“Why? For the love of the Light, at least tell me why! Tanchico!”

“If Moiraine has not told you,” Nynaeve said gently, “perhaps she has her reasons. We must do our tasks, as you must do yours.”

Lan trembled—actually trembled!—and clamped his jaw shut angrily. When he spoke, he was strangely hesitant. “You will need someone to help you in Tanchico. Someone to keep a Taraboner street thief from slipping a knife into your back for your purse. Tanchico was that sort of city before the war began, and everything I’ve heard says it is worse now. I could … I could protect you, Nynaeve.”

Elayne’s eyebrows shot up. He could not be suggesting … . He just could not be.

Nynaeve gave no sign that he had said anything out of the ordinary. “Your place is with Moiraine.”

“Moiraine.” Sweat beaded on the Warder’s hard face, and he struggled with the words. “I can … I must … Nynaeve, I … I … .”

“You will remain with Moiraine,” Nynaeve said sharply, “until she releases you from your bond. You will do as I say.” Pulling a carefully folded paper from her pouch, she thrust it into his hands. He frowned, read, then blinked and read again.

Elayne knew what it said.

What the bearer does is done at my order and by my authority.

Obey, and keep silent, at my command.

Siuan Sanche

Watcher of the Seals

Flame of Tar Valon

The Amyrlin Seat

The other like it rested in Egwene’s pouch, though none of them were sure what good it would do where she was going.

“But this allows you to do anything you please,” Lan protested. “You can speak in the Amyrlin’s name. Why would she give this to an Accepted?”

“Ask no questions I cannot answer,” Nynaeve said, then added with a hint of a grin, “Just count yourself lucky I do not tell you to dance for me.”

Elayne suppressed a smile of her own. Egwene made a choking sound of swallowed laughter. It was what Nynaeve had said when the Amyrlin first handed them the letters. With this I could make a Warder dance. Neither of them had had any doubt which Warder she had meant.

“Do you not? You dispose of me very neatly. My bond, and my oaths. This letter.” Lan had a dangerous gleam in his eye, which Nynaeve seemed not to notice as she took back the letter and replaced it in the pouch on her belt.

“You are very full of yourself, al’Lan Mandragoran. We do as we must, as you will.”

“Full of myself, Nynaeve al’Meara? I am full of myself?” Lan moved so quickly toward Nynaeve that Elayne very nearly wrapped him in flows of Air before she could think. One moment Nynaeve was standing there, with just time to gape at the tall man sweeping toward her; the next her shoes were dangling a foot off the floor and she was being quite thoroughly kissed. At first she kicked his shins and hammered him with her fists and made sounds of frantic, furious protest, but her kicks slowed and stopped, and then she was holding on to his shoulders and not protesting at all.

Egwene dropped her eyes with embarrassment, but Elayne watched interestedly. Was that how she had looked when Rand … . No! I will not think about him. She wondered if there was time to write him another letter, taking back everything she had said in the first, letting him know she was not to be trifled with. But did she want to?

After a while Lan set Nynaeve back on her feet. She swayed a bit as she straightened her dress and patted her hair furiously. “You have no right …” she began in a breathless voice, then stopped to swallow. “I will not be manhandled in that fashion for the whole world to see. I will not!”

“Not the whole world,” he replied. “But if they can see, they can hear as well. You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.” He gave Nynaeve one of his rare smiles. If it did not exactly soften his face, at least it made it less hard. “And remember also, I am not always so easily commanded, even with letters from the Amyrlin.” He made an elegant bow; for a moment Elayne thought he actually meant to kneel and kiss Nynaeve’s Great Serpent ring. “As you command,” he murmured, “so do I obey.” It was difficult to tell whether he meant to be mocking or not.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Nynaeve sank onto the edge of her bed as if letting her knees give way at last. She stared at the door with a pensive frown.

“‘Poke the meekest dog too often,’” Elayne quoted, “‘and he will bite.’ Not that Lan is very meek.” She got a sharp look and a sniff from Nynaeve.

