The Grey Tower

Some days, Liolet Belwhyn found that she missed chores in the kitchens. That was an oddity, she supposed, and not quite the case, anyway. No one ever missed scrubbing burnt porridge out of enormous pots, did they? But as a kitchen worker, one had easy access to some of the Tower’s least mentioned prizes: its cold pantries. She’d never been one for filching more than the occasional apple, but she’d always had her hands in the scraps kept for the Tower’s...other members. The four-legged ones, she supposed one could say: those were the Tower denizens that Liolet liked best. After thirty years in first white and then banded white, she’d lost her connections to the cohort of her genuine youth, but the animal population of the Tower never really changed, and it didn’t forget. Honestly, if you needed someone to be enthusiastic that you were alive, you needed a cat or five, or a dog, or a horse.

She slipped into the pantries, pausing just long enough to give a novice a pointed glare that kept the chit’s trap firmly shut, and told herself that it wasn’t honestly stealing. The scraps were basically free game. Just, they were more typically meant to be walked out to the middens. Still, the animals appreciated a bit of a treat, and Liolet appreciated their appreciation of it - even though she didn’t let anyone know she had a soft spot for the four-legged denizens of the Tower. A long time ago - like everything, she mused - she’d had a kitten she’d done her best to hide in her novice room, but she’d been discovered and the kitten had grown up into a barn cat. This last time she’d returned to the Tower, she’d gone in search of her friend from so long ago, but he hadn’t turned up. Liolet suspected he never would again. That was how that went, though.

The scraps weren’t promising. Liolet let them be. She just wouldn’t visit the kennels. The dogs liked the scraps best, and going out there without a treat just seemed a cruel trick. She washed her hands in the scullery basin, then wandered out the side door, the one the trainees used when the Gaidin sent them to scrub pots or worse. That door had better access to the Stable courtyard, which was...full of horses. What? Was there a party leaving? Nobody would use this courtyard for that! It was too small, too cramped...and these weren’t horses. Well, they were horses, but they were also colts, yearlings at best. Shienaran. Big, sturdy. A Dhurran had the size, and likely the strength, but these yearlings, crowding around her as she stood on the courtyard’s edge, were not dull as a carthorse.

“Well, look at you,” Liolet murmured to a gelded bay, who thrust his nose imperiously into her hands. “Aren’t you a pretty boy.” Well, not any more, Liolet supposed, but there was no telling a fine lad that he hadn’t the equipment to be a fine lad. At least this one couldn’t break her heart, or worse, insist that she have a look at his silly, over-coddled codpiece filler. The bay rolled his head over her shoulder, and a dark, dappled filly crowded her on the other side. Another woman might have been nervous, as she wasn’t tall enough even to see over their backs, but Liolet didn’t mind the crush of horses. For one thing, they wouldn’t be here long. Then they’d be distributed among the young trainees, mostly the Ji’val, out to train warhorses, and she’d not get this close to them again. She rubbed the poll of the dappled filly, laughing to herself as the horse leaned into her hands.

“Black Wind likes you,” a voice rumbled from Liolet’s side. The pleasure Liolet had been feeling melted off her face, leaving a stony, dull anger. Who was this man? He had the graceful bearing of a dancer, but there was a slight tinge of frost at his temples and there were lines under his dark eyes. Shienaran. They’d likely be his horses. That would make him a lord, or a lord’s horseman: the horses would be his. She’d done them no harm, nor would she, but of course, that wouldn’t matter for much if he complained. Blood and ashes, but if this got her sent to the Farm again, she really would run away. Again.

“She’s a bright one,” the man said, stroking the mare’s muzzle. “And you’ve met a fine lad there, too.” He smiled at her, but Liolet didn’t relax. “They’re from my estate,” the man said, “fifty of my finest each year. But I remember you, though it was years ago. You’ve a way with horses.” He nodded, as if that cemented some knowledge about her for him, and Liolet felt a bit of her wariness drop. “You were younger then,” the man rumbled. “You did chores for Nelune, the Light rest her soul.”

