The question – her morning seemed filled with questions, and the sun not halfway to noon yet – the question was, did the girl wear her jewelry because of the al’Thor boy, or the Asha’man? Or because of Cadsuane Melaidhrin? Nynaeve had demonstrated her loyalty to a young man from her own village, and she had shown her wariness of him as well. She did have a brain, when she chose to use it. Until that question was answered, however, trusting the girl too far was dangerous. The trouble was, little these days did not seem dangerous.
“Jahar is growing stronger,” Merise said abruptly.
For an instant, Cadsuane frowned at the other Green. Stronger? The young man’s shirt was beginning to cling damply to his back, while Lan appeared not to have broken his first sweat. Then she understood. Merise meant in the Power. Cadsuane only raised a questioning eyebrow, though. She could not recall the last time she had let shock reach her face. It might have been all those years ago, in the Black Hills, when she began earning the ornaments she now wore.
“At first, I thought the way these Asha’man train, the forcing, had pushed him to his full strength already,” Merise said, frowning down at the two men working their practice blades. No; it was at Jahar she was frowning. Just a faint crinkle of her eyes, but she reserved her frowns for those who could see and know her displeasure. “At Shadar Logoth, I thought I must be imagining it. Three or four days ago, I was half convinced I was mistaken. Now, I am sure I am correct. If men gain strength by fits and starts, there is no saying how strong he will become.”
She did not voice her obvious worry, of course: that he might grow stronger than she. Saying such a thing would have been unthinkable on many different levels, and while Merise had become somewhat accustomed to doing the unthinkable – most sisters would faint at the very idea of bonding a man who could channel – she was never comfortable giving them voice. Cadsuane was, yet she kept her voice neutral. Light, but she hated being delicate. Hated the necessity, anyway.
“He seems content, Merise.” Merise’s Warders always seemed content; she handled them well.
“He is in a fury of…” The other woman touched the side of her head as though fingering the bundle of sensations she felt through the bond. She really was upset! “Not rage. Frustration.” Reaching into her green worked-leather belt pouch, she took out a small enameled pin, a sinuous figure in red and gold, like a snake with legs and a lion’s mane. “I do not know where the al’Thor lad got this, but he gave it to Jahar. Apparently, for Asha’man, it is akin to attaining the shawl. I had to take it away, of course; Jahar, he is still at the stage where he has to learn to accept only what I say he can. But he is so agitated over the thing… Should I give it back to him? In a way, it would come from my hand, then.”
Cadsuane’s eyebrows began to climb before she could control them. Merise was asking advice about one of her Warders? Of course, Cadsuane had suggested she sound the man out in the first place, but this degree of intimacy was… Unthinkable? Phaw! “I’m sure whatever you decide will be correct.”
With one last glance at Nynaeve, she left the taller woman stroking the enameled pin with her thumb and frowning down into the courtyard. Lan had just defeated Jahar once more, but the young man was squaring up again, demanding yet another match. Whatever Merise decided, she had already learned one thing she did not like. The boundaries between Aes Sedai and Warders had always been as clear as the connections; Aes Sedai commanded, and Warders obeyed. But if Merise, of all people, was dithering over a collar pin – Merise, who managed her Warders with a firm hand – then new boundaries would have to be worked out, at least with Warders who could channel. It seemed unlikely that bonding them would stop now; Beldeine was evidence for that. People never really changed, yet the world did, with disturbing regularity. You just had to live with it, or at least live through it. Now and then, with luck, you could affect the direction of the changes, but even if you stopped one, you only set another in motion.
As expected, she did not find the door to the al’Thor boy’s rooms unguarded. Alivia was there, of course, seated on a bench to one side of the door with her hands folded patiently in her lap. The pale-haired Seanchan woman had appointed herself the boy’s protector, of sorts. Alivia credited him with freeing her from a damane’s collar, but there was more to it than that. Min disliked her, for one thing, and it was not the usual sort of jealousy. Alivia hardly seemed to know what men and women did together. But there was a connection between her and the boy, a connection revealed in glances that carried determination on her side and on his, hope, hard as that was to believe. Until Cadsuane knew what that was all about, she intended to do nothing to separate them. Alivia’s sharp blue eyes regarded Cadsuane with a respectful wariness, but she did not see an enemy. Alivia had a short way with those she considered the al’Thor boy’s enemies.
The other woman on guard was much of a size with Alivia, but the two could not have been more different, and not just because Elza’s eyes were brown and she had the smooth, ageless look of Aes Sedai, where Alivia had fine lines at the corners of her eyes and threads of white almost hidden in her hair. Elza leaped to her feet as soon as she saw Cadsuane, drawing herself up in front of the door and wrapping herself tight in her shawl. “He is not alone,” she said, frost riming her voice.
“Do you mean to stand in my way?” Cadsuane asked, just as coldly. The Andoran Green should have moved aside. Elza stood far enough below her in the Power that she should not have hesitated, much less waited, for a command, but the woman planted her feet, and her gaze actually grew heated.
It was a quandary. Five other sisters in the manor house sworn fealty to the boy, and those who had been loyal to Elaida all stared at Cadsuane as if suspicious of her intentions toward him. Which raised the question of why Verin did not, of course. But only Elza tried to keep her away from him. The woman’s attitude reeked of jealousy, which made no sense. She could not possibly believe herself better suited to advise him, and if there had been any suggestion that Elza desired the boy, as a man or a Warder, Min would have been snarling. The girl had finely honed instincts, there. Cadsuane would have ground her teeth, had she been the sort of woman to grind her teeth.
At the point when she thought she would have to order Elza to step aside, Alivia leaned forward. “He did send for her, Elza,” she drawled. “He’ll be upset if we keep her out. Upset with us, not her. Let her in.”
Elza glanced at the Seanchan woman from the corner of her eye, and her lip curled in contempt. Alivia stood far above her in the Power – Alivia stood well above Cadsuane, for that matter – but she was a wilder, and a liar in Elza’s view. The dark-haired woman hardly seemed to accept that Alivia had been damane, much less the rest of her story. Still, Elza darted a look at Cadsuane, then at the door behind her, and shifted her shawl. Plainly, she did not want the boy upset. Not with her.
“I’ll see whether he’s ready for you,” she said, very near to sullen. “Keep her here,” she added to Alivia, more sharply, before turning to knock lightly at the door. A male voice called from the other side, and she opened the door just wide enough to slip in, pulling it shut behind her.
“You’ll have to forgive her,” Alivia said in that irritatingly slow, soft Seanchan accent. “I think it’s just that she takes her oath very seriously. She isn’t used to serving anyone.”
“Aes Sedai keep their word,” Cadsuane replied dryly. The woman made her feel as if her own way of talking were as quick and crisp as a Cairhienin’s! “We must.”