Robert Jordan - The Path of Daggers

The sound of low voices arguing had wakened her, and the full moon was still up outside, casting enough light for her to make out two women confronting one another at the tent’s entrance.

"The poor woman’s head pains her all day, and she gets little rest at night," Halima whispered fiercely, fists on her hips. "Let this wait till morning."

"I don’t propose to argue with you." Siuan’s voice was winter itself, and she tossed back her cloak with a mittened hand as though preparing to fight. She was dressed for the weather, in stout wool no doubt worn over as many shifts as she could fit underneath. "You stand aside, and right quick, or I’ll have your guts for bait! And put on some decent clothes!"

With a soft laugh, Halima drew up and if anything planted herself more squarely in Siuan’s way. Her white nightgown clung, but was decent enough for its purpose. Though it did seem a wonder she evaded freezing in that thin silk. The coals in the tripod braziers had died down long since, and neither much-mended tent canvas nor layered carpets on the ground held in warmth any longer. Both women’s breath was pale mist.

Throwing off the blankets, Egwene sat up wearily on her narrow cot. Halima was a country woman with a skim of sophistication, and often she did not seem to realize the deference due to Aes Sedai, or indeed seem to think she need defer to anyone. She spoke to Sitters as she might to the goodwives in her own village, with a laugh and a level eye and a straightforward earthiness that sometimes shocked. Siuan spent her days giving way to women who had jumped at her word a year earlier, smiling and curtsying for nearly every sister in the camp. Many still laid much of the Tower’s troubles at her feet and thought she had hardly suffered enough to atone. Sufficient to keep anyone’s pride at a stiff prickle. Together, the pair were a lantern tossed into the back of an Illuminator’s wagon, but Egwene hoped to avoid an explosion. Besides, Siuan would not have come in the middle of the night unless it was necessary.

"Go back to bed, Halima," Smothering a yawn, Egwene bent to fumble her shoes and stockings from beneath the cot. She did not channel a lamp alight. Better if no one noticed that the Amyrlin was awake. "Go on; you need your rest."

Halima protested, perhaps more strongly than she should have to the Amyrlin Seat, but soon enough she was back on the tiny cot that had been squeezed into the tent for her. Very little room remained to move in, with a washstand, a stand-mirror and a real armchair, plus four large chests stacked atop one another. Those held the constant flow of clothes from Sitters who had not yet realized that however young Egwene might be, she was not young enough to be dazzled or diverted by silks and laces. Halima lay curled up, watching in the darkness, while Egwene hastily dragged an ivory comb through her hair, donned stout mittens, and pulled a fox-lined cloak over her nightgown. A thick woolen nightgown, and she would not have minded thicker in this weather. Halima’s eyes seemed to pick up the faint moonlight and shine darkly, unblinking.

Egwene did not think the woman jealous of her place near the Amyrlin Seat, casual as it was, and the Light knew she did not carry gossip, but Halima had an innocent curiosity about everything, whether or not it was any of her business. Reason enough to hear Siuan out elsewhere. Everyone knew now that Siuan had thrown in her lot with Egwene, after a fashion, as they thought, sullenly and grudgingly. A figure of some amusement and occasional pity, Siuan Sanche, reduced to attaching herself to the woman who held the title once hers, and that woman no more than a puppet once the Hall finished fighting over who would pull her cords. Siuan was human enough to harbor sparks of resentment, but so far they had managed to keep secret that her advice was far from grudging. So she endured pity and snickers as best she could, and everyone believed her as changed by her experiences as her face. That belief had to be maintained, or Romanda and Lelaine and very likely the rest of the Hall, too, would find ways to separate her — and her advice — from Egwene.

The cold outside slapped Egwene in the face and flooded under her cloak; her nightgown might as well have been Halima’s for all the protection it offered. Despite stout leather and good wool, her feet felt as if they were bare. Tendrils of frosty air curled around her ears, mocking the thick fur lining her hood. Yearning for her bed as she was, ignoring the iciness took all the concentration she could muster. Clouds scudded across the sky, and moon-shadows floated over the gleaming white that covered the ground, a smooth sheet broken by the dark mounds of tents and the taller shapes of canvas-topped wagons that now had long wooden runners in place of wheels. Many of the wagons were no longer parked apart from the tents, but left where they had been unloaded; no one had the heart to make the wagon drivers put out even that much extra effort at the end of the day. Nothing moved except those pale sliding shadows. The wide runnels that had been trampled through the camp for paths lay empty. The silence was crisp and so deep that she almost regretted breaking it.

"What is it?" she asked softly, casting a wary glance at the small tent nearby shared by her maids, Chesa, Meri, and Selame. That was as still and dark as the others. Exhaustion made as thick a blanket over the camp as the snow. "Not another revelation like the Kin, I hope." She clicked her tongue in vexation. She was spent, too, by long freezing days in the saddle and not enough real sleep, or she would not have said that. "I’m sorry, Siuan."

"No need to apologize, Mother." Siuan kept her voice down as well, and glanced about to see whether anyone might be watching from the shadows besides. Neither wanted to find herself discussing the Kin with the Hall. "I know I should have told you beforehand, but it seemed a small thing. I never expected those girls to even speak to one of them. There’s so much to tell you. I have to try to pick and choose what’s important."

With an effort, Egwene managed not to sigh. That was almost word for word the apology Siuan had offered before. Several times. What she meant was that she was trying to force-feed Egwene over twenty years of experience as Aes Sedai, more than ten of that as Amyrlin, and do it in months. At times Egwene felt like a goose being fattened for market. "Well, what’s important tonight?"

"Gareth Bryne’s waiting in your study." Siuan did not raise her voice, but it took on an edge, as always when she spoke of Lord Bryne. She tossed her head angrily inside the deep hood of her cloak, and made a sound like a cat spitting. "The man came in dripping snow, scooped me out of my bedding, and barely gave me time to dress before hauling me up behind his saddle. He told me nothing; just tossed me down at the edge of camp and sent me to fetch you like I was a serving girl!"

Firmly, Egwene stifled a rising hope. There had been too many disappointments, and whatever had brought Bryne in the middle of the night was much more likely to be a potential disaster than what she wished for. How far yet to the border with Andor? "Let’s see what he wants."

Starting off toward the tent everyone named the Amyrlin’s Study, she held her cloak close. She did not shiver, but refusing to let heat or cold touch you did not make them go away. You could ignore them right up to the moment sunstroke cooked your brain or frostbite rotted your hands and feet. She considered what Siuan had said.

"You weren’t sleeping in your own tent here?" she said carefully. The other woman’s relation to Lord Bryne was that of a servant, in a very peculiar way, but Egwene hoped Siuan was not letting her stubborn pride lead her into letting him take advantage. She could not imagine it, of him or her, yet not so long ago she could not have imagined Siuan accepting any part of the situation. She still could not understand why.