Winter's Heart

but what looked to be an inn many times bigger was almost finished on the other side of the foundation, with a large sign reading the archers already hung above the door. 'I wonder whether my father is still Mayor. Is my mother well? My sisters?'

'I know you are moving the army tomorrow,' Elayne said, 'if it isn't tomorrow already, but surely you could find a few hours to visit here once you reach Tar Valon.' Traveling made such things easy. Perhaps she herself should send someone to Emond's Field. If she knew whom to trust for the mission. If she could spare anyone she did trust.

Egwene shook her head. 'Elayne, I've had to order women I grew up with switched because they don't believe I am the Amyrlin Seat, or if they do, that they can break the rules because they knew me.' Suddenly the seven-striped stole hung from her shoulders. Until she noticed it with a grimace, and it vanished again. 'I don't think I can face confronting Emond's Field as Amyrlin,' she said sadly. 'Not yet.' She gave herself a shake, and her voice firmed. 'The Wheel turns, Elayne, and everything changes. I must get used to it. I will get used to it.' She sounded a great deal like Siuan Sanche, as Siuan had sounded in Tar Valon before everything had changed. Stole or no stole, Egwene sounded like the Amyrlin Seat. 'Are you certain I can't send you some of Gareth Bryne's soldiers? Enough to help secure Caemlyn, at least.'

Abruptly, they were surrounded by glistening snow, standing knee-deep in it. Snow made gleaming white mounds on the rooftops as if from a heavy fall. This was not the first time such a thing had happened, and they simply refused to let the sudden cold touch them, rather than imagining cloaks and warmer clothes.

'No one is going to move against me before spring,' Elayne said. Armies did not move in winter, at least, not unless they had the benefit of Traveling, like Egwene's army. Snow bogged everything down, and mud whenever the snow melted. Those Borderlanders probably had begun their march south thinking winter was never coming this year. 'Besides, you will need every man when you reach Tar Valon.'

Unsurprisingly, Egwene nodded acceptance without making the offer again. Even with this past month of hard recruiting behind her, Gareth Bryne still had no more than half the soldiers he had told her would be needed to take Tar Valon. According to Egwene, he was ready to begin with what he had, but clearly it troubled her. 'I have hard decisions to make, Elayne. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, but it is still me who has to decide.'

Impulsively, Elayne waded through the snow and threw her arms around Egwene to hug her. At least, she started out wading. As she clasped the other woman to her, the snow vanished, leaving not so much as a damp spot on their dresses. The two of them staggered as if dancing with one another and almost fell.

'I know you will make the right decision,' Elayne said, laughing in spite of herself. Egwene did not join her laughter.

'I hope so,' she said gravely, 'because whatever I decide, people are going to die for it.' She patted Elayne's arm. 'Well, you understand that sort of decision, don't you. We both need to be back in our beds.' She hesitated before going on. 'Elayne, if Rand comes to you again, you must let me know what he says, whether he gives you any clue what he means to do or where he means to go.'

'I will tell you whatever I can, Egwene.' Elayne felt a stab of guilt. She had told Egwene everything—almost everything—but not that she had bonded Rand with Min and Aviendha. Tower law did not prohibit what they had done. Very careful questioning of Vandene had made that much clear. But whether it would be permitted was not clear at all. Still, as she had heard an Arafellin mercenary recruited by Birgitte say, 'what was not forbidden was allowed.' That sounded almost like one of Lini's old sayings, though she doubted her nurse would ever have been so permissive. 'You're troubled by him, Egwene. More than usual, I mean. I can tell. Why?'

'I have reason to be, Elayne. The eyes-and-ears report very troubling rumors. Only rumors, I hope, but if they aren't…' She was very much the Amyrlin Seat now, a short slender young woman who seemed strong as steel and tall as a mountain. Determination filled her dark eyes and set her jaw. 'I know you love him. I love him, too. But I am not trying to Heal the White Tower just so he can chain Aes Sedai like damane. Sleep well and have pleasant dreams, Elayne. Pleasant dreams are more valuable than people realize.' And with that, she was gone, back to the waking world.

