Winter's Heart

Asne suppressed a sigh. Perhaps after all it was time for Eldrith to have an accident.

The door opened and Temaile slipped into the room so silently they were all caught by surprise. The diminutive fox-faced Gray had tossed a robe embroidered with lions over her shoulders, but it gaped down the front, exposing a cream-colored silk nightdress that molded itself to her indecently. Draped over one hand she carried a bracelet made of twisted glass rings. They looked and felt like glass, at least, but a hammer could not have chipped one.

'You've been to Tel'aran'rhiod,' Eldrith said, frowning at the ter'angreal. She did not speak forcefully, though. They were all a little afraid of Temaile since Moghedien had made them observe the last of Liandrin being broken. Asne had lost track of how often she had killed or tortured in the hundred and thirty-odd years since she gained the shawl, but she had seldom seen anyone so… enthusiastic… as Temaile. Watching Temaile and trying to pretend not to, Chesmal seemed unaware that she was licking her lips nervously. Asne hurriedly put her own tongue back behind her teeth and hoped no one had noticed. Eldrith certainly had not. 'We agreed not to use those,' she said, not very far short of pleading. 'I'm certain it was Nynaeve who wounded Moghedien, and if she can best one of the Chosen in Tel'aran'rhiod, what chance do we have?' Rounding on the others, she attempted a scolding tone. 'Did you two know about this?' She had managed to sound peevish.

Chesmal met Eldrith's stare indignantly, while Asne gave her surprised innocence. They had known, but who was going to stand in Temaile's way? She doubted very much that Eldrith would have made more than a token protest had she been there.

Temaile knew exactly her effect on them. She should have hung her head at Eldrith's lecture, fainthearted as it was, and apologized for going against her wishes. Instead, she smiled. That smile never reached her eyes, though, large and dark and much too bright. 'You were right, Eldrith. Right that Elayne would come here, and right that Nynaeve would come with her, it seems. They were together, and it is clear they are both in the Palace.'

'Yes,' Eldrith said, squirming slightly under Temaile's gaze. 'Well.' And she licked her lips, and shifted her feet, too. 'Even so, until we can see how to get at them past all those wilders—'

'They are wilders, Eldrith.' Temaile threw herself down in a chair, limbs sprawling carelessly, and her tone hardened. Not enough to seem commanding, but still more than merely firm. 'There are only three sisters to trouble us, and we can dispose of them. We can take Nynaeve, and perhaps Elayne in the bargain.' Abruptly she leaned forward, hands on the arms of the chair. Disarrayed clothing or not, there was no shred of indolence about her now. Eldrith stepped back as though pushed by Temaile's eyes. 'Else why are we here, Eldrith? It is what we came for.'

No one had anything to say to that. Behind them lay a string of failures—in Tear, in Tanchico—that might well cost them their lives when the Supreme Council laid hands on them. But not if they had one of the Chosen for a patron, and if Moghedien had wanted Nynaeve so badly, perhaps another of them would, too. The real difficulty would be finding one of the Chosen to present with their gift. No one but Asne seemed to have considered that part of it.

'There were others, there,' Temaile went on, leaning back once more. She sounded almost bored. 'Spying on our two Accepted. A man who let them see him, and someone else I could not see.' She pouted irritably. At least, it would have been a pout except for her eyes. 'I had to stay behind a column so the girls would not see me. That should please you, Eldrith. That they did not see me. Are you pleased?'

Eldrith almost stammered getting out how pleased she was. Asne let herself feel her four Warders, coming ever closer. She had stopped masking herself when they left Samara. Only Powl was a Friend of the Dark, of course, yet the others would do whatever she said, believe whatever she told them. It would be necessary to keep them concealed from the others unless absolutely necessary, but she wanted armed men close at hand. Muscles and steel were very useful. And if worse came to worst, she could always reveal the long, fluted rod that Moghedien had not hidden so well as she thought she had.

