The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,179

came out, stopping dead when he saw her. The old thatcher was as gnarled as an oak root, and the look he gave her was just as friendly. “So you’ve come back, have you? Well, you might as well be off again.”

She frowned as he spat at her feet and hurried on past her; Cenn was never a pleasant man, but he was seldom openly rude. Never to her, at least. Never to her face. Following him with her eye, she saw signs of neglect all through the village, thatch that should have been mended, weeds filling yards. The door on Mistress al’Caar’s house hung aslant on a broken hinge.

Shaking her head, Nynaeve pushed into the inn. I’ll have more than one word with Bran about this.

The common room was empty except for a lone woman, her thick, graying braid pulled over her shoulder. She was wiping a table, but from the way she stared at the tabletop, Nynaeve did not think she was aware of what she doing. The room seemed dusty.

“Marin?”

Marin al’Vere jumped, one hand clutching her throat, and stared. She looked years older than Nynaeve remembered. Worn. “Nynaeve? Nynaeve! Oh, it is you. Egwene? Have you brought Egwene back? Say you have.”

“I. . . .” Nynaeve put a hand to her head. Where is Egwene? It seemed she should be able to remember. “No. No, I haven’t brought her back.” The way back will come but once.

Mistress al’Vere sagged into one of the straight-backed chairs. “I was so hoping. Ever since Bran died. . . .”

“Bran is dead?” Nynaeve could not imagine it; that broad, smiling man had always seemed as if he would go on forever. “I should have been here.”

The other woman jumped to her feet and hurried to peer anxiously through a window at the Green and the village. “If Malena knows you’re here, there will be trouble. I just know Cenn went scurrying off to find her. He’s the Mayor, now.”

“Cenn? How did even those wool-headed men choose Cenn?”

“It was Malena. She had the whole Women’s Circle after their husbands for him.” Marin pressed her face almost against the window, trying to look every way at once. “Silly men don’t talk about whose name they’re putting in the box beforehand; I suppose every man who voted for Cenn thought he was the only one whose wife had badgered him into it. Thought one vote would make no difference. Well, they learned better. We all did.”

“Who is this Malena who has the Women’s Circle doing her bidding? I’ve never heard of her.”

“She’s from Watch Hill. She’s the Wis. . . .” Marin turned from the window wringing her hands. “Malena Aylar’s the Wisdom, Nynaeve. When you didn’t come back. . . . Light, I hope she doesn’t find out you’re here.”

Nynaeve shook her head in wonder. “Marin, you’re afraid of her. You are shaking. What kind of woman is she? Why did the Women’s Circle ever choose someone like her?”

Mistress al’Vere gave a bitter laugh. “We must have been mad. Malena came down to see Mavra Mallen the day before Mavra had to go back to Deven Ride, and that night some children took sick, and Malena stayed to look after them, and then the sheep started dying, and Malena took care of that, too. It just seemed natural to choose her, but. . . . She’s a bully, Nynaeve. She browbeats you into doing what she wants. She keeps at you, and keeps at you, until you’re too tired to say no anymore. And worse. She knocked Alsbet Luhhan down.”

A picture flashed in Nynaeve’s head of Alsbet Luhhan and her husband, Haral, the blacksmith. She was nearly as tall as him, and stoutly built, though handsome. “Alsbet’s almost as strong as Haral. I can’t believe. . . .”

“Malena’s not a big woman, but she’s—she’s fierce, Nynaeve. She beat Alsbet all around the Green with a stick, and none of us who saw had the nerve to try to stop it. When they found out, Bran and Haral said she had to go, even if they were interfering in Women’s Circle business. I think some of the Circle might have listened, but Bran and Haral both took sick the same night, and died within a day of each other.” Marin bit her lip and looked around the room as if she thought someone might be hiding there. Her voice lowered. “Malena mixed medicine for them. She said it was her duty even if they