Amenar Shumada. A member of the Seanchan Blood who attended Tuon’s first audience in Ebou Dar.
Amerano, Saraline. An Aes Sedai who lived at the time of the formation of the White Tower.
Amhara Market. One of the three markets in Far Madding where foreigners were allowed to trade.
Amhara, Savion. One of the three most famous First Counsels in Far Madding history. A statue of her stood in Amhara Market in Far Madding, pointing to the Tear Gate.
Amico Nagoyin. An Arafellin Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah publicly, and of the Black Ajah in truth. She had a strength level of 27(15). Born in 967 NE, she went to the White Tower in 982 NE. After six years as a novice and four years as Accepted, she was raised to the shawl in 992 NE. Slender and pretty, with a long neck, pale skin and big dark eyes, she was a member of the group of thirteen Black Ajah who fled the Tower. She was captured in the Stone of Tear, stilled in the process, and was killed during the Trolloc attack on the Stone, murdered in her cell by Isam/Luc. Her tongue was nailed to the door and her throat slit.
Amira. A daughter of Artur Hawkwing and Amaline Paendrag Tagora. Her twin Modair was killed in battle in FY 959; she, her mother and two siblings were poisoned in FY 961.
Amira Moselle. A Taraboner Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah and the loyalist contingent, with a strength level of 27(15). Born in 823 NE, she went to the White Tower in 839 NE. After eleven years as a novice and nine years as Accepted, she was raised to the shawl in 859 NE. She was stocky and had a square face and brightly beaded braids long enough to flail. Sierin Vayu chose Amira as Mistress of Novices and she later became a Sitter in the Hall of the Tower; she stepped down at the time of Elaida’s return to the Tower, allowing Elaida to take her seat and engineer the coup against Siuan. She was a member of the group of Aes Sedai sent by Elaida to kidnap Rand, and was killed in the battle at Dumai’s Wells.
Amondrid Osiellin. A Cairhienin nobleman who supported Colavaere for the throne. Moon-faced, he was maybe fifteen to twenty years older than Rand. His wife was Belevaere. Rand summoned him to join his fight against the Seanchan, and he was put under Bashere’s command. He was present when Elayne stripped Elenia, Arymilla and Naean of their titles and properties.
Amylia. An Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah whom Zaida brought back with her from Caemlyn. She volunteered to help teach the Atha’an Miere, hoping to study them, but found that she had the lowly standing of a deckhand, and had to jump when Zaida said “frog.”
Amyrlin Seat. The title of the leader of the Aes Sedai. A slightly less formal usage was simply “the Amyrlin.” It was also the throne upon which the leader of the Aes Sedai sat. The Amyrlin was elected for life by the Hall of the Tower, the highest council of the Aes Sedai, which consisted of three representatives, called Sitters, from each of the seven Ajahs. The Amyrlin Seat had, theoretically at least, almost supreme authority among the Aes Sedai, and ranked socially as the equal of a king or queen. Other than death or resigning the Amyrlin Seat, the only way she could be removed was to be deposed by the Hall. Choosing an Amyrlin required the greater consensus. Although this could be done with a unanimous vote of eleven Sitters under the proper circumstances, tradition called for all Sitters to be present. Elaida was chosen by eleven only, though, and possibly this tradition had been violated before.
Deposing an Amyrlin also called for the greater consensus, but a truncated one so to speak, for it was specifically stated in the law that the Sitters for the Ajah from which she was raised might not be present when the vote was taken.
Just as the raising of Elaida by a Hall of only eleven Sitters was the basis for doubting her legitimacy, the removal, conviction and sentence to stilling of Siuan by that same Hall of eleven was the basis for doubting the legitimacy of those actions.
Women were considered by the Hall for the position of Amyrlin Seat, often from a number of candidates. Most of these women were put forward by Sitters, alone or in coalition, but it was possible for any six sisters to propose a candidate. Oddly, the candidate herself did not have to agree and could not withdraw her name. The only way to withdraw, in effect, was to do as Cadsuane did and flee the White Tower.