The early-morning light in the sitting room's windows was gray, an earlier hour than the Lady Shiaine usually rose, but this morning she had been dressed while it was still full dark. The Lady Shiaine was how she thought of herself, now. Mili Skane, the saddler's daughter, was almost completely forgotten. In every way that mattered, she really was the Lady Shiaine Avarhin, and had been for years. Lord Willim Avarhin had been impoverished, reduced to living in a ramshackle farmhouse and unable to keep even that in good repair. He and his only daughter, the last of a declining line, had stayed in the country, far from anywhere their penury might be exposed, and now they were only bones buried in the forest near that farmhouse, and she was the Lady Shiaine, and if this tall, well-appointed stone house was not a manor, it still had been the property of a well-to-do merchant. She was long dead, too, after signing over her gold to her 'heir.' The furnishings were well made, the carpets costly, the tapestries and even the seat cushions embroidered with thread-of-gold, and the fire roared in a wide blue-veined marble fireplace. She had had the once-plain lintel carved with Avarhin's Heart and Hand row on row.

'More wine, girl,' she said curtly, and Falion scurried with the tall-necked silver pitcher to refill her goblet with steaming spiced wine. The livery of a maid, with the Red Heart and Golden Hand on her breast, suited Falion. Her long face was a stiff mask as she hurried to replace the pitcher on the drawered highchest and take up her place beside the door.

'You play a dangerous game,' Marillin Gemalphin said, rolling her own goblet between her palms. A skinny woman with lifeless pale brown hair, the Brown sister did not look an Aes Sedai. Her narrow face and wide nose would have fitted better above Falion's livery than it did above her fine blue wool, and that was suitable only for a middling merchant. 'She is shielded somehow, I know, but when she can channel again, she will make you howl for this.' Her thin lips quirked in a humorless smile. 'You may find yourself wishing you could howl.'

'Moridin chose this for her,' Shiaine replied. 'She failed in Ebou Dar, and he ordered her punished. I don't know the details and don't want to, but if Moridin wants her nose ground in the mud, I'll push it so deep she is breathing mud a year from now. Or do you suggest I disobey one of the Chosen?' She barely suppressed a shudder at the very thought. Marillin tried to hide her expression in drinking, but her eyes tightened. 'What about you, Falion?' Shiaine asked. 'Would you like me to ask Moridin to take you away? He might find you something less onerous.' Mules might sing like nightingales, too.

Falion did not even hesitate. She bobbed a maid's straight-backed curtsy, her face going even paler than it already was. 'No, mistress,' she said hastily. 'I am content with my situation, mistress.'

'You see?' Shiaine said to the other Aes Sedai. She doubted very much that Falion was anything approaching content, but the woman would accept whatever was handed out rather than face Moridin's displeasure directly. For the same reason, Shiaine would rule her with a very heavy hand. You never knew what one of the Chosen might learn of, and take amiss. She herself thought her own failure was buried deep, but she would take no chances. 'When she can channel again, she won't have to be a maid all the time, Marillin.' Anyway, Moridin had said Shiaine could kill her if she wished. There was always that, if her position began to chafe too much. He had said she could kill both sisters, if she wished.

'That's as may be,' Marillin said darkly. She cast a sidelong glance at Falion and grimaced. 'Now, Moghedien instructed me to offer you what assistance I thought I could give, but I'll tell you right now, I won't enter the Royal Palace. The whole city has too many sisters in it for my taste, but the Palace is stuffed with wilders on top. I wouldn't get ten feet without someone knowing I was there.'

Sighing, Shiaine leaned back and crossed her legs, idly kicking a slippered foot. Why did people always think you did not know as much as they? The world was full of fools! 'Moghedien ordered you to obey me, Marillin. I know, because Moridin told me. He did not say so right out, but I think when he snaps his fingers, Moghedien jumps.' Talking about the Chosen this way was dangerous, but she had to make matters clear. 'Do you want to tell me again what you won't do?'

The narrow-faced Aes Sedai licked her lips, darting another glance at Falion. Did the woman fear she would end up that way? Truth to tell, Shiaine would have traded Falion for a proper lady's maid in a heartbeat. Well, as long as she could retain her other services. Very likely, they both would have to die when this was finished. Shiaine did not like leaving loose ends.

'I wasn't lying about that,' Marillin said slowly. 'I really wouldn't get ten feet. But there's a woman already in the Palace. She can do what you need. It may take time to make contact, though.'

'Just make sure it's not too long a time, Marillin.' So. One of the sisters in the Palace was Black Ajah, was