“Why on earth not?”

“He’d take advantage,” Siuan said darkly. “Oh, not that. I don’t think that.” She was quite prudish in some areas. “But the man would make my life the Pit of Doom!” And washing his smallclothes and polishing his boots and his saddle every day was not?

Egwene sighed. How could such a sensible, intelligent, capable woman turn into a scatterbrain over this one subject? Like a hissing viper, an image rose in her head. Herself, sitting on Gawyn’s knee playing kissing games. In a tavern! She shoved it away, hard. “Siuan, I need your experience. I need your brain. I can’t afford to have you halfwitted because of Lord Bryne. If you can’t pull yourself together, I’ll pay him what you owe, and forbid you to see him. I will.”

“I said I’d work off the debt,” Siuan said stubbornly. “I have as much honor as Lord Gareth bloody Bryne! As much and more! He keeps his word, and I keep mine! Besides, Min told me I have to stay close to him or we’ll both die. Or something like that.” A pinkness in her cheeks gave her away, though. Her honor and Min’s viewing notwithstanding, she was simply willing to put up with anything to be near the man!

“Very well. You’re besotted, and if I tell you to stay away from him, you’ll either disobey or mope and wrap the rest of your brains in a cloud. What are you going to do about him?”

Scowling indignantly, Siuan went on for some little time, growling what she would like to do about Gareth bloody Bryne. He would have enjoyed none of it. Some, he might not have survived.

“Siuan,” Egwene said warningly. “You deny one more time what’s plain as your nose, and I’ll tell him and give him the money.”

Siuan pouted sullenly. She pouted! Sullenly! Siuan! “I don’t have time to be in love. I barely have time to think, between working for you and him. And even if everything goes right tonight, I’ll have twice as much to do. Besides... ” Her face fell, and she shifted on the stool. “What if he doesn’t... return my feelings?” she muttered. “He’s never even tried to kiss me. All he cares about is whether his shirts are clean.”

Egwene scraped her spoon through her bowl, and was surprised when it came up empty. Nothing remained of the roll but a few crumbs on her dress. Light, her middle still felt hollow. She eyed Siuan’s bowl hopefully; the woman seemed to have little interest in anything but drawing circles in the lentils.

A sudden thought occurred to her. Why had Lord Bryne insisted that Siuan work off her debt even after learning who she was? Just because she had said she would? It was a preposterous arrangement. Except that it did keep her close to him when nothing else would have. For that matter, she herself had often wondered why Bryne had agreed to build the army. He had to have known there was a very good chance he was laying his head on the chopping block. And why he had offered that army to her, a girl Amyrlin with no real authority and not a friend among the sisters except Siuan, as far as he knew? Could the answer to all of those questions be as simple as... he loved Siuan? No; most men were frivolous and flighty, but that was truly preposterous! Still, she offered the suggestion, if only to amuse Siuan. It might cheer her a little.

Siuan snorted in disbelief. It sounded odd, coming from that pretty face, but no one could put quite so much expression into a snort as she did. “He’s not a total idiot,” she said dryly. “In fact, he has a good head on his shoulders. He thinks like a woman, most of the time.”

“I still haven’t heard you say you’ll straighten up, Siuan,” Egwene persisted. “You have to, one way or another.”

“Well, of course I will. I don’t know what’s been the matter with me. It isn’t as if I never kissed a man before.” Her eyes narrowed suddenly, as if she expected Egwene to challenge her on that. “I haven’t spent my whole life in the Tower. This is ridiculous! Chattering about men, tonight of all nights!” Peering into her bowl, she seemed to realize for the first time that it held food. She filled her spoon, gesturing with it at Egwene. “You have to be careful of your timing, more now than ever. If Romanda or Lelaine grabs the tiller, you’ll never get your hands on it.”

Ridiculous or not, something certainly had restored Siuan’s appetite. She went through her stew faster than Egwene had hers, and not a crumb of the roll escaped her. Egwene found that she had drawn her fingers through her own empty bowl. There was nothing for it then but to lick off the last few lentils, of course.

Discussing what was to happen tonight served no real point. They had honed and refined what Egwene was to say, and when, so many times that she was surprised she had not dreamed of it. She certainly could have done her part in her sleep. Siuan insisted anyway, skirting very near the point where Egwene would have to call her down, going over it again and again, bringing up possibilities they had discussed before a hundred times. Strangely, Siuan had found herself a very good mood. She even essayed a little humor, unusual for her of late, though some was on the gallows side.

“You know Romanda wanted to be Amyrlin herself once,” she said at one point. “I’ve heard it was Tamra getting the stole and staff that made her stalk off into retirement like a gull with her tail feathers clipped. I’ll lay a silver mark I don’t have to a fish scale that her eyes bulge twice as much as Lelaine’s.”

And later. “I wish I could be there to hear them howl. Somebody’s going to before much longer, and I’d rather it was them than us. I never had the voice for singing.” She actually sang a little snatch about staring across the river at a boy and having no boat. She was right; her voice was pleasant in its fashion, but she could not carry a tune in a bucket.

And later still. “A good thing I have such a sweet face now. If this goes badly, they’ll dress the pair of us for dolls and sit us on a shelf to admire. Of course, we might have ‘accidents’ instead. Dolls do get broken. Gareth Bryne will have to find someone else to bully.” She really laughed at that.

Egwene felt considerable relief when the tentflap bulged inward briefly, announcing someone who knew enough not to enter where there was a ward. She really did not want to hear where Siuan’s humor went from there!

As soon as she released the ward, Sheriam stepped inside, accompanied by a rush of air that seemed ten times as cold as earlier. “It’s time, Mother. Everything is ready.” Her tilted eyes were wide, and she licked her lips w