"Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time 04 - The Shadow Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

was a saying: тАЬA man will cut off his own hand to get rid of a splinter before asking help from Aes
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Sedai.тАЭ Women meant it as a comment on menтАЩs stubborn foolishness, but Min had heard some men say
the loss of a hand might be the better decision.

She wondered what these people would do if they knew what she knew. Run screaming, perhaps. And
if they knew her reason for being here, she might not survive to be taken up by the Tower guards and
thrown into a cell. She did have friends in the Tower, but none with power or influence. If her purpose
was discovered, it was much less likely that they could help her than that she would pull them to the
gallows or the headsman behind her. That was saying she lived to be tried, of course; more likely her
mouth would be stopped permanently long before a trial.

She told herself to stop thinking like that.IтАЩll make it in, and IтАЩll make it out. The Light burn Rand
alтАЩThor for getting me into this!

Three or four Accepted, women MinтАЩs age or perhaps a little older, were circulating through the round
room, speaking softly to the petitioners. Their white dresses had no decoration except for seven bands of
color at the hem, one band for each Ajah. Now and again a novice, a still younger woman or girl all in
white, came to lead someone deeper into the Tower. The petitioners always followed the novices with an
odd mix of excited eagerness and foot-dragging reluctance.

MinтАЩs grip tightened on her bundle as one of the Accepted stopped in front of her. тАЬThe Light illumine
you,тАЭ the curly-haired woman said perfunctorily. тАЬI am called Faolain. How may the Tower help you?тАЭ

FaolainтАЩs dark, round face held the patience of someone doing a tedious job when she would rather be
doing something else. Studying, probably, from what Min knew of the Accepted. Learning to be Aes
Sedai. Most important, however, was the lack of recognition in the AcceptedтАЩs eyes; the two of them
had met when Min was in the Tower before, though only briefly.

Just the same, Min lowered her face in assumed diffidence. It was not unnatural; a good many country
folk did not really understand the great step up from Accepted to full Aes Sedai. Shielding her features
behind the edge of her cloak, she looked away from Faolain.

тАЬI have a question I must ask the Amyrlin Seat,тАЭ she began, then cut off abruptly as three Aes Sedai
stopped to look into the entry hall, two from one archway and one from another.

Accepted and novices curtsied when their rounds took them close to one of the Aes Sedai, but
otherwise went on about their tasks, perhaps a trifle more briskly. That was all. Not so for the
petitioners. They seemed to catch their breaths all together. Away from the White Tower, away from Tar
Valon, they might simply have thought the Aes Sedai three women whose ages they could not guess,
three women in the flush of their prime, yet with more maturity than their smooth cheeks suggested. In the
Tower, though, there was no question. A woman who had worked very long with the One Power was
not touched by time in the same way as other women. In the Tower, no one needed to see a golden
Great Serpent ring to know an Aes Sedai.

A ripple of curtsies spread through the huddle, and jerky bows from the few men. Two or three people