New Spring: The Novel

CHAPTER 13

They could have had food brought to their rooms, but after Moiraine Healed Siuan, they went down to the first sitting of dinner. Neither was willing to miss her first meal as Aes Sedai in the sisters' main dining hall, where Accepted came only by rare invitation and novices only to serve at table. It was a spacious high-ceilinged room, colorful winter tapestries decorating the white walls, broad cornice gleaming under a weight of gold leaf. The square tables, their slender legs elegantly carved, were only large enough for four, and most spaced far apart for privacy of conversation, though today some were placed together to accommodate larger groups. The only women in the room wearing their shawls, they attracted looks from other sisters, not to mention a few amused smiles. Moiraine felt her cheeks heating, but it would take more than smiles to make her give up wearing the shawl every time she left her rooms. More than outright laughter. She had worked too hard to earn it. Siuan marched across the bright floor tiles, patterns of all the Ajah colors, with a queenly grace, casually adjusting her shawl along her arms as though to draw attention to it. Siuan was seldom shy.

There were no benches here, but low-backed chairs carved to match the table legs, and where, in their own dining hall, Accepted ate whatever the kitchen prepared, a young serving woman with the Flame of Tar Valon on her breast curtsied before reciting what the kitchens here had to offer in the singsong voice of one who made the same recitation often. Where Accepted ate on heavy glazed pottery and had to serve and clear away their own plates, the same serving woman brought their food on a ropework silver tray, in dishes of thin white Taraboner porcelain impressed with the Flame of Tar Valon all around the rim. Tarabon's work could not compare with what came from the islands of the Atha'an Miere, but it was hardly inexpensive.

Siuan complained that her fish was too heavily seasoned, yet she left nothing except the bones, and looked around as though thinking of asking for another. Moiraine had a rich soup of vegetables and beef, but she found she had little appetite, and in the end ate only a small piece of dark bread and drank a single cup of tea. She had to escape, but there was no escape. Just walking away from a task assigned by the Amyrlin Seat was unthinkable. Maybe the Hall would decide the plan was untenable. No one had approached her concerning the matter since Tsutama had asked whether she had thought of being Queen of Cairhien. They might decide so. It seemed a thin hope, but thin hopes were all she could find.

As soon as they returned to the Blue quarters, Eadyth summoned them to her rooms again and without ceremony handed each a letter-of-rights in the amount of one thousand crowns gold. "You will receive the same from the Tower each year on this day," she said, "or if you are not here, it will be deposited as you specify." The distaste of her earlier lecture had departed entirely. She wore a serene smile, serene and pleased at having gained two new Blues. "Spend wisely. You can obtain more if need be, but ask too often, and you will have to answer questions in the Hall. Believe me, being questioned in the Hall is never pleasant. Never."

Siuan's eyes grew very round reading the amount, and impossible as it seemed, wider still at mention of getting more. Few merchants cleared more gold in a year, and many minor nobles made do with far less, but the Tower could not afford to have sisters seen in poverty. The Sun Palace had taught Moiraine that power often grew from others deciding that you already had power, and an appearance of wealth could give that.

She had her own banker, but Siuan deposited her letter-of-rights with the Tower, in spite of an offered introduction. Siuan's father had not earned a thousand crowns over his entire life, and she was not about to put that sum at any risk whatsoever. Nothing Moiraine said could convince her. Safety alone concerned her, and it seemed a banking house old enough to have loaned gold to Artur Hawkwing could not be challenged in that regard by the first bank founded after the Breaking.

Wearing her blue-fringed shawl displayed proudly on her shoulders, Moiraine hired a sedan chair in the great square in front of the Tower, where the milling mid-afternoon crowd of strollers and hawkers, tumblers and jugglers, musicians and barrowmen selling meat pies and roasted nuts, all kept their distance from the huge structure. Few people went nearer than a hundred paces unless they had business with the Tower, or wanted to present a petition. The two bearers, husky fellows in dark brown coats with their long hair neatly tied back, carried her smoothly through the streets, the lead man crying, "Make way for an Aes Sedai! Make way for an Aes Sedai!"

