“Loial!” Rand exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. He and Perrin reached the Ogier together. The grin on Loial’s wide mouth really did almost split his huge face in two, but his long coat, spreading out above turned-down knee-high boots, still carried travel dust. The big pockets bulged with squarish shapes, too; Loial was never far from books. “Are you all right, Loial?”

“You look tired,” Perrin said, urging the Ogier toward the fountain. “Sit on the coping.”

Loial let himself be led, but his long dangling eyebrows rose and tufted ears quivered in puzzlement as he stared from one of them to the other. Sitting, he was as tall as Perrin standing. “All right? Tired?” His voice was a rumble like the earth moving. “Of course I am all right. And if I’m tired, I have walked a long way. I must say it felt good to be back on my own feet. You always know where your feet are taking you, but you never can be sure with a horse. Anyway, my feet are faster.” Abruptly he let out a thunderous laugh. “You owe me a gold crown, Perrin. You and your ten days. I will wager another crown you’ve not been here more than five days before me.”

“You’ll get your crown.” Perrin laughed. In an aside to Rand that had Loial’s ears vibrating indignantly, he added, “Gaul corrupted him. He dices now, and bets on horse races when he can barely tell one horse from another.”

Rand grinned. Loial always had looked at horses rather dubiously, and small wonder since his legs were longer than theirs. “Are you sure you’re all right, Loial?”

“Did you find that abandoned stedding?” Perrin asked around his pipestem.

“Did you stay long enough?”

“What are you two talking about?” Loial’s uncertain frown trailed the ends of his eyebrows down onto his cheeks. “I just wanted to see a stedding again, to feel one. I am ready for ten more years.”

“That isn’t what your mother says,” Rand said seriously.

Loial was on his feet before Rand finished, staring wildly in every direction, ears laid back and trembling. “My mother? Here? She is here?”

“No, she isn’t,” Perrin said, and Loial’s ears almost went limp with relief. “It seems she’s in the Two Rivers. Or was a month ago. Rand used some way of hopping about he has to take her and Elder Haman—What’s the matter?”

Halfway to sitting down again, Loial froze with his knees bent at Elder Haman’s name. Eyes closed, he lowered himself slowly the rest of the way. “Elder Haman,” he muttered, rubbing his face with a thick-fingered hand. “Elder Haman and my mother.” He peered at Perrin. He peered at Rand. In a voice that was low and much too casual, he asked, “Was anyone else with them?” Well, it was low for an Ogier; a giant bumblebee buzzing in a huge waterjar.