“It is said,” Bael added, “that yesterday a basket of roof tiles fell from a roof and landed in the street unbroken in the shape of the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai.” He glanced at the openmouthed white-haired servant, clutching the vase to his chest as they passed. “I do not doubt that it did.”

Rand exhaled slowly. They did not mention the other sort, of course. The man who stumbled on a step and was hanged when his kerchief caught on the door latch. The loose slate ripped from a roof by a high wind that sailed through an open window and a doorway to kill a woman sitting at table with her family. The sort of thing that did happen, but rarely. Only such things were not rare around him. For good or ill, for ill as often as good, he twisted chance merely by being within a few miles. No, if the Dragons disappeared from his arms and the branded herons from his palms, he was still marked. There was a saying in the Borderlands: “Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather.” Once you had that mountain firmly on your shoulders, there was no way to put it down. There was no one else to carry it anyway, and no use whining about it.

He made his voice brisk. “Have you found the men who did the hanging?” Bashere shook his head. “Then find them, and arrest them for murder. I want a stop put to this. Doubting me isn’t a crime.” Rumor said the Prophet had made it one, but there was nothing he could do about that yet. He did not even know where Masema was, beyond somewhere in Ghealdan or Amadicia. If he had not gone elsewhere meantime. Yet another note chalked up in his head; he had to find the man and rein him somehow.

“No matter how far it goes?” Bashere said. “There are whispers you’re a false Dragon who killed Morgase with Aes Sedai help. The people are supposed to rise up against you and avenge their queen. There may be more than one someone. It isn’t clear.”

Rand’s face hardened. The first part he could live with—he had to; there were too many variations to stamp out however many times he denied it—but he would not tolerate incitement to rebellion. Andor would be one land he did not split apart in war. He would give Elayne a land as unblemished as it had come to him. If he ever found her, he would. “Find who began it,” he said harshly, “and toss them in prison.” Light, how to find who started a whisper? “If they seek pardon, they can ask Elayne for it.” A young serving woman in a rough brown dress, dusting a blue spun-glass bowl, caught sight of his face, and the bowl dropped from her suddenly shaking hands and shattered. He did not always alter chance. “Is there any good news? I could do with some.”