The Wheel of Time, page 720
“Lord Perrin?”
Aram’s excited voice cut into his brown study. “Don’t call me that,” he muttered, following the direction of the man’s pointing finger, to yet another abandoned farm some distance ahead, where fire had taken the roof from house and barn. Only rough stone walls stood. An abandoned farm, but not deserted. Angry shouts rose up there.
A dozen or more rough-clad fellows carrying spears and pitchforks were trying to force their way over the chest-high stone wall of a goatpen, while a handful of men within tried to keep them out. Several horses ran loose inside, frightened at the noise and dodging about, and there were three women mounted. They were not simply waiting to see how it would all turn out, though; one of the women appeared to be hurling rocks, and even as he looked, another dashed close to the wall to lash out with a long cudgel while the third reared her horse, and a tall fellow toppled back off the wall to get clear of flashing hooves. But there were too many attackers, too much wall to defend.
“I advise you to ride wide,” Seonid said. Edarra and Nevarin turned grim stares on her, but she plowed on, hurry overwhelming her matter-of-fact tone. “Those are surely the Prophet’s men, and killing his people is a bad way to begin. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, may die if you fail with him. Is it worth risking that to save a handful?”
Perrin did not intend to kill anyone if he could help it, but he did not intend to look the other way either. He wasted no time in explanations, though. “Can you frighten them?” he asked Edarra. “Just frighten?” He remembered all too well what the Wise Ones had done at Dumai’s Wells. And the Asha’man. Maybe as well Grady and Neald were not there.
“Perhaps,” Edarra replied, studying the crowd around the pen. She half-shook her head, shrugged a fraction. “Perhaps.” That would have to be good enough.
“Aram, Furen, Teryl,” he snapped, “with me!” He dug in his heels, and as Stepper leaped forward, he was relieved to see the Warders following closely. Four men charging made a better show than two. He kept his hands on the reins, away from his axe.
He was not so pleased when Faile galloped Swallow up alongside him. He opened his mouth, and she arched an eyebrow at him. Her black hair was beautiful, streaming in the wind of their rush. She was beautiful. An arched eyebrow; no more. He changed what he had been about to say. “Guard my back,” he told her. Smiling, she produced a dagger from somewhere. With all the blades she carried hidden away, sometimes he wondered how he missed being stabbed just trying to hug her.
As soon as she looked ahead again, he gestured frantically to Aram, trying to keep the motion where she could not see. Aram nodded, but he was leaning forward, sword bared, ready to skewer the first of the Prophet’s folk he reached. Perrin hoped the man understood he was to guard Faile’s back, and the rest of her, if they actually came to grips with those fellows.
None of the ruffians had noticed them yet. Perrin shouted, but they seemed not to hear over their own yelling. A man in a coat too big for him managed to scramble atop the wall, and two others appeared about to get over. If the Wise Ones were going to do anything, it was past—
A thunderclap nearly over their heads almost deafened Perrin, a mountainous crack that made Stepper stumble before regaining his pace. The attackers certainly noticed that, staggering and looking around wildly, some clapping hands over their ears. The man on the wall overbalanced and fell off outside. He leaped up immediately, though, angrily gesturing to the enclosure, and some of his companions leaped back at it. Others saw Perrin then and pointed, their mouths working, but still no one ran. A few hefted weapons.
Suddenly a horizontal wheel of fire appeared above the goatpen, as wide as a man was tall, flinging off sputtering tufts of flame as it spun with a moan that rose and fell, mournful groan to keening wail and back.
The rough-clad men broke in every direction like scattering quail. For a moment longer the man in a too-big coat waved his arms and shouted at them, then with one last glance at the fiery wheel, he too darted away.
Perrin almost laughed. He would not have to kill anyone. And he would not have to worry about Faile getting a pitchfork through her ribs.
Apparently the people in the pen were as frightened as those outside, one of them at least. The woman who had reared her horse at the attackers slipped open the gate and kicked her mount to an awkward gallop. Up the road, away from Perrin and the others.
“Wait!” Perrin shouted. “We won’t harm you!” Whether she heard or not, she kept whipping her reins. A bundle tied behind her saddle bounced wildly. Those men might be running as hard as they could now, but if she went off by herself, even two or three could do her injury. Lying flat on Stepper’s neck, Perrin dug in his heels, and the dun shot forward like an arrow.
