Siuan drew a deep breath before answering. “Siuan Sanche has been stilled.” Her voice did not even tremble; she was proud of that. “Elaida a'Roihan is the new Amyrlin.” She could not keep a hint of bite out of that, however.
Mistress Tharne's face showed no reaction. “Well, that explains some of the orders I've gotten. Some of them, maybe. Stilled her, did they? I thought she'd be Amyrlin forever. I saw her once, a few years ago in Caemlyn. At a distance. She looked like she could chew harness straps for breakfast.” Those impossible scarlet curls swung as she shook her head. “Well, done's done. The Ajahs have split, haven't they? Only thing that fits; my orders, and the old buzzard stilled. The Tower's broken, and the Blues are running.”
Siuan ground her teeth. She tried telling herself the woman was loyal to the Blue Ajah, not to her personally, but it did not help. Old buzzard? She's old enough to be my mother. And if she was, I'd drown myself. With an effort, she made her voice meek. “My message is important. I must be on my way as soon as possible. Can you help me?”
“Important, is it? Well, I'm doubting it. Trouble is, I can give you something, but it's up to you to cipher it out. Do you want it?” The woman refused to make this any easier.
“Yes, please.”
“Sallie Daera. I don't know who she is or was, but I was told to give her name to any Blue who came around looking lost, so to speak. You may not be one of the sisters, but you carry your nose high enough for one, so there it is. Sallie Daera. Make of it what you will.”
Siuan suppressed a thrill of excitement and made her face dejected. “I never heard of her, either. I'll just have to go on looking.”
“If you find them, you tell Aeldene Sedai I'm still loyal, whatever's happened. I've worked for the Blues so long, I wouldn't know what to do with myself else.”
“I will tell her,” Siuan said. She had not known that Aeldene was her replacement controlling the Blues' eyesandears; the Amyrlin, whatever Ajah she came from, was of all but part of none. “I suppose you need some reason for not hiring me. I really cannot sing; that should do.”
“As if it mattered to that lot out there.” The big woman quirked an eyebrow and grinned in a way Siuan did not like. “I'll think of something, wench. And I'll give you a bit of advice. If you don't climb down a rung or two, some Aes Sedai will take you down the whole ladder. I'm surprised it hasn't been done already. Now, go on. Get out of here.”
Hateful woman, Siuan growled in her head. If there was a way to manage it, I'd have her doing penance till her eyes popped. The woman thought she deserved more respect, did she? “Thank you for your help,” she said coolly, making a curtsy that would have graced any court. “You have been too kind.”
She was three steps into the common room when Mistress Tharne appeared behind her, raising her voice in a laughing shout that cut through the noise. “A shy maiden, that one! Legs white, and slender enough to set you all drooling and she bawled like a baby when I told her she'd have to show them to you! Just sat right down on the floor and cried! Hips round enough for any taste, and she...”
Siuan stumbled as the tide of laughter rose, never quite drowning out the woman's recitation. She managed another three steps, face red as a beet, then fled at a run.
In the street, she paused to get her breath back and let her heart stop pounding. That horrible old harridan! I should... ! It did not matter what she should do; that disgusting woman had told her what she needed. Not Sallie Daera; not a woman at all. Only a Blue would know, or even suspect. Salidar. Birthplace of Deane Aryman, the Blue sister who had become Amyrlin after Bonwhin and had rescued the Tower from the ruin Bonwhin had poised it for. Salidar. One of the last places anyone would look for Aes Sedai, short of Amadicia itself.
Two men in snowy cloaks and brightly burnished mail were riding down the street toward her, reluctantly moving their horses aside for wagons. Children of the Light. They could be found everywhere these days. Tipping her head down, watching the Whitecloaks cautiously from beneath the brim of her hat, Siuan moved closer to the blueandgreen front of the inn. They glanced at her as they rode by — hard faces beneath shining conical helmets — and passed on.
Siuan bit her lip in vexation. She had probably called their attention to her by shrinking back. And if they had seen her face...? Nothing, of course. Whitecloaks might try to kill an Aes Sedai they found alone, but hers was an Aes Sedai face no longer. Only, they had seen her try to hide from them. If Duranda Tharne had not upset her so, she would not have made such a foolish error. She could remember when a little thing like Mistress Tharne's remarks would not have made her stride waver in the least, when that overgrown dyed fishwife would not have dared say a word of it. If that termagant doesn't like my manner, I'll... What she would do was continue about the business she was on before Mistress Tharne pummeled her so she could not sit a saddle. Sometimes it was hard remembering that the days were gone when she could call kings or queens and have them come.
Striding down the street, she glared so hard that some of the wagon drivers bit back the comments they had been going to make to a pretty young woman alone. Some of them did.
Min sat on a bench against the wall of the crowded common room in The Nine Horse Hitch, watching a table surrounded by standing men, some with coiled driver's whips, others wearing the swords that marked them merchants' guards. Six more sat shoulder to shoulder around the table. She could just make out Logain and Leane, sitting on the far side. He wore a disgruntled frown; the other men hung on Leane's every smiling word.
The air was thick with pipesmoke, and full of chatter that nearly drowned the music of flute and tambour and the singing of a girl dancing on a table between the stone fireplaces. Her song had to do with a woman convincing six men that each was the only man in her life; Min found it interesting even when it made her blush. The singer darted jealous glances at the crowded table from time to time. Or rather at Leane.
The tall Domani woman had already been leading Logain by the nose when they entered the inn, and she had attracted more men like flies to honey with that swaying walk and the smoldering light in her eyes. There had very nearly been a riot, Logain and the merchants' guards with hands on swords, knives being drawn, the stout proprietor and two heavily muscled fellows rushing in with cudgels. And Leane had doused the flames much as she had ignited them, with a smile here, a few words there, a pat on the cheek. Even the innkeeper had lingered awhile, grinning like a fool, until his custom called him away. And Leane thought she needed practi