Author's Note: Due to a request, Hawkwing lives again! Now, however, the story will be divided into three parts: TheHighQueen, Murder Most Royal, and The Shadow Queen. We're currently still in TheHigh Queen. Enjoy, and see my profile for summaries of Murder Most Royal and The Shadow Queen and some other projects!

Augusta.

" Betsa, hold this pincushion for me" the red-faced seamstress shouted, thrusting a pincushion at her nervous little apprentice. Leaning over and muttering about her back, the woman began pinning up the hem of Amaline's wedding gown. " Oh, I hate time" the woman groaned. " Every bit of it that passes makes my bones a little stiffer and brings the time I've got to have this dress done a little closer. "

" Don't remind me" Amaline whispered, remembering that the wedding was only a week away.

" Wedding jitters" The workaday seamstress asked sympathetically, her aching bones quite forgotten in the gossip she would have for the other Palace servants tonight. " Well, dearie, it could be worse. At least our Prince Artur isn't old, ugly, or cruel."

" Yes, and it's a woman's greatest fortune if she doesn't end up with a husband who's all three" Amaline retorted, more sharply than she intended to.

" That's why you'll never hear me say I wish to be a lady" the seamstress said stoutly. " Regular women can marry who they want, not like you ladies. You ladies aren't nothing but bargaining chips on the table, dearie."

" I am not a bargaining chip" Amaline snapped. " I chose this for myself."

" Aye, you're Aes Sedai" the seamstress said knowledgably. " Makes you different from other ladies, but you should've seen the last lady I did a wedding dress for. Poor liddle thing, crying her eyes out, perfectly miserable." The seamstress seemed to get some kind of pleasure out of that.

" Will you please just finish fitting my dress" Amaline asked.

Half an hour later Amaline gratefully left the woman and headed towards her own apartments, feeling mentally drained. People stepped aside for her in hallways as if she was Crown Princess already. The other ladies in attendance on the Queen curtsied as low for her as they did for Mailinde. Aes Sedai or no Aes Sedai, it was hardly something Lady Amaline Tagora from a tiny landholding in southern Shandalle was used to. The closer she came to being a princess, the more she started to feel like simple Lady Amaline and the less she began to feel like Aes Sedai. She loved the Tower, but not the way some did. She had made her choice-she loved Artur more than she loved Tar Valon.

When she reached the apartments that had been given to her-again, the whole Palace seemed to be a bit ahead of themselves in treating her like she was already their princess- another woman was seated in her chair by the fire waiting on her. Dark-haired and tall, she was dressed entirely in a brilliant scarlet that hurt the eyes. " I don't suppose I should be surprised to find you in this position, Amaline" she said coldly, looking up. Amaline found herself staring into a familiar pair of dark eyes.

" Bonwhin" Amaline asked, startled. She hadn't seen the Red Sitter in over a year now, and could think of no reason why Bonwhin Meraighdin would be here.

" None other" Bonwhin said grimly, her hard-edged Basharandan accent grating on the ears. " I'm not here for a social call-I never did like you, Amaline. I'm here on White Tower business. Our Mother the Amyrlin Seat is dead." Amaline gasped and Bonwhin nodded. " Yes, a tragedy." Bonwhin didn't seem to find it very tragic at all, but Amaline held her peace. " She's been dead for over a week, but I could hardly expect that news would have reached this place." The Red made a dismissive gesture.

" What's that supposed to mean" Amaline demanded, immediately on the defense for her homeland. The larger powers tended to look down on Shandalle for its size and lack of importance, a thing that had gotten her into more than one fight with Aldesharan girls when she was a novice.

" Amaline, my dear, this is the smallest and stupidest Court in the world in the smallest and stupidest nation in the world" Bonwhin said with a laugh. "Nothing happens in Shandalle. No one worth mentioning lives in Shandalle. If you want to be a queen, then I will see to marrying you to a proper king-Elsalam, maybe, or Aldeshar if I can wangle it-but I will not see an Aes Sedai wasted on the throne of Shandalle."

" And who gave you the Weaving of the Pattern" Amaline shot back. " I am not a novice anymore, Bonwhin. I have decided to marry Artur Paendrag and I will marry him."