He was a big man, yet Stepper had earned his name for more than prancing feet. Besides, by its lumbering run, the woman’s mount was hardly fit for a saddle. With every stride Stepper closed the gap, nearer, nearer, until Perrin was able to reach out and seize the other horse’s bridle. Up close, her hammer-nosed bay was little better than crowbait, lathered and worn out more than the short run could account for. Slowly he drew both horses to a halt.
“Forgive me if I frightened you, Mistress,” he said. “Truly, I mean you no harm.”
For the second time that day an apology did not get the response he expected. Angry blue eyes glared at him from a face surrounded by long red-gold curls, a face as regal as any queen’s for all that it was plastered with sweat and dust. Her dress was plain wool, travel-stained and as dusty as her cheeks, but her face was furious as well as queenly. “I do not need,” she began in chill tones, trying to jerk her horse free, then cut off as another of the women, white-haired and bony, galloped up on a slab-sided brown mare in worse condition than the bay. They had been riding hard for some time, these folk. The older woman was just as worn and dust-covered as the younger.
She alternated between beaming at Perrin and scowling at the woman whose bridle he still held. “Thank you, my Lord.” Her voice, thin but strong, gave a hitch as she noticed his eyes, but golden-yellow eyes on a man slowed her only an instant. Not a woman fazed by much. She still carried the stout stick she had been using for a weapon. “A most timely rescue. Maighdin, whatever were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed! And the rest of us, too! She’s a headstrong girl, my Lord, always leaping before she looks. Remember, child, a fool abandons friends, and gives up silver for shiny brass. We do thank you, my Lord, and Maighdin will, too, when she comes to her senses.”
Maighdin, a good ten years older than Perrin, could only be called a girl in comparison to the older woman, but despite weary grimaces that matched her scent, frustration tinged with anger, she accepted the tirade, only pulling once more in a halfhearted attempt to free her horse, then giving up. Letting her hands rest on her cantle, she frowned at Perrin accusingly, then blinked. The yellow eyes again. Yet despite that strangeness, she still did not smell afraid. The old woman did, but Perrin did not think it was of him.
Another of Maighdin’s companions, an unshaven man mounted on yet another bedraggled horse, this a knob-kneed gray, approached while the old woman was talking, but kept back. He was tall, as tall as Perrin if not nearly so wide, in a travel-worn dark coat with a sword belted over. Like the women, he had a bundle tied on behind his saddle. That tiny breeze swirled to bring Perrin his scent. He was not afraid; he was wary. And if the way he looked at Maighdin was any guide, it was she he was wary of. Maybe this was not so simple as rescuing travelers from a gang of ruffians after all.
“Perhaps you should all come to my camp,” Perrin said, finally releasing the bridle. “You’ll be safe from . . . brigands . . . there.” He half expected Maighdin to make a break for the nearest tree line, but she turned her horse with his, back toward the goatpen. She smelled . . . resigned.
Even so, she said, “I thank you for the offer, but I . . . we . . . must continue our journey. We will go on, Lini,” she added firmly, and the older woman frowned at her so sternly that he wondered whether they were mother and daughter despite her use of the woman’s name. They certainly looked nothing alike. Lini was narrow-faced and parchment-skinned, all sinew, while Maighdin might be beautiful under that dust. If a man liked fair hair.
Perrin glanced over his shoulder at the man trailing after. A hard-looking fellow, in need of a razor. Perhaps he liked fair hair. Perhaps he liked it too much. Men had made trouble for themselves as well as others for that reason before this.
Ahead, Faile was sitting Swallow and peering over the wall of the pen at the people inside. Perhaps one of them had been hurt. Seonid and the Wise Ones were nowhere in sight. Aram had understood, apparently; he was close to Faile, though looking impatiently toward Perrin. The danger was clearly past, though.
Before Perrin was halfway to the goatpen, Teryl appeared with a narrow-eyed, stubble-cheeked man stumbling along beside his roan, the collar of his coat gripped in the Warder’s fist. “I thought we should catch one of them,” Teryl said with a hard grin. “Always best to hear both sides, whatever you thought you saw, my old da always said.” Perrin was surprised; he had thought Teryl could not think beyond the end of his sword.
