Perrin stopped suddenly in front of a door, and despite his size he seemed oddly hesitant. He drew a deep breath, looked at his companions, took another breath, then slowly opened the door and went in. One by one the rest of them followed. Rand was the last, and he closed the door behind him with the utmost reluctance.
It was the room where they had eaten the night before. A blaze crackled on the hearth, and a polished silver tray sat in the middle of the table holding a gleaming silver pitcher and cups. Moiraine and Nynaeve sat at opposite ends of the table, neither taking her eyes from the other. All the other chairs were empty. Moiraine’s hands rested on the table, as still as her face. Nynaeve’s braid was thrown over her shoulder, the end gripped in one fist; she kept giving it little tugs the way she did when she was being even more stubborn than usual with the Village Council. Perrin was right. Despite the fire it seemed freezing cold, and all coming from the two women at the table.
Lan was leaning against the mantel, staring into the flames and rubbing his hands for warmth. Egwene, her back flat against the wall, had her cloak on with the hood pulled up. Thom, Mat, and Perrin stopped uncertainly in front of the door.
Shrugging uncomfortably, Rand walked to the table. Sometimes you have to grab the wolf by the ears, he reminded himself. But he remembered another old saying, too. When you have a wolf by the ears, it’s as hard to let go as to hold on. He felt Moiraine’s eyes on him, and Nynaeve’s, and his face became hot, but he sat down anyway, halfway between the two.
For a minute the room was as still as a carving, then Egwene and Perrin, and finally Mat, made their reluctant way to the table and took seats—toward the middle, with Rand. Egwene tugged her hood further forward, enough to half hide her face, and they all avoided looking at anyone.
“Well,” Thom snorted, from his place beside the door. “At least that much is done.”
“Since everyone is here,” Lan said, leaving the fireplace and filling one of the silver cups with wine, “perhaps you will finally take this.” He proffered the cup to Nynaeve; she looked at it suspiciously. “There is no need to be afraid,” he said patiently. “You saw the innkeeper bring the wine, and neither of us has had a chance to put anything in it. It is quite safe.”
The Wisdom’s mouth tightened angrily at the word afraid, but she took the cup with a murmured, “Thank you.”
“I am interested,” he said, “in how you found us.”
“So am I.” Moiraine leaned forward intently. “Perhaps you are willing to speak now that Egwene and the boys have been brought to you?”
Nynaeve sipped the wine before answering the Aes Sedai. “There was nowhere for you to go except Baerlon. To be safe, though, I followed your trail. You certainly cut back and forth enough. But then, I suppose you would not care to risk meeting decent people.”
“You . . . followed our trail?” Lan said, truly surprised for the first time that Rand could remember. “I must be getting careless.”
“You left very little trace, but I can track as well as any man in the Two Rivers, except perhaps Tam al’Thor.” She hesitated, then added, “Until my father died, he took me hunting with him, and taught me what he would have taught the sons he never had.” She looked at Lan challengingly, but he only nodded with approval.
“If you can follow a trail I have tried to hide, he taught you well. Few can do that, even in the Borderlands.”
Abruptly Nynaeve buried her face in her cup. Rand’s eyes widened. She was blushing. Nynaeve never showed herself even the least bit disconcerted. Angry, yes; outraged, often; but never out of countenance. But she was certainly red-cheeked now, and trying to hide in the wine.
“Perhaps now,” Moiraine said quietly, “you will answer a few of my questions. I have answered yours freely enough.”
“With a great sackful of gleeman’s tales,” Nynaeve retorted. “The only facts I can see are that four young people have been carried off, for the Light alone knows what reason, by an Aes Sedai.”
“You have been told that isn’t known here,” Lan said sharply. “You must learn to guard your tongue.”
“Why should I?” Nynaeve demanded. “Why should I help hide you, or what you are? I’ve come to take Egwene and the boys back to Emond’s Field, not help you spirit them away.”
