Rand’s first time using Saidin. It’s a scene everyone remembers. They’re fleeing the Draghkar. He’s afraid Bela won’t be able to keep up and Egwene will be left behind. He wills her to go faster.
“And Bela ran” (ch11, pg125 of my version).
Why do I tag this as the first of Bela’s many suspicious activities?
Easy.
She didn’t need the help; she was already keeping up.
BEFORE Rand uses the power, BEFORE he silently shouts Run! and his skin prickles and his bones freeze, he looks over at Bela and notes: “When he had said the shaggy mare could stay with the others, he had not meant on the run. She kept up now only by running as he had not thought she could” (ch11, pg125).
Bela obviously has hidden depths that even her owner didn’t know about.
She (as THE DARK ONE and a Very Suspicious Character) just as obviously has a reason to keep up with these travelers, even though she’s only carrying Egwene, who’s still relatively unimportant to the plot.
So if it required using her hidden depths to keep up, well, I think we can see where she went with that.
On that note, how was it that Egwene noticed the motley crew getting ready to go when nobody else did?
Was the idea to follow perhaps planted in Egwene’s head?
Was it, perhaps, someone who wasn’t included in the original list of travelers?
Someone who, perhaps, needed to keep an eye on three Rather Important Young Men?
I leave it to you to decide.
Where's Bela? 