Even hiked up as it was, the stubble-cheeked fellow’s frayed coat was plainly too big for him. Perrin doubted anyone else had been able to see well enough at the distance, but he recognized that thrusting nose, too. This man had been the last to run, and he was not cowed now, either. His sneer took them all in. “You’re all in deep muck, for this,” he rasped. “We was doing the Prophet’s bidding, we was. The Prophet says if a man bothers a woman as doesn’t want him, he dies. This lot was chasing after her”—he jerked his chin at Maighdin—“and she was running hard. The Prophet’ll have your ears for this!” He spat for emphasis.
“That is ridiculous,” Maighdin announced in a clear voice. “These people are my friends. This man completely misunderstood what he saw.”
Perrin nodded, and if she thought he was agreeing with her, all well and good. But putting what this fellow said alongside what Lini had. . . . Not simple at all.
Faile and the others joined them, followed by the rest of Maighdin’s traveling companions, three more men and another woman, all leading worn-down horses with few miles left in them. Not that they had been prime horseflesh in some years, if ever. A finer collection of buck knees, bow hocks, spavins, and swaybacks, Perrin could not recall. As always, his gaze went first to Faile—his nostrils strained for her scent—but Seonid snagged his eyes. Slumped in her saddle, flushing scarlet, she wore a sullen glower, and her face looked odd, her cheeks puffed out and her mouth not quite closed. There was something, a bit of red-and-blue. . . . Perrin blinked. Unless he was seeing things, she had a wadded-up scarf stuffed into her mouth! Apparently when Wise Ones told an apprentice to be quiet, even an Aes Sedai apprentice, they meant it.
He was not the only one with sharp eyes; Maighdin’s mouth fell open when she saw Seonid, and she gave him a long, considering look as if he were responsible for the scarf. So she knew an Aes Sedai on sight, did she? Uncommon, for the country woman she appeared. She did not sound like one, though.
Furen, riding behind Seonid, wore a thunderhead for a face, but it was Teryl who made everything even less simple by tossing something to the ground. “I found this behind him,” he said, “where he might have dropped it, running.”
At first, Perrin did not know what he was looking at, a long loop of rawhide thickly strung with what appeared to be tags of shriveled leather. Then he did know, and his teeth bared in a snarl. “The Prophet would have our ears, you said.”
The stubble-cheeked man stopped gaping at Seonid and licked his lips. “That . . . that’s Hari’s work!” he protested. “Hari’s a mean one. He likes to keep count, take trophies, and he . . . uh. . . .” Shrugging in his captive coat, he sank in on himself like a cornered dog. “You can’t tie that to me! The Prophet’ll hang you if you touch me! He’s hanged nobles before, fine lords and ladies. I walk in the Light of the blessed Lord Dragon!”
Perrin walked Stepper to the man, careful to keep the dun’s hooves clear of the . . . thing . . . on the ground. He wanted nothing less than to have the fellow’s scent in his nose, but he bent down, putting his face closer. Sour sweat warred with fear, panic, a tinge of anger. A pity he could not sniff out guilt. “Might have dropped” was not “had dropped.” Close-set eyes widened, and the man pressed back against Teryl’s gelding. Yellow eyes had their uses.
“If I could tie that to you, you’d hang from the nearest tree,” he growled. The fellow blinked, began to brighten as he understood what that meant, but Perrin gave him no time to regain his bluster. “I’m Perrin Aybara, and your precious Lord Dragon sent me here. You spread the word. He sent me, and if I find a man with . . . trophies . . . he hangs! If I find a man burning a farm, he hangs! If one of you looks at me cross-eyed, he hangs! And you can tell Masema I said so, too!” Disgusted, Perrin straightened. “Let him go, Teryl. If he isn’t out of my sight in two shakes . . . !”
Teryl’s hand opened, and the fellow dashed off at a dead run for the nearest trees, never so much as glancing back. Part of Perrin’s disgust was for himself. Threatening! If one of them looked at him cross-eyed? But if the nameless man had not cut off ears himself, he had watched it and done nothing.
