A Cup of Wine

A Cup of Wine

When Elayne came on deck with her things neatly bundled, the setting sun seemed to be just touching the water out beyond the mouth of Tanchico's harbor, and the final thick hawsers were being tied to snug Wavedancer to a ship-lined dock, only one of many along this westernmost peninsula of the city. Some of the crew were furling the last sails. Beyond the long wharves the city rose on hills, shining white, domed and spired, with polished weather vanes glittering. Perhaps a mile north she could make out high, round walls; the Great Circle, if she remembered correctly.

Slinging her bundle on the same shoulder as her leather script, she went to join Nynaeve by the gangplank, with Coine and Jorin. It seemed almost odd to see the sisters fully dressed again, in bright brocaded silk blouses that matched their wide trousers. Earrings and even nose rings she had become used to, and the fine gold chain across each woman's dark cheek hardly made her wince at all now.

Thom and Juilin stood apart with their own bundles, looking a touch sullen. Nynaeve had been right. They had tried to second-guess, starting when the real purpose of this journey, or some of it, was revealed to them two days ago. Neither seemed to think two young women were competent - competent! - to seek the Black Ajah. A threat by Nynaeve to have them transferred to another Sea Folk ship, headed the other way, had nipped that in the bud. At least it had once Toram and a dozen crewmen gathered ready to shove them into a boat to be rowed across. Elayne gave them a searching look. Sullenness meant rebellion; they were going to have more trouble from these two.

"Where will you go now, Coine?" Nynaeve was asking as Elayne reached them."To Dantora, and the Aile Jafar," the Sailmistress replied, "and then on to Cantorin and the Aile Somera, spreading news of the Coramoor, if it pleases the Light. But I must allow Toram to trade here, or he will burst."

Her husband was down on the docks now, without his strang 16516i87q e wire-framed lens, bare-chested and be-ringed, talking earnestly with men in baggy white trousers and coats embroidered with scrollwork on the shoulders. Each Tanchican wore a dark, cylindrical cap, and a transparent veil across his face. The veils looked ridiculous, especially on the men with thick mustaches.

"The Light send you a safe voyage," Nynaeve said, shifting her bundles on her back. "If we discover any danger here that might threaten you before you sail, we will send word." Coine and her sister looked remarkably calm. Knowledge of the Black Ajah hardly fazed them; it was the Coramoor, Rand, who was important.

Jorin kissed her fingertips and pressed them to Elayne's lips. "The Light willing, we shall meet again."

"The Light willing," Elayne responded, duplicating the Windfinder's gesture. It still felt odd, but it was an honor, too, used only between close family members or lovers. She was going to miss the Sea Folk woman. She had learned a great deal, and taught a little, as well. Jorin could certainly weave Fire much better now.

When they reached the foot of the gangplank, Nynaeve heaved a sigh of relief. An oily potion Jorin produced had settled her stomach after two days at sea, but all the same she had been tight-eyed and tight-mouthed until Tanchico came in sight.

The two men bracketed them immediately, without any instructions, Juilin taking the lead with his bundle on his back and his pale, thumb-thick staff held in both hands, dark eyes alert. Thom brought up the rear, somehow managing a dangerous look despite his white hair and his limp and his gleeman's cloak.

Nynaeve pursed her lips for a moment but said nothing, which Elayne thought wise. Before they had gone fifty paces down the long stone dock she had seen as many slitty-eyed, hungry-faced men studying them, and Tanchicans and others shifting crates and bales and sacks on the dock. She suspected any of them would have been willing to cut her throat in the hope that a silk dress meant money in her purse. They did not frighten her; she could handle any two or three of them, she was sure. But she and Nynaeve had their Great Serpent rings in their pouches, and it would be useless to pretend no connection with the White Tower if she channeled in front of a hundred men. Best if Juilin and Thom looked as fierce as they could. She would not have minded having ten more just like them.

Suddenly there was a roar from the deck of one of the smaller ships. "You! It do be you!" A wide, round-faced man in a green silk coat leaped onto the dock, ignoring Juilin's raised staff to stare at her and Nynaeve. A beard with no mustache marked him as an Illianer, and so did his accent. He seemed vaguely familiar.

"Master Domon?" Nynaeve said after a moment, giving her braid a sharp tug. "Bayle Domon?"

He nodded. "Aye. I did never think to see you again. I... did wait as long as I could in Falme, but the time did come when I must sail or watch my ship burn."

