The Gathering Storm

“I will return in the morning,” Egwene said, “but dinner must wait. I have been ordered to attend Elaida this evening as she eats.” This session with Silviana had gone long—Egwene had brought quite a list of infractions with her—and now she wouldn’t have time to eat. Her stomach complained at the prospect.

Silviana showed just a brief moment of emotion. Was it surprise? “And you said nothing of this earlier?”

“Would it have changed anything if I had?”

Silviana did not respond to the question. “You will eat after attending the Amyrlin, then. I shall leave instructions for the Mistress of the Kitchens to hold you some food. Considering how often you are being given Healing these days, child, you will need to take your meals. I won’t have you collapsing from lack of nourishment.”

Stern, yet fair. A pity this one had found her way to the Red. “Very well,” Egwene said.

“And after eating,” Silviana said, raising a finger, “you shall return to me for showing disrespect to the Amyrlin Seat. She is never to be known as simply ‘Elaida’ to you, child.” She turned down to her ledger, adding, “Besides, Light only knows what kind of trouble you’ll be in by this evening.”

As Egwene left the small chamber behind—entering a wide, gray-stoned hallway with floor tiles of green and red—she considered that last comment. Perhaps it hadn’t been surprise that Silviana had shown upon hearing of Egwene’s visit to Elaida. Perhaps it had been sympathy. Elaida would not react well when Egwene stood up to her the way she had to all others in the Tower.

Was that why Silviana had decided to bring Egwene back for a final strapping after eating? With the orders Silviana had given, Egwene would be required to take food before returning for her punishment, even if Elaida heaped the strappings upon her.

It was a small kindness, but Egwene was grateful for it. Enduring the daily punishments was difficult enough without skipping meals.

As she pondered, two Red sisters—Katerine and Barasine—approached her. Katerine held a brass cup. Another dose of forkroot. Elaida wanted to make certain that Egwene couldn’t channel a trickle during the meal, it seemed. Egwene took the cup without protesting and downed it in a single gulp, tasting the faint, yet characteristic, hint of mint. She handed the cup back to Katerine with an offhanded gesture, and the woman had no choice but to accept it. Almost as if she were a royal cupbearer.

Egwene didn’t head for Elaida’s quarters immediately. The overly long punishment’s intrusion into the dinner hour ironically left her with a few spare moments—and she didn’t want to arrive early, for that would show Elaida deference. So instead she lingered outside the door of the Mistress of Novices with Katerine and Barasine. Would a certain figure come to visit the study?

In the distance, small clusters of sisters walked the hallway’s tiles of green and red. There was a furtive cast to their eyes, like hares venturing into a clearing to nibble at leaves, yet fearing the predator who hid in the shadows. Sisters in the Tower these days always wore their shawls, and they never went about alone. Some even held the Power, as if afraid of being jumped by footpads here in the White Tower itself.

“Are you pleased with this?” Egwene found herself asking. She glanced at Katerine and Barasine; both were, coincidentally, also part of the group that had first captured Egwene.

“What was that, child?” Katerine asked coolly. “Speaking to a sister without being asked a question first? Are you so eager for more punishment?” She wore a conspicuous amount of red, her dress a bright crimson slashed with black. Her dark hair curled slightly in its cascade down her back.

Egwene ignored the threat. What more could they do to her? “Set aside the bickering for a moment, Katerine,” Egwene said, watching a group of Yellows pass, their step quickening as they saw the two Reds. “Set aside the posturing for authority and the threats. Put these things away and look. Are you proud of this? The Tower spent centuries without an Amyrlin being raised from the Red. Now, when you finally have a chance, your chosen leader has done this to the Tower. Women who won’t meet the eyes of those they do not know familiarly, sisters who travel in clusters. The Ajahs behave as if they are at war with one another!”

Katerine sniffed at the comment, though the lanky Barasine hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the group of Yellows hurrying down the corridor, several of them firing glances back at the two Reds.

“This was not caused by the Amyrlin,” Katerine said. “It was created by your foolish rebels and their betrayal!”

My rebels? Egwene thought with an inward smile. So you now see them as “mine,” rather than regarding me as just a poor Accepted who was duped? That’s progress.