Winter's Heart

might become a queen, but she never let a sister leave the Tower without orders on what to do if she encountered the girl. Be very careful, Elayne Trakand, Toveine thought. I would not like Elaida to have the satisfaction of laying hands on you.

She wanted to think on this, on whether there was some way to use the girl’s presence here, but abruptly she became aware of the sensations at the back of her head. A mild contentment and a growing purpose. Logain had finished his breakfast. He would be coming out, soon. He had told her to be there when he did.

Her feet were running before she thought. With the result that her skirts tangled in her legs, and she fell hard, knocking her breath out. Anger welled up, fury, but she scrambled to her feet and, without pausing to brush off the dust, gathered her skirts about her knees and began to run again, cloak billowing behind. Men’s raucous shouts followed her down the street, and laughing children pointed as she ran past.

Suddenly a pack of dogs was around her, snarling, nibbling at her heels. She leapt and spun and kicked, but they harried her. She wanted to shriek with frustration and fury. Dogs were always a bother, and she could not channel a feather to drive them off. A gray hound seized a mouthful of dangling skirt, pulling her sideways. Panic overwhelmed everything else. If she fell again, they would tear her to shreds.

A shouting woman in a brown wool swung her heavy basket at the dog tugging Toveine’s skirt, making it dodge away. A round woman’s bucket caught a brindled cur in the ribs, and it ran yelping. Toveine gaped in astonishment, and for her inattention had to pull her left leg away from another dog at the cost of a piece of her stocking and a little skin. There were women all around her, flailing away at the animals with whatever they had to hand.

“Go on with you, Aes Sedai,” a skinny, graying woman told her, slicing at a spotted dog with a switch. “They won’t bother you more. I’d like a nice cat, myself, but cats won’t abide the husband now. Go on.”

Toveine did not wait to thank her rescuers. She ran, considering furiously. The women knew. If one did, they all did. But they would carry no messages, give no help to an escape, not when they were willing to remain themselves. Not if they understood what they were helping. There was that.

Just short of Logain’s house, one of several down a narrower side street, she slowed and hastily let down her skirts. Eight or nine men in black coats were waiting outside, boys and oldsters and in between, but there was no sign of Logain yet. She could still sense him, full of purpose but concentrating. Reading, perhaps. She walked the rest of the way at a dignified pace. Composed and every inch an Aes Sedai, no matter the circumstances. She almost managed to forget her frantic flight from the dogs.

The house surprised her every time she saw it. Others on the street were as large and two larger. An ordinary wooden house of two stores, though the red door, shutters and window frames looked odd. Plain curtains hid the interior, but the glass in the windows was so poor she doubted she could have seen anything clearly with the curtains drawn. A house suitable for a not overly successful shopkeeper; hardly the dwelling for one of the most notorious men alive.

Briefly she wondered what was keeping Gabrelle. The other sister bonded to Logain had the same instruction she did, and until now, she had always been here first. Gabrelle was eager, studying the Asha’man as if she intended writing a book on the subject. Perhaps she did; Browns would write about anything. She put the other sister out of her mind. Although, if Gabrelle did turn up late, she would have to find out how the woman had managed it. For now, she had her own studying.

The men outside the red door eyed her, but said nothing, even to each other. Still there was no animosity. They were simply waiting. None had a cloak, though their breath made pale feathers in front of their faces. All were Dedicated, with the silver sword pin on their collars.

It had been the same every morning she had reported this way, though not always the same men. She knew some, knew their names at least, and sometimes a few other gleaned tidbits. Evin Vinchova, the pretty lad who had been there when Logain captured her, leaning against the corner of the house and toying with a bit of string. Donalo Sandomere, if that was his real name, with his creased farmer’s face and sharply trimmed oiled beard, attempting the languid stance he thought a nobleman would assume. The Taraboner Androl Genhald, a square fellow with is heavy eyebrows drawn in thought and his hands clasped behind his back; he wore a gold signet ring, but she thought his an apprentice who had shaved his mustaches and abandoned his veil. Mezar Kurin, a Domani with gray at his temples, fingering the garnet in his left ear; he very well might be a minor noble. She was collecting a neat file of names and faces in her head. Sooner or later they would be hunted down, and every piece of information that could help identify them would be useful.