Thom broke in, in a scornful voice. “If you want them to see their village again—or you, either—you had better be more careful. There are those in Baerlon who would kill her”—he jerked his head toward Moiraine— “for what she is. Him, too.” He indicated Lan, then abruptly moved forward to put his fists on the table. He loomed over Nynaeve, and his long mustaches and thick eyebrows suddenly seemed threatening.
Her eyes widened, and she started to lean back, away from him; then her back stiffened defiantly. Thom did not appear to notice; he went right on in an ominously soft voice. “They’d swarm over this inn like murderous ants on a rumor, a whisper. Their hate is that strong, their desire to kill or take any like these two. And the girl? The boys? You? You are all associated with them, enough for the Whitecloaks, anyway. You wouldn’t like the way they ask questions, especially when the White Tower is involved. Whitecloak Questioners assume you’re guilty before they start, and they have only one sentence for that kind of guilt. They don’t care about finding the truth; they think they know that already. All they go after with their hot irons and pincers is a confession. Best you remember some secrets are too dangerous for saying aloud, even when you think you know who hears.” He straightened with a muttered, “I seem to tell that to people often of late.”
“Well put, gleeman,” Lan said. The Warder had that weighing look in his eyes again. “I’m surprised to find you so concerned.”
Thom shrugged. “It’s known I arrived with you, too. I don’t care for the thought of a Questioner with a hot iron telling me to repent my sins and walk in the Light.”
“That,” Nynaeve put in sharply, “is just one more reason for them to come home with me in the morning. Or this afternoon, for that matter. The sooner we’re away from you and on our way back to Emond’s Field, the better.”
“We can’t,” Rand said, and was glad that his friends all spoke up at the same time. That way Nynaeve’s glare had to be spread around; she spared no one as it was. But he had spoken first, and they all fell silent, looking at him. Even Moiraine sat back in her chair, watching him over steepled fingers. It was an effort for him to meet the Wisdom’s eyes. “If we go back to Emond’s Field, the Trollocs will come back, too. They’re . . . hunting us. I don’t know why, but they are. Maybe we can find out why in Tar Valon. Maybe we can find out how to stop it. It’s the only way.”
Nynaeve threw up her hands. “You sound just like Tam. He had himself carried to the village meeting and tried to convince everybody. He’d already tried with the Village Council. The Light knows how your . . . Mistress Alys”—she invested the name with a wagonload of scorn— “managed to make him believe; he has a mite of sense, usually, more than most men. In any case, the Council is a pack of fools most of the time, but not foolish enough for that, and neither was anyone else. They agreed you had to be found. Then Tam wanted to be the one to come after you, and him not able to stand by himself. Foolishness must run in your family.”
Mat cleared his throat, then mumbled, “What about my da? What did he say?”
“He’s afraid you’ll try your tricks with outlanders and get your head thumped. He seemed more afraid of that than of . . . Mistress Alys, here. But then, he was never much brighter than you.”
Mat seemed unsure how to take what she had said, or how to reply, or even whether to reply.
“I expect,” Perrin began hesitantly. “I mean, I suppose Master Luhhan was not too pleased about my leaving, either.”
“Did you expect him to be?” Nynaeve shook her head disgustedly and looked at Egwene. “Maybe I should not be surprised at this harebrained idiocy from you three, but I thought others had more judgment.”
Egwene sat back so she was shielded
by Perrin. “I left a note,” she said faintly. She tugged at the hood of her cloak as if she was afraid her unbound hair showed. “I explained everything.” Nynaeve’s face darkened.
Rand sighed. The Wisdom was on the point of one of her tongue-lashings, and it looked as if it might be a first-rate one. If she took a position in the heat of anger—if she said she intended to see them back in Emond’s Field no matter what anybody said, for instance—she would be nearly impossible to budge. He opened his mouth.
“A note!” Nynaeve began, just as Moiraine said, “You and I must still talk, Wisdom.”
