A dark-haired, youngish man in a red coat, with a bandage wound around his temples, was making his way down the stairs at the side of the common room using padded crutches, the left leg of his breeches cut away so more bandages could strap his calf from ankle to knee. The townspeople murmured as if seeing something wondrous. The ship captains went on with their quiet talking; they had come ’round to furs.

  Furlan might have thought the man in the red coat could tell the story better, but he went ahead himself. “Lord Orban and Lord Gann faced twenty wild Aielmen with only ten retainers. Ah, fierce was the fighting and hard, with many wounds given and received. Six good retainers died, and every man took hurts, Lord Orban and Lord Gann worst of all, but every Aiel they slew, save those who fled, and one they took prisoner. ’Tis that one you see out there in the square, where he’ll not be troubling the countryside anymore with his savage ways, no more than the dead ones will.”

  “You have had trouble from Aiel in this district?” Moiraine asked.

  Perrin was wondering the same thing, with no little consternation. If some people still occasionally used “black-veiled Aiel” as a term for someone violent, it was testimony to the impression the Aiel War had left, but that was twenty years in the past, now, and the Aiel had never come out of the Waste before or since. But I saw one this side of the Spine of the World, and now I’ve seen two.

  The innkeeper rubbed at his bald head. “Ah. Ah, no, Lady, not exactly. But we would have had, you can be sure, with twenty savages loose. Why, everyone remembers how they killed and looted and burned their way across Cairhien. Men from this very village marched to the Battle of the Shining Walls, when the nations gathered to throw them back. I myself suffered from a twisted back at the time and so could not go, but I remember well, as we all do. How they came here, so far from their own land, or why, I do not know, but Lord Orban and Lord Gann saved us from them.” There was a murmur of agreement from the folk in feastday clothes.

  Orban himself came stumping across the common room, not seeming to see anyone but the innkeeper. Perrin could smell stale wine before he was even close. “Where’s that old woman taken herself off to with her herbs, Furlan?” Orban demanded roughly. “Gann’s wounds are paining him, and my head feels about to split open.”

  Furlan almost bent his head to the floor. “Ah, Mother Leich will be back in the morning, Lord Orban. A birthing, Lord. But she said she’d stitched and poulticed your wounds, and Lord Gann’s, so there’d be no worrying. Ah, Lord Orban, I’m sure she’ll be seeing to you first thing on the morrow.”

  The bandaged man muttered something under his breath—under his breath to any ears but Perrin’s—about waiting on a farmwife “throwing her litter” and something else about being “sewn up like a sack of meal.” He shifted sullen, angry eyes, and for the first time appeared to see the newcomers. Perrin, he dismissed immediately, which did not surprise Perrin at all. His eyes widened a little at Loial—He’s seen Ogier, Perrin thought, but he never thought to see one here—narrowed a bit at Lan—He knows a fighting man when he sees one, and he does not like seeing one—and brightened as he stooped to peer inside Moiraine’s hood, though he was not close enough to see her face.

  Perrin decided not to think anything at all about that, not concerning an Aes Sedai, and he hoped neither Moiraine nor Lan thought anything of it, either. A light in the Warder’s eyes told him he had missed on that hope, at least.

  “Twelve of you fought twenty Aiel?” Lan asked in a flat voice.

  Orban straightened, wincing. In an elaborately casual tone, he said, “Aye, you must expect things such as that when you seek the Horn of Valere. It was not the first such encounter for Gann and me, nor will it be the last before we find the Horn. If the Light shines on us.” He sounded as if the Light could not possibly do anything else. “Not all our fights have been with Aiel, of course, but there are always those who would stop Hunters, if they could. Gann and I, we do not stop easily.” Another approving murmur came from the townspeople. Orban stood a little straighter.

  “You lost six, and took one prisoner.” From Lan’s voice, it was not clear if that was a good exchange or a poor one.

  “Aye,” Orban said, “we slew the rest, save those who ran. No doubt they’re hiding their dead now; I’ve heard they do that. The Whitecloaks are out searching for them, but they’ll never find them.”

  “There are Whitecloaks here?” Perrin asked sharply.

