Halfway to the kitchen door, a short slim novice with long dark hair suddenly stuck out a foot and tripped her. Catching her balance just short of falling on her face, she turned coolly. Another skirmish. The young woman had the pale look of a Cairhienin. This close, Egwene could be sure that she would be tested for Accepted unless she had other failings. But the Tower was good at rooting out such things.
"What is your name?" she said.
"Alvistere," the young woman replied, her accent confirming her face. "Why do you want to know? So you can carry tales to Silviana? It will do you no good. Everyone will say they saw nothing."
"A pity, that, Alvistere. You want to become Aes Sedai and give up the ability to lie, yet you want others to lie for you. Do you see any inconsistency in that?"
Alvistere's face reddened. "Who are you to lecture me?"
"I am the Amyrlin Seat. A prisoner, but still the Amyrlin Seat."
Alvistere's big eyes widened, and whispers buzzed through the room as Egwene walked on to the kitchen. They had not believed she would still claim the title while garbed in white and sleeping among them. As well to disabuse them of that notion quickly.
The kitchen was a large, high-ceilinged room with gray-tiled floors, where the roasting spits in the long stone fireplace were still but the iron stoves and ovens radiated enough heat that she would have begun perspiring immediately had she not known how to ignore it. She had labored in this kitchen often enough, and it seemed certain she would again. Dining halls surrounded it on three sides, for the Accepted and for Aes Sedai as well as novices. Laras, the Mistress of the Kitchens, was waddling about sweaty-faced in a spotless white apron that could have made three novice dresses, waving her long wooden spoon like a scepter as she directed cooks and undercooks and scullions who scurried for her as fast as they would have for any queen. Perhaps faster. A queen would be unlikely to give anyone a smack with her scepter for moving too slowly.
A great deal of the food seemed to be going onto trays, sometimes worked silver, sometimes carved wood and perhaps gilded, that women carried away through the door to the sisters' main dining hall. Not kitchen serving women with the white Flame of Tar Valon on their bosoms, but dignified women in well-cut woolens with an occasional touch of embroidery, sisters' personal servants who would make the long climb back to the Ajah quarters.
Any Aes Sedai could eat in her own rooms if she wished, though it meant channeling to warm the food again, yet most enjoyed company at meals. At least, they had. That steady stream of women carrying out cloth-covered trays was a confirmation that the White Tower was spiderwebbed with cracks. She should have felt pleasure at that. Elaida stood on a platform that was ready to crumble beneath her. But the Tower was home. All she felt was sadness. And anger at Elaida, too. That one deserved to be pulled down simply for what she had done to the Tower since gaining the stole and staff!
Laras gave her one long look, drawing in her chin until she had a fourth, then returned to brandishing her spoon and looking over an undercook's shoulder. The woman had helped Siuan and Leane escape, once, so her loyalties to Elaida were weak. Would she help another now? She was certainly making every effort to avoid looking in Egwene's direction again. Another undercook, who likely did not know her from any other novice, a smiling woman still working on her second chin, handed her a wooden tray with a large, stout cup of steaming tea and a thick, white-glazed plate of bread, olives and crumbly white cheese that she carried back into the dining hall.
Silence fell again, and once more every eye centered on her. Of course. They knew she had been summoned to the Mistress of Novices. They were waiting to see whether she would eat standing. She wanted very much to ease herself onto the hard wooden bench, but she made herself sit down normally. Which reignited the flames, of course. Not as strongly as before, yet strong enough to make her shift before she could stop herself. Strangely, she felt no real desire to grimace or squirm. To stand, yes, but not the other. The pain was part of her. She accepted it without struggle. She tried to welcome it, yet that still seemed beyond her.
She tore a piece of bread—there were weevils in the flour here, too, it appeared—and slowly the conversation in the room started up again, quietly because novices were expected not to make too much noise. At her table also the talk resumed, though no one made any effort to include her. That was just as well. She was not here to make friends among the novices. Nor to have them see her as one of themselves. No, her purpose was far different.
Leaving the hall with the novices after returning her tray to the kitchen, she found another pair of Reds waiting for her. One was Katerine Alruddin, vulpine in copiously red-slashed gray, a mass of raven hair falling in waves to her waist and her shawl looped over her elbows.
