The novice, a pale-eyed woman close to her middle years, with an unblemished skin that had never seen a day’s work in the field, gaped openly before recovering enough to make her curtsy, a smoothly practiced spreading of her white skirts with mittened hands. As tall as most men but willowy and graceful and beautiful, Leane lacked the ageless look, too, yet hers was one of the two most well known faces in the camp. Novices pointed her out in awe, a sister who had once been Keeper, who had been stilled, and Healed so she could channel again, if not so strongly as before. And then she had changed Ajahs! The newest women in white already had learned that that just never happened, though the other was becoming a part of lore, unfortunately. It was harder to make a novice go slowly when you could not point out that she risked end­ing her quest for the shawl by burning herself out and losing the One Power forever.

“Letice Murow, Aes Sedai,” the woman said respectfully, in a lilting Murandian accent. She sounded as if she wanted to say more, perhaps to give a title, but one of the first lessons on joining the Tower was that you had left behind who you used to be. It was a hard lesson, for some, especially those who possessed titles. “I’m going to visit my sister. I haven’t seen her more than a minute since before we left Murandy.” Relatives were always put in differ­ent novice families, as were women who had known each other before being entered in the novice book. It encouraged making new friends, and cut down on the inevitable tensions when one was learning faster than the other or had a higher potential. “She’s free of classes, too, until the afternoon, and – ”

“Your sister will have to wait a while longer, child,” Leane broke in. “Hold the Amyrlin’s horse for her.”

Letice gave a start and stared at Egwene, who had finally man­aged to extract her stole. Handing Daishar’s reins to the woman, she lowered her cowl and settled the long narrow strip of cloth onto her shoulders. Light as a feather in her pouch, the stole had real weight hanging around her neck. Siuan claimed that some­times you could feel every woman who had ever worn the stole hanging from the ends of it, a constant reminder of responsibility and duty, and Egwene believed every word. The Murandian gaped at her harder than she had for Leane, and took longer to remember to curtsy. No doubt she had heard that the Amyrlin was young, but it seemed unlikely she had given a thought to how young.

“Thank you, child,” Egwene said smoothly. There had been a time when she felt strange calling a woman ten years older than herself child. Everything changed, with time. “It won’t be for long. Leane, would you ask someone to send a groom for Daishar? Now that I’m out of the saddle, I’d as soon stay out, and Letice should be allowed to see her sister.”

“I will see to it myself, Mother.”

Leane offered a fluid curtsy and moved away with never a hint that there was more between them than this chance encounter. Egwene trusted her far more than she did Anaiya or even Sheriam. She certainly kept no secrets from Leane, any more than from Siuan. But their friendship was yet another secret that had to be kept. For one thing, Leane had eyes-and-ears actually inside Tar Valon if not in the Tower itself, and their reports came to Egwene and Egwene alone. For another, Leane was much petted for accom­modating so well to her reduced status, and every sister welcomed her, if only because she was living proof that stilling, the deepest dread of any Aes Sedai, could be reversed. They welcomed her with open arms, and because she was less, now, standing below at least half the sisters in the camp, they often spoke in front of her about matters they would never want the Amyrlin to know of. So Egwene did not so much as glance after her as she left. Instead, she, offered Letice a smile – the woman reddened and bobbed another curtsy – then entered the tent, stripping off her gloves and tucking them behind her belt.

Inside, eight mirrored stand-lamps stood along the walls between low wooden chests. One with a bit of worn gilding and the rest of painted iron, no two of the lamps had the same number of arms, but they provided good illumination, if not so bright as outside. Assorted tables that seemed to have come from seven dif­ferent farm kitchens made a row down the center of the canvas ground-cloth, the benches of the three farthest occupied by a half a dozen novices with their cloaks folded beside them, each woman surrounded by the glow of the Power. Tiana, the Mistress of Novices, hovered anxiously over them, walking between the tables, and surprisingly, so did Sharina Melloy, one of the novices acquired in Murandy.

Well, Sharina was not exactly hovering, just watching calmly, and perhaps it should not have been a surprise to find her there. A dignified, gray-haired grandmother with a tight bun on the back of her head, Sharina had run a very large family with a very firm hand, and she seemed to have adopted all of the other novices as granddaughters or grandnieces. She was the one who had organized them into those tiny families, completely on her own and appar­ently out of simple disgust at seeing everyone flounder around. Most Aes Sedai went more than a touch tight-mouthed if reminded of that, though they had accepted the form quickly enough once they realized how much easier it made keeping track and organizing classes. Tiana was inspecting the novices’ work so closely that it seemed obvious she was attempting to ignore Sha­rina’s presence. Short and slight, with large brown eyes and a dim­ple in her cheek, Tiana somehow looked young despite her ageless face, particularly alongside the taller novice’s creased cheeks and broad hips.

The pair of Aes Sedai channeling at the table nearest the entrance, Kairen and Ashmanaille, had an audience of two as well, Janya Frende, a Sitter for the Brown, and Salita Toranes, a Sitter for the Yellow. The Aes Sedai and the novices were all performing the same task. In front of each woman, a close net woven of Earth, Fire and Air surrounded a small bowl or cup or the like, all made by the camp’s blacksmiths, who were very puzzled at why the sisters wanted such things made of iron, not to mention having them made as finely as if they were silver. A second weave, Earth and Fire woven just so, penetrated each net to touch the object, which was slowly turning white. Very, very slowly, in every case.

Ability with the weave improved with practice, but of the Five Powers, strength in Earth was the key, and beside Egwene herself, only nine sisters in the camp – along with two of the Accepted and nearly two dozen novices – had sufficient of that to make the weaves work at all. Few among the sisters wanted to give any time to it, though. Ashmanaille, lean enough to make her seem taller than she really was, fingers tapping the tabletop on either side of the simple metal cup in front her, was frowning impatiently as the edge of whiteness crept upward past halfway. Kairen’s blue eyes were cold enough that it seemed her stare alone might shatter the tall goblet she was working on. That had only the smallest rim of white at the bottom. It must have been Kairen Egwene had seen going in.

Not everyone was unenthusiastic, though. Janya, slim in her pale bronze silks and wearing her brown-fringed shawl draped over her arms, studied what Kairen and Ashmanaille were doing with the eagerness of one who wished she could be doing the same. Janya wanted to know everything, to know how everything was done and why it happened that way. She had been extremely disappointed when she could not learn to make ter’angreal – only three sisters aside from Elayne had managed that, so far, with very spotty success – and she had made a concerted effort to learn this skill even after the testing showed she fell short of the required strength in using Earth.