  Orban glanced at him, and dismissed him once more. The man addressed Lan again. “Whitecloaks always put their noses in where they are not wanted or needed. Incompetent louts, all of them. Aye, they’ll ride all over the countryside for days, but I doubt they’ll find as much as their own shadows.”

  “I suppose they won’t,” Lan said.

  The bandaged man frowned as if unsure exactly what Lan meant, then rounded on the innkeeper again. “You find that old woman, hear! My head is splitting.” With a last glance at Lan, he hobbled away, climbing back up the stairs one at a time, followed by murmurs of admiration for a Hunter of the Horn who had slain Aielmen.

  “This is an eventful town.” Loial’s deep voice drew every eye to him. Except for the ship captains, who seemed to be discussing rope, as near as Perrin could make out. “Everywhere I go, you humans are doing things, hurrying and scurrying, having things happen to you. How can you stand so much excitement?”

  “Ah, friend Ogier,” Furlan said, “ ’tis the way of us humans to want excitement. How much I regret not being able to march to the Shining Walls. Why, let me tell you—”

  “Our rooms.” Moiraine did not raise her voice, but her words cut the innkeeper short like a sharp knife. “Andra did arrange rooms, did he not?”

  “Ah, Lady, forgive me. Yes, Master Andra did indeed hire rooms. Forgive me, please. ’Tis all the excitement, makes my head empty itself. Please forgive me, Lady. This way, if you please. If you’ll please to follow me.” Bowing and scraping, apologizing and babbling without pause, Furlan led them up the stairs.

  At the top, Perrin paused to look back. He heard the murmurs of “Lady” and “Ogier” down there, could feel all those eyes, but it seemed to him that he felt one pair of eyes in particular, someone staring not at Moiraine and Loial, but at him.

  He picked her out immediately. For one thing, she stood apart from the others, and for another she was the only woman in the room not wearing at least a little lace. Her dark gray, almost black, dress was as plain as the ship captains’ clothes, with wide sleeves and narrow skirts, and never a frill or stitch of fancy-work. The dress was divided for riding, he saw when she moved, and she wore soft boots that peeked out under the hem. She was young—no older than he was, perhaps—and tall for a woman, with black hair to her shoulders. A nose that just missed being too large and too bold, a generous mouth, high cheekbones, and dark, slightly tilted eyes. He could not quite decide whether she was beautiful or not.

  As soon as he looked down, she turned to address one of the serving women and did not glance at the stairs again, but he was sure he had been right. She had been staring at him.

  CHAPTER

  34

  A Different Dance

  Furlan burbled on as he showed them to their rooms, though Perrin did not really listen. He was too busy wondering if the black-haired girl knew what yellow eyes meant. Burn me, she was looking at me. Then he heard the innkeeper say the words “proclaiming the Dragon in Ghealdan,” and he thought his ears would go to sharp points like Loial’s.

  Moiraine stopped dead in the doorway to her room. “There is another false Dragon, innkeeper? In Ghealdan?” The hood of her cloak still hid her face, but she sounded shaken to her toes. Even listening for the man’s reply, Perrin could not help staring at her; he smelled something close to fear.

  “Ah, Lady, never you fear. ’Tis a hundred leagues to Ghealdan, and none will trouble you here, not with Master Andra about, and Lord Orban and Lord Gann. Why—”

  “Answer her!” Lan said harshly. “Is there a false Dragon in Ghealdan?”

  “Ah. Ah, no, Master Andra, not precisely. I said there’s a man proclaiming the Dragon in Ghealdan, so we heard a few days gone. Preaching his coming, you might say. Talking about that fellow over in Tarabon we’ve heard about. Though some do say ’tis Arad Doman, not Tarabon. A long way from here, in any case. Why, any other day, I expect we’d talk more of that than anything else, except maybe the wild tales about Hawkwing’s army come back—” Lan’s cold eyes might as well have been knife blades from the way Furlan swallowed and scrubbed his hands faster. “I only know what I hear, Master Andra. ’Tis said the fellow has a stare can pin you where you stand, and he talks all sorts of rubbish about the Dragon coming to save us, and we all have to follow, and even the beasts will fight for the Dragon. I don’t know whether they’ve arrested him yet or not. ’Tis likely; the Ghealdanin would not put up long with that kind of talk.”

