Juilin seemed to think so, too. Eyeing the stave, he said, "You know very well I take no risks with them. An empty house has a look about it, a feel, no matter how big. You cannot chase thieves as long as I have without learning to see as they do."

"And if you had triggered a trap?" Nynaeve almost hissed the words. "Does your grand talent for feeling things extend to traps?" Juilin's dark face went a little gray; he wet his lips as if to explain or defend himself, but she cut him off. "We will talk of this later, Master Sandar." Her eyes shifted slightly toward Egeanin; finally she had remembered there were other ears there to hear. "Tell Rendra we will take tea in the Falling Blossoms Room."

"Chamber of Falling Blossoms," Elayne corrected softly, and Nynaeve shot her a look. Juilin's news had left the older woman in a bad humor.

He bowed deeply with his hands spread. "As you command, Mistress al'Meara, so I obey from the heart," he said wryly, then stuck his dark cap back on top of his head and stalked off, his back eloquently indignant. It must be uncomfortable to find yourself taking orders from someone with whom you had once tried to flirt.

"Fool man!" Nynaeve growled. "We should have left both of them on the dock in Tear."

"He is your servant?" Egeanin said slowly.

"Yes," Nynaeve snapped, just as Elayne said, "No."

They looked at each other, Nynaeve still frowning.

"Perhaps he is, in a way," Elayne sighed, right on top of Nynaeve's muttered, "I suppose he is not, at that."

"I...see," Egeanin said.

Rendra came bustling between the tables with a smile on her rosebud lips behind her veil. Elayne wished she did not look so much like Liandrin. "Ah. You are so pretty this morning. Your dresses, they are magnificent. Beautiful." As if the honey-haired woman had not had as much to do with choosing the fabric and cut as they. Her own was red enough for a Tinker and definitely not suitable for public. "But you have been foolish again, yes? That is why the fine Juilin, he wears the large scowl. You should not worry him so." A twinkle in her big brown eyes said Juilin had found someone for his flirting. "Come. You will take your tea in the cool and the privacy, and if you must go out again, you will allow me to provide the bearers and the guards, yes? The pretty Elayne would not have lost so many purses if you were properly guarded. But we will not talk of such things now. Your tea, it is nearly prepared. Come." It had to be a learned skill, that was how Elayne saw it; you must have to learn how to talk without eating your veil.

The Chamber of Falling Blossoms, located down a short corridor off the common room, was a small, windowless room with a low table and carved chairs with red seat cushions. Nynaeve and Elayne took their meals there with Thom or Juilin or both, when Nynaeve was not in a taking at them. The plastered brick walls, painted with a veritable grove of plum trees and a namesake shower of flowers were thick enough to preclude any eavesdropping. Elayne practically tore her veil off and tossed the filmy scrap on the table before sitting; even Taraboner women did not try to eat or drink wearing the things. Nynaeve merely unfastened hers from her hair on one side.

Rendra kept up her chatter while they were being served, her topics bouncing from a new seamstress who could sew them dresses in the newest style from the thinnest imaginable silk – she suggested Egeanin try the woman, getting a level look for reply; it did not faze her even a trifle – to why they should listen to Juilin since the city was just too dangerous for a woman to go out alone now even in daylight, to a scented soap that would put the finest sheen on their hair. Elayne sometimes wondered how the woman ran such a successful inn when she seemed to think of nothing but her hair and her clothes. That she did was obvious; it was the how that puzzled Elayne. Of course, she did wear pretty clothes; just not entirely suitable. The servant who brought the tea and blue porcelain cups and tiny cakes on a tray was the slender, dark-eyed young man who had kept filling Elayne's winecup on that very embarrassing night. And had tried again more than once, though she had privately vowed never again to drink more than a single cup. A handsome man, but she gave him her coolest stare, so that he hurried from the room gladly.

Egeanin watched quietly until Rendra left, too. "You are not what I expected," she said then, balancing her cup on her fingertips in an odd way. "The innkeeper babbles of frivolities as if you were her sisters and as foolish as she, and you allow it. The dark man – he is a servant of sorts, I think – mocks you. That serving boy stares with open hunger in his eyes, and you allow it. You are... Aes Sedai, are you not?" Without waiting for an answer, she shifted her sharp blue eyes to Elayne. "And you are of the... You are nobly born. Nynaeve spoke of your mother's palace."

"Such things do not count for very much in the White Tower," Elayne told her ruefully, hastily brushing cake crumbs from her chin. It was very spicy cake; almost sharp. "If a. queen went there to learn, she would have to scrub floors like any other novice and jump when she was told."

Egeanin nodded slowly. "So that is how you rule. By ruling the rulers. Do... many... queens go to be trained so?"

"None that I know of." Elayne laughed. "Though it is our tradition in Andor for the Daughter-Heir to go. A good many noblewomen go, really, though they usually do not want it known and most leave having failed to even sense the True Source. It was only an example."

"You are also of the... a noble?" Egeanin asked, and Nynaeve snorted.

"My mother was a farmwife, and my father herded sheep and farmed tabac. Few where I come from can make do without wool and tabac both to sell. What of your parents, Egeanin?"

"My father was a soldier, my mother the... an officer on a ship." For a moment she sipped her unsweetened tea, studying them. "You are searching for someone," she said at last. "For these women the dark man spoke of. I do some small trade in information, among other things. I have sources who tell me things. Perhaps I can help. I would not charge, except to ask you to tell me more of Aes Sedai."

"You have helped too much already," Elayne said hastily, remembering Nynaeve telling almost everything to Bayle Domon. "I am grateful, but we could not accept more." Letting this woman know about the Black Ajah and letting her become involved without knowing were equally out of the question. "Truly we could not."

Caught with her mouth half-open, Nynaeve glared at her. "I was about to say the same," she said in a flat voice, then went on more brightly. "Our gratitude certainly extends to answering questions, Egeanin. As much as we can." She surely meant there were a good many questions for which they had no answers, but Egeanin took it differently.

"Of course. I will not pry into the secret affairs of your White Tower."

"You seem very interested in Aes Sedai," Elayne said. "I cannot sense the ability in you, but perhaps you can learn to channel."

Egeanin almost dropped her porcelain cup. "It... can be learned? I did not... No. No, I do not want to... to learn."

Her agitation made Elayne sad. Even among people not fearful of Aes Sedai, too many still feared anything to do with the One Power. "What do you want to know, Egeanin?"

Before the woman could speak, a rap at the door was followed by Thom, in the rich brown cloak he had taken to wearing when he went out. It certainly attracted less notice than the gleeman's patch-covered garment. In fact, it made him appear quite dignified, with that mane of white hair, though he should brush it more. Imagining him younger, Elayne thought she could see what had first attracted her mother. That did not absolve him of leaving, of course. She smoothed her face before he could see her frown.