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permission. Only Sevanna and a handful of the Wise Ones knew that. This was all

growing more confusing by the moment.

Suddenly she was lifted into the air and laid on her belly. Across her own saddle, she

realized, and the next moment she was bouncing on the hard leather, one of the men

using a hand to keep her from falling as the mare began to trot.

“Let us go to where you can make us one of your holes, Fager Neald.”

“Just the other side of the slope, Gaul. Why, I’ve been here so often, I can make a

gateway nearly anywhere at all. Do you Aiel run everywhere?”

A gateway? What was the man blathering about? Dismissing his nonsense, she

considered her options, and found none good. Bound like a lamb for market, gagged so

she would not be heard ten paces away if she shrieked her lungs out, her chances of

escape were nonexistent unless some of the Shaido sentries intercepted her captors. But

did she want them to? Unless she reached Aybara, she had no way to stop him from

ruining everything. On the other hand, how many days off did his camp lie? He could not

be very near, or the Shaido would have found him by now. She knew scouts had been

making sweeps as far as ten miles from the camp. However many days were required to

reach him, it would take as many to return. Not merely minutes late, but days late.

Therava would not kill her for it. Just make her wish she were dead. She could explain. A

tale of being captured by brigands. No, just a pair; it was hard enough to believe two men

had gotten this near the encampment, much less a band of brigands. Unable to channel,

she had needed time to escape. She could make the tale convincing. It might persuade

Therava. If she said…. It was useless. The first time Therava had punished her for being

late, it had been because her cinch broke and she had had to walk back leading her horse.

The woman had not accepted that excuse, and she would not accept being kidnapped,

either. Galina wanted to weep. In fact, she realized that she was weeping, hopeless tears

she was helpless to stop.

The horse halted, and before she could think, she convulsed wildly, trying to fling herself

off the saddle, screaming as loudly as her gag permitted. They had to be trying to avoid

sentries. Surely Therava would understand if the sentries returned with her and her

captors, even if she was late. Surely she could find a way to handle Faile even with her

husband dead.

A hard hand smacked her rudely. “Be silent,” the Aielman said, and they began to trot

again.

Her tears began again, too, and the silk cowl covering her face grew damp. Therava was

going to make her howl. But even while she wept, she began to work on what she would

say to Aybara. At least she could salvage her chances of obtaining the rod. Therava was

going to…. No. No! She needed to concentrate on what she could do. Images of the

cruel-eyed Wise One holding a switch or a strap or binding cords reared in her mind, but

every time she forced them down while she went over every question Aybara might ask

and what answers she would give him. On what she would say to make him leave his

wife’s safety in her hands.

In none of her calculations had she expected to be lifted down and stood upright no more

than an hour after being captured.

“Unsaddle her horse, Noren, and picket it with the others,” the Murandian said.

“Right away, Master Neald,” came a reply. In a Cairhienin accent.

The bonds around her ankles fell away, a knife blade slid between her wrists, severing

those cords, and then whatever held her gag in place was untied. She spat out silk sodden

with her own saliva and jerked the cowl back.

A short man in a dark coat was leading Swift away through a straggle of large, patched

brown tents and small, crude huts that seemed made from tree branches, including pine

boughs with brown needles. How long for pine to turn brown? Days, surely, perhaps

weeks. The sixty or seventy men tending cookfires or sitting on wooden stools looked

like farmers in their rough coats, but some were sharpening swords, and spears and

halberds and other polearms stood stacked in a dozen places. Through the gaps between

the tents and huts, she could see more men moving about to either side, a number of them

in helmets and breastplates, mounted and carrying long, streamered lances. Soldiers,

riding out on patrol. How many more lay beyond her sight? No matter. What was in front

of her eyes was impossible! The Shaido had sentries further from their camp than this.

She was certain they did!

“If the face wasn’t enough,” Neald murmured, “that cool, calculating study would

convince me. Like she’s examining worms under a rock she’s turned over.” A weedy

fellow in a black coat, he knuckled his waxed mustaches in an amused way, careful not to

spoil the points. He wore a sword, but he certainly had no look of soldier or armsman

about him. “Well, come along then, Aes Sedai,” he said, clasping her upper arm. “Lord

Perrin will be wanting to ask you some questions.” She jerked free, and he calmly took a

firmer grip. “None of that, now.”

The huge Aielman, Gaul, took her other arm, and she could go with them or be dragged.

She walked with her head high, pretending they were merely an escort, but anyone who

saw how they held her arms would know differently. Staring straight ahead, she was still

aware of armed farmboys—most were young—staring at her. Not gaping in

astonishment, just watching, considering. How could they be so high-handed with an Aes

Sedai? Some of the Wise Ones who were unaware of the oath holding her had begun

expressing doubt that she was Aes Sedai because she obeyed so readily and truckled so

for Therava, but these two knew what she was. And did not care. She suspected those

farmers knew, too, and yet none displayed any surprise at how she was being treated. It

made the back of her neck prickle.

As they approached a large red-and-white striped tent with the doorflaps tied back, she

overheard voices from inside.

“…said he was ready to come right now,” a man was saying.

“I can’t afford to feed one more mouth when I don’t know for how long,” another man

replied. “Blood and ashes! How long does it take to arrange a meeting with these

people?”

Gaul had to duck into the tent, but Galina strode in as though entering her own rooms in

the Tower. A prisoner she might be, yet she was Aes Sedai, and that simple fact was a

powerful tool. And weapon. Who was he trying to arrange a meeting with? Not Sevanna,

surely. Let it be anyone but Sevanna.