Elayne knew him now. He had agreed to carry them out of Falme, but chaos had seized that city before they could reach his vessel. That coat said he had done well since.

"A pleasure to see you again," Nynaeve said coolly, "but if you will excuse us, we must find rooms in the city."

"That will be hard. Tanchico do burst its caulking. I do know a place where my word may bring something, though. I could no remain longer in Falme, but I do feel I owe you some debt." Domon paused, frowning with sudden unease. "Your being here. Will the same happen here as in Falme, then?"

"No, Master Domon," Elayne said when Nynaeve hesitated. "Of course not. And we will be glad to accept your help."

She half-expected some protest out of Nynaeve, yet the older woman only nodded thoughtfully and made introductions among the men. Thom's cloak made Domon's eyebrows rise - for an instant she almost thought it looked as though he recognized the gleeman - but Juilin's Tairen garb brought a frown that was returned in kind. Neither man said anything, though; perhaps they could keep the animosity between Tear and Illian out of Tanchico. If they could not, she would have to speak firmly with them.

Domon talked of what had happened with him since Falme as he accompanied them down the dock, and he had indeed done well. "A dozen good coasting ships the Panarch's taxmen do know about," he laughed, "and four deepwater they do no."

He could hardly have acquired so many honestly in so short a time. It shocked her to hear him speak so openly on a dock full of men.

"Aye, I do smuggle, and make such profits as I did never believe. A tenth the amount of the excise in the customs men's pockets do turn their eyes and seal their mouths."

Two Tanchicans in those veils and round hats strolled past, hands clasped behind their backs. Each wore a heavy brass key dangling from a thick chain about his neck; it had the look of a mark of office. They nodded to Domon in a familiar way. Thom looked amused, but Juilin glared at Domon and the two Tanchicans equally. As a thief-catcher he had a proper dislike of those who flouted the law.

"I do no believe it will last much longer though," Domon said when the Tanchicans had passed. "Things do be even worse in Arad Doman than here, and it do be bad enough here. Perhaps the Lord Dragon does no Break the World yet, but he did break Arad Doman and Tarabon."

Elayne wanted to say something sharp to him, but they had reached the foot of the dock, and she watched in silence while he hired sedan chairs and bearers, and a dozen men with stout staves and hard faces. Guards with swords and spears stood at the end of the dock, with the look of hired men, not soldiers. From across the wide street along the row of docks, hundreds of defeated, sunken faces stared at the guards. Sometimes eyes flickered toward the ships, but mainly they fixed on the men holding them back from those ships. Remembering what Coine had said about people here mobbing her vessel, desperate to buy passage anywhere away from Tanchico, Elayne shivered. When these hungry eyes looked at the ships, need burned in them. Elayne sat rigidly in her chair as it jounced through the crowds behind prodding staves, and tried not to look at anything. She did not want to see those faces. Where was their king? Why was he not taking care of them?

A sign above the gate of the white-plastered inn Domon took them to, below the Great Circle, proclaimed the Three Plum Court. The only court Elayne saw was the high-walled courtyard paved with flagstones in front of the inn, which was three square stories with no windows near the ground and the upper windows grilled with fanciful ironwork. Inside, men and women crowded the common room, most in Tanchican clothes, and the buzz of voices nearly drowned out the tune of a hammered dulcimer.

Nynaeve gasped at her first sight of the innkeeper, a pretty woman not much older than herself with brown eyes and pale honey braids, her veil not hiding a plump rosebud of a mouth. Elayne gave a start, too, but it was not Liandrin. The woman - her name was Rendra - obviously knew Domon well. With welcoming smiles for Elayne and Nynaeve, and making much over Thom being a gleeman, she gave them her last two rooms at what Elayne suspected might be less than the going rate.

Elayne made sure she and Nynaeve got the one with the larger bed; she had shared a bed with Nynaeve before, and the woman was free with her elbows.

Rendra also provided supper in a private room, laid out by two veiled young serving men. Elayne found herself staring at a plate of a roast lamb with spiced apple jelly and some sort of long yellowish beans prepared with pinenuts. She could not touch it. All those hungry faces. Domon ate readily enough, him and his smuggling and his gold. Thom and Juilin showed no reticence either.

"Rendra," Nynaeve said quietly, "does anyone here help the poor? I can lay my hands on a good bit of gold if it would help."

