inside her hood. She did not press her case, however. She was good at negotiation, so everyone said, and knew when to wait.
“I did say you could begin,” Egwene said. Not that she had meant it for more than a setdown, yet if you were going to live by the Three Oaths, then you had to stand by what you said. She could not wait to hold the Oath Rod. It would be so much easier, then. “Just make sure you’re very careful what you say. Unless they think we all grew wings to fly here, they must suspect we’ve rediscovered Traveling, but they can’t be certain unless someone confirms it. It’s better for us if they stay uncertain. That must be one secret you hold as tightly as you hold the secret of our ferrets in the Tower.”
Myrelle and Anaiya jerked at that, and Carlinya looked around as though fearful, though neither Warders nor soldiers were close enough to hear unless someone shouted. Morvrin merely took on an even more sour expression. Even Nisao looked a little ill, though she had had nothing to do with the decision to send sisters back to the Tower in secret, supposedly answering Elaida’s summons. The Hall might be happy to learn that ten sisters were in the Tower trying to undermine Elaida however they could, even if the effort had borne no apparent fruit so far, but the Sitters would most definitely be
Beonin was apparently the only one who had opposed that decision — at least, until it became apparent the others were going ahead anyway — but she drew a shuddering breath, too, and a tightness settled around her eyes. In her case, the sudden realization of just what she had undertaken might have played its part, too. Just finding someone in the Tower who was willing to talk might prove a daunting task. Eyes-and-ears inside Tar Valon could offer only hearsay about events inside the Tower; news of the Tower itself came only in dribs and drabs, from sisters venturing into
A wave of gloom rose in Egwene. These were among the strongest against Elaida, even the foot-dragging Beonin, who always wanted to talk rather than act. Well, Grays were noted for believing that anything could be solved with enough talk. They should try that on a Trolloc sometime, or just a footpad, and see how far they got! Without Sheriam and the rest, resistance to Elaida would have fallen apart before it ever had a chance to coalesce. It nearly had anyway. But Elaida was as firmly seated in the Tower as ever, and after all they had gone through, all they had done, it seemed that even Anaiya saw it all melting away into disaster.
No! Drawing a deep breath, Egwene straightened her shoulders and sat erect in her saddle.
“Stretch the talks out as long as you can,” she told Beonin. “You can talk about anything, so long as you keep the secrets that need keeping, but agree to nothing, and keep them talking.” Swaying in her saddle, the Gray definitely looked sicker than Anaiya. She almost appeared ready to empty her stomach.
When the camp came into sight, with the sun nearly halfway to its noonday peak, the escort of lightly armored horsemen broke away back toward the river, leaving Egwene and the sisters to ride the last mile across the snow followed by the Warders. Lord Gareth paused as if he wanted to speak with her once more, but finally he turned his bay east after the cavalry, trotting to catch up as they vanished beyond a long, coppiced stand of trees. He would not bring up their disagreement, or their discussions, where anyone else could hear, and he believed that Beonin and the others were just what everyone else thought them, the Ajahs’ watchdogs. She felt a little sad at holding things back from him, but the fewer who knew a secret, the more likely it would remain secret.
The camp was a sprawl of tents in every shape and size and color and state of repair that almost covered a broad tree-rimmed pasture, halfway between Tar Valon and Dragonmount, inside a ring of horselines and rows of wagons and carts in almost as many shapes as there were wagons and carts. Chimney smoke rose in several places a few miles beyond the treeline, but the local farmers stayed away except for selling eggs and milk and butter, or sometimes when one needed Healing from some accident, and there was no sign at all of the army Egwene had brought so far. Gareth had concentrated his forces along the river, part occupying the bridge towns on both banks and the rest in what he called reserve camps, placed where men could be rushed to help fight off any sortie in strength from the city, just in case he was wrong about High Captain Chubain. Always consider the possibility your assumptions are wrong, he had told her. No one objected to his placements, of course, not in general anyway. Any number of sisters were ready to nitpick the details, but holding the bridge towns was the only way to besiege Tar Valon, after all. By land, it was. And a good many Aes Sedai were pleased to have the soldiers out of sight if not out of mind.
Three Warders in color-shifting cloaks came riding out from the camp as Egwene and the others approached, one of them very tall and one quite short, so they seemed arranged in steps. Making their bows to Egwene and the sisters, nodding to the Warders behind, they all had that dangerous look of men so confident that they had no need to convince anyone how dangerous they were, which somehow made it all the more evident. A Warder at his ease and a lion resting on a hill, so went an old saying among Aes Sedai. The rest of it was lost in the years, but there really was no need to say more. The sisters were not entirely complacent about the safety of even a camp full of Aes Sedai, under the circumstances. Warders patrolled closely for miles in every direction, lions on the prowl.
Anaiya and the others, all but Sheriam, scattered as soon as they reached the first row of tents beyond the wagons. Each would be seeking out the head of her Ajah, ostensibly to report on Egwene’s ride to the river with Lord Gareth, and more importantly, to make sure those Ajah heads knew that some of the Sitters were talking about negotiations with Elaida and that Egwene was being firm. It would have been easier if she knew who those women were, but even oaths of fealty did not stretch to revealing that. Myrelle had nearly swallowed her tongue when Egwene suggested it. Being dropped into a job without training was hardly the best way to learn it, and Egwene knew she had oceans to learn yet about being Amyrlin. Oceans to learn, and a job of work to do at the same time.
“If you will forgive me, Mother,” Sheriam said when Beonin, the last to go, vanished among the tents trailed by her scar-faced Warder, “I have a writing table piled high with paper.” The lack of enthusiasm in her voice was understandable. The Keeper’s stole came along with evergrowing stacks of reports to be sorted and documents to be prepared. Despite her zeal for the rest of the job, which in this case was to keep the camp running, Sheriam had been heard to mutter fervent wishes, when confronted by yet another mound of papers, that she was still Mistress of Novices.
Still, as soon as Egwene gave permission, she booted her black-footed dapple to a trot, scattering a covey of workmen in rough coats and mufflers wrapped around their heads, who were carrying large baskets on their backs. One fell flat on his face in the half-frozen muck that passed for a street. Sheriam’s Arinvar, a slim Cairhienin with graying temples, paused long enough to make sure the fellow was getting to his feet, then spurred his dark bay stallion after her, leaving the workman to his curses, most of which seemed to be directed at his companions’ laughter. Everyone knew that when an Aes Sedai wanted to go somewhere, you got out of the way.
What had spilled out of the fellow’s basket onto the street caught Egwene’s eye and made her shiver, a tall heap of meal crawling with weevils till it seemed there were as many moving black specks as meal. The men must all have been carrying ruined meal to the midden heaps. There was no use bothering to sift anything that infested — only someone who was starving could eat it — but too many baskets of meal and grain had to be disposed of every day. For that matter, half the barrels of salt pork and salt beef opened for use stank so that there was nothing to be done except bury them. For the servants and workmen, at least those who had experience of camp life, that was nothing new. A little worse than usual, but not unheard of. Weevils could appear any time, and merchants trying to stretch their profits always sold some rotting meat along with the good. Among the Aes Sedai, though, it was cause for deep worry. Every barrel of meat, every sack of grain or flour or meal, had been surrounded by a Keeping as soon as bought, and whatever was woven into a Keeping could not change until the weave was
