“Consider your own hide, Siuan,” Elaida said, moving closer to stare her in the eyes. “There is more to this than has been revealed so far. I know it. And you are going to tell me every last scrap of it. Every — last — scrap.” The sudden quiet of her voice was more frightening than all her hard stares had been. “I promise it, Siuan. Take her below!”
Clutching bolts of blue silk, Min strolled in through the North Gate near midday, her simper all ready for the guards with the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests, the girlish swirl of her green skirts that Elmindreda would give. She had actually begun before she realized there were no guards. The heavy ironstrapped door of the starshaped guardhouse stood open; the guardhouse itself looked empty. It was impossible. No gate to the Tower grounds was ever unguarded. Halfway to the huge bonewhite shaft of the Tower itself, a plume of smoke was rising above the trees. It seemed to be near the quarters for the young men who studied under the Warders. Maybe the fire had pulled the guards away.
Still feeling a little uneasy, she started down the unpaved path through the wooded part of the grounds, shifting the bolts of silk. She did not really want another dress, but how could she refuse when Laras pressed a purse of silver into her hands and told her to use it for this silk the stout woman had seen; she claimed it was just the color to set off “Elmindreda's” complexion. Whether or not she wanted her complexion set off was less important than keeping Laras's goodwill.
A rattle of swords reached her ears through the trees. The Warders must have their students practicing harder than usual.
It was all very irritating. Laras and her beauty hints, Gawyn and his jokes, Galad paying her compliments and never realizing what his face and smile did to a woman's pulse. Was this how Rand wanted her? Would he actually see her, if she wore dresses and simpered at him like a brainless chit?
He has no right to expect it, she thought furiously. It was all his fault. She would not be there now, wearing a fool dress and smiling like an idiot, if not for him. I wear coat and breeches, and that is that! Maybe I'll wear a dress once in a while — maybe! — but not to make some man look at me! I wager he's staring at some Tairen woman with half her bosom exposed right this minute. I can wear a dress like that. Let's see what he thinks when he sees me in this blue silk. I'll have a neckline down to — What was she thinking? The man had robbed her of her wits! The Amyrlin Seat was keeping her here, useless, and Rand al'Thor was addling her brain! Burn him! Burn him for doing this to me!
The clash of swords came again from the distance, and she stopped as a horde of young men burst out of the trees ahead of her carrying spears and bared blades, Gawyn at their head. She recognized others from among those who had come to study with the Warders. Shouts rose somewhere else in the grounds, a roar of angry men.
“Gawyn! What is happening?”
He whirled at the sound of her voice. Worry and fear filled his blue eyes, and his face was a mask of determination not to give in to them. “Min. What are you doing? Get out of the grounds, Min. It is dangerous.” A handful of the young men ran on, but most waited impatiently for him. It seemed to her that most of the Warders' students were there.
“Tell me what's happening, Gawyn!”
“The Amyrlin was deposed this morning. Leave, Min!”
The bolts of silk fell from her hands. “Deposed? It can't be! How? Why? In the name of the Light, why?”
“Gawyn!” one of the young men called, and others took it up, brandishing their weapons. “Gawyn! The White Boar! Gawyn!”
“I have no time,” he told her urgently. “There's fighting everywhere. They say Hammar is trying to break Siuan Sanche free. I have to go to the Tower, Min. Leave! Please!”
He turned and set out at a run toward the Tower. The others followed, bristling with upraised weapons, some still shouting, “Gawyn! The White Boar! Gawyn! Forward the Younglings!”
Min stared after them. “You did not say what side you are on, Gawyn,” she whispered.
The sounds of fighting were louder, clearer now that she was paying attention, and the shouts and yells, the clash of steel on steel, seemed to come from every direction. The clamor made her skin crawl and her knees shake; this could not be happening, not here. Gawyn was right. It would be much the safer thing, much the smarter, to leave the Tower grounds immediately. Only there was no telling when or if she would be allowed back, and she could not think of much good she could do outside.
“What good can I do inside?” she asked herself fiercely.
But she did not turn back toward the gate. Leaving the silk where it lay, she hurried into the trees, looking for a place to hide. She did not think anyone would spit “Elmindreda” like a goose — shivering, she wished she had not thought of it that way — but there was no use in taking foolish chances. Sooner or later the fighting had to die down, and by that time she needed to decide what to do next.
In the pitch blackness of the cell, Siuan opened her eyes, stirred, winced, and was still. Was it morning yet outside? The questioning had gone on for a long time. She tried to forget pain in the luxury of knowing she was still breathing. The rough stone beneath her scraped her welts and bruises, though, those on her back. Sweat stung all of them — she felt a solid mass of pain from knees to shoulders — and made her shiver in the cold air, besides. They could have left me my shift, at least. The air smelled of old dust and dried mold, of age. One of the deep cells. No one had been confined down here since Artur Hawkwing's time. Not since Bonwhin.
