Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight

“Enough,” Egwene cut in. “You are willing to open negotiations with Elaida? With the Sitters still in the Tower?” she amended. Elaida would never talk.

“Yes,” Beonin said fervently. “Matters can be arranged to everyone’s satisfaction. I know they can.”

“Then you have my permission.”

Immediately everyone but Beonin began talking frantically on top of one another, trying to dissuade her, telling her this was insanity. Anaiya shouted as loudly as Sheriam, gesturing emphatically, and Delana’s eyes bulged in what looked like near terror. Some of the outriders began looking toward the sisters as much as they watched the farms they were riding past, and there was a stir among the Warders, who certainly had no need of their bonds at the moment to know their Aes Sedai were agitated, but they held their places. Wise men kept their noses out of the way when Aes Sedai began raising their voices.

Egwene ignored the shouts and arm-waving. She had considered every possibility she could think of for ending this struggle with the White Tower whole and united. She had talked for hours with Siuan, who had more reason than anyone to want to unseat Elaida. If it could have saved the Tower, Egwene would have surrendered to Elaida, forget whether the woman had come to the Amyrlin Seat legally. Siuan had nearly had apoplexy at the suggestion, yet she had agreed, reluctantly, that preserving the Tower superseded every other consideration. Beonin wore such a beautiful smile, it seemed a crime to quench it.

Egwene raised her voice just enough to be heard over the others. “You will approach Varilin and the others Delana named, and arrange to approach the White Tower. These are the terms I will accept: Elaida is to resign and go into exile.” Because Elaida would never accept back the sisters who had rebelled against her. An Amyrlin had no say over how an Ajah governed itself, but Elaida had declared that the sisters who fled the Tower were no longer members of any Ajah. According to her, they would have to beg readmittance to their Ajahs, after serving a penance under her direct control. Elaida would not reunite the Tower, only shatter it worse than it already was. “Those are the only terms I will accept, Beonin. The only terms. Do you understand me?”

Beonin’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she would have fallen from her horse if Morvrin had not caught her, muttering under her breath as she held the Gray upright and slapped her face, not lightly. Everyone else stared at Egwene as though they had never seen her before. Even Delana, who must have planned for something like this to happen from the first word she had said. They had come to a halt with Beonin’s fainting fit, and the ring of soldiers around them drew up at a shouted command from Lord Gareth. Some stared toward the Aes Sedai, their anxiety plain even with their faces hidden behind the bars of their helmets.

“It’s time to get back to camp,” Egwene said. Calmly. What had to be done had to be done. Perhaps surrender would have healed the Tower, but she could not believe it. And now it might come down to Aes Sedai facing one another in the streets of Tar Valon, unless she could find a way to make her plan succeed. “We have work to do,” she said, gathering her reins, “and there isn’t much time left.” She prayed there was enough.

Once Delana was sure that her noxious seed had taken root, she murmured that it might be best if they were not seen arriving back at the camp together and slipped away, pushing her mare to a quick trot through the snow and leaving the rest of them to ride on in uneasy silence except for the crunch of the horses’ hooves. The Warders maintained their distance behind, and the escorting soldiers had their attention back on the farms and thickets, without so much as a glance toward the Aes Sedai that Egwene could see, now. Men never knew when to keep their mouths shut, though. Telling a man to be quiet only made him gossip all the harder, just to close friends he could trust, to be sure, as if they in turn would not tell everyone who would listen. The Warders might be different—Aes Sedai always insisted they were, those who had Warders—but no doubt the soldiers would talk of sisters arguing, and no doubt they would say Delana had been sent off with a flea in her ear. The woman had planned this very carefully. Worse than fireweed or stranglervine could grow if that seed was allowed to sprout, but the Gray Sitter had sheltered herself from blame very neatly. Truth almost always did come out in the end, but by the end, truth was often so wrapped around with rumors and speculation and absolute lies that most people never did believe it.

“I trust I don’t have to ask whether any of you had heard about this before.” Egwene said that quite casually, seemingly studying the countryside as they rode, but she was pleased when everyone denied it outright with considerable indignation, including Beonin, who was working her jaw and glaring at Morvrin. Egwene trusted them as far as she dared—they could not have given her their oaths without meaning to hold to every word; not unless they were Black Ajah, a niggling possibility that accounted for most of her caution—yet even oaths of fealty left room for the most loyal people doing the worst possible thing in the belief that it was in your best interest. And people who had been coerced into their oaths could be adept at spotting the gaps and leeways.

“The real question,” she continued, “is what was Delana after?” She had no need to explain, not for these women, every one experienced in the Game of Houses. If all Delana had wanted was to stop negotiations with Elaida while keeping her own name out of it, she could simply have spoken to Egwene alone at any time. Sitters needed no excuse to come to the Amyrlin’s study. Or she could have used Halima, who slept on a pallet in Egwene’s tent most nights despite being Delana’s secretary. Egwene was troubled with headaches, and some nights only Halima’s massages could soothe them so she could sleep. For that matter, an anonymous note might have been sufficient to make her present the Hall with an edict forbidding negotiations. The touchiest quibbler would have to admit that talks to end the war certainly touched on the war. But plainly Delana wanted Sheriam and the others to know, too. Her talebearing was an arrow aimed at another target.

“Strife between the Ajah heads and the Sitters,” Carlinya said, as cool as the snow. “Perhaps strife between the Ajahs.” Casually adjusting her cloak, intricately embroidered white-on-white but lined with dense black fur, she might have been discussing the price of a spool of thread. “Why she wants these things, I can’t begin to say, but those will be the results, unless we are very careful, and she could not know we would be careful, or that we have any reason to be, so logically one or both must be her aim.”

“The first answer that comes to mind isn’t always correct, Carlinya,” Morvrin said. “There’s no saying that Delana thought her actions through as carefully as you have, or that she thought along the same lines.” The stout Brown believed more in common sense than logic, or so she said, but in truth she seemed to blend the two, a combination that made her very hardheaded, and suspicious of quick or easy answers. Which was not a bad thing to be. “Delana may be trying to sway some among the Sitters on some issue that’s important to her. Maybe she hopes to get Elaida declared Black Ajah after all. No matter the results, her goal may be something we don’t even suspect. Sitters can be as petty as anyone else. For all we know, she might have a grudge against one of those she named dating back to when she was a novice and they taught her. Better to concentrate on what will come of it than to worry about why until we know more.” Her tone was as placid as her broad face, but Carlinya’s cool composure flickered to cool disdain for a moment. Her rationality made few concessions for human foibles. Or for anyone disagreeing with her.