"You could donate to Bayle's kitchen," the innkeeper replied, giving Domon a smile. "The man avoids all of the taxes, yet he taxes himself. For each crown he gives as the bribe, he gives two for the soup and the bread for the poor. He has even talked me into giving, and I pay my taxes."

"It do be less than the taxes," Domon muttered, hunching his shoulders defensively. "I do make a very healthy profit, Fortune prick me if I do no."

"It is good that you like to help people, Master Domon," Nynaeve said when Rendra and the servants had gone. Thom and Juilin both get up to see they really had gone. With a half-bow, Thom let Juilin open the door; the hall outside was empty. Nynaeve went right on. "We may need your help, too."

The Illianer's knife and fork paused in cutting a piece of lamb. "How?" he asked suspiciously.

"I do not know exactly, Master Domon. You have ships. You must have men. We may need ears and eyes. Some of the Black Ajah may very well be in Tanchico, and we must find them if they are." Nynaeve lifted a forkful of beans to her mouth as if she had said nothing out of the ordinary. She seemed to be telling everyone about the Black Ajah of late.

Domon gaped at her, then stared incredulously at Thom and Juilin as they settled back in their chairs. When they nodded, he pushed his plate aside and put his head down on his arms. He very nearly earned himself a thump from Nynaeve, if the way her mouth tightened was any indication, and Elayne would not have blamed her. Why should he need them to confirm her word?

Finally Domon roused himself. "It do be going to happen again. Falme all over. Maybe it do be time for me to pack up and go. If I do take the ships I have back to Illian, I will be a wealthy man there, too."

"I doubt you'd find Illian congenial," Nynaeve told him in a firm voice. "I understand that Sammael rules there now, if not openly. You might not enjoy your wealth under one of the Forsaken." Domon's eyes nearly came out of his head, but she went right on. "There are no safe places any longer. You can run like a rabbit, but you cannot hide. Is it not better to do what you can to fight back like a man?"

Nynaeve was being too hard; she always had to bully people. Elayne smiled and leaned over to put a hand on Domon's arm. "We do not mean to browbeat you, Master Domon, but we truly may need your help. I know you for a brave man, else you would not have waited for us as long as you did at Falme. We will be most grateful."

"You do this very well," Domon muttered. "One with an ox driver's stick, the other with a queen's honey. Oh, very well. I will help as I can. But I will no promise to remain for another Falme."

Thom and Juilin set in to question him closely about Tanchico as they ate. At least, Juilin did in a roundabout manner, suggesting questions to Thom about what districts thieves and cutpurses and burglars frequented, what wineshops they used, and who bought their stolen goods. The thief-catcher maintained that such people often knew more of what was going on in a city than the authorities did. He did not seem to want to talk to the Illianer directly, and Domon snorted every time he answered one of the Tairen's questions put by Thom. He did not answer until they were put by Thom. Thom's own questions made no sense, at least not coming from a gleeman. He asked of nobles and factions, of who was allied to whom and who opposed, of who had what stated aims, and what their actions brought about, and whether the results were different from what they supposedly wanted. Not the kind of questions she expected from him at all, even after all their conversations on Wavedancer. He had been willing enough to talk with her - he even seemed to enjoy it - but somehow every time she thought she might dig out something about his past, that was just when he managed to put her back up and send her stalking away. Dornon answered Thom with more alacrity than he did Juilin. In either case, though, he seemed to know Tanchico very well, both its lords and officials and its dark underbelly; as he talked, it often sounded as if there were little difference.

Once the two men had wrung the smuggler dry, Nynaeve summoned Rendra to bring pen and ink and paper, and wrote out a list describing each of the Black sisters. Holding the sheets gingerly in one big hand, Domon frowned at them uneasily, as though they were the women themselves, but he promised to have such of his men as were in port keep their eyes open. When Nynaeve reminded him that they all should take extreme care, he laughed the way he would had she told him not to run himself through with a sword.

Juilin left on Domon's heels, twirling his pale staff and saying night was the best time to find thieves and people who lived off thieves. Nynaeve announced she was retiring to her room - her room - to lie down awhile. She looked a bit unsteady, and suddenly Elayne realized why. Nynaeve had become used to Wavedancer's heaving; now she was having trouble with the ground not heaving. The woman's stomach was not a pleasant traveling companion.

