The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  He was as good as his word, and by the time the other men reappeared, she was standing beside a small fire surrounded by blankets dug from his packsaddles and hung from the branches of an oak. She had no need of the fire for drying, of course. The proper weave of Water had taken every drop from her hair and clothes while she stayed in them. As well he did not see that, though. Or her, until her hair was combed straight and brushed. And she did appreciate the flame’s warmth. Anyway, she had to stay inside the blankets long enough for the man to think she had used the fire as he intended. She very definitely held on to saidar. So far, she had proof of nothing.

  “Did she follow you, Lan?” a man’s voice said as he dismounted to the jingle of bells. The Arafellin.

  “Why are those blankets up?” a sour voice demanded gruffly.

  Moiraine stared at nothing, missing what reply her assailant made to the questions. They had known? Men watched for bandits in these times, but they had noticed a lone woman and decided she was following them? It made no sense. But why lure her into the woods instead of just confronting her? Three men had no reason to fear one woman. Unless they knew she was Aes Sedai. They would step very cautiously, then. But she was certain the fellow had no idea how she had gotten hold of his sword.

  “A Cairhienin, Lan? I suppose you’ve seen a Cairhienin in her skin, but I never have.” That certainly caught her ear, and with the Power filling her, so did another sound. Steel whispering on leather. A sword leaving its sheath. Preparing several weaves that would stop the lot of them in their tracks, she made a crack in the blankets to peek out.

  To her surprise, the man who had dunked her—Lan?—stood with his back to her blankets. He was the one with bared steel in hand. The Arafellin, facing him, looked surprised.

  “You remember the sight of the Thousand Lakes, Ryne,” Lan said coldly. “Does a woman need protection from your eyes?”

  For a moment, she thought Ryne was going to draw despite the blade already in Lan’s hand, but the older man—Bukama, she heard him called—a much-battered, graying fellow though as tall as the others, calmed matters, took the other two a little distance away with talk of some game called “sevens.” A strange game it seemed to be, and more than dangerous in the failing daylight. Lan and Ryne sat cross-legged facing one another, their swords sheathed, then without warning drew, each blade flashing toward the other man’s throat, stopping just short of flesh. The older man pointed to Ryne; they sheathed swords, and then did it again. For as long as she watched, that was how it went. Perhaps Ryne had not been so overconfident as he seemed.

  Waiting inside the blankets, she tried to recall what she had been taught of Malkier. It had not been a great deal, except as history. Ryne remembered the Thousand Lakes, so he must be Malkieri, too. There had been something about distressed women. Now that she was with them, she might as well stay until she learned what she could.

  When she came out from behind the blankets, she was ready. “I claim the right of a woman alone,” she told them formally. “I travel to Chachin, and I ask the shelter of your swords.” She also pressed a fat silver coin into each man’s hand. She was not really sure about this ridiculous “woman alone” business, but silver caught most men’s attention. “And two more each, paid in Chachin.”

  The reactions were not what she expected. Ryne glared at the coin as he turned it over in his fingers. Lan looked at his without expression and tucked it into his coat pocket with a grunt. She had given them some of her last Tar Valon marks, she realized, but Tar Valon coins could be found anywhere, along with those of every other land.

  Bukama bowed with his left hand on his knee. “Honor to serve, my Lady,” he said. “To Chachin, my life above yours.” His eyes were also blue, and they, too, would not quite meet hers. She hoped he did not turn out to be a Darkfriend.

  Learning anything proved to be difficult. Impossible. First the men were busy setting up camp, tending the horses, making a larger fire. They did not seem eager to face a new spring night without that. Bukama and Lan barely said a word over a dinner of flatbread and dried meat that she tried not to wolf down. Ryne talked and was quite charming, really, with a dimple in his cheek when he smiled, and a sparkle in his blue eyes, but he gave no opening for her to mention The Gates of Heaven or Aes Sedai. When she finally inquired why he was going to Chachin, his face turned sad.

  “Every man has to die somewhere,” he said softly, and went off to make up his blankets. A very odd answer. Worthy of an Aes Sedai.

