her side of the wagon, switching colors as it happened.
After fastening hobbles between the gelding’s forelegs, Thom lifted the heavy hampers down easily and began unpacking them. “Mardecin’s not as prosperous as it looks from a distance.” He set a net bag of small apples on the ground, and another of some dark green leafy vegetable. “With no trade into Tarabon, the town is withering.” The rest seemed to be all sacks of dried beans and turnips, plus pepper-cured beef and salt-cured hams. And a gray pottery bottle sealed with wax that Nynaeve was sure held brandy; both men had complained of not having a bit of something with their pipes of an evening. “You can hardly take six steps without seeing a Whitecloak or two. The garrison is about fifty men or so, with barracks over the hill from the town on the far side of the bridge. It was considerably larger, but it seems Pedron Niall is pulling Whitecloaks from everywhere into Amador.” Knuckling his long mustaches, he looked thoughtful for a moment. “I cannot see what he is up to.” Thom was not a man who liked that; usually a few hours in a place was enough for him to begin ferreting out the currents between noble and merchant Houses, the alliances and schemes and counterplots that made up the so-called Game of Houses. “The rumors are all about Niall trying to stop a war between Illian and Altara, or maybe Illian and Murandy. No reason there for him to be gathering in soldiers. I’ll tell you one thing, though. Whatever that lieutenant said, it is a King’s Tax that buys the food being sent into Tarabon, and the people are not happy with it. Not to feed Taraboners.”
“King Ailron and the Lord Captain Commander are not our concern,” Nynaeve said, studying what he had brought. Three salted hams! “We will pass through Amadicia as quickly and unobtrusively as we can. Perhaps Elayne and I will have more luck finding vegetables than you did. Would you care for a walk, Elayne?”
Elayne got up immediately, smoothing her gray skirts and lifting her hat from the wagon. “That would be very nice, after that wagon seat. It might be different if Thom and Juilin let me take a turn riding Skulker more often.” For once she did not give the old gleeman a coquettish look, which was something.
Thom and Juilin exchanged glances, and the Tairen thief-catcher pulled a coin from his coat pocket, but Nynaeve gave him no chance to flip it. “We will be quite all right by ourselves. We could hardly expect trouble of any sort with so many Whitecloaks to keep order.” Planting her hat on her head, she tied the scarf under her chin and gave them a firm look. “Besides, all those things Thom bought need to be put away.” Both men nodded; slowly, reluctantly, but they did it. Sometimes they took their roles as supposed protectors entirely too seriously.
She and Elayne had reached the empty road and were walking down the verge, on the thin grass so as not to kick up dust, before she had it settled in her mind how to bring up what she wanted to say. Before she could speak, though, Elayne said, “You obviously want to talk to me alone, Nynaeve. Is it about Moghedien?”
Nynaeve blinked, and looked at the other woman sideways. It was well to remember that Elayne was no fool. She had only been acting like one. Nynaeve resolved to keep a tight hold on her temper; this was going to be difficult enough without letting it dissolve into a shouting match. “Not that, Elayne.” The girl thought they should add Moghedien to their hunt; she could not seem to realize the difference between one of the Forsaken and, say, Liandrin, or Chesmal. “I thought we should discuss how you’ve been behaving toward Thom.”
“I do not know what you mean,” Elayne said, staring straight ahead toward the town, but sudden spots of color in her cheeks gave her the lie.
“Not only is he old enough to be your father twice over, but—”
“He is not my father!” Elayne snapped. “My father was Taringail Damodred, a Prince of Cairhien and First Prince of the Sword of Andor!” Straightening her hat needlessly, she went on in a milder tone, though not by much. “I am sorry, Nynaeve. I did not mean to shout.”
Temper, Nynaeve reminded herself. “I thought you were in love with Rand,” she said, making her voice gentle. It was not easy. “The messages you have me give to Egwene for him certainly say so. I expect you tell her the same.”
The color in the other woman’s face heightened. “I do love him, but . . . He is very far away, Nynaeve. In the Waste, surrounded by a thousand Maidens of the Spear who jump to do his bidding. I cannot see him, or speak to him, or touch him.” She was whispering by the end.
“You can’t think he’ll turn to a Maiden,” Nynaeve said incredulously. “He is a man, but he isn’t as fickle as that, and besides, one of them would put a spear in him if he looked at her crossways, even if he is this Dawn whatever. Anyway, Egwene says Aviendha is keeping an eye on him for you.”
“I know, but . . . I should have made sure that he knew I love him.” Elayne’s voice was determined. And worried. “I should have told him so.”
Nynaeve had hardly looked at a man before Lan, at least not seriously, but she had seen and learned much as Wisdom; from her observations, there was no quicker way to send a man running for his life, unless he said it first.
“I think Min had a viewing,” Elayne went on. “About me, and about Rand. She always used to joke about having to share him, but I think it wasn’t a joke and she could not bring herself to say what it really was.”
“That is ridiculous.” It certainly was. Though in Tear, Aviendha had told her of a vile Aiel custom. . . . You share Lan with Moiraine, a small voice whispered. That isn’t the same thing at all! she told it briskly. “Are you certain Min had one of her visions?”
“Yes. I wasn’t at first, but the more I think on it, the more sure I become. She joked about it too often to mean anything else.”
Well, whatever Min had seen, Rand was no Aiel. Oh, his blood might be Aiel as the Wise Ones claimed, but he had grown up in the Two Rivers, and she would not stand by and let him take up wicked Aiel ways. She doubted very much that Elayne would, either. “Is that why you’ve been—” She would not say throwing yourself at “—teasing Thom?”
Elayne gave her a sidelong glance, the crimson back in her cheeks. “There are a thousand leagues between us, Nynaeve. Do you think Rand is refraining from looking at other women? ‘A man is a man, on a throne or in a pigsty.’ ” She had a stock of homely sayings from her childhood nurse, a clearheaded woman named Lini whom Nynaeve wished she would meet one day.
“Well, I don’t see why you have to flirt just because you think Rand might.” She refrained from bringing up Thom’s age again. Lan is old enough to be your father, that small voice murmured. I love Lan. If I can only reason out how to get him free of Moiraine. . . . That is not the matter at hand! “Thom is a man with secrets, Elayne. Remember that Moiraine sent him with us. Whatever he is, he is no simple country gleeman.”
“He was a great man,” Elayne said softly. “He could have been greater, except for love.”
With that, Nynaeve’s temper snapped. She rounded on the other woman, seizing her by the shoulders. “The man doesn’t know whether to turn you over his knee or . . . or . . . climb a tree!”
“I know.” Elayne gave a frustrated sigh. “But I do not know what else to do.”
Nynaeve ground her teeth in the effort not to shake her until her skull rattled. “If your mother heard of this, she’d send Lini to haul you back to the nursery!”
“I am not a child any longer, Nynaeve.” Elayne’s voice was strained, and now the flush in her cheeks was not embarrassment. “I am as much a woman as my mother is.”
Nynaeve stalked on toward Mardecin, gripping her braid so hard that her knuckles hurt.
After a few strides, Elayne caught up. “Are we really going to buy vegetables?” Her face was composed, her tone light.
“Did you see what Thom brought back?” Nynaeve said tightly.
Elayne shuddered elaborately. “Three hams. And that awful peppered beef! Do men ever eat anything but meat if it isn’t set before them?”