“There are only three things you can do with a man like that,” Bair chortled. “Stay away from him, kill him, or marry him.”
Melaine stiffened, her sundark face going red. For a moment Egwene thought the goldenhaired Wise One was about to let fly words hotter than her face. Then a biting gust announced Aviendha's return carrying a worked silver tray holding a yellowglazed teapot, delicate cups of golden Sea Folk porcelain, and a stone jar of honey.
She shivered as she poured — no doubt she had not bothered to wrap anything around herself out there — and hurriedly passed around the cups and the honey. She did not fill cups for herself and Egwene until Amys told her she could, of course.
“More steam,” Melaine said; the chill air seemed to have cooled her temper. Aviendha set down her cup untouched and scrambled for the gourd, plainly trying to make up for her lapse with the tea.
“Egwene,” Amys said, sipping her tea, “how would Rand al'Thor take it if Aviendha asked to sleep in his sleeping chamber?” Aviendha froze with the gourd in her hands.
“In his —?” Egwene gasped. “You cannot ask her to do such a thing! You cannot!”
“Fool girl,” Bair muttered. “We do not ask her to share his blankets. But will he think that is what she asks? Will he even allow it? Men are strange creatures at the best, and he was not raised among us, so he is stranger still.”
“He certainly would not think any such thing,” Egwene spluttered, then more slowly, “I don't think he would. But it isn't proper. It just isn't!”
“I ask that you not require this of me,” Aviendha said, sounding more humble than Egwene would have believed she could. She was sprinkling water in jerky motions, sending up increasing clouds of steam. “I have been learning a great deal the past days, not having to spend time with him. Since you have allowed Egwene and Moiraine Sedai to help me with channeling, I learn even faster. Not that they teach any better than you, of course,” she added hastily, “but I want very much to learn.”
“You will still learn,” Melaine told her. “You will not have to stay every hour with him. As long as you apply yourself, your lessons will not be much slowed. You do not study while you sleep.”
“I cannot,” Aviendha mumbled, head down over the water gourd. More loudly, and more firmly, she added, “I will not.” Her head came up, and her eyes were bluegreen fire. “I will not be there when he summons that flipskirt Isendre to his blankets again!”
Egwene gaped at her. “Isendre!” She had seen — and heartily disapproved of — the scandalous way the Maidens kept the woman naked, but this! “You can't really mean he —”
“Be silent!” Bair snapped like a whip. Her blueeyed stare could have chipped stone. “Both of you! You are both young, but even the Maidens should know men can be fools, especially when they are not attached to a woman who can guide them.”
“I am glad,” Amys said dryly, “to see you no longer hold your emotions so tightly, Aviendha. Maidens are as foolish as men when it comes to that; I remember it well, and it embarrasses me still. Letting emotions go clouds judgment for a moment, but holding them in clouds it always. Just be sure you do not release them too often, or when it is best to keep control of them.”
Melaine leaned forward on her hands, until it seemed the sweat dripping from her face must fall on the hot kettle. “You know your fate, Aviendha. You will be a Wise One of great strength and great authority, and more besides. You already have a strength in you. It saw you through your first test, and it will see you through this.”
“My honor,” Aviendha said hoarsely, then swallowed, unable to go on. She crouched there, huddling around the gourd as if it contained the honor she wanted to protect.
“The Pattern does not see ji'e'toh,” Bair told her, with only a hint of sympathy, if that. “Only what must and will be. Men and Maidens struggle against fate even when it is clear the Pattern weaves on despite their struggles, but you are no longer Far Dareis Mai. You must learn to ride fate. Only by surrendering to the Pattern can you begin to have some control over the course of your own life. If you fight, the Pattern will still force you, and you will find only misery where you might have found contentment instead.”
To Egwene, that sounded very much like what she had been taught concerning the One Power. To control saidar, you first had to surrender to it. Fight, and it would come wildly, or overwhelm you; surrender and guide it gently, and it did as you wished. But that did not explain why they wanted Aviendha to do this thing. She asked as much, adding again, “It is not proper.”
Instead of answering, Amys said, “Will Rand al'Thor refuse to allow her? We cannot force him.” Bair and Melaine were looking at Egwene as intently as Amys.
They were not going to tell her why. It was easier to make a stone talk than to get something out of a Wise One against her will. Aviendha was studying her toes in sulky resignation; she knew the Wise Ones would get what they wanted, one way or another.
“I don't know,” Egwene said slowly. “I do not know him as well as I used to.” She regretted that, but so much had happened, quite aside from her realizing that she did not love him as more than a brother. Her training, in the Tower as well as here, had changed things just as much as him being who he had become. “If you give him a good reason, perhaps. I think he likes Aviendha.” The young Aiel woman heaved a heavy sigh without looking up.
“A good reason,” Bair snorted. “When I was a girl, any man would have been overjoyed to have a young woman show that much interest in him. He would have gone to pick the flowers for her bridal wreath himself.” Aviendha started, and glared at the Wise Ones with some of her old spirit. “Well, we will find a reason even someone raised in the wetlands can accept.”
“It is several nights before your agreed meeting in Tel'aran'rhiod,” Amys said. “With Nynaeve, this time.”
“That one could learn much,” Bair put in, “if she were not so stubborn.”
“Your nights are free until then,” Melaine said. “That is, unless you have been entering Tel'aran'rhiod without us.”
Egwene suspected what was coming. “Of course not,” she told them. It had only been a little. Any more than a little, and they would find out for sure.
“Have you succeeded in finding either Nynaeve's or Elayne's dreams?” Amys asked. Casually, as if it were nothing.
“No, Amys.”
Finding someone else's dreams was a lot harder than stepping into Tel'aran'rhiod, the World of Dreams, especially if they were any distance away. It was easier both the closer they were and the better you knew them. The Wise Ones still demanded that she not enter Tel'aran'rhiod without at least one of them along, but someone else's dream was maybe just as dangerous in its own way. In Tel'aran'rhiod she was in control of herself and of things around her to a large degree, unless one of the Wise Ones decided to take over; her command of Tel'aran'rhiod was increasing, but she still could not match any of them, with their long experience. In another's dream, though, you were a part of that dream; it took all you could muster not to behave as the dreamer wanted, be as their dream took you, and still sometimes it did not work. The Wise Ones had been very careful when watching Rand's dreams never to enter fully. Even so they insisted she learn. If they were to teach dreamwalking, they meant to teach all that they knew of it.
She was not reluctant, exactly, but the few times they had let her practice, with themselves and once with Rhuarc, had been chastening experiences. The Wise Ones had some considerable mastery over their own dreams, so what had happened there — to show her the dangers, they said — had all been their doing, but it had been a shock to learn that Rhuarc saw her as a little more than a child, like his youngest daughters. And her own control had wavered for one fatal moment. After that she had been little more than a child; she still could not look at the man without remembering being given a doll for studying hard. And being as pleased with the gift as with his approval. Amys had had to come and take her away from happy play with it. Amys knowing was bad enough, but she suspected that Rhuarc remembered some of it, too.