“How many of the seven still hold?” Myrelle asked softly, as if speaking to herself. “How long until the Dark One breaks free, and the Last Battle comes?” Every Aes Sedai did some of almost everything, according to her talents and inclinations, yet each Ajah had its own reason for being. Greens — who called themselves the Battle Ajah — held themselves ready to face new Dreadlords in the Last Battle. There was almost a hint of eagerness in Myrelle's voice.
“Three,” Anaiya said unsteadily. “Three still hold. If we know everything. Let us pray that we do. Let us pray three are enough.”
“Let us pray those three are stronger than this one,” Morvrin muttered. “Cuendillar cannot be broken so, not and be cuendillar. It cannot.”
“We will discuss this in due course,” Sheriam said. “After more immediate matters that we can do something about.” Taking the cloth from Beonin, she covered the broken seal once more. “Siuan, Leane, we have reached a decision concerning —” She stopped short as she turned and saw Elayne and Nynaeve. “Were you not told to go?” For all her outward calm, the turmoil inside showed in her forgetting their presence.
Nynaeve was more than ready to drop another curtsy, blurt a hurried “By your leave, Aes Sedai,” and scurry for the door. Without moving a muscle, the Aes Sedai — and Siuan and Leane — watched her and Elayne go. Nynaeve felt their eyes like a shove. Elayne stepped not a whit more slowly, for all she cast another look at the a'dam.
Once Nynaeve had the door closed and could lean back against its unpainted wood, clutching the gilded coffer to her breasts, she took her first comfortable breath, or so it seemed, since entering the old stone inn. She did not want to think about the broken seal. Another broken seal. She would not. Those women could shear sheep with their eyes. She could almost look forward to watching their first meeting with the Wise Ones; if she was not likely to be squarely in the middle. It had been more than difficult when she first went to the Tower, learning to do as she was told by others, to bend her neck. After long months when she gave the orders — well, once she had consulted Elayne; usually — she did not know how she was going to learn to pull wool and scratch gravel all over again.
The common room, with its illpatched plaster ceiling and cold stone fireplaces near collapsing, was the same beehive it had been when she first entered. No one gave her more than a glance now, and she gave them less. A small crowd awaited her and Elayne.
Thom and Juilin, on a rough bench against the flaking plaster wall, had their heads together with Uno, who was squatting in front of them, long sword hilt rising over his shoulder. Areina and Nicola, both staring amazed at everything and trying not to show it, occupied another bench with Marigan, who was watching Birgitte attempt to amuse Jan and Seve by awkwardly juggling three of Thom's colored wooden balls. Kneeling behind the boys, Min was tickling them, whispering in their ears, but they only clung to each other, silently staring with those toobig eyes.
Only two others in the entire room were not scurrying about. Two of Myrelle's three Warders happened to be leaning against the wall in conversation a few paces beyond the benches, just this side of the door back to the kitchen corridor. Croi Makin, a yellowhaired young splinter of stone from Andor with a fine profile, and Avar Hachami, hawknosed and squarechinned with a thick graystreaked mustache like downcurved horns. No one would call Hachami handsome even before his darkeyed stare made them swallow. They were not looking at Uno or Thom or anyone else, of course. It was only happenstance that they alone had nothing to do and had chosen just that spot to do it. Of course.
Birgitte dropped one of the balls when she saw Nynaeve and Elayne. “What did you tell them?” she asked quietly, barely glancing at the silver arrow in Elayne's hand. The quiver hung at her belt; but her bow was propped against the wall.
Moving closer, Nynaeve carefully did not look toward Makin and Hachami. Just as carefully she lowered her voice and was sparing with emphasis. “We told them everything they asked for.”
Elayne touched Birgitte's arm. “They know you are a good friend who has helped us. You are welcome to stay here, just the same as Areina and Nicola and Marigan.”
Only when some of Birgitte's tension melted did Nynaeve realize how much had been there. The blueeyed woman scooped up the fallen yellow ball, and smoothly tossed all three back to Thom, who snagged them with one hand and made them vanish in a single motion. She wore the faintest of relieved grins.
“I can't tell you how glad I am to see the pair of you,” Min said for at least the fourth or fifth time. Her hair was longer than it had been, though still a dark cap around her head, and she looked different in some other way that Nynaeve could not put a finger on. Surprisingly, freshly embroidered flowers climbed the lapels of her coat; she had always worn quite plain clothes before. “A friendly face is rare around here.” Her eyes flickered just a fraction toward the two Warders. “We have to settle down alone and have a long talk. I can't wait to hear what you've been up to since you left Tar Valon.” Or to tell what she had been up to as well, else Nynaeve missed her guess.
“I would like very much to talk to you, too,” Elayne said, quite seriously. Min looked at her, then sighed and nodded, not as eager as a moment before.
Thom and Juilin and Uno came up behind Birgitte and Min, their faces set in that way men took on when they meant to say things they thought a woman might not like to hear. Before they could open their mouths, though, a curlyhaired woman in an Accepted's dress pushed between Juilin and Uno, glowering at them, and planted herself in front of Nynaeve.