She herself followed Thom down to the common room, where he had promised Rendra he would perform. For a wonder she found a bench at an empty table, and cool looks sufficed to ward off the men who suddenly seemed to want to sit there. Rendra brought her a silver cup of wine, and she sipped as she listened to Thom play his harp, singing love songs like "The First Rose of Summer" and "The Wind That Shakes the Willow," and funny songs like "Only One Boot" and "The Old Gray Goose." His listeners were appreciative, slapping the tables for applause. After a while Elayne slapped hers, too. She had not drunk more than half her wine, but a handsome young serving man smiled at her and filled it up. It was all strangely exciting. In her whole life she had not been in an inn's common room half a dozen times, and never to sip wine and be entertained like one of the common people.

Flourishing his cloak to set the multihued patches fluttering, Thom told stories -"Mara and the Three Foolish Kings," and several tales about Anla, the Wise Counselor - and recited a long stretch of The Great Hunt of the Horn, reciting it so that horses seemed to prance and trumpets blare in the common room, and men and women fought and loved and died. On into the night he sang and recited, only pausing now and then to wet his throat with a sip of wine as the patrons eagerly clamored for more. The woman who had been playing the dulcimer sat in a corner with her instrument on her knees and a sour expression on her face. People often tossed coins to Thom - he had enlisted a small boy to gather them up - and it was unlikely they had produced as much for her music.

It all seemed to suit Thom, the harp, and especially the recital. Well, he was a gleeman, but it seemed more than that. Elayne could have sworn she had heard him recite The Great Hunt before, but in High Chant, not Plain. How could that be? He was just a simple old gleeman.

Finally, in the deep hours of the night, Thom bowed with a last sweeping flourish of his cloak and headed for the stairs amid great slapping of tables. Elayne slapped hers as vigorously as anyone.

Rising to follow, she slipped and sat back down hard, frowning at her silver winecup. It was full. Surely she had drunk a little. She felt dizzy for some reason. Yes. That sweet young man with those melting brown eyes had refilled her cup - how many times? Not that it mattered. She never drank more than one cup of wine. Never. It was being off Wavedancer and back on dry land. She was reacting like Nynaeve. That was all.

Getting carefully to her feet - and refusing the sweet young man's most solicitous offer of help - she managed to climb the stairs despite the way they swayed. Not stopping at the second floor, where her and Nynaeve's room was, she went up to the third and knocked on Thom's door. He opened it slowly, peering out suspiciously. He seemed to have a knife in his hand, and then it was gone. Strange. She seized one of his long white mustaches.

"I remember," she said. Her tongue did not seem to be working properly; the words sounded... fuzzy. "I was sitting on your knee, and I pulled your mustache..." She gave it a yank to demonstrate, and he winced. ". . . and my mother leaned over your shoulder and laughed at me."

"I think it best you go to your room," he said, trying to pry her hand free. "I think you need some sleep."

She refused to let go. In fact, she seemed to have pushed him back into his room. By his mustache. "My mother sat on your knee, too. I saw it. I remember."

"Sleep is the thing, Elayne. You will feel better in the morning." He managed to get her hand loose and tried ushering her to the door, but she slipped around him. The bed had no posts. If she had a bedpost to hold on to, perhaps the room would stop tilting back and forth.

"I want to know why Mother sat on your knee." He stepped back, and she realized she was reaching for his mustache again. "You're a gleeman. My mother would not sit on a gleeman's knee."

"Go to bed, child."

"I am not a child!" She stamped her foot angrily, and almost fell. The floor was lower than it looked. "Not a child. You will tell me. Now!"

Thom sighed and shook his head. At last he said stiffly, "I was not always a gleeman. I was a bard, once. A Court-bard. In Caemlyn, as it happens. For Queen Morgase. You were a child. You are just remembering things wrong, that's all."

"You were her lover, weren't you?" The flinch of his eyes was enough. "You were! I always knew about Gareth Bryne. At least, I figured it out. But I always hoped she would marry him. Gareth Bryne, and you, and this Lord Gaebril Mat said she looks calf-eyes at now, and... How many more? How many? What makes her any different from Berelain, tripping every man who catches her eye into her bed. She is no different -" Her vision shivered, and her head rang. It took her a moment to realize he had slapped her. Slapped her! She drew herself up, wishing he would not sway. "How dare you? I am Daughter-Heir of Andor, and I will not be -"

"You are a little girl with a skinful of wine throwing a temper tantrum," he snapped. "And if I ever hear you say anything like that about Morgase again, drunk or sober, I'll put you over my knee however you channel! Morgase is a fine woman, as good as any there is!"

