Figs and Mice

Figs and Mice

Elayne realized that she was being carried upstairs by her shoulders and ankles. Her eyes opened, she could see, but the rest of her body might as well have belonged to someone else for all the control she had over it. Even blinking was slow. Her brain felt crammed full of feathers.

"She's awake, Mistress!" Luci shrilled, nearly dropping her feet. "She's looking at me!"

"I told you not to worry." Mistress Macura's voice came from above her head. "She cannot channel, or twitch a muscle, not with forkroot tea in her. I discovered that by accident, but it has certainly come in handy."

It was true. Elayne sagged between them like a doll with half the stuffing gone, bumping her bottom along the steps, and she could as well have run as channel. She could sense the True Source, but trying to embrace it was like trying to pick up a needle on a mirror with cold-numbed fingers. Panic welled up, and a tear slid down her cheek.

Perhaps these women meant to turn her over to the Whitecloaks fo 20520e44u r execution, but she could not make herself believe that the Whitecloaks had women setting traps in the hope that an Aes Sedai might wander in. That left Darkfriends, and almost certainly serving the Black Ajah right along with the Yellow. She would surely be put in the hands of the Black Ajah unless Nynaeve had escaped. But if she was to escape, she could not count on anyone else. And she could neither move nor channel. Suddenly she realized that she was trying to scream, and producing only a thin, gurgling mew! Halting it took all the strength she had left.

Nynaeve knew all about herbs, or claimed she did; why had she not recognized whatever that tea was? Stop this whining! The small, firm voice in the back of her head sounded remarkably like Lini. A shoat squealing under a fence just attracts the fox, when it should be trying to run. Desperately, she set herself to the simple task of embracing saidar. It had been a simple task, but now she might as well have been attempting to reach saidin. She kept on, though; it was the only thing she could do.

Mistress Macura, at least, seemed to have no worry. As soon as they had dropped Elayne onto a narrow bed in a small, close room with one window, she hustled Luci right out again with not even a backward glance. Elayne's head had fallen so she could see another cramped bed, and a highchest with tarnished brass pulls on the drawers. She could move her eyes, but shifting her head was beyond her.

In a few minutes the two women returned, puffing, with Nynaeve slung between them, and heaved her onto the other bed. Her face was slack, and glistening with tears, but her dark eyes... Fury filled them, and fear, too. Elayne hoped anger was uppermost; Nynaeve was stronger than she, when she could channel; perhaps Nynaeve could manage where she was failing miserably, time after time. Those had to be tears of rage.

Telling the thin girl to stay there, Mistress Macura hurried out once more, this time coming back with a tray that she placed atop the highchest. It held the yellow teapot, one cup, a funnel and a tall hourglass. "Now Luci, mind you pour a good two ounces into each of them as soon as that hourglass empties. As soon, mind!"

"Why don't we give it to them now, Mistress?" the girl moaned, wringing her hands. "I want them to go back to sleep. I don't like them looking at me."

"They would sleep like the dead, girl, and this way we can let them rouse just enough to walk when we need them to. I will dose them more properly when it's time to send them off. They'll have headaches and stomach cramps to pay for it, but no more than they deserve, I suppose."

"But what if they can channel, Mistress? What if they do? They're looking at me."

"Stop blathering, girl," the older woman said briskly. "If they could, don't you think they would have by now? They are helpless as kittens in a sack. And they will stay that way as long you keep a good dose in them. Now, you do as I told you, understand? I must go tell old Avi to send off one of his pigeons, and make a few arrangements, but I will be back as soon as I can. You had better brew another pot of forkroot just in case. I'll go out the back. Close up the shop. Someone might wander in, and that would never do."

After Mistress Macura left, Luci stood staring at them for a while, still wringing her hands, then finally scurried out herself. Her sniffling faded down the stairs.

Elayne could see sweat beading on Nynaeve's brow; she hoped it was effort, not the heat. Try, Nynaeve. She herself reached for the True Source, fumbling clumsily through the wads of wool that seemed to pack her head, failed, tried again and failed, tried again... Oh, Light, try Nynaeve! Try!

The hourglass filled her eyes; she could not look at anything else. Sand pouring down, each grain marking another failure on her part. The last grain dropped. And Luci did not come.