" I told you the Amyrlin was dead" Bonwhin said. " Don't you have any interest in who her successor is"

The truth hit Amaline like a sledghammer. " No."

" Yes. The deliberations are still going on, of course, but I have been banned from the Hall for all of them. I am going to be the next Amyrlin Seat, and you are going to do as you are told." Bonwhin smiled, a wolverine's smile in the dead of winter. " You are going to go on playing the happy little lover to our Pauper Prince until the wedding, Amaline. Then you are going to leave him at the very altar, humiliating him and this whole stupid country in front of the world. "

" I won't do it" Amaline managed. " I won't! I don't care if you are the Amyrlin or the Queen of Paradise, Bonwhin, I will not do this! He's my Warder as well as my betrothed."

" Oh? A pity. I suppose I'll have to kill him, then." Bonwhin mentioned murdering a Crown Prince as nochalantly as she would have mentioned getting a new gown for a ball.

" Try it" Amaline said, embracing the Source. She was stronger than Bonwhin, Sitter or no Sitter. Bonwhin looked momentarily shocked.

" You fool" she hissed. " Artur Paendrag Tanreall isn't worth being cast out of the Tower as a renegade. It's loverling or the shawl, Amaline, and as I have never heard of you being mad, there should be no debate."

" May I ask what is going on here" Artur! Amaline thought, nearly fainting with relief. He managed to put himself between her and Bonwhin without it being obvious that he was sheltering her from the Red. "I recieved the strangest impression that you were plotting to kill me, my lady-Bonwhin, isn't it"

" Bonwhin Aes Sedai, Amyrlin Apparent" Bonwhin said haughtily. " I am here on White Tower business, boy, and you'd be wise to stand out of my way. Amaline here has badly offended both me and the Tower and I thought it best to come myself to inform her of the consequences if she persists in her willfull disobedience." Bonwhin clearly expected Artur to be thoroughly chastened and frightened by her, as he was just a 'country bumpkin'. Amaline could see and feel that the woman couldn't be more wrong. She recalled the words he had spoken when he heard that Dorinda and the Sitters were planning to take her away from him:No one threatens you or anything of the like while I'm breathing, and I don't care if it's the Amyrlin in her stole with the whole bloody Hall behind her! Bonwhin had miscalculated badly when she thought she could run roughshod over Artur Paendrag.

Remarkably, Artur did not lose his temper immediately. " I fear there has been a misunderstanding, Madam" he said courteously. " Amaline is no longer answerable to the White Tower by Shandallan law. I'll be happy to show you the records if you don't believe me."

" No ruler has ever held their throne very long without the Tower's benovelence" Bonwhin said cooly. " I don't generally think very much of men, but you've got a backbone, Tanreall. Let her go and I'll see to it that Shandalle prospers for as long as you are king."

" And if I don't" Artur's voice was still perfectly level.

" Then I'll see you and her both ruined" Bonwhin said flatly.

A silence that lasted forever stretched between the three of them, then Artur's face hardened and he looked like a king indeed. Amaline had never seen him look like that before. " Get out" he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

" I am Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah" Bonwhin returned. " I obey no man."

" You have two options, Aes Sedai. You can get out or I will have you thrown out."

" I have the Power. I would like to see the man who can forcibly remove me from a room when I do not wish to go."

Artur laughed mirthlessly. " Try me, Sister, and you'll regret it."

" This isn't over" Bonwhin said warningly. " It'll never be over until both of you are on your knees before the White Tower's mercy." She whirled on her heel and marched out.

"Thank the Light you came in when you did" Amaline said, her voice shaking as badly as her knees. " She frightens me, Artur, and she'll be the Amyrlin...I'm Aes Sedai,and Bonwhin's going to be the Amyrlin...oh, Light, I'm a renegade now..." she started to cry despite her best efforts not to.

Artur took her in his arms and held her head against his shoulder. " Let Bonwhin do her worst. She'll find out that Shandalle's too tough a mouthful for her to chew if she does, and she'll find that I don't go back on my word." He had meant the words to be reassuring, but Amaline shivered involuntarily at the implications of that.