In stark contrast to the ramshackle camp outside, there was a good flowered carpet for a

floor here, and two silk hangings embroidered with flowers and birds in a Cairhienin

fashion hung from the roof poles. She focused on a tall, broad-shouldered man in his

shirtsleeves with his back to her, leaning on his fists against a slender-legged table that

was decorated with lines of gilding and covered with maps and sheets of paper. She had

only glimpsed Aybara at a distance in Cairhien, yet she was sure this was the farmboy

from Rand al’Thor’s home village in spite of the silk shirt and well-polished boots. Even

the turndowns were polished. If nothing else, everyone in the tent seemed to be looking

to him.

As she walked into the tent, a tall woman in high-necked green silk with small touches of

lace at her throat and wrists, black hair falling in waves to her shoulders, laid a hand on

Aybara’s arm in a familiar manner. Galina recognized her. “She seems cautious, Perrin,”

Berelain said.

“Wary of a trap, in my estimation, Lord Perrin,” put in a graying, hard-bitten man in an

ornate breastplate worn over a scarlet coat. A Ghealdanin, Galina thought. At least he and

Berelain explained the presence of soldiers, if not how they could be where they could

not possibly be.

Galina was very glad she had not encountered the woman in Cairhien. That would have

made matters now more than merely awkward. She wished her hands were free to wipe

the residue of tears from her face, but the two men held onto her arms firmly. There was

nothing to be done about it. She was Aes Sedai. That was all that mattered. That was all

she would allow to matter. She opened her mouth to take command of the situation….

Aybara suddenly looked over his shoulder at her, as though he had sensed her presence in

some way, and his golden eyes froze her tongue. She had dismissed tales that the man

had a wolf’s eyes, but he did. A wolf’s hard eyes in a stone-hard face. He made the

Ghealdanin look almost soft. A sad face behind that close-cropped beard, as well. Over

his wife, no doubt. She could make use of that.

“An Aes Sedai wearing gai’shain white,” he said flatly, turning to face her. He was a

large man, if not nearly so large as the Aielman, and he loomed just by standing there,

those golden eyes taking in everything. “And a prisoner, it seems. She didn’t want to

come?”

“She thrashed like a trout on the riverbank while Gaul was tying her up, my Lord,” Neald

replied. “Myself, I had nothing to do but stand and watch.”

A strange thing to say, and in such a significant tone. What could he have…? Abruptly

she became aware of another man in a black coat, a stocky, weathered fellow with a

silver pin in the shape of a sword fastened to his high collar. And she remembered where

she had last seen men in black coats. Leaping out of holes in the air just before everything

turned to utter disaster at Dumai’s Wells. Neald and his holes, his gateways. These men

could channel.

It took everything she could summon not to try jerking free of the Murandian’s clasp, not

to edge away. Just being this close to him made her stomach writhe. Being touched by

him…. She wanted to whimper, and that surprised her. Surely she was tougher than that!

She concentrated on maintaining an appearance of calm while trying to work moisture

back into her suddenly dry mouth.

“She claims friendship with Sevanna,” Gaul added.

“A friend of Sevanna,” Aybara said, frowning. “But wearing a gai’shain robe. A silk

robe, and jewels, but still…. You didn’t want to come, but you didn’t channel to try

stopping Gaul and Neald from bringing you. And you’re terrified.” He shook his head.

How did he know she was afraid? “I’m surprised to see an Aes Sedai with the Shaido

after Dumai’s Wells. Or don’t you know about that? Let her go, let her go. I doubt she’ll

take off running since she let you bring her this far.”

“Dumai’s Wells does not matter,” she said coldly as the men’s hands fell away. The pair

remained on either side of her like guards, though, and she was proud of the steadiness of

her voice. A man who could channel. Two of them, and she was alone. Alone, and unable

to channel a thread. She stood straight, head erect. She was Aes Sedai, and they must see

her every inch an Aes Sedai. How could he know she was afraid? Not a shred of fear

tinged her words. Her face might as well been carved of stone for all she let show. “The

White Tower has purposes none but Aes Sedai can know or understand. I am about White

Tower business, and you are interfering. An unwise choice for any man.” The Ghealdanin

nodded ruefully, as though he had learned that lesson personally; Aybara merely looked

at her, expressionless.

“Hearing your name was the only reason I didn’t do something drastic to these two,” she

continued. If the Murandian or the Aielmen brought up how long that had taken, she was

ready to claim that she had been stunned at first, but they held silent, and she spoke

quickly and forcefully. “Your wife Faile is under my protection, as well as Queen

Alliandre, and when my business with Sevanna is done, I will take them to safety with

me and help them reach wherever they wish to go. In the meanwhile, however, your

presence here endangers my business, White Tower business, which I cannot allow. It

also endangers you, and your wife, and Alliandre. There are tens of thousands of Aiel in

that camp. Many tens of thousands. If they descend on you, and their scouts will find you

soon if they haven’t already, they will wipe all of you from the face of the earth. They

may harm your wife and Alliandre for it, as well. I may not be able to stop Sevanna. She

is a harsh woman, and many of her Wise Ones can channel, nearly four hundred of them,

all willing to use the Power to do violence, while I am one Aes Sedai, and constrained by

my Oaths. If you wish to protect your wife and the Queen, turn away from their camp and

ride as hard as you can. They may not attack you if you are obviously retreating. That is