After a disastrous escape that leaves a farmer’s barn in ashes, Siuan, Leane, and Min find themselves sentenced to work for Gareth Bryne. While Leane tests out her new life as a professional flirt, Siuan uses a linguistic technicality to plan their escape. Meanwhile, in Caemlyn, Rahvin puts Queen Morgase to bed so he can grill a minor noble about Rand al’Thor.
Min is in a town south of Tar Valon called Kore Springs. “Well, great,” you might say. “That means she, Leane, Logain, and Siuan escaped the city!” Well yes, it does. But that’s like watching Franz Reichelt test his prototype parachute by jumping off the Eiffel Tower and saying, “oh, look, he’s flying,” for the two seconds before he impacted the ground. The first thing we notice about Min and company is that they have definitely impacted the ground. The escapees were sheltering in a barn when the owner discovered them. Logain had panicked and bolted, shoving the farmer aside. A lantern toppled in the kerfuffle, the poor guy’s whole barn burned down, and Logain got away. Min, Leane, and Siuan got locked up to await trial before a local Lord.
Leane is fixated on the popular notion that stilled Aes Sedai can only survive if they find something to replace the One Power. She opens her makeup box, and speaks of how becoming an Aes Sedai made her regret not treading down different paths in life. In another life, she could have been like her aunt. She could have used her womanly charms to get what she wanted from men. Making herself look supernaturally pretty with her makeup box, Leane thinks she might be able to “persuade” a town official to be lenient. The scene is only amusing in how genuinely flustered it makes Min.
Some men come and take the women to their hearing. As it happens, the “local Lord” presiding over the trial is Gareth Bryne. We first met Bryne when Rand accidentally got an audience with Queen Morgase in The Eye of the World. Then, in Chapter 46: A Message Out of the Shadow from The Dragon Reborn, Mat visited Queen Morgase bearing a letter from Elayne. He found that Gareth Bryne had been sent away over a disagreement with Morgase, and Lord Gaebril took his place. Where did Bryne fuck off to? Why, to his estate in Kore Springs, of course!
Bryne decides that even though it was their companion who caused the damage, guilt is shared amongst a party. So he promises to fund replacements and repairs, and pronounces that Min, Siuan, and Leane will come to work for him. Leane uses her womanly charms to convince him to allow them to work in his manor instead of the fields, and Siuan commits the group to an extremely strong oath to Bryne that they will repay their debt to him. Min is horrified, but she plays along.
One of Bryne’s men loads the women into his cart and they leave for Bryne’s manor. Min quietly castigates Siuan for making her promise to work for Bryne.
MIN: You plan to break an oath anyone but a Darkfriend would keep?
MIN: I can’t believe either of you.
MIN: I don’t know either of you.
Fortunately, Siuan clarifies her intent. She won’t break her oath, no! She swore that she would repay her debt to Bryne, but she did not specify when. Hah! Let me try that one with my wife.
HER: Will you take out the trash?
ME: You bet!
HER: So why are you not doing it?
ME: You failed to specify when.
Now you tell me who is in the dog house.
So yes, the plan is to escape and justify it morally on a technicality. It’s funny — a scene like this really makes you realize that Siuan’s superpower never had anything to do with channeling — it’s about manipulating people.
En route to Bryne’s manor, the horses pulling the cart suddenly start sprinting, and Siuan has to slide into the driver’s seat to pull the reins. They find that Logain has laid out the driver with his sling to rescue them. So away they go.
Bryne is ticked off to learn of the incident, and he sends search parties out to find the deserters.
For the last part of this extremely long chapter, we cut to High Lady Alteima. Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Not since the beginning of The Shadow Rising, when she was involved in some political shenanigans. But her machinations weren’t worth mentioning in Chapter 21: Into the Heart, and they still aren’t worth mentioning because I looked her up in the Wheel of Time Wiki, and clearly this is her final act in the series. Yes, Lady Alteima, I’m afraid you only made it into this book because we needed to see someone have an audience with Queen Morgase, and who better than a conniving noblewoman from Tear?
As Alteima is telling Morgase about how Rand al’Thor has turned Tear upside down, “Lord Gaebril” interrupts. He isn’t pleased that Morgase and her guest are discussing the Dragon Reborn, so he decides she needs a time-out.
GAEBRIL: So much talking must have fatigued you, Morgase. You do too much. Go to your bedchamber and sleep. Go now. I will wake you when you have rested enough.
MORGASE: Yes, I am tired. I will take a nap now, Gaebril.
Gosh, who is wearing the pants around here, anyway? With Morgase out of the room, Gaebril compels Alteima to tell him everything about why she came to Caemlyn. She goes on and on as Gaebril grills her about the Dragon Reborn.
As Morgase retires to her bedchamber, she finds herself thinking of Gareth Bryne. Why am I thinking of him? she wonders. I wish he were here. Ultimately, she succumbs to Gaebril’s suggestion and falls asleep.