“He is insufferable,” Egwene said. “Sometimes he is. Nynaeve, why did you do that? He was ready to go with you. I know you want nothing more than to break him free of Moiraine. Do not try to deny it.”

Nynaeve did not try. Instead she fussed with her dress, and smoothed the coverlet on the bed. “Not like that,” she said finally. “I mean him to be mine. All of him. I will not have him remembering a broken oath to Moiraine. I will not have that between us. For him, as well as myself.”

“But will it be any different if you bring him to ask Moiraine to release him from his bond?” Egwene asked. “Lan is the kind of man who would see it as much the same thing. All that leaves is to somehow make her let him go of her own accord. How can you manage that?”

“I do not know.” Nynaeve firmed her voice. “Yet what must be done, can be done. There is always a way. That is for another time. Work to be done, and we sit here fretting over men. Are you sure you have everything you need for the Waste, Egwene?”

“Aviendha is readying everything,” Egwene said. “She still seems unhappy, but she says we can reach Rhuidean in little more than a month, if we are lucky. You will be in Tanchico by then.”

“Perhaps sooner,” Elayne told her, “if what they say about Sea Folk rakers is true. You will be careful, Egwene? Even with Aviendha for a guide, the Waste cannot be safe.”

“I will. You be careful. Both of you. Tanchico is not much safer than the Waste now.”

Abruptly they were all hugging one another, repeating cautions to take care, making sure they all remembered the schedule for meeting in Tel’aran’rhiod’s Stone.

Elayne wiped tears from her cheeks. “As well Lan left.” She laughed tremulously. “He would think we were all being foolish.”

“No, he would not,” Nynaeve said, pulling up her skirts to settle a purse of gold into its pocket. “He may be a man, but he is not a complete dolt.”

There had to be time between here and the carriage to locate paper and pen, Elayne decided. She would find time. Nynaeve had the right of it. Men needed a firm hand. Rand would find he could not get away from her so easily. And he would not find it easy to worm his way back into her good graces.

CHAPTER 17

Deceptions

Favoring his stiff right leg, Thom bowed with a flourish of his gleeman’s cloak that set the colorful patches fluttering. His eyes felt grainy, but he made himself speak lightly. “A good morning to you.” Straightening, he knuckled his long white mustaches grandly.

The black-and-gold-clad servants looked surprised. The two muscular lads straightened from the gold-studded red lacquer chest, with a shattered lid, that they had been about to lift, and the three women stilled their mops in front of them. The hallway was empty along here except for them, and any excuse to break their labor was good, especially at this hour. They looked as tired as Thom felt, with slumping shoulders and dark circles under their eyes.

“A good morning to you, gleeman,” the oldest of the women said. A bit plump and plain-faced, perhaps, she had a nice smile, weary as she was. “Can we help you?”

Thom produced four colored balls from a capacious coatsleeve and began to juggle. “I am just going about trying to raise spirits. A gleeman must do what he can.” He would have used more than four, but he was fatigued enough to make even that many an exercise in concentration. How long

since he had nearly dropped a fifth ball? Two hours? He stifled a yawn, turned it into a reassuring smile. “A terrible night, and spirits need lifting.”

“The Lord Dragon saved us,” one of the younger women said. She was pretty and slim, but with a predatory gleam in her dark, shadowed eyes that warned him to temper his smile. Of course, she might be useful if she was both greedy and honest, meaning that she would stay bought once he paid her. It was always good to find another set of hands to place a note, a tongue that would tell him what was heard and say what he wanted where he wanted. Old fool! You have enough hands and ears, so stop thinking of a fine bosom and remember the look in her eye! The interesting thing was that she sounded as if she meant what she said, and one of the young fellows nodded agreement to her words.

“Yes,” Thom said. “I wonder which High Lord had charge of the docks yesterday?” He nearly fumbled the balls in irritation at himself. Bringing it right out like that. He was too tired; he should be in his bed. He should have been there hours ago.

