Important Author's Note (9/16/07): Please give a moment of silence for James Oliver Rigney Jr., also known as Robert Jordan, who passed away the day this chapter was posted of heart complications. In his honor, this story is dedicated to Robert Jordan and his wife Harriet, without whom Ghedlyn simply would not exist.
Propped against a boat gunwale, half-lying, half-sitting on a pile of unused netting, Rayanne bit weakly into an unleavened piece of Cairheinin bread topped with a spread of peach preserve. For the moment, the drop in her fever permitted access to her five senses, allowing her an indelicate return to reality. She did not know how long it had been since the removal of the crossbow bolt. Nordel noticed the instant she became coherent and took the opportunity to press food into her single articulate hand. Rayanne did not remember packing any unleavened Cairheinin bread and wondered where he found it. It tasted well, but she did not feel so hungry.
"Keep eating that," Nordel said when he noticed her flagging. He reached over to adjust the basket hat draped on her head. "Your color is improving. Be certain to mind your face around these Tiarins."
While she hurt all through her right side, up into her neck and down into her lungs, lower through her ribs and into her hip, her shoulder felt much looser and freer. The freedom undoubtedly owed to the miraculous absence of the crossbow bolt. She felt short on breath and sometimes coughed a deep cough that produced blood, but otherwise could breathe. Nordel's efforts removing the quarrel had obviously paid off. When the warder tied her right arm tightly into place across her chest beneath her breasts so that she could not move it, sensation other than pain began to creep into the last two fingers of that hand. Despite the shades of improvement, she felt weak and jittery, as if her body was still deciding whether or not to accept its current state. Though it had relented enough to afford these moments of coherence, fever still threatened.
She fumbled with her left hand and took another bite of bread. The basket hat slid backward almost off her head before Sildane rescued it and straightened it from where she sat on Rayanne's other side.
"Keep to rhythm boys!" shouted the oar master in the bow of the river boat, "we got no proper wind today." Sweeps sighed and splashed in the water and the boards of the boat creaked as the rowing teams heaved their oars against the river. The Erinin stretched wide and silver to either side of the flat-bottomed craft, tugging them gently backward away from their destination -the Dragonmount seemed much closer than it had the last time Rayanne remembered seeing it. The sheets of the boat's mainsail were tied in flat for protection and the wooden deck planking looked as if it had soaked up rain. Watching over it all, the captain stood on his high platform at the stern of the boat with the helmsman minding the tiller behind him.
Her favorite book propped against the gunwale, little black-haired Ghedlyn leaned bodily over the side of the riverboat, her almond-shaped obsidian eyes searching the waters with a mesmerized, unsmiling intensity. Her dirty white dress flipped up behind her with a youthful, blasé immodesty that showed her skinny legs and small clothes.
"Sildane," Nordel said over Rayanne's head, "Please see that she doesn't fall over the side."
"Yessir," Sildane hopped up and darted to join the younger girl. She pulled her friend's dress back into place and held onto her to keep her from falling. Ghedlyn made some exclamation when Sildane reached her, but Rayanne could not tell what the girl had said.
"You know," the warder commented to Rayanne, "I do not believe she's ever traveled by boat, yet here she is."
Reply escaped her briefly. Her mind remained muddled, as if stuffed with goose down. "She must have come kicking and screaming," Rayanne was surprised at how much more easily she could speak, though her voice was rough and her mouth tasted like metal. "How did you get her onboard?"
"She came quietly," Nordel scratched his shaven head, "I was waiting for a pitched battle, but she was so exhausted that she went without a noise. It might also be that the river fascinates her."
Rayanne grunted hoarsely. After all the trouble they spent getting the girl acclimated to riding horses, she had boarded a boat without apparently batting an eyelid. What a world. "The wheel weaves as the wheel wills," she said at last.
"We were very lucky," Nordel sighed, "Unusually lucky, the way this trip has gone. If she continues with this good behavior, these sailors may even forget her."
"Not if she continues flashing them with her backside," Rayanne commented as she watched Sildane pulling Ghedlyn's dress back into place again. The Aes Sedai thought aloud, "At least we won't have to dodge attention traveling through Alindaer now."
"No, just in Tar Valon," Nordel agreed.
"What do we face? Who will try to kill us next?" Rayanne asked him, deadpan.
"I've continued to think about what happened on the road," Nordel admitted, "The trap was clever. While they've lost some surprise, they didn't lose much. Whoever arranged it must have been willing to pay a lot of gold to convince so many toughs that gold would be showered on them after the deed. The arrangement was probably blind; somebody was paid to walk into tavern after tavern, spreading word, dropping gold. The toughs themselves knew only to kill a little girl traveling with an Aes Sedai who would be found on the road to Tar Valon over the past couple days. No description other than that. Our only chance to learn more is to travel to the pay-out and see who shows up to identify corpses."
"Where was the pay-out? I've forgotten what you said..." Rayanne asked, steadying herself to not feel ill at the idea.
"I had to break the idiot's finger to learn where," Nordel muttered distastefully under his breath, half a rebuke to himself. "It will be a week and a half from now, on a road east of Cairhein. I expect it will be a bloodbath; enough gold to feed a city will be paid to the group that brings the correct child's body," the warder glanced distantly at the two girls. "Since these men were already killing each other over it, they will undoubtedly be fighting about it there too."
"And someone who knows Ghedlyn's face will be there," Rayanne murmured thoughtfully.
"Someone who has seen her, yes. Otherwise, how would they know who to pay, not knowing the face of the child they wanted dead?" Nordel confirmed. "With all the blood in the water already, Light only knows how they expect to get themselves out of what they started. Maybe the pay-off is a ploy and no one will be there to honor it."