The shouting seemed to impress no one, and perhaps was not believed. Even with the heavy curtains tied back, the fringe on her shawl would remain hidden unless she propped her arms inelegantly on the windowsills. No one moved aside any faster than they did for wagon drivers' shouts and often more slowly, since the wagon drivers carried long whips and were not reluctant to use them. Even so, soon enough they reached what appeared to be a small palace, on a broad boulevard with tall leafless trees marching down the center strip, and unfastened the poles so she could open the door. The building was in a southern style, with a high white dome, and narrow spires at the four corners, and broad marble stairs climbing to a wide, white-columned portico, yet there was a restraint about it. The stone carvings, friezes of vines and leaves, were well done, yet simple and not overly plentiful. No one would leave money with a banking house that was poor, but neither would anyone with a bank that spent too lavishly on itself.

A doorman with two bands of red on his dark coatsleeves bowed her through the tall front doors and handed her over to a plain-coated footman, a pretty young man, if too tall, who gravely guided her to the study of Mistress Dormaile, a slim, graying little woman a full hand shorter than Moiraine. Her father had banked with Ilain Dormaile's elder brother, who still handled her own accounts in Cairhien, making her choice easy in Tar Valon.

A slight smile broke Mistress Dormaile's usual solemn expression when she saw the shawl, and she spread her dark, red-banded skirts in a precise curtsy, neither too brief nor too deep. But then, she had given the same courtesy even when Moiraine had come in an Accepted's dress. After all, she knew how much Moiraine had left with the bank on her first arrival in the city, and how much more her estates had sent over the years. Still, the smile was genuine.

"May I offer congratulations, Moiraine Sedai?" she said warmly, escorting Moiraine to a cushioned chair with a high, carved back. "Will you have spiced wine, or tea? Perhaps some honeyed cakes, or poppy seed?"

"The wine, thank you," Moiraine replied with a smile. "That will suffice." Moiraine Sedai. This was the first time anyone had called her that, and she rather liked the sound.

Once the other woman had issued orders to the footman, she took a chair facing Moiraine without asking. You did not require your banker to stand too far on ceremony. "I assume you have come to deposit your stipend." Of course a banker would know of that. "If you seek further information, I fear I put everything I knew into the letter I sent to you, and I have learned nothing more."

For an instant, Moiraine's smile froze in place. With an effort, she unfroze it, made her voice casual. "Suppose you tell it to me again. I may winnow out something hearing it fresh."

Mistress Dormaile inclined her head slightly. "As you say. Nine days ago a man came to me, a Cairhienin, wearing the uniform of a captain in the Tower Guard and giving the name Ries Gorthanes. He spoke with cultured accents, an educated man, perhaps even nobility, and he was tall, a good three hands or more taller than me, and broad-shouldered, with a soldier's bearing. He was clean-shaven, of course, and his face was well-proportioned, and good-looking despite a scar about an inch long, here." With one finger, she drew a line from the corner of her left eye back toward her ear.

Neither name nor description jogged anything in Moiraine's memory, not that she would have spoken if they had. She made a small gesture for the banker to go on.

"He presented an order purportedly signed and sealed by the Amyrlin Seat directing me to lay open your finances to him. Unfortunately for him, I know Tamra Ospenya's signature well, and the White Tower knows I would never reveal the affairs of my patrons in any respect. I had several footmen overpower him and lock him in an empty strongroom, and then I sent for real Tower Guards. I regret failing to take the opportunity to thrash his mistress or master's name out of him, but as you know, White Tower law takes a dim view of that."

The footman returned with an ornate silver pitcher and two silver goblets on a tray, and the banker fell silent until he had gone. "He escaped before the Guards arrived," she went on, pouring dark wine that gave off the sweet scent of spices. "A matter of bribery." A grimace of distaste twisted her mouth for a moment as she offered Moiraine a goblet with a small bow. "I had the young man involved strapped so I wager he still feels it when he sits down. I then hired him out as a bilgeboy on a river-ship running ice peppers to Tear where he will be put ashore penniless, unless he persuades the captain to keep him on. I made sure of that by convincing her to give me his wages in advance. He is a pretty youth. He might persuade her. I think she had it in mind when she handed over the coins."

Directing a level look at the other woman across her goblet, Moiraine raised a quizzical eyebrow. She was quite proud of her outer coolness, as great as anything she had displayed while being tested.

"The false Guard captain broke Tower law, Moiraine Sedai," Mistress Dormaile blandly answered the unspoken question, "and I was required to hand him over to the justice of the Tower, but internal matters I prefer to keep internal. I tell you only because you were involved. You understand?"

Moiraine nodded. Of course. No bank could afford to have it known one of its employees took bribes. She suspected the young man had gotten off so lightly because he was someone's son or nephew, else he might well have floated downriver on his own. Bankers were hard folk.