Consideration of candidates was known to go on for a long time, and votes were seldom taken until a candidate’s backers believed that the chances of victory were good. Any candidate could only be voted upon formally three times; if, after three votes, she had not gained the greater consensus, she was out of the running, though she could be proposed again if she was still living when the woman who was raised died.
Any candidate who had the backing of three Sitters, or any six other sisters, could in effect demand that a vote be taken. In truth, when a candidate was proposed by non-Sitters, this in itself constituted such a demand. This was a dangerous procedure, however; if she failed on the third vote, she and her proposers were almost always exiled to separate places for terms that could run from a few years to life, for such demands were considered disruptive and a source of contention.
Strangely, a woman did not actually have to be Aes Sedai in order to be raised Amyrlin. Perhaps because it seemed obvious that she must be, not one word in the laws describing the election or raising of an Amyrlin said that she had to be. On the other hand, the wording of a number of laws—“the Amyrlin as Aes Sedai,” etc.—made it clear that the Amyrlin Seat was Aes Sedai.
On being raised Amyrlin, a woman left her old Ajah. The only vestige of it would be if she had a Warder, indicating she was not Red, or if she had more than one, indicating that she was Green. Otherwise, she was supposed to be “of all Ajahs and none.” In fact, of course, Amyrlins always remained who they were before and retained many of the beliefs and goals of their old Ajahs; some of the better Amyrlins overcame this, and so did some of the worst. Some of the best behaved as if still of their old Ajah.
Supposedly the Amyrlin had absolute authority, and in fact she did—sort of. An Amyrlin’s actual power depended in large part on her real support in the Hall of the Tower, and, among other things, on her own drive and personality. Although the facts were buried deeply in White Tower records, some Amyrlins were no better than puppets for the Hall, or for factions within the Hall.
While the Amyrlin Seat could declare the Tower at war by decree, few had ever done so, preferring to ask—in some cases, just short of demand, or even not short of demanding—that the Hall declare war. While the lesser consensus was much easier to achieve than the greater, the successful prosecution of a war required good, solid backing from and in the Hall of the Tower, something that generally had been easier to obtain in these cases when the Hall had been asked. Then, too, historically, the Hall had been slower and more reluctant to go to war than the Amyrlin—not always the case, but more often so—and an Amyrlin who declared war and then found out that the Hall did not back her was in a fine fix.
An Amyrlin was absolute ruler insofar as she could gain consensus in the Hall, whether the greater or the lesser. She could decree almost anything, and her decrees had the force of law, but many of those could be overturned by the greater consensus, or at least made into only so much hot air, and in most important things she needed the Hall’s approval. The purse was a way the Hall could balk an Amyrlin, since if anything she decreed required money to be carried out, the Hall had to vote the funds to finance it. Some of the Amyrlins who were reduced to puppets fell to this. Appropriations needed only the lesser consensus, which still meant two of the three Sitters present.
The Hall could also overturn an Amyrlin’s decree, not merely let it die through lack of action. This required the greater consensus, and it was inevitably a prelude to a power struggle. Some of these ended with the Amyrlin a puppet of the Hall. An Amyrlin had the authority to unchair any Sitter or all of them, but a wise Amyrlin did this extremely sparingly. An Ajah could choose the same Sitter again as a rebuke to the Amyrlin. An Amyrlin who unchaired the entire Hall and had the same women all chosen again, or even a significant number of them, very likely found that her real power as Amyrlin was at an end. An Amyrlin could decree any penance for any sister, including Sitters, short of stilling, right up to the most serious punishment of a public birching and/or exile. Some Amyrlins had used this to impose their will by fear, in effect, while others had had the decree backfire on them, causing the Ajahs to turn against her, and with them, of course, the Sitters.