“Vandene said, ‘Well, if you really want to, child, of course we will,’ ” Juilin muttered into his ale, recounting one incident. “You would think somebody who was only Accepted just a few days ago would be pleased. Elayne’s eyes minded me of a winter storm. Nynaeve ground her teeth so hard, I thought they’d crack.”

They were in the common room of The Marriage Knife. Vanin and Harnan and others occupied benches at other tables, together with a number of locals. The men were in long vests, some bright enough for a Tinker and often with no shirt, the women in pale dresses with deep narrow necklines, their skirts gathered up to the knee on one side to expose petticoats colorful enough to make the vests fade. Many of the men and all of the women wore large hoop earrings, and on their hands usually three or four rings sparkling with colored glass. Men and women alike fingered long curved knives stuck through their belts and eyed the strangers darkly. There were two merchant’s trains from Amadicia stopped at The Marriage Knife, but the merchants had eaten in their rooms, and their drivers remained with the wagons. Elayne and Nynaeve and the rest of the women were upstairs too.

“Women are . . . different,” Nalesean said, laughing, in response to Juilin, though he directed the words at Mat, fingering the point of his beard. He was not usually so stiff with commoners, but Juilin was a Tairen commoner, and that seemed to make a difference, especially since Juilin made a point of staring when he spoke to him. “There’s a peasant saying in Tear. ‘An Aes Sedai is ten women in one skin.’ Peasants have a good bit of wisdom sometimes, burn my soul if they don’t.”

“At least no one has done anything, shall we say, drastic,” Thom said, “though I thought it was close when Elayne let slip that she had made Birgitte her first Warder.”

“The Hunter?” Mat exclaimed. Several of the locals looked at him hard, and he lowered his voice. “She’s a Warder as well? Elayne’s Warder?” That certainly explained a few things.

Thom and Juilin exchanged looks over the rims of their mugs.

“She will be gratified to know you puzzled out that she is a Hunter for the Horn,” Thom said, wiping ale from his mustaches. “Yes, she is, and a right set-to it nearly caused, too. Jaem took to her right away like a younger sister, but Vandene and Adeleas. . . .” He sighed heavily. “Neither was very pleased Elayne had already chosen a Warder—apparently most Aes Sedai go years before finding one—and they especially were not pleased she chose a woman. And their not being pleased has Elayne’s back up even more.”

“They don’t seem to like doing things that have not been done before,” Juilin added.