“Be calm, Master Logain.” Egwene was surprised her voice came out so steady. Her heart was racing, though certainly not for fear of him. “I swear this to you. I will never harm you, nor allow you to be harmed by any who follow me if I can help it, unless you turn against us.” The rage had gone from his face, replaced by woodenness. Was he listening? “But the Hall will do as it decides. Are you calm, now?” He nodded wearily, and she released the flows. He sank back to the ground, not looking at her. “I will speak with you about the amnesty when you are more composed. Perhaps in a day or two.” He nodded again, curtly, still not looking.

As she ducked out into the dusk, the two Warders standing guard outside bowed to her. At least the Gaidin did not care that she was eighteen, an Accepted raised Aes Sedai only because she was raised Amyrlin. To the Warders, an Aes Sedai was an Aes Sedai, and the Amyrlin was the Amyrlin. Still, she did not let herself exhale until she was far enough away for the two not to hear.

The camp was quite large, tents for hundreds of Aes Sedai spreading through the forest, for Accepted and novices and servants, carts and wagons and horses everywhere. The cooking smell of the evening meal hung thick in the air. Around it stretched the cookfires of Gareth Bryne’s army; most men there would be sleeping on the ground, not in tents. The so-called Band of the Red Hand lay camped no more than ten miles south; Talmanes never let that distance vary more than a mile or so either way, day or night for over two hundred miles. Already they had served part of her plan for them, as suggested by Siuan and Leane.