“I have never heard anything like that,” Melaine said. Amys merely looked doubtful.

“Nor have I from any save Mora,” Bair told them, “but she was a remarkable woman. It was said she was approaching her three hundredth year when she died from a bloodsnake’s bite, yet she looked as young as either of you. I was only a girl, but I remember her well. She knew many things, and could channel strongly. Other Wise Ones came from every clan to learn from her. I think love so great, or hate so, is very rare, but she said this happened to her twice, once with the first man she married, and once with a rival for her third husband’s interest.”

“Three hundred?” Egwene exclaimed, a soft knee-high boot half-laced. Surely even Aes Sedai did not live that long.

“I said that it was said,” Bair replied, smiling. “Some women age more slowly than others, like Amys here, and when it is a woman like Mora, tales are born. Someday I will tell you the story of how Mora moved a mountain. Supposedly, at least.”

“Another day?” Melaine said a touch too politely. Plainly she still smarted over whatever had happened in Bael’s dream, and over the fact the others knew. “I heard every tale of Mora when I was a child; I have them all by heart, I think. If Egwene ever finishes dressing, we must see her fed.” A gleam in her green eyes said she meant to watch every bite go down; clearly her suspicions about Egwene’s health had not been soothed. “And answer the rest of her questions.”

Frantically Egwene fumbled for another. Usually she had a slew of questions, but the events of the night had left her with just that one. If she let it remain at that, they might start wondering whether it had come because she had sneaked off to spy on someone’s dream. Another question. Not about her own odd dreams. Some of them probably had meaning, if she could ferret it out. Anaiya claimed Egwene was a Dreamer, able to foretell the course of future events, and these three women thought it might be so, but they said she had to learn it from within. Besides, she was not sure she wanted to discuss her dreams with anyone. These women already knew more than she really liked about what went on inside her head. “Ah . . . what about dreamwalkers who aren’t Wise Ones? I mean, do you ever see other women in Tel’aran’rhiod?”

“Sometimes,” Amys said, “but not often. Without a guide to teach her, a woman may not realize she does more than have vivid dreams.”

“And of course,” Bair added, “unknowing as she is, the dream may well kill her before she can learn. . . .”