Seating herself so she, Seonid and Masuri surrounded the pair, Merana adjusted her skirts and shawl carefully. There was some moral ascendancy in being seated while the others remained standing. To her, what Alanna had done was little short of rape. “In fact, he has placed another restriction. It is all very well that you two have located his school, but now I strongly suggest you abandon whatever thoughts you may have had in that direction. He has . . . charged us . . . to stay away from his . . . men.” She could see him still, leaning forward in that monstrosity of a throne with the Lion Throne on exhibit behind him and a carved piece of spear in his fist; no doubt an Aiel custom, that.

“Hear me, Merana Sedai,” he said, quite pleasantly and quite firmly. “I want no trouble between Aes Sedai and Asha’man. I have told the soldiers to stay clear of you, but I do not mean them to be Aes Sedai meat. If you go hunting at the Black Tower, you may be dinner yourself. We both want to avoid that.”

Merana had been Aes Sedai long enough not to shiver every time a goose walked over her grave, but it was close this time. Asha’man. The Black Tower. Mazrim Taim! How could it have gone so far? Yet Alanna was certain there were over a hundred men, though she gave no details of how she knew, of course; no sister willingly exposed her eyes-and-ears. It did not matter. “If you pursue two hares, both will escape you,” the old saying went, and al’Thor was the most important hare in the world. The others had to wait.

“Is he . . . ? Is he still here, or has he gone?” Verin and Alanna seemed to take it very calmly that al’Thor apparently could Travel; it still made Merana a trifle queasy. What else had he taught himself that Aes Sedai had forgotten? “Alanna? Alanna!”

The slender Green sister jerked, pulling herself back from wherever her mind had been. She seemed to drift quite often. “He is in the city. In the Palace, I think.” She still sounded a little dreamy. “It was. . . . He has a wound in his side. An old wound, yet only half-healed. Every time I let myself dwell on it, I want to weep. How can he live with it?”

Seonid gave her a sharp look; any woman who had a Warder had felt his injuries. But she knew what Alanna was going through, having lost Owein, and when she spoke, her voice was almost gentle and only a little brisk. “Why, Teryl and Furen have taken wounds that almost made me faint, even feeling them as softly as we do, and they never slowed a step. Not one step.”

“I think,” Masuri said quietly, “we are going afield.” She always spoke quietly, but unlike many Browns, always to the point.

Merana nodded. “Yes. I considered taking Moiraine’s place with him. . . .”