Mistress Dormaile did not ask what Moiraine knew or thought of the matter. Such was no business of hers. Her face did not even show curiosity. This discretion was one reason Moiraine had never kept more than a little coin with the Tower. As a novice, without access to the city, it had been unnecessary, but her own sense of privacy made her continue the practice as Accepted. Tower law required equal representation of every Ajah in the Tower's bank, and now that she wore the shawl, she did not want her affairs known to other Blues, much less other Ajahs, especially after what she had just been told.

The only reason the Tower would have held back Mistress Dormaile's letter was that the Hall hoped to lull her into thinking they had decided against putting her on the Sun Throne. But they had made their first moves, or rather, since they would have been as careful as thieves trying to cut a well-guarded lady's purse, many more than the first. Enough for someone to puzzle out their intention. Nothing else explained a Cairhienin trying to find out how she was dispersing money, and to whom. Oh, Light, they were going to do it before she knew what was happening, unless she found a way out.

She let nothing show on her face, of course, merely sipping her wine, letting the warm sweetness slide down her throat, all outward serenity. "You have done very well by me, Mistress Dormaile, to the pain of your house. Please transfer a suitable recompense from my accounts to your own." Very properly, the banker demurred twice, bowing her head, before accepting with a show of reluctance that Moiraine barely noticed. Light, she had to find a way out!

She began laying plans. Not to run away, but to be ready. She signed over her letter-of-rights and, before leaving, gave instructions at which Mistress Dormaile displayed no hint of surprise.

Perhaps that was because she also was Cairhienin and so accustomed to Daes Dae'mar, or maybe bankers were all stoic. Perhaps she had other Aes Sedai as patrons. If so, Moiraine would learn of it only if the sisters told her. The grave was less discreet than Ilain Dormaile.

Back in the Tower, she asked around until she settled on the name of a seamstress. No fewer than five Blues named Tamore Alkohima as the best in Tar Valon, and even those who spoke other names allowed that Tamore was very good, so the following afternoon, she and Siuan took sedan chairs to Mistress Alkohima's shop, with Siuan grumbling about the fare. Really. It was only a silver penny. It had taken considerable effort to induce Siuan to go with her. How could the woman think four dresses sufficient? She was going to have to learn not to be parsimonious.

Mistress Alkohima's establishment, its walls lined with tall shelves bearing stacked bolts of silk and fine wool in every hue imaginable, was one of a number of large shops that occupied the ground floor of a building that seemed to be all curves. It suited Tamore very well. Fair-skinned for a Domani, she would have made Gitara seem almost boyish in comparison. When she came to greet them-their fringed shawls assured a personal greeting-rather than simply walking, she seemed to flow gracefully between the smaller shelves full of laces and ribbons, and the dressmaker's forms clothed in half-finished garments. Her half-dozen assistants all curtsied deeply, young pretty women garbed in finely sewn examples of their native lands' styles, each different, but there were no curtsies from the seamstress. She knew her place in this world. Her pale green dress, elegant and simple at the same time, spoke well of her talents, though it did cling in an alarming manner, molding her in a way that left no doubts of exactly what lay beneath the silk.

Tamore's languorous smile widened at hearing their order, and well it should have. Few of her patrons would come for an entire wardrobe in one visit. At least, it widened for Moiraine. Under prodding, Siuan had agreed on six dresses, to make up one for each day of the week with what she already had, but she wanted them in wool. Moiraine ordered twenty, half with skirts divided for riding, all in the best silk. She could have done with fewer, but the Hall might check. An order for twenty would make them think her settled in Tar Valon.

She and Siuan quickly found themselves in a back room, where Tamore watched as four of her assistants undressed them to the skin and measured them, turning them this way and that for the seamstress to see what she had to work with. Under almost any other circumstances, that would have embarrassed Moiraine near to death. But this was for a seamstress, and that made all the difference. Then it was time for the fabric to come out, for choices. Tamore knew what the fringe on their shawls meant, and shades of blue predominated.

"I want decent dresses, mind," Siuan said. "High necks, and nothing too snug." That with a pointed look at Tamore's garment. Moiraine nearly groaned. Light send Siuan did not mean to go on this way!

"I think perhaps this is too light for me," Moiraine murmured as a tall yellow-haired girl, in green with a square-cut neckline that displayed too much cleavage, draped sky-blue silk over her. "I was thinking of Cairhienin styles, without House colors or embroidery," she suggested. She could never wear Damodred colors inside the Tower.

