Breakfast or no breakfast, she returned to her tiny room in the novice quarters long enough to wash her face in cool water at the wash-stand and comb her hair. That comb, which had been in her belt pouch, was among the few personal belongings she retained. In the night, the clothes she had been wearing when captured vanished, replaced by novice white, but the dresses and shifts that hung from pegs on the white wall truly were hers. Stored away when she was raised Accepted, they still carried small tags stitched with her name sewn into their hems. The Tower was never wasteful. You never knew when a new girl would fit an old set of clothes. But having nothing to wear save novice white did not make her a novice, whatever Elaida and the others believed.
Not until she was sure that her face was no longer red and she looked as collected as she felt did she leave. When you had few weapons, your appearance could be one. The same two Reds were waiting on the railed gallery to shadow her.
The dining hall where novices ate lay on the lowest level of the Tower, to one side of the main kitchen. It was a large white-walled chamber, plain though the floor tiles showed all the Ajah colors, and filled with tables, each of which could accommodate six or eight women on small benches. A hundred or more white-clad women were sitting at those tables, chattering away over breakfast. Elaida must be very set up over their number. The Tower had not held so many novices in years. Doubtless even news of the Tower breaking had been enough to put the thought of going to Tar Valon into some heads. Egwene was not impressed. These women filled barely half the dining hall if that, and there was another like it one floor up, closed now for centuries. Once she gained the Tower, that second kitchen would be opened again, and the novices still would need to eat by shifts, something unknown since well before the Trolloc Wars.
Nicola caught sight of her as soon as she walked in—the woman appeared to have been watching for her—and nudged the novices to either side. Silence slid across the tables in a wave, and every head turned as Egwene glided down the central aisle. She looked neither to left nor right.
Halfway to the kitchen door, a short slim novice with long dark hair suddenly stuck out a foot and tripped her. Catching her balance just short of falling on her face, she turned coolly. Another skirmish. The young woman had the pale look of a Cairhienin. This close, Egwene could be sure that she would be tested for Accepted unless she had other failings. But the Tower was good at rooting out such things.
“What is your name?” she said.
“Alvistere,” the young woman replied, her accent confirming her face. “Why do you want to know? So you can carry tales to Silviana? It will do you no good. Everyone will say they saw nothing.”
“A pity, that, Alvistere. You want to become Aes Sedai and give up the ability to lie, yet you want others to lie for you. Do you see any inconsistency in that?”
Alvistere’s face reddened. “Who are you to lecture me?”
“I am the Amyrlin Seat. A prisoner, but still the Amyrlin Seat.”
Alvistere’s big eyes widened, and whispers buzzed through the room as Egwene walked on to the kitchen. They had not believed she would still claim the title while garbed in white and sleeping among them. As well to disabuse them of that notion quickly.
The kitchen was a large, high-ceilinged room with gray-tiled floors, where the roasting spits in the long stone fireplace were still but the iron stoves and ovens radiated enough heat that she would have begun perspiring immediately had she not known how to ignore it. She had labored in this kitchen often enough, and it seemed certain she would again. Dining halls surrounded it on three sides, for the Accepted and for Aes Sedai as well as novices. Laras, the Mistress of the Kitchens, was waddling about sweaty-faced in a spotless white apron that could have made three novice dresses, waving her long wooden spoon like a scepter as she directed cooks and undercooks and scullions who scurried for her as fast as they would have for any queen. Perhaps faster. A queen would be unlikely to give anyone a smack with her scepter for moving too slowly.
A great deal of the food seemed to be going onto trays, sometimes worked silver, sometimes carved wood and perhaps gilded, that women carried away through the door to the sisters’ main dining hall. Not kitchen serving women with the white Flame of Tar Valon on their bosoms, but dignified women in well-cut woolens with an occasional touch of embroidery, sisters’ personal servants who would make the long climb back to the Ajah quarters.
Any Aes Sedai could eat in her own rooms if she wished, though it meant channeling to warm the food again, yet most enjoyed company at meals. At least, they had. That steady stream of women carrying out cloth-covered trays was a confirmation that the White Tower was spiderwebbed with cracks. She should have felt pleasure at that. Elaida stood on a platform that was ready to crumble beneath her. But the Tower was home. All she felt was sadness. And anger at Elaida, too. That one deserved to be pulled down simply for what she had done to the Tower since gaining the stole and staff!
Laras gave her one long look, drawing in her chin until she had a fourth, then returned to brandishing her spoon and looking over an undercook’s shoulder. The woman had helped Siuan and Leane escape, once, so her loyalties to Elaida were weak. Would she help another now? She was certainly making every effort to avoid looking in Egwene’s direction again. Another undercook, who likely did not know her from any other novice, a smiling woman still working on her second chin, handed her a wooden tray with a large, stout cup of steaming tea and a thick, white-glazed plate of bread, olives and crumbly white cheese that she carried back into the dining hall.
Silence fell again, and once more every eye centered on her. Of course. They knew she had been summoned to the Mistress of Novices. They were waiting to see whether she would eat standing. She wanted very much to ease herself onto the hard wooden bench, but she made herself sit down normally. Which reignited the flames, of course. Not as strongly as before, yet strong enough to make her shift before she could stop herself. Strangely, she felt no real desire to grimace or squirm. To stand, yes, but not the other. The pain was part of her. She accepted it without struggle. She tried to welcome it, yet that still seemed beyond her.
She tore a piece of bread—there were weevils in the flour here, too, it appeared—and slowly the conversation in the room started up again, quietly because novices were expected not to make too much noise. At her table also the talk resumed, though no one made any effort to include her. That was just as well. She was not here to make friends among the novices. Nor to have them see her as one of themselves. No, her