Elayne strained harder, for the Source, to move. After a bit the fingers of her left hand twitched. Yes! A few minutes more, and she could lift her hand; only a feeble inch before it fell again, but it had lifted. With an effort, she could turn her head.

"Fight it," Nynaeve mumbled thickly, barely intelligible. Her hands were gripping the coverlet under her tightly; she seemed to be trying to sit up. Not even her head lifted, but she was trying.

"I am," Elayne tried to say; it sounded more like a grunt to her ears.

Slowly she managed to raise her hand to where she could see it, and hold it there. A thrill of triumph shot through her. Stay afraid of us, Luci. Stay down there in the kitchen a little while longer, and...

The door banged open, and sobs of frustration racked her as Luci dashed in. She had been so close. The girl took one look at them and with a yelp of pure terror darted for the highchest.

Elayne tried to fight her, but thin as she was, Luci batted her floundering hands away effortlessly, forced the funnel between her teeth just as easily. The girl panted as if running. Cold, bitter tea filled Elayne's mouth. She stared up at the girl in a panic that Luci's face shared. But Luci held Elayne's mouth shut and stroked her throat with a grim if fearful determination until she swallowed. As darkness overwhelmed Elayne, she could hear liquid sounds of protest coming from Nynaeve.

When her eyes opened again, Luci was gone, and the sands trickled through the glass again. Nynaeve's dark eyes were bulging, whether in fear or anger, Elayne could not have said. No, Nynaeve would not give in. That was one of the things she admired in the other woman. Nynaeve's head could have been on the chopping block and she would not give up. Our heads are on the block!

It made her ashamed that she was so much weaker than Nynaeve. She was supposed to be Queen of Andor one day, and she wanted to howl with terror. She did not, even in her head - doggedly she went back to trying to force her limbs to move, to trying to touch saidar - but she wanted to. How could she ever be a queen, when she was so weak? Again she reached for the Source. Again. Again. Racing the grains of sand. Again.

Once more the glass emptied itself without Luci. Ever so slowly, she reached the point where she could raise her hand again. And then her head! Even if it did flop back immediately. She could hear Nynaeve muttering to herself, and she could actually understand most of the words.

The door crashed open once more. Elayne lifted her head to stare at it despairingly - and gaped. Thom Merrilin stood there like the hero of one of his own tales, one hand firmly gripping the neck of a Luci near fainting, the other holding a knife ready to throw. Elayne laughed delightedly, though it came out more like a croak.

Roughly, he shoved the girl into a corner. "You stay there, or I'll strop this blade on your hide!" In two steps he was at Elayne's side, smoothing her hair back, worry painting his leathery face. "What did you give them, girl? Tell me, or -!"

"Not her," Nynaeve muttered. "Other one. Went away. Help me up. Have to walk."

Thom left her reluctantly, Elayne thought. He showed Luci his knife again threateningly - she cowered as if she never meant to move again - then made it disappear up his sleeve in a twinkling. Hauling Nynaeve to her feet, he began walking her up and down the few paces the room allowed. She sagged against him limply, shuffling.

"I am glad to hear this frightened little cat didn't trap you," he said. "If she had been the one..." He shook his head. No doubt he would think just as little of them if Nynaeve told him the truth; Elayne certainly did not intend to. "I found her rushing up the stairs, so panicked she did not even hear me behind her. I am not so glad that another one got away without Juilin seeing her. Is she likely to bring others back?"

Elayne rolled over onto her side. "I do not think so, Thom," she mumbled. "She can't let - too many people - know about herself." In another minute she might be able to sit up. She was looking right at Luci; the girl flinched and tried to shrink through the wall. "The Whitecloaks - would take her as - quickly as they would us."

"Juilin?" Nynaeve said. Her head wavered as she glared up at the gleeman. She had no trouble speaking, though. "I told the pair of you to stay with the wagon."

Thom blew out his mustaches irritably. "You told us to put up the supplies, which did not take two men. Juilin followed you, and when none of you came back, I went looking for him." He snorted again. "For all he knew, there were a dozen men in here, but he was ready to come in after you alone. He is tying Skulker in the back. A good thing I decided to ride in. I think we'll need the horse to get you two out of here."

