The Gathering Storm twot-12 Read online

Could Egwene keep a civil tongue long enough to survive this night? She wasn't certain. However, she needed to leave this dinner with Elaida feeling that she was in control, that Egwene was properly cowed. The best way to achieve that while maintaining some measure of pride would be to say nothing at all.

  Silence. That would be her weapon this evening. Steeling herself, Egwene knocked.

  Her first surprise came when an Aes Sedai opened the door. Didn't Elaida have servants to perform that function? Egwene didn't recognize the sister, but the ageless face was obvious. The woman was of the Gray, as indicated by her shawl, and she was slender with a full bust. Her golden brown hair fell to the middle of her back, and she had a haunted cast to her eyes, as if she'd been under great strain recently.

  Elaida sat inside. Egwene hesitated in the doorway, looking in at her rival for the first time since departing from the White Tower with Nynaeve and Elayne to hunt the Black Ajah, a turning point that seemed an eternity ago. Handsome and statuesque, Elaida seemed to have lost a small measure of her sternness. She sat, secure and smiling faintly, as if thinking on some joke that only she understood. Her chair was almost a throne, carved, gilded and painted with red and white. There was a second place set at the table, presumably for the nameless Gray sister.

  Egwene had never visited an Amyrlin's own quarters before, but she could imagine what Siuan's might have looked like. Simple, yet not stark. Just enough ornamentation to indicate that this was the room of someone important, but not enough to become a distraction. Under Siuan, everything would have served a function — perhaps several functions at once. Tables with hidden compartments. Wall hangings that doubled as maps. Crossed swords over the hearth that were oiled, should the Warders need them.

  Or perhaps that was just fancy. Regardless, not only had Elaida taken different rooms for her quarters; her decorations were notably rich. The entire suite hadn't been decorated yet — there was talk that she was adding to her rooms day by day — but what was there was very lavish. New silk brocades, all of red, hung from the walls and ceilings. The Tairen rug underfoot depicted birds aflight, and was so finely woven that it could almost be mistaken for a painting. Scattered through the room were pieces of furniture of a dozen different styles and makes, each one lavishly carved and inlaid with ivory. Here a series of vines, there a knobby ridged design, there crisscrossing serpents.

  More infuriating than the extravagance was the stole across Elaida's shoulders. It was striped with six colors. Not seven, but six! Though Egwene had not chosen an Ajah herself, she would have taken the Green. But that didn't stop her from feeling a surge of anger at seeing that shawl with blue removed. One did not simply disband one of the Ajahs, even if one were the Amyrlin Seat!

  But Egwene held her tongue. This meeting was about survival. Egwene could bear straps of pain for the good of the Tower. Could she bear Elaida's arrogance as well?

  "No curtsy?" Elaida asked as Egwene entered the room. "They said that you were stubborn. Well, then, you shall visit the Mistress of Novices when this supper is through and inform her of the lapse. What do you say to that?"

  That you are a plague upon this structure as vile and destructive as any disease that has struck city and people in all years past. That you —

  Egwene broke her gaze away from Elaida's. And — feeling the shame of it vibrate through her very bones — she bowed her head.

  Elaida laughed, obviously taking the gesture the right way. "Honestly, I expected you to be more trouble. It appears that Silviana does know her duty. That is well; I had worried that she, like far too many in the Tower lately, had been shirking. Well, be busy with you. I won't wait all night to dine."

  Egwene clenched her fists, but said nothing. The back wall was set with a long serving table bearing several silver platters, their polished domed lids dripping with condensation from the heated contents. There was also a silver soup tureen. To the side, the Gray sister hovered near the door. Light! The woman was terrified. Egwene had rarely seen such an expression on a sister. What was causing it?

  "Come, Meidani," Elaida said to the Gray. "Are you going to hover all night? Sit down!"

  Egwene covered a moment of shock. Meidani? She was one of those sent by Sheriam and the others to spy on the White Tower! As Egwene checked the contents of each platter, she shot a glance over her shoulder. Meidani had found her way to the small, less ornate seat at Elaida's side. Did the Gray always wear such finery to supper? Her neck sparkled with emeralds and her muted green dress was of the most expensive silk, accentuating a bosom that might have been average on another woman, but that seemed ample on Meidani's slender body.

