Siuan removed a simple blue dress from her wardrobe and handed it to Suffa. "You can alter it if you want. I doubt I will be able to fit in it again," she said with a sigh. "There's no room to let it out the waist."
The woman stared at the dress with the oddest expression on her face. She seemed bewildered, yet almost disgusted at the same time. Even through her subservience, this shone through. Siuan gave her a firm stare; she had been Amyrlin once, and no maidservant of hers was going to look upon a gift from her that way! "If you don't like the color, too bad. Most of my old dresses are blue."
Suffa didn't reply, but obediently donned the dress over the fresh shift Siuan had given her. "Your old shoes will have to do for now. When I'm sure you're going to work out, I'll take you to the cobbler," Siuan told her.
Suffa murmured something that might have been thanks. Siuan was beginning to wonder if the refugee was capable of normal speech or if whatever had happened to the woman had simply scarred her to the point where she was incapable of normal human interaction. With a weary sigh, she beckoned her new maidservant closer. "Come here, Suffa. I'm sure you may have a few minor hurts that need Healing. If there's anything serious wrong, Nyneave will be coming along to visit with Egwene tomorrow." Siuan was not looking forward to this; while Egwene insisted that Nyneave be Siuan's personal Healer for the duration of her pregnancy, she and the young Yellow sister had never had the most cordial of relationships. Egwene was no doubt leading Nyneave by the ear on the matter besides.
Suffa stared at her, dark eyes wide. She cringed away from Siuan as the former Blue Sister laid her hands on Suffa's head and embraced the Source. Siuan frowned as it slipped from her grasp. "Codswallop," she muttered in frustration. "I knew this would happen, but not this soon! Blood and bloody ashes! Burn the flaming man for putting me in this state," she growled. She pointed a finger at Suffa. "Nyneave will deal with you tomorrow. Let's go down for dinner."
* * *
"I Healed her bruises and cuts," Nyneave told Siuan and Egwene as she entered the room. The two sat in the sitting room, sipping tea while Egwene updated Siuan on the latest goings on in the world. "That's all that is physically wrong with her."
Siuan blinked at the temperamental Yellow Sister. The former Wisdom made a brave effort at hiding the gnawing pain that Siuan knew still plagued her. Lan had not survived Tarmon Gai'dan, and Myrelle had passed the bond to Nyneave just before the fighting had begun. She bore the grief of not only losing a Warder, but of being a widow. Siuan shivered, knowing someday she would most likely face the same fate: a Warder bond prolonged a man's natural life, but an Aes Sedai nearly always found herself weeping over her Warder's grave whatever the nature of his death might be. "But?"
Nyneave gripped her braid, locking eyes with first Egwene, then Siuan. "She could channel once."
Egwene and Siuan exchanged startled glances. "Stilled?" Egwene asked.
Shaking her head, Nyneave poured herself a cup of tea and sat. "No. Burned out. There's nothing anyone can do for her, even if we were to agree that would be a good idea. Damer Flinn and I are still working with those who were burned out during the…the Last Battle—" Nyneave could barely choke out the phrase at times. "—but we've found no sign that it can be Healed. It seems that the boat truly is burned in this case," she said nodding to Siuan.
Three women were silent for a long moment, sipping their tea as they mulled on their own thoughts. Siuan felt a new kinship with her maidservant; she had once thought that woman's fate to be her own. Still, Nyneave's revelation did not explain very much about Suffa. Siuan had once been cut off from saidar and it had not resulted in that sort of pitiful behavior. No, there was much more to Suffa's story than they had yet to uncover.
"You say she stole from your garden, Siuan?" Egwene asked reaching for the teapot.
Siuan nodded. "Gareth was on his way back from inspecting the wells when he found her sulking around with half my carrots loaded in her arms and the rest scattered all over the ground. She was quite the mess. I tried to clean the dress she was wearing with the One Power once I got it off of her—once I managed to embrace saidar that is," she said with a scowl. "It was an unusual cut, though about all else I could tell about it was that it was black, maybe dark gray, at one time, and that was after I channeled what I could of it clean. I burned it."
Egwene frowned.
"What?"
"Damane," she said stiffly. Siuan looked away from her friend's face; she had no need to be reminded of what it looked like to be nauseous.
"It's possible, I suppose." Siuan frowned into her tea, thinking. "Gareth thinks she's Murandian, though, and I agree. The Seanchan never got that far before the Dragon signed the Accord with the Empress."
The Amyrlin grimaced. "That doesn't mean anything. She could have been a traveler, a refugee even then."