Nelune? The odd White sister who’d spent half her time in a bottle and the rest marching off on adventures that always seemed to end badly? She’d been dead for almost a decade. Her Warder had left, but the surviving Gaidin always seemed to. They didn’t usually return, though.

“Honor to serve,” the man said, clutching a fist to his heart. “Accepted.”

“The Light’s grace shine on you, Gaidin,” Liolet said, inclining her head. He didn’t have his cloak on, but she didn’t doubt his rank. Too bad she wasn’t as certain of his name. “Shall I leave your horses be, Gaidin?” she asked, wishing that her expression was not so obvious in its dislike of the notion.

“I doubt that would please them overmuch,” the Gaidin said. “The Ji’val have not yet come to take their pick of them.”

Liolet stifled her sigh. It would hardly do to be jealous, but fine horseflesh was her passion. She’d made a pretty pile of coin betting on races at the Circuit of Heaven, then bought the beginnings of a fine stable, meaning to turn her investments into championships. Of course, the Aes Sedai had objected stridently to that, when they’d found her at it, and she’d been divested of coin, horses, and jewels in short order. She still had the horse she’d brought as a novice, all those years ago, but Silver was old, with flecks of gray on her muzzle. She’d never again have the beauty of this Black Wind, and as she wasn’t the same breed, she’d never had the same depth of barrel or fine withers.

“You’re small enough,” the Gaidin said, casting a critical eye down Liolet’s figure. Liolet pursed her lips and prayed the man kept his mouth shut about any of his other notions about her body. Instead of saying more, he leaned down, forming a brace from his outstretched hands. Liolet usually didn’t allow men to manhandle her into a saddle, but this filly wasn’t wearing one. She had a lead rope and a bridle, nothing more. Moving carefully, Liolet shifted her weight gingerly across the filly’s back. The bay gelding nosed his way along her leg and blew her skirts about. Liolet rubbed his eyebrow and enjoyed her fine seat.

The man had vanished when she looked about for him, but that suited her. With no one to tell her otherwise, Liolet had a fine morning making new friends for the first time in a very long time indeed.

The Tower brought back memories, not all of them pleasant. He had begun overseeing the task of stabling the horses, but Riordan had other needs, and he was still young enough to need minding as he met them. Aydrik had gallivanted off, and was likely having severe second thoughts about a life clad in training greys right about now, but that was a man’s choice and a man’s lot. When he had returned from settling his son among the Tower’s youth, all unwillingly occupied in learning lessons of the pen and parchment sort, he had found yet another memory waiting for him. As Nelune had been, the girl was a fine-boned blonde, with the olive complexion of Arad Doman under the mop of yellow curls atop her head. Odd, to see Tairen hair and eyes in a Domani face, but he had seen odder - and he had seen her before. Nelune had liked this one, taking an interest in her studies as the Aes Sedai quietly did, sorting the children before they knew it had been done.

Odd that she had not yet reached the shawl, but then, Nelune’s attention had not been due to anything she could explain in a way that Sarkaska would understand. Some of the women did not progress, but this one had reached the ring. Perhaps she was only a late bloomer. Sarkaska had a fondness for those: he’d been one himself in many ways. Perhaps he still was. He watched the girl - she certainly seemed one, jostled by two eager yearlings, laughing the way women laughed at pert children - a moment. She was kind, and she had chosen one of the best fillies among the lot for this year. He had considered keeping Black Wind for himself, and training her as a warhorse, as his own Cueran Ayende had been the same breed and color. Watching, he knew that to be a fool’s idea, a grasp at the past. He would keep training his mount, now five years into his tutelage, and bright.

Polite enough. She kept her head and her manners. Sarkaska had decided what to do about her before he was quite aware he had. Hoisting the girl to the filly’s back, he considered the matchup. Black Wind would never be a palfrey: she was too clever. She wouldn’t be easily trained. Still, the girl had settled the filly’s dancing in just a few moments, and they continued their conversation, for it was, while Sarkaska took the measure of them. He’d thought to gather up a batch of trainees and set them to properly training warhorses, such as Shienar and House Kol bred, but his first pairing was problematic. An Accepted didn’t need a warhorse. Then again, Nelune would quip that every woman needed strength on her side: that was his job. Perhaps this one would appreciate a well-trained warhorse.

