“What happened, Simion?”
The man looked at her sharply before answering. Perrin did not think anyone else saw how sharply, in the dimness. “There was about twenty of them, come day before yesterday. No trouble then. But yesterday. . . . Why, three of them up and announced they weren’t Children of the Light anymore. They took off their cloaks and just rode away.”
Lan grunted. “Whitecloaks swear for life. What did their commander do?”
“Why, he would have done something, you can be sure, good master, but another of them announced he was off to find the Horn of Valere. Anyway, still another said they should be hunting the Dragon. That one said he was going to Almoth Plain when he left. Then some of them started saying things to women in the streets, things they shouldn’t have, and grabbing at them. The women were screaming, and Children yelling at the ones bothering the women. I never saw such commotion.”
“Didn’t any of you try to stop them?” Perrin said.
“Good master, you carry that axe like you know how to use it, but it isn’t so easy to face up to men with swords and armor and all, when all you know how to use is a broom or a hoe. The rest of the Whitecloaks, those as hadn’t gone off, put an end to it. Almost came to drawing swords. And that wasn’t the worst. Two more just went mad—if the others weren’t. Those two started raving that Jarra was full of Darkfriends. They tried to burn the village down—said they would!—beginning with the Leap. You can see the burn marks out back, where they got it started. Fought the other Whitecloaks when they tried to stop them. The Whitecloaks that were left, they helped us put it out, tied those two up tight, and rode out of here, back toward Amadicia. Good riddance, I say, and if they never come back, it’ll be too soon.”
“Rough behavior,” Lan said, “even for Whitecloaks.”
Simion bobbed his head in agreement. “As you say, good master. They never acted like that before. Swagger around, yes. Look at you like you were dirt, and poke their noses in where they hadn’t any business. But they never caused trouble before. Not like that, anyway.”
“They are gone now,” Moiraine said, “and troubles with them. I am sure we will pass a quiet night.”
Perrin kept his mouth shut, but he was not quiet inside. All these weddings and Whitecloaks are all very well, but I’d sooner know if Rand stopped here, and which way he went when he left. That smell couldn’t have been him.
He let Simion guide him on down the hall to another room, with two beds and a washstand, a pair of stools and not much else. Loial stooped to put his head through the doorway. Only a little light came in by the narrow windows. The beds were big enough, with blankets and comforters folded at the foot, but the mattresses looked lumpy. Simion fumbled on the mantel above the fireplace until he found a candle, and a tinderbox to get it alight.
“I’ll see about getting some beds put together for you, good—uh—Ogier. Yes, just a moment, now.” He showed no sign of hurry to be about it, though, fussing with the candlestick as if he had to place it just right. Perrin thought he looked uneasy.
Well, I’d be more than uneasy if Whitecloaks had been acting like that in Emond’s Field. “Simion, has another stranger passed through here in the last day or two? A young man, tall, with gray eyes and reddish hair? He might have played the flute for a meal or a bed.”
“I remember him, good master,” Simion said, still shifting the candlestick. “Came yesterday morning, early. Looked hungry, he did. He played the flute for all the weddings, yesterday. Good-looking young fellow. Some of the women eyed him, at first, but. . . .” He paused, looking at Perrin sideways. “Is he a friend of yours, good master?”
“I know him,” Perrin said. “Why?”
Simion hesitated. “No reason, good master. He was an odd fellow, that’s all. He talked to himself, sometimes, and sometimes he laughed when nobody had said anything. Slept in this very room, last night, or part of it. Woke us all in the middle of the night, yelling. It was just a nightmare, but he wouldn’t stay any longer. Master Harod didn’t make much effort to talk him into it, after all that noise.” Simion paused again. “He said something strange when he left.”
“What?” Perrin demanded.
“He said somebody was after him. He said. . . .” The chinless man swallowed and went on more slowly. “Said they’d kill him if he didn’t go. ‘One of us has to die, and I mean it to be him.’ His very words.”
“He did not mean us,” Loial rumbled. “We are his friends.”
“Of course, good—uh—good Ogier. Of course, he didn’t mean you. I—uh—I don’t mean to say anything about a friend of yours, but I—uh—I think he’s sick. In the head, you know.”
