Winter's Heart Read online

  “Enough, Lina,” Therava said firmly. The hand on Galina’s shoulder tightened visibly. “You know I hate it when you natter.”

  The gai’shain flinched as if struck, and her mouth snapped shut. Practically writhing, she smiled up at Therava, fawning even more wretchedly than she had for Sevanna. Gold flashed on one of her fingers as she wrung her hands. Fear flashed in her eyes, too. Dark eyes. Definitely not Aiel. Therava seemed oblivious to the woman’s truckling; a dog had been called to heel and had obeyed. Her attention was all on Sevanna. Someryn eyed the gai’shain sideways, her lips twisting with contempt, but she folded her shawl across her bosom and looked to Sevanna as well. Aiel did not give away much on their faces, yet plainly she disliked Sevanna, and was wary of her at the same time.

  Faile’s eyes followed the mounted woman, too, over the edge of her mug. In a way, it was like seeing Logain, or Mazrim Taim. Sevanna also had painted her name across the sky in blood and fire. Cairhien would need years to recover from what she had wrought there, and the ripples had spread to Andor and Tear and beyond. Perrin laid the blame to a man called Couladin, but Faile had heard enough of this woman to have a shrewd idea whose hand had been behind it all. And no one disputed that the slaughter at Dumai’s Wells was Sevanna’s fault. Perrin had almost died there. She had a personal claim on Sevanna for that. She might be willing to let Rolan keep his ears if she could settle that claim.

  The flamboyantly garbed woman walked her mount slowly along the line of kneeling women, her steady green eyes almost as cold as Therava’s. The sound of snow crunching beneath the black’s hooves suddenly seemed loud. “Which of you is the maid?” An odd question. Maighdin hesitated, tight-jawed, before raising a hand from beneath her blanket. Sevanna nodded thoughtfully. “And the . . . liege lady?”

  Faile considered holding back, but one way or another, Sevanna would learn what she wanted to know. Reluctantly, she lifted her hand. And shivered from more than the cold. Therava was watching with those cruel eyes, paying close attention. To Sevanna, and to those she marked out.

  How anyone could be unaware of that augering gaze, Faile did not understand, yet Sevanna seemed so as she turned her gelding down the back of the line. “They cannot walk on those feet,” she said after a moment. “I do not see why they should ride with the children. Heal them, Galina.”

  Faile gave a start and almost dropped the clay mug. She pushed it toward the gai’shain, trying to make out that that was what she had been doing all along. It was empty anyway. The scarred fellow calmly began filling it up again from his water bag of tea. Heal? Surely she could not mean . . .

  “Very well,” Therava said, giving the gai’shain woman a shove that staggered her. “Do it quickly, little Lina. I know you do not want to disappoint me.”

  Galina caught herself from falling, but only to struggle on toward the prisoners. She sank above her knees in places, her robes dragging in the snow, but she was intent on reaching her goal. Wide-eyed fear and revulsion mingled on her round face with . . . could it be, eagerness? All in all, it was a sickening combination.

  Sevanna completed her circuit, coming back to where Faile could see her clearly, and reined in facing the Wise Ones. The woman’s full mouth was tight. The icy breeze rippled her cloak, but she seemed unaware of it, or of the snow falling on her head. “I have just received word, Therava.” Her voice was calm, though lightning bolts should have been flashing from her eyes. “Tonight we camp with the Jonine.”

  “A fifth sept,” Therava replied flatly. For her, also, wind and snow might as well not have existed. “Five, while seventy-eight remain scattered on the wind. Well that you remember your pledge to reunite the Shaido, Sevanna. We will not wait forever.”

  Not lightning bolts, now. Sevanna’s eyes were green volcanoes erupting. “I always do what I say, Therava. Well that you remember that. And remember that you advise me. I speak for the clan chief.”

  Wheeling her gelding, she drummed her heels on the animal’s ribs, trying to make him gallop back toward the river of people and wagons, though no horse could do so in that depth of snow. The black managed something faster than a walk, but not much. Their faces expressionless as masks, Therava and Someryn watched horse and rider fade into the falling white veil.

