The Path of Daggers

anything that once belonged to a da’tsang. The rest was hacked to pieces or hammered into scrap, even the jewelry you had with you, and buried under a pit dug for a jakes.'

'My…? My horse?' Beldeine asked anxiously.

'They didn’t kill the horses, but I don’t know where yours is.' Being ridden by someone in the city, probably, or perhaps given to an Asha’man. Telling her that might do more harm than good. Verin seemed to recall that Beldeine was one of those young women who had very deep feelings for horses. 'They let you keep the ring to remind you of who you were, and increase your shame. I don’t know whether they would let you swear to Master al’Thor if you begged. It would take something incredible on your part, I think.'

'I won’t! Never!' The words rang hollow, though, and Beldeine’s shoulders slumped. She was shaken, but not sufficiently.

Verin put on a warm smile. A fellow had once told her that her smile made him think of his dear mother. She hoped he had not been lying about that, at least. He had tried to slide a dagger between her ribs a little later, and her smile had been the last thing he ever saw. 'I can’t think of the reason you would. No, I fear what you have to look forward to is useless labor. That’s shaming, to them. Bone shaming. Of course, if they realize you don’t see it that way… Oh, my. I’ll wager you didn’t like digging without any clothes on, even with Maidens for guards, but think of, say, standing in a tent full of men that way?' Beldeine flinched. Verin prattled on; she had developed prattling to something of a Talent. 'They’d only make you stand there, of course. Da’tsang aren’t allowed to do anything useful unless there’s great need, and an Aielman would as soon put his arm around a rotting carcass as… Well, that’s not a pleasant thought, is it? In any case, that’s what you have to look forward to. I know you’ll resist as long as you can, though I’m not sure what there is to resist. They won’t try to get information out of you, or anything that people usually do with prisoners. But they won’t let you go, not ever, until they’re sure the shame is so deep in you there’s nothing else left. Not if it takes the rest of your life.'

Beldeine’s lips moved soundlessly, but she might as well have spoken the words. The rest of my life. Shifting uncomfortably on her cushion, she grimaced. Sunburn or welts or simply the ache of unaccustomed work. 'We will be rescued,' she said finally. 'The Amyrlin won’t leave us… We’ll be rescued, or we’ll — We will be rescued!' Snatching up the silver cup from beside her, she tilted her head back to gulp until it was empty, then thrust it out for more. Verin floated the pewter pitcher over and set it down so the young woman could pour for herself.

'Or you’ll escape?' Verin said, and Beldeine’s dirty hands jerked, splashing water down the sides of the cup. 'Really, now. You have as much chance of that as you do of rescue. You’re surrounded by an army of Aiel. And apparently al’Thor can call up a few hundred of those Asha’man whenever he wants, to hunt you down.' The other woman shivered at that, and Verin nearly did. That little mess should have been stopped as soon as it started. 'No, I fear you must make your own way, somehow. Deal with things as they are. You are quite alone in this. I know they don’t let you speak to the others. Quite alone,' she sighed. Wide eyes stared at her as they might have at a red adder. 'There’s no need to make it worse than it must be. Let me Heal you.'

She barely waited for the other woman’s pitiful nod before moving to kneel beside her and place hands on Beldeine’s head. The young woman was almost as ready as she could be. Opening herself to more of saidar, Verin wove the flows of Healing, and the Green gasped and quivered. The half filled cup dropped from her hands, and a flailing arm knocked the pitcher onto its side. Now she was as ready as she could be.

In the moments of confusion that gripped anyone after being Healed, while Beldeine still blinked and tried to come back to herself, Verin opened herself further, opened herself through the carved-flower angreal in her pouch. Not a very powerful angreal, but enough, and she needed every bit of the extra Power it gave her for this. The flows she began weaving bore no resemblance to Healing. Spirit predominated by far, but there was Wind and Water, Fire and Earth, the last of some difficulty for her, and even the skeins of Spirit had to be divided again and again, placed with an intricacy to boggle a weaver of fine carpets. Even if a Wise One poked her head into the tent, with the smallest of luck she would not possess the rare Talent needed to realize what Verin was doing. There would still be difficulties, perhaps painful difficulties one way and another, but she could live with anything short of true discovery.