“We will take care of him,” Perrin said. “That’s why we’re following him. Which way did he go?”
“I knew it,” Simion said, bouncing on his toes. “I knew she could help as soon as I saw you. Which way? East, good master. East, like the Dark One himself was on his heels. Do you think she’ll help me? Help my brother, that is? Noam’s bad sick, and Mother Roon says she can’t do anything.”
Perrin kept his face expressionless, and bought a little time to think by propping his bow in the corner and setting his blanketroll and saddlebags on one of the beds. The problem was that thinking did not help much. He looked at Loial, but found no help there; consternation had the Ogier’s ears drooping and his long eyebrows hanging down on his cheeks. “What makes you think she can help your brother?” Stupid question! The right question is, what does he mean to do about it?
“Why, I traveled to Jehannah, once, good master, and I saw two . . . two women like her. I couldn’t mistake her after that.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s said they can raise the dead, good master.”
“Who else knows this?” Perrin asked sharply, and at the same time Loial said, “If your brother is dead, there is nothing anyone can do.”
The frog-faced man looked from one to the other of them anxiously, and his words came in a babble. “No one knows but me, good master. Noam isn’t dead, good Ogier, only sick. I swear nobody else could recognize her. Even Master Harod’s never been more than twenty miles from here in his life. He’s so bad sick. I’d ask her myself, only my knees’d be shaking so hard she couldn’t hear me talk. What if she took offense and called down lightning on me? And what if I’d been wrong? It isn’t the kind of thing you accuse a woman of without. . . . I mean . . . uh. . . .” He raised his hands, half in pleading, half as if to defend himself.
“I can make no promises,” Perrin said, “but I’ll speak to her. Loial, why don’t you keep Simion company till I’ve spoken to Moiraine?”
“Of course,” the Ogier boomed. Simion gave a start when Loial’s hand swallowed his shoulder. “He will show me my room, and we will talk. Tell me, Simion, what do you know of trees?”
“T-t-trees, g-good Ogier?”
Perrin did not wait any longer. He hurried back down the dark hall and knocked on Moiraine’s door, barely waiting for her peremptory “Come!” before pushing in.
Half a dozen candles showed that the Leap’s best room was none too good, though the one bed had four tall posts supporting a canopy, and the mattress looked less full of lumps than Perrin’s. There was a scrap of carpet on the floor, and two cushioned chairs instead of stools. Other than that, it looked no different from his room. Moiraine and Lan stood in front of the cold hearth as if they had been discussing something, and the Aes Sedai did not look pleased at being interrupted. The Warder’s face was as imperturbable as a carving.
“Rand’s been here, all right,” Perrin started off. “That fellow Simion remembers him.” Moiraine hissed through her teeth.
“You were told to keep your mouth shut,” Lan growled.
Perrin squared his feet to face the Warder. That was easier than facing Moiraine’s glare. “How could we find out whether he had been here without asking questions? Tell me that. He left last night, if you are interested, heading east. And he was carrying on about somebody following him, t
rying to kill him.”
“East.” Moiraine nodded. The utter calm of her voice was at odds with her disapproving eyes. “That is good to know, though it had to be so if he is going to Tear. But I was fairly certain he had been here even before I heard about the Whitecloaks, and they made it a certainty. Rand is almost surely right about one thing, Perrin. I cannot believe we are the only ones trying to find him. And if they find out about us, they may well try to stop us. We have enough to contend with trying to catch up to Rand without that. You must learn to hold your tongue until I tell you to speak.”
“The Whitecloaks?” Perrin said incredulously. Hold my tongue? Burn me, if I will! “How could they tell you—? Rand’s madness. It is catching?”
“Not his madness,” Moiraine said, “if he is far enough gone yet to be called mad. Perrin, he is more strongly ta’veren than anyone since the Age of Legends. Yesterday, in this village, the Pattern . . . moved, shaped itself around him like clay shaped on a mold. The weddings, the Whitecloaks, these were enough to say Rand had been here, for anyone who knew to listen.”