  An important exchange, at least to Faile. She knew tension tight as a harpstring when she saw it, and mutual hatred. A weakness that might be exploited, if she could puzzle out how. And it seemed the Shaido were not all here after all. Though more than enough seemed to be, judging by the unending river of them passing by. Galina reached her then, and anything else fled from her mind.

  Smoothing her face to a ragged semblance of composure, Galina clutched Faile’s head in both hands without speaking a word. Faile might have gasped; she could not be sure. The world seemed to fly by as she jerked halfway to her feet. Hours streaked by, or heartbeats crawled. The white-clad woman stepped back, and Faile collapsed on her face atop the brown blanket to lie panting against the rough wool. Her feet no longer hurt, but Healing always brought its own hunger, and she had eaten nothing since yesterday’s breakfast. She could have wolfed down plates of anything that even looked like food. She no longer felt tired, but her muscles were water instead of pudding. Pushing herself up with arms that wanted to fold under her weight, she unsteadily gathered the gray-striped blanket again. She felt stunned as much by what she had seen on Galina’s hand just before Galina seized her as she did by the Healing. Gratefully she let the scarred man hold the steaming mug to her mouth. She was not sure her fingers could have held on to it.

  Galina was wasting no time. A dazed Alliandre was just attempting to rise from flat on her face, her striped covering blanket sliding to the ground unnoticed. Her welts were gone, of course. Maighdin still lay sprawled between her two blankets, loose limbs poking out in every direction and twitching as she feebly tried to collect herself. Chiad, with Galina’s hands on her head, lurched all the way to her feet, arms flung wide, breath leaving her in a loud rush. The yellowed swelling on her face faded away even as Faile watched. The Maiden dropped as if poleaxed when Galina moved on to Bain, though she began stirring almost at once.

  Faile attended to her tea, and furious thought. The gold on Galina’s finger was a Great Serpent ring. She might have thought it a strange present from whoever gave the woman her other jewels if not for the Healing. Galina was Aes Sedai. She must be. But what was an Aes Sedai doing here, in gai’shain robes? Not to mention apparently ready to lick Sevanna’s wrist and kiss Therava’s feet! An Aes Sedai!

  Standing over a limp Arrela, the last in the line, Galina panted slightly from the effort of Healing so many so quickly, and gazed at Therava as though hopeful for a word of praise. Without so much as a look at her, the two Wise Ones started toward the river of Shaido, their heads together, talking. After a moment, the Aes Sedai scowled and lifted her robes, hurrying after them as quickly as she could. She glanced back more than once, though. Faile had the feeling that she did so even after the falling snow put a curtain between them.

  More gai’shain came the other way, a dozen men and women, and only one was Aiel, a lanky redhead with a thin white scar from hairline to jaw. Faile recognized short, pallid Cairhienin, and others she thought might be Amadician or Altaran, taller and darker, and even a bronze-skinned Domani. The Domani and one of the other women wore wide belts of shiny golden chain tight around their waists, and collars of the flat links around their necks. So did one of the men! In any case, jewelry on gai’shain seemed unimportant except as an oddity, especially alongside the food and clothing they brought.

  Some of the newcomers carried baskets with loaves of bread and yellow cheese and dried beef, and the gai’shain already there with their water bags of tea provided drink to wash it down. Faile was not alone in stuffing her mouth with unseemly haste even while she dressed, clumsily and with more mind to speed than modesty. The hooded white robe and two thick under-robes seemed wondrously warm, just to keep the air off, and so were heavy wool
en stockings and soft Aiel boots that laced to her knees—even the boots had been bleached white!—but they did not fill up the hole in her middle. The meat was tough as boot leather, the cheese nearly rock hard and the bread not much softer, yet they tasted like a feast! Her mouth watered for every bite.

  Chewing a mouthful of cheese, she knotted the last bootlace and stood, smoothing down her robes. As she reached for some more bread, one of the women wearing gold, plump and plain and weary-eyed, took another belt of golden chain out of a cloth sack hanging from her shoulder. Hastily swallowing, Faile stepped back. “I would rather not have that, thank you.” She had a sinking feeling she had been wrong to dismiss the adornments as unimportant.

