Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven

Wishing she could stand on top of the fire, Egwene groaned. The Light burn Bair and her stubbornness! If not for the white-haired old Wise One, they could be in rooms in the city instead of tents on the edge of it. I could have a room with a proper fireplace. And a door. She was willing to bet that Rand did not have to put up with people wandering in on him whenever they wanted. Rand bloody Dragon al'Thor snaps his fingers, and the Maidens jump like serving girls. I'll wager they've found him a real bed, instead of a pallet on the ground. She was sure that he got a hot bath every night. The Maidens probably haul buckets of hot water up to his rooms. I'll bet they even found him a proper copper bathtub.

Amys, and even Melaine, had been amenable to Egwene's suggestion, but Bair had put her foot down, and they acquiesced like gai'shain. Egwene supposed that with Rand bringing so much change, Bair wanted to hold on to as much of the old ways as she could, but she wished the woman could have chosen something else to be intractable over.

There was no thought of refusing. She had promised the Wise Ones to forget that she was Aes Sedai — the easy part, since she was not — and do exactly as she was told. That was the hard part; she had been away from the Tower long enough to become her own mistress again. But Amys had told her flatly that dreamwalking was dangerous even after you knew what you were about and far more so until then. If she would not obey in the waking world, they could not trust her to obey in the dream, and they would not take the responsibility. So she did chores right along with Aviendha, accepted chastisement with as good a grace as she could muster, and hopped whenever Amys or Melaine or Bair said frog. In a manner of speaking. None of them had ever seen a frog. Not that they'll want anything but for me to hand them their tea. No, it would be Aviendha's turn to do that tonight.

For a moment she considered donning stockings, but finally just bent to slip on her shoes. Sturdy shoes, suitable for the Waste; she rather regretted the silk slippers she had worn in Tear. "What is your name?" she asked, trying to be companionable.

"Cowinde" was the docile reply. Egwene sighed. She kept trying to be friends with the gai'shain, but they never responded. Servants were one thing she had not had a chance to get used to, though of course gai'shain were not precisely servants. "You were a Maiden?" A quick, fierce flash of deep blue eyes told her that her guess was correct, but just as quickly they lowered again. "I am gai'shain. Before and after are not now, and only now exists."

"What is your sept and clan?" Usually there was no need to ask, not even with gai'shain.

"I serve the Wise One Melaine of the Jhirad sept, of the Goshien Aiel."

Trying to choose between two cloaks, a stout brown woolen and a blue quilted silk she had purchased from Kadere — the merchant had sold everything in his wagons to make room for Moiraine's freight, and at very good prices — Egwene paused to frown at the woman. That was no proper response. She had heard that a form of the bleakness had taken some gai'shain; when their year and a day was done, they simply refused to put off the robe. "When is your time up?" she asked.

Cowinde crouched lower, almost huddling over her knees. "I am gai'shain."

"But when will you be able to return to your sept, to your own hold?"

"I am gai'shain," the woman hoarsely told the rugs in front of her face. "If the answer displeases, punish me, but I can give no other."

"Don't be silly," Egwene said sharply. "And straighten up. You aren't a toad."

The white-robed woman obeyed immediately and, sat there on her heels, submissively awaiting another command. That brief flare of spirit might as well never have been.

Egwene took a deep breath. The woman had made her own accommodation with the bleakness. A foolish one, but nothing she could say would change it. Anyway, she was supposed to be on her way to the sweat tent, not talking with Cowinde.

Remembering that cold draft, she hesitated. The icy gust had made two large white blossoms, resting in a shallow bowl, curl partway closed. They came from a plant called a segade, a fat, leafless, leathery thing that bristled with spines. She had come on Aviendha looking at them in her hands that morning; the Aiel woman had given a start when she saw her, then pushed them into Egwene's hands, saying she had picked them for her. She supposed there was enough of the Maiden left in Aviendha that she did not want to admit liking flowers. Though come to think of it, she had seen the occasional Maiden wearing a blossom in her hair or on her coat.

You are just trying to put it off, Egwene al'Vere. Now stop being a silly wool-head. You are being as foolish as Cowinde. "Lead the way," she said, and just had time to swing the woolen cloak around her nakedness before the woman swept open the tent flap for her, and for the bone-chilling night.

Overhead, the stars were crisp points in the darkness, and the three-quarter moon was bright. The Wise Ones' camp was a cluster of two dozen low mounds, not a hundred paces from where one of Rhuidean's paved streets ended in hard, cracked clay and stones. Moonshadows turned the city into strange cliffs and crags. Every tent had its flaps down, and the smells of fires and cooking blended to fill the air.

The other Wise Ones came here for almost daily gatherings, but they spent nights with their own septs. Several even slept in Rhuidean now. But not Bair. This was as close to the city as Bair had been willing to come; if Rand had not been there, doubtless she would have insisted on making camp in the mountains.

Egwene held the cloak tight with both hands and walked as fast as she could. Icy tendrils curled under the cloak's bottom, swept in every time her bare legs kicked a gap open. Cowinde had to pull her white robes to her knees in order to keep ahead. Egwene did not need the gai'shain's guidance, but since the woman had been sent to bring her, she would be shamed and maybe offended if not allowed to. Clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, Egwene wished the woman would run.

The sweat tent looked like any other, low and wide, with the flaps lowered all around, except that the smoke hole had been covered. Nearby a fire had burned down to glowing embers scattered over a few rocks the size of a man's head. There was not enough light to define the much smaller shadowed mound beside the tent entrance, but she knew it was neatly folded women's clothes.

Taking one deep, chilling breath, she hurriedly scuffed off her shoes, let her cloak drop, and all but dove into the tent. An instant of shuddering cold before the flap fell shut behind her, then steamy heat clamped down, squeezing out sweat that covered her in an instant sheen while she was still gasping and shaking.

The three Wise Ones who were teaching her about dreamwalking sat sweating unconcernedly, their waist-length hair hanging damply. Bair was talking to Melaine, whose green-eyed beauty and red-gold hair made a sharp contrast to the older woman's leathery face and long white tresses. Amys was white-haired, too — or perhaps it was just so pale a yellow that it seemed white — but she did not look old. She and Melaine could both channel — not many Wise Ones could — and she had something of the Aes Sedai look of agelessness about her. Moiraine, seeming slight and small beside the others, also looked unruffled, although sweat rolled down her pale nudity and slicked her dark hair to her scalp, with a regal refusal to acknowledge that she had no clothes on. The Wise Ones were using slim, curved pieces of bronze, called staera, to scrape off sweat and the day's dirt.

Aviendha was squatting sweatily beside the big black kettle of hot, sooty rocks in the middle of the tent, carefully using a pair of tongs to move a last stone from a smaller kettle to the larger. That done, she sprinkled water onto the rocks from a gourd, adding to the steam. If she let the steam fall too far, she would be spoken to sharply at the very least. The next time the Wise Ones met in the sweat tent, it would be Egwene's turn to tend the rocks.