She was wondering which shop might sell those platforms, when Nynaeve suddenly turned her black down an alleyway between a long, narrow two-story house and a stone-walled potter’s shop. Egwene exchanged glances with Elayne—the Daughter-Heir shrugged—and then they followed. Egwene did not know where Nynaeve was going or why—and she meant to have words with her about it—but she did not mean to become separated, either.
The alley suddenly let into a small yard behind the house, fenced in by the buildings around it. Nynaeve had already dismounted and tied her reins to a fig tree, where the stallion could not reach the green things sprouting in a vegetable patch that took up half the yard. A line of stones had been laid to make a path to the back door. Nynaeve strode to the door and knocked.
“What is it?” Egwene demanded in spite of herself. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Did you not see the herbs in the front windows?” Nynaeve knocked again.
“Herbs?” Elayne said.
“A Wisdom,” Egwene told her as she got down from her saddle and tied Mist alongside the black. Gaidin is no good name for a horse. Does she think I don’t know who she means it for? “Nynaeve has found herself a Wisdom, or Seeker, or whatever they call her here.”
A woman opened the door just enough to look out suspiciously. At first Egwene thought she was stout, but then the woman opened the door the rest of the way. She was certainly well padded, but the way she moved spoke of muscle underneath. She looked as strong as Mistress Luhhan, and some in Emond’s Field claimed Alsbet Luhhan was almost as strong as her husband. It was not true, but it was not far wrong.
“How can I help you?” the woman said in an accent like the Amyrlin’s. Her gray hair was arranged in thick curls that hung down the sides of her head, and her three aprons were in shades of green, each slightly darker than the one below, but even the topmost pale. “Which one of you needs me?”
“I do,” Nynaeve said. “I need something for a queasy stomach. And perhaps one of my companions does, too. That is, if we’ve come to the right place?”
“You’re not Tairen,” the woman said. “I should have known that by your clothes, before you spoke. I’m called Mother Guenna. I am called a Wise Woman, too, but I’m old enough not to trust that to caulk a seam. You come, and I will give you something for your stomach.”
It was a neat kitchen, though not large, with copper pots hanging on the wall, and dried herbs and sausages from the ceiling. Several tall cupboards of pale wood had doors carved with some sort of tall grass. The table had been scrubbed almost white, and the backs of the chairs were carved with flowers. A pot of fishy-smelling soup was simmering atop the stone stove, and a kettle with a spout, just beginning to steam. There was no fire on the stone hearth, for which Egwene was more than grateful; the stove added enough to the heat, though Mother Guenna seemed not to notice it at all. Dishes lined the mantel, and more were stacked neatly on shelves to either side. The floor looked as if it had just been swept.
Mother Guenna closed the door after them, and as she was crossing the kitchen to her cupboards, Nynaeve said, “Which tea will you give me? Chainleaf? Or bluewort?”
“I would if I had any of either.” Mother Guenna rooted in the shelves a moment and came out with a stone jar. “Since I’ve had no time to glean of late, I will give you a brew of marshwhite leaves.”
“I am not familiar with that,” Nynaeve said slowly.
“It works as well as chainleaf, but it has a bite to the taste some don’t care for.” The big woman sprinkled dried and broken leaves into a blue teapot and carried it over to the fireplace to add hot water. “Do you follow the craft, then? Sit.” She gestured to the table with a hand holding two blue-glazed cups she had taken from the mantel. “Sit, and we’ll talk. Which one of you has the other stomach?”
“I am fine,” Egwene said casually as she took a chair. “Are you queasy, Caryla?” The Daughter-Heir shook her head with perhaps a touch of exasperation.
“No matter.” The gray-haired woman poured out a cup of dark liquid for Nynaeve, then sat across the table from her. “I made enough for two, but marshwhite tea keeps longer than salted fish. It works better the longer it sits, too, but it also grows more bitter. Makes a race between how much you need your stomach settled and what your tongue can stand. Drink, girl.” After a moment, she filled the second cup and took a sip. “You see? It will not hurt you.”
Nynaeve raised her own cup, making a small sound of displeasure at the first taste. When she lowered the cup again, though, her face was smooth. “It is just a little bitter perhaps. Tell me, Mother Guenna, will we have to put up with this rain and mud much longer?”
The older woman frowned, parceling displeasure among the three of them before she settled on Nynaeve. “I am not a Sea Folk Windfinder, girl,” she said quietly. “If I could tell the weather, I’d sooner stick live silverpike down my dress than admit it. The Defenders take that sort of thing for next to Aes Sedai work. Now, do you follow the craft or not? You look as if you have been traveling. What is good for fatigue?” she barked suddenly.
“Flatwort tea,” Nynaeve said calmly, “or andilay root. Since you ask questions, what would you do to ease birthing?”
Mother Guenna snorted. “Apply warm towels, child, and perhaps give her a little whitefennel if it was an especially hard birth. A woman needs no more than that, and a soothing hand. Can’t you think of a question any country farmwife could not answer? What do you give for pains in the heart? The killing kind.”
“Powdered gheandin blossom on the tongue,” Nynaeve said crisply. “If a woman has biting pains in her belly and spits up blood, what do you do?”
They settled down as if testing each other, tossing questions and answers back and forth faster and faster. Sometimes the questioning lagged a moment when one spoke of a plant the other knew only by another name, but they picked up speed again, arguing the merits of tinctures against teas, salves against poultices, and when one was better than another. Slowly, all the quick questions began shifting toward the herbs and roots one knew that the other did not, digging for knowledge. Egwene began to grow irritable listening.
“After you give him the boneknit,” Mother Guenna was saying, “you wrap the broken limb in toweling soaked in water where you’ve boiled blue goatflowers—only the blue, mind!”—Nynaeve nodded impatiently—“and as hot as he can stand it. One part blue goatflowers to ten of water, no weaker. Replace the towels as soon as they stop steaming, and keep it up all day. The bone will knit twice as fast as with boneknit alone, and twice as strong.”
“I will remember that,” Nynaeve said. “You mentioned using sheepstongue root for eye pain. I’ve never heard—”
Egwene could stand it no longer. “Maryim
,” she broke in, “do you really believe you’ll ever need to know these things again? You are not a Wisdom any longer, or have you forgotten?”
“I have not forgotten anything,” Nynaeve said sharply. “I remember a time when you were as eager to learn new things as I am.”
“Mother Guenna,” Elayne said blandly, “what do you do for two women who cannot stop arguing?”
The gray-haired woman pursed her lips and frowned at the table. “Usually, men or women, I tell them to stay away from each other. That is the best thing, and the easiest.”