Sweat rolled down his face, and he wiped it away with a hand that wanted to shake. He had grasped the Source himself; it had to have been so. A dead man’s voice could not have done it. Unconsciously, he had not been willing to trust Taim holding so much of saidin while he stood helpless. That was it.

“Just you keep an eye out for anyone who learns too fast,” he muttered. Maybe he was telling Taim too much, but people had a right to know what they might face. As much as they needed to know. He dared not allow Taim or anyone else to find out where he had learned much of what he knew. If they discovered that he had held one of the Forsaken prisoner and allowed him to escape. . . . Rumor would strip away mention of prisoners if that leaked out. The Whitecloaks claimed he was a false Dragon, and very likely a Darkfriend besides; they said as much of anyone who touched the One Power. If the world learned about Asmodean, many more might believe. Never mind that Rand had needed a man to teach him of saidin. No woman could have, any more than they could see his weavings, or he theirs. Men believe the worst easily, and women believe it hides something still darker; that was an old Two Rivers saying. He would deal with Asmodean himself if the man ever turned up again. “Just you keep an eye out. Quietly.”

“As my Lord Dragon commands.” The man actually bowed slightly before starting back across the farmyard.

Rand realized the Maidens were looking at him. Enaila and Somara, Sulin and Jalani and all the rest, concern filling their eyes. They accepted almost everything he did, all the things that made him flinch when he did them, all the things everyone but the Aiel flinched at; what put their hackles up were usually matters he did not understand at all. They accepted, and worried about him.

“You must not tire yourself,” Somara said quietly. Rand looked at her, and the flaxen-haired woman’s cheeks reddened. This might not count as a public place—Taim was already too distant to overhear—but the remark was still going too far.

Enaila, though, pulled a spare shoufa from her belt and handed it to him. “Too much sun is not good for you,” she murmured.

One of the others muttered, “He needs a wife to look after him.” He could not tell which; even Somara and Enaila confined that sort of talk behind his back. He knew who was meant, though. Aviendha. Who better to marry the son of a Maiden than a Maiden who had given up the spear to become a Wise One?