Thom and Juilin came not far behind, and they had a packhorse too. The women stopped some fifty paces to the left with their aged Warder, not so much as looking at Mat and his men. The gleeman glanced at Nynaeve and the others, then spoke to Juilin, and they led their horses toward Mat, stopping short as if uncertain of their welcome. Mat went to them.
“I have to apologize, Mat,” Thom said, knuckling his mustaches. “Elayne put it in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t to talk with you further. She only relented this morning. In a weak moment some months back I promised to follow her orders, and she flings it in my face at the most awkward times. She wasn’t very pleased that I had said as much as I did.”
“Nynaeve threatened to punch my eye if I went near you,” Juilin said glumly, leaning on his bamboo staff. He was wearing a red Taraboner cap that could not give much protection from the sun, and even that looked glum.
Mat looked toward the women. Nynaeve was peeking at him over her saddle, but when she saw him looking, she ducked behind her horse, a plump brown mare. He would not have thought even Nynaeve could beat Juilin down, but the dark thief-taker was a far cry from the man he had known briefly in Tear. That Juilin had been ready for anything; this Juilin, with a permanently furrowed brow, looked as if he never stopped worrying. “We will teach her some manners this trip, Juilin. Thom, I’m the one who has to apologize. What I said about the letter. It was the heat talking, and worry over fool women. I hope it was good news.” Too late he remembered what Thom had said. He had left the woman who wrote that letter to die.
But Thom only shrugged. Mat did not know what to make of him without his gleeman’s cloak. “Good news? I haven’t puzzled that out yet. Often you don’t know whether a woman is friend, enemy or lover until it is too late. Sometimes, she is all three.” Mat expected a laugh, but Thom frowned and sighed. “Women always seem to like making themselves mysterious, Mat. I can give you an example. Do you remember Aludra?”
Mat had to think. “The Illuminator we kept from getting her throat slit in Aringill?”
“The very one. Juilin and I met her during our travels, and she didn’t know me. Not that she failed to recognize me; you say things to a stranger you travel with, to get to know them. Aludra did not want to know me, and even if I didn’t know why, I saw no reason to impose. I met her a stranger and left her a stranger. Now, would you call her a friend or an enemy?”
“Maybe a lover,” Mat said dryly. He would not mind meeting Aludra again; she had given him some fireworks that proved very useful. “If you want to know about women, ask Perrin, not me. I don’t know anything at all. I used to think Rand knew, but Perrin surely does.” Elayne was talking with the two white-haired Aes Sedai under the Hunter’s watchful eye. One of the older Aes Sedai gazed in Mat’s direction consideringly. They had the same sort of bearing Elayne did, cool as a queen on her bloody throne. “Well, with luck I won’t have to put up with them long,” he muttered to himself. “With luck, whatever they’re doing won’t take long, and we can be back here in five or ten days.” With luck, he might be back before the Band had to begin shadowing the madwomen. Tracking not one army but two would be easy as stealing a pie, of course, but he did not look forward to any more days in Elayne’s company than necessary.
“Ten days?” Thom said. “Mat, even with this ‘gateway’ it will take five or six just to reach Ebou Dar. Better than twenty or so, but. . . .”
Mat stopped listening. Every shred of irritation that had been building since he first laid eyes on Egwene again came to a head at once. Snatching off his hat, he stalked to where Elayne and the others were. Keeping him in the dark was bad enough—how was he supposed to keep them out of trouble when they told him nothing?—but this was ridiculous. Nynaeve saw him coming and darted behind her mare for some reason.
“It will be interesting traveling with a ta’veren,” one of the white-haired Aes Sedai said. Up close, he still could not fasten any age to her, yet somehow her face conveyed an impression of long years. It must have been the hair. She could have used the other for a mirror; maybe they really were sisters. “I am Vandene Namelle.”
Mat was in no mood to talk about being ta’veren. He was never in that mood, but certainly not now. “What’s this nonsense I hear about five or six days to reach Ebou Dar?” The old Warder straightened, staring hard, and Mat reevaluated him as well; stringy, but hard as old roots. It made no difference in his tone. “You can open a gateway in sight of Ebou Dar. We aren’t any bloody army to scare anyone, and as for popping out of air, you’re Aes Sedai. People expect you to pop out of air and walk through walls.”
“I fear you are speaking to the wrong one of us,” Vandene said. He looked at the other white-haired woman, who shook her head as Vandene said, “Nor Adeleas, I fear. It appears we are not strong enough for some of the new things.”
Mat hesitated, then settled his hat low and turned to Elayne.
Her chin came up. “Apparently you know rather less than you believe, Master Cauthon,” she said coolly. She was not sweating, he realized, no more than the two . . . the other two . . . Aes Sedai. The Hunter was staring at him challengingly. What had put a bee in her ear? “There are villages and farms around Ebou Dar for a hundred miles,” Elayne went on, explaining the obvious to a fool. “A gateway is quite dangerous. I do not intend to kill some poor man’s sheep or cows, much less the poor man himself.”
He hated more than her tone. She was right, and he hated that too. He was not about to admit she was, though, not to her, and searching for a way to retreat, he saw Egwene coming out of the village with two dozen or more Aes Sedai, most wearing fringed shawls. Or rather, she came, and they followed. Head held high, she looked straight ahead, that striped stole hanging about her neck. The others strolled along behind her in little clumps. Sheriam, wearing the blue Keeper’s stole, was talking with Myrelle and a bluff-faced Aes Sedai who managed to look motherly. Except for Delana, he recognized none of the others—one had gray hair in a bun; how old did Aes Sedai have to be for their hair to go completely gray or white?—but they were all talking among themselves, ignoring the woman they had named Amyrlin. Egwene might as well have been alone; she looked alone. Knowing her, she was trying very hard to be what they had named her, and they let her walk alone