[INTRO: After her laying down the law to the Hall, explaining her new laws and programs, Egwene and her Keeper are in her private study, chatting over a nice cup of tea.]

KEEPER: But WHAT can you do, Mother, if all the Hall decides to dig in their heels and defy your will in these changes?

EGWENE [very smugly]: More than anyone suspects. I never held the Oath Rod, Beldeine!

BELDEINE: Gasp!

SOUND EFFECT: KKKAAABBBOOOOOOOOMMMM!

[The door bursts open as 21 Sitters, including BlAlpha, now liberated from her confinement, storm into the room, each one with her shawl proudly drawn about her shoulders. Before Egwene can do more than reach for saidar, she is shielded and blocked from the Source. Ditto Beldeine, who isn't a very strong channeler anyhow.]

RdAlpha [as she reaches for the Amyrlin's stole on Egwene's shoulders]: You will not need this. You were never fit for it, anyway.

BlAlpha: HOLD IT! You know what we agreed - first we talk, THEN we take the stole away from the spoiled brat!

RedAlpha (sulkily): Oh, all right, but let's not take all day about it!

EGWENE: You must be mad! [she rasps] All of you! I'll have your hides for this!

WhAlpha: Logically, Mother, you should only be calling attention to our own irregular behavior if you are QUITE certain that YOUR past actions can stand the closest scrutiny without embarrassment.

EGWENE: Come again?

GrAlpha: What she means to say is, you shouldn't call attention to your MOST VULNERABLE area. Terrible strategy.

EGWENE: How am I vulnerable?

BrGamma (Reading from her notebook):Testimony of Verin Sedai: As we approached Tar Valon, those foolish girls (meaning, in context, Egwene al'Vere, Elayne Trakand, and Nynaeve al'Meara) began setting off explosions in the earth in order to scare off some pesky Whitecloaks, and I told them afterward, QUOTE: When you become Aes Sedai- if you ever become full Aes Sedai! -you will be bound to obey the Three Oaths, but even novices are expected to do their best to live as if already bound. UNQUOTE. In another interview, Siuan Sanche admitted that in discussion with these three, Nynaeve Sedai explicitly stated, QUOTE I assure you, we will do our best to live as if we had taken the Three Oaths.UNQUOTE. Egwene and Elayne were both right there and did not contradict Nynaeve's assertion, so they were giving "silent consent" to the idea that they would also abide by the commitment to obey the Three Oaths before holding the Rod.

EGWENE [she feels sick to her stomach, but is doing an admirable job of keeping it off her face]: And?

BrGamma {flipping to another page): Statement of the Accepted Nicola, and her friend, the Hunter Areina. QUOTE We heard Thom Merrilin and Juilin Sandar talking about how much trouble Elayne and Nynaeve might get into if the real Aes Sedai found out they had been PRETENDING to be full Sisters! UNQUOTE. Statement of an Aiel who was present at Rhuidean when Rand al'Thor and friends arrived there via Portal Stone: QUOTE The two women of the White Tower introduced themselves as Moiraine Sedai of the Blue Ajah and Egwene Sedai of the Green Ajah. UNQUOTE. This statement was confirmed by asking ten other Aiel who were present at the time, and they all agreed on the essential point.

[Long silence.]

EGWENE [forcing a smile]: Well, Siuan Sanche, when she sent us out hunting Black Sisters without a real Sister to guide us, KNEW we would have to let people think we were Sisters. We were practically under ORDERS to do so!

GreenAlpha [very skeptically]: Yeah, right.

BrGamma [opening another notebook]: Statements of every single Red Sister, except a bare handful, such as Galina, who were secretly Black: QUOTE I know nothing of any plot to train Logain to be a more dangerous False Dragon. I am firmly of the opinion that no such plot ever existed within the Red Ajah. UNQUOTE.

EGWENE (Looking blank): So?

BrGamma: Well, I thought that was interesting, combined with something I just happened to overhear Gareth Bryne say to Siuan Sanche as he was proposing marriage to her after the Last Battle -

EGWENE [sharply]: How did you happen to overhear that?

BrGamma [with perfect composure]: I was practicing the newfangled eavesdropping weave, of course! I distinctly heard Bryne say to her, "Listen, you little fool, OF COURSE I love you! Remember when I caught up with you in Salidar and found out you were really Siuan Sanche, former Amyrlin? Remember how I had stood right there in Andor and saw you look me straight in the eye and state that your name was Mara Tomanes? As soon as I thought it over, I realized that being stilled must have freed you from the Three Oaths! But did I ever share that insight with all those other Aes Sedai and make them suspicious of everything you said? No, I did not! Because I WANTED you to keep yourself happy with whatever fiendish plots you were hatching in your clever little head! I'm such an old softie . . . "

[Very long, strained pause.]

BrGamma: This revelation about Siuan's release from the Oaths opened up some FASCINATING vistas of speculation. For instance, the ONLY evidence we had that the Reds ever trained Logain to be a False Dragon was based on two sources: Siuan's claim that she had reason to believe it, and Logain's eventual claims to the same effect. But Logain is a False Dragon and scarcely a reliable witness, and if Siuan could have been lying all along . . . then she was trying to slander the good name of a sincere (if somewhat extremist) group of Sisters!

EGWENE [weakly]: I'm sure it was all just a misunderstanding . . .

RdBeta [vindictively]: And Siuan became your closest adviser after you were raised - don't think we didn't notice! - and she would have told you what was what, I should hope. Mother, are you prepared to swear by your hope of salvation and rebirth that you believed the Logain as a Red Puppet story, and that Siuan never told you otherwise? For that matter, are you prepared to SWEAR that you had no complicity in Logain's escape from our clutches? It was awfully convenient, the way that just happened to become possible as we were about to go ahead and kill the beast!

