Robert Jordan - Knife of Dreams

Tuon looked over Suroth’s head. She met Galgan’s eyes, and Abal-dar’s and Yamada’s, and those of everyone of the Blood, but not Suroth’s. “It is well known that Zaired Elbar was Suroth’s man completely. He did nothing that she did not order. Therefore Suroth Sabelle Meldarath is no more. This da’covale will serve the Deathwatch Guard as they wish until her hair has grown enough for her to be decent when she is sent to the block for sale.”

Suroth never thought of the knife she had intended to use to open her veins, a knife beyond reach in her apartments. She could not think at all. She started screaming, a wordless howl, before they even began cutting her clothing off.

The Andoran sun was warm after Tar Valon. Pevara removed her cloak and began tying it behind her saddle as the gateway winked shut, hiding the view of the Ogier grove in Tar Valon. None of them had wanted anyone to see them leaving. They would return to the grove for the same reason, unless matters went very badly. In which case, they might never return. She had thought this task must be carried out by someone who combined the highest diplomatic skills with the courage of a lion. Well, she was no coward, at least. She could say that much of herself.

“Where did you learn the weave for bonding a Warder?” Javindhra asked abruptly, stowing her own cloak in similar fashion.

“You should recall that I once suggested Red sisters would be well served by having Warders.” Pevara snugged her red riding gloves, showing no concern for the question. She had expected it before this. “Why would you be surprised I know the weave?” In truth, she had needed to ask Yukiri, and had been hard pressed to dissemble her reason for asking. She doubted that Yukiri was suspicious, though. A Red bonding a Warder was as likely as a woman flying. Except, of course, that that was why she had come to Andor. Why they had all come.

Javindhra was there only at Tsutama’s command, given when Pevara and Tarna could not come up with enough names to suit the Highest. The angular Sitter did not bother to hide her displeasure over that, not from Pevara, although she had buried it deeply around Tsutama. Tarna was there, of course, pale-haired and icy cold, her Keeper’s stole left behind but her divided gray skirts embroidered in red to the knee. For Elaida’s Keeper to have a Warder would be difficult, though the men were to be housed in the city, away from the Tower, yet it had all been her idea in the first place, and she was, if not eager, then determined to take part in this first experiment. Besides, the need for numbers was paramount, because they had found only three other sisters willing to entertain the idea. The primary task of the Red for so long, finding men who could channel and bringing them to the Tower to be gentled, tended to sour women on all men, so the clues had been few and far between. Jezrail was a square-faced Tairen who kept a painted miniature of the boy she had almost married instead of coming to the Tower. His grandchildren would be grandparents now, but she still spoke of him fondly. Desala, a beautiful Cairhienin with large dark eyes and an unfortunate temper, when given the chance would dance any number of men to exhaustion in a night. And Melare, plump and witty, with a love of conversation, sent money to Andor to pay for her grandnephews’ education as she had for her nephews and nieces.

Weary of searching out such tiny clues, weary of probing delicately to learn whether they meant what they might. Pevara had convinced Tsutama that six would be enough to begin. Too, a larger party might cause some unfortunate reaction. After all, the whole Red Ajah appearing at this so-called Black Tower, or even half, might well make the men think themselves under attack. There was no telling how sane they all still were. That was one thing they had agreed on, behind Tsutama’s back. They would bond no men who showed any signs of madness. That was, if they were allowed to bond any.

Ajah eyes-and-ears in Caemlyn had sent copious reports on the Black Tower, and some had even found employment inside it, so they had no difficulty locating the well-worn dirt track that led down from the city to a grandiose double-arched black gate, near fifty feet tall and ten spans wide, topped by crenelations over a down-pointing central spike of stone and flanked by a pair of thick, crenelated black towers that stood at least fifteen spans high. There were no actual gates to close up the opening, and the black stone wall that stretched out of sight east and west, marked at intervals by the foundations of bastions and towers, was nowhere higher than four or five paces that she could see. Weeds grew along the uneven top, and grasses ruffled by the breeze. Those unfinished walls, looking as if they might never be finished, made the gate seem ludicrous.

The three men who stepped out into the opening were not at all ludicrous, however. They wore long black coats, and swords at their hips. One, a lean young fellow with curled mustaches, had a silver pin in the shape of a sword on his high collar. One of the Dedicated. Pevara resisted the instinct to think of him as equivalent to an Accepted and the other two as novices. Novices and Accepted were kept safe and guided until they knew enough of the Power to become Aes Sedai. By all reports, Soldiers and Dedicated were considered ready for battle almost as soon as they learned to channel. And they were forced from the first day, pressed to seize as much of saidin as they could, made to use it almost continually. Men died from that, and they called it “training losses,” as if they could hide death behind bland words. The thought of losing novices or Accepted in that fashion curdled Pevara’s stomach, but it seemed that the men took it in stride.

“A fine morning to you, Aes Sedai,” the Dedicated said with a small bow as they reined in before him. A very small bow, never taking his eyes from them. His accents were those of Murandy. “Now what would six sisters be wanting here at the Black Tower this fine morning?”

“To see the M’Hael,” Pevara replied, managing to avoid choking on the word. It meant “leader” in the Old Tongue, but the implication of taking that alone as a title gave the word much stronger meaning, as if he led everyone and everything.

“Ah, to see the M’Hael, is it? And of what Ajahs should I say?”

“The Red,” Pevara replied and watched him blink. Very satisfying. But not very helpful.

“The Red,” he said flatly. He had not remained startled very long. “Well, then. Enkazin, al’Seen, you keep watch while I see what the M’Hael has to say to this.”

He turned his back, and the vertical silvery slash of a gateway appeared in front of him, widening into an opening no larger than a door. Was that as large as he could make? There had been some discussion about whether to bond men who were as strong as possible or those who were weak. The weak might be more easily controlled, while the strong might—would definitely—be more useful. They had reached no consensus; each sister would have to decide for herself. He darted through the gateway and closed it before she had a chance to see more than a white stone platform with steps leading up one side and a squared-off black stone that might have been one of the building blocks for the wall, polished till it shone in the sun, sitting atop it.

The two who remained stayed in the middle of the double arch as if to bar the sisters from riding in. One was a Saldaean, a skinny broad-nosed man just short of his middle years who had something of the look of a clerk about him, a bit of a stoop as from hunching for long hours over a writing table, the other a boy, little more than a child, who raked dark hair out of his eyes with his fingers though the breeze quickly put it back again. Neither seemed the slightest uneasy over confronting six sisters alone. If they were alone. Were there others in those towers? Pevara refrained from glancing at the tower tops.