Rand laughed out loud. It was a bitter laugh. Sticking his pipe between his teeth, he hoisted himself to sit cross-legged atop the table, staring at them. “So you and Siuan Sanche still think you know everything there is to know.” The Light willing, they did not know near everything about him, and would never find out. “You’re both fools.”

“Show some respect!” Egwene growled, but Rand went on over her words.

“The Tairen High Lords know the Prophecies, too, and they knew me, once they saw the Sword That Cannot Be Touched clutched in my fist. Half of them expect me to bring them power or glory or both. The other half would as soon slip a knife in my back and try to forget the Dragon Reborn was ever in Tear. That is how the nations will greet the Dragon Reborn. Unless I quell them first, the same way I did the Tairens. Do you know why I left Callandor in Tear? To remind them of me. Every day they know it is there, driven into the Heart of the Stone, and they know I’ll come back for it. That is what holds them to me.” That was one reason he had left the Sword That Is Not a Sword behind. He did not like even to think of the other.

“Be very careful,” Moiraine said after a moment. Just that, in a voice all frozen calm. He heard stark warning in the words. Once he had heard her say in much the same tone that she would see him dead before letting the Shadow have him. A hard woman.

For a long moment she gazed at him, her eyes dark pools that threatened to swallow him. Then she made a perfect curtsy. “By your leave, my Lord Dragon, I will see to letting Master Kadere know where I expect him to work tomorrow.”

No one could have seen or heard the faintest mockery in action or words, but Rand felt it. Anything that might put him off balance, make him more biddable by guilt or shame or uncertainty or whatever, she would try. He stared after her until the clicking beads in the doorway obscured her.

“There is no need you scowling like that, Rand al’Thor.” Egwene’s voice was low, her eyes irate; she held on to her shawl as if she wanted to strangle him with it. “Lord Dragon, indeed! Whatever you are, you’re a rude, ill-mannered lout. You deserve more than you got. It would not kill you to be civil!”