Elayne found that she could sit up, barely, pulling herself hand over hand along the coverlet, but an effort to stand nearly put her flat again. Saidar was as unobtainable as ever; her head still felt like a goose-down pillow. Nynaeve was beginning to hold herself a little straighter, to lift her feet, but she still hung on Thom.

Minutes later Juilin arrived, pushing Mistress Macura ahead of him with his belt knife. "She came through a gate in the back fence. Thought I was a thief. It seemed best to bring her on in."

The seamstress face had gone so pale at the sight of them that her eyes seemed darker, and about to come out of her head besides. She licked her lips and smoothed her skirt incessantly, and cast quick little glances at Juilin's knife as if wondering whether it might not be best to run anyway. For the most part, though, she stared at Elayne, and Nynaeve; Elayne thought it an even chance whether she would burst into tears or swoon.

"Put her over there," Nynaeve said, nodding to where Luci still shivered in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees, "and help Elayne. I never heard of forkroot, but walking seems to help the effects pass. You can walk most things off."

Juilin pointed to the corner with his knife, and Mistress Macura scurried to it and sat herself down beside Luci, still wetting her lips fearfully. "I would not have done - what I did - only, I had orders. You must understand that. I had orders."

Gently helping Elayne to her feet, Juilin supported her in walking the few steps available, crisscrossing the other pair. She wished it were Thom. Juilin's arm around her waist was much too familiar.

"Orders from whom?" Nynaeve barked. "Who do you report to in the Tower?"

The seamstress looked sick, but she clamped her mouth shut determinedly.

"If you don't talk," Nynaeve told her, scowling, "I'll let Juilin have you. He's a Tairen thief-catcher, and he knows how to bring out a confession as quickly as any Whitecloak Questioner. Don't you, Juilin?"

"Some rope to tie her," he said, grinning a grin so villainous that Elayne almost tried to step away from him, "some rags to gag her until she is ready to talk, some cooking oil and salt... " His chuckle curdled Elayne's blood. "She will talk." Mistress Macura held herself rigidly against the wall, staring at him, eyes as wide as they would go. Luci looked at him as if he had just turned into a Trolloc, eight feet tall and complete with horns.

"Very well," Nynaeve said after a moment. "You should find everything you need in the kitchen, Juilin." Elayne shifted a startled look from her to the thief-catcher and back. Surely they did not really mean to...? Not Nynaeve!

"Narenwin Barda," the seamstress gasped suddenly. Words tripped over one another spilling out of her. "I send my reports to Narenwin Barda, at an inn in Tar Valon called The Upriver Run. Avi Shendar keeps pigeons for me on the edge of town. He doesn't know who I send messages to or who I get them from, and he does not care. His wife had the falling sickness, and..." She trailed off, shuddering and watching Juilin.

Elayne knew Narenwin, or at least had seen her in the Tower. A thin little woman you could forget was there, she was so quiet. And kind, too; one day a week, she let children bring their pets to the Tower grounds for her to Heal. Hardly the sort of woman to be Black Ajah. On the other hand, one of the Black Ajah names they knew was Marillin Gemalphin; she liked cats, and went out of her way to look after strays.

"Narenwin Barda," Nynaeve said grimly. "I want more names, inside the Tower or out."

"I - don't have any more," Mistress Macura said faintly.

"We will see about that. How long have you been a Darkfriend? How long have you served the Black Ajah?"

An indignant squall erupted from Luci. "We aren't Darkfriends!" She glanced at Mistress Macura and sidled away from her. "At least, I'm not! I walk in the Light! I do!"

The other woman's reaction was no less strong. If her eyes had bulged before, they popped now. "The Black -! You mean it really exists? But the Tower has always denied - Why, I asked Narenwin, the day she chose me for the Yellow's eyes-and-ears, and it was the next morning before I could stop weeping and crawl out of my bed. I am not - not! - a Darkfriend! Never! I serve the Yellow Ajah! The Yellow!"

Still hanging on to Juilin's arm, Elayne exchanged puzzled looks with Nynaeve. Any Darkfriend would deny it, of course, but there seemed a ring of truth in the women's voices. Their outrage at the accusation was nearly enough to overcome their fear. From the way Nynaeve hesitated, she heard the same thing.

"If you serve the Yellow," she said slowly, "why did you drug us?"

