“Wasting time?” young Jalani said in a too innocent voice, rewinding her shoufa and momentarily exposing short hair nearly as red as Enaila’s. “How can the Car’a’carn be wasting time? The last time I sweated as much as he is, I had run from sunup to sundown.”

Grins and outright laughter spread through the other Maidens, red-haired Maira, at least ten years older than Rand, slapping her thigh, golden-haired Desora hiding her smiles behind a hand as she always did. Scar-faced Liah bounced up and down on her toes, while Sulin almost doubled over. Aiel humor was strange at best. Heroes in stories never had jokes made at their expense, not even odd ones, and he doubted kings did either. Part of the problem was that an Aiel chief, even the Car’a’carn, was not a king; he might have the authority of one in many ways, but any Aiel could and would walk up to a chief and say exactly what he thought. The bigger part, however, was something else.

Despite his having been raised in the Two Rivers by Tam al’Thor and, until her death when he was five, Tam’s wife, Kari, Rand’s true mother had been a Maiden of Spear who died giving birth to him on the slopes of Dragonmount. Not an Aiel, though his father had been, but still a Maiden. Now Aiel customs stronger than law had touched him. No, not touched; enveloped. No Maiden could marry and still carry the spear, and unless she gave up the spear any child she bore was given to another woman by the Wise Ones, in such a way that the Maiden never knew who that woman was. Any child born of a Maiden was believed to be lucky, both in itself and to raise, though none but the woman who raised the child and her husband ever knew it was not her own. Yet beyond that, the Aiel Prophecy of Rhuidean said that the Car’a’carn would be such a one, raised by wetlanders. To the Maidens, Rand was all those children come back, the first child of a Maiden ever to be known to everyone.

Most, whether older than Sulin or as young as Jalani, welcomed him like a long-lost brother. In public they gave him as much respect as they did any chief, marginal as that might be sometimes, but alone with them he might as well have been that brother, though whether he was a younger brother or an older did not seem to have anything to do with the woman’s own age. He was just glad that only a handful took Enaila and Somara’s path; alone or not, it was plain irritating to have a woman no older than himself behaving as though he were her son.

“Then we ought to go somewhere I won’t sweat,” he said, managing a grin. He owed it to them. Some had already died for him, and more would before it was done. The Maidens quickly subdued their mirth, ready to go where the Car’a’carn said, ready to defend him.

The question was, where to go? Bashere was waiting for his carefully casual visit, but if Aviendha had heard about that, she might well be with Bashere. Rand had been avoiding her as much as possible, especially being alone with her. Because he wanted to be alone with her. He had managed to keep that from the Maidens so far, if they ever so much as suspected, they would make his life miserable. The fact was, he had to stay away from her. He carried death with him like a contagious disease; he was a target, and people died near him. He had to harden his heart and let Maidens die—the Light burn him forever for that promise!—but Aviendha had given up the spear to study with the Wise Ones. He was not sure what he felt for her, only that if she died because of him, something in him would die, too. It was lucky that she had no emotional tangles where he was concerned. She tried to stay close to him only because the Wise Ones wanted her to watch him for them, and because she wanted to watch him for Elayne. Neither reason made the situation any easier for Rand; exactly the opposite.

The decision was easy, really. Bashere would have to wait, so he could avoid Aviendha; and the visit to Weiramon, intended to begin in the Palace with attempts at stealth meant to be pierced, would come now. A foolish reason to make a decision, but what was a man to do when a woman refused to see sense? It might work out for the best this way. Those who were supposed to learn of that visit still would, and perhaps believe what they were supposed to all the more because it was made in true concealment. Perhaps the call on Bashere and the Saldaeans would even seem more casual because he left it until late in the day. Yes. Twists within twists worthy of a Cairhienin playing the Game of Houses.

Seizing saidin, he opened a gateway, the slash of light widening to show the interior of a large green-striped tent, empty save for a carpeting of colorful rugs woven in Tairen maze patterns. There was no chance of an ambush in that tent, less even than around the farm, but Enaila and Maira and others still veiled themselves and darted through. Rand paused to look back.

Kely Huldin was making his way toward the farmhouse, head down and his wife herding their two children at his side. She kept reaching over to pat him consolingly, but even across the farmyard Rand could make out her beaming face. Plainly Kely had failed. Taim was facing Jur Grady, both staring at a tiny flame wavering between them. Sora Grady, her son clasped to her breast, was not watching her husband. Her eyes were still locked on Rand. A woman’s eyes cut deeper than a knife; another Two Rivers saying.

Stepping through the gateway, he waited for the rest of the Maidens to follow, then released the Source. He did what he had to do.

CHAPTER

4

A Sense of Humor

The tent’s dim interior was hot enough to make Caemlyn, some eight hundred miles or so north, seem pleasantly cool, and when Rand pushed the flap open, he blinked. The sun was a hammer that made him glad of the shoufa.

A copy of the Dragon banner hung above the green-striped tent, alongside one of the crimson banners bearing the ancient Aes Sedai symbol. More tents stretched across a rolling plain where all but a few tufts of tough grass had long since been beaten to dust by hooves and boots—peak-roofed tents and flat, most white by far if often dirty white, but many in colors or stripes, tents and the colorful banners of lords. An army had gathered here on the border of Tear, on the edge of the Plains of Maredo, thousands upon thousands of soldiers from Tear and Cairhien. The Aiel had made their own camps well away from the wetlanders, five Aiel for every Tairen and Cairhienin and more arriving by the day. It was an army to make Illian shake in its boots, a host already mighty enough to smash anything in its path.

Enaila and the rest of the foreguard were already outside, veils down, with a dozen or so Aielmen. The Aiel kept a constant guard on this tent. Clothed and armed like the Maidens, they were as tall as Rand or taller, lions to the Maidens’ leopards, hard-faced sun-dark men with cold eyes of blue or green or gray. Today they were Sha’mad Conde, Thunder Walkers, led by Roidan himself, who headed the society this side of the Dragonwall. The Maidens carried the honor of the Car’a’carn, but every warrior society demanded som