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Lan’s strength was necessary to reh before she could be Healed of that wound, but although her face drained of blood and Elayne felt a stab of agony through the bond, agony that h her gritted teeth

"Tai’shar Kandor," Lan h aritte blinked, and he paused "Forgive me, if I erred I assuitte breathed "Kandori" Her sickly grin ht have been fro Lan out of the way so she could lay hands on her Elayne hoped the woitte had last been born, there had been no Kandor She should have taken it as an omen

For the five itte rode behind Nynaeve on the latter’s stout brown s -- and Elayne and Aviendha rode Lan’s tall black stallion At least, Elayne sat Mandarb’s saddle with Aviendha’s arms around her waist while Lan led the fieryeyed animal Trained warhorses were as e riders Be sure of yourself, girl, Lini had always told her, but not too sure, and she did try She should have realized events were no more in her control than Mandarb’s reins

At the threestory stone house, Master Hornwell, stout and grayhaired, and Mistress Hornwell, slightly less round and slightly less gray but otherwise rese her husband remarkably, had every last person orked the estates, and Merilille’s reenandwhite liveried servants who had co to find sleeping accommodations for over two hundred people, most wo The ith surprising swiftness, in spite of the estates’ people stopping to gawk at an Aes Sedai’s ageless face, or a Warder’s shifting cloakparts of hiht silks, her earrings and nosering andthat noas safe to be frightened and cry noCircle said to the over how far froainst their will as Renaile din Calon loudly clai to flee whatever lay back in Ebou Dar, willing to carry their bundled possessions on their backs, were now balking at being shown a hayloft for a bed

All that was going on when Elayne and the others arrived with the sun red on the western horizon, a great upheaval and s, but Alise Tenjile, s pleasantly and i more in hand than even the capable Hornwells Kinswomen ept harder for all of Reanne’s attempts at coanfor thehty nobles withinto the oval cutouts in their lacetrimance and nearly as ht of Alise approaching, and went scurrying for the tall barns hugging their bundles and announcing loudly that they had always thought itto sleep on straw Even the Windfinders,the Atha’an Miere, muffled their complaints when Alise ca the Aes Sedai agelessness, eyed Alise askance and touched her brownfringed shawl as if to remind herself it was there Merilille -- unflappable Merilille -- watched the woo about her ith a blend of approval and open a down frolared toward Alise, gave her dark braid one deliberate,that the other wo off her blue riding gloves and o, Lan chuckled softly, then stifled his laughter iht, but his eyes were cold! For Nynaeve’s sake, she hoped theinto those eyes, she did not believe it

"Where is Ispan?" sheAviendha scramble down So many of the wo held prisoner that the neas bound to spread through the estates like fire in dry grass, but better if the manor’s folk had a little preparation

"Adeleas and Vandene took her to a small woodcutter’s hut about half a mile away," he replied just as quietly "In all this, I don’t think anyone noticed a woman with a sack over her head The sisters said they would stay there with her tonight"

Elayne shivered The Darkfriend was to be questioned again once the sun went down, it seemed They were in Andor, now, and that iven the order for it

Soon she was in a copper bathtub, luxuriating in perfu water at Birgitte, who lolled in another tub except when she was splashing back, both of the horror Aviendha could not quite conceal at sitting up to her breasts in water She thought it was a very good joke on herself, though, and told a ade spines in his bottoetting her head caught between the slats of a fence, that h Elayne wished she knew one to tell

She and Aviendha cohtly ritual for nearsisters -- and then they snuggled tiredly into the canopied bed in a sitte and Nynaeve, and lucky there were nothe floors, including the sitting rooms, the kitchens, and ht about the indecency ofa woman sleep apart from her husband, and for the other half, her elbows seeitte flatly refused to change places, and she could not ask Aviendha to endure the woreat deal of sleep

Elayne was still groggy when they prepared to depart the next old The manor had few animals to spare unless she stripped the estates bare, so while she rode a black gelding naitte had new mounts, those who had been afoot when they fled the Kin’s farm remained afoot That includedthe pack aniretting their visit to the Kin’s farm in hopes of peace and contemplation The Warders rode ahead to scout the way across rolling hills covered in droughtstarved forest, and the rest of them stretched out in a most peculiar snake, with Nynaeve and herself and the other sisters at the head