The Fires of Heaven (121 page)

“It can’t,” Siuan said flatly. “Now—”

“Anything short of death should be.”

“ ‘Should be’ isn’t ‘is,’ girl. Leane and I were promised we would be left alone. Speak to Faolain or Emara if you want to know what happens to anyone who molests us. They weren’t the first or the worst, but they cried the longest.”

Her other lever. Near panic had driven it right out of her head. If it existed. One glance. “What would Sheriam say if she knew you and Leane weren’t ready to tear out each other’s hair at all?” Siuan just looked at her. “They think you’re tamed, don’t they? The more you snap at anybody who can’t snap back, the more they take it for proof when you leap to obey every time an Aes Sedai coughs. Was a little cringing all it took to make them forget the two of you had worked hand-in-hand for years? Or did you convince them stilling had changed everything about you, not just your face? When they find out you’ve been scheming behind their backs, manipulating them, you’ll howl louder than any grunter. Whatever
that
is.” Not so much as a blink. Siuan was not going to loose her temper and let any admissions slip out. Yet there had been something in that brief look; Nynaeve was sure of it. “I want to study you—and Leane—whenever I want. And Logain.” Perhaps she could learn something there as well. Men were different; it would be like looking at the problem from another angle. Not that she would Heal him even if she discovered how. Rand’s channeling was necessary. She was not about to loose another man on the world who could wield the Power. “If not, then you can forget about the ring, and
Tel’aran’rhiod
.” What was Siuan after there? Probably just to revisit something that at least
seemed like being Aes Sedai. Nynaeve stamped firmly on momentarily rekindled pity. “And if you make any claims about us pretending to be Aes Sedai, then I’ll have no choice but to tell about you and Leane. Elayne and I might be uncomfortable until the truth comes out, but it will, and the truth will make you weep as long as Faolain and Emara together.”

Silence stretched. How did the other woman manage to look so cool? Nynaeve had always thought it had to do with being Aes Sedai. Her lips felt dry, the only part of her that did. If she was wrong, if Siuan was willing to put it to the test, she knew who would be weeping.

Finally, Siuan muttered, “I hope Moiraine has managed to keep Egwene’s backbone more supple than this.” Nynaeve did not understand, but she hardly had time to consider it. The next instant, the other woman was leaning forward, hand outstretched. “You keep my secrets, and I will keep yours. Teach me the ring, and you can study stilling and gentling to your heart’s content.”

Nynaeve barely managed to hold in a relieved sigh as she clasped the offered hand. She had done it. For the first time in what seemed forever, someone had tried to bully her and failed. She almost felt ready to face Moghedien. Almost.

Elayne caught up with Min just outside the back door of the inn and fell in beside her. Min had what looked like two or three white shirts wadded under one arm. The sun sat on the treetops, and in the fading light the stableyard had the soft look of dirt not long turned, with a huge stump that might have belonged to an oak right in the middle. The thatch-roofed stone stable had no doors, allowing a good look at men moving among filled stalls. Surprisingly, Leane was talking to a large man on the edge of the stable’s shadow. Roughly dressed, he looked a blacksmith, or a brawler. What was surprising was how close Leane stood, head tilted as she stared up at him. And then she actually patted his cheek before turning away and hurrying back into the inn. The big man stared after her a moment, then melted into the shadows.

“Don’t ask me what she’s up, to,” Min said. “Strange people come to see Siuan or her, and some of the men, she . . . Well, you saw.”

Elayne did not really care what Leane did. But now that she had Min alone, she did not know how to bring up what she wanted. “What are you doing?”

“Laundry,” Min muttered, shifting the shirts irritably. “I can’t tell you
how good it is to see Siuan the mouse for once. She doesn’t know whether the eagle is going to eat her or make her a pet, but she has the same choice she gives everybody else. None!”

Elayne quickened her pace to keep up as they crossed the stableyard. Whatever that was about, it gave no opening. “Did you know what Thom was going to suggest? We are staying.”

“I told them you would. Not a viewing.” Min’s step slowed again as they started between the stable and a crumbling stone wall, down a dim alley of brush stubble and trampled weeds. “I just didn’t think you would give up the chance to study again. You were always eager. Nynaeve, too, even if she won’t admit it. I wish I’d been wrong. I’d go with you. At least, I . . .” She muttered something furious-sounding under her breath. “Those three you brought with you are trouble, and that
is
a viewing.”

There it was. The crack she needed. But instead of asking what she had intended, she said, “You mean Marigan and Nicola and Areina? How can they be trouble?” Only a fool passed over what Min saw.

“I don’t know exactly. I only caught glimpses of aura, and just out of the corner of my eye. Never when I was looking right at them, where I might have made something out. There aren’t many who have auras all the time, you know. Trouble. Maybe they’ll carry tales. Were you up to anything you wouldn’t want the Aes Sedai to know about?”

“Certainly not,” Elayne said briskly. Min looked at her sideways, and she added, “Well, nothing we didn’t have to do. They can’t possibly know about it anyway.” This was not taking her where she wanted to go. Drawing a deep breath, she leaped off the cliff. “Min, you had a viewing about Rand and me, didn’t you?” She went two steps before she realized the other woman had stopped.

“Yes.” It was a wary word.

“You saw that we were going to fall in love.”

“Not exactly. I saw you’d fall in love with him. I don’t know what he feels for you, only that he’s tied to you some way.”

Elayne’s mouth tightened. That was about what she had expected, but not what she wanted to hear.
“Wish” and “want” trip the feet, but “is” makes the path smoother.
That was what Lini said. You had to deal with what was, not what you wished was. “And you saw there would be someone else. Someone I’d have to . . . share . . . him with.”