  Masema, Perrin thought wonderingly. It’s bloody Masema.

  “You are right, innkeeper,” Lan said. “This fellow isn’t likely to trouble us here. I knew a fellow once who liked to make wild speeches. You remember him, Lady Alys, don’t you? Masema?”

  Moiraine gave a start. “Masema. Yes. Of course. I had put him out of my mind.” Her voice firmed. “When next I see Masema, he will wish someone had peeled his hide to make boots.” She slammed the door behind her so hard that the crash echoed down the hallway.

  “Keep a quiet!” came a muffled shout from the far end. “My head is splitting!”

  “Ah.” Furlan washed his hands in one direction, then rubbed them in the other. “Ah. Forgive me, Master Andra, but Lady Alys is a fierce-sounding woman.”

  “Only with those who displease her,” Lan said blandly. “Her bite is far worse than her bark.”

  “Ah. Ah. Ah. Your rooms are this way. Ah, friend Ogier, when Master Andra told me you were coming, I had an old Ogier bed brought from the attic where it has been gathering dust these three hundred years or more. Why, ’tis. . . .”

  Perrin let the words wash over him, hearing them no more than a river rock hears the water. The black-haired young woman worried him. And the caged Aiel.

  Once in his own room—a small one in the back; Lan had done nothing to disabuse the innkeeper of the notion that Perrin was a servant—he moved mechanically, still wrapped in thought. He unstrung his bow and propped it in the corner—keeping it strung too long ruined bow and string alike—set down his blanketroll and saddlebags beside the wash-stand and threw his cloak across them. He hung his belts with quiver and axe from pegs on the wall, and nearly lay down on the bed before a jaw-cracking yawn reminded him how dangerous that might be. The bed was narrow, and the mattress appeared to be all lumps; it looked more inviting than any bed he could remember. He sat on the three-legged stool, instead, and thought. Always he liked to think things through.

  After a time, Loial rapped on the door and put his head in. The Ogier’s ears practically quivered with excitement, and his grin very nearly split his broad face in two. “Perrin, you will not believe it! My bed is sung wood! Why, it must be well over a thousand years old. No Treesinger has sung a piece so large in at least that long. I myself would not care to try it, and I have the talent more strongly than most, now. Well, to be truthful, there are not many of us with the talent at all, anymore. But I am among the best of those who can sing wood.”

  “That is very interesting,” Perrin said. An Aiel in a cage. That is what Min said. Why was that girl staring at me?

  “I thought it was.” Loial sounded a little put out that he did not share the Ogier’s excitement, but all Perrin wanted to do was think. “Supper is ready below, Perrin. They have prepared their finest in case the Hunters want anything, but we can have some.”

  “You go on, Loial. I’m not hungry.” The smells of cooking meat floating up from the kitchen did not interest him. He hardly noticed Loial going.

  Hands on his knees, yawning now and again, he tried to work it out. It seemed like one of those puzzles Master Luhhan made, the metal pieces appearing to be linked inextricably. But there was always a trick to make the iron loops and whirls come apart, and there had to be here, too.

  The girl had been looking at him. His eyes might explain that, except that the innkeeper had ignored them, and no one else had even noticed. They had an Ogier to look at, and Hunters of the Horn in the house, and a Lady visiting, and an Aiel caged in the square. Nothing as small as the color of a man’s eyes could seize their attention; nothing about a servant could compete with the rest. So why did she pick me to stare at?

  And the Aiel in the cage. What Min saw was always important. But how? What was he supposed to do? I could have stopped those children throwing rocks. I should have. It was no use telling himself the adults would certainly have told him to go on about his business, that he was a stranger in Remen and the Aiel was none of his concern. I should have tried.

  No answers came to him, so he went back to the beginning and patiently worked through it once more, then again, and again. Still he found nothing except regret for what he had not done.

  It came to him after a time that night had finally fallen. The room was dark except for a little moonlight through the lone window. He thought about the tallow candle and the tinderbox he had seen on the mantel over the narrow fireplace, but there was more than enough light for his eyes. I have to do something, don’t I?

  He buckled on his axe, then paused. He had done it without thinking; wearing the thing had become as natural as breathing. He did not like that. But he left the belt around his waist, and went out.