"This is very troublesome," Rayanne commented, "not many people know Ghedlyn's face and, of those, fewer know her worth."
"Aes Sedai, whoever it is must be associated with the Tower," Nordel hissed, his face turning dark. "Traders employed by Dursh Prim know his daughter's face, but none understand enough about channeling to know her worth and therefore have no reason to kill her. Those working on the Tower Farm have no motive unless they know something about Aes Sedai or, again, channeling, and they are associated with the Tower regardless of what they know. The amount of money being thrown around can't come from nowhere. Worse, if what you said the Amyrlin believes about Ghedlyn is actually true, then not just anybody is going to want her dead."
"Darkfriends, White Cloaks," Rayanne reminded him, "just about anybody who knows and hates Aes Sedai."
"Not true," Nordel insisted, his voice held low enough not to carry, "You said yourself that the Tree incident had to have been arranged by someone who knows Tower channeling. It must be true now too since few understand channeling and only someone at least partly versed will understand Ghedlyn's significance. And, most of those -women last I checked- live in the Tower where we're headed right now! Regardless of how you look at it, the knowledge of the girl's importance must have come from the Tower, which means that those who want Ghedlyn dead have some access to Tower knowledge."
"There are not that many sisters in the White Tower who know about Ghedlyn," Rayanne said. "Romanda and the Amyrlin have kept the circle tight."
"But," Nordel reiterated, "Either directly among those sisters, or among those the sisters confide in, is someone with a reason to want Ghedlyn dead. You know as well as I that the Tower is a nest of schemes. You told me that the Hall of the Tower doesn't know about the girl yet. Is it possible that Aes Sedai would arrange her death on behalf of Tower Authority?"
"I don't want to believe it," Rayanne responded with ice. "We might as well do the Dark One's bidding directly! Allerria and Romanda have both been helpful and consistent. The Amyrlin Seat herself is the one who staked so much faith in Ghedlyn's education. Allerria voices concerns about the girl's suitability, but she's never acted on it, even when there were opportunities. Romanda has never demonstrated anything but support."
"It has to be someone," Nordel leaned back against the side of the boat. "Otherwise none of this would have happened. Besides, you know as well as I that the Amyrlin and the Hall don't always see eye to eye."
Rayanne coughed several times and attempted to clear her throat. The taste of blood grew stronger in her mouth. When she could speak again, raggedly, she said, "If what the Amyrlin believes is true -and after all these years I no longer see how it could possibly be otherwise- I can't comprehend why any sister would want her dead. Her Talent is too valuable. Value beyond measuring once she's ready, I'd say."
"The problem with that kind of value," Nordel told her quietly, "is that someone will always see the same value in taking it away."
Rayanne could not eat any more and did not want to think. She felt so exhausted. She had not finished the bread Nordel had given her, and could not force down another bite. Despite all else, she wished for a simpler time.
A Yellow Aes Sedai belonged in clinical wards, examining patients and exploring the fine art of healing. A Yellow sister found fulfillment in a patient brightening and blossoming out of illness. Even a farm girl beset with thoughts of suicide was more simple, more manageable and more real than galloping around avoiding men with murder in their hearts. Saving the world was what Blue sisters did. Brawling and battling was the point of joining the Green. Some Yellows could stand the field of battle, mending injuries or soothing suffering, but Rayanne was not one of those. She did not delude herself about her lack of strength in the power. Prior to this assignment, she had spent her time after being raised to Aes Sedai at what she did best, Healing supplicants to the Tower, and had focused on studying illnesses of the mind since she did not have to be a particularly strong channeler in order to make a difference in that field; Healing the mind called for perseverance, empathy and understanding, not strength in the power.
Somewhere along the way, Rayanne's purpose of seeing Ghedlyn healed and whole as a human being, creating a woman who might one day become a powerful Aes Sedai herself, had darkened into something completely different. Ghedlyn was not damaged in the classical definition of "damaged;" the Wheel and Nature itself had built her that way. How could a Yellow sister Heal where no injury actually existed?
His warm eyes following Ghedlyn and Sildane, both leaning over the side of the boat looking down at the turbulent waters, Nordel sighed, "Most soldiers on a battlefield live to pay the butcher's bill. I have met very few who believed they belonged there or felt they had the skill to walk away from it. Many can name a reason why they came, though few believe themselves ready to fight or end up accomplishing what they set out to. When the metal is crashing all around you and men are screaming and falling, all you can do is fight as hard as you can and hope the next breath is not your last. Once it's done, the best a man can do is be grateful he remains breathing, find a strong drink and a woman to perch on his knee who will be happy to warm his bed. Wars are won on the backs of many who don't think themselves suited for it."
"Is this a war?" Rayanne asked roughly, also watching the girls.
"Are you ready for it to become a war?" Nordel responded as he sometimes did, by asking a counter-question. "You don't always choose to walk onto a battlefield. Sometimes, you're standing in the middle of the field already when the battle suddenly begins."
"I'm not meant to fight. I'm a Healer."
"I don't think anyone was actually meant to fight," Nordel touched her good shoulder. "But you fight or die anyway because you have no choice. It'll be worse before it's better."
Rayanne shook her head, feeling her spirits sink as if beneath the river. He spoke the truth and kindly, but did not say what she wanted to hear. "When could we have walked away?"
"Did we ever have the choice? Would you have turned your back on her that first day you met her, back when she bit your hand?"
Shaking her head, Rayanne said, "No."
"Then, you have your answer."