The knife brushed Nynaeve’s hair as it thunked into the board she was leaning against, and she flinched behind her blindfold. She wished she had a decent braid instead of locks hanging loose about her shoulders. If that blade had cut even one strand . . . Fool woman, she thought bitterly. Fool, fool woman. With the scarf folded over her eyes she could just see a narrow line of light at the bottom. It seemed bright, from the darkness behind the thick folds. There had to be enough light yet, even if it was late afternoon. Surely the man would not throw when he could not see properly. The next blade struck on the other side of her head; she could feel it vibrating. She thought it almost touched her ear. She was going to kill Thom Merrilin and Valan Luca. And maybe any other man she could get her hands on, on sheer principle.

“The pears,” Luca shouted, as if he were not just thirty paces from her. He must think the blindfold made her deaf as well as blind.

Fumbling in the pouch at her belt, she brought out a pear and carefully balanced it atop her head. She was blind. A pure blind fool! Two more pears, and she gingerly extended her arms to either side between the knives that outlined her, holding one in either hand by the stems. There was a pause. She opened her mouth to tell Thom Merrilin that if he so much as nicked her, she would—

Tchunk-tchunk-tchunk! The blades came so fast she would have yelped if her throat had not contracted like a fist. She held only the stem in her left hand, the other pear trembled faintly with the knife through it, and the pear on her head leaked juice into her hair.

Snatching the scarf off, she stalked toward Thom and Luca, both of them grinning like maniacs. Before she could speak one of the words boiling up in her, Luca said admiringly, “You are magnificent, Nana. Your bravery is magnificent, but you are more so.” He swirled that ridiculous red silk cloak in a bow, one hand over his heart. “I shall call this ‘Rose Among Thorns.’ Though truly, you are more beautiful than any mere rose.”

“It doesn’t take much bravery to stand like a stump.” A rose, was she? She would show him thorns. She would show both of them. “You listen to me, Valan Luca—”

“Such courage. You never even flinch. I tell you, I would not have the stomach to do what you are doing.”

That was the simple truth, she told herself. “I am no braver than I have to be,” she said in a milder tone. It was hard to shout at a man who insisted on telling you how brave you were. Certainly better to hear than all that blather about roses. Thom knuckled his long white mustaches as if he saw something funny.