  Lan took the first watch as the moon rose above the trees, sitting cross-legged not far from Ryne, and when Bukama doused the fire and rolled himself up in his blankets near Lan, she wove a ward of Spirit around each man. Flows of Spirit she could hold on to sleeping, and if any of them moved in the night, the ward would wake her without alerting them. It meant waking every time they changed guard, which they did frequently, but there was nothing for it. Her own blankets lay well away from the men, and as she settled her head on her saddle for the third time, Bukama murmured something she could not catch. She heard Lan’s reply plainly enough.

  “I’d sooner trust an Aes Sedai, Bukama. Go to sleep.”

  All the anger she had tamped down flared up. The man threw her into an icy pond, he did not apologize, he…! She channeled, Air and Water weaving with a touch of Earth. A thick cylinder of water rose from the surface of the pond, stretching up and up in the moonlight, arching over. Crashing down on the fool who was so free with his tongue!

  Splattered, Bukama and Ryne bounded to their feet with oaths, but she continued the torrent for a count of ten before letting it end. Freed water splashed down across the campsite. She expected to see a sodden, half-frozen man beaten to the ground and ready to learn proper respect. He was dripping wet, a few small fish flopping around his feet. He was standing on his feet. With his sword out.

  “Shadowspawn?” Ryne said in a disbelieving tone, and atop him, Lan said, “Maybe! I’ve never heard the like, though. Guard the woman, Ryne! Bukama, take west and circle south; I’ll take east and circle north!”

  “Not Shadowspawn!” Moiraine snapped, stopping them in their tracks. They stared at her. She wished she could see their expressions better in the moonshadows, but those cloud-shifting shadows aided her, too, cloaking her in mystery. With an effort she gave her voice every bit of cool Aes Sedai serenity she could muster. “It is unwise to show anything except respect to an Aes Sedai, Master Lan.”

  “Aes Sedai?” Ryne whispered. Despite the dim light, the awe on his face was clear. Or maybe it was fear.

  No one else made a sound, except for Bukama’s grumbles as he shifted his bed away from the mud. Ryne spent a long time moving his blankets in silence, giving her small bows whenever she glanced his way. Lan made no attempt to dry off. He started to choose a new spot for his watch, then stopped and sat back where he had been, in the mud and water. She might have thought it a gesture of humility, only he glanced at her, very nearly meeting her eyes this time. If that was humility, kings were the most humble men on earth.

  She wove her wards around them again, of course. If anything, revealing herself only made it more necessary. She did not go to sleep for quite a while, though. She had a great deal to think about. For one thing, none of the men had asked why she was following them. The man had been on his feet! When she drifted off, she was thinking of Ryne, strangely. A pity if he was afraid of her, now. A great pity if he turned out to be a Darkfriend. He was charming, and quite pretty, really. She did not mind a man wanting to see her unclothed, only his telling others about it.

  Chapter

  20

  Breakfast in Manala

  “You may call me Lady Alys,” the strange little woman told them when she climbed drowsily from her blankets at sunrise, stifling yawns with a fist. Apparently she was unused to sleeping on the ground. Lan was certain she had been awake every time he took a turn at guard. People breathed differently awake and asleep. Well, women who wore silks seldom encountered hardships or discom
fort.

  He doubted the name as much as he did the Great Serpent ring she produced, especially after she tucked it back into her belt pouch and said no one must know she was Aes Sedai, not even other sisters. True, Aes Sedai often pretended to be ordinary women, and carried it off with those who did not know a sister’s face, and true, once he had encountered an Aes Sedai who had not yet attained the ageless look, but one and all they practiced serenity to a fault. Oh, they got angry, but it was a cold anger. He had seen “Alys’ ” face in the moonlight when the water stopped, though he had not realized what he was seeing till later. Childish glee at playing a prank, and childish disappointment that it had not worked as she wished. Aes Sedai were many things, and convoluted enough with it to make other women seem simple, but they were never childish.

  When they had first seen her behind them, outpacing the merchant trains and the shield of their guards, Bukama offered a reason for a woman alone to follow three men. If six swordsmen could not kill a man in daylight, perhaps one woman could in darkness. Bukama had not mentioned Edeyn, of course. In truth, it plainly could not be that, or he would be dead now, yet Edeyn might set a woman to watch him, thinking he would be less on his guard. Only a fool believed women less dangerous than men, but women often seemed to think men fools when it came to women.

