Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight

She thought about weaving a flare, a starburst of light, perhaps with a loud bang, just above each of the vessels. That would certainly let anyone aboard with brains realize that neither speed nor distance kept them safe here, only a forbearance born of the Three Oaths. They should know that they were safe because of Aes Sedai.

Exhaling heavily, she shook her head and mentally upbraided herself. That simple weave would also attract attention in the city, certainly more than the appearance of a single sister. Sisters often came to the riverbank to stare at Tar Valon and the Tower. Even if the only reaction to her flares was some sort of counterdisplay, once begun, that sort of contest could be very difficult to put a stop to. Once begun, matters might well escalate out of hand. There were too many opportunities for that, as it was, the more so these last five days.

“The harbormaster hasn’t let above eight or nine ships in at one time since we arrived,” Gareth said as the first vessel drew abreast of them, “but the captains seemed to have worked out the timing. Another clutch will appear soon, and reach the city about the time the Tower Guards are sure these fellows actually came to enlist. Jimar Chubain knows enough to guard against me sneaking men in aboard ships. He has more of the Guards crowded into the harbors than anywhere except at the bridge towers, and not many anywhere else, so far as I can learn. That will change, though. The flow of ships starts at first light and keeps up till near nightfall, here and at Southharbor too. This lot doesn’t seem to be carrying as many soldiers as most do. Every plan is brilliant until the day comes, Mother, but then you must adapt to circumstances or be ridden down.”

Egwene made a vexed sound. There must be two hundred or more passengers altogether on those seven ships. A few might be merchants or traders or some other sort of innocent traveler, but the low sun glittered off helmets and breastplates and steel discs sewn to leather jerkins. How many shiploads arrived each day? Whatever the number, a steady flow was pouring into the city to enlist under High Captain Chubain. “Why do men always rush so hard to kill or be killed?” she muttered irritably.

Lord Gareth looked at her calmly. He sat his horse, a big bay gelding with a white stripe down his nose, like a statue. Sometimes, she thought she knew one small part of how Siuan felt about the man. Sometimes she thought it would be worth whatever effort was needed to startle him, just to see him startled.

Unfortunately, she knew the answer to her own question as well as he did. At least as it applied to men going soldiering. Oh, there were men enough who rushed to support a cause or defend what they thought what was right, and some who sought adventure, whatever they believed that was, yet the simple fact was that for carrying a pike or spear, a man could earn twice each day what he would get for walking behind another man’s plow, and half again as much if he could ride well enough to join the cavalry. Crossbowmen and archers fell in between. The man who worked for another could dream of having his own farm or shop one day, or a beginning toward one that his sons could build on, but he surely had heard a thousand tales of men soldiering for five years or ten and coming home with enough gold to set themselves up in comfort, tales of ordinary men who rose to become generals, or lords. For a poor man, Gareth had said bluntly, staring down the point of a pike could be a better view than the hind end of somebody else’s plow horse. Even if he was far more likely to die from the pike than earn fame or fortune. A bitter way to look at it, yet she imagined that was how most of those men on the ships saw matters, too. But then, that was how she had gotten her own army. For every man who wanted to see the usurper pulled from the Amyrlin Seat, for every man who even knew for certain who Elaida was, ten if not a hundred had joined for the pay. Some of the men on the ship were raising their hands, to show the guards on the harbor walls they were not holding weapons.

“No,” she said, and Lord Gareth sighed. His voice remained calm, but his words were hardly comforting when he spoke.

“Mother, so long as the harbors remain open, Tar Valon will eat better than we do, and rather than growing weaker with hunger, the Tower Guard will grow larger and stronger. I very much doubt that Elaida will let Chubain rush out to attack us, as much as I wish he would. Every day you wait only adds to the butcher’s bill we’ll have to pay sooner or later. I’ve said from the start it will come to an assault, in the end, and that hasn’t changed, but everything else has. Have the sisters put me and my men inside the walls now, and I can take Tar Valon. It won’t be clean. It never is. But I can take the city for you. And fewer will die than if you delay.”

A knot formed in her belly, twisted tight till she could hardly breathe. Carefully, step by step, she performed novice exercises to make it loosen. The bank contained the river, guiding without controlling. Calm settled on her, in her.

Too many people had begun seeing the uses of gateways, and in a way, Gareth represented the worst. His business was war, and he was very good at it. As soon as he learned a gateway could take more than a small group of people at one time, he had seen the implications. Even the great walls of Tar Valon, beyond the range of any siege catapult not on a barge, and worked with the Power till the largest catapult could not mark them in any case, might as well be made of paper against an army that could Travel. But whether Gareth Bryne had learned or not, other men would seize on that idea. The Asha’man already had, it seemed. War had always been ugly, yet it was going to grow uglier.

“No,” she repeated. “I know people are going to die before this is over.” The Light help her, she could see them dying just by closing her eyes. Even more would die if she made the wrong decisions, though, and not just here. “But I have to keep the White Tower alive—against Tarmon Gai’don—to stand between the world and the Asha’man—and the Tower will die if this comes to sisters killing one another in the streets of Tar Valon.” That had already happened once. It could not be allowed a second time. “If the White Tower dies, hope dies. I shouldn’t have to tell you that again.”

Daishar snorted and tossed his head, lunging as though he had sensed her irritation, but she reined him in firmly and slipped the looking glass into the tooled leather case hanging from her saddle. The diving birds gave up their fishing and sprang into the air as the thick chain that blocked Northharbor began to droop. It would dip beneath the surface well before the first ship reached the harbor mouth. How long ago had it been that she reached Tar Valon by that same route? Almost beyond memory, it seemed. An Age gone. It had been another woman who came ashore and was met by the Mistress of Novices.

Gareth shook his head with a quick grimace. But then, he never gave up, did he? “You have to keep the White Tower alive, Mother, but my job is to give it to you. Unless things have changed that I don’t know about. I can see sisters whispering and looking over their shoulders even if I don’t know what it means. If you still want the Tower, it will come to an assault, better soon than late.”

Suddenly the morning seemed darker, as though clouds had obscured the sun. Whatever she did, the dead were going to pile up like cordwood, but she had to keep the White Tower alive. She had to. When there were no good choices, you had to choose the one that seemed least wrong.

“I’ve seen enough here,” she said quietly. With one last glance at that narrow line of smoke beyond the city, she turned Daishar toward the trees a hundred paces back from the river, where her escort waited among the evergreen leatherleaf and winter-bare beech and birch.