The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time #4)

The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time #4) Page 145

“Why would they not?” Siuan breathed. “What would they not dare, when they dared so much?”

They hunched their shoulders in their cloaks and let Min lead them as she would. She just wished their faces did not look so hopeless.

As they drew nearer an outside door, she began to breathe more easily. She had horses hidden in a wooded part of the grounds, not far from one of the western gates. There was still the question of how easy it would be to actually ride out, but once they reached the horses she would feel the next thing to free. Surely the gate guards would not stop three women leaving. She kept telling herself that.

The door she sought appeared ahead — a small, plainpaneled door, letting onto a path not much used, just opposite where this hall met the broad corridor that ran all the way around the Tower — and Elaida's face caught her eye, sweeping down the outer corridor toward her.

Min's knees thudded onto the floor tiles, and she huddled, head down and face hidden by her hood, heart trying to pound through her ribs. A petitioner, that's all I am. Just a simple woman, with nothing to do with what's happened. Oh, Light, please! She raised her head just enough to peek under the edge of her hood, halfexpecting to see a gloating Elaida staring down at her.

Elaida swept by without a glance in Min's direction, the broad, striped stole of the Amyrlin Seat around her shoulders. Alviarin followed, wearing the stole of the Keeper of the Chronicles, white for her Ajah. A dozen or more Aes Sedai passed at Alviarin's heels, mostly Reds, though Min saw two yellowfringed shawls, a green one and a brown. Six Warders flanked the procession, hands on hilts and eyes wary. Those eyes swept across the three kneeling women and dismissed them.

They were all three kneeling, Min realized, and realized, too, that she had almost expected Siuan and Leane to launch themselves at Elaida's throat. Both women had lifted their heads just enough to watch the procession make its way on down the corridor.

“Very few women have been stilled,” Siuan said, as if to herself, “and none have survived long, but it is said that one way to survive is to find something you want as much as you wanted to channel.” That lost look was gone from her eyes. “At first I thought I wanted to gut Elaida and hang her in the sun to dry. Now I know I want nothing — nothing! — so much as the day I can tell that leech of a woman that she'll live a long life showing others what happens to anyone who claims I am a Darkfriend!”

“And Alviarin,” Leane said in a tight voice. “And Alviarin!”

“I was afraid they'd sense me,” Siuan went on, “but there is nothing for them to sense, now. An advantage to having been... stilled, it seems.” Leane jerked her head angrily, and Siuan said, “We must use whatever advantages we can find. And be glad for them.” The last sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

The final Warder disappeared around the distant curve, and Min swallowed the lump in her throat. “We can talk of advantages later,” she croaked, and stopped to swallow again. “Let us just go to the horses. That has to have been the worst.”

Indeed, as they hurried out of the Tower into the noonday sun, it seemed the worst must have passed. A column of smoke rising toward a cloudless sky in the east of the Tower grounds was the only sign of old trouble. Groups of men moved in the distance, but none gave a second glance to the three women as they scurried past the library, which was built like towering waves frozen in stone. A footpath led deeper into the grounds and westward, into a wood of oaks and evergreens that could have stood far from any city. Min's steps lightened when she found the three saddled horses still tied where she and Laras had left them, in a small clearing surrounded by leatherleaf and paperbark.

Siuan went immediately to a stout, shaggy mare two hands shorter than the others. “A suitable mount for my present circumstances. And she looks more placid than the other two; I was never a good rider.” She stroked the mare's nose, and the mare nuzzled into her palm. “What is her name, Min? Do you know?”

“Bela. She belongs to —”

“Her horse.” Gawyn stepped from behind a widetrunked paperbark, one hand on the long hilt of his sword. The blood streaking his face made exactly the pattern Min had seen in her viewing, her first day back in Tar Valon. “I knew you must be up to something, Min, when I saw her horse.” His redgold hair was matted with blood, his blue eyes halfdazed, but he walked toward them smoothly, a tall man with a catlike grace. A cat stalking mice.

“Gawyn,” Min began, “we —”

His sword was out of its scabbard, flicking back Siuan's hood, sharp edge laid against the side of her throat, all faster than Min could follow. Siuan's breath caught audibly, and she was still, looking up at him, outwardly as serene as though she yet wore the stole.

“Don't, Gawyn!” Min gasped. “You must not!” She took a step toward him, but he flung up his free hand without looking at her, and she stopped. He was as tight as coiled steel, ready to burst out in any direction. She noticed Leane had shifted her cloak to hide one hand and prayed the woman was not fool enough to draw her belt knife.

Gawyn studied Siuan's face, then slowly nodded. “It is you. I was not sure, but it is. This... disguise cannot —” He did not appear to move, but a sudden widening of Siuan's eyes spoke of a keen edge pressing harder. “Where are my sister and Egwene? What have you done with them?” Most frightening to Min, with that bloodmasked face and halfglazed eyes, with his body tensed almost to quivering and his hand upflung as if he had forgotten it, he never raised his voice or put any emotion into it. He only sounded tired, more tired than she had ever heard anyone sound in her life.

