Her people in the city complained of filthy streets that were increasingly dangerous after dark and little safer by daylight. Once crime had been all but unknown in Tar Valon, but now the Tower Guards had abandoned the streets to patrol the harbors and the bridge towers. Except for collecting the customs duties and buying supplies, both done through intermediaries, the White Tower seemed to have shut itself off from the city completely. The great doors that allowed the public to enter the Tower remained shut and barred, and no one had seen a sister outside the Tower to know her as Aes Sedai since the siege began, if not earlier. All confirmation of what Leane had reported before. The last page made Egwene’s eyebrows rise, though. Rumor in the streets said Gareth Bryne had found a secret way into the city and would appear inside the walls with his whole army any day.

“Leane would have said if anyone had breathed a word that sounded like they meant gateways,” Siuan said quickly when she saw Egwene’s expression. She had read all of these reports already, of course, and knew what Egwene was seeing by which page she held. Shifting on the unsteady stool, Siuan almost fell off onto the carpets, she was paying so little heed. It did not slow her down a hair, though. “And you can be sure Gareth hasn’t let anything slip,” she went on while still righting herself. “Not that any of his soldiers are fool enough to desert to the city now, but he knows when to keep his mouth shut. He just has the reputation for attacking where he can’t possibly be. He’s done the impossible often enough that people expect him to. That’s all.”

Hiding a smile, Egwene held the paper mentioning Lord Gareth to the flame and watched it curl and blacken. A few months past, Siuan would have offered an acid comment about the man instead of praise. He would have been “Gareth bloody Bryne,” not Gareth. She could not possibly miss doing his laundry and polishing his boots, but Egwene had seen her staring at him on those rare times when he came to the Aes Sedai camp. Staring, and then running away if he so much as glanced at her. Siuan! Running away! Siuan had been Aes Sedai for more than twenty years, and Amyrlin for ten, but she had no more idea how to deal with being in love than a duck had about shearing sheep.