"Drink this," Katerine said imperiously, extending a pewter cup in one slim hand. "All of it, mind." The other Red, dark and square-faced, adjusted her shawl impatiently and grimaced. Apparently she disliked acting as a serving woman even by association. Or perhaps it was dislike for what was in the cup.
Suppressing a sigh, Egwene drank. The weak forkroot tea looked and tasted like water tinged a faint brown, with just a hint of mint. Almost a memory of mint rather than the taste itself. Her first cup had been soon after waking, the Red sisters on duty eager to be done with shielding and about their own business. Katerine had let the hour slip a little, yet even without this cup, she doubted she would have been able to channel very strongly for some time yet. Certainly not with enough strength to be useful.
"I don't want to be late for my first class," she said, handing the cup back. Katerine took it, though she seemed surprised to realize that she had. Egwene glided on after the novices before the sister could object. Or remember to call her down for failing to curtsy.
That first class, in a plain, windowless room where ten novices occupied benches for thirty or more, was every bit the disaster she expected. Not a disaster for her, however, no matter the outcome. The instructor was Idrelle Menford, a lanky, hard-eyed woman who had already been Accepted when Egwene first came to the Tower. She still wore the white dress with the seven bands of color at hem and cuffs. Egwene took a seat at the end of a bench, once again without consideration for her tenderness. That had lessened, though not very far. Drink in the pain.
Standing on a small dais at the front of the room, Idrelle looked down her long nose with more than a spark of satisfaction at seeing Egwene in white once more. It almost softened her frown, a fixture with Idrelle. "You have all gone beyond making simple balls of fire," she told the class, "but let's see what our new girl is capable of. She used to think a great deal of herself, you know." Several of the novices tittered. "Make a ball of fire, Egwene. Go on, child." A ball of fire? That was one of the earliest things novices learned. What was she about?
Opening herself to the Source, Egwene embraced saidar, let it rush into her. The forkroot allowed only a trickle, a thread where she was accustomed to torrents, yet it was the Power, and trickle or no, it brought all of the life and joy of saidar, all the heightened awareness of herself and the room around her. Awareness of herself meant her smarting bottom suddenly felt freshly slippered again, but she did not shift. Breathe in the pain. She could smell the faint aroma of soap from the novices' morning wash, see a tiny vein pulsing on Idrelle's forehead. Part of her wanted to clout the woman's ear with a flow of Air, but given the amount of the Power she commanded now, Idrelle would barely feel it. Instead, she channeled Fire and Air to produce a small ball of green fire that floated in front of her. A pale, pitiful thing it was, actually transparent.
"Very good," Idrelle said sarcastically. Ah, yes. She had just wanted to begin by showing the novices how weak Egwene's channeling was. "Release saidar. Now, class—"
Egwene added a blue ball, then a brown, and a gray, making them spin around one another. "Release the Source!" Idrelle said brusquely.
A yellow ball joined the others, a white, and finally, a red ball. Quickly she added rings of fire one inside the other around the whirling balls. Red came first this time, because she wanted it smallest, green last and largest. Had she been able to choose an Ajah, it would have been the Green. Seven rings of fire rotated, no two in the same direction, around seven balls of fire that carried out an intricate dance at the heart. Pale and thin they might be, yet it was an impressive display beyond dividing her flows fourteen ways. Juggling with the Power was not all that much easier than juggling with your hands.
"Stop that!" Idrelle shouted. "Stop it!" The glow of saidar enveloped the teacher, and a switch of Air struck Egwene hard across the back. "I said stop it!" The switch struck again, then again.
Egwene calmly kept the rings spinning, the balls dancing. After Silviana's hard-swung slipper, it was easy to drink in the pain of Idrelle's blows. If not to welcome it. Would she ever be able to smile while she was being beaten?
Katerine and the other Red appeared in the doorway. "What is going on in here?" the raven-haired sister demanded. Her companion's eyes widened when she saw what Egwene was doing. It was very unlikely that either of them could divide their flows so far.
The novices all popped to their feet and curtsied when the Aes Sedai entered, of course. Egwene remained seated.
Idrelle spread her banded skirts looking flustered. "She won't stop," she wailed. "I told her to, but she won't!"
"Stop that, Egwene," Katerine ordered firmly.