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Birgitte looked around, too, but unfortunately there was no one close enough to ue "I will defend you when you are in danger, but if the danger is only of being turned over someone’s knee because you’ve behaved like a spoiled child, I will have to decide whether it’s better to let you learn a lesson thather you were heir to a throne! Really! If you are going to be Aes Sedai, you had better start practicing how to bend the truth, not break it into shards"

Elayne gaped It was not until she stued to say, "But I a her eyes at the spangled breeches

Elayne could not help herself Nynaeve wielding her tongue like a needle, Cerandin stubborn as two mules, and now this She threw back her head and screamed with frustration

When the sound died, it seemed as if the ani at her Coolly, she ignored the could worm its way under her skin now She was as calm as ice, perfectly in control of herself

"Was that a cry for help," Birgitte said, tilting her head, "or are you hungry? I suppose I could find a wet nurse in --"

Elayne strode aith a snarl that would have done any of the leopards proud

Chapter 48

(Sunburst)

Leavetakings

Once she was back in the wagon, Nynaeve changed into a decent dress, with a few exasperatedto undo one set of buttons and do up another by herself The plain gray wool, fine and well cut yet hardly elaborate, would pass without comment alood to be decently garbed again And so too many clothes It must be the heat

Quickly she knelt in front of the small brick stove with its tin chimney and opened the iron door on their valuables

The twisted stone ring was fast nestled into her belt pouch beside Lan’s heavy signet ring and her gold Great Serpent The siven her went into the leather scrip with the pouches of herbs taken from Ronde Macura in Mardecin and the sh the latter just to remind herself what each contained, frohts went in as well, and three of the six purses, none quite as fat as it had been after paying the ht not be interested in his hundredhis expenses One of the letters authorizing the bearer to do whatever she wished in the naue rumors of soht find a use for it, even with Siuan Sanche’s signature The dark wooden box she left where it sat, next to three of the purses, as well as the rough jute bag containing the a’dam -- that, she certainly had no wish to touch -- and the silver arrow Elayne had found the night of the calahedien

For a hedien It was best to do whatever was necessary to avoid her It was I bested her once! And had been hung up like a sausage in the kitchen the second tiitte She made her own choice The woain I could But if I failed If she failed

She was only trying to avoid the washleather purse stuffed right to the back, and she knew it, yet there was not a hair’s difference for ugliness between the purse and the thought of losing to Moghedien again Drawing a deep breath, she gingerly reached in and took it up by the drawstrings, and knew she had been wrong Evil seeer than ever, as if the Dark One really was trying to break through the cuendillar seal inside Better to dwell all day on defeat by Moghedien; there was a world of difference between thought and reality It had to be i in Tanchico -- but she wished she could let Elayne carry that, too Or leave it there

Stop being foolish, she told herself firmly It holds the Dark One’s prison shut You are just letting your fancies run wild But she still dropped it like a weekdead rat onto the red dress Luca had hadsecurely with more than a little haste The silken parcel went into thewith her, inside her good gray traveling cloak A few inches’ distance was enough to take away the sensation of dark bleakness, but she still wanted to wash her hand If only she did not knoas there She was being foolish Elayne would laugh at her, and Birgitte, as well And rightly

Actually, the clothes she wanted to keep retted every stitch she had to leave behind Even the lowcut blue silk Not that she ever wanted to wear anything like it again -- she did not intend to touch the red dress, certainly, until she handed the intact packet to an Aes Sedai in Salidar -- but she could not help totting up the cost of clothes, horses and wagons abandoned since leaving Tanchico And the coach, and the barrels of dye Even Elayne would have winced if she had ever thought of it That young woman believed there would always be coin when she reached into her purse

She was stillthe second bundle when Elayne returned and silently changed into a blue silk dress Silently, except for mutters when she had to double her arms behind her to fasten the buttons Nynaeve would have helped, had she been asked, but since she was not, she exaht she had heard a screaitte had actually colad to find none A riverboat would be just as confining as this wagon in its oay, and less than pleasant if the toht have helped had they worked off some of their beastly teathered her own belongings, not even when Nynaeve asked, quite a off to as if she had sat on a cockleburr That got only a raised chin and a chilly stare, as though the girl thought she was already on her mother’s throne

Sometimes Elayne was even more silent, in a way that said far , she paused before taking theon lowered considerably, though the purses were only her share Nynaeve was tired of the carping over how she doled out coins; let the woht be no one, though, and the dark