They were not alone, of course. The hilltop was crowded, really. Sulin had a hundred Far Dareis Mai arrayed around the peak, for one thing, every last one looking even more ready to don her veil than Aiel usually did. It was not only the nearness of the Shaido that had Sulin on edge. In mockery of Rand's contempt for the suspicions in the camps below, Enaila and two Maidens were never far from Weiramon and his lordlings, and the closer they stood to Rand, the more the three Maidens looked about to don veils.

Not far off, Aviendha stood talking with a dozen or more Wise Ones, shawls looped over their elbows, all but she decked in bracelets and necklaces. Surprisingly, it was a bony white-haired woman, even older than Bair, who seemed to be taking the lead. Rand would have expected Amys or Bair, but even they shut up as soon as Sorilea spoke. Melaine was with Bael, halfway between the other Wise Ones and the other clan chiefs. She kept adjusting the coat of Bael's cadin'sor as if he did not know how to dress himself, and he had the patient look of a man reminding himself of all the reasons he had married. It might be personal, but Rand suspected the Wise Ones were trying to influence the chiefs again. If that was the case, he would learn the particulars soon enough.

It was Aviendha who held Rand's eye, though. She smiled at him briefly before returning to listening to Sorilea. A friendly smile, but no more. That was something, he supposed. She had not lashed out at him once since what had happened between them, and if she sometimes made an acid comment it was no sharper than what he might have expected from Egwene. Except the one time he had brought up marriage again; then she had scorched his ears so thoroughly that he had left it alone thereafter. But friendly was as far as it went, though she was sometimes careless now about undressing in front of him at night. She still insisted on sleeping no more than three paces from him.

The Maidens, at any rate, seemed sure that there was a lot less than three paces between their blankets, and he kept expecting that certainty to spread, but so far it had not. Egwene would come down on him like a falling tree if she even suspected something like that. It was easy enough for her to talk of Elayne, but he could not even puzzle out Aviendha, and she was right there in front of him. All in all, he was tenser than ever when he as much as looked at Aviendha, but she seemed more relaxed than he had ever seen her. Somehow or other, that seemed the opposite of how it should be. It all seemed topsy-turvy with her. But then, Min was the only woman who had not made him feel as if he were standing on his head half the time.

Sighing, he walked on, still not listening to Weiramon. One day he was going to understand women. When he had the time to apply to it. He suspected a lifetime would not be enough, though.

The clan chiefs had their own gathering, of sept chiefs and representatives from the societies. Rand recognized some of them. Dark Heirn, chief of the Jindo Taardad, and Mangin, who gave him a companionable nod and the Tairens a contemptuous grimace. Spear-slender Juranai, leader of Aethan Dor, the Red Shields, on this expedition despite a few streaks of white in his pale brown hair, and Roidan, thick-shouldered and gray, who led Sha'mad Conde, the Thunder Walkers. Those four had sometimes joined him in practicing the Aiel way of fighting without weapons since leaving the Jangai Pass.

"Do you want to go hunting today?" Mangin asked as Rand passed, and Rand looked at him in surprise.

"Hunting?"

"There is not much to give sport, but we could try catching sheep in a sack." The wry glance Mangin darted at the Tairens left little doubt what "sheep" he meant, though Weiramon and the others did not see. Or affected not to. The lordling with the perfumed handkerchief sniffed it again.

"Another time, maybe," Rand replied, shaking his head. He thought he could have been friends with any of the four, but especially Mangin, who had a sense of humor much like Mat's. If he had no time to study women, he certainly had no time for making new friends. Little time for old friends, for that matter. Mat worried him.

On the highest part of the hill, a heavy framework tower of logs thrust above the treetops, the wide platform at the top twenty spans or more above the ground. The Aiel knew nothing about working with wood on that scale, but there had been plenty among the Cairhienin refugees who did.

Moiraine was waiting at the base of the first slanting ladder with Lan, and Egwene. Egwene had been getting a good bit of sun; she really could have passed for Aiel except for her dark eyes. A short Aiel. He scanned her face quickly, but detected nothing except tiredness. Amys and the others must be working her too hard with her training. She would not thank him for interceding, though.

"Have you decided?" Rand asked, stopping. Weiramon fell silent at last.

Egwene hesitated, but Rand noted that she did not look at Moiraine before nodding. "I will do what I can."

Her reluctance bothered him. He had not asked Moiraine – she could not use the One Power as a weapon against the Shaido, not unless they threatened her or he managed to convince her they were all Darkfriends – but Egwene had not taken the Three Oaths, and he had been sure she would see the necessity. Instead, she had gone white-faced when he suggested it and had avoided for him for three days until now. At least she had agreed. Whatever made the fight shorter against the Shaido must be for the good.

Moiraine's face never changed, though he had no doubt what she thought. Those smooth Aes Sedai features, those Aes Sedai eyes, could register icy disapproval without altering a jot.

Thrusting the piece of spear through his belt, he put foot to the first rung – and Moiraine spoke.

"Why are you wearing a sword again?"

The last question he would have expected. "Why shouldn't I?" he muttered, and scrambled upward. Not a good answer, but she had caught him off balance.

The half-healed wound in his side tugged as he climbed, not quite hurting but seeming about to break open just the same. He paid it no mind; it often felt that way when he exerted himself.

Rhuarc and the other clan chiefs came after him, Bael leaving Melaine last of all, but thankfully Weiramon and his two toadies remained on the ground. The High Lord knew what was to be done; he needed and wanted no more information. Feeling Moiraine's eyes following him, Rand glanced down. Not Moiraine. It was Egwene watching him climb, her face so close to Aes Sedai that he could not have slid a hair through the difference. Moiraine had her head together with Lan's. He hoped Egwene was not going to change her mind.

On the broad platform at the top, two short, sweating young men in shirtsleeves were setting a brass-bound wooden tube, three paces long and bigger around than either's arm, on a pivoting frame fastened to the railing. An identical tube already sat a few paces away, where it had been almost since the tower was completed the day before. A third coatless man wiped his bald head with a striped kerchief while he growled at them.

"Easy with it. Easy, I said! You motherless weasels knock a lens out of alignment, and I will knock your brainless heads backward to front. Fasten it. Tight, Jol. Tight! If it falls while the Lord Dragon is looking through it, you both had better jump after it. Not just for him. You break my work and you will wish you had broken your fool skulls."

Jol and the other fellow, Cail, worked on, quickly but not very visibly perturbed. They had had years to grow used to Kin Tovere's way of talking. It had been finding a craftsman who made lenses and looking glasses – and his two apprentices – among the refugees that had first given Rand the idea for this tower.

At first none of the three noticed they were not alone. The clan chiefs climbed on silent feet, and Tovere's harangue was enough to cover the sound of Rand's boots. Rand himself was startled when Lan's head popped through the open trap after Bael; boots or no, the Warder made no more noise than the Aiel. Even Lan stood a head taller than the Cairhienin.