Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight

“I am not certain congratulations are in order,” she said, fingering the narrow red stole draped around her neck. The exact shade was not prescribed, except that anyone who saw it must call the color red, and she had chosen a brilliant scarlet that nearly shone. “Elaida insisted, and I could not refuse. Much has changed since I left the Tower, inside as well as out. Alviarin made everyone… watchful… of the Keeper. I suspect some will want her birched, when she finally returns. And Elaida…” She paused to sip at her wine, but when she lowered the goblet, she went on in a different vein. “I have often heard you called unconventional. I have even heard that you once said you would like to have a Warder.”

“I’ve been called worse than unconventional,” Pevara said dryly. What had the woman been about to say concerning Elaida? She sounded as though she would have refused the Keeper’s stole, given her wishes. Strange. Tarna was hardly shy or shrinking. Silence seemed best. Especially about Warders. She had been talking too much it that was general gossip. Besides, keep silent long enough, and the other woman always spoke if only to fill up the gap. You could learn a great deal through silence. She sipped her own wine slowly. There was too much honey in it for her taste, and not enough ginger.

Still stiff, Tarna rose and strode to the fireplace, where she stood staring at the miniatures sitting on their white lacquered stands. She raised a hand to touch one of the ivory ovals, and Pevara felt her own shoulders tighten in spite of herself. Georg, her youngest brother, had been only twelve when he died, when all of the people in those paintings died, in an uprising by Darkfriends. They had not been a family who could afford ivory miniatures, but once she had the coin, she found a painter who could capture her memories. A beautiful boy, Georg, tall for his years and utterly fearless. Long after the event, she had learned how her baby brother died. With a knife in his hand, standing over their father’s body and trying to keep the mob from their mother. So many years ago, now. They would all have been long dead in any case, and their children’s children’s children, as well. But some hatreds never died.

“The Dragon Reborn is ta’veren, so I have heard,” Tarna said finally, still staring at Georg’s picture. “Do you think he alters chance everywhere? Or do we change the future by ourselves, one step following another until we find ourselves somewhere we never expected?”

“What do you mean?” Pevara said, a trifle more curtly than she could have wished. She did not like the other woman peering at her brother’s image so intently while talking of a man who could channel, even if he was the Dragon Reborn. She bit her lip so as not to tell Tarna to turn around and look at her. You could not read someone’s back the way you could a face.

“I anticipated no great difficulty in Salidar. No great success, either, but what I found…” Was that a shake of her head, or had she merely changed the angle at which she was peering at the miniature? She spoke slowly, but with an undercurrent of remembered urgency. “I left a pigeon-handler a day outside the village, yet it took me less than half a day to get back to her, and after I loosed the birds with copies of my report, I pressed on so hard I had to pay the woman off because she could not keep up. I can hardly say how many horses I went through. Sometimes, the animal was spent to the point I had to show my ring to make a stable take it in trade, even with silver added. And because I pressed so hard, I happened to reach a village in Murandy while a… recruiting party… was there. If I had not been frightened out of my wits for the Tower by what I saw in Salidar, I would have ridden to Ebou Dar and taken ship for Illian and then upriver, but the thought of going south instead of north, the thought of waiting for a vessel, sent me like an arrow toward Tar Valon. So I was in that village to see them.”

“Who, Tarna?”

“Asha’man.” The woman did turn then. Her eyes were still blue ice, but tight. She held her goblet in both hands as if trying to soak in the warmth. “I did not know what they were then, of course, but they were openly recruiting men to follow the Dragon Reborn, and it seemed wisest to listen before I spoke. Well for me that I did. There were six of them, Pevara, six men in black coats. Two with silver swords on their collars were feeling men out about whether they might like to learn to channel. Oh, they did not say so right out. Wield the lightnings, they called it. Wield the lightnings and ride the thunder. But it was clear enough to me, if not to the fools they were talking to.”

“Yes; very well for you that you kept silent,” Pevara said quietly. “Six men who can channel would be more than merely dangerous for a sister by herself. Our eyes-and-ears are full of talk about these recruiting parties—they appear everywhere from Saldaea to Tear—but no one seems to have an idea of how to stop them. If it isn’t too late for that already.” She very nearly bit her lip again. That was the trouble with talking. Sometimes, you said more than you wanted.

Oddly, the comment took some of the stiffness out of Tarna. She resumed her seat, leaning back, though a hint of wariness still clung to the way she held herself. She chose her words carefully, pausing to touch the wine to her lips, but she did not actually drink, that Pevara saw. “I had a long time to think on the rivership coming north. Longer, after the fool captain ran us aground so hard he broke a mast and put a hole in the hull. Days trying to hail another ship, after we got ashore, and days finding a horse. Six of those men sent to one village convinced me, finally. Oh, the district around, as well, but it was not very populous. I… I believe it is too late.”

“Elaida thinks they can all be gentled,” Pevara said noncommittally. She had already exposed herself too much.

“When they can send six to one small village, and Travel? There is only one answer I can see. We…” Tarna took a deep breath, fingering the bright red stole again, but now it seemed more in regret than to play for time. “Red sisters must take them as Warders, Pevara.”

That was so startling that Pevara blinked. A hair less self-control, and she would have gaped. “Are you serious?”

Those icy blue eyes met her gaze steadily. The worst was past—the unthinkable spoken aloud—and Tarna was a woman of stone once more. “This is hardly a matter for joking. The only other choice is to let them run loose. Who else can do it? Red sisters are used to facing men like this, and ready to take the necessary risks. Anyone else will flinch. Each sister will have to take more than one, but Greens appear to manage well enough with that. I think the Greens will faint if this is suggested to them, though. We… Red sisters… must do what needs to be done.”

“Have you broached this to Elaida?” Pevara asked, and Tarna shook her head impatiently.

“Elaida believes as you said. She…” The yellow-haired woman frowned into her wine before going on. “Elaida often believes what she wants to believe and sees what she wants to see. I tried to bring up the Asha’man the first day I was back. Not to suggest bonding; not to her. I am not a fool. She forbade me to mention them to her. But you are… unconventional.”

“And do you believe they can be gentled after they’re bonded? I have no idea what that would do to the sister holding the bond, and in truth, I don’t want to learn.” She was the one playing for time, Pevara realized. She had had no idea where this interview was headed when it began, but she would have wagered everything she owned against it coming to this.

“That might be the end, and it might prove impossible,” the other woman replied coolly. The woman was stone. “Either way, I can see no other way to handle these Asha’man. Red sisters must bond them as Warders. If there is any way, I will be among the first, but it must be done.”