  Beonin said she'd warned the Gray sisters that Elaida knew they were spies. So why hadn't Meidani fled the Tower? What was holding her here?

  Well, at least now the woman's expression of terror made sense. "Meidani," Elaida said, sipping from a goblet of wine, "you are rather wan this day. Have you been getting enough sun?"

  "I have been spending a great deal of time with historical records, Elaida," Meidani said, voice uneven. "Have you forgotten?"

  "Ah, that is right," Elaida said musingly. "It will be good to know how traitors have been treated in the past. Beheading seems too easy and simple a punishment to me. Those who split our Tower, those who flaunt their defection, a very special reward will be needed for them. Well, continue your search then."

  Meidani sat down, hands in lap. Anyone other than an Aes Sedai would have had to mop her brow free of sweat. Egwene stirred the silver tureen, hand clutching the ladle with a white-knuckled grip. Elaida knew. She knew that Meidani was a spy, and yet she still invited the woman to dinner. To play with her.

  "Hurry up, girl," Elaida snapped at Egwene.

  Egwene plucked up the tureen, the handles warm beneath her fingers, and walked over to the small table. She filled the bowls with a brownish broth bobbing with Queen's Crown mushrooms. It smelled so heavily peppered that any other flavor would be indistinguishable. So much food had gone bad that without spice, the soup would be inedible.

  Egwene worked mechanically, like a wagon wheel rolling behind the oxen. She didn't have to make choices; she didn't have to respond. She just worked. She filled the soup bowls precisely, then fetched the bread basket and placed one piece — not too crusty — on each small porcelain bread saucer. She returned with a circular dab of butter for each, cut quickly but precisely from the larger brick with a couple of flicks of the knife. One did not spend long as an innkeeper's daughter without learning to serve a proper meal.

  Even as she worked, she stewed. Each step was agony, and not because of her still-burning backside. That physical pain, oddly, seemed insignificant now. It was secondary to the pain of remaining silent, the pain of not allowing herself to confront this awful woman, so regal, so arrogant.

  As the two women began their soup — pointedly ignoring the weevils in their bread — Egwene retreated to the side of the room and stood, hands clasped before her, posture stiff. Elaida glanced at her, then smiled, apparently seeing another sign of subservience. In reality, Egwene didn't trust herself to move, for she feared that any activity would end with her slapping Elaida across the face. Light, but this was hard!

  "What talk is there in the Tower, Meidani?" Elaida asked, dipping her bread in the soup.

  "I ... don't have much time to listen. ..."

  Elaida leaned forward. "Oh, surely you know something. You have ears, and even Grays must gossip. What are they saying about those rebels?"

  Meidani paled further. "I ... I ..."

  "Hmm," Elaida said. "When we were novices, I don't remember you being so slow of wit, Meidani. You haven't impressed me these last few weeks; I begin to wonder why you were ever given the shawl. Perhaps it never belonged on your shoulders in the first place."

  Meidani's eyes opened wide.

  Elaida smiled at her. "Oh, I'm only teasing you, child. Back to your meal."

  She joked! Joked about how she had stolen the shawl from a woman, humiliating
her to such an extent that she fled the Tower. Light! What had happened to Elaida? Egwene had met this woman before, and Elaida had struck her as stern, but not tyrannical. Power changed people. It appeared that in Elaida's case, holding the Amyrlin Seat had taken her sternness and solemnity and replaced them with a heady sense of entitlement and cruelty.

  Meidani looked up. "I ... I have heard sisters express worry about the Seanchan."

  Elaida waved an indifferent hand, sipping her soup. "Bah. They are too distant to be of danger to us. I wonder if they're secretly working for the Dragon Reborn. Either way, I suspect that the rumors about them are largely exaggerated." Elaida glanced at Egwene. "It's a source of constant amusement to me that some will believe anything that they hear."

  Egwene couldn't speak. She could barely have sputtered. How would Elaida feel about these "exaggerated" rumors if the Seanchan slapped a cold a'dam around her idiot neck? Egwene could sometimes feel that band on her own skin, itching, impossible to move. Sometimes, it still made her faintly sick to move around freely, as if she felt that she should be locked away, chained to the post on the wall by a simple loop of metal.

