Chapter 32: Dangerous Words

Rand and the others arrive at Barthanes's manor in the night — a sprawling, fortress-like building lit with music and laughter. Their party includes Verin, Ingtar, and Loial, with Mat and Hurin posing as servants. Uno leads the Shienaran escort outside.

Loial quietly tells Rand that he can feel a Waygate nearby — the manor was built on an old Ogier grove. The group fans out into the crowd, and Rand keeps moving to avoid being drawn into Cairhien's Daes Dae'mar.

Barthanes finds Rand and steers their conversation with practiced subtlety: he probes about the statue near Tremonsien, about King Galldrian, about Rand's Borderland training — and notes with barely concealed interest that Rand has Aiel-like coloring. Every innocent remark Rand makes is treated as a calculated move in the Great Game.

Three Cairhienin noblewomen — Alaine Chuliandred, Belevaere Osiellin, and Breane Taborwin — trap Rand against a wall with their wide skirts, competing for his attention. He escapes to Thom Merrilin, who is performing at the party as a strolling bard. Thom warns that the Great Game was invented by the White Tower, and that Rand is already 'in the cooking pot.' He insists on his clean break from Rand's troubles — but sounds as if he is trying to convince himself.

Hurin appears with a coded message: Rand's 'manservant had a fall and twisted his knee.' Rand plays his lord's role — loudly berating the clumsy servant for the watching nobles — and follows Hurin toward the kitchens to learn what Mat has found.