“What are we going to do now?” Arrela asked.
“Dig ourselves out,” Faile and Maighdin said at the same instant. Faile looked at the other woman in surprise. Her maid’s dirty face wore a queen’s resolve.
“Yes,” Alliandre said, straightening. She turned around, and if runnels of tear-tracks marked the dust on her face, no new tears appeared. She really was a queen, and could not like being shamed by the courage of a lady’s maid. “We’ll dig ourselves out. And if we fail. … If we fail, I will not die wearing this!” Unfastening her golden belt, she flung it contemptuously into a corner of the basement. Her golden collar followed.
“We’ll need those to make our way through the Shaido camp,” Faile said gently. “Galina may not be taking us out, but I intend leaving today.” Dairaine made that imperative. Bain and Chiad could not keep her hidden long. “Or as soon we can dig out, anyway. We’ll pretend we’ve been sent to pick berries.” She did not want to step on her liege-woman’s bold gesture, though. “However, we don’t need to wear them now.”
Removing her belt and collar, she righted her basket and set them atop the dirty gai’shain robes. The others emulated her. Alliandre retrieved her own belt and collar with a rueful laugh. At least she could laugh again. Faile wished she could.
The jumble of charred timbers and half-burned boards filling the staircase resembled one of those blacksmith’s puzzles her Perrin enjoyed. Almost everything seemed to be propping up something else. Worse, the heavier timbers might be beyond all of them working together. But if they could clear enough for them to be able to crawl through, writhing between the thick beams. … It would be dangerous, that crawl. But when a dangerous path was your only route to safety, you had to take it.
A few boards came away easily and were piled at the back of the basement, but after that everything had to be chosen with care, examined to see whether anything would fall if it were removed, hands feeling back as far as they could go into the tangle, groping for nails that might have caught, trying not to think about the whole pile shifting and trapping an arm, crushing it. Only then could they begin pulling, sometimes two of them together, tugging harder and harder until the piece suddenly gave. That work went slowly, with the great pile occasionally groaning, or shifting slightly. Everyone darted back, holding their breath, when that happened. Nobody moved again until they were sure the snarl of timbers was not going to collapse. The work became the focus of their world.
Once, Faile thought she heard wolves howling. Wolves generally made her think of Perrin, but not this time. The work was all.
Then Alliandre wrenched a charred board free, and with a great groan, the mass began to shift. Toward them. Everyone ran toward the back of the basement as the pile fell in with a deafening rumble, sending up more billows of dust.
When they stopped coughing and could see again, dimly, with dust still hanging in the air, perhaps a quarter of the basement was filled. All of their work undone, and worse, the jumble was leaning toward them precariously. Groaning, it sagged a little more toward them and stopped. Everything about it said the first board pulled free would bring the whole mass down on their heads.
Arrela began to cry softly. Tantalizing gaps admitted sunlight and allowed them to see the street, the sky, but nothing anyone could wriggle through, even Lacile. Faile could see the red scarf Galina had used to mark the building. It fluttered for a moment in the breeze.
Staring at the scarf, she seized Maighdin’s shoulder. “I want you to try to make that scarf do something the wind wouldn’t make it do.”
“You want to attract attention?” Alliandre said hoarsely. “It’s far more likely to be Shaido than anyone else.”
“Better that than dying down here of thirst,” Faile replied, her voice harsher than she wanted. She would never see Perrin again, then. If Sevanna had her chained, she would at least be alive for him to rescue. He would rescue her; she knew it. Her duty now was to keep the women who followed her alive. And if that meant captivity, so be it. “Maighdin?”
“I might spend all day trying to embrace the Source and never succeed,” the sun-haired woman said in dull tones. She stood slumped, staring at nothing. Her face suggested that she saw an abyss beneath her feet. “And if I do embrace it, I can almost never weave anything.”
Faile loosened her grip on Maighdin and smoothed her hair instead. “I know it’s difficult,” she said soothingly. “Well, in truth, I don’t know. I’ve never done it. But you have. And you can do it again. Our lives depend on you, Maighdin. I know the strength that’s in you. I’ve seen it time and again. There is no surrender in you. I know you can do it, and so do you.”
Slowly, Maighdin’s back straightened, and despair slid off her face. She might still see the abyss, but if she fell, she would fall without flinching. “I’ll try,” she said.
For a long while she stared up at the scarf, then shook her head dejectedly. “The Source is there, like the sun just beyond the edge of sight,” she whispered, “but every time I try to embrace it, it’s like trying to catch smoke with my fingers.”
Faile hastily pulled the gai’shain robes from her basket and another, careless of the gold belts and collars falling to the stone floor. “Sit down,” she said, arranging the robes in a pile. “Make yourself comfortable. I know you can do it, Maighdin.” Pressing the other woman down, she folded her legs and sat beside her.
“You can do it,” Alliandre said softly, sitting down on Maighdin’s other side. “Yes, you can,” Lacile whispered, joining them. “I know you can,” Arrela said as she lowered herself to the floor.
Time passed, with Maighdin staring at the scarf. Faile whispered encouragement and held onto hope hard. Suddenly the scarf went rigid, as if something had pulled it taut. A wondrous smile appeared on Maighdin’s face as the scarf began to swing back and forth like a pendulum. Six, seven, eight times it swung. Then it fluttered in the breeze and fell limp.
“That was marvelous,” Faile said. “Marvelous,” Alliandre said. “You re going to save us, Maighdin.” “Yes.” Arrela murmured, “you’re going to save us, Maighdin.”
There were many kinds of battle. Sitting on the floor, whispering encouragement, Maighdin fighting to find what she could seldom find, they fought for their lives while the scarf swung, then fell to the breeze, swung and fell
