Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven

"If they were following, they'd have caught up by now." That was surely true, considering the usual lumbering speed of the wagon. "With any luck, they still do not know who we are."

Elayne nodded, grim but her old self again, and began rinsing her face. She could be almost as determined as a Two Rivers woman. "Liandrin and most of her cronies surely escaped from Tanchico. Maybe all of them. And we still don't know who is giving orders for the Black Ajah in the Tower. As Rand would say, we still have it to do, Nynaeve."

Despite herself, Nynaeve winced. True, they had a list of eleven names, but once they were back in the Tower, almost any Aes Sedai they spoke to might be Black Ajah. Or any women they encountered on the road. For that matter, anyone they met might be a Darkfriend, but that was hardly the same thing, not by a wide degree.

"More than the Black Ajah," Elayne continued, "I worry about Mo—" Nynaeve put a quick hand on her arm and nodded slightly toward Juilin. Elayne coughed and went on as though that was what had stopped her. "About mother. She has no reason to like you, Nynaeve. Quite the opposite."

"She is far away from here." Nynaeve was glad her voice was steady. They were not talking about Elayne's mother, but the Forsaken she had defeated. Part of her hoped fervently that Moghedien was far away. Very far.

"But if she was not?"

"She is," Nynaeve said firmly, but she still hitched her shoulders uncomfortably. A part of her remembered humiliations suffered at Moghedien's hands and desired nothing more than to face the woman again, to defeat her again, for good this time. Only, what if Moghedien took her by surprise, came at her when she was not angry enough to channel? The same was true of any of the Forsaken, of course, or of any Black sister for that matter, but after her rout in Tanchico, Moghedien had reason to hate her personally. Not pleasant at all to think that one of the Forsaken knew your name and likely wanted your head. That is just rank cowardice, she told herself sharply. You are not a coward, and you will not be! That did not stop the itch between her shoulder blades every time Moghedien came to mind, as if the woman was staring at her back.

"I suppose looking over my shoulder for bandits has made me nervous," Elayne said casually, patting her face with the towel. "Why, sometimes when I dream of late, I have the feeling that someone is watching me."

Nynaeve gave a start at what seemed an echo of her own thoughts, but then she realized there had been a slight emphasis on "dream." Not any dreams, but Tel'aran'rhiod. Another thing the men did not know about. She had had the same sensation, but then there was often a feel of unseen eyes in the World of Dreams. It could be uncomfortable, but they had discussed the sensation before.

She made her voice light. "Well, your mother is not in our dreams, Elayne, or she would probably snatch us both up by an ear." Moghedien would probably torture them until they begged for death. Or arrange a circle of thirteen Black sisters and thirteen Myrddraal; they could turn you to the Shadow against your will that way, bind you to the Dark One. Maybe Moghedien could even do it by herself… Don't be ridiculous, woman! If she could have, she would have. You beat her, remember?

"I do hope not," the other woman replied soberly.

"Do you mean to give me a chance to wash?" Nynaeve asked irritably. Putting the girl at ease was all very well, but she could do with less talk of Moghedien. The Forsaken had to be somewhere distant; she would not have let them come this far peacefully if she knew where they were. Light send that that's true!

Elayne emptied and refilled the bucket herself. She was a very nice girl usually, when she remembered that she was not in the Royal Palace in Caemlyn. And when she was not acting the fool. That, Nynaeve would take care of when Thom came back.

Once Nynaeve had enjoyed a slow, cooling wash of face and hands, she set about making the camp ready, and put Juilin to breaking dead branches from the trees for a fire. By the time Thom returned with two wicker hampers slung across the gelding's back, her and Elayne's blankets were laid out under the wagon and the two men's under the hanging branches of one of the twenty-foot willows, a good supply of firewood had been stacked, the teakettle stood cooling beside the ashes of a fire in a circle cleared of leaves, and the thick pottery cups had been washed. Juilin was grumbling to himself as he caught water in the tiny stream to refill the water barrels. From the snatches Nynaeve heard, she was glad he kept most of it to an inaudible mutter. From her perch on one of the wagon shafts, Elayne hardly tried to hide her interested attempt to make out what he was saying. Both she and Nynaeve had put on clean dresses on the other side of the wagon, switching colors as it happened.

After fastening hobbles between the gelding's forelegs, Thom lifted the heavy hampers down easily and began unpacking them. "Mardecin's not as prosperous as it looks from a distance." He set a net bag of small apples on the ground, and another of some dark green leafy vegetable. "With no trade into Tarabon, the town is withering." The rest seemed to be all sacks of dried beans and turnips, plus pepper-cured beef and salt-cured hams. And a gray pottery bottle sealed with wax that Nynaeve was sure held brandy; both men had complained of not having a bit of something with their pipes of an evening. "You can hardly take six steps without seeing a Whitecloak or two. The garrison is about fifty men or so, with barracks over the hill from the town on the far side of the bridge. It was considerably larger, but it seems Pedron Niall is pulling Whitecloaks from everywhere into Amador." Knuckling his long mustaches, he looked thoughtful for a moment. "I cannot see what he is up to." Thom was not a man who liked that; usually a few hours in a place was enough for him to begin ferreting out the currents between noble and merchant Houses, the alliances and schemes and counter-plots that made up the so-called Game of Houses. "The rumors are all about Niall trying to stop a war between Illian and Altara, or maybe Illian and Murandy. No reason there for him to be gathering in soldiers. I'll tell you one thing, though. Whatever that lieutenant said, it is a King's Tax that buys the food being sent into Tarabon, and the people are not happy with it. Not to feed Taraboners."

"King Ailron and the Lord Captain Commander are not our concern," Nynaeve said, studying what he had brought. Three salted hams! "We will pass through Amadicia as quickly and unobtrusively as we can. Perhaps Elayne and I will have more luck finding vegetables than you did. Would you care for a walk, Elayne?"

Elayne got up immediately, smoothing her gray skirts and lifting her hat from the wagon. "That would be very nice, after that wagon seat. It might be different if Thom and Juilin let me take a turn riding Skulker more often." For once she did not give the old gleeman a coquettish look, which was something.

Thom and Juilin exchanged glances, and the Tairen thief-catcher pulled a coin from his coat pocket, but Nynaeve gave him no chance to flip it. "We will be quite all right by ourselves. We could hardly expect trouble of any sort with so many Whitecloaks to keep order." Planting her hat on her head, she tied the scarf under her chin and gave them a firm look. "Besides, all those things Thom bought need to be put away." Both men nodded; slowly, reluctantly, but they did it. Sometimes they took their roles as supposed protectors entirely too seriously.

She and Elayne had reached the empty road and were walking down the verge, on the thin grass so as not to kick up dust, before she had it settled in her mind how to bring up what she wanted to say. Before she could speak, though, Elayne said, "You obviously want to talk to me alone, Nynaeve. Is it about Moghedien?"