushing through the crowd, she found her bay mare, the reins held by a lanky groom with a disapproving expression on her narrow face. Very likely she frowned on an Accepted having her own horse. Few did-most could not afford to keep a horse, and besides, opportunities to ride anywhere outside the Tower grounds were rare-but Moiraine had purchased Arrow to celebrate attaining the ring. An act of ostentation that she suspected had nearly