Elayne stood between the two Black sisters, with a bruised eye and a swollen cheek and a split lip, one sleeve of her dress torn halfway off. “I am sorry, Nynaeve,” she said thickly, as if her jaw hurt. “We never saw them until it was too late.”

Egwene lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, her face swollen with bruises, almost unrecognizable. As Nynaeve and her escort came in, one of the big soldiers hoisted Egwene over his shoulder. She dangled there as limply as a half-empty barley sack.

“What did you do to her?” Nynaeve demanded. “Burn you, what—!” Something unseen struck her across the mouth hard enough to make her eyes go blank for a moment.

“Now, now,” Joiya Byir said with a smile that her eyes belied. “I will not stand for demands, or bad language.” She sounded like a grandmother, too. “You speak when you are spoken to.”

“I told you the girl, she would not stop fighting, yes?” Liandrin said. “Let it be a lesson to you. If you try to cause any trouble, you will be treated no more gently.”

Nynaeve ached to do something for Egwene, but she let herself be pushed out into the street. She made them push her; it was a small way of fighting back, refusing to cooperate, but it was all she had at the moment.

There were few people in the muddy street, as if everyone had decided it was much better to be somewhere else, and those few scurried by on the other side without a glance at the shiny, black-lacquered coach standing behind a team of six matched whites with tall white plumes on their bridles. A coachman dressed like the soldiers, but without armor or sword, sat on the seat, and another opened the door as they appeared from the house. Before he did, Nynaeve saw the sigil painted there. A silver-gauntleted fist clutching jagged lightning bolts.

She supposed it was High Lord Samon’s sign—A Darkfriend, he must be, if he deals with the Black Ajah. The Light burn him!—but she was more interested in the man who dropped to his knees in the mud at their appearance. “Burn you, Sandar, why—?” She jumped as something that felt like a stick of wood struck her across the shoulders.

Joiya Byir smiled chidingly and waggled a finger. “You will be respectful, child. Or you might lose that tongue.”

Liandrin laughed. Tangling a hand in Sandar’s black hair, she wrenched his head back. He stared up at her with the eyes of a faithful hound—or of a cur expecting a kick. “Do not be too hard on this man.” She even made “man” sound like “dog.” “He had to be . . . persuaded . . . to serve. But I am very good at persuading, no?” She laughed again.