"Is she?" Her voice quavered, and she realized she was crying. "Then why did she -? Why -?" Somehow she had her face buried against his coat, and he was smoothing her hair.

"Because it is lonely being a queen," he said softly. "Because most men attracted to a queen see power, not a woman. I saw a woman, and she knew it. I suppose Bryne saw the same in her, and this Gaebril, too. You have to understand, child. Everyone wants someone in their life, someone who cares for them, someone they can care for. Even a queen."

"Why did you go away?" she mumbled into his chest. "You made me laugh. I remember that. You made her laugh, too. And you rode me on your shoulder."

"A long story." He sighed painfully. "I will tell you another time. If you ask. With luck, you'll forget this by morning. It's time for you to go to bed, Elayne."

He guided her to the door, and she took the opportunity to tug at his mustache again. "Like that," she said with satisfaction. "I used to pull it just like that."

"Yes, you did. Can you make it downstairs by yourself?"

"Of course I can." She gave him her haughtiest stare, but he looked readier than ever to follow her into the hall. To prove there was no need, she walked - carefully - as far as the head of the stairs. He was still frowning at her worriedly from the doorway when she started down.

Luckily she did not stumble until she was out of his sight, but she did walk right by her door and had to come back. Something must have been wrong with that apple jelly; she knew she should not have eaten so much of it. Lini always said . . . She could not remember what it was Lini said, but something about eating too many sweets.

There were two lamps burning in the room, one on the small round table by the bed and the other on the white-plastered mantel above the brick fireplace. Nynaeve lay stretched out on the bed atop the coverlet, fully dressed. With her elbows stuck out, Elayne noted.

She said the first thing that came into her head. "Rand must think I'm crazy, Thom is a bard, and Berelain isn't my mother after all." Nynaeve gave her the oddest look. "I am a little dizzy for some reason. A nice boy with sweet brown eyes offered to help me upstairs."

"I will wager he did," Nynaeve said, biting off each word. Rising, she came to put an arm around Elayne's shoulders. "Come over here a moment. There's something I think you should see." It appeared to be a bucket of extra water by the washstand. "Here. We'll both kneel down so you can look."

Elayne did, but there was nothing in the bucket but her own reflection in the water, She wondered why she was grinning that way. Then Nynaeve's hand went to the back of her neck, and her head was in the water.

Flailing her hands, she tried to straighten up, but Nynaeve's arm was like an iron bar. You were supposed to hold your breath under water. Elayne knew you were. She just could not remember how. All she could do was flail and gurgle and choke.

Nynaeve hauled her up, water streaming down her face, and she filled her lungs. "How dare - you," she gasped. "I am - the Daughter-Heir of -" She managed to get out one wail before her head went back in with a splash. Seizing the bucket with both hands and pushing did no good. Drumming her feet on the floor did no good. She was going to drown. Nynaeve was going to drown her.

After an Age she was back out in the air again. Sodden strands of hair hung all across her face. "I think," she said in the steadiest voice she could find, "that I am going to sick up."

Nynaeve got the big white-glazed basin down from the washstand just in time, and held Elayne's head while she brought up everything she had ever eaten in her life. A year later - well, hours anyway; it seemed that long - Nynaeve was washing her face and wiping her mouth, bathing her hands and wrists. There was nothing solicitous in her voice, though.

"How could you do this? Whatever possessed you? I might expect a fool man to drink until he can't stand, but you! And tonight."

"I only had one cup," Elayne muttered. Even with that young man refilling it, she could not have had more than two. Surely not.

"A cup the size of a pitcher." Nynaeve sniffed, helping her to her feet. Hauling her, really. "Can you stay awake? I am going to look for Egwene, and I still don't trust myself to get out of Tel'aran'rhiod without someone to wake me."

Elayne blinked at her. They had looked for Egwene, unsuccessfully, every night since she had disappeared so abruptly out of that meeting in the Heart of the Stone. "Stay awake? Nynaeve, it is my turn to look, and better it's me. You know you cannot channel unless you are angry, and..." She realized the other woman was surrounded by the glow of saidar. And had been for some time, she thought. Her own head felt stuffed full of wool; thought had to burrow through. She could barely sense the True Source. "Maybe you had better go. I will stay awake."