[Another long silence. VERY long. Unquestionably the Sitters are giving Egwene plenty of time to catch her breath and swear her innocence in the Logain matter, if she can. Someone finally breaks the silence.]

RdBeta [smirking]: At last my Ajah's good name is cleared!

BrGamma: Statement of Sheriam Sedai, gasping out her last words to a friend at Tarmon Gai'don, before she died from having channeled more power than she could safely handle: QUOTE: That al'Vere girl . . . blackmailed my little ‘circle' into swearing oaths of fealty to her . . . PERSONAL fealty and absolute obedience! It could turn our lovely little tower into an absolute dictatorship . . . if she continues to take such oaths from EVERYONE . . . you must stop her! UNQUOTE.

EGWENE: Er . . . ah . . . well, it was like this . . .

WhAlpha: We don't really CARE what it was like . . . girl. We have MORE than enough, under Tower Law, to strip you of shawl and stole, or perhaps insist that you undertake a quick ten years of penance at menial labor in order to AVOID being stripped of your title and sisterhood.

EGWENE: Then go ahead and do what you're going to do.

GrayAlpha [smiling her best bland negotiator's smile]: OR . . . we could reach an accomodation, now that we have something to bargain with. The senior Sitter of the Brown Ajah has been examining an ancient copy of a document that appears to go back to the days BEFORE the Age of Legends, and it has some FASCINATING ideas that we haven't properly considered until now in our Tower organization . . .

EGWENE [apprehensively]: Such as?

GrayAlpha [moving in for the kill]: Such as setting LIMITS on how long the term of an elected official is supposed to last, and then holding another election to choose a new leader!

EGWENE [honestly horrified]: WHAT?

BrAlpha: It's in a document right here (she pulls out a copy). The title is missing, but the introductory paragraph starts - as near as I can translate - "We the people of the United States [a State must have been their name for an Ajah, or something similar], in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense . . ."

EGWENE [sneering]: NONSENSE! What can a document ten thousand years have to say of value for us today?

BrAlpha [mildly]: Well, further down there's an Amendment which is VERY interesting. They apparently had found it necessary to make a new rule that their chief executive - called a "President," which must have been something like an Amyrlin - could NOT serve more than two four-year terms before he had to stand aside and let someone else take a turn. I suppose one of their Presidents probably started lying to people, and demanding oaths of fealty, and trying to change everything that his precessors had done over the past 3000 years, and perhaps even call himself a King, and they rebelled against him, don't you think? Interesting lesson for us, no?

YeAlpha: We should hate to split the tower with a rebellion all over again, so we thought if you would just sign this document we've prepared - we call it the Great Charter - we could deal with one another on a more businesslike basis.

EGWENE [after hastily scanning the document]: But - but - but this means I agree to ALL SORTS OF LIMITS on an Amyrlin's authority! How obscene!

WhAlpha: Girl . . . did you REALLY think you EVER had a prayer of getting all the older and wiser Aes Sedai to follow your orders without hesitation, in any area in which you saw fit to give orders, for the next 450 YEARS? (Or however long you intend to live?) Why do you think we usually choose ELDERLY Sisters as Amyrlins? So they can't cause TOO MUCH trouble before they kick the bucket! It's only logical! We seem to be stuck with you now, but that doesn't mean you can get away with pushing us around when most of us are old enough to be your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother!

EGWENE [gasping as she begins to see the light]: But what about oaths of fealty! Some of you swore oaths of Fealty to me!

GrayGamma [who was one of those who swore to her]: All I had to do was convince myself that it was for your own good, child. Therefore it fulfills my oath to serve you! Now, we are prepared to grant that any given Amyrlin can serve three terms of seven years each, provided she can persuade the Hall to elect her three times running, but 21 years is IT. At that time, someone else gets a turn. If you don't like it, we are prepared to depose you and find someone more amenable to sweet reason.

EGWENE (muttering under her breath as she reaches for a pen): The next time Rand tells me Aes Sedai are narrowminded, bigoted, unrealistic, deceptive, and untrustworthy, I won't argue. I'll just tell him he doesn't know the HALF of it . . .

AFTERWORD: What can I say? I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and having Egwene rule for the next 450 years as a dictator was NOT a happy ending! :) Now if someone will just rebel against Elayne (a nineteen year old girl as absolute ruler of one of the largest nations in Randland? UGH!), and if Perrin will resign from office and INSIST they hold an election to choose a new Governor of Manetheren to replace him (I nominate Tam al'Thor!), then the Wheel of Time might end on a POSITIVE note! Feudalism just doesn't cut it with me, somehow.

NOTES:

Quotes from the bit when they have just burst into the room are lifted from the scene in TSR when Elaida deposed Siuan. These words have now become the Official Formula for a deposal of an Amyrlin (in my opinion).

The anonymous document quoted from before the Age of Legends is, of course, the Constitution of the United States of America, which was written by some men who had come to take a very cynical view of arrogant rulers who expected to hold their office until they died of old age, and thus put LOTS of limitations into their description of how a Chief Executive could be chosen, how long each term could be, what things he and his government was not permitted to get away with under any circumstances whatsoever, and so forth.

The Great Charter is, of course, a literal translation of the phrase Magna Carta, which was signed by King John when a bunch of nobles, fed up with his own arrogance, basically said, "Sign this paper agreeing that King does not mean Absolute Ruler and God, or else we'll get rid of you and find somebody more reasonable to sign it." They were not democrats by any means, but the idea of putting official Limits on what the top executive could do became VERY popular over the next several centuries. We owe them a great debt.

Raina's Hold / Raina's Library / Other People's Humour / Renovating the White Tower