  She knew what she had dreamed, and knew those dreams to be prophetic. The Seanchan would strike at the White Tower itself. Elaida, obviously, discounted her warnings.

  "No," Elaida said, waving for Egwene to bring another ladle of soup. "These Seanchan are not the problem. The real danger is the complete lack of obedience shown by the Aes Sedai. What will I have to do to end those foolish talks at the bridges? How many sisters will have to do penance before they acknowledge my authority?" She sat, tapping her spoon against her soup cup. Egwene, at the serving table, picked up the tureen, retrieving the ladle from its silver holder.

  "Yes," Elaida mused, "if the sisters had been obedient, then the Tower wouldn't be divided. Those rebels would have obeyed rather than running off like a silly flock of startled birds. If the sisters were obedient, we would have the Dragon Reborn in our hands, and those horrid men training in their 'Black Tower' would have been dealt with long ago. What do you think, Meidani?"

  "I ... obedience is certainly important, Elaida."

  Elaida shook her head as Egwene ladled soup into her bowl. "Anyone would admit that, Meidani. I asked what should be done. Fortunately, I have an idea myself. Doesn't it strike you as strange that the Three Oaths contain no mention of obedience to the White Tower? Sisters cannot lie, cannot make a weapon for men to kill other men, and cannot use the Power as a weapon against others except in defense. Those oaths have always seemed too lax to me. Why no oath to obey the Amyrlin? If that simple promise were part of all of us, how much pain and difficulty could we have avoided? Perhaps some revision is in order."

  Egwene stood still. Once, she herself hadn't understood the importance of the oaths. She suspected that many a novice and Accepted had questioned their usefulness. But she had learned, as every Aes Sedai must, their importance. The Three Oaths were what made the Aes Sedai. They were what kept the Aes Sedai doing what was best for the world, but more than that, they were a shelter from accusations.

  Changing them . . . well, it would be an unprecedented disaster. Elaida should know that. The false Amyrlin just turned back to her soup, smiling to herself, no doubt contemplating a fourth oath to demand obedience. Couldn't she see how that would undermine the Tower itself? It would transform the Amyrlin from a leader to a despot!

  Egwene's rage boiled within her, steaming like the soup in her hands. This woman, this . . . creature! She was the cause of the problems in the White Tower, she was the one who caused division between rebels and loyalists. She had taken Rand captive and beaten him. She was a disaster!

  Egwene felt herself shaking. In another moment, she'd burst and let Elaida hear truth. It was boiling free from her, and she could barely contain it.

  No! she thought. /// do that, my battle ends. I lose my war.

  So Egwene did the only thing she could think of to stop herself. She dumped the soup on the floor.

  Brownish liquid sprayed across the delicate rug of red, yellow and green birds aflight. Elaida cursed, jumping up from her seat and backing away from the spill. None of the liquid had gotten on her dress, which was a shame. Egwene calmly snatched a serving towel off of the table and began to mop up the spill.

  "You clumsy idiot!" Elaida snapped.

  "I'm sorry," Egwene said, "I wish that hadn't happened." And she did. She wished none of this evening had occurred. She wished Elaida weren't in control; she wished the Tower had never been broken. She wished she hadn't been forced to spill the soup on the floor. But she had. And so she dealt with it, kneeling and scrubbing.

  Elaida sputtered, pointing. "That rug is worth more than your entire village, wilder! Meidani, help her!"

  The Gray didn't offer a single objection. She scurried over and grabbed a bucket of chilled water, which had been cooling some wine, and hurried back to help Egwene. Elaida moved over to a door on the far side of the room to call for servants.

  "Send for me," Egwene whispered as Meidani knelt down to help clean.

  "What?"

  "Send for me to give me instruction," Egwene said quietly, glancing at Elaida, whose back was turned. "We need to speak."

  Egwene had originally intended to avoid the Salidar spies, letting Beonin act as her messenger. But she had too many questions. Why hadn't Meidani fled the Tower? What were the spies planning? Had any of the others been adopted by Elaida and beaten down as soundly as Meidani?

