Robert Jordan - The Path of Daggers

All that was going on when Elayne and the others arrived with the sun red on the western horizon, a great upheaval and milling all about the house and thatch-roofed outbuildings, but Alise Tenjile, smiling pleasantly and implacable as an avalanche, seemed to have everything more in hand than even the capable Hornwells. Kinswomen who wept harder for all of Reanne’s attempts at comfort dried their tears at a murmur from Alise and began moving with the purposeful air of women who had been caring for themselves in a hostile world for many years. Haughty nobles with marriage knives dangling into the oval cutouts in their lace-trimmed bodices and craftswomen who displayed almost as much arrogance and nearly as much bosom, if not in silk, flinched at the sight of Alise approaching, and went scurrying for the tall barns hugging their bundles and announcing loudly that they had always thought it might be amusing to sleep on straw. Even the Windfinders, many of them important and powerful women among the Atha’an Miere, muffled their complaints when Alise came near. For that matter, Sareitha, still lacking the Aes Sedai agelessness, eyed Alise askance and touched her brown-fringed shawl as if to remind herself it was there. Merilille — unflappable Merilille — watched the woman go about her work with a blend of approval and open amazement.

Clambering down from her saddle at the front door of the house, Nynaeve glared toward Alise, gave her dark braid one deliberate, measured tug that the other woman was far too busy to notice, and stalked inside, stripping off her blue riding gloves and muttering to herself. Watching her go, Lan chuckled softly, then stifled his laughter immediately when Elayne dismounted. Light, but his eyes were cold! For Nynaeve’s sake, she hoped the man could be saved from his fate, yet looking into those eyes, she did not believe it.

"Where is Ispan?" she murmured, helping Aviendha scramble down. So many of the women knew an Aes Sedai — a Black sister — was being held prisoner that the news was bound to spread through the estates like fire in dry grass, but better if the manor’s folk had a little preparation.

"Adeleas and Vandene took her to a small woodcutter’s hut about half a mile away," he replied just as quietly. "In all this, I don’t think anyone noticed a woman with a sack over her head. The sisters said they would stay there with her tonight."

Elayne shivered. The Darkfriend was to be questioned again once the sun went down, it seemed. They were in Andor, now, and that made her feel more deeply as if she had given the order for it.

Soon she was in a copper bathtub, luxuriating in perfumed soap and clean skin again, laughing and splashing water at Birgitte, who lolled in another tub except when she was splashing back, both of them giggling over the wincing horror Aviendha could not quite conceal at sitting up to her breasts in water. She thought it was a very good joke on herself, though, and told a most improper story about a man getting segade spines in his bottom. Birgitte told one still more improper, about a woman getting her head caught between the slats of a fence, that made even Aviendha blush. They were funny, though. Elayne wished she knew one to tell.

She and Aviendha combed and brushed one another’s hair — a nightly ritual for near-sisters — and then they snuggled tiredly into the canopied bed in a small room. She and Aviendha, Birgitte and Nynaeve, and lucky there were no more. Larger rooms had cots and pallets covering the floors, including the sitting rooms, the kitchens, and most of the halls. Nynaeve muttered half the night about the indecency of making a woman sleep apart from her husband, and for the other half, her elbows seemed to wake Elayne every time she dropped off. Birgitte flatly refused to change places, and she could not ask Aviendha to endure the woman’s sharp prodding, so she did not get a great deal of sleep.

Elayne was still groggy when they prepared to depart the next morning, with the rising sun a molten ball of gold. The manor had few animals to spare unless she stripped the estates bare, so while she rode a black gelding named Fireheart, and Aviendha and Birgitte had new mounts, those who had been afoot when they fled the Kin’s farm remained afoot. That included most of the Kinswomen themselves, the servants leading the pack animals, and the twenty-odd women who plainly were beyond regretting their visit to the Kin’s farm in hopes of peace and contemplation. The Warders rode ahead to scout the way across rolling hills covered in drought-starved forest, and the rest of them stretched out in a most peculiar snake, with Nynaeve and herself and the other sisters at the head. And Aviendha, of course.

It was hardly a group that could escape notice, so many women traveling with so few men for guards, not to mention twenty dark Windfinders, awkward on their horses and as bright as exotically plumaged birds, and nine Aes Sedai, six of them recognizably so to anyone who knew what to look for. Though one did ride with a leather sack over her head, of course. As if that would not attract eyes by itself. Elayne had hoped to reach Caemlyn unnoticed, but that no longer seemed possible. Still, there was no reason that anyone would suspect that the Daughter-Heir, Elayne Trakand herself, was one of this group. In the beginning, she thought that the greatest difficulty they might face would be someone who opposed her claims learning of her presence, sending armed men to try taking her into custody until the succession was settled.

In truth, she expected the first trouble to come from the footsore craftswomen and nobles, proud women all, and none used to tramping dusty hills. Especially since Merilille’s maid had her own plump mare to ride. The few farm wives among them did not seem to mind too much, but nearly half their number were women who possessed lands and manors and palaces, and most of the rest could have afforded to buy an estate if not two or three. They included two goldsmiths, three weavers who owned over four hundred looms between them, a woman whose manufactories produced a tenth of all the lacquerware Ebou Dar produced, and a banker. They walked, their possessions strapped to their backs, while their horses bore packsaddles laden with food. There was real need. Every last coin in everyone’s purse had been pooled together and given into Nynaeve’s tightfisted keeping, but all might not be sufficient to buy food, fodder and lodgings for so large a party all the way to Caemlyn. They did not seem to understand. They complained loudly and incessantly through the first day’s march. Loudest of all was a slim lady with a thin scar on one cheek, a stern-faced woman named Malien, who was nearly bent double under the weight of a huge bundle containing a dozen or more dresses and all the changes that went with them.

When they made camp that first night, with their cook fires glowing in the twilight and everyone full of beans and bread if not entirely satisfied with them, Malien gathered the noblewomen around her, their silks more than travel-stained. The craftswomen joined in, too, and the banker, and the farmers stood close. Before Malien could say a word, Reanne strode into the group. Her face full of smile lines, in plain brown woolens with her skirts sewn up on the left to expose bright layered petticoats, she might have been one of the farm women.

"If you wish to go home," she announced in that surprisingly high voice, "you may do so at any time. I regret that we must keep your horses, though. You will be paid for them as soon as can be arranged. If you choose to remain, please remember that the rules of the farm still apply." A number of the women around her gaped. Malien was not alone in opening her mouth angrily.

Alise just seemed to appear at Reanne’s side, fists planted on her hips. She was not smiling now. "I said the last ten to be ready would do the washing up," she told them firmly. And she named them off; Jillien, a plump goldsmith; Naiselle, the cool-eyed banker; and all eight of the nobles. They stood staring at her until she clapped her hands and said, "Don’t make me invoke the rule on failure to do your share of the chores."