The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,36

edge now, all the questions she could not ask running through her head. None of it showed on her face.

The inner door opened, and Leane appeared, without her gilt-flamed staff. The Keeper of the Chronicles was as tall as most men, willowy and graceful, still beautiful, with coppery skin and short, dark hair. She wore a blue stole, a hand wide, instead of a shawl, for she sat in the Hall of the Tower, though as Keeper, not to represent her Ajah.

“There you are,” she said briskly to Moiraine, and gestured to the door behind her. “Come, Sister. The Amyrlin Seat is waiting.” She spoke naturally in a clipped, quick way that never changed, whether she was angry or joyful or excited. As Moiraine followed Leane in, she wondered what emotion the Keeper was feeling now. Leane pulled the door to behind them; it banged shut with something of the sound of a cell door closing.

The Amyrlin Seat herself sat behind a broad table in the middle of the carpet, and on the table rested a flattened cube of gold, the size of a travel chest and ornately worked with silver. The table was heavily built, its legs stout, but it seemed to squat under a weight two strong men would have had trouble lifting.

At the sight of the golden cube Moiraine had difficulty keeping her face unruffled. The last she had seen of it, it had been safely locked in Agelmar’s strongroom. On learning of the Amyrlin Seat’s arrival she had meant to tell her of it herself. That it was already in the Amyrlin’s possession was a trifle, but a worrisome trifle. Events could be outpacing her.

She swept a deep curtsy and said formally, “As you called me, Mother, so have I come.” The Amyrlin extended her hand, and Moiraine kissed her Great Serpent ring, no different from that of any other Aes Sedai. Rising, she made her tone more conversational, but not too much so. She was aware of the Keeper standing behind her, beside the door. “I hope you had a pleasant journey, Mother.”

The Amyrlin had been born in Tear, of a simple fisherman’s family, not a noble House, and her name was Siuan Sanche, though very few had used that name, or even thought of it, in the ten years since she had been raised from the Hall of the Tower. She was the Amyrlin Seat; that was the whole of it. The broad stole on her shoulders was striped in the colors of the seven Ajahs; the Amyrlin was of all Ajahs and of none. She was only of medium height, and handsome rather than beautiful, but her face held a strength that had been there before her elevation, the strength of the girl who had survived the streets of the Maule, Tear’s port district, and her clear blue gaze had made kings and queens, and even the Captain Commander of the Children of the Light, drop their eyes. Her own eyes were strained, now, and there was a new tightness to her mouth.

“We called the winds to speed our vessels up the Erinin, Daughter, and even turned the currents to our aid.” The Amyrlin’s voice was deep, and sad. “I have seen the flooding we caused in villages along the river, and the Light only knows what we have done to the weather. We will not have endeared ourselves by the damage we’ve done and the crops we may have ruined. All to reach here as quickly as possible.” Her eyes strayed to the ornate golden cube, and she half lifted a hand as if to touch it, but when she spoke it was to say, “Elaida is in Tar Valon, Daughter. She came with Elayne and Gawyn.”

Moiraine was conscious of Leane standing to one side, quiet as always in the presence of the Amyrlin. But watching, and listening. “I am surprised, Mother,” she said carefully. “This is no time for Morgase to be without Aes Sedai counsel.” Morgase was one of the few rulers to openly admit to an Aes Sedai councilor; almost all had one, but few admitted it.

“Elaida insisted, Daughter, and queen or not, I doubt Morgase is a match for Elaida in a contest of wills. In any case, perhaps this time she did not wish to be. Elayne has potential. More than I have ever seen before. Already she shows progress. The Red sisters are swollen up like puff-fish with it. I don’t think the girl leans to