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Moiraine ducked out of the white canvas tent shared by the Yellow sisters, a slight woman of the Yellow Ajah whom Egwene did not know by name in tow.
Egwene began to stride behind them with an assumed air of importance. She was not following Moiraine; she had wanted to stretch her legs after riding all day in any case. And to survey the tents of the different Ajahs, to help her decide which she might eventually want to join.
Not that anyone had bothered to explain the differences between the Ajahs to Egwene yet. She was, she had gathered, simply supposed to take care of herself, keep up with the pace of travel, and be grateful for the nightly lessons provided by a rotating cast of Aes Sedai but never by Moiraine. Egwene trained her eyes to avoid staring directly after Moiraine, though she kept her in the corner of her vision while appraising the Yellow tent, then the White, and finally the Green in turn.
Egwene’s feet grew damp from the evening dew, but it was good to be out of the tent. Nynaeve, prickly at the best of times, had been unusually snappish that day. Egwene suspected that the cause was Lan’s visit to their tent the night before, which had occasioned sharp words between the Warder and former Wisdom. No, better to spend her evening in the open air, where a light chill still whispered of the harsh winter just past. She walked on, peripherally aware of Moiraine—she wasn’t trailing her—and awash in the bustle of the camp around her.
The two Aes Sedai bent their heads together as Moiraine wended their path by each of the Ajah tents toward the outskirts of the camp where the guards camped among the pine trees. Their voices were too low for Egwene to hear, but she inferred based on Moiraine’s gestures that she was doing most of the talking.
“Urgh!” A grunt of surprise sounded from the ground.
Egwene withdrew her foot, startled. She had very nearly stepped upon a Warder who had turned in early for the night. Wrapped in his color shifting cloak before the Green tent, he was nearly invisible by the meager light of the waxing crescent moon and distant cook fires.
“Watch yourself, girl!” he grunted.
Egwene jumped back further at his scolding and caught herself looking about to make sure that no Aes Sedai had witnessed her misstep. They hadn’t, as far as she could tell in the darkness. Moiraine was gone by now. But Egwene wouldn’t scurry back to the tent she shared with Nynaeve. She would finish her walk, going her own way.
She wasn’t out here hoping to run in to Moiraine. Or, not only that. Egwene was not some lost duckling to follow helplessly after the first person who bothered to notice her after leaving Emond’s Field. She wanted to know what Moiraine was doing in this seemingly endless string of clandestine meetings with other Aes Sedai. And, if Moiraine happened to acknowledge her should they cross paths, so much the better.
And so, as the evening wore on and the hour of her nightly channeling lessons approached, Egwene still arranged her path so that she would pass the Blue tent on the way back to her own shelter. The pale tent glowed, a luminous dome. Anaiya or Maigan, the Blue Sisters with whom Moiraine was sharing, must have been inside in study.
Egwene stepped around one of the guy lines but drew up short when a peal of laughter burst through the night.
The candlelight from inside the tent illuminated the area outside softly. Anaiya approached, clutching at Moiraine’s arm and chuckling. Moiraine must have traded the Yellow Sister for Anaiya at some point. Moiraine smiled delicately in return but withdrew her arm from Anaiya’s grasp.
“I certainly do ‘know how Liandrin can be,’” Anaiya was saying. She cut off when she spotted Egwene.
Egwene curtsied and averted her eyes. “Anaiya Sedai. Moiraine Sedai.” She had gleaned that this was the expected way for Novices to address Aes Sedai. She was not a Novice yet, but she could follow the appropriate forms.
“Child. Did you need something?” Anaiya asked.
“No, Anaiya Sedai. I am returning to my tent for my lesson.” Egwene imitated the light but cool manner of speech she had heard Moiraine model so many times.
“Hurry along. You won’t find your lesson here.”
Egwene bounced a curtsy again, this time meeting Moiraine’s eyes as she rose. Would Moiraine so much as acknowledge her?
Moiraine’s gaze was impassive. “Good night, Egwene,” was all that she said.
Egwene nodded with what she hoped was decorum, but she felt chastened. Moiraine really did not have time to take an interest in her training anymore. The dismissal suggested that neither Moiraine nor Anaiya would be the Aes Sedai training her this evening. There was nothing for it, and lingering would make her seem pathetic. She adopted an air of purpose and strode in the direction of her own tent again.
Moiraine and Anaiya began to speak again as Egwene departed, but their voices were too muffled to make out the words. Were they discussing Egwene? No, that was ridiculous. They didn’t care enough about her either way to gossip about her.