Nynaeve frowned at her, but finally nodded. Elayne tried to help undress her, but her fingers did not seem to work very well when it came to those little buttons. Grumping under her breath, Nynaeve managed on her own. In only her shift, she threaded the twisted stone ring onto the leather cord she wore hanging around her neck, alongside a man's ring, heavy and golden. That was Lan's ring; Nynaeve always wore it between her breasts.

Elayne pulled a low wooden stool over beside the bed while Nynaeve stretched out again. She did feel rather sleepy, but she would not fall asleep sitting on that. The problem seemed to be not falling on the floor. "I will judge an hour and wake you."

Nynaeve nodded, then closed her eyes, both hands clutched around the two rings. After a time her breathing deepened.

The Heart of the Stone was quite empty. Peering into the dimness among the great columns, Nynaeve had circled Callandor, sparkling out of the floorstones, completely before she realized she was still in her shift, the leather cord dangling about her neck with the two rings. She frowned, and after a moment she was wearing a Two Rivers dress of good brown wool, and stout shoes. Elayne and Egwene both seemed to find this sort of thing easy, but it was not easy for her. There had been embarrassing moments in earlier visits to Tel'aran'rhiod, mostly after stray thoughts of Lan, but changing her garb deliberately took concentration. Just that - remembering - and her dress was silk, and as transparent as Rendra's veil. Berelain would have blushed. So did Nynaeve, thinking of Lan seeing her in it. It took an effort to bring the brown wool back.

Worse, her anger had faded - that fool girl; did she not realize what happened when you drank too much wine? Had she never been alone in a common room before? Well, possibly she had not - and the True Source might as well not exist so far as she was concerned. Perhaps it would not matter. Uneasy, she stared into the forest of huge redstone columns, turning in one spot. What had made Egwene leave here abruptly?

The Stone was silent, with a hollow emptiness. She could hear the blood rushing in her own ears. Yet the skin between her shoulder blades prickled as if someone were watching her.

"Egwene?" Her shout echoed in the silence among the columns. "Egwene?" Nothing.

Rubbing her hands on her skirt, she found she was holding a gnarled stick with a thick knob on the end. A fat lot of good that would do. But she tightened her grip on it. A sword might be more use - for an instant the stick flickered, half a sword - but she did not know how to use a sword. She laughed to herself ruefully. A cudgel was as good as a sword here; both practically useless. Channeling was the only real defense, that and running. Which left her only one choice at the moment.

She wanted to run now, with that feel of eyes on her, but she would not give up so quickly. Only what was she to do? Egwene was not here. She was somewhere in the Waste. Rhuidean, Elayne said. Wherever that was.

Between one step and the next she was suddenly on a mountainside, with a harsh sun rising over more jagged mountains beyond the valley below, baking the dry air. The Waste. She was in the Waste. For a moment the sun startled her, but the Waste was far enough east for sunrise there to still be night in Tanchico. In Tel'aran'rhiod it made no difference anyway. Sunlight or darkness there seemed to bear no relation to what was in the real world as far as she could determine.

Long, pale shadows still covered almost half the valley, but strangely a mass of fog billowed down there, not seeming to grow less for the sun beating on it. Great towers rose out of the fog, some appearing unfinished. A city. In the Waste?

Squinting, she could make out a person down in the valley, too. A man, though all she could see at this distance was someone who seemed to be wearing breeches and a bright blue coat. Certainly not an Aiel. He was walking along the edge of the fog, every now and again stopping to poke at it. She could not be sure, but she thought his hand stopped short each time. Maybe it was not fog at all.

"You must get away from here," a woman's voice said urgently. "If that one sees you, you are dead, or worse."

Nynaeve jumped, spinning with her club raised, nearly losing her footing on the slope.

The woman standing a little above her wore a short white coat and voluminous, pale yellow trousers gathered above short boots. Her cloak billowed on an arid gust of wind. It was her long golden hair, intricately braided, and the silver bow in her hands that made a name pop incredulously into Nynaeve's mouth.

"Birgitte?" Birgitte, hero of a hundred tales, and her silver bow with which she never missed. Birgitte, one of the dead heroes the Horn of Valere would call back from the grave to fight in the Last Battle. "It's impossible. Who are you?"

"There is no time, woman. You must go before he sees." In one smooth motion she pulled a silver arrow from the quiver at her waist, nocked it and drew fletching to ear. The silver arrowhead pointed straight at Nynaeve's heart. "Go!"

Nynaeve fled.

