Petra had joined the group of men, twice as wide as any other. He said something, then shook hands with Thom. The Chavanas were there as well. And Latelle, talking earnestly with Thom while darting dark looks at Nynaeve and the two women with her. By the time Luca returned with an unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows, no one was making preparations any longer. The wagons and horses and cages—even the tethered boar-horses—stood abandoned, the people all clustered around Thom and the thief-catcher. They followed as Luca led the way a short distance out of the camp.

“I am accounted a fair shot,” he said, carving a white cross chest-high to himself on the trunk of a tall oak. He had some of his jauntiness back, and he swaggered as he strode off fifty paces. “I will take the first shot, so you can see what you face.”

Birgitte plucked the bow from his hand and walked off another fifty as he stared after her. She shook her head over the bow, but braced it on her slippered foot and strung it in one smooth motion before Luca joined her and Elayne and Nynaeve. Birgitte pulled an arrow from the quiver he held, examined it a moment, then tossed it aside like rubbish. Luca frowned and opened his mouth, but she was already discarding a second shaft. The next three went to the leaf-covered ground as well before she stuck one point-down in the soil beside her. Of twenty-one, she kept only four.

“She can do it,” Elayne whispered, trying to sound certain. Nynaeve nodded bleakly; if they had to pay out a hundred gold crowns, they would soon be selling the jewelry Amathera had given them. The letters-of-rights were all but useless, as she had explained to Nynaeve; their use would eventually point a finger to where they had been for Elaida, if not where they were. If I had just spoken up in time, I could have stopped this. As my Warder, she has to do as I say. Doesn’t she? From the evidence so far, obedience was no part of the bond. Had those Aes Sedai she had spied on made the men give oaths as well? Now that she thought of it, she believed one of them had.

Birgitte nocked an arrow, raised the bow, and loosed seemingly without pausing to aim. Elayne winced, but the steel point struck dead center in the middle of the carved white cross. Before it stopped quivering, the second brushed in beside it. Birgitte did wait a moment then, but only for the two arrows to still. A gasp rose from the onlookers as the third shaft split the first, but that was nothing to the absolute silence as the last split the other just as neatly. Once could have been chance. Twice . . .