The whole thought of leaving Salidar was a new one, sparked by Uno, and it set her thinking fiercely. If only Thom and Juilin had not gone jaunting off to Amadicia. Not that they had made the trip for the fun of it, really. Back in the days when it seemed the Aes Sedai here might really do something, they had volunteered to scout out what was going on across the river. Meaning to penetrate as far as Amador itself, they had been gone well over a month, and would not return for days more at best. They were not the only scouts, of course; even Aes Sedai and Warders had been sent, though most of those were aimed farther west, at Tarabon. A show of doing something, and the delay before any could return with word, was a good excuse to wait. Nynaeve wished she had not let the two men go. Neither would have, had she said no.

Thom was an old gleeman, though he had once been considerably more, and Juilin a thief-taker from Tear, both competent men who knew how to handle themselves in strange places, and handy in a number of ways. They had accompanied her and Elayne to Salidar, too, and neither would have asked questions if told she wanted to leave. Undoubtedly they would have said a good deal behind her back, but not to her face, the way Uno would.

It was galling to admit that she really needed them, but she was not sure she knew how to go about stealing a horse. In any case, an Accepted would be noticed fooling around the horses, in the stables as much as out on the soldiers’ picket lines, and if she changed out of the banded white dress, she would certainly be seen and reported before she got anywhere near a horse. Even if she managed it, she would be pursued. Runaway Accepted, like runaway novices, were almost always brought back to face punishment that erased any thought of a second attempt. When you began training to be Aes Sedai, Aes Sedai were not finished with you until they said they were.

It was not fear of punishment that held her, of course. What was a switching or two against the chance of being killed by the Black Ajah, or facing one of the Forsaken? It was just a matter of whether she really wanted to go. Where would she go, for instance? To Rand, in Caemlyn? Egwene in Cairhien? Would Elayne come? Certainly, if they went to Caemlyn. Was it a desire to do something, or fear that Moghedien was going to be discovered? The punishment for running away would not be a patch on that! She had reached no conclusion when she rounded a corner and found herself looking at Elayne’s novice class, gathered in an open space between two thatch-roofed stone houses where the fallen-in ruins of a third had been cleared away.