“You, I keep with me,” the Forsaken said, “for the most important task. What the others do may bear sweet fruit, but to me yours will be the most important harvest. A personal harvest. There is a woman named Nynaeve al’Meara.” Liandrin’s head came up, and Moghedien’s dark eyes sharpened. “You know of her?”

“I despise her,” Liandrin replied truthfully. “She is a filthy wilder who ought never to have been allowed in the Tower.” She loathed all wilders. Dreaming of being Black Ajah, she herself had begun learning to channel a full year before going to the Tower, but she was in no way a wilder.

“Very good. You five are going to find her for me. I want her alive. Oh, yes, I do want her alive.” Moghedien’s smile made Liandrin shiver; giving Nynaeve and the other two to her might be entirely suitable. “The day before yesterday she was in a village called Sienda, perhaps sixty miles east of here, with another young woman in whom I may be interested, but they have vanished. You will . . .”

Liandrin listened eagerly. For this, she could be a faithful hound. For the other, she would wait patiently.

CHAPTER
19

Memories

“My Queen?”

Morgase looked up from the book on her lap. Sunlight slanted through the window of the sitting room next to her bedchamber. The day was already hot, with no breeze, and sweat dampened her face. It would be noon before much longer, and she had not stirred from the room. That was unlike her; she could not remember why she had decided to laze the morning away with a book. She seemed unable to concentrate on reading of late. By the golden clock on the mantel above the marble fireplace, an hour had passed since she last turned a page, and she could not recall its words. It must be the heat.

The red-coated young officer of her Guards, kneeling with one fist pressed to the red-and-gold carpet, looked vaguely familiar. Once she had known the name of every Guard assigned to the Palace. Perhaps it was all the new faces. “Tallanvor,” she said, surprising herself. He was a tall, well-made young man, but she could not tell why she remembered him in particular. Had he brought someone to her once? Long ago? “Guardsman Lieutenant Martyn Tallanvor.”

He glanced at her, startlingly rough-eyed, before putting his gaze back on the carpet. “My Queen, forgive me, but I am surprised that you remain here, given the morning’s news.”