  “What you want does not matter,” the plump woman replied tiredly. Her accent was Amadician, and cultured. “You serve the Lady Sevanna, now. You will wear what you are given and do as you are told, or you will be punished until you see the error of your ways.”

  A few paces away, Maighdin was fending off the Domani, resisting being fitted with a collar. Alliandre was backing away from the man who wore golden chains, her hands raised and a sickly expression on her face. He held out one of the belts toward her. Thankfully, they were both looking to Faile, though. Perhaps that switching in the forest had done some good.

  Exhaling heavily, Faile nodded to them, then allowed the plump gai’shain to fasten the wide belt around her. With her example, the other two let their hands fall. It seemed one blow too many for Alliandre, who stood staring at nothing as she was belted and collared. Maighdin did her best to glare a hole through the slim Domani. Faile tried smiling encouragement, but smiling was difficult. To her, the collar’s catch snapping shut sounded like a prison door being locked. Belt and collar could be removed as easily as they had been put on, but gai’shain serving “the Lady Sevanna” surely would be watched very closely. Disaster was piling on disaster. Things had to get better from here on. They had to.

  Soon, Faile found herself tramping though the snow on wobbly legs with a stumbling, dull-eyed Alliandre and a scowling Maighdin, surrounded by gai’shain leading pack animals, carrying large covered baskets on their backs, dragging loaded barrows with the wheels lashed to wooden sleds. The carts and wagons had sleds or broad runners, too, with the wheels tied on top of the snow-shrouded cargo. Snow might be unfamiliar to the Shaido, but they had learned something of traveling in it. Neither Faile nor the other two bore any burdens, though the plump Amadician woman made clear that they would be expected to carry or haul tomorrow and from then on. However many Shaido were in the column, it seemed a great city on the move, if not a nation. Children up to twelve or thirteen rode on the carts and wagons, but everyone else walked. All of the men wore the cadin’sor, but most women wore skirts and blouses and shawls like the Wise Ones, and most of the men carried only a single spear or no weapon at all and looked softer than the others. Soft meaning that there were stones softer than granite.

  By the time the Amadician left, without giving her name or saying much more than obey or be punished, Faile realized that she had lost sight of Bain and the rest somewhere in the falling snow. No one tried to make her keep a particular place, so she tramped wearily back and forth across the column, accompanied by Alliandre and Maighdin. Keeping her hands folded together in her sleeves made walking difficult, especially wading through snow, but it did keep them warm. Warmer than the alternative, at least. The wind made sure they kept their hoods well up. Despite the identifying golden belts, neither gai’shain nor Shaido looked at them twice. Despite crossing the column a dozen times or more, however, the search proved fruitless. There were people in white robes everywhere, more than without, and any of those deep cowls could have hidden her other companions.

  “We will have to find them tonight,” Maighdin said finally. She actually managed to stalk through the deep snow, if in an ungainly fashion. Her blue eyes were fierce inside the cavern of her hood, and she gripped the broad golden chain around her neck with one hand as if wanting to rip it off. “As it is, we’re taking ten steps to one for everyone else. Twenty for one. It will do us little good to arrive at tonight’s camp too exhausted to move.”

  On Faile’s other side, Alliandre roused from her numbness enough to raise an eyebrow at the decisiveness in Maighdin’s voice. Faile merely looked at her maid, but that was enough to set Maighdin blushing and stammering. What had gotten into the woman? Still, it might not be what she expected from a serving woman, but she could not fault Maighdin’s spirit in a companion for escape. A pity the woman could not channel more. Faile had had great hopes of that once, until she learned that Maighdin possessed so little ability it was useless.

  “Tonight it must be, Maighdin,” she agreed. Or however many nights it took. She did not mention that. Hurriedly she surveyed the people nearest them to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. The Shaido, whether in cadin’sor or not, moved through the falling snow purposefully, pressing forward toward an unseen goal. The gai’shain—the other gai’shain—moved with a different purpose. Obey or be punished. “The way they ignore us,” she went on, “it should be possible to just fall by the wayside, so long as you don’t try under a Shaido’s nose. If either of you finds a chance, take it. These robes will help you hide in the snow, and once you find a village, the gold they’ve so graciously given us will see you back to my husband. He will be following.” Not too quickly, she hoped. Not too closely, at least. The Shaido had an army here. A small army, perhaps, compared to some, but larger than Perrin’s.