Siuan's voice was nearly as neutral. “The last I heard from them, they were safe and well. I cannot say where they are, now. Would you rather they were here, in the middle of this feeding frenzy?”

“No Aes Sedai word games,” he said softly. “Tell me where they were, straight out, so I know you speak the truth.”

“Illian,” Siuan said without hesitation. “In the city itself. They are studying with an Aes Sedai named Mara Tomanes, They should still be there.”

“Not Tear,” he murmured. For a moment he appeared to think that over. Abruptly, he said, “They say you are a Darkfriend. Black Ajah, that would be, would it not?”

“If you really believe that,” Siuan said calmly, “then strike off my head.”

Min almost screamed as his knuckles whitened on his sword hilt. Slowly she reached out and rested her fingers against his outstretched wrist, careful not to make him think she meant to do anything more than touch. It was like resting her fingers on rock. “Gawyn, you know me. You can't think I would help the Black Ajah.” His eyes never wavered from Siuan's face, never blinked. “Gawyn, Elayne supports her and everything she's done. Your own sister, Gawyn.” His flesh was still stone. “Egwene believes in her, too, Gawyn.” His wrist trembled under her fingers. “I swear it, Gawyn. Egwene believes.”

His eyes flickered to her, then back to Siuan. “Why shouldn't I drag you back by the scruff of your neck? Give me a reason.”

Siuan met his stare with a good deal more calm than Min felt. “You could do it, and I suppose my struggles wouldn't give you much more trouble than a kitten's. Yesterday, I was one of the most powerful women in the world. Perhaps the most powerful. Kings and queens would come if I summoned them, even if they hated the Tower and all it stood for. Today, I'm afraid that I may have nothing to eat tonight, and that I'll have to sleep under a bush. In the space of one day I've been reduced from the most powerful woman in the world to one hoping to find a farm where I might earn my keep in the fields. Whatever you think I have done, isn't that a fitting punishment?”

“Perhaps,” he said after a moment. Min took a deep breath of relief as he resheathed his sword in a flowing motion. “But that is not why I will let you go. Elaida might take your head yet, and I cannot allow that. I want what you know to be there, if I need it.”

“Gawyn,” Min said, “come with us.” A Wardertrained swordsman might be useful in the days to come. “That way you'd have her ready to hand to answer your questions.” Siuan's gaze flickered to her, not really leaving Gawyn's face and not exactly indignant; she pressed on anyway. “Gawyn, Egwene and Elayne believe in her. Can't you believe, too?”

“Do not ask more than I can give,” he said quietly. “I will take you to the nearest gate. You would never get out without me. That's all I can do, Min, and it is more than I should. Your arrest has been ordered; did you know that?” His eyes swung back to Siuan. “If anything happens to them,” he said in that expressionless voice, “to Egwene or my sister, I will find you, wherever you hide, and I will make sure the same happens to you.” Abruptly he stalked a dozen paces away and stood with his arms folded, head down as if he could not bear to look at them any longer.

Siuan halfraised a hand to her throat; a tiny line of red on the fair skin marked where his blade had rested. “I've been too long with the Power,” she said, a trifle unsteadily. “I had forgotten what it is like to face someone who can pick you up and snap you like a thread.” She peered at Leane then, as if seeing her for the first time, and touched her own face as though unsure what it looked like. “From what I have read it is supposed to take longer to fade, but perhaps Elaida's rough treatment had something to do with it. A disguise, he called it, and it may serve for one.” She clambered awkwardly onto Bela's back, handling the reins as if the shaggy mare were a spirited stallion. “Another advantage, it seems, to being... I have to learn to say it without flinching. I have been stilled.” She said the words slowly and deliberately, then nodded. “There. If Leane is any guide, I've lost a good fifteen years, maybe more. I've known women who would pay any price for that. A third advantage.” She glanced at Gawyn. He still had his back turned, but she lowered her voice anyway. “Along with a certain loosening of the tongue, shall we say? I had not thought of Mara in years. A friend of my girlhood.”

“Will you age like the rest of us, now?” Min asked as she climbed into her saddle. Better than commenting on the lie. Better just to remember that she could lie now. Leane mounted the third mare with smooth skill and walked her in a circle, testing her step; she had surely been on a horse before.

Siuan shook her head. “I really don't know. No stilled woman has ever lived long enough to find out. I intend to.”

“Do you mean to go,” Gawyn asked harshly, “or sit there talking?” Without waiting for an answer, he strode off through the trees.

They heeled their mares after him, Siuan pulling her hood well forward to hide her face. Disguise or no, it seemed she was taking no chances. Leane was already shrouded as deeply in hers as she could be. After a moment, Min imitated them. Elaida wanted her arrested? That had to mean that she knew “Elmindreda” was Min. How long had the woman known? How long had Min been walking around thinking herself hidden while Elaida watched and smirked at her for a fool?