The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,75

Fal Dara tried to speak to her; they knew Rand had come with her and that they were both from the Two Rivers, and they wanted to know why the Amyrlin had summoned him. The Amyrlin Seat! Ice in the pit of her belly, she broke into a run, but before she left the women’s apartments, she had lost him around too many corners and beyond too many people.

“Which way did he go?” she asked Nisura. There was no need to say who. She heard Rand’s name in the conversation of the other women clustered around the arched doors.

“I don’t know, Nynaeve. He came out as fast as if he had Heartsbane himself at his heels. As well he might, coming here with a sword at his belt. The Dark One should be the least of his worries after that. What is the world coming to? And him presented to the Amyrlin in her chambers, no less. Tell me, Nynaeve, is he really a prince in your land?” The other women stopped talking and leaned closer to listen.

Nynaeve was not sure what she answered. Something that made them let her go on. She hurried away from the women’s apartments, head swiveling at every crossing corridor to look for him, fists clenched. Light, what have they done to him? I should have gotten him away from Moiraine somehow, the Light blind her. I’m his Wisdom.

Are you, a small voice taunted. You’ve abandoned Emond’s Field to fend for itself. Can you still call yourself their Wisdom?

I did not abandon them, she told herself fiercely. I brought Mavra Mallen up from Deven Ride to look after matters till I get back. She can deal well enough with the Mayor and the Village Council, and she gets on well with the Women’s Circle.

Mavra will have to get back to her own village. No village can do without its Wisdom for long. Nynaeve cringed inside. She had been gone months from Emond’s Field.

“I am the Wisdom of Emond’s Field!” she said aloud.

A liveried servant carrying a bolt of cloth blinked at her, then bowed low before scurrying off. By his face he was eager to be anywhere else.

Blushing, Nynaeve looked around to see if anyone had noticed. There were only a few men in the hall, engrossed in their own conversations, and some women in black-and-gold going about their business, giving her a bow or curtsy as she passed. She had had that argument with herself a hundred times before, but this was the first time it had come to talking to herself out loud. She muttered under her breath, then pressed her lips firmly together when she realized what she was doing.

She was finally beginning to realize her search was futile when she came on Lan, his back to her, looking down on the outer courtyard through an arrowslit. The noise from the courtyard was all horses and men, neighing and shouting. So intent was Lan that he did not, for once, seem to hear her. She hated the fact that she could never sneak up on him, however softly she stepped. She had been accounted good at woodscraft back in Emond’s Field, though it was not a skill in which many women took any interest.

She stopped in her tracks, pressing her hands to her stomach to quiet a flutter. I ought to dose myself with rannel and sheepstongue root, she thought sourly. It was the mixture she gave anyone who moped about and claimed they were sick, or behaved like a goose. Rannel and sheepstongue root would perk you up a little, and did no harm, but mainly it tasted horrible, and the taste lasted all day. It was a perfect cure for acting the fool.

Safe from his eyes, she studied the length of him, leaning against the stone and fingering his chin as he studied what was going on below. He’s too tall, for one thing, and old enough to be my father, for another. A man with a face like that would have to be cruel. No, he’s not that. Never that. And he was a king. His land was destroyed while he was a child, and he would not claim a crown, but he was a king, for that. What would a king want with a village woman? He’s a Warder, too. Bonded to Moiraine. She has his loyalty to death, and ties closer than any lover, and she has him. She has everything I want, the Light burn her!

He