Perrin drew a long breath. “And this is what we’ll find everywhere he’s been? Light, if there are Shadowspawn after him, they can track him as easily as we can.”
“Perhaps,” Moiraine said. “Perhaps not. No one knows anything about ta’veren as strong as Rand.” For just a moment she sounded vexed at not knowing. “Artur Hawkwing was the most strongly ta’veren of whom any writings remain. And Hawkwing was in no way as strong as Rand.”
“It is said,” Lan put in, “that there were times when people in the same room with Hawkwing spoke truth when they meant to lie, made decisions they had not even known they were contemplating. Times when every toss of the dice, every turn of the cards, went his way. But only times.”
“You mean you don’t know,” Perrin said. “He could leave a trail of weddings and Whitecloaks gone mad all the way to Tear.”
“I mean I know as much as there is to know,” Moiraine said sharply. Her dark-eyed gaze chastised Perrin like a whip. “The Pattern weaves finely around ta’veren, and others can follow the shape of those threads if they know where to look. Be careful your tongue does not unravel more than you can know.”
In spite of himself Perrin hunched his shoulders as if she were delivering real blows. “Well, you had better be glad I opened my mouth this time. Simion knows you’re Aes Sedai. He wants you to Heal his brother Noam of some sickness. If I hadn’t talked to him, he would never have worked up nerve enough to ask, but he might have started talking among his friends.”
Lan caught Moiraine’s eye, and for a moment they stared at one another. The Warder had the air about him of a wolf about to leap. Finally, Moiraine shook her head. “No,” she said.
“As you wish. It is your decision.” Lan sounded as if he thought she had made the wrong one, but the tension left him.
Perrin stared at them. “You were thinking of. . . . Simion couldn’t tell anyone if he were dead, could he?”
“He will not die by my actions,” Moiraine said. “But I cannot, and will not, promise that it will always be so. We must find Rand, and I will not fail in that. Is that spoken plainly enough for you?” Caught in her gaze, Perrin could make no answer. She nodded as if his silence were answer enough. “Now take me to Simion.”
The door to Loial’s room stood open, spilling a pool of candlelight into the hall. The two beds inside had been pushed together, and Loial and Simion were seated on the edge of one. The chinless man was staring up at Loial with his mouth open and an expression of wonder on his face.
“Oh, yes, the stedding are wonderful,” Loial was saying. “There is such peace there, under the Great Trees. You humans may have your wars and strife, but nothing ever troubles the stedding. We tend the trees and live in harmony. . . .” He trailed off when he saw Moiraine, with Lan and Perrin behind her.
Simion scrambled to his feet, bowing and backing away until he came up against the far wall. “Uh . . . good mistress. . . . Uh . . . uh. . . .” Even then, he continued bobbing like a toy on a string.
“Show me to your brother,” Moiraine commanded, “and I will do what I can. Perrin, you will come, too, since this good man spoke to you first.” Lan lifted an eyebrow, and she shook her head. “If we all go, we might attract attention. Perrin can give me what protection I need.”
Lan nodded reluctantly, then gave Perrin a hard look. “See that you do, blacksmith. If any harm befalls her. . . .” His cold blue eyes finished the promise.
Simion snatched one of the candles and scurried into the hallway, still bowing so the candlelight made their shadows dance. “This way—uh—good mistress. This way.”
Beyond the door at the end of the hall, outside stairs led down to a cramped alleyway, between inn and stable. Night shrank the candle to a flickering pinpoint. The half moon was up in a star-flecked sky, giving more than enough light for Perrin’s eyes. He wondered when Moiraine would tell Simion he did not have to keep bowing, but she never did. The Aes Sedai glided along, clutching her skirts to keep them out of the mud, as though the dark passage were a palace hall and she a queen. The air was already cooling; nights still carried echoes of winter.
“This way.” Simion led them back to a small shed behind the stable and hurriedly unbarred the door. “This way.” Simion pointed. “There, good mistress. There. My brother. Noam.”