"A Cairhienin cut, of course," Tamore said, thumbing her full lower lip thoughtfully. "That will suit you very well. But that hue is lovely against your pale skin. Half of your dresses must be of light color, and half embroidered. You require elegance, not plainness."

"Perhaps only a quarter in each?" A Cairhienin cut suited her very well? Was the woman implying she could not succeed in wearing a Domani dress? Not that she would. Tamore's garment was indecent! But there was the principle of the thing.

The seamstress shook her head. "At least a third in light colors," she said firmly. "At least. And half embroidered." Frowning slightly, she rubbed her thumb across her underlip again.

"A third and half," Moiraine agreed before the woman could go higher, as she seemed to be considering. With a good seamstress, it was always a matter of negotiation. She could live with a little embroidery.

"Do you have anything cheaper, Mistress Alkohima?" Siuan demanded, frowning down at the fine blue wool draped on her. Light, she had been asking prices! No wonder the girls with her looked scandalized.

"Will you excuse me just a brief moment, Tamore?" Moiraine said, and when the seamstress nodded, she handed the length of silk to the Andoran girl and hurriedly took Siuan aside.

"Listen to me, Siuan, and do not argue," she whispered in a rush. "We must not keep Tamore waiting long. Do not ask after prices; she will tell us the cost after we make our selections. Nothing you buy here will be cheap, but the dresses Tamore sews for you will make you look Aes Sedai as much as the shawl does. And it is Tamore, not Mistress Alkohima. You must observe the proprieties, or she will believe you are mocking her. But try thinking of her as a sister who stands just a little above you. A touch of deference is necessary. Just a touch, but she will tell you what to wear as much as she asks."

Siuan scowled over her shoulder at the Domani woman. Light, she scowled! "And will the bloody shoemaker tell us what kind of slippers to buy and charge us enough to buy fifty new sets of nets?"

"No," Moiraine said impatiently. Tamore was only arching one eyebrow, yet her face might as well have been like a thunderhead. The meaning of that eyebrow was clear as the finest crystal. They had already made the seamstress wait too long, and there would be a price for it. And that scowl! She hurried on, whispering as fast as she could. "The shoemaker will make what we want, and we will bargain the price with him, but not too hard if we want his best work. The same with the glovemaker, the stockingmaker, the shiftmaker, and all the rest. Just be glad neither of us needs a hairdresser. The best hairdressers are true tyrants, nearly as bad as perfumers." Siuan barked a laugh, as if she were joking, but she would learn if she ever sat for a hairdresser, not knowing how her hair was to be arranged until the hairdresser was finished and allowed her to look in a mirror. At least, that was how it was in Cairhien.

Once the choices of colors had been agreed upon, and the forms of embroidery-negotiation was necessary even there, as well as on which dresses were to be embroidered-they still had to stay for the first dress to be cut and pinned on them, a task Tamore deftly performed herself with a pincushion fastened to her wrist. Moiraine quickly learned what the price would be for making the woman wait. The fabric she pinned for Moiraine was a blue even paler than the sky blue, almost a blue-tinged white, and the way she pinned Siuan's dark-blue wool, it was going to be nearly as snug at bosom and hips as her own garment. It could have been worse. The seamstress could have "accidentally" stuck them a dozen times and demanded a pinning for every dress. But Moiraine was sure her first dresses would all be the lightest shades.

The prices Tamore mentioned, once the pinned garments had been slipped off them and onto dressmaker's forms, made Siuan's eyes pop, though at least she remained silent. She would learn. In a city like Tar Valon, one gold crown for a woolen dress and ten for a silk were reasonable from a seamstress of Tamore's quality. Still, Moiraine murmured that she would give a generous gratuity for speedy completion. Otherwise, they might not see anything for months.

Before leaving, she told Tamore that she had decided on five more riding dresses, in the strictest Cairhienin style, which was to say dark, though she did not put it that way, each with six slashes across the breast in red, green and white, far fewer than she had a right to. The Domani woman's expression did not alter at this evidence that she was a rather minor member of a noble House. Sewing for Aes Sedai would count with sewing for the High Seat of a House, or perhaps even a ruler.

"I would like them made last, if you please," Moiraine told her. "And do not send them. Someone will pick them up."

"I can promise you they will be last, Aes Sedai."

Oh, yes; her first dresses were going to be pale. But the second part of her plan was accomplished. For the moment, she was as ready as she could be.