Chapter 24

(Flame of Tar Valon)

An Embassy

Turning away from the musicians on the street corner, a perspiring woman puffing at a long flute and a red-faced man plucking a nine-string bittern, Egwene threaded her way through the crowd with a light heart. The sun stood high in the sky, molten gold, and the paving stones were hot enough to burn through the soles of her soft boots. Sweat dripped from her nose, her shawl felt like a heavy blanket even looped loosely over her elbows, and there was enough dust in the air that she already wanted to wash, yet she smiled. Some people eyed her askance, when they thought she was not looking, which almost made her laugh. That was how they looked at Aiel. People saw what they expected to see, and they saw a woman in Aiel garb, never noticing her eyes or her height.

Hawkers and peddlers cried their wares, competing against the shouts of butchers and candlemakers, the rattle and clatter from silversmiths’ and potters’ shops, the squeal of ungreased axles. Rough-tongued wagon drivers and men walking alongside ox-carts loudly contested the way with dark-lacquered sedan chairs and sober coaches with House sigils on the doors. There were musicians everywhere, along with tumblers and jugglers. A knot of pale women in riding dresses, carrying swords, swaggered by, imitating how they imagined men behaved, laughing too raucously and pushing their way in a manner that would have started a dozen fights in a hundred paces had they been men. A blacksmith’s hammer rang on his anvil. In general a babble and hum of bustle hung in the air, the noise of a city that she had almost forgotten among the Aiel. Perhaps she had missed it.

She did laugh then, right there in the street. The first time she had heard the noise of a city, it had nearly stunned her. Sometimes it seemed that wide-eyed girl had been someone else.

A woman working her bay mare through the crowd turned to look at her curiously. The horse had small silver bells tied in her long mane and tail, and the woman had more bells in the dark hair that hung halfway down her back. Pretty, she could not have been much older than Egwene, but she had a hardness to her face, and a sharp eye, and no fewer than six knives at her belt, one nearly as large as an Aiel’s. A Hunter for the Horn, no doubt.

A tall handsome man in a green coat, two swords on his back, watched the woman ride on. He was probably another. They seemed to be everywhere. As the crowd swallowed the woman on the bay, he turned and saw Egwene looking at him. Smiling with sudden interest, he squared broad shoulders and started toward her.

Hastily Egwene put on her coldest face, tried to combine Sorilea at her sternest with Siuan Sanche, the stole of the Amyrlin Seat around her shoulders.

He stopped, looking surprised. As he turned away, she distinctly heard him growl, "Flaming Aiel." She could not help laughing again; he must have heard despite the noise, because he stiffened, shaking his head. But he did not look back.

The source of her good mood was twofold. One was the Wise Ones finally agreeing that walking in the city provided as much exercise as walking around it outside the walls. Sorilea in particular did not seem to understand why she wanted to spend a minute more than she had to among throngs of wetlanders, especially cramped inside walls. Mostly, though, she felt good because they had told her that now the headaches that had puzzled them so were completely gone – she had not been able to hide them altogether – she could return to Tel’aran’rhiodsoon. Not in time for the next meeting, three nights off, but before the one after.

That was a relief in more ways than one. An end to having to sneak into the World of Dreams. An end to laboriously working everything out for herself. An end to being terrified the Wise Ones would catch her and refuse to teach her any more. An end to needing to lie. It was necessary – she could not afford to waste time; there was too much to learn, and she could not believe she would have time to learn it all – but they would never understand.

Aiel dotted the crowd, both in cadin’sorand in gai’shainwhite. The gai’shainwent where they were sent, yet the others might well be inside the walls for their first time, and quite possibly their last. The Aiel really did not seem to like cities, though a good many had come in six days ago, to see Mangin hang. It was said he put the noose around his own neck, and made some Aiel joke about whether the rope would break his neck or his neck the rope. She had heard several Aiel repeat the joke, but never a comment about the hanging. Rand had liked Mangin; she was sure of it. Berelain had informed the Wise Ones of the sentence as though telling them their wash would be ready the next day, and the Wise Ones had listened the same way. Egwene did not think she would ever understand Aiel. She was very much afraid she did not understand Rand anymore. As for Berelain, Egwene understood her all too well; that one was only interested in men who were alive.

With thoughts like those, it took an effort to regain her good mood. The city was certainly no cooler than outside the walls – in fact, with no breeze and people so close, it might have been hotter – and nearly as dusty, but at least she was not trudging along with nothing to look at but the ashes of Foregate. A few more days and she would be able to learn again, to really learn. That put a smile back on her face.

She stopped near a wiry, damp-faced Illuminator; it was easy to tell what he was, or had been. His thick mustaches were not covered by the diaphanous veil Taraboners often wore, but baggy breeches, embroidered on the legs, and an equally loose shirt embroidered across the chest marked him well enough. He was selling finches and warblers in crudely made cages. With their chapter house burned by the Shaido, a number of Illuminators were trying to find the means to return to Tarabon.

"I have it from the most reliable source," he was telling a handsome graying woman in a plainly cut dark blue dress. A merchant, no doubt, catching a jump on those waiting for better times in Cairhien. "The Aes Sedai," the Illuminator confided, leaning over a caged bird to whisper, "they are divided. The Aes Sedai, they are at war. With one another." The merchant nodded agreement.

Egwene stopped pretending to consider a green-headed finch and moved on, though she had to hop out of the way of a round-faced gleeman, striding along with self-important flourishes of his patch-covered cloak. Gleemen knew very well that they were among the few wetlanders welcome in the Waste; Aiel did not intimidate them. At least, they pretended so.

That rumor troubled her. Not that the Tower had split apart – that could not have been kept secret much longer – but talk of war between Aes Sedai. Knowing that Aes Sedai were set against Aes Sedai was like knowing one part of her family was set against another, just barely tolerable for knowing the reasons, yet the thought that it might come to more... If only there were some way to Heal the Tower, to make it whole again without bloodshed.

A little farther down the street, a perspiring Foregate woman who might have been pretty if her face were cleaner was dispensing rumor along with ribbons and pins from a tray hung from a neckstrap. She wore a blue silk dress, slashed with red in the skirt, that had been made for a shorter woman; the heavily worn hem was high enough to show her stout shoes, and holes in the sleeves and bodice showed where embroidery had been picked out. "I tell you a fact," she informed the women picking over her tray, "there has been Trollocs seen around the city. Ah, yes, that green will set off your eyes. Hundreds of Trollocs and... "

Egwene barely paused. If there had been even one Trolloc anywhere near the city, the Aiel would have known long before it became street gossip. She wished the Wise Ones gossiped. Well, they did, sometimes, but only about other Aiel. As far as Aiel were concerned, nothing about wetlanders was very absorbing. Being able to pop into Elaida’s study in Tel’aran’rhiodwhenever she wanted and read the woman’s letters had accustomed her to knowing what was happening in the world, though.