“I checked enough,” Iralin said, still hostile. “If you open a hundred sacks and you find the same thing in every one, you figure out the pattern. My wife has been trying to figure out a safe method of sifting the rotted grain from the safe grain. If there’s any safe grain to be had.”

Rand began walking toward the ships. Iralin followed, looking confused, perhaps because Rand hadn’t yelled at him. Min joined them. Rand approached a Sea Folk vessel sitting low in the water, moored by ropes. A group of Sea Folk lounged atop it.

“I would speak with your Sailmistress,” Rand called.

“I am she,” said one of the Sea Folk, a woman with white in her straight black hair and a pattern of tattoos across her right hand. “Milis din Shalada Three Stars.”

“I made a deal,” Rand called up, “for food to be delivered here.”

“That one doesn’t want it delivered,” Milis said, nodding to Iralin. “He won’t let us unload; says that if we do, he’ll have his archers loose on us.”

“I wouldn’t be able to hold the people back,” Iralin said. “I’ve had to spread rumors in town that the Sea Folk are holding the food hostage.”

“You see what we suffer for you?” Milis said to Rand. “I begin to wonder about our Bargain with you, Rand al’Thor.”

“Do you deny that I am the Coramoor?” Rand asked, meeting her eyes. She seemed to have trouble looking away from him.

“No,” Milis said. “No, I guess that I do not. You will want to board the Whitecap, I suppose.”

“If I may.”

“Up with you, then,” she said.

Once the gangplank was in place, Rand strode up it, followed by Min with Naeff and the two Maidens. After a moment, Iralin came, too, followed by the captain and some of his soldiers.

Milis led them to the center of the deck, where a hatch and ladder led down to the ship’s hold. Rand climbed down first, moving awkwardly, being one-handed. Min followed.

Beneath, light peeked through slots in the deck, illuminating sack upon sack of grain. The air smelled dusty and thick.

“We’ll be glad to have this cargo gone,” Milis said softly, coming down next. “It’s been killing the rats.”

“I would think you’d appreciate that,” Min said.

“A ship without rats is like an ocean without storms,” Milis said. “We complain about both, but my crew mutters every time they find one of the vermin dead.”

There were several open sacks of grain nearby, turned on their sides, spilling dark contents across the floor. Iralin had spoken of trying to sift the bad from the good, but Min didn’t see any good. Just shriveled, discolored grains.

Rand stared at the open sacks as Iralin came down into the hold. Captain Durnham shuffled down the ladder last with his men.

“Nothing stays good any longer,” Iralin said. “It’s not just this grain. People brought winter stores from the farms with them. They’re all gone. We’re going to die, and that’s that. We won’t reach the bloody Last Battle. We—”