Elayne’s mouth fell open as Nynaeve unfolded the tale of what her meeting with Egwene had become. Searching with need. Moghedien. Birgitte and Gaidal Cain. The black metal necklace and bracelets. Asmodean in the Waste. One of the seals on the Dark One’s prison in the Panarch’s Palace. Elayne sank down w
eakly onto the side of the mattress long before Nynaeve came to Temaile and the Panarch, thrown in almost as an afterthought. And changing her appearance, masquerading as Rendra. If Nynaeve’s face had not been grimly serious, Elayne could have thought it one of Thom’s wilder stories.
Egeanin, sitting up cross-legged in her linen shift, hands on knees, looked close to disbelieving. Elayne hoped Nynaeve did not start a row because she had loosed the woman’s wrists.
Moghedien. That was the most horrifying part. One of the Forsaken in Tanchico. One of the Forsaken weaving the Power around the two of them, making them tell her everything. Elayne could not remember a bit of it. The thought was enough to press both her hands to a suddenly queasy stomach. “I don’t know whether Moghedien”—Light, could she really have just walked in and made us … ?—“is hiding from Liandrin and the others, Nynaeve. It sounds like what Birgitte”—Light, Birgitte giving her advice!—“said of her.”
“Whatever Moghedien is up to,” Nynaeve said in a tight voice, “I mean to pick a bone clean with her.” She slumped back against the flower-carved headboard. “In any case, we have to get the seal away from them as well as this necklace and bracelets.”
Elayne shook her head. “How can jewelry be dangerous to Rand? Are you sure? Are they a ter’angreal of some sort? What did they look like exactly?”
“They looked like a necklace and bracelets,” Nynaeve snapped in exasperation. “Two jointed bracelets made of some black metal, and a wide necklace like a black collar … .” Her eyes darted to Egeanin, but no faster than Elayne’s.
Unperturbed, the dark-haired woman knelt up to sit on her heels. “I have never heard of an a’dam made for a man, or any like the one you describe. No one tries to control a man who can channel.”
“That is exactly what this is for,” Elayne said slowly. Oh, Light, I suppose I was hoping it didn’t exist. At least Nynaeve had found it first; at least they had a chance to stop it being used against Rand.
Nynaeve’s eyes narrowed as she took in Egeanin’s free hands, but she did not mention them. “Moghedien must be the only one who knows. It makes no sense, otherwise. If we can find a way into the palace, we can take the seal and the … whatever it is. And if we can bring Amathera out as well, Liandrin and her cronies will find the Panarch’s Legion and the Civil Watch, and maybe the Whitecloaks, closing in. They’ll not all be able to channel their way out of that! The problem is getting inside undetected.”
“I have had a few thoughts on that,” Elayne told her, “but I fear the men are going to give us difficulties over it.”
“You leave them to me,” Nynaeve snorted. “I—” A thumping clatter rose in the hall, a man shouted; as quickly as it began, silence fell once more. Thom was on watch out there.
Elayne darted to pull open the door, embracing saidar as she rushed out, but Nynaeve scrambled off the bed right behind her. Egeanin as well.
Thom was just picking himself up off the floor, a hand to his head. Juilin with his staff and Bayle Domon with his cudgel stood over a man with pale yellow hair lying facedown on the floor, unconscious.
Elayne hurried to Thom, trying gently to help him up. He gave her a grateful smile, but stubbornly pushed her hands away. “I am quite all right, child.” All right? A knot was rising on his temple! “The fellow was walking down the hall, when suddenly he kicked me in the head. After my purse, I suppose.” Just like that. Kicked in the head, and he was all right.
“He would have had it, too,” Juilin said, “if I had not come to see if Thom wanted a relief.”
“Did I not decide,” Domon muttered. Their hostility seemed less focused for a change.
It took Elayne only a moment to realize why. Nynaeve and Egeanin were in the hall in their shifts. Juilin was eyeing them both in an approving manner that would have caused trouble if Rendra had seen it, though he was at least trying not to be obvious. Domon made no effort at all to hide his frank appraisal of Egeanin, crossing his arms and pursing his lips in disgusting fashion while looking her up and down.
The situation dawned on the other women quickly, but their reactions were quite different. Nynaeve, in her thin white silk, gave the thief-catcher a flat stare and strode stiffly into the room, poking a somewhat flushed face back around the side of the doorframe. Egeanin, whose linen shift was considerably longer and thicker than Nynaeve’s—Egeanin, who had been cool serenity while being made prisoner, who fought like a Warder—Egeanin went wide-eyed and crimson-faced, gasping in horror. Elayne stared, amazed, as the Seanchan woman gave a mortified shriek and leaped back inside.
Doors flung open and down the hall heads popped out; they vanished instantly, to the bang of slamming doors, at the sight of a man stretched out on the floor and others standing over him. Heavy dragging noises suggested people blocking themselves in with beds or wardrobes.
Long moments later, Egeanin finally peeked out opposite Nynaeve, still scarlet to her hair. Elayne really did not understand. The woman was in her shift, true, but it covered her very nearly as well as Elayne’s Taraboner dress did. Still, Juilin and Domon had no right to ogle. She fixed the pair with a stare that should have set them to rights immediately.
Unfortunately, Domon was too busy chuckling and rubbing his upper lip to notice. At least Juilin saw, even if he did sigh heavily the way men did when they considered themselves put upon unfairly. Avoiding her eyes, he bent to heave the pale-haired fellow onto his back. A handsome enough man, slender.
“I know this fellow,” Juilin exclaimed. “This is the man who tried to rob me. Or so I thought,” he added more slowly. “I do not believe in coincidence. Not unless the Dragon Reborn is in the city.”
Elayne exchanged frowns with Nynaeve. Surely the stranger was not in the employ of Liandrin; the Black Ajah would not use men to sneak about the halls any more … . Any more than they would have hired street toughs. Elayne moved her gaze to Egeanin questioningly. Nynaeve’s was more demanding.
“He is Seanchan,” Egeanin said after a moment.
“A rescue attempt?” Nynaeve murmured dryly, but the other woman shook her head.
“I do not doubt he was looking for me, but not for rescue, I think. If he knows—or even suspects—that I let Bethamin go free, he would be wanting to … talk with me.” Elayne suspected it was rather more than talk, confirmed when Egeanin added, “It might be best if you slit his throat. He may try to make trouble for you, too, if he thinks you are my friends, or if he discovers you are Aes Sedai.” The big Illianer smuggler gave her a shocked look, and Juilin’s jaw dropped almost to his chest. Thom, on the other hand, nodded in a disturbingly thoughtful fashion.
“We are not here to slit Seanchan throats,” Nynaeve said as though that might change later. “Bayle, Juilin, put him out in the alley behind the inn. By the time he wakes, he’ll be lucky to have his smallclothes. Thom, find Rendra and tell her we want strong tea in the Chamber of Falling Blossoms. And ask if she has any willowbark or acem; I will make you something for your head.” The three men stared at her. “Well, move!” she snapped. “We have plans to make!” She barely gave Elayne time to get back inside before closing the door with a bang and beginning to pull her dress over her head. Egeanin scrambled into hers as though the men were still looking at her.
“The better way is to ignore them, Egeanin,” Elayne said. It was odd to be advising someone older than Nynaeve, but however competent the Seanchan woman was in other ways, she clearly knew little about men. “It only encourages them, otherwise. I do not know why,” she admitted, “but it does. You were quite decently covered. Really.”
Egeanin’s head pushed out at the top of her dress. “Decent? I am not a serving girl. I am no shea dancer!” Her scowl became a perplexed frown. “He is rather good-looking, though. I had not thought of him so before.”