A Memory of Light

“And if they have been corrupted as well?” Doesine asked.

“I agree,” Egwene said. “This smells of one of the Forsaken, perhaps Moghedien. Lord Bryne, if you were to fal in this fight, she’d know that your commanders would be next to take charge. They might have the same faulty instincts that you do.”

Doesine shook her head. “Who can we trust? Any bloody man or woman we put in command could have suffered Compulsion.”

“We may have to lead ourselves,” Faiselle said. “Getting to a man who cannot channel would be easier than a sister, who would sense channeling and notice a woman with the ability. We are more likely to be clean.”

“But who among us has the knowledge of battlefield tactics?” Ferane asked. “I consider myself well-read enough to oversee plans, but to make them?”

“We will be better than someone who may have been corrupted,” Faiselle said.

“No,” Egwene said, pulling herself up on Gawyn’s arm.

“Then what?” Gawyn asked.

Egwene clenched her teeth. Then what? She knew of only one man she could trust not to have been Compelled, at least not by Moghedien. A man who was immune to the effects of saidar and saidin. “We will have to put our armies under the command of Matrim Cauthon,”

she said. “May the Light watch over us.”





CHAPTER


32





A Yellow Flower-Spider

The damane held open a hole in the floor for Mat. It looked down on the battlefield itself Mat rubbed his chin, stil impressed, though he’d been using these holes for the last hour or so as he countered the trap that Bryne had laid for Egwene’s armies. He had sent in additional banners of Seanchan cavalry to reinforce both flanks of his troops at the river, and additional damane to counter the Sharan channelers and stem the flood of Trol ocs pressing against the defenders.

Of course, this stil wasn’t as good as being down on the battlefield himself. Maybe he should go out again and do a little more fighting. He glanced at Tuon, who sat on a throne— a massive, ten-foot-tall throne—at one side of the command building. Tuon narrowed her eyes at him, as if she could see right into his thoughts.

She’s Aes Sedai, Mat told himself. Oh, she can’t channel—she hasn’t let herself learn yet.

She’s bloody one of them anyway. And I married her.

She was something incredible, though. He felt a thril each time she gave orders; she did it so natural y. Elayne and Nynaeve could take lessons. Tuon did look very nice on that throne.

Mat let his gaze linger on her, and that earned him a scowl, which was downright unfair. If a man couldn’t leer at his wife, who coidd he leer at?

Mat turned back to the battlefield. “Nice trick,” he said, stooping down to stick his hand through the hole. They were high up. If he fel , he’d have time to hum three verses of “She Has No Ankles That I Can See” before he hit. Maybe an extra round of the chorus.

“This one learned it,” the suldam said, referring to her new damane, “from watching the weaves of the Aes Sedai.” The suldam, Catrona, almost choked on the words “Aes Sedai.”

Mat couldn’t blame her. Those could be tough words to speak.

He didn’t look too hard at the damane, nor the tattoos of flowering branches on her cheeks, reaching from the back of her head like hands to cup her face. Mat was responsible for her being captured. It was better than her fighting for the Shadow, wasn’t it?

Blood and bloody ashes, he thought to himself. You are doing a fine job of persuading Tuon not to use damane, Matrim Cauthon. Capturing one yourself. . .

It was unnerving how quickly the Sharan woman had taken to her captivity. The suldam had all remarked upon it. Barely a moment of struggle, then complete subservience. They expected a newly captured damane to take months to train properly, yet this one had been ready within hours. Catrona practically beamed, as if she were personally responsible for the Sharan woman’s temperament.

That hole was remarkable. Mat stood right on the edge, looking down at the world, counting off the banners and squadrons as he marked them in his head. What would Classen Bayor have done with one of these, he wondered? Maybe the Battle of Kolesar would have turned out differently. He’d have never lost his cavalry in the marsh, that’s for certain.