“Convincing you I’m a woman, woolhead. Don’t I look like a woman? Don’t I smell like a woman?” She smelled faintly of flowers, now that he noticed. “Don’t I feel—? Well, enough of that. Answer the question, sheepherder.”

It was the “sheepherder” and “woolhead” that stilled his alarm. The truth was, she felt remarkably nice sitting there. But she was Min, who thought he was a country boy with hay in his hair and not very much common sense. “Light, Min, I know you’re a woman. I didn’t mean any insult. You’re a friend, too. It’s just that I feel comfortable with you. It doesn’t matter if I look like a fool with you. I can say things to you I wouldn’t say to anybody else, not even Mat or Perrin. When I am around you, all the knots unwind, all the tightness in my shoulders I don’t even feel till it goes. Do you see, Min? I like being around you. I’ve missed you.”

Folding her arms, she looked at him sideways, frowning. Her leg twitched; if her foot had reached the floor, she would have been tapping it. “All that about Elayne. And this . . . Aviendha. Who is she, by the way? It sounds to me as if you love them both. Oh, stop jerking about. You owe me some answers. Saying I’m not—Just answer me. Do you love both of them?”

“Maybe I do,” he said slowly. “Light help me, I think maybe I do. Does that make me a lecher, Min, or just a greedy fool?” Her mouth opened and closed; she tossed her head angrily and compressed her lips. He hurried on before she could tell him which one she had picked to fit him; he did not really want to hear it from her. “It hardly matters now anyway. It is done with. I sent Aviendha away, and I will not let her come back. I won’t let myself within a mile of her or Elayne, ten miles if I can help it.”

“For the love of . . . ! Why, Rand? What gives you the right to make a choice like that for them?”