Faolain's dress, with its seven bands of color at the hem for the Ajahs, was not quite as white as it should have been, and her dark face wore a scowl. “I am surprised to see you here, wilder. I thought you had gone running back to your village, and our fine DaughterHeir to her mother.”
“Are you still souring milk for a hobby, Faolain?” Elayne asked.
Nynaeve kept her face pleasant. Just barely. Twice in the Tower Faolain had been set to teach her something. To put her in her place, was her own opinion. Even when teacher and pupil were both Accepted, the teacher had the status of Aes Sedai so long as the lesson lasted, and Faolain took full advantage. The curlyhaired woman had spent eight years as a novice and five more as Accepted; she was not best pleased that Nynaeve had never had to be a novice at all, or that Elayne had worn pure white for less than a year. Two lessons from Faolain, and two trips to Sheriam's study for Nynaeve, for stubbornness, temper, a list as long as her arm. She made her voice light. “I heard Siuan and Leane have been badly treated by someone. I think Sheriam means to make an example to end it once and for all.” She kept her eyes steady on the other woman's, and Faolain's widened in alarm.
“I've done nothing since Sheriam —” Faolain's mouth snapped shut, and her face colored heavily. Min hid her mouth behind her hand, and Faolain jerked her head around, studying the other women, from Birgitte to Marigan. She motioned brusquely to Nicola and Areina. “You two will do, I suppose. Come with me. Now. No dawdling.” They rose slowly, Areina staring warily and Nicola with fingers fretting at the waist of her dress.
Elayne stepped between them and Faolain before Nynaeve could, chin high and eyes imperious blue ice. “What do you want with them?”
“I am obeying Sheriam Sedai's orders,” Faolain replied. “I myself think they are too old for first testing, but I obey orders. A sister accompanies Lord Bryne's recruiting parties, testing women even as old as Nynaeve.” Her sudden smile could have come from a viper. “Shall I inform Sheriam Sedai that you disapprove, Elayne? Shall I tell her you won't let your retainers be tested?” Elayne's chin came down somewhat during that, but of course she could not simply back down. She needed a diversion.
Nynaeve touched Faolain's shoulder. “Have they found many?”
In spite of herself, the woman's head turned, and when she glanced back, Elayne was soothing Areina and Nicola, explaining that they would not be hurt, or forced into anything. Nynaeve would not have gone so far. When Aes Sedai found someone with the spark born in her like Elayne or Egwene, someone who would channel eventually whether she wanted to or not, they were quite open about bundling her into training whatever her wishes. They seemed more lenient about those who could be trained but would never touch saidar without it, and about wilders, those who had survived the oneinfour chance of teaching themselves, usually without knowing what they had done and often blocked in some way, as Nynaeve was. Supposedly they could choose to come or stay. Nynaeve had chosen to enter the Tower, but she suspected that if she had not, she still would have gone, perhaps even tied hand and foot. Aes Sedai gave women who had the smallest chance of joining them as much choice as a lamb on a feastday.
“Three,” Faolain said after a moment. “All that effort, and they've found three. One a wilder.” She truly did not like wilders. “I do not know why they are so eager to find new novices. The novices we have can't be raised Accepted until we regain the Tower. It is all Siuan Sanche's fault, her and Leane.” A muscle in her cheek twitched, as if she realized that remark might be thought to harass the former Amyrlin and Keeper, and she seized Areina and Nicola each by an arm. “Come along. I obey orders, and if you're to be tested, you'll be tested, waste of time or no waste of time.”
“A nasty woman,” Min murmured, squinting after Faolain as she hurried the other across the common room. “You'd think, if there was any justice, she would have an unpleasant future ahead of her.”
Nynaeve wanted to ask what Min had seen in her viewing of the curlyhaired Accepted — there were a hundred questions she wanted to ask her — but Thom and the other two men planted themselves firmly in front of her and Elayne, Juilin and Uno to either side so among the three they could see in every direction. Birgitte was leading Jaril and Seve to their mother, keeping her out of it. Min knew what the men were up to, too, by the rueful look she gave them; she seemed about to say something, but in the end she only shrugged and joined Birgitte.
By Thom's face, he could have been about to comment on the weather, or ask what was for supper. Nothing important. “This place is full of dangerous fools and dreamers. They think they can depose Elaida. That's why Gareth Bryne is here. To raise an army for them.”
Juilin's grin almost split his dark face in two. “Not fools. Madwomen. And madmen. I don't care if Elaida was there the day Logain was born. They're mad to think they can pull down an Amyrlin sitting in the White Tower from here. We could reach Cairhien in a month, maybe.”
“Ragan and a few of the others already have horses marked out for borrowing.” Uno was grinning, too; it looked incredibly incongruous with that glaring red eye on his patch. “The guards are set to watch for people coming in, not going out. We can lose them in the forest. It'll be dark soon. They'll never find us.” The women's donning their Great Serpent rings back by the river had had a remarkable effect on his language. Though he did seem to make up for it when he thought they could not hear.