She grimaced into the dark; there was no forgetting. Clamping her teeth, she pushed up to a sitting position on the stone floor and felt around her for a wall to lean against. The stone blocks of the wall were cool against her back. Small things, she told herself. Think of small things. Heat. Cold. I wonder when they'll bring me some water. If they will.
She could not help feeling for her Great Serpent ring. It was no longer on her finger. Not that she expected it; she thought she remembered when they had ripped it off. Things had grown hazy after a time. Thankfully, blessedly hazy. But she remembered telling them everything, eventually. Almost everything. The triumph of holding back a scrap here, a bit there. In between howling answers, eager to answer if only they would stop, even for a little while, if only...
She wrapped her arms around herself to stop her shudders; it did not work very well. I will remain calm. I am not dead. I must remember that above everything else. I am not dead.
“Mother?” Leane's unsteady voice came out of the darkness. “Are you awake, Mother?”
“I'm awake,” Siuan sighed. She had hoped they had released Leane, put her out of the city. Guilt stabbed her at feeling a bit of comfort from the presence of the other woman sharing her cell. “I am sorry I got you into this, daugh —” No. She had no right to call her that, now. “I am sorry, Leane.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Are you... all right, Mother?”
“Siuan, Leane. Just Siuan.” Despite herself she tried to embrace saidar. There was nothing there. Not for her. Only the emptiness inside. Never again. A lifetime of purpose, and now she was rudderless, adrift on a sea far darker than this cell. She scrubbed a tear from her cheek, angry at letting it fall. “I am not the Amyrlin Seat anymore, Leane.” Some of the anger crept into her voice. “I suppose Elaida will be raised in my place. If she hasn't been already. I swear, one day I will feed that woman to the silverpike!”
Leane's only answer was a long, despairing breath.
The grate of a key in the rusty iron lock brought Siuan's head up; no one had thought to oil the works before throwing Leane and her in, and the corroded parts did not want to turn. Grimly she forced herself to her feet. “Up, Leane. Get up.” After a moment she heard the other woman complying, and muttering to herself between soft moans.
In a slightly louder voice, Leane said, “What good will it do?”
“At least they won't find us huddling on the floor and weeping.” She tried to make her voice firm. “We can fight, Leane. As long as we are alive, we can fight.” Oh, Light, they stilled me! They stilled me!
Forcing her mind to blankness, she clenched her fists, and tried to dig her toes into the uneven stone floor. She wished the noise in her throat did not sound so much like a whimper.
Min set her bundles on the floor and tossed back her cloak so she could use both hands on the key. Twice as long as her hand, it was as rusty as the lock, just like the other keys on the big iron ring. The air was cold and damp, as though summer did not reach this far down.
“Hurry, child,” Laras muttered, holding the lantern for Min, peering both ways down the otherwise dark stone hall. It was hard to believe that the woman, with all her chins, had ever been a beauty, but Min surely thought her beautiful now.
Fighting the key, she shook her head. She had encountered Laras while sneaking back to her room for the plain gray riding dress she now wore, and for a few other things. Actually, she had found the massive woman looking for her, in a tizzy of worry about “Elmindreda,” exclaiming over how lucky Min was to be safe and proposing to all but lock her in her room until the trouble was past to keep her so. She was still not sure how Laras had wormed her intentions out of her, and she still could not get over her shock when the woman reluctantly announced she would help. A venturesome lass after her own heart indeed. Well, I hope she can — how did she put it? — keep me out of the pickling kettle. The bloody key would not turn; she threw all of her weight into trying to twist it.
In truth, she was grateful to Laras in more ways than one. It was doubtful she could have readied everything by herself, or even found some of it, surely not this quickly. Besides which.... Besides which, when she ran into Laras, she had already begun telling herself she was a fool even to think of doing this, that she should be on a horse and off for Tear while she had the chance, before someone decided to add her head to those decorating the front of the Tower. Running away, she suspected, would have been the sort of thing she would never have been able to forget. That alone had made her grateful enough not to object in the slightest when Laras added some pretty dresses to what she herself had already packed. The rouges and powders could always be “lost” somewhere. Why won't this bloody key turn? Maybe Laras can —
The key shifted suddenly, twisted with a snap so loud that Min feared something had broken. But when she pushed at the rough wooden door, it opened. Snatching up the bundles, she stepped into the bare stone cell — and stopped in confusion.
The lantern light revealed two women clad only in dark bruises and red welts, shielding their eyes from the sudden light, but for a moment Min was not sure they were the right two. One was tall and copperyskinned, the other shorter, sturdier, more fair. The faces looked right — almost right — and untouched by whatever had been done to them, so she should have been certain. But the agelessness that marked Aes Sedai seemed to have melted away; she would have had no hesitation at all in thinking these women were just six or seven years older than herself at most, and not Aes Sedai at all. Her face heated with embarrassment at the thought. She saw no images, no auras, around either; there were always images and auras around Aes Sedai. St