"It was her," the seamstress replied, nodding at Elayne. "I was sent her description a month since, right down to that way she holds her chin sometimes so she seems to be looking down at you. Narenwin said she might use the name Elayne, and even claim to be of a noble House." Word by word, her anger over being called a Darkfriend seemed to bubble higher. "Maybe you are a Yellow sister, but she's no Aes Sedai, just a runaway Accepted. Narenwin said I was to report her presence, and that of anyone with her. And to delay her, if I could. Or even capture her. And anyone with her. How they expected me to capture an Accepted, I do not know - I don't think even Narenwin knows about my forkroot tea! - but that is what my orders said! They said I should risk exposure even - here, where it'd be my death! - if I had to! You just wait until the Amyrlin puts her hands on you, young woman! On all of you!"

"The Amyrlin!" Elayne exclaimed. "What does she have to do with this?"

"It was on her orders. By order of the Amyrlin Seat, it said. It said the Amyrlin herself said I could use any means short of killing you. You will wish you were dead when the Amyrlin gets hold of you!" Her sharp nod was full of furious satisfaction.

"Remember that we are not in anyone's hands yet," Nynaeve said dryly. "You are in ours." Her eyes looked as shocked as Elayne felt, though. "Was any reason given?"

The reminder that she was the captive sapped the brief burst of spirit from the woman. She sagged listlessly against Luci, each keeping the other from falling over. "No. Sometimes Narenwin gives a reason, but not this time."

"Did you intend to just keep us here, drugged, until someone came for us?"

"I was going to send you off by cart, dressed in some old clothes." Not even a shred of resistance remained in the woman's voice. "I sent a pigeon to tell Narenwin you were here, and what I was doing. Therin Lugay owes me a strong favor, and I meant to give him enough forkroot to last all the way to Tar Valon, if Narenwin didn't send sisters to meet you sooner. He thinks you are ill, and the tea is the only thing keeping you alive until an Aes Sedai can Heal you. A woman has to be careful, dealing in remedies in Amadicia. Cure too many, or too well, somebody whispers Aes Sedai, and the next you know your house is burning down. Or worse. Therin knows to hold his tongue about what he..."

Nynaeve made Thom help her closer, where she could stare down at the seamstress. "And the message? The real message? You did not put that signal out in the hope of luring us in."

"I gave you the real message," the woman said wearily. "I did not think it could do any harm. I don't understand it, and I - please -" Suddenly she was sobbing, clinging to Luci as hard as the younger woman did to her, both of them wailing and babbling. "Please, don't let him use the salt on me! Please! Not the salt! Oh, please!"

"Tie them up," Nynaeve said disgustedly after a moment, "and we will go downstairs where we can talk." Thom helped her to sit on the edge of the nearest bed, then quickly cut strips from the other coverlet.

In short order both women were bound, back to back, the hands of one to the feet of the other, with wadded bits of coverlet tied in for gags. The pair were still weeping when Thom assisted Nynaeve from the room.

Elayne wished she could walk as well as the other woman, but she still needed Juilin's support not to go tumbling down the stairs. She felt a small stab of jealousy watching Thom with his arm around Nynaeve. You are a foolish little girl, Lini's voice said sharply. I am a grown woman, she told it with a firmness she would not have dared with her old nurse even today. I do love Rand, but he is far away, and Thom is sophisticated and intelligent and... It sounded too much like excuses, even to her. Lini would have given the snort that meant she was about to stop tolerating foolishness.

"Juilin," she asked hesitantly, "what were you going to do with the salt and cooking oil? Not exactly," she added more quickly. "Just a general idea."

He looked at her for a moment. "I do not know. But they did not, either. That is the trick of it; their minds made up worse than I ever could. I have seen a tough man break when I sent for a basket of figs and some mice. You have to be careful, though. Some will confess anything, true or not, just to escape what they imagine. I do not think those two did, though."

She did not either. She could not repress a shiver, however. What would somebody do with figs and mice? She hoped she stopped wondering before she gave herself nightmares.

By the time they reached the kitchen, Nynaeve was tottering about without help, poking into the cupboard full of colorful canisters. Elayne needed one of the chairs. The blue canister sat on the table, and a full green teapot, but she tried not to look at them. She still could not channel. She could embrace saidar, yet it slipped away as soon as she did. At least she was confident now that the Power would return to her. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate, and she had not let herself until this moment.