  In the night, despite his earlier misgivings, Bukama had expressed displeasure at Lan’s refusal to make proper pledge to her, though his own pledge sufficed to tie them to this “Lady Alys” to Chachin. Besides, she had given them money. The woman did not know insult when she offered it. This morning, he grumbled while saddling his black gelding, a horse he claimed was not a patch on Sun Lance. That was going some even for Bukama. The black was a fine animal, with excellent conformation and a good turn of speed, if untrained as a warhorse yet. “Aes Sedai or not, a decent man follows certain forms,” he muttered as he tightened his front saddle girth. “It’s a matter of common decency.”

  “Give over, Bukama,” Lan told him quietly. Bukama did not, of course.

  “It’s disrespectful to her, Lan, and shameful on your part. An honorable man protects whoever needs protecting, but children above all, and women above men. Pledge her protection for your own honor.”

  Lan sighed. Likely, Bukama would keep this up the whole way to Chachin. He should understand. If the woman really was Aes Sedai, Lan wanted no more strings binding him to her. Bukama had already tied one, but his own pledge might lead to worse. If she was Aes Sedai, she might be hunting a Warder. If.

  Ryne only waited for the woman to finish brushing out her hair, which she did seated on her saddle on the ground, before offering her a flourishing bow that set his bells chiming. “A beautiful morning, my Lady,” he murmured, “though no sunrise could compare in beauty with the deep, dark pools of your eyes.” And then he twitched, his own eyes going wide as he searched to see whether she was offended. “Ah…. May I saddle your mare, my Lady?” As diffident as a scullion in the withdrawing room.

  “Why, thank you,” she said, smiling. A very warm smile. “A gracious offer, Ryne.”

  She went with him to saddle her bay, or rather to flirt, as it seemed. She stood very close while he worked, looking up at him with those big eyes he so admired, and whatever she said, Lan heard answering murmurs about her “skin of silky snow.” Which brought a delighted laugh from her.

  Lan shook his head. He understood what drew Ryne. The woman’s face was beautiful, and however childishly she behaved, the slim body inside that blue silk belonged to no child. But Ryne was right; he had seen a Cairhienin in her skin, more than one. And they had all tried to mesh him in a scheme, or two, or three. Over one particularly memorable ten days in the south of Cairhien, he had almost been killed six times and nearly married twice. An Aes Sedai, if she really was one, and a Cairhienin? There could be no worse combination.

  Strangely, she made no complaint about riding on without a bite of breakfast, but when they reached Manala, a considerable village less than an hour along the road, she commanded a halt. And it was a command.

  “Hot food now will make the day’s ride easier,” she said firmly, sitting very straight in her saddle and staring a challenge at them. That was certainly like an Aes Sedai, but then, it was like most women. “I wish to reach Chachin as swiftly as possible, and I will not have you falling over from hunger in a foolish attempt to show me how tough you are.” Only Ryne met her gaze directly, with an uneasy smile. The man needed to decide whether he was besotted or afraid.

  “It was our plan to stop briefly for food, my Lady,” Bukama said, lowering his eyes respectfully. He did not add that they would have eaten there last night, and slept in beds, if not for her. Had she followed them to Manala, it would have meant nothing. Following Lan into the forest meant she had some interest in them or their plans.

  A sprawling collection of stone houses roofed in red or green tiles, Manala was not far short of being called a town, with above twenty streets crisscrossing a pair of low hills. Three inns fronted a large green in the hollow between the hills, alongside the road. There the men of two large merchant trains headed east were reluctantly hitching their horses under the watchful eye of the mounted merchants. A train of some thirty or so wagons was already lumbering away to the west, with some of the outriding guards looking over their shoulders instead of keeping watch as they should. The Bel Tine festivities were under way in Manala.

