The glint that had appeared in her eye vanished. She opened her mouth, but stopped, glancing at Asmodean, when he raised a hand. He could all but see the questions about Seanchan piled up behind her eyes. If he knew her, once begun she would not stop digging until she had uncovered scraps he did not even remember he knew. Which might not be a bad thing. Another time. After he had wrung a few answers out of Asmodean. She was right. He had to be hard.

“That was a smart thing you did,” she said, “hiding the hole I made. If a gai’shain had come in here, a thousand of the spear-sisters might have marched through seeking you.”

Asmodean cleared his throat. “One of the gai’shain did come. Someone named Sulin had told her she must see you eat, my Lord Dragon, and to stop her from bringing the tray in here and finding you gone, I took the liberty of telling her that you and the young woman did not want to be disturbed.” A slight tightening of his eyes caught Rand’s attention.

“What?”

“Just that she took it strangely. She laughed out loud and went running off. A few minutes later, there must have been twenty Far Dareis Mai beneath the window, shouting and beating their spears on their bucklers for a good hour or more. I must say, my Lord Dragon, some of the suggestions they called up startled even me.”

Rand felt his cheeks burning—it had happened on the other side of the bloody world, and still the Maidens knew!—but Aviendha only narrowed her eyes.

“Did she have hair and eyes like mine?” She did not wait for Asmodean’s nod. “It must have been my first-sister Niella.” She saw the startled question on Rand’s face and answered it before he could speak. “Niella is a weaver, not a Maiden, and she was taken half a year ago by Chareen Maidens during a raid on Sulara Hold. She tried to talk me out of taking the spear, and she has always wanted me wed. I am going to send her back to the Chareen with a welt on her bottom for every one she told!”

Rand caught her arm as she started to stalk out of the room. “I want to talk with Natael. I don’t suppose there is much time left until dawn . . .”

“Two hours, maybe,” Asmodean put in.

“. . . so there will be little sleeping now. If you want to try, would you mind making your bed elsewhere for what’s left of the night? You need new blankets anyway.”

She nodded curtly before pulling loose, and slammed the door behind her. Surely she was not angry at being tossed out of his bedchamber—how could she be; she had said nothing more would happen between them—but he was glad he was not Niella.

Bouncing the shortened spear in his hand, he turned to Asmodean.