“The docks are the Defenders’ responsibility,” the oldest woman told him. “You’d not know that, of course. The High Lords would not concern themselves.”

Thom knew it very well. “Is that so? Well, I am not Tairen, of course.” He changed the balls from a simple circle to a double loop; it looked more difficult than it was, and the girl with the predatory look clapped her hands. Now that he was into it, he might as well go on. After this, though, he would call it a night. A night? The sun was rising already. “Still, it is a shame no one asked why those barges were at the docks. With their hatches down, hiding all those Trollocs. Not that I am saying anyone knew the Trollocs were there.” The double loop wobbled, and he quickly went back to a circle. Light, he was exhausted. “You’d think one of the High Lords would have asked, though.”

The two young men frowned thoughtfully at one another, and Thom smiled to himself. Another seed planted, just that easily, if clumsily as well. Another rumor started, whatever they knew for a fact about who had charge of the docks. And rumors spread—a rumor like this would not stop short of the city—so it was another small wedge of suspicion driven between commoners and nobles. Who would the commoners turn to, except the man they knew the nobles hated? The man who had saved the Stone from Shadowspawn. Rand al’Thor. The Lord Dragon.

It was time to leave what he had sown. If the roots had taken hold here, nothing he said now could pull them loose, and he had scattered other seeds this night. But it would not do for anyone to discover he was the one doing the planting. “They fought bravely last night, the High Lords did. Why, I saw … .” He trailed off as the women leaped to their mopping and the men grabbed up the chest and hurried away.

“I can find work for gleemen, too,” the majhere’s voice said behind him. “Idle hands are idle hands.”

He turned gracefully, considering his leg, and swept her a deep bow. The top of her head was below his shoulder, but she probably weighed half again what he did. She had a face like an anvil—not improved by the bandage around her temples—an extra chin, and deep-set eyes like chips of black flint. “A good morning to you, gracious lady. A small token of this fresh, new day.”

He gestured with a flurry of hands and tucked a golden yellow sunburst blossom, only a little bedraggled for its time up his sleeve, into the gray hair above her bandage. She snatched the flower right out again, of course, and eyed it suspiciously, but that was just as he wanted. He put three limping strides into her moment of hesitation, and when she shouted something after him, he neither listened nor slowed.

Horrible woman, he thought. If we had turned her loose on the Trollocs, she’d have had them all sweeping and mopping.

He yawned behind a hand, jaws creaking. He was too old for this. He was tired, and his knee was a knot of pain. Nights with no sleep, battles, plotting. Too old. He should be living quietly on a farm somewhere. With chickens. Farms always had chickens. And sheep. They must not be difficult to look after; shepherds seemed to loll about and play the pipes all the time. He would play the harp, of course, not pipes. Or his flute; weather was not good for the harp. And there would be a town nearby, with an inn where he could amaze the patrons in the common room. He flourished his cloak as he passed two servants. The only point in wearing it in this heat was to let people know he was a gleeman. They perked up at the sight of him, of course, hoping he might pause to entertain for a moment. Most gratifying. Yes, a farm had its virtues. A quiet place. No people to bother him. As long as there was a town close by.

Pushing open the door to his room, he stopped in his tracks. Moiraine straightened as if she had a perfect right to be going through the papers scattered on his table and calmly arranged her skirts as she sat on the stool. Now there was a beautiful woman, with every grace a man could want, including laughing at his quips. Fool! Old fool! She’s Aes Sedai, and you’re too tired to think straight.

“A good morning to you, Moiraine Sedai,” he said, hanging his cloak on a peg. He avoided looking at his writing case, still sitting under the table where he had left it. No point in letting her know it was important. Probably no point in checking after she went, for that matter; she could have channeled the lock open and closed again, and he would never be able to tell. Weary as he was, he could not even remember whether he had left anything incriminating in the case. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Everything he could see in the room was right where it belonged. He did not think he could have been foolish enough to leave anything out. Doors in the servants’ quarters had no locks or latches. “I would offer you a refreshing drink, but I fear I have nothing but water.”