Faile was smiling, pride shining through the sweat on her face. Her look washed away some of Perrin’s revulsion. He would walk barefoot through fire for that look.
Not everyone approved, of course. Seonid’s eyes were squeezed shut, and her gloved fists quivered on her reins as though she desperately wanted to yank that scarf from her mouth and tell him what she thought. He could guess anyway. Edarra and Nevarin had gathered their shawls around them and were eyeing him darkly. Oh, yes; he could guess.
“I thought it was to be all secrecy,” Teryl said casually, watching the stubble-cheeked man run. “I thought Masema wasn’t to know you were here till you spoke in his pink ear.”
That had been the plan. Rand had suggested it as a precaution, Seonid and Masuri had insisted on it every chance they got. After all, Prophet of the Lord Dragon or no, Masema might not want to come face-to-face with someone Rand sent, considering the things he was said to have allowed. Those ears were not the worst, if the tenth part of rumor was to be believed. Edarra and the other Wise Ones saw Masema as a possible enemy, to be ambushed before he could set his own trap.
“I’m supposed to stop . . . that,” Perrin said, gesturing angrily to the rawhide string on the ground. He had heard the rumors, and done nothing. Now he had seen. “I might as well start now.” And if Masema decided he was an enemy? How many thousands followed the Prophet, out of belief or fear? It did not matter. “It stops, Teryl. It stops!”
The Murandian nodded slowly, eyeing Perrin as though seeing him for the first time.
“My Lord Perrin?” Maighdin said. He had forgotten all about her and her friends. The others had gathered with her a little way off, most still afoot. There were three men aside from the fellow who had followed Maighdin, and two of those were hiding behind their horses. Lini appeared the wariest of all, eyes focused on him worriedly; she had her horse close to Maighdin’s and seemed ready to seize the bridle herself. Not to stop the younger woman bolting, but to bolt herself and take Maighdin with her. Maighdin herself appeared completely at ease, but she also studied Perrin. Little wonder, after all that talk of the Prophet and the Dragon Reborn, on top of his eyes. Not to mention an Aes Sedai gagged. He expected her to say that they wanted to go now, immediately, but what she said instead was “We will accept your kind offer. A day or two resting in your camp might be just the thing.”
“As you say, Mistress Maighdin,” he said slowly. Masking his surprise was difficult. Especially since he had just recognized the two men trying to keep their horses between them and him. Ta’veren work, to bring them here? A strange twist in any case. “It might be just the thing at that.”
CHAPTER
8
A Simple Country Woman
The camp lay about a league farther on, well back from the road among low, wooded hills, just beyond a stream that was ten paces’ width of stones and only five of water never deeper than a man’s knees. Tiny green and silver fish darted away from the horses’ hooves. Casual passersby were unlikely to come on them here. The nearest inhabited farm was over a mile away, and Perrin had checked personally to make sure those folk took their animals to water elsewhere.
He truly had been trying to avoid notice as much as possible, traveling by back roads and the smallest country paths when they could not keep to the forests. A futile effort, really. The horses could be pastured wherever there was grass, but they required at least some grain, and even a small army had to buy food, and a lot of it. Every man needed four pounds a day, in flour and beans and meat. Rumors must have been floating all over Ghealdan, though with luck, no one suspected who they were. Perrin grimaced. Perhaps they had not, until he went and opened his mouth. Still, he would have done nothing differently.
It was three camps really, close to one another and none far from the stream. They traveled together, all following him, obeying him supposedly, but there were too many personalities involved, and no one was entirely sure the others aimed at the same goal. Some nine hundred or so Winged Guards had their cook fires crowded between rows of picketed horses in a broad meadow of trampled brown grass. He tried to close his nose to the mingled smells of horses, sweat, dung and boiling goat meat, an unpleasant combination on a hot day. A dozen mounted sentries rode a slow circuit in pairs, their long, red-streamered lances all at precisely the same angle, but the rest of the Mayeners had shed breastplates and helmets. Coatless and often shirtless in the sun, they lay sprawled on their blankets or diced as they waited on the food. Some looked up as Perrin passed, a number straightened from what they were doing to study the additions to his party, but none came running, so the patrols were still out. Small patrols, without lances, who could see without being seen. Well, that was the hope. It had been.
