Elayne had the cooking that evening, which meant that none of the food was simple, despite the fact that they were eating on stools around a cookfire, with crickets chirping in the surrounding woods, and now and again some night-bird’s thin, sad cry in the deepening darkness. The soup was served cold and jellied, with chopped green ferris sprinkled on top. The Light knew where she had found ferris, or the tiny onions she put in with the peas. The beef was sliced nearly thin enough to see through and wrapped around something made from carrots, sweetbeans, chives and goatcheese, and there was even a small honeycake for dessert.

It was all tasty, though Elayne fretted that nothing was exactly the way it should be, as if she thought she could duplicate the cooks’ work in the Royal Palace in Caemlyn. Nynaeve was fairly sure the girl was not fishing for compliments. Elayne would always brush away compliments and tell you exactly what was not right: Thom and Juilin grumbled about there being so little beef, but Nynaeve noticed that they not only ate every scrap but looked disappointed when the last pea was gone. When she cooked, for some reason they always seemed to eat at one of the other wagons. When one of them made supper, it was always stew or else meat and beans so full of dried peppers that your tongue blistered.

They did not eat alone, of course. Luca saw to that, bringing his own stool and placing it right next to her, his red cloak spread to best effect and his long legs stretched out so that his calves showed well, above his turned-down boots. He was there almost every night. Oddly, the only nights he missed were when she cooked.

It was interesting, really, having his eyes on her when a woman as pretty as Elayne was there, but he did have his motives. He sat altogether too close—tonight she moved her stool three times, but he followed without missing a word or seeming to notice—and he alternated comparing her with various flowers, to the blossoms’ detriment, ignoring the black eye he could not miss without being blind, and musing over how beautiful she would be in that red dress, with compliments on her courage thrown in. Twice, he slipped in suggestions that they take a stroll by moonlight, hints so veiled that she was not entirely sure that was what they were until she thought about it.

“That gown will frame your unfolding bravery to perfection,” he murmured in her ear, “yet not a quarter so well as you display yourself, for night-blooming dara lilies would weep with envy to see you stroll beside the moonlit water, as I would do, and make myself a bard to sing your praises by this very moon.”