“The chiefs no longer listen to us as they did,” Melaine muttered. “Oh, they ask our advice as always—they have not become complete fools—but Bael will no longer tell me what he has said to Rand al’Thor, or Rand al’Thor to him. He says I must ask Rand al’Thor, who tells me to ask Bael. The Car’a’carn, I can do nothing about, but Bael . . . He has always been a stubborn, infuriating man, yet now he is beyond all bounds. Sometimes I want to thump his head with a stick.” Amys and Bair chuckled as if that were a fine joke. Or perhaps they just wanted to laugh to forget the changes for a time.

“There are only three things you can do with a man like that,” Bair chortled. “Stay away from him, kill him, or marry him.”

Melaine stiffened, her sun-dark face going red. For a moment Egwene thought the golden-haired Wise One was about to let fly words hotter than her face. Then a biting gust announced Aviendha’s return carrying a worked silver tray holding a yellow-glazed teapot, delicate cups of golden Sea Folk porcelain, and a stone jar of honey.

She shivered as she poured—no doubt she had not bothered to wrap anything around herself out there—and hurriedly passed around the cups and the honey. She did not fill cups for herself and Egwene until Amys told her she could, of course.

“More steam,” Melaine said; the chill air seemed to have cooled her temper. Aviendha set down her cup untouched and scrambled for the gourd, plainly trying to make up for her lapse with the tea.

“Egwene,” Amys said, sipping her tea, “how would Rand al’Thor take it if Aviendha asked to sleep in his sleeping chamber?” Aviendha froze with the gourd in her hands.

“In his—?” Egwene gasped. “You cannot ask her to do such a thing! You cannot!”

“Fool girl,” Bair muttered. “We do not ask her to share his blankets. But will he think that is what she asks? Will he even allow it? Men are strange creatures at the best, and he was not raised among us, so he is stranger still.”

“He certainly would not think any such thing,” Egwene spluttered, then more slowly, “I don’t think he would. But it isn’t proper. It just isn’t!”

“I ask that you not require this of me,” Aviendha said, sounding more humble than Egwene would have believed she could. She was sprinkling water in jerky motions, sending up increasing clouds of steam. “I have been learning a great deal the past days, not having to spend time with him. Since you have allowed Egwene and Moiraine Sedai to help me with channeling, I learn even faster. Not that they teach any better than you, of course,” she added hastily, “but I want very much to learn.”