There had been Whitecloaks, too, and with them Padan Fain, the old peddler who used to come to Emond’s Field every spring. The girls seemed unsure whether the Whitecloaks had been friends or enemies, but to Rand, Fain made the difference if there was any real doubt. Fain was a Darkfriend, maybe worse than a Darkfriend, who would do anything to harm Rand and Mat and Perrin. Especially Rand. Maybe the worse news they had to tell him was that no one knew whether Fain was dead. In any case, the Whitecloaks were gone, the Trollocs were gone, and refugees were flooding in across the Mountains of Mist, bringing all sorts of new things, from customs to trades, plants and seeds to clothes. One of the other girls was a Domani, and there were two Taraboners and three from Almoth Plain.

“Larine bought a Domani dress,” little Jancy laughed, cutting her eyes, “but her mother made her take it back to the seamstress.” Larine raised her hand, then thought better of it and simply rearranged her braid with a sniff. Jancy giggled.

“Who cares about dresses?” Susa al’Seen exclaimed. “Rand doesn’t care about dresses.” A slight, fluttery girl, Susa had always been excitable, and right now she was bouncing on her toes. “Alanna Sedai and Verin Sedai tested everybody. Well. Almost everybody . . .”

“Cilia Cole wanted to be tested, too,” Marce Eldin, a stocky girl, put in. Rand did not much remember her, except that she had always had her nose in a book, even walking in the street. “She insisted! She passed, but they told her she was too old to be a novice.”

Susa went right on over Marce. “. . . And we all passed . . .”

“We’ve been traveling all day and practically all night since Whitebridge,” Bode put in. “It is so good to stay in one place a little while.”

“Have you seen Whitebridge, Rand?” Jancy said on top of Bode. “The White Bridge itself?”

“. . . And we’re going to Tar Valon to become Aes Sedai!” Susa finished with a glare that took in Bode, Marce and Jancy. “In Tar Valon!”

“We will not be going to Tar Valon just yet.”