She was not sure how, but she was standing on the Green in Emond's Field, looking at the Winespring Inn with its chimneys and red tile roof. Thatched roofs surrounded the Green, where the Winespring gushed out of a stone outcrop. The sun stood high here, though the Two Rivers lay far west of the Waste. Yet despite a cloudless sky, a deep shadow lay across the village.

She had only a moment to wonder how they were doing without her. A flicker of movement caught her eye, a flash of silver and a woman, ducking behind the corner of Ailys Candwin's neat house beyond the Winespring Water. Birgitte.Nynaeve did not hesitate. She ran for one of the footbridges across the narrow rushing stream. Her shoes pounded on the wooden planks. "Come back here," she shouted. "You come back here and answer me! Who was that? You come back here, or I'll hero you! I'll thump you so you think you've had an adventure!"

Rounding the corner of Ailys's house, she really only half-expected to see Birgitte. What she did not expect at all was a man in a dark coat trotting toward her less than a hundred paces down the hard-packed dirt street. Her breath caught. Lan. No, but he had the same shape to his face, the same eyes. Halting, he raised his bow and shot. At her. Screaming, she threw herself aside trying to claw her way awake.

Elayne jumped to her feet, toppling the stool over backward, as Nynaeve screamed and sat up on the bed, eyes wide.

"What happened, Nynaeve? What happened?"

Nynaeve shuddered. "He looked like Lan. He looked like Lan, and he tried to kill me." She put a trembling hand to her left arm, where a shallow slash oozed blood a few inches below her shoulder. "If I hadn't jumped, it would have gone through my heart."

Seating herself on the edge of the bed, Elayne examined the cut. "It is not bad. I'll wash and bandage it for you." She wished she knew how to Heal; trying without knowing might well make it worse. But it really was little more than a long nick. Not to mention that her head still seemed full of jelly. Quivering jelly. "It was not Lan. Calm yourself. Whoever it was, it was not Lan."

"I know that," Nynaeve said acidly. She recounted what had happened in much the same angry voice. The man who had shot at her in Emond's Field, and the man in the Waste; she was not sure they were one and the same. Birgitte herself was incredible enough.

"Are you certain?" Elayne asked. "Birgitte?"

Nynaeve sighed. "The only thing I am certain of is that I did not find Egwene. And that I am not going back there tonight." She pounded a fist on her thigh. "Where is she? What happened to her? If she met that fellow with the bow... Oh, Light!"

Elayne had to think a minute; she wanted to sleep so badly, and her thoughts kept shimmering. "She said she might not be there when we are supposed to meet again. Maybe that is why she left so hurriedly. Whyever she can't... I mean..." It did not seem to make a great deal of sense, but she could not get it out properly.

"I hope so," Nynaeve said wearily. Looking at Elayne, she added, "We had better get you to bed. You look ready to fall over."

Elayne was grateful to be helped out of her clothes. She did remember to bandage Nynaeve's arm, but the bed looked so inviting she could hardly think of anything else. In the morning perhaps the room would have stopped its slow spin around the bed. Sleep came as soon as her head touched the pillow.

In the morning she wished she were dead.

With sunlight barely in the sky, the common room was empty except for Elayne. Head in her hands, she stared at a cup Nynaeve had set on the table before going off to find the innkeeper. Every time she breathed, she could smell it; her nose tried to clench. Her head felt... It was not possible to describe how her head felt. Had someone offered to cut it off, she might have thanked him."Are you all right?"

She jerked at the sound of Thom's voice and barely stifled a whimper. "I am quite all right, thank you." Talking made her head throb. He fiddled with one of his mustaches uncertainly. "Your stories were wonderful last night, Thom. What I remember of them." Somehow she managed a small, self-deprecating laugh. "I am afraid I don't remember very much of anything except sitting there listening. I seem to have eaten some bad apple jelly." She was not about to admit to drinking all that wine; she still had no idea how much. Or to making a fool of herself in his room. Above all, not that. He seemed to believe her, from the relieved way he took a chair.

Nynaeve appeared, handing her a damp cloth as she sat down. She also pushed the cup with its horrible brew closer. Elayne pressed the cloth to her forehead gratefully.

"Have either of you seen Master Sandar this morning?" the older woman asked."He did not sleep in our room," Thom replied. "Which I should be grateful for, considering the size of the bed."

