The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,167

is to do.

None of the villagers had any suspicion that the two elderly sisters living in this snug house were Aes Sedai. One did not suspect such things in a small place like Tifan’s Well, a farming community deep in the grassy plains of Arafel. The villagers came to the sisters for advice on their problems and cures for their ills, and valued them as women blessed by the Light, but no more. Adeleas and Vandene had gone into voluntary retreat together so long ago that few even in the White Tower remembered they still lived.

With the one equally aged Warder who remained to them, they lived quietly, still intending to write the history of the world since the Breaking, and as much as they could include of before. One day. In the meantime, there was so much information to gather, so many puzzles to solve. Their house was the perfect place for Moiraine to find the information she needed. Except that it was not there.

Movement caught her eye, and she turned. Lan was lounging against the yellow brick fireplace, as imperturbable as a boulder. “Do you remember the first time we met, Lan?”

She was watching for some sign, or she would not have seen the quick twitch of his eyebrow. It was not often she caught him by surprise. This was a subject neither of them ever mentioned; nearly twenty years ago she had told him—with all the stiff pride of one still young enough to be called young, she recalled—that she would never speak of it again and expected the same silence of him.

“I remember,” was all he said.

“And still no apology, I suppose? You threw me into a pond.” She did not smile, though she could feel amusement at it, now. “Every stitch I had was soaked, and in what you Bordermen call new spring. I nearly froze.”

“I recall I built a fire, too, and hung blankets so you could warm yourself in privacy.” He poked at the burning logs and returned the firetool to its hook. Even summer nights were cool in the Borderlands. “I also recall that while I slept that night, you dumped half the pond on me. It would have saved a great deal of shivering on both our parts if you had simply told me you were Aes Sedai rather than demonstrating it. Rather than trying to separate me from my sword. Not a good way to introduce yourself to a Borderman, even for a young woman.”

“I was young, and alone, and you were as large then as you are now, and your fierceness more open. I did not want you to know I was Aes Sedai. It seemed to me at the time you might answer my questions more freely if you did not know.” She fell silent for a moment, thinking of the years since that meeting. It had been good to find a companion to join her in her quest. “In the weeks that followed, did you suspect that I would ask you to bond to me? I decided you were the one in the first day.”

“I never guessed,” he said dryly. “I was too busy wondering if I could escort you to Chachin and keep a whole skin. A different surprise you had for me every night. The ants I recall in particular. I don’t think I had one good night’s sleep that whole ride.”

She permitted herself a small smile, remembering. “I was young,” she repeated. “And does your bond chafe after all these years? You are not a man to wear a leash easily, even so light a one as mine.” It was a stinging comment; she meant it to be so.

“No.” His voice was cool, but he took up the firetool again and gave the blaze a fierce poking it did not need. Sparks cascaded up the chimney. “I chose freely, knowing what it entailed.” The iron rod clattered back onto its hook, and he made a formal bow. “Honor to serve, Moiraine Aes Sedai. It has been and will be so, always.”

Moiraine sniffed. “Your humility, Lan Gaidin, has always been more arrogance than most kings could manage with their armies at their backs. From the first day I met you, it has been so.”

“Why all this talk of days past, Moiraine?”

For the hundredth time—or so it seemed to her—she considered the words to use. “Before we left Tar Valon I made arrangements, should anything happen to me, for your bond to pass to another.” He