Belief and order give strength. Have to clear rubble before you can build. Will explain when see you next. Do not bring girl. Too pretty.

Fel

It was a hasty scrawl with the signature jammed into the point of the fragment, and to Rand it made no sense. When he tried to reach Fel again, though, it seemed that the man had told Idrien that he felt young again and was going fishing. In the middle of a drought. Rand wondered whether the old man’s wits had finally cracked. Min certainly found the note amusing; she asked if she could have it, and several times he caught her grinning over it.

Cracked wits or whole, Rand decided that he would leave Min behind the next time, but in truth, it was difficult to keep her at his side when he wanted her. She seemed to spend more time with the Wise Ones than with him. He could not understand why that should irritate him so, but he noticed a tendency to snap at people when Min was out among the tents. It was a good thing she was not with him too often. People would notice. People would talk, and wonder. In Cairhien, where even the servants played their own version of the Game of Houses, it could be dangerous for her to have people wondering whether she was important. A good thing. He tried not to snap.

What he wanted Min for, of course, was to view the nobles who began coming to him one at a time, asking after his health – those sagging knees must have started rumors – smiling, inquiring how long he intended to remain in Cairhien this time, what his plans were if they might ask, smiling more, always smiling. The only one who did not smile at him so intently was Dobraine, still with the front of his head shaved like a soldier and the stripes across his coat worn by the breastplate he did not wear to the palace, and Dobraine was so glum in asking exactly the same questions that Rand was almost happier to see him go than any of the others.

Min did manage to be at those audiences, squeezing it in between whatever she was doing with the Wise Ones; Rand had no intention of asking. The problem was keeping her hidden.

"I could just pretend to be your lightskirt," Min laughed. "I could drape myself on you and feed you grapes – well, raisins; I haven’t seen a grape in some time – and you could call me your little honey-lips. Nobody would wonder why I was there then."

"No," he snapped, and her face grew solemn.

"Do you really think the Forsaken would come after me just for that?"

"They might," he told her just as seriously. "A Darkfriend like Padan Fain would, if he’s still alive. I won’t risk that, Min. In any case, I won’t have these filthy-minded Cairhienin thinking of you that way, or the Tairens either." The Aiel were different; they thought her teasing very funny, very amusing indeed.

Min certainly was changeable. She went straight from solemn to radiant with no in-between, all smiles that hardly faded for a moment. Until the audiences actually began.

A paneled screen of gilded fretwork set up in the corner of the anteroom was a failure. Maringil’s dark glittering eyes avoided looking at it to such an extent that Rand knew the man would turn the Sun Palace end over end to find out who or what it hid. The sitting room turned out better, with Min peeping through cracked doors into the anteroom, but not everyone showed image or aura to her eyes during the audience with him, and what she did see, there and simply walking about in the hallways, was bleak. Maringil, white-haired and blade-slim and cool as ice, was going to die by poison. Colavaere, her more than handsome face calm and collected once she learned Aviendha was not with Rand this time, would die by hanging. Meilan, with his pointed beard and oily voice, would die by the knife. The future carried a heavy toll for the High Lords of Tear. Aracome and Maraconn and Gueyam were all going to die too, bloody deaths, in battle, Min thought. She said she had never seen death so often in one group of people.

By the time she saw blood covering Gueyam’s broad face, their fifth day in Cairhien, she felt so ill at the thought that Rand made her lie down and had Sulin bring damp cloths to lay on her forehead. This time he was the one to sit on the mattress and hold her hand. She held on very tight.

She did not give up her teasing, though. The two times he could be absolutely sure she would be there were when he practiced the sword, dancing the forms with four or five of the best he could find among the Tairen and Cairhienin soldiers, and when he and Rhuarc or Gaul were tossing each other about and trying to kick each other in the head. Inevitably Min ran a finger across his bare chest and made some joke about sheepfarmers not sweating because they were used to having wool as thick as their sheep or the like. Sometimes she touched the half-healed, never-healing scar on his side, that circle of pale pink flesh, but differently, softly; she never made any jokes about that. She pinched his bottom – startling to say the least when other people were about; Maidens and Wise Ones nearly fell over laughing every single time he jumped; Sulin looked as if she might burst from not laughing – snuggled in his lap and kissed him at every opportunity, she even threatened to come scrub his back in his bath one of these nights. When he pretended to weep and stammer, she laughed and said it was not good enough.

Min did quit quickly enough if a Maiden stuck her head in to announce someone, especially Loial, who never stayed long and talked of the Royal Library the whole time, or Perrin, who stayed even more briefly and for some reason looked increasingly tired. Most especially Min leaped up if Faile happened to be with either one. The two times that happened, Min hastily found a book among those Rand had in the bedchamber and sat pretending to read, opening it somewhere in the middle as if she had been at it for some time. Rand did not understand the cool looks the two women exchanged. It was not precisely animosity, or even unfriendliness exactly, but Rand suspected that if either made a list of those she would just as soon not spend time with, the other’s name would be prominent.

The amusing thing of it was, the second time, the book turned out to be the leather-bound first volume of Daria Gahand’s Essays on Reason, which he had found heavy going and intended to send back to the Library the next time Loial stopped in. Min actually went on reading for a time after Faile left, and for all her frowning and muttering, that night Min took it back to her own rooms in the guest apartments.

If cool disinterest reigned between Min and Faile, between Min and Berelain animosity was not in it. When Somara announced Berelain on the second afternoon, Rand put on his coat, strode into the anteroom and took the tall gilded chair on the dais before telling Somara to admit her. Min was slow in reaching the sitting room, though. Berelain swept in, as beautiful as ever, in a soft blue dress cut as deeply as ever – and her eyes fell on Min, in her pale rose coat and breeches. For several long moments Rand might as well not have existed. Berelain openly eyed Min up and down. Min forgot about the sitting room; she put her hands on her hips and stood there with one knee bent, studying Berelain just as openly. They smiled at each other; Rand thought the hair on his head would stand up when they did that. He was minded of nothing so much as two strange cats who had just discovered they were shut up in the same small room. Apparently deciding there was no point hiding now, Min walked – undulated would have been a better word; she managed to make Berelain’s way of walking look like a boy’s! – and sat with one knee over the other, still smiling. Light, how those women did smile.

At last Berelain turned to Rand, spreading her skirts wide and bending low. He heard Lews Therin humming in his head, enjoying the sight of a very beautiful woman who was more than generous in displaying her charms. Rand appreciated what he was seeing too, despite wondering whether he should look away at least until she was erect again, but he had put himself on the dais for a reason. He tried to make his voice both reasonable and firm.