“They were not all killed or captured,” the gaunt-faced lord put in right behind him. “Most escaped, melted away. I know my history, Aes Sedai. Raolin Darksbane’s followers dared attack the White Tower itself after he was taken, and Guaire Amalasan’s as well. We remember too well Logain’s army marching across our lands to want it to come again, to rescue him.”

“You need have no fear of that.” Lelaine eyed Logain with a brief smile, as a woman might a fierce dog she knew tamed to her leash. “He has no more desire for glory, only to make some small restitution for the harm he did. Besides which, I doubt many of his former followers would come if he did call, not after he was carried to Tar Valon in a cage and gentled.” Her light laugh was echoed by the Altarans, but only after a moment, and weakly. Logain’s face was an iron mask.

Abruptly Lelaine noticed Nynaeve just inside the doorway, and her eyebrows rose. She had exchanged pleasant words with Nynaeve more than once, and praised her and Elayne’s supposed discoveries, but she could be as quick as any other Aes Sedai to call down an Accepted who put a foot wrong.

Nynaeve dropped a curtsy, gesturing with the clay mug, now empty of tea. “Pardon me, Lelaine Sedai. I must take this back to the kitchen.” She darted out into the baking street before the Aes Sedai could say a word.

Luckily, Myrelle was nowhere in sight now. Nynaeve was in no mood for yet another lecture on showing responsibility or holding her temper or any one of a dozen fool things. An even better piece of luck, Siuan was standing not thirty paces away, facing Gareth Bryne in the middle of the street with the passing throng parting around them. Like Myrelle, Siuan showed no sign of the battering Elayne had reported; perhaps they would have more respect for Tel’aran’rhiod if they could not simply step out and have their blunders Healed. Nynaeve moved closer.

“What is the matter with you, woman?” Bryne growled at Siuan. His gray head lowered over her youthful-seeming one; booted feet planted wide and fists on hips made him seem as wide as a boulder. The sweat rolling down his face might have been on someone else’s for all the mind he paid it. “I compliment you on how soft my shirts are, and you snap my head off. And I said you looked cheerful, hardly the opening of a battle, I thought. It was a compliment, woman, if not one with roses in it.”

“Compliments?” Siuan growled right back, blue eyes blazing up at him. “I don’t want your compliments! It just pleases you that I have to iron your shirts. You are a smaller man than I ever thought, Gareth Bryne. Do you expect me to trail after you like a camp follower when the army marches, hoping for more of your compliments? And you will not address me so, as woman! It sounds like ‘Here, dog!’ ”