Free Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan Page B

at the front, one in a red-and-white cloak lined with black fur and the other . . . Toveine’s eyebrows climbed. The other wore green Kandori trousers and a coat made up as if it belonged to the Captain-General of the Guard. Her red cloak even had golden knots of rank on the shoulder! Maybe she was mistaken about the men. That one would find short shift when she encountered real Guardsmen. In any case, it was strangely early for visitors.
    Each time the odd party reached one of the formations, the man infront shouted, “Asha’man, attend front!” and boot heels stamped on the hardened earth as the others stiffened like pillars of stone.
    Pulling her hood forward better to hide her face, Toveine moved to the side of the wide street, close beside the corner of one of the smaller stone barracks. A fork-bearded old man coming out, a silver sword pin on his high collar, glanced at her curiously without slowing his stride.
    What she had done struck her like a bucket of cold water, and she nearly wept. None of those strangers would spot an Aes Sedai face, now, if they could recognize one. If either of those women could channel, unlikely though that was, she would not pass close enough to tell that Toveine could, too. She fretted and fumed over how to disobey Logain, and then did everything necessary to carry out his instructions without even thinking about it!
    As an act of defiance, she stopped where she was, turning to watch the visitors. Automatically, her hands checked her hood before she could snatch them to her sides. It was pitiful, and ridiculous. She knew the Asha’man guiding the party, by sight at least, a bulky man in his middle years with oily black hair, an oily smile and eyes like augurs. None of the others, though. What could she hope to gain by this? How could she entrust a message to any of them? Even if the escort vanished, how could she get close enough to pass a message when she was forbidden to let any outsider discover the presence of Aes Sedai?
    The augur-eyed fellow looked bored with his duty this morning, hardly bothering to hide his yawns behind a gloved hand. “. . . when we do finish here,” he was saying as he rode past Toveine, “I will show you the Craft Town. Quite a bit bigger than this. We do have every kind of craftsfolk, from masons and carpenters to metalsmiths and tailors. We can make everything we need, Lady Elayne.”
    “Except turnips,” one of the women said in a high voice, and the other laughed.
    Toveine’s head jerked. She watched the riders move on down the street accompanied by shouted orders and stamping boots. Lady Elayne? Elayne Trakand? The younger of the pair might match the description she had been given. Elaida did not reveal why she was so desperate to lay her hands on one runaway Accepted, even one who might become a queen, but she never let a sister leave the Tower without orders on what to do if she encountered the girl.
Be very careful, Elayne Trakand,
Toveine thought.
I would not like Elaida to have the satisfaction of laying hands on you.
    She wanted to think on this, on whether there was some way to use thegirl’s presence here, but abruptly she became aware of the sensations at the back of her head. A mild contentment and a growing purpose. Logain had finished his breakfast. He would be coming out, soon. He had told her to be there when he did.
    Her feet were running before she thought. With the result that her skirts tangled in her legs, and she fell hard, knocking her breath out. Anger welled up, fury, but she scrambled to her feet and, without pausing to brush off the dust, gathered her skirts above her knees and began to run again, cloak billowing behind. Men’s raucous shouts followed her down the street, and laughing children pointed as she ran past.
    Suddenly a pack of dogs was around her, snarling, nipping at her heels. She leaped and spun and kicked, but they harried her. She wanted to shriek with frustration and fury. Dogs were always a