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There was nothe inn’s owner, a tall, heavyset wolowed; elaborate, dyed curls -- nature had never produced that shade of red, surely never with such dark eyes -- fra orders to the serving girls, she stopped at this table or that to speak a feords or slap a back and laugh with her patrons

Siuan held herself stiffly and tried to ignore the considering looks ave her as she approached the crimsonhaired woman "Mistress Tharne?" She had to repeat the name three times, each louder than the last, before the inn’s owner looked at her "Mistress Tharne, I want a job singing I can sing --"

"You can, can you now?" The big woer, but I can always use another to give her a rest Letof the Three Fishes," Siuan said loudly This had to be the right woman Surely tomen in one city could not have hair like that, not and answer to the right nahed harder still and slapped one of thehim half off his bench "Not on driver’s whip curled around his shoulder, cackled with her

"And I can sing ’Blue Sky Dawning’"

The wohed herself to tears "Can you, now? Ah, I’s Your legs, girl, or get out!"

Siuan hesitated, but Mistress Tharne only stared at her And an increasing nuht woman Slowly, she pulled her skirt up to her knees The tall woathered rowing redder by the inch

"A s are the extent of your knowledge, you’d better have legs to et those woolen stockings off her, eh, Pel? Well, come on with me Maybe you have a voice, anyway, but I can’t hear it in here Coirl! Hustle your rump!"

Siuan’s eyes snapped open, blazing, but the big wo toward the back of the common room Backbone like an iron rod, Siuan let her skirts fall and followed, trying to ignore the guffaws and lewd suggestions directed at her Her face was stone, but inside, worry warred with anger

Before being raised to the Amyrlin Seat, she had run the Blue Ajah’s network of eyesandears; some had also been her own personal listeners both then and later She er be Aents Duranda Tharne had already been serving the Blue when she took over the network, a woman whose information was always timely Eyesandears were not to be found everywhere, and their reliability varied -- there had been only one that she trusted enough to approach between Tar Valon and here, at Four Kings, in Andor, and she had vanished -- but a vast aard with the ht be eyesandears for other Ajahs here; it would be well to reets the boat home, she reminded herself

This woman fit the description of Duranda Tharne perfectly, and surely no other inn could have a name so vile, but why had she responded as she did when Siuan identified herself as another agent of the Blue? She had to risk it; Min and Leane, in their own fashion, were growing as iot the boat hoht back a full hold At the worst, she could knock the wo and escape out the back Eyeing the woht, and the firmness of her thick arms, she hoped that she could

A plain door in the corridor that led to the kitchens opened into a sparsely furnished rooe ly, a short shelf with a few books As soon as the door was shut behind the off the noise of the co woman rounded on Siuan, fists planted on ample hips "Now, then What do you ithme a name; I don’t want to knohether it’s yours or not"

A little of the tension oozed out of Siuan Not the anger, though "You had no right to treatht," Mistress Tharne snapped, "and every necessity If you’d co, as you’re supposed to, I could have hustled you in here and none the wiser Do you think so if I escorted you back here like a longlost friend? I can’t afford to have anyone wondering about me You’re lucky I didn’tor two And you watch your ly "I’ve hters older than you, and when I visit theht and talk proper You co why Nobody out there will even hear you yelp, and if they did, they wouldn’t interfere" With a sharp nod, as if that were settled, she put fists on hips again "Nohat do you want?"

Several tiht Siuan had tried to speak, but the wo she was accustomed to By the tier; both hands held her skirts in a whiteknuckled grip She held on to her teent, she reminded herself firent Besides, she suspected that the wo else still new to her, having to be wary of soer

"I was given aof those we serve" She hoped Mistress Tharne took the strain in her voice for being cowed; the woht Siuan properly intimidated "They were not where I was told to find the to helpher arms under a massive bosom, Mistress Tharne studied her "Kno to hold your temper when it suits, eh? Good What’s happened in the Tower? And don’t try denying you coe has courier writ large all over it, and you never got that snooty m