“Aren't you going to set wards?” Nynaeve asked Moiraine. “Surely there must be worse than rats in this. Even if I haven't seen anything, I can still feel.”
The Aes Sedai rubbed her fingers against her palms distastefully. “You feel the taint, the corruption of the Power that made the Ways. I will not use the One Power in the Ways unless I must. The taint is so strong that Whatever I tried to do would surely be corrupted.”
That made everyone as silent as Loial. Lan settled down to his meal methodically, as if he were stoking a fire, the food less important than fueling his body. Moiraine ate well, too, and as tidily as if they were not squatting on bare stone quite literally in the middle of nowhere, but Rand only picked at his food. The tiny flame of the oil stove gave just enough heat to boil water, but he crouched toward it as if he could soak up warmth. His shoulders brushed Mat and Perrin. They all made a tight circle around the stove. Mat held his bread and meat and cheese forgotten in his hands, and Perrin set his tin plate down after only a few bites. The mood became more and more glum, and everyone looked down, avoiding the dark around them.
Moiraine studied them as she ate. Finally she put her plate aside and patted her lips with a napkin. “I can tell you one cheerful thing. I do not think Thom Merrilin is dead.”
Rand looked at her sharply. “But… the Fade.…”
“Mat told me what happened in Whitebridge,” the Aes Sedai said. “People there mentioned a gleeman, but they said nothing of him dying. They would have, I think, if a gleeman had been killed. Whitebridge is not so big as for a gleeman to be a small thing. And Thom is a part of the Pattern that weaves itself around you three. Too important a part, I believe, to be cut off yet.”
Too important? Rand thought. How could Moiraine know…? “Min? She saw something about Thom?”
“She saw a great deal,” Moiraine said wryly. “About all of you. I wish I could understand half of what she saw, but even she does not. Old barriers fail. But whether what Min does is old or new, she sees true. Your fates are bound together. Thom Merrilin's, too.”
Nynaeve gave a dismissive sniff and poured herself another cup of tea.
“I don't see how she saw anything about any of us,” Mat said with a grin. “As I remember it, she spent most of her time looking at Rand.”
Egwene raised an eyebrow. “Oh? You didn't tell me that, Moiraine Sedai.”
Rand glanced at her. She was not looking at him, but her tone had been too carefully neutral. “I talked to her once,” he said. “She dresses like a boy, and her hair is as short as mine.”
“You talked to her. Once.” Egwene nodded slowly. Still not looking at him, she raised her cup to her lips.
“Min was just somebody who worked at the inn in Baerlon,” Perrin said. “Not like Aram.”
Egwene choked on her tea. “Too hot,” she muttered.
“Who's Aram??
?? Rand asked. Perrin smiled, much like Mat's smile in the old days when he was up to mischief, and hid behind his cup.
“One of the Traveling People,” Egwene said casually, but red spots bloomed in her cheeks.
“One of the Traveling People,” Perrin said blandly. “He dances. Like a bird. Wasn't that what you said, Egwene? It was like flying with a bird?”
Egwene set her cup down deliberately. “I don't know if anyone else is tired, but I'm going to sleep.”
As she rolled herself up in her blankets, Perrin reached over to nudge Rand in the ribs and winked. Rand found himself grinning back. Burn me, if I didn't come out best for a change. I wish I knew as much about women as Perrin.
“Maybe, Rand,” Mat said slyly, “you ought to tell Egwene about Farmer Grinwell's daughter, Else.” Egwene lifted her head to stare first at Mat, then at him.
He hastily got up to fetch his own blankets. “Sleep sounds good to me right now.”
All the Emond's Field people began seeking their blankets then, and Loial, too. Moiraine sat sipping her tea. And Lan. The Warder did not look as if he ever intended to sleep, or needed to.
Even rolled up for sleep, no one wanted to get very far from the others. They made a small circle of blanket-covered mounds right around the stove, almost touching one another.
“Rand,” Mat whispered, “was there anything between you and Min? I barely got a look at her. She was pretty, but she must be nearly as old as Nynaeve.”
“What about this Else?” Perrin added from the other side of him. “She pretty?”
“Blood and ashes,” he mumbled, “can't I even talk to a girl? You two are as bad as Egwene.”
“As the Wisdom would say,” Mat chided mockingly, “watch your tongue. Well, if you won't talk about it, I'm going to get some sleep.”
“Good,” Rand grumbled. “That's the first decent thing you've said.”