Страница 63 из 154
That should have rallied them, restored their hearts as she had had to do before. Not one woman’s face changed. Not one.
"And there is the Car’a’carn," Tion said calmly. "Unless you have given up your plan to marry him."
"I have given up nothing," Seva
As she stalked away from them through the gloom, toward the doors of the stable, an unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to her. She was alone with these women. How far couldshe trust them, now? Desaine’s death remained all too vivid in her mind; the Wise One had been... butchered... using the One Power. By the women behind her, among others. The thought twisted her belly tight. She listened for the faint rustle of straw that would a
Efalin was pacing outside, shoufadraped around her neck, bow cased on her back, spears and buckler in hand. The gray-haired woman turned abruptly, the worry on her face fading only a little at sight of Seva
"Bury him deeply and hide the grave," Seva
Efalin nodded, signaling the Maidens ringing the stable to their feet, and they vanished inside behind her. Seva
They came out of the stable just as she started off toward the forest, Someryn and the others, and followed her into the trees arguing among themselves about the Seanchan, and Caddar, and where the rest of the Shaido had been sent. Not about her, but then, they would not where she could listen. What she did hear made her grimace. There were over three hundred Wise Ones with the Jumai, and it was the same whenever three or four started talking. Where were the rest of the septs, and had Caddar been a spear hurled by Rand al’Thor, and how many Seanchan were there, and even did they really ride lizards? Lizards! These women had been with her from the first. She had guided their feet step by step, but they believed they had helped plan every move, believed they knew the destination. If she was losing them now...
The forest gave way to a huge clearing that could have swallowed the circle back at the stable fifty times over, and Seva
Many people had set up their tents, but there was no need. Colorful structures nearly filled the clearing like a large wetlander village, tall barns and stables, a large forge and the squat roofs that had sheltered servants, all painted red and blue, surrounding the great roof itself. The manor house that was called, three floors high beneath a dark green tile roof, all of it a paler green trimmed with yellow, atop a broad man-made stone hill ten paces tall. Jumai and gai’shainclimbed the long ramp that led to the great building’s door and walked the ornately carved balconies that ringed it.
The stone walls and palaces she had seen in Cairhien had not impressed her half so much. This one was painted like a wagon of the Lost Ones, but even so, marvelous. She should have realized that with so many trees, these people could afford to build anythingof wood. Could no one but she see how fat this land was? More white-clad gai’shainscurried about their tasks than any twenty septs had ever had before, nearly half as many as there were Jumai! No one complained about making wetlanders gai’shainanymore. They were so docile! A wide-eyed young man in rough-sewn white hurried past clutching a basket, gaping at the people around him and stumbling over the hem of his robe. Seva
The women behind her had stopped short to talk among themselves at the edge of the trees. She caught what they were saying, and it turned her mood again.
"... how many Aes Sedai fight for these Seanchan," Tion was saying. "We must learn that." Someryn and Modarra murmured agreement.
"I do not think it matters," Rhiale put in. At least her contrariness extended to the others, too. "I do not think they will fight unless we attack them. Remember, they did nothing until we moved against them, not even to defend themselves."
"And when they did," Meira said sourly, "twenty-three of us died. And more than ten thousand algai’d’siswaidid not return either. Here, we have little more than a third of that number even counting the Brotherless." She soaked the last word in scorn.
"That was Rand al’Thor’s work!" Seva
Once again her effort to strengthen their hearts produced no visible effect. All they could remember was that the spears had been broken trying to capture Rand al’Thor, and they with them. Modarra might have been staring into the grave of all her sept, and even Tion frowned uneasily, doubtless recalling that she, too, had run like a frightened goat.