  Alliandre’s face hardened in determination. “I will not leave without you,” she said softly. Softly, yet in firm tones. “I will not take my oath of fealty lightly, my Lady. I will escape with you, or not at all!”

  “She speaks for both of us,” Maighdin said. “I may be only a simple maid,” she wrung the word with scorn, “but I won’t leave anyone behind to these . . . these bandits!” Her voice was not simply firm; it brooked no opposition. Really, after this, Lini would have to have a very long talk with her before she was fit to hold her position!

  Faile opened her mouth to argue—no, to command; Alliandre was her sworn woman, and Maighdin her maid, however fire-brained captivity had made her! They would follow her orders!—but she let the words die on her tongue.

  Dark shapes approaching through the tide of Shaido and the falling snow resolved into a cluster of Aiel-women with their shawls framing their faces. Therava led them. A murmured word from her, and the others slowed to keep pace behind while Therava joined Faile and her companions. That was to say, she walked alongside them. Her fierce eyes seemed to chill even Maighdin’s enthusiasm, not that she gave them more than a glance. To her, they were not worth looking at.

  “You are thinking of escape,” she began. No one else opened her mouth, but the Wise One added, “Do not try denying it!” in a scornful voice.

  “We will try to serve as we should, Wise One,” Faile said carefully. She kept her head down in her cowl and made sure not to meet the taller woman’s eyes.

  “You know something of our ways.” Therava sounded surprised, but it vanished quickly. “Good. But you take me for a fool if you think I believe you will serve meekly. I see spirit in the three of you, for wetlanders. Some never try to escape, but only the dead succeed. The living are always brought back. Always.”

  “I will heed your words, Wise One,” Faile said humbly. Always? Well, there had to be a first time. “We all will.”

  “Oh, very good,” Therava murmured. “You might even convince someone as blind as Sevanna. Know this, however, gai’shain. Wetlanders are not as others who wear white. Rather than being released at the end of a year and a day, you will serve until you are too bent and withered to work. I am your only hope of avoiding that fate.”

  Faile stumbled in the snow, and if Alliandre and Maighdin had not caught her windmilling arms, she would have fallen. Therava gestured impatiently for them to keep moving. Faile felt sick. Therava would help them escape? Chiad and Bain claimed t
he Aiel knew nothing of the Game of Houses and scorned wetlanders for playing it, but Faile recognized the currents swirling around her now. Currents that would pull all of them under if she misstepped.

  “I do not understand, Wise One.” She wished her voice did not sound so hoarse, suddenly.

  Perhaps that very hoarseness convinced Therava, though. People like her believed in fear as a motivation before any other. At any rate, she smiled. It was not a warm smile, just a curving of thin lips, and the only emotion it conveyed was satisfaction. “All three of you will watch and listen while you serve Sevanna. Each day a Wise One will question you, and you will repeat every word Sevanna said, and who she spoke to. If she talks in her sleep, you will repeat what she mumbles. Please me, and I will see that you are left behind.”

  Faile wanted no part of this, but refusal was out of the question. If she refused, none of them would survive the night. She was certain of that. Therava would take no chances. They might not even survive until nightfall; this snow would hide three white-clad corpses quickly, and she very much doubted that anyone within sight would so much as protest if Therava decided to slit a few throats then and there. Everyone was focused on moving forward through the snow in any case. They might not even see.

  “If she learns of it. . . .” Faile swallowed. The woman was asking them to walk out on a crumbling cliff. No, she was ordering them to. Did the Aiel kill spies? She had never thought to ask Chiad or Bain that. “Will you protect us, Wise One?”

  The hard-faced woman caught Faile’s chin with steely fingers, pulling her to a halt, pulling her up on her toes. Therava’s eyes caught hers just as tightly. Faile’s mouth went dry. That stare promised pain. “If she learns of it, gai’shain, I will trice you up for cooking myself. So make sure she does not. Tonight you will serve in her tents. You and a hundred others, so you will not have many labors to distract you from what is important.”