Perhaps, she didn’t have a choice. Sarkaska smiled to himself as he moved through the press of horseflesh, and before he returned to the blonde, whose name he had forgotten (this was frequent, Sarkaska wasn’t the greatest at remembering things) he signed the stable’s register, assigning the horse to the girl, and the girl to his upcoming group to be assembled for lessons on training a warhorse.

Likely, she wouldn’t thank him for it - today. But intuition told him that there might come a day where she might, and it was ever a Gaidin’s job to keep the channeling lot out of their own way.

Don't mind me. I'm just going to sit over here and give myself a warhorse lesson or something.

She'd found an apple in her dress pocket, or rather, the nosy bay gelding had, and she'd been feeding chunks to the two yearlings from her seat. She ought to get down, she supposed, and head back to her studies, but this was a fine morning to sit about and do the equivalent of watching children. She liked horses better than children, anyway. Taking a chunk of apple for herself, she let the filly finish the core after she'd slid off her back. She'd make someone a fine horse. You could trust the Shienaran breed: they were strong, quick, and smart. Unlike some people she could name. And of course, you couldn't trust a horse not to overextend itself: it needed someone to mind it for that. Although, there were some humans that you couldn't trust to avoid that, either. She considered that with the gelding crowded up against her, looking for more treats in her hands and her pockets.

The Gaidin didn't surprise her when he returned. She guessed she'd been waiting for him, although she couldn't say why. It wasn't like she needed help to get off a horse. She ignored him as long as she dared, and she hadn't quite reached the internal discomfort point when he spoke.

"You'll need to bring your horse," he said, nodding at Black Wind, over Lio's shoulder, "to the Warder yards just after breakfast."

"She's not my horse," Lio argued. The Gaidin lifted an eyebrow. Lio felt a scowl descend on her face. The Gaidin watched, without an expression of his own. Lio wondered if she could apologize for her face, or if she should. There were hooks in gifts sometimes.

"I wasn't aware she was my horse," Liolet said, finally. "I couldn't afford one so fine." Not even at the height of her gambling career: her funds wouldn't have stretched like this, even though she'd had garnets on a chain and a proper house all her own. It was also a warning: Liolet wasn't about to afford her horse in any sense but the frankest, where coin changed hands. Too many men saw golden curls and thought that gifts would get them the right to run their fingers through them, but Liolet rejected that logic. She'd yet to find a man she was content with, and as she neared the age of three and forty, she was certain she just never would. Women were worse. Liolet, if she had her way, would prefer a good-hearted clowder of cats, perhaps a few dogs. And certainly a horse.

"She's chosen you," the Gaidin said, "but it would be a shame to see her settle for less than her potential. So you'll bring her to the Yards."

"Just after breakfast," Liolet agreed. The Gaidin gave her a salute, and headed into the press of horseflesh to begin the process of distributing his largesse to the young Trainees. It seemed wrong that Lio had claimed the best of the gift, but she did not boast as she led Black Wind into the stables. Actually, her heart was a trifle sore: she had been equally as fond of the bay. But gaining one horse where you had not thought to have any was gift enough, was it not? She led Black Wind into the loose box the master of the stables had accorded her, and mechanically began to curry the horse's coat. She did the same for Silver most days: placid Silver, who enjoyed her days turned out to the pasture and nosing the foals of the Tower's brood mares. She ought, she supposed, to be happy that one of her largest problems was so neatly solved, or even excited about the prospect of learning to train a warhorse.

But all she felt was strangely obligated. Still, it was a chance, and a command. The next morning, after currying Silver and turning her out to her freedom, Liolet curried Black Wind and brought her to the Warder Yards, where a short queue of Ji'Val and yearlings not so fine as Liolet's awaited the pleasure of the Gaidin.