Only a few men were sitting at the round tables in the common room of The Crown of Maredo when Rand walked in. Despite the grand name, it was a modest inn, with two dozen rooms on two floors above. The plastered walls of the common room were painted yellow, and the men serving table here wore long yellow aprons. A stone fireplace at either end of the room gave it a marked warmth after outside. The shutters were bolted, but lamps hung on the walls took the edge off the dimness. The smells drifting from the kitchens promised a tasty midday meal of fish from the lake. Rand would be sorry to miss that. The cooks at The Crown of Maredo were very good.
He saw Lan at a table by himself against the wall. The braided leather cord that held Lan's hair back drew sidelong glances from some of the other men, but he refused to give up wearing the hadori even for a little while. He met Rand's gaze, and when Rand nodded toward the stairs at the back of the room, he did not waste time with questioning looks; he just set down his winecup and rose, starting for the stairs. Even with just a small knife at his belt, he looked dangerous, but there was nothing to be done about that, either. Several men at the tables glanced Rand's way, but for some reason, they looked away hurriedly when he met their eyes.
Near the kitchen, at the door to the Women's Room, Rand stopped. Men were not allowed in there. Aside from a few flowers painted on the yellow walls, the Women's Room was not much fancier than the common room, though the stand-lamps were painted yellow, too, and the facings of the fireplace. The yellow aprons worn by the women who served table here were no different than those worn by the men in the common room. Mistress Nalhera, the slim, gray-haired innkeeper, was sitting at the same table as Min, Nynaeve and Alivia, all of them chatting and laughing over tea.
Rand's jaw tightened at the sight of the former damane. Nynaeve claimed the woman had insisted on coming along, but he did not believe anyone could "insist" on anything with Nynaeve. She wanted Alivia along for some secret reason. She had been behaving mysteriously, as though working as hard as she could at being Aes Sedai, ever since he went back for her after leaving Elayne. All three women had adopted high-necked Far Madding dresses, heavily embroidered with flowers and birds on the bodice and shoulders and right up to their chins, though sometimes Nynaeve grumbled over them. No doubt she would have preferred stout Two Rivers woolens to the finer material she found here. On the other hand, if the red dot of the ki'sain on her forehead were not enough to draw every eye, she had decked herself out in jewelry as though attending a royal audience, a slim golden belt and a long necklace and any number of bracelets, all but one set with bright blue sapphires and polished green stones he did not know, and every finger on her right hand had a ring to match. Her Great Serpent ring was tucked away somewhere, so as not to attract attention, but the rest drew ten times as much. Many people would not have known an Aes Sedai's ring at sight, but anyone could see money in those gems.
Rand cleared his throat and bent his head. "Wife, I need to speak with you upstairs," he said, remembering at the last moment to add, "if it pleases you." He could not make it more urgent than that, not and maintain the proprieties, but he hoped they did not linger. They might, if only to demonstrate for the innkeeper that they were not at his beck and call. For some reason, people in Far Madding actually seemed to believe that women from off jumped when men told them to!
Min twisted around in her chair to grin at him, the way she did every time he called her wife. The feel of her in his head was warmth and delight, suddenly sparkling with amusement. She found their situation in Far Madding very amusing. Leaning toward Mistress Nalhera without taking her eyes from him, she said something in a low voice that made the older woman cackle with laughter and gave Nynaeve a pained expression.
Alivia stood up, looking nothing like the subdued woman he vaguely remembered handing over to Taim. All those captured sui'dam and damane had been a burden he was glad to be free of, no more. There were threads of white in her golden hair and fine lines at the corners of her eyes, but those eyes were fierce now. "Well?" she drawled, staring down at Nynaeve, but somehow she made the word both a criticism and a command.
Nynaeve glared up at the woman and took her sweet time in standing and smoothing her skirts, but at least she stood.
Rand waited no longer before rushing upstairs. Lan was waiting at the head of the stairs, just out of sight of the common room below. Quietly, Rand gave a bare-bones account of what had happened. Lan's stony face never changed expression.
"At least one of them is done," he said, turning toward the room he shared with Nynaeve. "I'll get our things ready."
Rand was already in the room he and Min shared, hurriedly pulling their clothes out of the tall wardrobe and stuffing them any way they would go into one of the wicker pack hampers, when she finally entered the room. Followed by Nynaeve and Alivia.
"Light, you'll ruin our things that way," Min exclaimed, shouldering him away from the hamper. She began removing garments and folding them neatly on the bed beside his peace-bonded sword. "Why are we packing?" she asked, but gave him no chance to answer. "Mistress Nalhera says you wouldn't be so sulky if I switched you every morning," she laughed, shaking out one of the coats she did not wear here. He had told her he would buy her new, but she refused to leave the embroidered coats and breeches behind. "I told her I'd consider it. She likes Lan very much." Suddenly she pitched her voice high in imitation of the innkeeper. "A neat, mild-mannered man is much to be preferred over a pretty face, I always say."
Nynaeve snorted. "Who wants a man she can make jump through hoops whenever she likes?" Rand stared at her, and Min's mouth fell open. That was exactly what Nynaeve did to Lan, and how the man put up with it was more than Rand could understand.
"You think about men too much, Nynaeve," Alivia drawled. Nynaeve frowned but instead of saying anything, she just stood there fingering one of her bracelets, a peculiar piece with flat golden chains stretching down the back of her left hand to rings on all four fingers. The older woman shook her head as though disappointed at not getting a rise.
"I'm packing because we have to go, and be quick about it," Rand said hastily. Nynaeve might be quiet for the moment, odd as that was, but if her face got any darker she would be yanking her braid and shouting till no one could get a word in edgewise for hours.
Before he finished the same account he had given Lan, Min stopped folding things and started replacing her books in the second hamper, hurriedly enough that she did not pad them with cloaks the way she usually did. The other two women stood staring at him as though they had never seen him before. In case they were not being as quick to see as Min, he impatiently added, "Rochaid and Kisman ambushed me. They knew I was following. Kisman got away. If he knows this inn, he and Dashiva and Gedwyn and Torval might all turn up here, maybe in two or three days, or maybe in an hour or so."
"I am not blind," Nynaeve said, still staring at him. There was no heat in her voice; was she protesting just for the form of it? "If you want to hurry, help Min instead of standing around like a woolhead." She stared at him a moment longer, and shook her head before leaving.
Alivia paused in the act of following, and glared at Rand. No, there was nothing subdued about her any longer. "You could get yourself killed like that," she said disapprovingly. "You have too much to do to get killed yet. You must let us help."