As though the words had summoned him, Juilin came in through the front door, his face weary and his snug-fitting coat rumpled. There was a bruise beneath his left eye, and the short black hair that normally lay flat on his head looked rough-combed with his fingers, but he smiled as he joined them. "The thieves in this city are as numerous as minnows in reeds, and they will talk if you buy a cup of something. I have talked with two men who claim to have seen a woman with a white streak in her hair above the left ear. I think I believe one of them."

"So they are here," Elayne said, but Nynaeve shook her head.

"Perhaps. More than one woman can have a white streak in her hair."

"He could not say how old she was," Juilin said, hiding a yawn behind his hand. "No age at all, he claimed. He joked that maybe she was Aes Sedai."

"You go too fast," Nynaeve told him in a tight voice. "You do us no good if you bring them down on us."

Juilin flushed darkly. "I am careful. I have no wish for Liandrin to put her hands on me again. I do not ask questions; I talk. Sometimes of women I used to know. Two men bit on that white streak, and neither ever knew it was more than a scrap of idle talk over cheap ale. Tonight maybe another will swim into my net, only this time maybe it will be a fragile woman from Cairhien with very big blue eyes." That would be Temaile Kinderode. "Bit by bit, I will narrow where they have been seen, until I know where they are. I will find them for you."

"Or I will." Thom sounded as if he thought that much more likely. "Rather than thieves, would they not be meddling with nobles and politics? Some lord in this city will begin doing what he usually does not, and he will draw me to them."

The two men eyed one another. In another moment Elayne expected one of them to offer to wrestle. Men. First Juilin and Domon, now Juilin and Thom. Very likely Thom and Domon would get in a fistfight to complete it. Men. That was the only comment she could think of.

"Perhaps Elayne and I will succeed without either of you," Nynaeve said dryly. "We will begin looking ourselves, today." Her eyes barely shifted toward Elayne. "At least, I will. Elayne may need a little more rest to recover from... the voyage."

Setting the cloth down carefully, Elayne used both hands to pick up the cup in front of her. The thick, gray-green liquid tasted worse than it smelled. Shuddering, she made herself keep swallowing. When it hit her stomach, for an instant she felt like a cloak snapping in a high wind. "Two pairs of eyes can see better than one," she told Nynaeve, setting the empty cup back down with a clink.

"A hundred pairs can see even better," Juilin said hastily, "and if that Illianer eel truly sends his people out, we will have at least that many, what with the thieves and cutpurses."

"I - we - will find these women for you if they can be found," Thom said. "There is no need for you to stir from the inn. This city has a dangerous feel even if Liandrin is not here."

"Besides which," Juilin added, "if they are here, they know the two of you. They know your faces. Much better if you stay here at the inn, out of sight."

Elayne stared at them in amazement. A moment gone they had been trying to stare each other down, and now they were shoulder to shoulder. Nynaeve had been right about them causing trouble. Well, the Daughter-Heir of Andor was not about to hide behind Master Juilin Sandar and Master Thom Merrilin. She opened her mouth to tell them so, but Nynaeve spoke first.

"You are right," she said calmly. Elayne stared at her incredulously; Thom and Juilin looked surprised, and at the same time disgustingly satisfied. "They do know us," Nynaeve went on. "I took care of that this morning, I think. Ah, here is Mistress Rendra with our breakfast."

Thom and Juilin exchanged disconcerted frowns, but they could say nothing with the innkeeper smiling at them all through her veil.

"About what I asked you?" Nynaeve said to her as the woman placed a bowl of honeyed porridge in front of her.

"Ah, yes. It will be no problem to find the clothes to fit both of you. And the hair - you have such lovely hair; so long - it will be the work of no time to put it up." She fingered her own deep golden braids.

Thom's and Juilin's faces made Elayne smile. They might have been ready for arguments; they had no defense against being ignored. Her head was actually feeling a little better; Nynaeve's vile mixture seemed to be working. As Nynaeve and Rendra discussed costs and cut and fabric - Rendra wanted to duplicate her clinging dress, pale green today; Nynaeve was opposed, but seemed to be wavering - Elayne took a spoon of porridge to wash the taste from her mouth. It reminded her that she was hungry.

There was one problem none of them had mentioned yet, one that Thom and Juilin did not know. If the Black Ajah was in Tanchico, then so was whatever it was that endangered Rand. Something able to bind him with his own Power. Finding Liandrin and the others was not enough. They had to find that, too. Suddenly her newfound appetite was completely gone.