"Thom," Nynaeve said, lifting the lids on various containers and peering in. "Juilin." She paused, took a deep breath, and, still not looking at the two men, said, "Thank you. I begin to see why Aes Sedai have Warders. Thank you very much."

Not all Aes Sedai did. Reds considered all men tainted because of what men who could channel did, and a few never bothered because they did not leave the Tower or simply did not replace a Warder who died. The Greens were the only Ajah to allow bonding with more than one Warder. Elayne wanted to be a Green. Not for that reason, of course, but because the Greens called themselves the Battle Ajah. Where Browns searched for lost knowledge and Blues involved themselves in causes, Green sisters held themselves ready for the Last Battle, when they would go forth, as they had in the Trolloc Wars, to face new Dreadlords.

The two men stared at one another in open amazement. They had surely been ready for the usual rough side of Nynaeve's tongue. Elayne was almost as shocked. Nynaeve liked having to be helped as much as she liked being wrong; either made her as prickly as a briar, though of course she always claimed to be a picture of sweet reason and sense.

"A Wisdom." Nynaeve took a pinch of powder from one of the canisters and sniffed it, touched it to the tip of her tongue. "Or whatever they call it here."

"They don't have a name for it here," Thom said. "Not many women follow your old craft in Amadicia. Too dangerous. For most of those it's only a sideline."

Pulling a leather scrip from the bottom of the cupboard, Nynaeve began making up small bundles from some of the containers. "And who do they go to when they're ill? A hedge-doctor?"

"Yes," Elayne said. It always pleased her to show Thom that she knew things about the world, too. "In Amadicia, it is men who study herbs."

Nynaeve frowned scornfully. "What could a man ever know about curing anything? I'd as soon ask a farmer to make a dress."

Abruptly Elayne realized that she had been thinking of anything and everything except what Mistress Macura had said. Not thinking about a thorn doesn't make it hurt your foot less. One of Lini's favorites. "Nynaeve, what do you think that message means? All sisters are welcome to return to the Tower? It makes no sense." That was not what she wanted to say, but at least she was closing in on it.

"The Tower has its own rules," Thom said. "What Aes Sedai do, they do for reasons of their own, and often not for those they give. If they give reasons at all." He and Juilin knew they were only Accepted, of course; that was at least part of why neither man did as he was told nearly as well as he might.

The struggle was plain on Nynaeve's face. She did not like being interrupted, or people answering for her. There was quite a list of things Nynaeve did not like. But it was only a moment since she had thanked Thom; it could not be easy to call down a man who had just saved you from being hauled off like a cabbage. "Very little in the Tower makes sense most of the time," she said sourly. Elayne suspected that the tartness was as much for Thom as the Tower.

"Do you believe what she said?" Elayne took a deep breath. "About the Amyrlin saying I was to be brought back by any means."

The brief look Nynaeve gave her was touched with sympathy. "I don't know, Elayne."

"She was telling the truth." Juilin turned one of the chairs around and straddled it, leaning his staff against the back. "I've questioned enough thieves and murderers to know truth when I hear it. Part of the time she was too frightened to lie, and the rest too angry."

"The pair of you -" Taking a deep breath, Nynaeve tossed the scrip onto the table and folded her arms as if to trap her hands away from her braid. "I am afraid Juilin is probably right, Elayne."

"But the Amyrlin knows what we are doing. She sent us out of the Tower in the first place."

Nynaeve sniffed loudly. "I can believe anything of Siuan Sanche. I would like to have her for one hour where she could not channel. We would see how tough she is then."

Elayne did not think that would make any difference. Remembering that commanding blue gaze, she suspected Nynaeve would earn a fine lot of bruises in the unlikely event that she ever got her wish. "But what are we going to do about it? The Ajahs have eyes-and-ears everywhere, it seems. And the Amyrlin herself. We could have women trying to slip things into our food all the way to Tar Valon."

"Not if we do not look like what they expect." Lifting a yellow jug out of the cupboard, Nynaeve set it on the table beside the teapot. "This is white henpepper. It will soothe a toothache, but it will also turn your hair black as night." Elayne put a hand to her red-gold tresses - her hair, not Nynaeve's, she would wager! - but as much as she hated the idea, it was a good one. "A little needlework on some of those dresses in the front, and we are not merchants anymore, but two ladies traveling with their servants."

