Halfway to sitting down again, Loial froze with his knees bent at Elder Haman’s name. Eyes closed, he lowered himself slowly the rest of the way. “Elder Haman,” he muttered, rubbing his face with a thick-fingered hand. “Elder Haman and my mother.” He peered at Perrin. He peered at Rand. In a voice that was low and much too casual, he asked, “Was anyone else with them?” Well, it was low for an Ogier; a giant bumblebee buzzing in a huge waterjar.
“A young Ogier woman named Erith,” Rand told him. “You — ” That was as far as he got.
With a moan Loial leaped to his feet again. Servants’ heads appeared at doorways and windows to see what that vast noise was, and vanished again when they saw Rand. Loial began pacing back and forth, ears and eyebrows both drooping so much that he seemed to be melting. “A wife,” he mumbled. “It cannot mean anything else, not with Mother and Elder Haman. A wife. I’m too young to get married!” Rand hid a smile behind his hand; Loial might be young for an Ogier, but in his case that meant more than ninety. “She’ll drag me back to Stedding Shangtai. I know she won’t let me travel with you, and I still don’t have near enough notes for my book. Oh, you can smile, Perrin. Faile does whatever you say.” Perrin choked on his pipe, wheezing until Rand slapped his back. “It is different with us,” Loial went on. “It is considered very rude not to do as your wife says. Very rude. I know she’ll make me settle down to something solid and respectable, like treesinging or . . . ” Abruptly he frowned and stopped pacing. “Did you say Erith?” Rand nodded; Perrin seemed to be getting his breath back, but he was glaring at Loial in a sort of malevolent amusement. “Erith, daughter of Iva daughter of Alar?” Rand nodded again, and Loial sank back to his place on the fountain coping. “But I know her. You remember her, Rand. We met her at Stedding Tsofu.”
’That is what I was trying to tell you,” Rand said patiently. And with no little amusement himself. “She was the one who said you’re handsome. And gave you a flower, as I recall.”
“She might have said,” Loial muttered defensively. “She might hav
e done; I cannot recall.” But one hand strayed toward a coat pocket full of books, where Rand would have wagered anything that flower was carefully pressed. The Ogier cleared his throat, a deep rumble. “Erith is very beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful. And intelligent. She listened very attentively when I explained Serden’s theory — that is Serden, son of Kolom son of Radlin; he wrote about six hundred years ago — when I explained his theory of how the Ways . . . ” He trailed off as if he had just noticed their grins. “Well, she did listen. Attentively. She was very interested.”
“I’m sure she was,” Rand said noncommittally. Mention of the Ways made him think. Most of the Waygates were near stedding, and if Loial’s mother and Elder Haman were to be believed, the stedding were what Loial needed. Of course, he could not take Loial any closer than the edge of one; you could not channel into a stedding any more than you could channel inside one. “Listen, Loial. I want to put guards on all the Waygates, and I need somebody who can not only find them, but can talk to the Elders as well and get their permission.”
“Light,” Perrin growled disgustedly. He tapped out his pipe and ground the dottle into the courtyard paving stone under his boot heel. “Light! You send Mat off to face down Aes Sedai, you want to dump me into the middle of a war with Sammael and a few hundred Two Rivers men with me, some of them you know, and now you want to send Loial off when he’s only just arrived. Burn you, Rand, look at him! He needs rest. Is there anybody you won’t use? Maybe you want Faile to go hunt Moghedien or Semirhage. Light!”
Anger welled up in Rand, a tempest that made him shake. Those yellow eyes stared at him grimly, but he stared back like thunder. “I will use anybody I must. You said it yourself; I am who I am. And I’m using myself up, Perrin, because I have to. Just like I’ll use anybody I have to. We don’t have a choice anymore. Not me, not you, not anybody!”
“Rand, Perrin,” Loial murmured worriedly. “Be still, be calm. Don’t fight. Not you.” A hand the size of a ham patted each of them awkwardly on the shoulder. “You should both rest in a stedding. The stedding are very peaceful, very soothing.”
Rand stared at Perrin staring at him. Anger still flashed in him, lightning flashes in a storm that would not quite die. Lews Therin’s mutters rumbled fitfully, far off. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, meaning it for both.
Perrin made an offhand gesture, maybe meaning there was nothing to apologize for, maybe accepting the apology, but he did not offer one himself. Instead his head swung toward the columns again, toward the door Loial had come through. Once more moments passed before Rand heard running footsteps.
Min dashed into the courtyard at a dead run. Ignoring Loial and Perrin, she seized Rand’s arms. “They’re coming,” she panted. “They are on their way right now.”
“Easy, Min,” Rand said. “Calm yourself. I was beginning to think they were all taking to their beds like — what did you say her name is? Demira?” In truth, he felt considerable relief, though Lews Therin’s grumbling and wheezing laughter grew louder with the mention of Aes Sedai. For three days Merana had appeared with two sisters each afternoon as regular as the finest clockmaker’s art, but the visits had suddenly stopped five days ago without a word of explanation. Min had no idea why. He had been worried that they had taken offense enough at his rules to leave.
