“Give over, Siuan,” Egwene said wearily. “The man likely tried to take liberties.” He must have. She could not see how Halima could have broken a man’s arm in any event. However you described the woman, muscular did not come into it.

Instead of opening the embossed folder that Siuan had laid on the table, she rested her hands on either side of it. That kept them away from her head. Maybe if she ignored the pain, it would go away this time. Besides, for a change, she had information to share with Siuan. “It seems that some of the Sitters are talking about negotiating with Elaida,” she began.

Expressionless, Siuan balanced herself atop one of the two rickety three-legged stools in front of the table and listened attentively, only her fingers moving, lightly stroking against her skirts, until Egwene finished. Then she made fists and growled a set of curses that were pungent even for her, beginning with a wish for the lot of them to choke to death on week-old fish guts and sliding downhill fast from there. Coming from that young, pretty face only made them worse.

“I suppose you’re right letting it go forward,” she muttered once her invective ran down. “The talk will spread, now it’s begun, and this way, you gain a jump on it. Beonin shouldn’t surprise me, I suppose. Beonin’s ambitious, but I always thought she’d have gone scurrying back to Elaida if Sheriam and the others hadn’t stiffened her backbone.” Voice quickening, Siuan fixed her eyes on Egwene as if to lend weight to her words. “I wish Varilin and that lot surprised me, Mother. Discounting the Blue, six Sitters from five Ajahs fled the Tower after Elaida carried out her coup,” her mouth twisted slightly on the word, “and here we have one from each of those five. I was in Tel’aran’rhiod last night, in the Tower—”

“I hope you were careful,” Egwene said sharply. Siuan hardly seemed to know the meaning of careful, sometimes. The few dream ter’angreal in their possession had lines of sisters panting to use them, mostly to visit the Tower, and while Siuan was not precisely forbidden one, it was the next thing to. She could have put her name down forever without the Hall granting her a single night. Quite aside from the sisters who blamed Siuan for the Tower being broken in the first place—she was not accepted back quite as warmly as Leane, on that account, nor cosseted by anyone—quite aside from that, too many remembered her rough teaching, when she was one of the few who knew how to use the dream ter’angreal. Siuan did not suffer fools gladly, and everyone was a fool their first few times in Tel’aran’rhiod, so now she had to borrow Leane’s turn when she wanted to visit the World of Dreams, and if another sister saw her there, ‘the next thing to’ might become an outright ban. Or worse, set off a search for who had loaned her a ter’angreal, which might end by unmasking Leane.