think that my sister will be more strict than my mother was. She always has thought that the favorable position of the orchard growers was no longer justified.”
He could see that Lelaine subtly began taking notes on what he said at the bottom of her parchment. Was that the real reason for getting out the ink and quill?
He had no choice but to answer as honestly as he could, though he had to be careful not to let himself get pressed for too much information. His connection to Elayne was the only thing he had with which to bargain, and he had to ration his usefulness to stretch it long. It irked him. Elayne wasn’t a bargaining chip, she was his sister!
But it was all he had.
“I see,” Lelaine said, “and what of the northern cherry orchards? They haven’t been particularly productive lately, and. . . .”
Shaking his head, Gawyn left the tent. Lelaine had prodded him about Andoran taxation rates for the better part of an hour. And, once again, Gawyn was uncertain if he’d achieved anything useful in his visit. He’d never get Egwene free at this rate!
As always, a novice in white waited outside the tent to escort him from the inner camp. This time the novice was a short, plump woman who looked more than a few years too old to have taken up the white.
Gawyn allowed the woman to lead him through the Aes Sedai camp, trying to pretend that she was just a guide, rather than a guard to see that he left as instructed. Bryne was right; the women did not like unnecessary bodies—soldiers in particular—wandering around their neat little imitation White Tower of a village. He passed bustling groups of white-clad women crossing walkways, watching him with the faint distrust the friendliest of people often gave an outsider. He passed Aes Sedai, universally self-assured whether they wore rich silk or stiff wool. He passed some groups of worker women, far more neat than those out in the soldier camp. They walked with an almost Aes Sedai air themselves, as if they gained a measure of authority by being allowed into the real camp.
All these groups crisscrossed through an open square of trampled weeds that formed the common area. The most confusing thing he had discovered in this camp had to do with Egwene. More and more, he was coming to realize that the people here really did see her as Amyrlin. She wasn’t simply a decoy set up to draw ire, nor was she a calculated insult, meant to rile Elaida. Egwene was Amyrlin to them.
Obviously, she had been chosen because the rebels wanted someone easy to control. But they didn’t treat her as a puppet—both Lelaine and Romanda spoke of her with respect. There was an advantage to Egwene’s absence, since it created a void of power. Therefore, they accepted Egwene as a source of authority. Was he the only one who remembered that she’d been an Accepted just months ago?
She was in over her head. However, she’d also impressed the people in this camp. It was like his mother’s own rise to power in Andor many years before.
But why did she refuse to allow a rescue? Traveling had been rediscovered—from what he’d heard, Egwene herself had rediscovered it! He needed to talk to her. Then he could judge if her unwillingness to escape came from a fear of putting others in danger, or if it was something else.
He unhobbled Challenge from the post at the border between Aes Sedai and army camps, nodded farewell to his novice handler, then swung into the saddle, checking the position of the sun. He turned his mount east along a pathway between army tents, and set out in a quick trot. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Lelaine he had another appointment; he’d promised to meet Bryne. Of course, Gawyn had set up the meeting because he’d known he might need a means of escaping Lelaine. Bryne had taught him that: It didn’t show fear to prepare your retreat ahead of time. It was just plain good strategy.
Well over an hour’s ride later, Gawyn found his old teacher where they’d planned to meet: one of the outlying guard posts. Bryne was conducting an inspection not unlike the one Gawyn had used to mask his escape from the Younglings. The general was just mounting his big-nosed bay gelding as Gawyn trotted up, crossing the scrub grass and wan spring weeds. The guard post sat