“Two,” Min said hoarsely. “Two others. And . . . And I’m one.”

Mouth already open for the next question, for a moment Elayne could only stare. “You?” she got out at last.

Min bristled. “Yes, me! Do you think I can’t fall in love? I didn’t want to, but I did, and that’s that.” She stalked past Elayne down the alleyway, and this time Elayne was slower to catch up.

It certainly explained a few things. How nervously Min had always sidestepped talking about it. The embroidery on her lapels. And unless she was imagining it, Min was wearing rouge, too.
How do I feel about it?
she wondered. She could not sort it out. “Who is the third?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Min mumbled. “Only that she has a temper. Not Nynaeve, thank the Light.” She gave a weak laugh. “I don’t think I could have survived that.” Once more she gave Elayne a cautious sidelong look. “What does this mean between you and me? I like you. I never had a sister, but sometimes I feel like you. . . . I want to be your friend, Elayne, and I won’t stop liking you whatever happens, but I can’t stop loving him.”

“I don’t very much like the idea of having to share a man,” Elayne said stiffly. That was certainly an understatement.

“Me, neither. Only . . . Elayne, it shames me to admit it, but I will take him any way I can get him. Not that either of us has much choice. Light, he’s scrambled my whole life. Just thinking about him scrambles my brains.” Min sounded as if she did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Elayne exhaled slowly. Not Min’s fault. Was it better that it was Min rather than, say, Berelain or somebody else she could not abide?
“Ta’veren,
” she said. “He bends the world around him. We are chips caught in a whirlpool. But I seem to recall you and me and Egwene saying we’d never let a man come between us being friends. We will work it out somehow, Min. And when we find out who the third is . . . Well, we’ll work that out, as well. Somehow.” A
third!
Could
she
be Berelain?
Oh, blood and ashes!

“Somehow,” Min said bleakly. “Meanwhile, you and I are caught here in a leg trap. I know there’s another, I know I can’t do anything about it, but I had enough trouble reconciling myself to you, and . . . Cairhienin women aren’t all like Moiraine. I saw a Cairhienin noblewoman in Baerlon once. On the surface, she made Moiraine look like Leane, but sometimes she said things, hinting. And her auras! I don’t think a man in the whole town was safe alone with her, not unless he was ugly, lame, and better yet, dead.”

Elayne sniffed, but she managed to make her voice light. “Never you mind about that. We have another sister, you and I, one you’ve never met. Aviendha is keeping a close eye on Rand, and he doesn’t go ten steps without a guard of Aiel Maidens of the Spear.” A Cairhienin woman? At least she had met Berelain, knew something of her. No. She was not going to
fret over it like some brainless girl. A grown woman dealt with the world as it was and made the best of it. Who could it be?

They had come out into an open yard dotted with cold ashes. Huge kettles, most pitted where rust had been scrubbed away, stood against the encircling stone wall, which had been toppled in several places by trees growing up in it. Despite the shadows crossing the yard, two steaming kettles still sat on flames, and three novices, hair sweat-soaked and white skirts tied up, were hard at work on scrub boards stuck into broad washpots full of soapy water.

With a glance at the shirts under Min’s arm, Elayne embraced
saidar
. “Let me help you with those.” Channeling to do assigned chores was forbidden—physical labor built character, so they said—but this could not be counted the same. If she swirled the shirts around in the water violently enough, there should be no reason to get their hands wet. “Tell me everything. Are Siuan and Leane as changed as they seem? How did you get here? Is Logain
really
here? And why are you laundering some man’s shirts? Everything.”

Min laughed, plainly pleased to change the subject. “ ‘Everything’ will take a week. But I’ll try. First, I helped Siuan and Leane get out of the dungeon Elaida had stuck them in, and then . . .”

Making appropriate sounds of amazement, Elayne channeled Air to lift one of the boiling kettles clear of its flames. She hardly noticed the novices’ incredulous stares; she was used to her own strength now, and it rarely occurred to her that she did things, without thinking, that some full Aes Sedai could not do at all. Who was the third woman? Aviendha had
better
be keeping a close eye on him.

A
thin thread of blue smoke rising from the plain, short-stemmed pipe clenched in his teeth, Rand rested one hand on the balcony’s stone railing and looked into the garden below. Sharp shadows were lengthening; the sun was a red ball falling through a cloudless sky. Ten days in Cairhien, and this seemed the first moment he had stood still when he was not asleep. Selande stood close by his side, pale face tilted up to watch him, not the garden. Her hair was not so elaborately done as that of a woman of higher rank, but it still added half a foot to her height. He tried to ignore her, but it was difficult to ignore a woman who insisted on pressing her firm bosom against your arm. The meeting had gone on long enough for him to want a moment’s break. He had known it for a mistake as soon as Selande followed him out.

“I know a secluded pool,” she said softly, “where this heat might be escaped. A sheltered pool, where nothing would disturb us.” The music of Asmodean’s harp drifted out through the square arches behind them. Something light, cool sounding.

Rand puffed a little more vigorously. The heat. Nothing compared to the Waste, but . . . Autumn should be coming on, yet the afternoon felt like the depths of summer. A rainless summer. Shirt-sleeved men in the garden were spreading water from buckets, doing it late to avoid evaporation, but too much was brown or dying. The weather could not be natural. The burning
sun mocked him. Moiraine agreed, and Asmodean, but neither knew what to do or how, any more than he did. Sammael. Sammael he could do something about.