Elayne heaved a sigh of fervent relief. Nynaeve looked as if she were going to sick up.
Chapter 37
(Lion Rampant)
Performances in Samara
For what seemed the hundredth time, Nynaeve held a lock of her hair up to look at it and sighed. Thick murmurs of talk and laughter from hundreds if not thousands of throats, distant music that was nearly drowned out, drifted in through the wagon walls. She had not minded spending the parade through the streets of Samara in the wagon with Elayne — occasional peeks through the windows had convinced her that she would just as soon not be put in those packed crowds, yelling and barely making way for the wagons — but every time she looked at the brassy red of her hair, she wished she had been doing somersaults with the Chavanas rather than dyeing it.
Carefully not looking at herself, she wrapped up completely in her plain dark gray shawl, turned, and gave a start to find Birgitte standing in the doorway. The woman had ridden in Clarine and Petra's wagon during the parade, with Clarine altering a spare red dress she had been making for Nynaeve at Luca's direction; he had given Clarine her instructions before Nynaeve ever agreed. Birgitte wore it now, her blackdyed braid pulled over her shoulder so it nestled between her breasts, totally unconscious of the low square neck. Just looking at her made Nynaeve fold her shawl tighter; Birgitte could not show a fingernail more of pale bosom and retain the slightest claim to decency. As it was, such a claim would be feeble, really quite laughable. Looking at her made Nynaeve's stomach knot up, but not for reasons of clothes or skin.
“If you are going to wear the dress, why cover up?” Birgitte came inside and closed the door behind her. “You are a woman. Why not be proud of it?”
“If you think I shouldn't,” Nynaeve replied hesitantly, and slowly let the shawl slide down to her elbows, revealing the twin of the other woman's garment. She felt all but naked. “I only thought... I thought...” Gripping her silk skirts hard to keep her hands at her sides, she held her gaze on the other woman. Even knowing she wore exactly the same herself, it was easier that way.
Birgitte grimaced. “And if I wanted you to lower the neck another inch?”
Nynaeve opened her mouth, face going as scarlet as the gown, but for a moment nothing came out. When it did, she sounded as if she were being strangled. “There isn't an inch to lower it. Look at your own. There isn't a tenth!”
Three quick, frowning strides, and Birgitte bent slightly to put her face right in Nynaeve's. “And if I said I wanted you to rid yourself of that inch?” she snarled, showing teeth. “What if I wanted to paint your face, so Luca could have his fool? What if I stripped you out of it altogether and painted you from head to toe? A fine target you would make then. Every man inside fifty miles would come to see.”
Nynaeve's mouth worked, but this time no sound emerged at all. She wanted very much to close her eyes; maybe when she opened them, none of this would be happening.
With a disgusted shake of her head, Birgitte took a seat on one of the beds, one elbow on her knee and her blue eyes sharp. “This must stop. When I look at you, you flinch. You run about waiting on me hand and foot. If I glance for a stool, you fetch one. If I lick my lips, you have a cup of wine in my hands before I know I am thirsty. You would wash my back and put the slippers on my feet if I let you. I am neither monster nor invalid nor child, Nynaeve.”
“I am only trying to make up for —” she began timidly, and jumped when the other woman roared.
“Make up? You are trying to make me less!”
“No. No, it is not that, truly. I am to blame — ”
“You take responsibility for my actions,” Birgitte broke in fiercely. “I chose to speak to you in Tel'aran'rhiod. I chose to help you. I chose to track Moghedien. And I chose to take you to see her. Me! Not you, Nynaeve, me! I was not your puppet, your pack hound, then, and I will not be now.”
Nynaeve swallowed hard and gripped her skirts more tightly. She had no right to be angry with this woman. No right at all. But Birgitte had every right. “You did what I asked. It is my fault that you... that you are here. It is all my fault!”
“Have I mentioned fault? I see none. Only men and dimwitted girls take blame where there is none, and you are neither.”
“It was my foolish pride that made me think I could best her again, and my cowardice that let her... that let her... If I had not been so afraid I could not spit, I might have done something in time.”
“A coward?” Birgitte's eyes widened, openly incredulous, and scorn touched her voice. “You? I thought you had more sense than to confuse fear with cowardice. You could have fled Tel'aran'rhiod when Moghedien released you, but you stayed to fight. No fault or blame to you that you could not.” Drawing a deep breath, she rubbed her forehead for a moment, then leaned forward intently again. “Listen to me close, Nynaeve. I take no blame for what was done to you. I saw, but I could not twitch. Had Moghedien tied you into a knot or cored you like an apple, still I would take no blame. I did what I could, when I could. And you did the same.”
“It was not the same.” Nynaeve tried to take the heat out of her voice. “It was my fault that you were there. My fault that you are here. If you...” She stopped to swallow again. “If you... miss... when you shoot at me today, I want you to know that I will understand.”
“I do not miss where I aim,” Birgitte said dryly, “and where I aim will not be at you.” She began taking things from one of the cabinets and laying them on the small table. Halffinished arrows, scraped shafts, steel arrow points, stone glue pot, fine cord, gray goose feathers for fletchings. She had said she would make her own bow, too, as soon as she could. Luca's she called “a knotriddled branch broken from a crossgrained tree by a blind idiot in the middle of the night.”
“I liked you, Nynaeve,” she said as she laid everything out. “Thorns, warts and all. I no longer do, as you are now...”
“You have no reason to like me, now,” Nynaeve said miserably, but the other woman spoke right over her without looking up.
“...and I will not allow you to make me less, to make my decisions less, by claiming responsibility for them. I have had few women friends, but most have had tempers like snowghosts.”
“I wish you could be my friend once more.” What under the Light was a snowghost? Something from another Age, no doubt. “I would never try to make you less, Birgitte. I only —”
Birgitte paid her no mind, except to raise her voice. Her attention seemed all on her arrow shafts. “I would like to like you again, whether you return the liking or not, but I cannot until you are yourself again. I could live with you a milktongued sniveling wretch if that was what you were. I take people as they are, not as I would like them to be, or else I leave them. But that is not what you are, and I will not accept your reasons for playing at it. So. Clarine told me of your encounter with Cerandin. Now I know what to do the next time you claim my decisions as your own.” She swished a length of ashwood vigorously. “I am sure Latelle will be happy to provide the switch.”
Nynaeve forced her jaws to unclench, forced her tone as smooth as she could make it. “You have a perfect right to do whatever you wish to me.” Her fists in her skirts quivered more than her voice.
“A touch of temper showing? Just at the edges?” Birgitte grinned at her, at once amused and startlingly feral. “How long before it bursts into flame? I am willing to wear out any number of switches, if need be.” The grin faded into seriousness. “I will make you see the right of this, or I will drive you away. There is no other course. I cannot — will not — leave Elayne. That bond honors me, and I will honor it, and her. And I will not allow you to think that you make my decisions, or made them. I am myself, not an appendage to you. Now go away. I must finish these arrows if I am to have even a few shafts that will fly true. I do not mean to kill you, and I would not have it happen by accident.” Unstopping the glue pot, she bent over the table. “Do not forget to curtsy like a good girl on your way out.”