“Ingtar's with them.” Lan sounded as if his thoughts were elsewhere. “Back from his hunting at last. Been gone long enough. I wonder if he had any luck?”
“Aes Sedai,” Rand whispered when he finally could. All those women out there ... Moiraine was Aes Sedai, yes, but he had traveled with her, and if he did not entirely trust her, at least he knew her. Or thought he did. But she was only one. So many Aes Sedai together, and coming like this, was something else again. He cleared his throat; when he spoke, his voice grated. “Why so many, Lan? Why any at all? And with drums and trumpets and a banner to announce them.”
Aes Sedai were respected in Shienar, at least by most people, and the rest respectfully feared them, but Rand had been in places where it was different, where there was only the fear, and often hate. Where he had grown up, some men, at least, spoke of “Tar Valon witches” as they would speak of the Dark One. He tried to count the women, but they kept no ranks or order, moving their horses around to converse with one another or with whoever was in the palanquin. Goose bumps covered him. He had traveled with Moiraine, and met another Aes Sedai, and he had begun to think of himself as worldly. Nobody ever left the Two Rivers, or almost nobody, but he had. He had seen things no one back in the Two Rivers had ever laid eyes on, done things they had only dreamed of, if they had dreamed so far. He had seen a queen and met the DaughterHeir of Andor, faced a Myrddraal and traveled the Ways, and none of it had prepared him for this moment.
“Why so many?” he whispered again.
“The Amyrlin Seat's come in person.” Lan looked at him, his expression as hard and unreadable as a rock. “Your lessons are done, sheepherder.” He paused then, and Rand almost thought there was sympathy on his face. That could not be, of course. “Better for you if you were a week gone.” With that the Warder snatched up his shirt and disappeared down the ladder into the tower.
Rand worked his mouth, trying to get a little moisture. He stared at the column approaching Fal Dara as if it really were a snake, a deadly viper. The drums and trumpets sang, loud in his ears. The Amyrlin Seat, who ordered the Aes Sedai. She's come because of me. He could think of no other reason.
They knew things, had knowledge that could help him, he was sure. And he did not dare ask any of them. He was afraid they had come to gentle him. And afraid they haven't, too, he admitted reluctantly. Light, I don't know which scares me more.
“I didn't mean to channel the Power,” he whispered. “It was an accident! Light, I don't want anything to do with it. I swear I'll never touch it again! I swear it!”
With a start, he realized that the Aes Sedai party was entering the city gates. The wind swirled up fiercely, chilling his sweat like droplets of ice, making the trumpets sound like sly laughter; he thought he could smell an opened grave, strong in the air. My grave, if I keep standing here.
Grabbing his shirt, he scrambled down the ladder and began to run.
Chapter 2
(Flame of Tar Valon)
The Welcome
The halls of Fal Dara keep, their smooth stone walls sparsely decorated with elegantly simple tapestries and painted screens, bustled with news of the Amyrlin Seat's imminent arrival. Servants in blackandgold darted about their tasks, running to prepare rooms or carry orders to the kitchens, moaning that they could not have everything ready for so great a personage when they had had no warning. Darkeyed warriors, their heads shaven except for a topknot bound with a leather cord, did not run, but haste filled their steps and their faces shone with an excitement normally reserved for battle. Some of the men spoke as Rand hurried past.
“Ah, there you are, Rand al'Thor. Peace favor your sword. On your way to clean up? You'll want to look your best when you are presented to the Amyrlin Seat. She'll want to see you and your two friends as well as the women, you can count on it.”
He trotted toward the broad stairs, wide enough for twenty men abreast, that led up to the men's apartments.
“The Amyrlin herself, come with no more warning than a pack peddler. Must be because of Moiraine Sedai and you southerners, eh? What else?”
The wide, ironbound doors of the men's apartments stood open, and half jammed with topknotted men buzzing with the Amyrlin's arrival.
“Ho, southlander! The Amyrlin's here. Come for you and your friends, I suppose. Peace, what honor for you! She seldom leaves Tar Valon, and she's never come to the Borderlands in my memory.”
He fended them all off with a few words. He had to wash. Find a clean shirt. No time to talk. They thought they understood, and let him go. Not a one of them knew a thing except that he and his friends traveled in company with an Aes Sedai, that two of his friends were women who were going to Tar Valon to train as Aes Sedai, but their words stabbed at him as if they knew everything. She's come for me.
He dashed through the men's apartments, darted into the room he shared with Mat and Perrin ... and froze, his jaw dropping in astonishment. The room was filled with women wearing the blackandgold, all working purposefully. It was not a big room, and its windows, a pair of tall, narrow arrowslits looking down on one of the inner courtyards, did nothing to make it seem larger. Three beds on blackandwhite tiled platforms, each with a chest at the foot, three plain chairs, a washstand by the door, and a tall, wide wardrobe crowded the room. The eight women in there seemed like fish in a basket.
The women barely glanced at him, and went right on clearing his clothes—and Mat's and Perrin's—out of the wardrobe and replacing them with new. Anything found in the pockets was put atop the chests, and the old clothes were bundled up carelessly, like rags.
“What are you doing?” he demanded when he caught his breath. “Those are my clothes!” One of the women sniffed and poked a finger through a tear in the sleeve of his only coat, then added it to the pile on the floor.
Another, a blackhaired woman with a big ring of keys at her waist, set her eyes on him. That was Elansu, shatayan of the keep. He thought of the sharpfaced woman as a housekeeper, though the house she kept was a fortress and scores of servants did her bidding. “Moiraine Sedai said all of your clothes are worn out, and the Lady Amalisa had new made to give you. Just keep out of our way,” she added firmly, “and we will be done the quicker.” There were few men the shatayan could not bully into doing as she wished — some said even Lord Agelmar — and she plainly did not expect any trouble with one man y