Nalesean shrugged. He fairly oozed sweat, but he still wore his coat—red striped with blue today—buttoned to the neck. Mat’s hung open, and he still thought he was broiling. “I suppose it’s all the Aes Sedai,” the Tairen said. “Burn my soul, it can’t but make you think, can it? I mean, burn my soul, what are they up to?” He meant the Aes Sedai on the other side of the Erinin, reportedly scurrying upriver or down a sight quicker than the wanderers that were over there as well.

“Best not to think about them is what I say.” Mat touched the silver foxhead through his shirt; even with that, he was glad the Aes Sedai were across the river. A handful of his soldiers traveled on each of the river craft, and few as villages were, they put a boat ashore on his orders at every one they passed on the far side, to see what they could learn. So far the news had been unrevealing and often unpleasant. Aes Sedai swarming was the least of it.

“And how are we not to think of them?” Talmanes asked. “Do you think the Tower really did pull Logain’s strings?” That was one of the newer bits, just two days old.

Mat pulled off his hat long enough to mop his forehead before answering. Nightfall would be a little cooler. But no wine, no ale, no women, and no gambling. Who would be a soldier for choice? “There’s not much I’d say was beyond Aes Sedai.” Sliding a finger behind the scarf around his neck, he eased it. One thing about Warders, by what he knew from observing Lan anyway, they never seemed to sweat. “But that? Talmanes, I’d believe you were Aes Sedai first. You aren’t, are you?”

Daerid doubled over the pommel of his saddle laughing, and Nalesean nearly fell off his horse. Talmanes stiffened at first, but finally he grinned. He almost chuckled. The man did not have much sense of humor, but he did have some.

His seriousness reasserted itself quickly, though. “What about the Dragonsworn? If it is true, Mat, it means trouble.” The others’ laughter might as well have been chopped with an axe.

Mat grimaced. That was the newest news or rumor—call it what you would—picked up yesterday, a village burned somewhere in Murandy. Worse, supposedly they had killed everybody who would not swear to the Dragon Reborn, and their families with them. “Rand will settle for them. If it’s true. Aes Sedai, Dragonsworn, all that is his business, and we’re well out of it. We have our own to tend.”

That made nobody’s face less grim, of course. They had seen too many burned villages, and thought they would see more soon after reaching Tear. Who would be a soldier?