'What…?' Beldeine said drowsily. Her head would have lolled except for Verin’s grip, and her eyelids were half-closed. 'What are you…? What is happening?'

'Nothing that will harm you,' Verin told her reassuringly. The woman might die inside the year, or in ten, as a result of this, but the weave itself would not harm her. 'I promise you, this is safe enough to use on an infant.' Of course, that depended on what you did with it.

She needed to lay the flows in place thread by thread, but talking seemed to help rather than hinder. And too long a silence might rouse suspicion, if her twin guardians were listening. Her eyes darted frequently to the dangling doorflaps. She wanted some answers she had no intention of sharing, answers none of the women she questioned were likely to give freely even if they knew them. One of the smaller effects of this weave was to loosen the tongue and open the mind as well as any herb ever could, an effect that came on quickly.

Dropping her voice almost to a whisper, she continued. 'The al’Thor boy seems to think he has supporters of some kind inside the White Tower, Beldeine. In secret, of course; they must be.' Even a man with his ear pressed to the fabric of the tent should be able to hear only that they were talking. 'Tell me anything you know about them.'

'Supporters?' Beldeine murmured, attempting a frown that seemed beyond her ability. She stirred, though it hardly deserved the word agitation, feeble and uncoordinated. 'For him? Among the sisters? It can’t be. Except for those of you who… How could you, Verin? Why didn’t you fight it?'

Verin tsked vexedly. Not for the foolish suggestion that she should have fought a ta’veren. The boy seemed so certain. Why? She kept her voice low. 'Do you have no suspicions, Beldeine? Did you hear no rumors before you left Tar Valon? No whispers? No one who hinted at approaching him differently? Tell me.'

'No one. Who could…? No one would… I admired Kiruna so.' There was a hint of loss in Beldeine’s sleepy voice, and tears leaking from her eyes made tracks through the dirt. Only Verin’s hands kept her sitting upright.

Verin continued to lay down the threads of her weaving, eyes flashing from her work to the doorflaps and back. She felt a little like sweating herself. Sorilea might decide she needed help with the questioning. She might bring out one of the sisters from the Sun Palace. Should any sister learn of this, stilling was a very real possibility. 'So you were going to deliver him to Elaida neatly washed and well-behaved,' she said in a slightly louder tone. The quiet had gone on too long. She did not want that pair outside reporting that she was whispering with the prisoners.

'I couldn’t… speak out… against Galina’s decision. She led… by the Amyrlin’s command.' Beldeine shifted again, weakly. Her voice was still dreamy, but it picked up an agitated edge. Her eyelids fluttered. 'He had to… be made… to obey! He had to be! Shouldn’t have been… treated so harshly. Like putting… him to… question. Wrong.'

Verin snorted. Wrong? Disastrous was more like it. A disaster from the first. Now the man looked at any Aes Sedai almost the way Aeron did. And if they had succeeded in carrying him to Tar Valon? A ta’veren like Rand al’Thor actually inside the White Tower? A thought to make a stone tremble. However it had turned out, disaster would surely have been too mild a word. The price paid at Dumai’s Wells was small enough, for avoiding that.

She went on asking questions in a tone that could be heard clearly by anyone listening outside. Asking questions she already had answers for, and avoiding those too dangerous to be answered. She paid little heed to the words coming out of her mouth or to Beldeine’s replies. Mainly she concentrated on her weaving.

A great many things had captured her interest over the years, not all strictly approved of by the Tower. Almost every wilder who came to the White Tower for training — both true wilders, who really had begun teaching themselves, and girls who merely had started touching the Source because the spark born in them had quickened on its own; for some sisters, there was no real difference — nearly every one of those wilders had created at least one trick for herself, and those tricks almost invariably fell under one of two headings. A way to listen in on other people’s conversations or a way of making people do as they wanted.

The first, the Tower did not care much about. Even a wilder who had gained considerable control on her own quickly learned that as long as she wore novice white, she was not to so much as touch