  Meidani glanced at Elaida, then back at Egwene. "I may not seem it sometimes, but I'm still Aes Sedai, girl. You cannot order me."

  "I am your Amyrlin, Meidani," Egwene said calmly, wringing a towel-ful of soup into a pitcher. "And you would do best to remember it. Unless you want the Three Oaths replaced with vows to serve Elaida for eternity."

  Meidani glanced at her, then cringed at Elaida's shrill calls for servants. The poor woman had obviously seen a hard time lately.

  Egwene laid a hand on her shoulder. "Elaida can be unseated, Meidani. The Tower will be reunited. I will see it happen, but we must keep courage. Send for me."

  Meidani looked up, studying Egwene. "How . . . how do you do it? They say you are punished three and four times a day, that you need Healing between so that they can beat you further. How can you take it?"

  "I take it because I must," Egwene said, lowering her hand. "Just as we all do what we must. Your service here watching Elaida is difficult, I can see, but know that your work is noticed and appreciated."

  Egwene didn't know if Meidani really had been sent to spy on Elaida, but it was always better for a woman to think that her suffering was for a good purpose. It seemed to have been the right thing to say, for Meidani straightened, taking heart and nodding. "Thank you."

  Elaida was returning, behind her three servants.

  "Send for me," Egwene ordered Meidani again, voice a whisper. "I am one of the few in this Tower who has a good excuse to move between the various Ajah quarters. I can help heal what has been broken, but I will need your help."

  Meidani hesitated, then nodded. "Very well."

  "You!" Elaida snapped, stepping up to Egwene. "Out! I want you to tell Silviana to strap you as she's never strapped a woman before! I want her to punish you, then Heal you on the spot, then beat you again! Go!"

  Egwene stood, handing her towel to one of the servants. Then she walked to the exit.

  "And don't think that your clumsiness has allowed you to escape your duties," Elaida continued from behind. "You will return and serve me again on another date. And if you so much as spill another drop, I will have you locked away in a cell with no windows or lights for a week. Do you understand?"

  Egwene left the room. Had this woman ever been a true Aes Sedai, in control of her emotions?

  Yet Egwene herself had lost control of her emotions. She should never have let herself get to a point where she'd been forced to drop the soup. She had underestimated how infuriating Elaida could be, but that w
ould not happen again. She calmed herself as she walked, breathing in and out. Rage did her no good. You didn't get mad at the weasel who was sneaking into your yard and eating your hens. You simply laid a trap and disposed of the animal. Anger was pointless.

  Hands still smelling faintly of pepper and spices, she made her way down to the lowest level of the Tower, to the novices' dining hall beside the main kitchens. Egwene had worked in those kitchens herself frequently during the last nine days; every novice was required to work chores. The smells of the place — charcoal and smoke, simmering soups and sharp, unscented soaps — were very familiar to her. The smells weren't that different, actually, from the kitchen of her father's inn back in the Two Rivers.

  The white-walled room was empty, the tables sitting unattended, though there was a small tray on one of them, covered with a pot lid to keep it warm. Her cushion was there as well, left by the novices to soften the hard bench. Egwene approached, but ignored the cushion as she always did, though she was grateful for the gesture. She sat and removed the lid from the meal. Unfortunately, all she found was a bowl of the same brownish soup. There was no hint of the roast, gravy or long, thin buttered beans that had made up the rest of Elaida's meal.

  Still, it was food, and Egwene's stomach was grateful for it. Elaida hadn't ordered that she immediately go for punishment, and so Silviana's order that she eat first took precedence. Or, at least, there was enough of an argument there to protect her.

  She ate quietly, alone. The soup was indeed spicy, and it tasted as much of pepper as it had smelled, but she didn't mind. Other than that, it was actually quite good. She'd also been left a few slices of bread, though she'd gotten the ends of the loaf. All in all, not a bad meal for someone who had thought she might get nothing.

  Egwene ate contemplatively, listening to Laras and the scullions bang pots at washing up in the other room, surprised at how calm she felt. She had changed; something was different about her. Watching Elaida, finally confronting the woman who had been her rival all of these months, forced her to look at what she was doing in a new light.