Rand nodded slowly. It had seemed just a way to impress people with his power, that Aes Sedai gave him fealty. Fear that they might manipulate him to their own ends had blinded him to anything else. He did not like admitting that. He had been a fool.

A man who trusts everyone is a fool, Lews Therin said, and a man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools, if we live long enough. He almost sounded sane.

"Go back to Cairhien," he said. "Tell Rafela and Merana I want them to approach the rebels in Haddon Mirk. Tell them to take Bera and Kiruna, too." Those were the four besides Alanna whom Min said he could trust. What had she said about the five others Cadsuane had brought with her? That each would serve him in her fashion. That was not strong enough, not yet. "I want Darlin Sisnera as my Steward and the laws I made left in place. They can negotiate away anything else as long as they end the rebellion. After that. . . . What's the matter?"

Alanna's face had fallen, and she had sagged back in her chair. "It's just that I've come all this way, and you are sending me right off again. I suppose it is for the best, with that girl here," she sighed. "You have no idea what I went through in Cairhien, masking the bond just enough to keep what the two of you were doing from keeping me awake all night. That is much harder than simply masking it completely, but I dislike losing touch with my Warders completely. Only, going back to Cairhien will be almost as bad."

Rand cleared his throat. "That's what I want you to do." Women, he had learned, talked about some things much more openly than men, but it was still a shock when they did. He hoped Elayne and Aviendha masked the bond when he was making love with Min. When the two of them were together in bed, no one else existed except her, the same as it had been with Elayne. He certainly did not want to talk about it with Alanna. "I may be done here by the time you finish in Cairhien. If I haven't. ... If I haven't, you can return here. But you'll have to stay away from me until I say otherwise." Even with that restriction, the joy billowed up in her afresh.

"You aren't going to tell me who bonded you, are you?" He shook his head, and she sighed. "I had better go." Rising, she took up her cloak and draped it over her arm. "Cadsuane is impatient at best. Sorilea admonished her to look after us like a mother hen, and she does. After her fashion." At the door, she paused for one last question. "Why are you here, Rand? Cadsuane may not care, but I do. I'll keep it secret, if you wish. I have never been able to stay more than a few days in a stedding. Why would you be willing to stay here, where you can't even feel the Source?"

"Maybe it isn't that bad for me," he lied. He could tell her, he realized. He did trust her to keep it secret. But she did see him as her Warder, and she was a Green. No explanation could make her let him face it alone, but in Far Madding, she was no better able to defend herself than Min, maybe less. "Go on, Alanna. I've wasted enough time."

Once she was gone, he shifted himself to put his back against the wall again and sat fingering the flute. He thought instead of playing, though. Min said he needed Cadsuane, but Cadsuane was not interested in him except as a curiosity. A bad-mannered curiosity. Somehow, he had to make her interested. How in the Light was he going to do that?

With some difficulty Verin squeezed herself out of the sedan chair in the courtyard of Aleis' palace. She was simply not constructed to fit the things, but they were the fastest way to get about in Far Madding. Coaches always bogged down in the crowds sooner or later, and they could not go some places she wanted to. The damp winds off the lake were turning colder as evening deepened into twilight, but she let the wind whip her cloak about while she dug two silver pennies from her purse and gave them to the bearers. She was not supposed to, of course, since they were Aleis' boys, but Eadwina would not know that. They should not have accepted, but the silver vanished into their coats in a twinkling, and the younger of the pair, a handsome fellow in his middle years, even made her a nourishing bow before they picked up the chair and trotted off toward the stable, a low structure set in a corner against the front wall. Verin sighed. A boy in his middle years. It had not taken her long back in Far Madding to begin thinking as if she had never left. She had to be careful about that. It could be dangerous, not least if Aleis or the others discovered her deception. She suspected the warrants for Verin Mathwin's exile had never been suspended. Far Madding kept quiet when an Aes Sedai fell afoul of the law, but the Counsels had no reason to fear Aes Sedai, and for its own reasons, the Tower in turn kept quiet on those rare occasions when a sister found herself strung up for a judicial flogging. She had no intention of being the latest reason for the Tower to keep silence.

Aleis' palace was not a patch on the Sun Palace, of course, or the Royal Palace in Andor, or any of the palaces kings and queens ruled from. It was her own property, not attached to her position as First Counsel. Others, larger and smaller, marched away on either side, each surrounded by a high wall except on the end where the Heights, the only point approaching a hill on the entire island, fell away to the water in a sheer bluff. Still, it was not small, either. The Barsalla women had been dealing in trade and politics since the city was still called Fel Moreina. Tall-columned walks surrounded the Barsalla palace on both levels, and the white marble cube covered most of the walled grounds.

She found Cadsuane in a sitting room that would have offered a good view of the lake if the curtains had not been drawn to keep in the warmth of the blaze in the wide marble fireplace. Cadsuane sat, with her sewing basket on a small inlaid table beside her chair, calmly working with needle and embroidery hoop. She was not alone. Verin folded her cloak over the back of a padded chair and took another to wait.

Elza barely glanced at her. The usually pleasant-faced Green stood on the carpet in front of Cadsuane looking quite fierce, her face red and her eyes glaring. Elza was always very conscious of where she stood with respect to other sisters, perhaps too much so. For her to ignore Verin, much less confront Cadsuane, she must have been in a fine swivet. "How could you let her go?" she demanded of Cadsuane. "How are we to find him without her?" Ah, so that was it.

Cadsuane's head remained bent over her embroidery hoop, and her needle continued to make tiny stitches. "You can wait until she returns," she said calmly.

Elza's hands doubled into fists at her side. "How can you be so detached?" she demanded. "He is the Dragon Reborn! This place could be a death trap for him! You have to—!" Her teeth snapped shut as Cadsuane held up a finger. That was all Cadsuane did, but from her it was enough.

"I've put up with your tirade long enough, Elza. You may go. Now!"

Elza hesitated, but she really had no choice. Her face was still red as she bobbed a curtsy with her dark green skirts clutched in her fists, but if she stalked from the sitting room, she still left without further delay.

Cadsuane set the embroidery hoop on her lap and leaned back. "Will you make me some tea, Verin?"

In spite of herself, Verin gave a small start. The other sister had not looked in her direction once. "Of course, Cadsuane." A heavily worked silver teapot sat on a four-legged stand on one of the side tables, and was still hot, luckily. "Was it wise to let Alanna go?" she asked.

"I could hardly stop her without letting the boy know more than he should, now could I?" Cadsuane replied dryly.

Taking her time, Verin tipped the teapot to pour into a thin blue porcelain cup. Not Sea Folk porcelain, but very fine. "Do you have any idea why he came to Far Madding, of all places? I nearly swallowed my tongue when it came to me that the reason he had stopped leaping about might be because he was here. If it's something dangerous, perhaps we should try to stop him."