A Crown of Swords Read Online Free

A Crown of Swords
Book: A Crown of Swords Read Online Free
Author: Robert Jordan
Pages:
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you in a cabinet and taking you out when they needed your vote.”
    “I see enough, Mother.” Alviarin’s voice held no heat; if anything, it should have coated the walls with frost. “I see three hundred rebel Aes Sedai, perhaps more, marching on Tar Valon with an army led by Gareth Bryne, acknowledged a great captain. Discounting the more ridiculous reports, that army may number over twenty thousand, and with Bryne to lead they will gain more at every village and town they pass. I do not say they have hope of taking the city, of course, but it is hardly a matter for laughter. High Captain Chubain should be ordered to increase recruiting for the Tower Guard.”
    Elaida’s gaze fell sourly on the broken fish, and she stood and stalked to the nearest window, her back to Alviarin. The palace under construction took away the bitter taste, that and the slip of paper she still clutched.
    She smiled down on her palace-to-be. “Three hundred rebels, yes, but you should read Tarna’s account again. At least a hundred are on the point of breaking already.” She trusted Tarna to some extent, a Red with no room in her head for nonsense, and she said the rebels were ready to jump at shadows. Quietly desperate sheep looking for a shepherd, she said. A wilder, of course, yet still sensible. Tarna should be back soon, and able to give a fuller report. Not that it was needed. Elaida’s plans were already working among the rebels. But that was her secret.
    “Tarna has always been sure she could make people do what it was clear they would not.” Had there been an emphasis in that, a significance of tone? Elaida decided to ignore it. She had to ignore too much from Alviarin, but the day would come. Soon.
    “As for their army, daughter, she says two or three thousand men at most. If they had more, they would have made sure she saw them, to overawe us.” In Elaida’s opinion, eyes-and-ears always exaggerated, to make their information seem more valuable. Only sisters could be truly trusted. Red sisters, anyway. Some of them. “But I would not care if they did have twenty thousand, or fifty, or a hundred. Can you even begin to guess why?” When she turned, Alviarin’s face was all smooth composure, a mask over blind ignorance. “You seem to be conversant with all the aspects of Tower law. What penalty do rebels face?”
    “For the leaders,” Alviarin said slowly, “stilling.” She frowned slightly, skirts swaying just barely as her feet shifted. Good. Even Accepted knew this, and she could not understand why Elaida asked. Very good. “For many of the rest, too.”
    “Perhaps.” The leaders might themselves escape that, most of them, if they submitted properly. The minimum penalty in law was to be birched in the Grand Hall before the assembled sisters, followed by at least a year and a day in public penance. Yet nothing said the penance must be served all at once; a month here, a month there, and they would still be atoning their crimes ten years from now, constant reminders of what came of resisting her. Some would be stilled, of course—Sheriam, a few of the more prominent so-called Sitters—but only sufficient to make the rest fear putting a foot wrong again, not enough to weaken the Tower. The White Tower had to be whole, and it had to be strong. Strong, and firmly in her grasp.
    “Only one crime among those they have committed
demands
stilling.” Alviarin opened her mouth. There had been ancient rebellions, buried so deep that few among the sisters knew; the Chronicles stood mute, the lists of stilled and executed confined to records open only to Amyrlin, Keeper and Sitters, aside from the few librarians who kept them. Elaida allowed Alviarin no opportunity to speak. “Any woman who falsely claims the title of Amyrlin Seat
must
be stilled. If they believed they had any chance of success, Sheriam would be their
Amyrlin
, or Lelaine, or Carlinya, or one of the others.” Tarna reported that Romanda Cassin had come
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