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, selfdeprecating 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 snugfitting coat rumpled. There was a bruise beneath his left eye, and the short black hair that normally lay flat on his head looked roughcombed 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, graygreen 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 DaughterHeir 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.
Chapter 40
(Horned Skull)
Hunter of Trollocs
Remnants of the earlymorning rain still dripped from the leaves of the apple trees, and a purple finch hopped along a limb where fruit was forming that would not be harvested this year. The sun was well up, but hidden behind thick gray clouds. Seated crosslegged on the ground, Perrin unconsciously tested his bowstring; the tightly wrapped, waxed cords had a tendency to go slack in wet weather. The storm Verin had called up to hide them from pursuit the night of the rescue had surprised even her with its ferocity, and beating rains had come three more times in the six days since. He believed it was six days. He had not really thought since that night, only drifted as events took him, reacting to what presented itself. The flat of his axe blade dug into his side, but he hardly noticed.
Low, grassy mounds marked generations of Aybaras buried here. The oldest among the carved wooden headpieces, cracked and barely legible, bore dates nearly three hundred years old, over graves indistinguishable from undisturbed ground. It was the mounds smoothed by rains but barely covered by grass that stabbed him. Generations of Aybaras buried here, but surely never fourteen at one time. Aunt Neain over by Uncle Carlin's older grave, with their two children beside her. Great Aunt Ealsin in the row with Uncle Eward and Aunt Magde and their three children, the long row with his mother and his father. Adora and Deselle and little Pact. A long row of mounds with bare, wet earth still showing through the grass. He counted the arrows remaining in his quiver by touch. Seventeen. Too many had been damaged, worth recovering only for the steel arrowheads. No time to make his own; he would have to see the fletcher in Emond's Field soon. Buel Dowtry made good arrows, even better than Tam.
A faint rustle behind his back made him sniff the air. “What is it, Dannil?” he said without looking around.
There was a catch of breath, a moment of startled surprise, before Dannil Lewin said, “The Lady is here, Perrin.” None of them had gotten used to him knowing who was who before he saw them, or in the dark, but he no longer really cared what they found strange.
He frowned over his shoulder. Dannil looked leaner than he had; farmers could only feed so many at once, and food had been feast or famine as the hunting went. Mostly famine. “The Lady?”
“The Lady Faile. And Lord Luc, too. They came from Emond's Field.”
Perrin rose smoothly, taking long strides that made Dannil hurry to keep up. He managed not to look at the house. The charred timbers and sooty chimneys that had been the house where he grew up. He did scan the trees for his lookouts, those nearest the farm. Close to the Waterwood as it was, the land held plenty of tall oak and hemlock, and goodsized ash and bay. Thick foliage hid the lads well — drab farm clothes made for good hiding — so even he had difficulty picking them out. He would have to talk with those farther out; they were supposed to see that no one came close without a warning