If Rand could have stopped himself, he would have, but the words poured out as if it were a floodgate he had opened instead of his mouth. “All this is very well, but it doesn’t change anything. We can’t go back. We have to go on.” He spoke more slowly toward the end, and his voice sank, so he finished in a whisper, with the Wisdom and the Aes Sedai both looking at him. It was the sort of look he received if he came on women talking Women’s Circle business, the sort that said he had stepped in where he did not belong. He sat back, wishing he was somewhere else.
“Wisdom,” Moiraine said, “you must believe that they are safer with me than they would be back in the Two Rivers.”
“Safer!” Nynaeve tossed her head dismissively. “You are the one who brought them here, where the Whitecloaks are. The same Whitecloaks who, if the gleeman tells the truth, may harm them because of you. Tell me how they are safer, Aes Sedai.”
“There are many dangers from which I cannot protect them,” Moiraine agreed, “any more than you can protect them from being struck by lightning if they go home. But it is not lightning of which they must be afraid, nor even Whitecloaks. It is the Dark One, and minions of the Dark One. From those things I can protect. Touching the True Source, touching saidar, gives me that protection, as it does to every Aes Sedai.” Nynaeve’s mouth tightened skeptically. Moiraine’s grew tighter, too, with anger, but she went on, her voice hard on the edge of patience. “Even those poor men who find themselves wielding the Power for a short time gain that much, though sometimes touching saidin protects, and sometimes the taint makes them more vulnerable. But I, or any Aes Sedai, can extend my protection to those close by me. No Fade can harm them as long as they are as close to me as they are right now. No Trolloc can come within a quarter of a mile without Lan knowing it, feeling the evil of it. Can you offer them half as much if they return to Emond’s Field with you?”
“You stand up straw men,” Nynaeve said. “We have a saying in the Two Rivers. ‘Whether the bear beats the wolf or the wolf beats the bear, the rabbit always loses.’ Take your contest somewhere else and leave Emond’s Field folk out of it.”
“Egwene,” Moiraine said after a moment, “take the others and leave the Wisdom alone with me for a while.” Her face was impassive; Nynaeve squared herself at the table as if getting ready for an all-in wrestling match.
Egwene bounced to her feet, her desire to be dignified obviously warring with her desire to avoid a confrontation with the Wisdom over her unbraided hair. She had no difficulty gathering up everyone by eye, though. Mat and Perrin scraped back their chairs hurriedly, making polite murmurs while trying not to actually run on their way out. Even Lan started for the door at a signal from Moiraine, drawing Thom with him.
Rand followed, and the Warder shut the door behind them, then took up guard across the hallway. Under Lan’s eyes the others moved on down the hall a short distance; they were not to be allowed even the slightest chance of eavesdropping. When they had gone far enough to suit him, Lan leaned back against the wall. Even without his color-shifting cloak, he was so still that it would be easy not to notice him until you were right on him.
The gleeman muttered something about better things to do with his time and left with a stern, “Remember what I said,” over his shoulder to the boys. No one else seemed inclined to leave.
“What did he mean?” Egwene asked absently, her eyes on the door that hid Moiraine and Nynaeve. She kept fiddling with her hair as if torn between continuing to hide the fact that it was no longer braided and pushing back the hood of her cloak.
“He gave us some advice,” Mat said.
Perrin gave him a sharp look. “He said not to open our mouths until we were sure what we were going to say.”
“That sounds like good advice,” Egwene said, but clearly she was not really interested.
Rand was engrossed in his own thoughts. How could Nynaeve possibly be part of it? How could any of them be involved with Trollocs, and Fades, and Ba’alzamon appearing in their dreams? It was crazy. He wondered if Min had told Moiraine about Nynaeve. What are they saying in there??
He had no idea how long he had been standing there when the door finally opened. Nynaeve stepped out, and gave a start when she saw Lan. The Warder murmured something that made her toss her head angrily, then he slipped past her through the door.
She turned toward Rand, and for the first time he realized the others had all quietly disappeared. He did not want to face the Wisdom alone, but he could not get away now that he had met Nynaeve’s eye. A particularly searching eye, he thought, puzzled. What did they say? He drew himself up as she came closer.
