WOT Adv 231 (Maer, Vaid, Maeslyn, Eliesanna)

-- The Wheel Turns --
Maer stood as a matter of course and grabbed his things. In a low murmur he said something about owing t'oh to the two wetlander women if anything were to happen.

Vaid pushed his plate away sighing and pulled himself up, awkwardly swaying with weariness. Did he dare even go? He had drawn too much attention to himself already. He was afraid. Afraid that the REAL Aes Sedai would know that there was no other way HE could know about the black "sister."

"I..." he began, and then stopped. It was better to go than just sit here waiting for the Wheel to spin him a way he didn't like. Far better to get a slight hold on his thread. If he could at all. "I'll come... " He finally said. There was no escaping now. He was up to his neck already, and if he wasn't careful, it would BE his neck.

"I thank you all," Maeslyn said with genuine gratitude. Clasping her dark blue cloak more tightly about herself, she led them out into the quiet early morning hours before dawn.

-----

Vaid's jaw creaked from a large yawn, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. Sitting in a plump chair near a cozy fire in Nadira's sitting room, it wasn't an easy task. Gable seemed unaffected and stood guard near the door, the drapes to a nearby window were drawn except for a small crack through which Gable could survey the street. Vaid could see the sky was beginning to turn pink with the beginning of dawn.

Vaid looked at Maer. He stood in a shadowed corner, leaning against the corner of the wall, his head back and his eyes closed as if meditating. Vaid wondered if he were asleep. How does a man sleep standing up? Even if he were asleep, Vaid was certain he would be alert in an instant should the need arrive. Eliesanna of course had dropped off nearly the moment they had arrived, curling up cat like on one end of a sofa her head resting on folded arms on one edge of a small sofa.

"Allow me to impose once more, Master Vaid," Nadira asked him quietly but the command was certain in her voice. "Every word please, exactly as you heard it."
Vaid started at Nadira's voice and then nodded wearily and recounted what he had heard. Again. For the third time. By the time he finished, she had dug out every last line the conversation he had overheard or even thought he had overheard between the Lady Serai and the Inquisitor of the Hand of the Light. And then she began to carefully measure every word and discuss them at great length in quiet whispers with Maeslyn.

It had been the same with Maer when he told a tale of this White Cloak officer consorting with a Fade in Falme. She had asked him as well several times. Time slipped by and Vaid's shook his head ruefully. When she had asked him the first time, he had told her about his suspicion about the Lady Serai possibly being Black Ajah. Of course that didn't go over very well. Not that he really expected it would.

Nadira had listened politely and agreed that the Ladies Belayne and Serai seemed to be up to something sinister, but she pooh-poohed the idea of the Black Ajah as "both preposterous and short-sighted, a story concocted by the base and ignorant to cast a pall upon the noble efforts of the White Tower."

Luckily she hadn't asked too many details about how he thought he knew what he knew. The less dealings he had with these women the better. Yet it seemed something always seemed to weave him in more tightly--however ironic and frightening that was--with the dealings of the White Tower.

Nadira Sedai and Maeslyn pushed back their chairs and stood, the sound brought Vaid out of his gloomy thoughts with a start and Maer pushed himself away from the wall alert as ever. Eliesanna raised her head groggily. "Oh, I'm sorry Nadira Sedai, I didn't mean to fall asleep, I was just closing my eyes for a minute and then--"

"Never you mind that, child," Nadira said gently smiling at Eliesanna. "Thank you all for coming and telling me of your findings. Maeslyn, I leave it up to you and your friends to take every step to prevent whatever plot or possible harm these women or this White Cloak Inquisitor may be planning against the Panarch. I regret that I cannot aid you directly in this as my presence here must remain unnoticed. I assure you that I can be more effective if Belyne does not even suspect I am in Tanchico."

"As you say, Nadira Sedai," Maeslyn inclined her head demurely.

"May you go with the light. Gable, will see you to the door." The warder led the way, moving with deadly cat-like grace and then ushered them out into the early
morning sunlight.

The door closed and the party stood in the narrow non-descript street. The city had begun to awaken, folk in working clothes began moving out of their houses about heir daily business.

"Come," Maeslyn said, pulling her cloak over her head to shade against the sunlight. "There is no time like the present. We will go to the Panarch's Palace."

- - - -

Perhaps an hour later, the party had made their way eastward up through the winding streets of Tanchico, past the Calpene peninsula, holding the Great Circle, past the Maseta peninsula and the King's Circle and finally onto the east-most peninsula, the Verana peninsula.

They blinked against the pale morning sunlight that gave little heat and while Tanchico shone with brilliance in the sun, the underlying truth of a city in decay was plainly seen as sparkling whitewashed plaster, lay peeling and crumbling revealing dark and rotting wood beneath. Above the nearby buildings perhaps only a few blocks away, further southward along the Verana peninsula they could see the gilded buildings that made up the Panarch's palace.

Hawkers moved about calling their wares, guards kept a order in the marketplaces watching with careful eyes against the hundreds of beggars who crouched against walls, fingers outstretched at passerbys.

Maeslyn and Maer were a few paces ahead down the wide busy street to purchase some spiced rolls for breakfast. While Vaid and Eliesanna strode talking about life in Tanchico, a woman with three young children with her approached them. Their faces were hopeless, pitiable masks of life.

"Please goodman, goodwife," obviously mistaking the two for a couple. "Could you or your husband not spare a little coin for me and my little ones? Their father died a month ago fighting the Dragonsworn, and I don't have anything." A young boy, perhaps five or six, with a shock of black hair that kept falling into his eyes, stared with wide unblinking eyes at Vaid. The boy began to cry softly.

"Quiet lad," the mother sighed wearily, stroking his hair. "It will be all right." She said the words, but Vaid could tell her face didn't believe it.