The red door opened, and the men straightened, but it was not Logain who came out.

Toveine blinked in surprise, then met Gabrelle’s sooty green eyes with a flat stare, making no effort to hid her disgust. That accursed link with Logain had made clear what he was up to the night before—she had been afraid she would never fall asleep!—but not in her darkest imaginings had she suspected Gabrelle! Some of the men seemed as startled as she. Some attempted to hid smiles. Kurin grinned openly and strokes his thin mustache with a thumb.

The dusky woman did not even have the grace to blush. She lifted her upturned nose a trifle, then boldly adjusted her dark blue dress over her hips as if to advertise that she had just donned the garment. Sweeping her cloak around her shoulders, she tied the ribbons as she glided toward Toveine, as serene as if she were back in the Tower.

Toveine grabbed the taller woman’s arm, pulling her a little way from the men. “We may be captives, Gabrelle,” she whispered harshly, “but that is no reason to surrender. Especially to Ablar’s vile lusts!” The other woman did not so much as look abashed! A thought came. Of course. “Did he…? Did he order you?

With something close to a sneer, Gabrelle pulled free. “Toveine, it took me two days to decide I should ‘surrender’ to his lusts, as you put it. I feel lucky it only required four to convince him to let me. You Reds might not be aware, but men love to talk and gossip. All you need do is listen, or even pretend to, and a man will tell you his whole life.” A thoughtful frown creased her forehead, and the twist to her lips vanished. “I wonder whether it’s like that for ordinary women.”

“Whether what is like what?” Toveine demanded. Gabrelle was spying on him? Or just trying to get more material for her book? But this was unbelievable, even for a Brown! “What are you talking about?”

That musing expression never left the other’s face. “I felt… helpless. Oh, he was gentle, but I never really thought before on how strong a man’s arms are, and me unable to channel a whisker. He was… in charge, I suppose, though that isn’t quite right. Just… stronger, and I knew it. It felt… strangely exhilarating.”

Toveine shuddered. Gabrelle must be insane! She was about to tell her so when Logain himself appeared, closing the door behind him. He was tall, tall than any other man there, with dark hair that brushed wide shoulders and framed an arrogant face. His high collar carried both the silver sword and that ridiculous snake with legs. He flashed a smile at Gabrelle as the others gathered around him. The hussy smiled back, too. Toveine shuddered again. Exhilarating. The woman was insane!

As on previous mornings, the men began making reports. Most of the time, Toveine had not been able to make up from down with them, but she listened.

“I found two more who seem interested in that new kind of Healing this Nynaeve used on you, Logain,” Genhald said, frowning, “but one can barely do the Healing we already know, and the other, he wants to know more than I could tell him.”

“What you can tell him is all I know,” Logain replied. “Mistress al’Meara didn’t tell me much of what she was doing, and I could only learn bits and pieces listening to the other sisters talk. Just keep planting the seed and hope something grows. It’s all you can do.” Several other men nodded along with Genhald.

Toveine filed it away. Nynaeve al’Meara. She had heard that name often after returning to the Tower. Another runaway Accepted, another one Elaida wanted more than the normal desire to catch runaways seemed to account for. From the same village as al’Thor, too. And associated somehow with Logain. That might lead to something, eventually. But a new kind of Healing? Used by an Accepted? That was unlikely bordering close on impossible, but she had seen the impossible happen before, so she tucked it away. Gabrelle was listening closely, too, she noticed. But watching her as well, out of the corner of her eye.

“There’s a problem with some of those Two Rivers men, Logain,” Vinchova said. An angry flush rose on his smooth face. “Men, I say, but these two are boys, fourteen at most! They won’t say.” He might have been a year or