  Light from the stairs made the hallway seem almost bright after his room. Talk and laughter drifted up from the common room, and cooking smells from the kitchen. He strode toward the front of the inn, to Moiraine’s room, knocked once, and went in. And stopped, his face burning.

  Moiraine pulled the pale blue robe that hung from her shoulders around herself. “You wish something?” she asked coolly. She had a silver-backed hairbrush in one hand, and her dark hair, spilling down her neck in dark waves, glistened as if she had been brushing it. Her room was far finer than his, with polished wooden paneling on the walls and silver-chased lamps and a warm fire on the wide brick hearth. The air smelled of rose-scented soap.

  “I. . . . I thought Lan was here,” he managed to get out. “You two always have your heads together, and I thought he’d. . . . I thought. . . .”

  “What do you want, Perrin?”

  He took a deep breath. “Is this Rand’s doing? I know Lan followed him here, and it all seems odd—the Hunters, and Aiel—but did he do it?”

  “I do not think so. I will know more when Lan tells me what he discovers tonight. With luck, what he finds will help with the choice I must make.”

  “A choice?”

  “Rand could have crossed the river and be on his way to Tear cross-country. Or he could have taken ship downriver to Illian, meaning to board another there for Tear. The journey is leagues longer that way, but days faster.”

  “I don’t think we are going to catch him, Moiraine. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but even afoot he is staying ahead of us. If Lan is right, he is still half a day ahead.”

  “I could almost suspect he had learned to Travel,” Moiraine said with a small frown, “except that if he had, he would have gone straight to Tear. No, he has the blood of long walkers and strong runners in him. But we may take the river anyway. If I cannot catch him, I will be in Tear close behind him. Or waiting for him.”

  Perrin shifted his feet uneasily; there was cold promise in her voice. “You told me once that you could sense a Darkfriend, one who was far gone into the Shadow, at least. Lan, too. Have you sensed anything like that here?”

  She gave a loud sniff and turned back to a tall standing mirror with finely made silver-work set in the legs. Holding her robe closed with one hand, she ran the brush through her hair with the other. “Very few humans are so far gone as that, Perrin, even among the worst Darkfriends.” The brush halted in midstroke. “Why do you ask?”

  “There was a girl down in the common room staring at me. Not at you and Loial, like everybody else. At me.”

  The brush resumed motion, and a smile briefly touched Moiraine’s lips. “You sometimes forget, Perrin, that you are a good-looking young man. Some girls admire a pair of shoulders.” He grunted and shuffled his feet. “Was there something else, Perrin?”

  “Uh . . . no.” She could not help with Min’s viewing, not beyond telling him what he already knew, that it was important. And he did not want to tell her what Min had seen. Or that Min had seen anything, for that matter.

  Back out in the hall with the door closed, he leaned against the wall for a moment. Light, just walking in on her like that, and her. . . . She was a pretty woman. And likely old enough to be my mother, or more. He thought Mat would probably have asked her down to the common room to dance. No, he wouldn’t. Even Mat isn’t fool enough to try charming an Aes Sedai. Moiraine did dance. He had danced with her once himself. And nearly fallen over his own feet with every other step. Stop thinking about her like a village girl just because you saw. . . . She’s bloody Aes Sedai! You have that Aiel to worry about. He gave himself a shake and went downstairs.

  The common room was full as it could be, with every chair taken, and stools and benches brought in, and those who had nowhere to sit standing along the walls. He did not see the black-haired girl, and no one else looked at him twice as he hurriedly crossed the room.

  Orban occupied a table to himself, his bandaged leg propped up on a chair with a cushion, with a soft slipper on that foot, a silver goblet in his hand, the serving women keeping it filled with wine. “Aye,” he was saying to the whole room, “we knew the Aiel for fierce fighters, Gann and I, but there was no time to hesitate. I drew my sword, and dug my heels into Lion’s ribs. . . .”

  Perrin gave a start before he realized the man meant his horse was named Lion. Wouldn’t put it past him to say he was riding a lion. He felt a little ashamed; just because he did not like the man was no reason to suppose the Hunter would take his boasting that far. He hurried on outside without looking back.

 

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