Part of Egwene railed stubbornly. Didn’t they realize what they had on their hands in Egwene? She would be good. Strong. An asset to the Tower. And Moiraine knew that she would be good. Not a week ago, Moiraine had claimed her as one of “her two” before the Amyrlin Seat herself.
It was fine, though. Moiraine had her Sisters here. Egwene had only been of interest to her when she had been trapped in the woods with four teenagers. She had trained her because there had been nothing else to do. Egwene had been a bit of kindling set with a spark, burning more and more strongly with Moiraine’s skilled attention. Now she was left to blaze or dwindle to smoke on her own. But, it was true; why would Moiraine continue to work with Egwene now that there were other Aes Sedai to share the task, and now that she had other burdens?
She had gathered from the first sessions with Verin and Alviarin that while some Aes Sedai did not begrudge the time spent with Egwene and Nynaeve, this was certainly not a universal opinion. Perhaps Moiraine was one for whom it was a chore, and the joy she had seemed to take in teaching Egwene before had been feigned, an attempt to win Egwene’s favor in case it could be leveraged for advantage later. Had Moiraine been making a play when she had introduced Egwene and Nynaeve to the Amyrlin?
Although was Moiraine quite at home with the other Aes Sedai? The way she had shrunk back from Anaiya put Egwene in mind of moments back in Fal Dara when Moiraine had held herself slightly aloof from her Sisters or had seemed to suffer a withering gaze from Liandrin or the other Red Sister. Something was afoot there. And Egwene was already allied with Moiraine by association—that worked both ways. She would need to tread carefully, lest she be caught in whatever political snarl Moiraine had left behind in Tar Valon.
Egwene reentered her tent with a light huff and set to pacing its narrow floor, unable to settle. Nynaeve sat up from an apparent attempted nap on the cot, looking indignant.
“Would you stop moving about like some frantic badger?” Nynaeve said.
Egwene stopped pacing and compromised by perching on a three-legged camp stool. The seat wavered beneath her, causing her to need to constantly balance.
“Who do you think is teaching us tonight?” Egwene asked.
“As long as it is not Alviarin again, I do not much care.”
“Does it ever bother you that Moiraine does not check in on us?”
“We’re well shot of her. Though I don’t believe that we are,” Nynaeve said ruefully. She began rebraiding her hair, which had become mussed by the pillow.
“I’m not so sure. I saw her tonight. She barely said two words to me.”
“Moiraine barely says any words unless those words can benefit her. She’s done with us. For now.”
“But she used to. She used to tell me things. Sort of,” Egwene added, thinking of the revelation Verin had brought that Moiraine had only taught her because she already channeled. Egwene thought that Moiraine had done it because she liked it. A childish, naïve thought, she knew now.
Why had Moiraine bothered to hide that? What did all of this distance, all of this secrecy gain her?
“What did Lan want last night?” Egwene asked, attempting to sound disinterested. The Warder had come by their tent without his Aes Sedai and pulled Nynaeve aside for a whispered conference.
“Nothing,” Nynaeve answered too quickly.
“Nynaeve.” Egwene said, crossing her arms raising her eyebrows at the Wisdom.
“Lan serves Moiraine, and he serves a lost kingdom. There is not much more to say.” She felt at the lump under her shirt that had appeared a few days ago. Egwene knew it to be Lan’s signet ring.
“Has he talked to Moiraine about this? Have you?”
“About what?” Nynaeve snapped. “Do you think he tells me what he talks to her about? And you say that she has no intention of acknowledging us further. Why would I seek her out?”
“But I do wonder,” Egwene said slowly, “how much of that is for our own good. She introduced us to the Amyrlin, but to no other. The Tower knows we are her recruits, but she does not associate with us anymore. Might she not be protecting us? I don’t think that all of the Aes Sedai are in accord in their opinions about Moiraine. Maybe that is why she and Lan stay away.”
“This is a fancy, Egwene. They do not associate with us because they do not wish to. No amount of wanting it to be different, from either of us, will change them right now.
“Change whom?” a third voice asked.
Egwene and Nynaeve jumped and turned.
A woman of middling height with silver bells woven into her dark hair stood at the tent entrance. She smiled.
“I am Alanna Sedai. I am giving you your lesson tonight. But, a word of advice first. Do not try to make sense of Moiraine and Lan. We all gave up on that years ago.”
With that, Alanna swept into the tent and began her instruction.