She indicated Tam’s sword. “That seems to fit you, now, though I would like it better if it did not. You’ve grown, Rand.”
“In a week?” He laughed, but it sounded forced, and she shook her head as if he did not understand. “Did she convince you?” he asked. “It really is the only way.” He paused, thinking of Min’s sparks. “Are you coming with us?”
Nynaeve’s eyes opened wide. “Coming with you! Why would I do that? Mavra Mallen came up from Deven Ride to see to things till I return, but she’ll be wanting to get back as soon as she can. I still hope to make you see sense and come home with me.”
“We can’t.” He thought he saw something move at the still-open door, but they were alone in the hallway.
“You told me that, and she did, too.” Nynaeve frowned. “If she wasn’t mixed up in it. . . . Aes Sedai are not to be trusted, Rand.”
“You sound as if you really do believe us,” he said slowly. “What happened at the village meeting?”
Nynaeve looked back at the doorway before answering; there was no movement there now. “It was a shambles, but there is no need for her to know we can’t handle our affairs any better than that. And I believe only one thing: you are all in danger as long as you are with her.”
“Something happened,” he insisted. “Why do you want us to go back if you think there’s even a chance we are right? And why you, at all? As soon send the Mayor himself as the Wisdom.”
“You have grown.” She smiled, and for a moment her amusement had him shifting his feet. “I can think of a time when you would not have questioned where I chose to go or what I chose to do, wherever or whatever it was. A time just a week ago.”
He cleared his throat and pressed on stubbornly. “It doesn’t make sense. Why are you really here?”
She half glanced at the still-empty doorway, then took his arm. “Let’s walk while we talk.” He let himself be led away, and when they were far enough from the door not to be overheard, she began again. “As I said, the meeting was a shambles. Everybody agreed someone had to be sent after you, but the village split into two groups. One wanted you rescued, though there was considerable argument over how that was to be done considering that you were with a . . . the likes of her.”
He was glad she was remembering to watch what she said. “The others believed Tam?” he said.
“Not exactly, but they thought you shouldn’t be among strangers, either, especially not with someone like her. Either way, though, almost every man wanted to be one of the party. Tam, and Bran al’Vere, with the scales of office around his neck, and Haral Luhhan, till Alsbet made him sit down. Even Cenn Buie. The Light save me from men who think with the hair on their chests. Though I don’t know as there are any other kind.” She gave a hearty sniff, and looked up at hi
m, an accusing glance. “At any rate, I could see it would be another day, perhaps more, before they came to any decision, and somehow . . . somehow I was sure we did not dare wait that long. So I called the Women’s Circle together and told them what had to be done. I cannot say they liked it, but they saw the right of it. And that is why I am here; because the men around Emond’s Field are stubborn wool-heads. They’re probably still arguing about who to send, though I left word I would take care of it.”
Nynaeve’s story explained her presence, but it did nothing to reassure him. She was still determined to bring them back with her.
“What did she say to you in there?” he asked. Moiraine would surely have covered every argument, but if there was one she had missed, he would make it.
“More of the same,” Nynaeve replied. “And she wanted to know about you boys. To see if she could reason out why you . . . have attracted the kind of attention you have . . . she said.” She paused, watching him out of the corner of her eye. “She tried to disguise it, but most of all she wanted to know if any of you was born outside the Two Rivers.”
His face was suddenly as taut as a drumhead. He managed a hoarse chuckle. “She does think of some odd things. I hope you assured her we’re all Emond’s Field born.”
“Of course,” she replied. There had only been a heartbeat’s pause before she spoke, so brief he would have missed it if he had not been watching for it.
He tried to think of something to say, but his tongue felt like a piece of leather. She knows. She was the Wisdom, after all, and the Wisdom was supposed to know everything about everyone. If she knows, it was no fever-dream. Oh, Light help me, father!
“Are you all right?” Nynaeve asked.
“He said . . . said I . . . wasn’t his son. When he was delirious . . . with the fever. He said he found me. I thought it was just. . . .” His throat began to burn, and he had to stop.
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