Egwene slapped a hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the stone inkwell and the sand jar. “Have your forgotten how to be courteous to an Aes Sedai, child?” she said sharply.

Emara went pale—the Amyrlin did have a reputation, after all—and hastily made an even deeper curtsy for Theodrin, who acknowledged it with a wooden nod before gliding from the tent a good deal more swiftly than she had entered.

What Emara stammered out, in an Illianer accent made thicker by nerves, was a request from Lelaine to meet with the Amyrlin. Romanda and Lelaine had been much less formal, once, appearing unannounced and whenever they wished, but the declaration of war on Elaida had changed a great deal. Not everything, but enough to go on with. Egwene returned the same reply to Lelaine that she had to Romanda, though in a more clipped tone, and Emara almost fell over making her curtsy and practically ran out of the tent. One more nail fastening together the legend of Egwene al’Vere, the Amyrlin Seat who made Sereille Bagand look like a goose-down pillow.

As soon as the Accepted was gone, Egwene raised her hand and frowned at what it had covered. The folded square of paper that Theodrin had deposited on the table while kissing her ring. Her frown deepened when she opened it. The script that covered the small page managed to flow while being precise, but there was an inkblot on one edge. Theodrin was very neat. Perhaps she was trying to conform to the general view of Browns.

Romanda has sent two sisters to Travel to Cairhien and investigate some tale that has the Yellow Sitters buzzing. I don’t know what the rumor is, Mother, but I will find out. I heard one of them mention Nynaeve, not as if she were in Cairhien, but as if the rumor was somehow connected to her.

The fool woman had even signed her name!

“What is that, Mother?”

Egwene gave a start of surprise, and barely caught the folding chair leg before it dropped her onto the carpets. She refocused her scowl on Siuan, who stood just inside the entry flaps with her blue-fringed shawl on her arms and her leather folders pressed to her breasts. The blue-eyed woman’s eyebrows raised slightly at Egwene’s startlement.

“Here,” Egwene said irritably, thrusting the paper at her. This was no time to be jumping and twitching! “You know about Kairen?” Of course, she must, but Egwene still said, “Have you made the necessary changes?” Necessary changes. Light, she sounded as pompous as Romanda. She was on edge. Only at the last did she think to embrace saidar and weave a ward against eavesdropping; only after the ward was in place did she think that today might not be the best time for anyone to think she had private matters to discuss with Siuan.