Robert Jordan - New Spring - The Novel

Dragging a crate with broken slats from further up the alley, she settled on it, fussing with her skirts, peering toward the street, muttering about people looking in as they passed. Her reluctance did nothing to soothe Moiraine's fluttering stomach. It seemed to do little for Siuan's, either. When she started again, she kept pausing to swallow, like a woman who wanted to sick up.

"Meilyn returned to the Tower almost a month ago. I don't know why. She didn't say where she had been, or where she was going, but she only meant to stay a few nights. I… I'd heard about Kerene the morning Meilyn came back, and the others before that. So I decided to speak to her. Don't look at me that way! I know how to be cautious!"

Cautious? Siuan? Moiraine could have laughed. Only she knew if she did, it might well tip over into tears of her own. This was madness. It had to be madness. She shoved that horrible thought away again. There had to be another explanation. There had to be.

"Anyway, I sneaked into her rooms and hid under the bed. So the servants wouldn't see me when they turned down her sheets." Siuan grunted sourly. "I fell asleep under there. Sunrise woke me, and her bed hadn't been slept in. So I sneaked out again-not easy that time of morning, but I'm sure nobody saw me-and went down to the second sitting of breakfast. And while I was spooning my porridge, Chesmal Emry came in to… She… She announced that Meilyn had been found in her bed, that she'd died during the night." She finished in a rush and sagged, staring at Moiraine.

Moiraine was very glad to be sitting. Her knees would not have supported a feather. It was madness. Murder had been done. "The Red Ajah?" she suggested finally. A Red might kill a sister she thought intended to protect a man who could channel. It was possible. But she could not have said it aloud, because she did not believe it Siuan snorted. "Meilyn didn't have a mark on her. Yellows delved her, of course. They'd have detected poison, or smothering. They found nothing and called it a natural death. But I know it wasn't. It couldn't be, not the way they found her. No marks. That means the Power, Moiraine. Could even a Red do that?" Her voice was fierce, but she pulled the bundle up, clutching it on her lap. She seemed to be hiding behind it. Still, there was less fear on her face than anger, now.

"Think, Moiraine. Tamra supposedly died in her sleep, too. Only we know Meilyn didn't, no matter where she was found. First Tamra, then the others started dying. The only thing that makes sense is that someone noticed her calling sisters in and wanted to know why badly enough that they bloody risked putting the Amyrlin Seat herself to the question. They had to have something to hide to do that, something they'd hazard anything to keep hidden. They killed her to hide it, to hide what they'd done, and then they set out to kill the rest. Which means they don't want the boy found, not alive. They don't want the Dragon Reborn at the Last Battle. Any other way to look at it is tossing the slop bucket into the wind and hoping for the best."

Unconsciously, Moiraine peered toward the mouth of the alley. A few people walking by glanced in, but none more than once. No one paused at seeing them seated there. Some things were easier to speak of when you were not too specific. "The Amyrlin" had been put to the question; "she" had been killed. Not Tamra, not a name that brought up the familiar face. "Someone" had murdered her. "They" did not want the Dragon Reborn found. Putting someone to the question with the Power violated none of the Three Oaths, but murder using saidar certainly did, even for… For those Moiraine did not want to name any more than Siuan did.

Forcing her face to smoothness, forcing her voice to calm, she forced the words out. "The Black Ajah." Siuan flinched, then nodded, glowering.

Almost any sister grew angry at the suggestion that a secret Ajah existed, hidden inside the others, an Ajah dedicated to the Dark One. Most sisters refused to listen to any mention of it. The White Tower had stood for the Light for over three thousand years. But some sisters did not deny the Black straight out. Some believed. Very few would admit it even to another sister, though. Moiraine did not want to admit it to herself.

Siuan plucked fretfully at the ties on her bundle, but she went on in a brisk voice. "I don't think they have our names-Tamra never really thought us part of it; she told us to be quiet, put us aside, and forgot us-else I'd have had an 'accident,' too. Just before I left, I slipped a note with my suspicions under Sierin's door. Not about the boy; about the… About the Black. Only, I didn't know how much to trust her even there. The Amyrlin Seat! But if it's real, then anybody could belong. Anybody! I wrote with my left hand, but I was shaking so hard, no one could recognize my writing if I'd used my right. Burn my liver! Even if we knew who to trust, we have bilge water for proof."

"Enough for me." Light, the Black Ajah! "If they know everything, all the women Tamra chose, there may be none left except us. We will have to move fast if we have a hope of finding the boy." It all seemed hopeless-who could say how many Black sisters there might be? twenty? fifty? and a terrible thought: more? — but Moiraine tried for a vigorous tone, too. It was gratifying that Siuan only nodded. She would not give up for all her talk of shaking, and she never considered that Moiraine might. Most gratifying. Especially when she still doubted her knees. "Perhaps they know us, and perhaps not. Perhaps they think they can leave two new sisters for last. In any case, we cannot trust anyone but ourselves." The blood drained from her face, and she suddenly felt lightheaded. "Oh, Light! I just had an encounter at the inn, Siuan."

She tried to recall every word, every nuance, from the moment Merean first spoke. Siuan listened with a distant look, filing and sorting. "Cadsuane could be Black Ajah," she agreed when Moiraine finished. She barely hesitated over the words. "Maybe she's just trying to get you out of the way until she can dispose of you without rousing suspicion. Or she could be one of Tamra's chosen. Just because we think she hasn't been in Tar Valon for two years doesn't make it so." Sisters did slip in and out of the Tower quietly sometimes, but Moiraine thought that anywhere Cadsuane arrived shook as though struck by an earthquake. "The trouble is, any of them could be either." Leaning across her bundle, she touched Moiraine's knee. "Can you bring your horse from the stable without being seen? I have a good mount, but I don't know if she can carry both of us. We should be hours from here before they know we're gone."

Moiraine smiled in spite of herself. She very much doubted the good mount. Any horse trader could pass off a broken-down cart horse as a charger to Siuan, whose eye for horseflesh was no better than her seat in the saddle. The ride north must have been agony for her. And full of fear. "No one knows you are here at all, Siuan," she said. "Best if it stays so. You have your book? Good. If I remain until morning, I will have a day's start on them instead of hours. You go on to Chachin now. Take some of my coin." By the state of Siuan's dress, she had spent the last part of that trip sleeping under bushes. She would not have dared draw much from the Tower's bank before leaving. "Start searching for the Lady Ines, and I will catch you up there, looking for Avene Sahera on the way."

It was not that easy, of course. Siuan had a stubborn streak as wide as the Erinin.

"I have enough for my needs," she grumbled, but Moiraine insisted on handing her half the coins in her purse, and when Moiraine reminded her of their pledge during their first months in the Tower, that what one owned belonged to the other as well, she muttered, "We swore we'd find beautiful young princes to bond, too, and marry them besides. Girls say all sorts of silly things. You watch after yourself, now. You leave me alone in this, and I'll wring your neck."