But Min stared up at him with a face of anguish. She was trembling, he realized. “Listen to me! It is seven of them, not three, and they didn’t send me to ask permission or let you know or anything. I slipped out ahead of them, and galloped Wildrose the whole way. They mean to be inside the Palace before you know they’re here. I heard Merana talking to Demira when they didn’t know I was there. They mean to reach the Grand Hall ahead of you, so you have to come to them.”
“Is this your viewing, do you think?” he asked calmly. Women who could channel would hurt him badly, she had said. Seven! Lews Therin whispered hoarsely. No! No! No! Rand ignored him; there was little else he could do.
“I don’t know,” Min said in an agonized voice. Rand was startled to realize the shine in her dark eyes came from unshed tears. “Do you think I wouldn’t tell you if I knew? All I know is they are coming, and — ”
“And there is nothing to be afraid of,” he broke in firmly. The Aes Sedai must really have frightened her for Min to be near crying. Seven, Lews Therin groaned. I cannot handle seven, not at once. Not seven. Rand thought of the fat-little-man angreal, and the voice faded to murmurs; it still sounded uneasy, though. At least Alanna was not one of them; Rand could feel her at some distance, not moving, certainly not toward him. He was not sure he dared come face-to-face with her again. “There’s no time to waste, either. Jalani?”
The plump-cheeked young Maiden popped out from behind a column so suddenly that Loial’s ears shot straight up. Min seemed to see the Ogier for the first time, and Perrin; she gave a start too.
“Jalani,” Rand said, “tell Nandera I am going to the Grand Hall, where I expect Aes Sedai shortly.”
She tried to maintain a smooth face, but the beginnings of a self-satisfied grin made her cheeks seem even plumper. “Beralna has already gone to inform Nandera, Car’a’carn.” Loial’s ears flickered in surprise at the title.
“Then would you tell Sulin to meet me at the dressing rooms behind the Grand Hall with my coat? And the Dragon Scepter.”
Jalani’s grin widened openly. “Sulin has already gone running in her wetlander dress as fast as a gray-nosed hare that sat on segade spines.”
“In that case,” Rand said, “you can bring my horse to the Grand Hall.” The young Maiden’s jaw dropped, especially when Perrin and Loial doubled over laughing.
Min’s fist in Rand’s shortribs made him grunt. “This is no joking matter, you thick-skulled sheepfarmer! Merana and the rest were wrapping themselves in their shawls as though putting on armor. Now, listen to me. I will stand over to one side, behind the columns, so you can see and they cannot, and if I see anything, I’ll make some sort of signal.”
“You will stay here with Loial and Perrin,” he told her. “I don’t know what kind of signal you could make that I’d understand, and if they catch even a glimpse of you, they will know you warned me.” She gave him one of those fists-on-hips, glaring-up-through-her-eyelashes, sullen stubborn stares. “Min?”
To his surprise, she sighed and said, “Yes, Rand,” just as meek as milkwater. That sort of thing from her made him as suspicious as it would have from Elayne or Aviendha, but he had no time for digging if he was to be in the Grand Hall before Merana. Nodding, he hoped he did not look as uncertain as he felt.
Wondering whether he should have asked Perrin and Loial to keep her there — she would have loved that — he trotted all the way to the dressing rooms behind the Grand Hall with Jalani at his heels muttering about whether the horse had been a joke. Sulin was already there with a gold-embroidered red coat and the Dragon Scepter; the spearhead got an approving grunt, though no doubt she would have found it more acceptable without the green-and-white tassel and with a proper length of shaft and no carvings. Rand felt to be sure the angreal was in the pocket. It was, and he breathed more easily, though Lews Therin still seemed to be panting anxiously.
When Rand hurried through one of the lion-paneled dressing rooms into the Grand Hall, he discovered that everyone had been as quick as Sulin. Bael towered at one side of the throne dais with his arms folded, while Melaine stood on the other, calmly adjusting her dark shawl. What must have been a hundred or more Maidens lined the way from the doors on one knee, under Nandera’s watchful gaze, complete with spears and bucklers, horn bows cased on their backs and full quivers at their hips. Only their eyes showed above black veils. Jalani ran to join one of those lines. Behind them more Aiel crowded among the thick columns, men and Maidens, though none appeared armed beyond their heavy-bladed knives. There were a number of grim faces, though. They could not be enjoying the thought of a confrontation with Aes Sedai, and not for fear of the Power. However Melaine and the other Wise Ones might speak of them now, most Aiel had that ancient failure of the Aiel firmly fixed in their heads.
Bashere was not there, of course — he and his wife were out at one of Bashere’s training camps — and neither were any of the Andoran nobles who flocked around the Palace. Rand was sure that Naean and Elenia and Lir and that entire lot would have learned of this gathering as soon as it began. They never missed an audience from the throne unless he sent them away. Their absence could only mean that on their way to the Grand Hall, they had learned the reason too, and that meant the Aes Sedai were already in the Palace.