even chew off my own foot to escape.'
Setting her teacup on the tray, Siuan knelt beside Moiraine's chair and put her hands on the other woman's shoulders. 'We'll find a way out,' she said, putting far more confidence into her voice than she felt. 'We'll find a way.' She was a little surprised the First Oath allowed her to say those words. She could imagine no way out for either of them.
'If you say so, Siuan.' Moiraine did not sound as if she believed, either. 'There is one thing I can remedy. May I offer you Healing?'
Siuan could have kissed her. In fact, she did.
There was still considerable snow close to the mountains that rose up ahead of Lan, and the trampled tracks of a large body of men lay clear beneath the afternoon sun, leading straight across the hills toward the cloud- capped heights that reared higher and higher the deeper you looked. He raised his looking glass, but he could discern no movement ahead. The Aiel must already be into the mountains. Cat Dancer stamped a hoof impatiently.
'Are those the Spine of the World?' Rakim called in that rasping voice. 'Impressive, but somehow I thought they'd be taller.'
'That's Kinslayer's Dagger,' a well-traveled Arafellin laughed. 'Call them the foothills to the Spine and you won't be far wrong.'
'Why are we just standing here?' Caniedrin demanded, low-voiced enough not be called down for it but loud enough for Lan to hear. Caniedrin liked to press the edges where he could.
Bukama relieved him of the necessity to answer. 'Only fools try fighting Aiel in mountains,' he said loudly. Twisting toward Lan in his saddle, he lowered his own voice to a near whisper, and the creases of his permanent scowl deepened. 'The Light send Pedron Niall doesn't choose now to paint his face.' Niall, Lord Captain-Commander of the Children of the Light, had the command today.
'He won't,' Lan said simply. Only a handful knew war as well as Niall. Which meant that this particular war might very well end this day. He wondered whether it would be called a victory. Sliding the looking glass back into its saddle-case, he found himself looking north. Feeling the pull, an iron filing feeling the lodestone. It was almost pain, after so long. Some wars could not be won, yet they still must be fought.
Studying his face, Bukama shook his head. 'And only a fool jumps from one war straight into another.' He did not bother to speak softly, and several Domani in Lan's sight gave him odd looks, clearly wondering what Bukama was talking about. No Borderlander needed to wonder. They knew who he was.
'A month or two will rest me, Bukama.' That was how long it would take to ride home. A month, with luck.
'A year, Lan. Just one year. Oh, all right. Eight months.' Bukama made that sound a great concession. Perhaps he felt tired? He had always seemed made of iron, but he was no longer young.
'Four months,' Lan conceded. He had borne waiting two years; he could bear another four months. And if Bukama still felt weary then? That was a chasm he would have to cross when he came to it.
As it happened, Niall had not chosen to become a fool, which was very well indeed, given that above half the army had already departed in the belief the victory had been won days ago if not when the Aiel first began their retreat. And they were calling it a great victory. At least, those who had not fought were, the hangers-on and bystanders, and the historians already writing as if they knew everything. Lan was willing to let them. His mind was already two hundred leagues to the north.
Saying their goodbyes, he and Bukama turned their faces southward toward softer lands, avoiding Tar Valon altogether. It was a great and wondrous city by all accounts, but too full of Aes Sedai for any comfort. Bukama talked animatedly of what they might see, in Andor and perhaps Tear. They had been in both lands, but contending with Aiel, they had not seen even the fabled Stone of Tear or any of the great cities. Lan did not speak at all unless Bukama addressed him. He felt the pull of home sharply. All he wanted was a return to the Blight. And no encounters with Aes Sedai.
CHAPTER 13
They could have had food brought to their rooms, but after Moiraine Healed Siuan, they went down to the first sitting of dinner. Neither was willing to miss her first meal as Aes Sedai in the sisters' main dining hall, where Accepted came only by rare invitation and novices only to serve at table. It was a spacious high-ceilinged room, colorful winter tapestries decorating the white walls, broad cornice gleaming under a weight of gold leaf. The square tables, their slender legs elegantly carved, were only large enough for four, and most spaced far apart for privacy of conversation, though today some were placed together to accommodate larger groups. The only women in the room wearing their shawls, they attracted looks from other sisters, not to mention a few amused smiles. Moiraine felt her cheeks heating, but it would take more than smiles to make her give up wearing the shawl every time she left her rooms. More than outright laughter. She had worked too hard to earn it. Siuan marched across the bright floor tiles, patterns of all the Ajah colors, with a queenly grace, casually adjusting her shawl along her arms as though to draw attention to it. Siuan was seldom shy.
There were no benches here, but low-backed chairs carved to match the table legs, and where, in their own dining hall, Accepted ate whatever the kitchen prepared, a young serving woman with the Flame of Tar Valon on her breast curtsied before reciting what the kitchens here had to offer in the singsong voice of one who made the same recitation often. Where Accepted ate on heavy glazed pottery and had to serve and clear away their own plates, the same serving woman brought their food on a ropework silver tray, in dishes of thin white Taraboner porcelain impressed with the Flame of Tar Valon all around the rim. Tarabon's work could not compare with what came from the islands of the Atha'an Miere, but it was hardly inexpensive.
Siuan complained that her fish was too heavily seasoned, yet she left nothing except the bones, and looked around as though thinking of asking for another. Moiraine had a rich soup of vegetables and beef, but she found she had little appetite, and in the end ate only a small piece of dark bread and drank a single cup of tea. She had to escape, but there was no escape. Just walking away from a task assigned by the Amyrlin Seat was unthinkable. Maybe the Hall would decide the plan was untenable. No one had approached her concerning the matter since Tsutama had asked whether she had thought of being Queen of Cairhien. They might decide so. It seemed a thin hope, but thin hopes were all she could find.
As soon as they returned to the Blue quarters, Eadyth summoned them to her rooms again and without ceremony handed each a letter-of-rights in the amount of one thousand crowns gold. 'You will receive the same from the Tower each year on this day,' she said, 'or if you are not here, it will be deposited as you specify.' The distaste of her earlier lecture had departed entirely. She wore a serene smile, serene and pleased at having gained two new Blues. 'Spend wisely. You can obtain more if need be, but ask too often, and you will have to answer questions in the Hall. Believe me, being questioned in the Hall is never pleasant. Never.'
Siuan's eyes grew very round reading the amount, and impossible as it seemed, wider still at mention of getting more. Few merchants cleared more gold in a year, and many minor nobles made do with far less, but the Tower could not afford to have sisters seen in poverty. The Sun Palace had taught Moiraine that power often grew from others deciding that you already had power, and an appearance of wealth could give that.
She had her own banker, but Siuan deposited her letter-of-rights with the Tower, in spite of an offered introduction. Siuan's father had not earned a thousand crowns over his entire life, and she was not about to put that sum at any risk whatsoever. Nothing Moiraine said could convince her. Safety alone concerned her, and it seemed a banking house old enough to have loaned gold to Artur Hawkwing could not be challenged in that regard by the first bank founded after the Breaking.
Wearing her blue-fringed shawl displayed proudly on her shoulders, Moiraine hired a sedan chair in the great