The far end of the shed had been barred off with slats of wood; hastily, by the rough look of it. A stout iron lock in a hasp held shut a crude door of wooden slats. Behind those bars, a man lay sprawled on his stomach on the straw-covered floor. He was barefoot, his shirt and breeches ripped as if he had torn at them without knowing how to take them off. There was an odor of unwashed flesh that Perrin thought even Simion and Moiraine must smell.
Noam lifted his head and stared at them silently, without expression. There was nothing at all about him to suggest he was Simion’s brother—he had a chin, for one thing, and he was a big man, with heavy shoulders—but that was not what staggered Perrin. Noam stared at them with burnished golden eyes.
“He’d been talking crazy almost a year, good mistress, saying he could . . . could talk with wolves. And his eyes. . . .” Simion darted a glance at Perrin. “Well, he’d talk about it when he’d drunk too much. Everybody laughed at him. Then a month or so ago, he didn’t come to town. I went out to see what was the matter, and I found him—like this.”
Cautiously, unwillingly, Perrin reached out toward Noam as he would have toward a wolf. Running through the woods with the cold wind in his nose. Quick dash from cover, teeth snapping at hamstrings. Taste of blood, rich on the tongue. Kill. Perrin jerked back as he would have from a fire, sealed himself off. They were not thoughts at all, really, just a chaotic jumble of desires and images, part memory, part yearning. But there was more wolf there than anything else. He put a hand to the wall to steady himself; his knees felt weak. Light help me!
Moiraine put a hand on the lock.
“Master Harod has the key, good mistress. I don’t know if he’ll—”
She gave a tug, and the lock sprang open. Simion gaped at her. She lifted the lock free of the hasp, and the chinless man turned to Perrin.
“Is that safe, good master? He’s my brother, but he bit Mother Roon when she tried to help, and he . . . he killed a cow. With his teeth,” he finished faintly.
“Moiraine,” Perrin said, “the man is dangerous.”
“All men are dangerous,” she replied in a cool voice. “Now be quiet.” She opened the door and went in. Perrin held his breath.
At her first step, Noam’s lips peeled back from his teeth, and he began to growl, a rumble that deepened till his whole body quivered. Moiraine ignored it. Still growling, Noam wriggled backwards in the straw as she came closer to him, until he had backed himself into a corner. Or she had backed him.
Slowly, calmly, the Aes Sedai knelt and took his head between her hands. Noam’s growl heightened to a snarl, then tailed off in a whi
mper before Perrin could move. For a long moment Moiraine held Noam’s head, then just as calmly released it and rose. Perrin’s throat tightened as she turned her back on Noam and walked out of the cage, but the man only stared after her. She pushed the slatted door to, slipped the lock back through the hasp, not bothering to snap it shut—and Noam hurled himself snarling against the wooden bars. He bit at them, and battered them with his shoulders, tried to force his head between them, all the while snarling and snapping.
Moiraine brushed straw from her skirt with a steady hand and no expression.
“You do take chances,” Perrin breathed. She looked at him—a steady, knowing gaze—and he dropped his eyes. His yellow eyes.
Simion was staring at his brother. “Can you help him, good mistress?” he asked hoarsely.
“I am sorry, Simion,” she said.
“Can’t you do anything, good mistress? Something? One of those”—his voice fell to a whisper—“Aes Sedai things?”
“Healing is not a simple matter, Simion, and it comes from within as much as from the Healer. There is nothing here that remembers being Noam, nothing that remembers being a man. There are no maps remaining to show him the path back, and nothing left to take that path. Noam is gone, Simion.”
“He—he just used to talk funny, good mistress, when he’d had too much to drink. He just. . . .” Simion scrubbed a hand across his eyes and blinked. “Thank you, good mistress. I know you’d have done something if you could.” She put a hand on his shoulder, murmured comforting words, and then she was gone from the shed.
Perrin knew he should follow her, but the man—what had once been a man—snapping at the wooden bars, held him. He took a quick step and surprised himself by removing the dangling lock from the hasp. The lock was a good one, the work of a master smith.
“Good master?”
Perrin stared at the lock in his hand, at the man behind in the cage. Noam had stopped biting at the slats; he stared back at Perrin warily, panting. Some of his teeth had broken off jaggedly.
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