Siuan nodded reluctantly. "It does make sense. It would explain her behavior…and her name." She shuddered. "Her name even gives Gareth goose bumps. Suffa." Siuan rubbed her own arms. "There is nothing to be done for her, as Nyneave has already said. I can say from experience that you have to find what you're going to live for from inside yourself. No one can do that for you. No one. Perhaps helping care for an infant will help, if she survives the next seven months."
"You should try to find out who she is, where she came from," Egwene pointed out. "Perhaps she has family."
"Of course," Siuan said with a sharp nod.
* * *
Siuan shifted in her chair trying to find a comfortable position. Her ever swelling belly did not make this a simple task, and her embroidery was becoming ever more neglected as her pregnancy progressed. Light, how did the child expect her to finish his or her crib things when the child insisted on kicking her in the side every five minutes? Its father's child to be certain.
She tossed the embroidery on aside and pulled herself to a standing position. Siuan glanced at the woman sitting in the chair in front of her, hunched over a pair of knitting needles and a half knitted baby bootie. Siuan had procured the knitting needles in an attempt to occupy herself, but had found the craft to be frustrating. She had later found Suffa had picked them up, knitting various baby things. The former damane was surprisingly nimble with them, so Siuan had purchased more woolen yarns for her and permitted her to knit whatever she wished. It seemed to keep her spirits up, though Siuan wondered how long the woman would last.
She and Gareth had long ago decided that Suffa had paid their debt to them, and had offered to release her from their service. The woman, while utterly silent unless one of them spoke to her, had done a respectable job as a wash woman and of keeping the house clean. She was a hopeless cook, but they had hired a local widow for that job. Suffa had not responded to their offer of release, but had doggedly continued with her duties and refused the gold she had been offered as compensation. Gareth had quietly put aside a sort of trust fund for her using the wages she would have earned otherwise.
Siuan walked over to the serving tray and poured herself a cup of tea. Her efforts to discover the woman's past had been all but fruitless. The times she attempted to question the woman had only resulted in her throwing up her hands in frustration. Worse, any questions about her life prior to the Seanchan, no matter how innocuous, seemed to terrify Suffa. Even Gareth would admit that Siuan had managed to hold in her temper with the woman, and other attempts made by Gareth and Egwene had fared little better. Though she seemed to fear her mistress' questions the most, her fear of the other two was not insubstantial.
She walked back over beside Suffa's chair and gave her an approving nod as she reached down to inspect the woman's work. "Very nice. If it is a girl, perhaps you can knit her a dress." Siuan rubbed her bulging belly. "What do you think, Suffa?" Siuan had almost trained herself not to wince when saying the woman's damane name. Efforts to learn Suffa's given name had resulted in uncontrollable weeping and pleas for punishment. It was nearly as bad as the time Siuan had tried to empathize with her by speaking of the time when she had been stilled—talk of that matter had resulted in Suffa barricading herself in the kitchen pantry and her pleading for Gareth to summon a headsman. They all agreed to avoid the topic after that incident.
But perhaps other conversation would prove for fruitful. Even the most reluctant sometimes gave up information when they were talking about those other than themselves. "Do you think it's a boy or a girl? Gareth thinks a girl, but I say a boy—the child stubbornly persists in attempting to irk me, just like its father. "
Suffa did not look up, but said in that hoarse whisper of hers that had never altered since they had taken her in: "I do not know, my lady. My lady's child will be—," Suddenly Suffa stopped in mid-sentence, her head suddenly upright staring straight at Siuan. Her face had lost its sickening timidity and Siuan found herself staring into a pair of dark eyes that had once haunted her in a real life nightmare.
Siuan froze, clutching at her belly as if to defend her unborn child against what came next. The former damane spoke in a harsh tone, much like the one that had denounced Siuan all those months ago, as she uttered what Siuan knew to be a Foretelling:
"Within this woman's womb is the one who will bring a future to the people of the lands in the new Age, but not without the tears of himself and of his kin. The House of Bryne shall rise up with great pain and tribulation."
As the last word faded from her lips, "Saffa's" eyes widened as she found herself in direct eye contact with Siuan. The cringing servility had returned, but her chin did not drop back to her chest, nor did her hands continue with her knitting. Saidar, that had been as easy to grasp as a live silverpike, came easily to Siuan for the first time in months, and she held the weaves of Air that surrounded the other woman with a trembling mind as she shouted urgently for her husband.
The pieces had fallen into place—Siuan cursed herself for not seeing it sooner.
"Suffa" was Elaida.