For a moment, Elayne stood staring at the spot where Egwene had been. What had she been talking about? Rand would never do that! If only for love of her, he would not! She prodded that rock-hard knot in the back of her head. With him so far away, the veins of gold shone only in memory. Surely he would not. Troubled in herself, she stepped out of the dream, back to her sleeping body.

She needed sleep, but no sooner was she back in her own body than sunlight fell on her eyelids. What hour was it? She had appointments to keep, duties to carry out. She wanted to sleep for months. She wrestled with duty, but duty won. She had a busy day ahead. Every day was a busy day. Her eyes popped open, feeling grainy, as if she had not slept at all. By the slant of light through the windows, it was well beyond sunrise. She could simply lie there. Duty. Aviendha shifted in her sleep, and Elayne poked her sharply in the ribs. If she had to be awake, then Aviendha was not going to loll about.

Aviendha woke with a start, stretching for her knife lying atop the small table on her side of the bed. Before her hand touched the dark horn hilt, she let it fall. 'Something woke me,' she muttered. 'I thought a Shaido was— Look at the sun! Why did you let me sleep so late?' she demanded, scrambling from the bed. 'Just because I'm allowed to stay with you—' the words were muffled for an instant as she jerked her sleep-wrinkled shift off over her head '—does not mean Monaelle won't switch me if she thinks I am being lazy. Do you mean to lie there all day?'

With a groan, Elayne climbed out of the bed. Essande was already waiting at the door to the dressing room; she never waked Elayne unless Elayne remembered to order it. Elayne surrendered herself to the white-haired woman's almost silent ministrations while Aviendha dressed herself, but her sister made up for Essande's quiet with a laughing string of comments along the line of how having someone else put your clothes on you must feel like being a baby again and how Elayne might forget how to put on her own clothes and need somebody to dress her. She had done very much the same every morning since they had begun to share the same bed. Aviendha found it very funny. Elayne did not say a word, except to answer her tirewoman's suggestions on what she should wear, until the last mother-of-pearl button was done up and she stood examining herself in the stand-mirror.

'Essande,' she said then, casually, 'are Aviendha's clothes ready?' The fine blue wool with a little silver embroidery would do well enough for what she faced today.

Essande brightened. 'All Lady Aviendha's pretty silks and laces, my Lady? Oh, yes. All brushed and cleaned and ironed and put away.' She gestured to the wardrobes lining one wall.

Elayne smiled over her shoulder at her sister. Aviendha stared at the wardrobes as though they contained vipers, then gulped and hastily finished winding the dark folded kerchief around her head.

When Elayne had dismissed Essande, she said, 'Just in case you need them.'

'Very well,' Aviendha muttered, putting on her silver necklace. 'No more jokes about the woman dressing you.'

'Good. Or I'll tell her to start dressing you. Now, that would be amusing.'

Grumbling under her breath about people who could not take a joke, Aviendha plainly did not agree. Elayne half expected her to demand that all the clothes she had acquired be discarded. She was a little surprised Aviendha had not seen to it already.

For Aviendha, the breakfast laid out in the sitting room consisted of cured ham with raisins, eggs cooked with dried plums, dried fish prepared with pine nuts, fresh bread slathered with butter, and tea made syrupy with honey. Well, not actually syrupy, but it seemed so. Elayne got no butter on her bread, very little honey in her tea, and instead of the rest, a hot porridge of grains and herbs that was supposed to be especially healthy. She did not feel with child, no matter what Min had told Aviendha, but Min had told Birgitte, too, once the three of them began getting drunk. Between her Warder, Dyelin, and Reene Harfor, she now found herself limited to a diet 'suitable for a woman in her condition.' If she sent to the kitchens for a treat, somehow it never arrived, and if she slipped down there herself, the cooks gave her such glum disapproving stares that she slipped back out again with nothing.

She did not really mourn the spiced wine and sweets and the other things she was no longer allowed—not that much, anyway, except when Aviendha was gobbling tarts or puddings—but everyone in the Palace knew she was pregnant. And of course, that meant they knew how she had gotten that way, if not with whom. The men were not too bad, beyond the fact that they knew, and she knew they knew, but the women did not bother to hide knowing. Whether they accepted