The wavering, high-pitched cries dwindled away to nothing as Rhuarc halted before the boulder, a step closer than Heirn and Couladin. "I ask leave enter your hold, roofmistress," he announced in a loud, carrying tone.

"You have my leave, clan chief," the yellow-haired woman replied formally, and just as loudly. Smiling, she added in a much warmer voice, "Shade of my heart, you will always have my leave."

"I give thanks, roofmistress of my heart." That did not sound particularly formal, either.

Heirn stepped forward. "Roofmistress, I ask leave to come beneath your roof."

"You have my leave, Heirn," Lian told the stocky man. "Beneath my roof, there is water and shade for you. The Jindo sept is always welcome here."

"I give thanks, roofmistress." Heirn clapped Rhuarc on the shoulder and left to rejoin his people; Aiel ceremony was short, it seemed, and to the point.

Swaggering, Couladin joined Rhuarc, "I ask leave to enter your hold, roofmistress."

Lian blinked, frowning at him. A murmur rose behind Rand, an astonished buzz from hundreds of throats. A sudden feel of danger hung in the air. Mat certainly felt it, too, fingering his spear and half-turning to see what the mass of Aiel was doing.

"What is the matter?" Rand asked quietly over his shoulder. "Why doesn't she say something?"

"He asked as if he were a clan chief," Aviendha whispered disbelievingly. "The man is a fool. He must be mad! If she refuses him, it will mean trouble with the Shaido, and she may, for such an insult. Not blood feud – he is not their clan chief, however swollen his head – but trouble." Between one breath and the next her voice sharpened. "You did not listen, did you? You did not listen! She could have refused permission even to Rhuarc, and he would have had to leave. It would break the clan, but it is in her power. She can refuse even He Who Comes With the Dawn, Rand al'Thor. Women are not powerless among us, not like your wetlander women who must be queens or nobles or else dance for a man if they wish to eat!"

He shook his head slightly. Every time he was on the point of berating himself for how little he had learned about the Aiel, Aviendha reminded him how little she knew about anyone not Aiel. "Someday I would like to introduce you to the Women's Circle in Emond's Field. It will be... interesting... to hear you explain to them how powerless they are." He felt her shifting against his back, trying to get a good look at his face, and carefully kept his expression smooth. "Maybe they'll explain a few things to you, too."

"You have my leave," Lian began – Couladin smiled, swelling up where he stood —"to step beneath my roof. Water and shade will be found for you." Soft gasps from hundreds of mouths made quite a loud sound.

The fire-haired man quivered as if struck, face red with rage. He did not seem to know what to do. He took a challenging step forward, staring up at Lian and Amys, clutching his own forearms as though to keep his hands from his spears, then whirled and strode back toward the gathering, glaring this way and that, daring anyone to speak. Finally he stopped not far from where he had begun, staring at Rand. Coals could not have been hotter than his blue eyes.

"As one friendless and alone," Aviendha whispered. "She has welcomed him as a beggar. The gravest insult to him, and none to the Shaido." Suddenly she fisted Rand so hard in the ribs that he grunted. "Move, wetlander. You hold such honor as I have left in your hands; all will know I have taught you! Move!"

Swinging a leg over, he slid from Jeade'en's back and strode up beside Rhuarc. I am not Aiel, he thought. I do not understand them, and I cannot let myself come to like them too much. I cannot.

None of the other men had done so, but he bowed to Lian; that was how he had been brought up. "Roofmistress, I ask leave to come beneath your roof." He heard Aviendha's breath catch. He had been supposed to say the other thing, what Rhuarc had. The clan chief's eyes narrowed worriedly, watching his wife, and Couladin's flushed face twisted in a scornful smile. The soft murmurs from the crowd sounded puzzled.

The roofmistress stared at Rand even harder than she had at Couladin, taking him in from hair to boots and back again, the shoufa lying on the shoulders of a red coat that would surely never be worn by an Aiel. She looked questioningly at Amys, who nodded.

"Such modesty," Lian said slowly, "is becoming in a man. Men seldom know where to find it." Spreading her dark skirts, she curtsied, awkwardly – it was not a thing Aiel women did – but still a curtsy, in return of his bow. "The Car'a'carn has leave to enter my hold. For the chief of chiefs, there is ever water and shade at Cold Rocks."

Another great ululation rose from the women in the crowd, but whether for him or for the ceremony, Rand did not know. Couladin paused to stare implacable hatred at him, then stalked off, brushing roughly past Aviendha as she slid ungracefully from the dapple stallion. He melded quickly into the dispersing crowd.

Mat slowed in the act of dismounting to stare after the man. "Watch your back with that one, Rand," he said quietly. "I mean it."

"Everybody tells me that," Rand said. The peddlers were already setting up to trade in the center of the canyon, and at the entrance, Moiraine and the rest of the Wise Ones' company were arriving to a few shouts and the drumming of pots, but nothing like the cries that had welcomed Rhuarc. "He isn't who I have to worry about." His dangers were not Aiel. Moiraine to one side and Lanfear to the other. How could I have more danger than that? It was nearly enough to make him laugh.

Amys and Lian had climbed down, and to Rand's surprise, Rhuarc put an arm around each of them. They were both tall, as most Aiel women seemed to be, but neither came higher than the clan chief's shoulder. "You have met my wife Amys," he said to Rand. "Now you must meet my wife Lian."

Rand realized his mouth was hanging open and closed it quickly. After Aviendha had told him the roofmistress of Cold Rocks was Rhuarc's wife and named Lian, he was sure he had misunderstood back at Chaendaer, all that "shade of my heart" between the man and Amys. He had had other things on his mind then anyway. But this...

"Both of them?" Mat spluttered. "Light! Two! Oh, burn me! He's the luckiest man in the world or the biggest fool since creation!"

"I had thought," Rhuarc said, frowning, "that Aviendha was teaching you our customs. She leaves out much, it appears."

Leaning to look around her husband – their husband – Lian raised an eyebrow at Amys, who said dryly, "She seemed ideal to tell him what he needs to know. Something to keep her from trying to run back to the Maidens whenever our backs were turned, too. Now it seems I must have a long talk with her in a quiet place. No doubt she has been teaching him Maiden hand talk, or how to milk a gara."

Flushing slightly, Aviendha tossed her head irritably; her dark reddish hair had grown over her ears, long enough to sway in a fringe below her head scarf. "There were more important matters to speak of than marriages. Anyway, the man does not listen."

"She has been a good teacher," Rand put in quickly. "I have learned a great deal about your customs, and the Threefold Land, from her." Hand talk? "Any mistakes I make are mine, not hers." How did you milk a venomous two-foot lizard? Why? "She has been a good teacher, and I'd like to keep her as such, if that is all right." Why in the Light did I say that? The woman could be pleasant enough sometimes, when she forget herself, anyway; the rest of the time she was a burr under his coat. Yet at least he knew who the Wise Ones had set to watch him as long as she was there.

Amys studied him, those clear blue eyes as sharp as an Aes Sedai's. But then, she could channel; her face merely looked younger than it should, not ageless, but maybe she was as much Aes Sedai as an Aes Sedai. "That sounds a fine arrangement to me," she said. Aviendha opened her mouth, all bristling indignation – and closed it again, sullenly, when the Wise One shifted that stare to her. Perhaps the woman had thought her time with him was done, now they had reached Cold Rocks.