Aviendha jumped as if a mouse had run up her leg. Well, she probably would not, but it was the way Egwene would have jumped in that circumstance. The Aiel explained about Laman’s sword and the scabbard so hastily that her words tripped over one another.

Sorilea shifted her shawl, muttering about girls touching swords, even wrapped in blankets, and about having a sharp word with “young Bair.” “So he has not captured your eye. A pity. It would bind him to us; he sees too many people as his, now.” For a moment she eyed Aviendha up and down. “I will have Feran look at you. His greatfather is my sister-son. You have other duties to the people than learning to be a Wise One. Those hips were made for babes.”

Aviendha stumbled over an upraised paving stone and just caught herself short of falling. “I . . . I will think on him, when there is time,” she said breathlessly. “I have much to learn yet, of being a Wise One; and Feran is Seia Doon, and the Black Eyes have vowed not to sleep beneath roof or tent until Couladin is dead.” Couladin was Seia Doon.

The leathery-faced Wise One nodded as though everything had been settled. “You, young Aes Sedai. You know the Car’a’carn well, it is said. Will he do as he has threatened? Hang even a clan chief?”

“I think . . . maybe . . . that he will.” More quickly, Egwene added, “But I am sure he can be brought to see reason.” She was not sure of any such thing, or even that it was reason—what he had said sounded only just—but justice would do him no good if he found the others turning against him as well as the Shaido.

Sorilea glanced at her in surprise, then turned a gaze on the chiefs around Rand’s horse that should have knocked the lot of them flat. “You mistake me. He must show that mangy pack of wolves that he is the chief wolf. A chief must be harder than other men, young Aes Sedai, and the Car’a’carn harder than other chiefs. Every day a few more men, and even Maidens, are taken by the bleakness, but they are the soft outer bark of the ironwood. What remains is the hard inner core, and he must be hard to lead them.” Egwene noticed that she did not include herself or the other Wise Ones among those who would be led. Muttering to herself about “mangy wolves,” Sorilea strode ahead, and soon had all the Wise Ones listening as they walked. Whatever she was saying, it did not carry.

“Who is this Feran?” Egwene asked. “I’ve never heard you speak of him. What does he look like?”