All the way from Salidar she avoided him as if he smelled bad. Their third night on the way, the first at an inn, a little place called The Marriage Knife, Mat saw her in the tile-roofed stable feeding a wizened carrot to her plump mare and decided that whatever else was going on, he could at least talk to her about Bode. It was not every day a man’s sister went off to become Aes Sedai, and Nynaeve would know what Bode was facing, “Nynaeve,” he said, striding toward her, “I want to talk to you—” He got no further.

She practically leaped straight up in the air, and came down shaking a fist at him, though she immediately hid it in a fold of her skirts. “You leave me alone, Mat Cauthon,” she all but shouted. “Do you hear me? You leave me alone!” And she scurried out, sidling past him and bristling so that he expected to see her braid stand up like a cat’s tail. After that, he not only smelled bad, he had some sickness that was both loathsome and catching. If he so much as tried to come near her, she hid behind Elayne and glared at him past the other woman’s shoulder for all the world as if she was about to stick her tongue out at him. Women were plain mad; that was all.