"Riding on a wagonload of dye?" Juilin said.

Her level look said gratitude for saving her extended only so far. "There is a coach in a stableyard on the other side of the bridge. I think the owner will sell it. If you go back to the wagon before somebody steals it - I do not know what got into you two, just leaving it for whoever came along! - if it is still there, you can take one of the purses..."

A few people goggled when Noy Torvald's coach pulled up in front of Ronde Macura's shop, drawn by a team of four, with chests strapped to the roof and a saddled horse tied on behind. Noy had lost everything when the trade with Tarabon collapsed; he was scraping a living doing odd jobs for Widow Teran, now. No one in the street had ever seen the coachman before, a tall leathery fellow with long white mustaches and cold, imperious eyes, or the dark, hard-faced footman in a Taraboner hat who jumped down nimbly to open the coach door. The goggling turned to murmurs when two women swept out of the shop with bundles in their arms; one wore a green silk gown, the other plain blue wool, but each had a scarf wrapped around her head so that not so much as a hint of her hair was visible. They all but leaped into the coach.

Two of the Children began sauntering over to inquire who the strangers were, but while the footman was still scrambling up to the driver's seat, the coachman cracked his long whip, shouting something about making way for a lady. Her name was lost as the Children threw themselves out of the way, tumbling in the dusty street, and the coach rumbled away at a gallop toward the Amador Road.

The onlookers walked away talking among themselves; a mysterious lady, obviously, with her maid, making purchases from Ronde Macura and rushing away from the Children. Little enough happened in Mardecin of late, and this would provide days of conversation. The Children of the Light brushed themselves off furiously, but finally decided that reporting the incident would make them look foolish. Besides, their captain did not like nobles; he would probably send them to bring the coach back, a long ride in the heat for no more than an arrogant young sprig of one House or another. If no charges could be brought - always tricky with the nobility - it would not be the captain who took the blame. Hoping that word of their humiliation did not spread, they certainly never thought of questioning Ronde Macura.

A short time later, Therin Lugay led his cart into the yard behind the shop, provisions for the long journey ahead already packed away under the round canvas top. Indeed, Ronde Macura had cured him of a fever that had taken twenty-three the winter before, but it was a nagging wife and a shrewish mother-in-law that made him glad of a journey all the way to where the witches lived. Ronde had said someone might meet him, though not who, but he hoped to make it to Tar Valon.

He tapped on the kitchen door six times before going in, but it was not until he climbed the stairs that he found anyone. In the back bedroom, Ronde and Luci lay stretched out on the beds, sound asleep and fully clothed, if rather rumpled, with the sun still in the sky. Neither woman roused when he shook them. He did not understand that, or why one of the coverlets was lying on the floor cut into knotted strips, or why there were two empty teapots in the room but only one cup, or why a funnel was lying on Ronde's pillow. But he had always known that there was a great deal in the world he did not understand. Returning to his cart, he thought about the supplies Ronde's money had purchased, thought of his wife and her mother, and when he led the cart horse off, it was with the intention of seeing what Altara was like, or maybe Murandy.

One way and another, it was quite a time before a disheveled Ronde Macura tottered up to Avi Shendar's house and sent off a pigeon, a thin bone tube tied to its leg. The bird launched itself north and east, straight as an arrow toward Tar Valon. After a moment's thought, Ronde prepared another copy on another narrow strip of thin parchment, and fastened it to a bird from another coop. That one headed west for she had promised to send duplicates of all of her messages. In these hard times, a woman had to make out as best she could, and there could be no harm in it, not the sort of reports she made to Narenwin. Wondering if she could ever get the taste of forkroot out of her mouth, she would not have minded if the report brought just a little harm to the one who called herself Nynaeve.

Hoeing in his garden patch as usual, Avi paid no attention to what Ronde did. And as usual, as soon as she was gone, he washed his hands and went inside. She had placed a larger sheet of parchment underneath the strips to cushion the nib of the pen. When he held it up to the afternoon light, he could make out what she had written. Soon a third pigeon was on its way, heading in still another direction.