The decks bustled as sweeps went out and sails rose, and Samara began to dwindle behind before she could put an end to the demonstration completely. If Elayne or Birgitte had said one word, she would have thumped them both twice around the ship for good measure.

Five days they were on Riverserpent, five days running down the slowly winding Eldar through baking days and nights not much cooler. Some things changed for the better in that time, but the voyage did not begin well.

The first real problem of the trip was Neres’ cabin in the stern, the only accommodation on the ship except the deck. Not that Neres was reluctant about moving out. His haste—breeches and coats and shirts flung over his shoulders and dangling from a great wad in his arms, shaving mug clutched in one hand and razor in the other—made Nynaeve look hard at Thom and Juilin and Uno. It was one thing for her to make use of them when she chose to, quite another for them to go looking after her behind her back. Their faces could not have been more open, or their eyes more innocent. Elayne brought up another of Lini’s sayings. “An open sack hides nothing, and an open door hides little, but an open man is surely hiding something.”

But whatever problem the men might prove to be, the problem now was the cabin itself. It smelled of must and mold even with the tiny windows swung out, and they let little light into its dank confines. “Confines” was the word. The cabin was small, smaller than the wagon, and most of the space was taken by a heavy table and high-backed chair fastened to the floor, and the ladder leading up to the deck. A washstand built into the wall, with a grimy pitcher and bowl and a narrow dusty mirror, crowded the room still more, and completed the furnishings except for a few empty shelves and pegs for hanging clothes. The ceiling beams crouched right overhead, even for them. And there was only one bed, wider than what they had been sleeping on, yet hardly wide enough for two. Tall as he was, Neres might as well have lived in a box. The man surely had not given up one inch that might be stuffed with cargo.

“He came to Samara in the night,” Elayne muttered, unburdening herself of her bundles and putting hands on hips as she looked around disparagingly, “and he wanted to leave in the night. I heard him tell one of his men that he meant to sail on through the night whatever the . . . the wenches . . . wanted. Apparently, he’s not much pleased to be moving in daylight.”

Thinking of the other woman’s elbows and cold feet, Nynaeve wondered whether she would not have done better to sleep up above with the refugees. “What are you going on about?”

“The man is a smuggler, Nynaeve.”