"Very much as I said, Renaile," Merilille said, icily condescending. She had certainly noticed those smug glances. That tone did not change as she shifted her attention to him. "Do not grow petulant, Master Cauthon. We are willing to listen to reason. If you have any."

Mat gathered patience; he hoped he could find enough. Maybe if he used both hands and both feet. "Gholamwere created in the middle of the War of the Power, during the Age of Legends," he began from the beginning. Almost from the beginning of what Birgitte had told him. He turned, facing each group of women as he spoke. Burn him if he was going to let one bunch think they were more important. Or that he was bloody pleading with them. Especially since he was. "They were made to assassinate Aes Sedai. No other reason. To kill people who could channel. The One Power won’t help you; the Power won’t touch a gholam. In fact, they can sense the ability to channel, if they’re within, say, fifty paces of you. They can feel the power in you, too. You won’t know the gholamuntil it’s too late. They look just like anybody else. On the outside. Inside... Gholamhave no bones; they can squeeze themselves under a door. And they’re strong enough to rip a door off steel hinges with one hand." Or rip out a throat. Light, he should have let Nalesean stay in bed.

Suppressing a shiver, he pressed on. The women, all of them, watched him, almost not appearing to blink. He would not let them see him shiver. "There were only six gholammade — three male and three female; at least, that’s what they look like. Apparently even the Forsaken were a little uneasy about them. Or maybe they just decided six was enough. Either way, we know one is in Ebou Dar, probably kept alive since the Breaking in a stasis-box. We don’t know if any others were put into that box, but one is more than enough. Whoever sent him — and it had to be one of the Forsaken — knew to follow us across the river. He had to have been sent after the Bowl of the Winds, and by what he said to me, to kill Nynaeve or Elayne, maybe both." He spared them a quick look, soothing and sympathetic; nobody could feel easy knowing that thing was after them. In return he received a puzzled frown from Elayne, just the smallest wrinkling of her forehead, and from Nynaeve a slight wave of the hand, an impatient wave, to get on with it.

"... To continue," he said, shooting the pair of them a glare. It was very hard not to sigh, dealing with women. "Whoever sent the gholamhas to know the Bowl is here in the Tarasin Palace, now. If he, or she, sends the gholamhere, some of you are going to die. Maybe a lot of you. I can’t protect all of you at once. Maybe he’ll get the Bowl, too. And that’s on top of Falion Bhoda; small chance she’s alone, even with Ispan a prisoner, so that means we have the Black Ajah to worry about, as well. Just in case the Forsaken and gholamaren’t enough for you." Reanne and the Wise Women drew themselves up even more indignantly than Merilille and her friends at mention of the Black Ajah, and the Aes Sedai, stiffening and gathering skirts, looked ready to stalk out in a huff. Press on; that was all he could do. "Now... Now do you see why you all have to leave the palace and take the Bowl somewhere the gholamdoesn’t know about? Somewhere the Black Ajah doesn’t know? Do you see why it has to be done now?"

Renaile’s sniff would have startled geese in the next room. "You merely repeat yourself, Master Cauthon. Merilille Sedai says she has never heard of this gholam. Elayne Sedai says there was a strange man, a creature, but little else. What is this... stasis–box! You have not explained that. How do you know what you claim to know? Why should we go any further from the water than we are on the word of a man who creates fables from air?"

Mat looked to Nynaeve and Elayne, though with little hope. If they would only open their mouths, this could been have been finished long since, but they gazed back at him, practicing expressionless Aes Sedai masks till their jaws must be creaking. He could not understand their silence. A bare-bones account of events in the Rahad had been all they gave, and he was willing to bet they would not have mentioned the Black Ajah at all had there been any other way to explain showing up in the palace with an Aes Sedai bound and shielded. Ispan was being held in another part of the palace, her presence known only to a handful. Nynaeve had forced some concoction down her throat, a foul-smelling mix of herbs that bulged the woman’s eyes going down and had her giggling and stumbling in short order, and the rest of the Knitting Circle occupied the room with her for guards. Unwilling guards, but very assiduous; Nynaeve had made it extremely clear that should they let Ispan get away, they had best start running before she laid hands on them again.

He very carefully did not look toward Birgitte, standing beside the door with Aviendha. The Aiel woman wore an Ebou Dari dress; not the plain wool she had returned in, but a silver-gray silk riding dress that jarred with her plain-sheathed horn-handled belt knife. Birgitte had been quick to shed her own dress for her usual short coat and wide trousers, these dark blue and dark green. A quiver already hung at her hip. She was the source of everything he knew about gholam— and stasis-boxes — except what his eyes had seen in the Rahad. And he would not have revealed that on a hot grill.

"I read a book once that talked about — " he began, and Renaile cut him off.

"A book," she sneered. "I will not abandon the salt for a book Aes Sedai do not know."

Suddenly it struck Mat that he was the only man present. Lan had gone off at Nynaeve’s command, gone as tamely as Beslan had at his mother’s. Thom and Juilin were packing to leave. Had probably finished packing by now. If there was any use to it; if they ever did leave. The only man, surrounded by a wall of women who apparently intended to let him beat his head against that wall till his brains were scrambled. It made no sense. None. They looked at him, waiting.

Nynaeve, in yellow-slashed lace-trimmed blue, had pulled her braid over her shoulder so it hung down between her breasts, but that heavy gold ring — Lan’s ring, he had learned — was carefully positioned to show anyway. Her face was smooth, and her hands rested in her lap, yet sometimes her fingers twitched. Elayne, in green Ebou Dari silk that made Nynaeve seem covered up despite the smoky lace collar under her chin, gazed back at him with eyes like cool pools of deep blue water. Her hands lay in her lap too, but now and again she would begin to trace the thread-of-gold embroidery that covered her skirts, then immediately stop. Why did they not say something? Were they trying to get back at him? Was it just a case of Mat wants to be in charge so much, let him see how well he can do without us"? He might have believed it of Nynaeve, any time but this anyway, but not of Elayne, not anymore. So why?

Reanne and the Wise Women did not huddle away from him as they did from the Aes Sedai, but their manner toward him had changed. Tamarla gave him a decently respectful nod. Honey-haired Famelle went so far as a friendly smile. Strangely, Reanne blushed, a pale stain. But they did not count as opposition, really. The six women had not said a dozen unprompted words between them since entering this room. Every one would jump if Nynaeve or Elayne snapped her fingers, and keep jumping until told to stop.

He turned to the rest of the Aes Sedai. Faces infinitely calm, infinitely patient. Except... Merilille’s eyes flickered past him toward Nynaeve and Elayne for one instant. Sareitha began slowly smoothing her skirts under his gaze, seemingly unaware of doing so. A dark suspicion bloomed in his mind. Hands moving on skirts. Reanne’s blush. Birgitte’s ready quiver. A murky suspicion. He did not really know of what. Just that he had been going about this the wrong way. He gave Nynaeve a stern look, and Elayne a sterner. Butter would not have melted on their bloody tongues.