Elayne sorted and stored away faces and the names she knew with a growing sense of complacency. The Windfinders might have secured an upper hand of sorts, and she and Nynaeve might be in deep trouble, very deep, with both Egwene and the Hall of the Tower once the terms of their bargain became known, but none of these women would stand particularly high among Aes Sedai. Certainly not low, but not high. She told herself not to feel smug — it changed nothing in what they had agreed — yet it was very hard not to. These were the best the Atha’an could produce, after all. Here in Ebou Dar, anyway. And if they had been Aes Sedai, every one of them, from Kurin, with her stony black stare, to Renaile herself, would have listened when she spoke and stood when she entered a room. If they were Aes Sedai and behaving as they should.
And then the end of the line appeared, and she gave a start as a young Windfinder off one of the smaller ships passed her, a roundcheeked woman called Rainyn, in plain blue silks, with barely a halfdozen ornaments hanging from her nose chain. The two apprentices, boyishly slim Talaan and bigeyed Metarra, scurried at the very tail with harried expressions. They had not earned the nose ring yet, much less the chain, and only a single thin gold earring in the left ear balanced the three in the right. Her eyes followed the three of them just short of staring. Perhaps not short of it, at that.
The Atha’an Miere clustered with Renaile again, most, like her, glaring hungrily at the Aes Sedai and the Bowl. The last three women stood at the rear, the apprentices with the air of those uncertain whether they had a right to be there at all, Rainyn folding her arms in imitation of Renaile, yet doing little better than the other two. The Windfinder on a darter, the least of the Sea Folk vessels, likely seldom found herself in company with the Windfinder to her clan Wavemistress, not to mention the Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships. Rainyn was easily as strong as Lelaine or Romanda, and Metarra on a level with Elayne herself, while Talaan... Talaan, so meek in her red linen blouse, with eyes that seemed permanently downcast, came very close to Nynaeve. Very close. More, Elayne knew she herself had not yet reached her full potential, and neither had Nynaeve. How close were Metarra and Talaan? She had grown accustomed to knowing that only Nynaeve and the Forsaken were stronger than she. Well, Egwene, but she had been forced, and her own potential, and Aviendha’s, matched Egwene’s. So much for complacency, she told herself ruefully. Lini would have said it was what she deserved for taking things for granted.
Laughing softly at herself, Elayne turned back to check on Aviendha, but the Knitting Circle stood rooted to one spot in front of the gateway, twitching at cold stares from Careane and Sareitha. All but Sumeko, and she did not move away either for all that she had met the sisters’ gazes. Kirstian appeared ready to burst into tears.
Suppressing a sigh, Elayne herded the Kinswomen out of the way of the stable folk waiting to bring the horses through. The Knitting Circle went along like sheep — she was the shepherd, Merilille and the rest the wolves — and they would have moved faster if not for Ispan.
Famelle, one of only four among the Knitting Circle without a touch of gray or white in her hair, and Eldase, a fierceeyed woman when she was not looking at an Aes Sedai, held Ispan by the arms. They could not seem to decide between holding her firmly enough to keep her upright and not clutching her too tightly, with the result that the Black sister moved in a bobbing fashion, sagging halfway to her knees when they loosened their grips, then pulled back up just before she fell completely.
“Forgive me, Aes Sedai,” Famelle kept murmuring to Ispan with a faint Taraboner accent. “Oh, I am sorry, Aes Sedai.” Eldase winced and gave a little moan every time Ispan stumbled. Just as if Ispan had not helped murder two of their number and the Light alone knew how many others. They were fussing over a woman who was going to die. The killings in the White Tower that Ispan had conspired at were enough to condemn her by themselves.
“Take her over there somewhere,” Elayne told them, waving away from the gateway into the clearing. They obeyed, bobbing curtsies and nearly dropping Ispan, murmuring apologies to Elayne and to the hooded prisoner. Reanne and the rest scurried along, anxiously eyeing the sisters around Merilille.
Almost immediately the war of glares started up again, the Aes Sedai at the Kinswomen, the Knitting Circle at the Windfinders, and the Atha’an Miere at anybody their eyes fell on. Elayne clamped her teeth shut. She was not going to shout at them. Nynaeve always got better results with yells, anyway. But she did want to shake some sense into every one of them, shake them until their teeth rattled. Including Nynaeve, who was supposed to be getting everyone organized instead of staring into the trees. But what if it had been Rand who was going to die unless she could find a way to save him?
Suddenly tears trembled on the edge of falling, stinging her eyes. Rand was going to die, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Peel the apple in your hand, girl, not the one on the tree, Lini’s thin voice seemed to whisper in her ear. Tears are for after; they just waste time before.
“Thank you, Lini,” Elayne murmured. Her old nurse was an irritating woman sometimes, never admitting that any of her charges had really grown up, but her advice was always good. Just because Nynaeve was slacking her duties was no reason for Elayne to slack hers.
Servants had started trotting horses through right on the heels of the Knitting Circle, beginning with the packhorses. None of those first animals carried anything so frivolous as clothes. They could walk if the riding horses needed to be abandoned on the other side of the gateway, and wear what they stood up in if the rest of the pack animals had to be left behind, but what was on those first horses could not be left for the Forsaken. Elayne motioned the leathercheeked woman leading the very first to follow her aside, out of the way of the others.
Untying and tossing back the stiff canvas cover on one of the wide wicker panniers revealed a great heap of what appeared to be rubbish stuffed in every which way, right up to the top, some of it wrapped in cloth that was falling to pieces. The greater part of it probably was rubbish. Embracing saidar, Elayne began sorting. A rusted breastplate quickly went onto the ground, along with a broken table leg, a cracked platter, a badly dented pewter pitcher, and a bolt of rotted, unidentifiable cloth that almost broke apart in her hands.
The storeroom where they found the Bowl of the Winds had been stuffed full, things that should have been on a refuse heap jumbled in with more objects of the Power than just the Bowl, some in beetleriddled casks or chests, some carelessly stacked. For hundreds and hundreds of years the Kin had hidden away all things they found that were connected to the Power, fearful of using them and fearful of delivering them to Aes Sedai. Until that very morning. This was the first chance Elayne had had to see what was worth keeping. The Light send that the Darkfriends had not gotten away with anything important; they had taken some, but certainly less than a quarter of what the room had held, rubbish included. The Light send she found something they could use. People had died to bring thes
