At long last Tylin raised her head. Her face was pleasant, and her hand left the dagger in her belt, but she continued to finger the marriage knife absently. “I want my son to follow me on the Throne of the Winds,” she said mildly. “Beslan is your age, Elayne. This would be a matter of course in Andor, though he would have to be a woman”—she actually grinned, in apparently genuine amusement—“or in any other land save Murandy, where matters are much the same as here in Altara. In the thousand years since Artur Hawkwing, only one House has held the throne for five generations, and Anarina’s fall was so precipitous that to this day House Todande is a lapdog for anyone who wants them. No other House has ever had more than two rulers in succession.

“When my father took the throne, other Houses had more of the city itself than Mitsobar. Had he stepped outside this palace without guards, he would have been sewn into a sack with rocks and tossed into the river. When he died, he gave me what I have now. Small, compared to other rulers. A man riding fresh horses could reach the end of my writ in one day’s hard ride. I have not been idle, though. When news of the Dragon Reborn came, I was certain I could hand on to Beslan twice what I hold, and allies of a sort beyond that. The Stone of Tear and Callandor changed everything. Now I thank Pedron Niall when he arranges for Illian to take a hundred-mile swathe of Altara instead of invading. I listen to Jaichim Carridin, and I do not spit in his eye, however many Altarans died in the Whitecloak War. I listen to Carridin, and to Teslyn, and to Merilille, and I pray that I can pass something to my son instead of being found drowned in my bath on the day Beslan meets with an accident hunting.”

Tylin drew a long breath. The pleasant face remained, but an edge entered her voice. “Now. I have stood bare-breasted in the fishmarket for you. Answer me mine. Why do I have the honor of four more Aes Sedai?”

“We are here to find a ter’angreal,” Elayne said, and as Nynaeve stared in amazement, she told everything from Tel’aran’rhiod to the dust in the room where the bowl was.