“I am not thirsty,” she said in a pleasant, melodious voice. She leaned forward, and the room was small enough for her to place a hand on his right knee. A chill tingle rippled through him. “I wish a good Healer had been near when this happened. It is too late now, I regret.”

“A dozen Healers would not have been enough,” he told her. “A Halfman did it.”

“I know.”

What else does she know? he wondered. Turning to pull his lone chair out from behind the table, he bit back an oath. He felt as if he had had a good night’s sleep, and the pain was gone from his knee. His limp remained, but the joint was more limber than it had been since he was injured. The woman didn’t even ask if I wanted it. Burn me, what is she after? He refused to flex the leg. If she would not ask, he would not acknowledge her gift.

“An interesting day, yesterday,” she said as he sat down.

“I’d not call Trollocs and Halfmen interesting,” he said dryly.

“I did not mean them. Earlier. The High Lord Carleon dead in a hunting accident. His good friend Tedosian apparently mistook him for a boar. Or perhaps a deer.”

“I hadn’t heard.” He kept his voice calm. Even if she had found the note, she could not have traced it to him. Carleon himself would have thought it by his own hand. He did not think she could have, but he reminded himself again that she was Aes Sedai. As if he needed any reminding, with that smooth pretty face across from him, those serene dark eyes watching him full of all his secrets. “The servants’ quarters are full of gossip, but I seldom listen.”

“Do you not?” she murmured mildly. “Then you will not have heard that Tedosian fell ill not an hour after returning to the Stone, directly after his wife gave him a goblet of wine to wash away the dust of the hunt. It is said he wept when he learned that she means to tend him herself, and feed him with her own hands. No doubt tears of joy at her love. I hear she has vowed not to leave his side until he can rise again. Or until he dies.”

She knew. How, he could not say, but she knew. But why was she revealing it to him? “A tragedy,” he said, matching her bland tone. “Rand will need all the loyal High Lords he can find, I suppose.”

“Carleon and Tedosian were hardly loyal. Even to each other, it seems. They led the faction that wants to kill Rand and try to forget he ever lived.”

“Do you say so? I pay little attention to

such things. The works of the mighty are not for a simple gleeman.”

Her smile was just short of laughter, but she spoke as if reading from a page. “Thomdril Merrilin. Called the Gray Fox, once, by some who knew him, or knew of him. Courtbard at the Royal Palace of Andor in Caemlyn. Morgase’s lover for a time, after Taringail died. Fortunate for Morgase, Taringail’s death. I do not suppose she ever learned he meant her to die and himself to be Andor’s first king. But we were speaking of Thom Merrilin, a man who, it was said, could play the Game of Houses in his sleep. It is a shame that such a man calls himself a simple gleeman. But such arrogance to keep the same name.”

Thom masked his shock with an effort. How much did she know? Too much if she knew not another word. But she was not the only one with knowledge. “Speaking of names,” he said levelly, “it is remarkable how much can be puzzled out from a name. Moiraine Damodred. The Lady Moiraine of House Damodred, in Cairhien. Taringail’s youngest half-sister. King Laman’s niece. And Aes Sedai, let us not forget. An Aes Sedai aiding the Dragon Reborn since before she could have known that he was more than just another poor fool who could channel. An Aes Sedai with connections high in the White Tower, I would say, else she’d not risk what she has. Someone in the Hall of the Tower? More than one, I’d say; it would have to be. News of that would shake the world. But why should there be trouble? Perhaps it’s best to leave an old gleeman tucked away in his hole in the servants’ quarters. Just an old gleeman playing his harp and telling his tales. Tales that harm no one.”

If he had managed to stagger her even a fraction, she did not show it. “Speculation without facts is always dangerous,” she said calmly. “I do not use my House name, by choice. House Damodred had a deservedly unpleasant reputation before Laman cut down Avendoraldera and lost the throne and his life for it. Since the Aiel War, it has grown worse, also deservedly.”