  They had not come to the games of skill and strength and speed yet, but newly married men and women were formally dancing the Spring Pole in the center of the green, feet flashing but bodies rigidly upright as they entwined the two-span-tall pole in long brightly dyed linen ribbons, while older and unmarried adults were dancing in more lively fashion to the music of fiddles and flutes and drums in half a dozen sizes. Everyone wore their feastday best, the women’s pale blouses and wide trousers and the men’s bright coats encrusted with elaborate embroidery. They crowded the wide, open space, yet they were not the whole population of Manala. A steady trickle flowed up the hills, men and women bound on some errand, and a steady trickle flowed back down, often carrying dishes of food to the long tables set out on the far side. It was a merry sight. Laughing children, their faces smeared with honey often as not, ran and played through it all, some of the older ones occasionally feeding the small Bel Tine fires at the corners of the green. Lan was not sure how many really believed that leaping those low flames would burn away any bad luck accumulated since the previous Bel Tine, but he did believe in luck. Both kinds. In the Blight, you lived or died by luck as often as by skill or lack of it.

  In stark counterpoint to the merriment on the green, beside the road stood six stakes holding the large heads of Trollocs, wolf-snouted, ram-horned, eagle-beaked below all too human eyes. They looked no more than two or three days old, although the weather was still cool enough to retard decay, too cool for flies. These were the reasons each of those dancing men wore a sword, and the women carried long knives at their belts. He smelled no charred wood, though, so it had been a small raid, and unsuccessful.

  “Lady Alys” stopped her mare beside the stakes and stared at them. Not in amazement or fear or disgust. Her face was a perfect mask of calm. For an instant, he could almost believe she truly was Aes Sedai.

  “I should have hated to face these creatures armed only with a sword,” she murmured. “I cannot imagine the courage needed to do that.”

  “You have faced Trollocs?” Lan asked in surprise. Ryne and Bukama exchanged startled looks.

  “Yes.” She grimaced faintly, as if the word had slipped out before thought.

  “Where, if I may ask?” he said. Few southerners had ever seen a Trolloc. Some called them tales to frighten children.

  Alys eyed him coolly. Very coolly. “Shadowspawn can be found in places you never dream of, Master Lan. Choose us an inn, Ryne,” she added with a smile. The woman actually believed she was in charge. From the way Ryne jumped to obey, so did he.

  The Plowman’s Blade was
two stories of red-roofed stone with arrowslits rather than windows on the ground floor and a two-handed sword of the sort farmers carried on their plows hanging point-down above a door of heavy planks. This near the Blight, inns served as strong-points against a Trolloc attack, and so did many houses. The innkeeper, a stout graying woman, her billowing blouse worked with red and yellow flowers and her wide trousers covered in red and blue, came from the green when she saw them tying their horses to the hitching rings set in the front of the inn. Mistress Tomichi looked uneasy about two Malkieri stopping at her inn, but she brightened when Alys began issuing commands for her breakfast.

  “As you say, my Lady,” the round-faced innkeeper murmured, giving Alys a deep curtsy. The Cairhienin had given no name, but her manner and dress did suggest a Lady. “And will you want rooms for yourself and your retainers?”

  “Thank you, no,” Alys replied. “I intend to ride on soon.”

  Ryne showed no offense at being called a retainer, accepting the word as easily as Alys did, but Bukama’s perpetual scowl darkened. He said nothing, of course, not here, and perhaps would not ever, given his pledge. Lan decided he would have a few quiet words with Alys when he had the chance. There was a limit to how many insults a man could swallow in silence.

  He and the other men ordered dark bread and strong tea, and bowls of porridge with slivers of ham in it. Alys did not invite them to share her table in the large common room, so they took benches at another. There were plenty to choose from, given that they were alone except for Mistress Tomichi, who served them with her own hands, explaining that she did not want to pull anyone from the festivities. Indeed, once she had taken payment, she returned to them herself.

  Taking advantage of their privacy, Lan and the others discussed the diminutive woman who had attached herself to them. Or rather, they argued about her, in low voices so as not to be overheard. Utterly convinced that Alys was Aes Sedai, Ryne recommended asking no questions. Questions could be dangerous with Aes Sedai, and you might not like the answers. Bukama maintained that they needed to know what she wanted with them, especially if she were Aes Sedai. Tangling in some unknown Aes Sedai scheme could be hazardous. A man could acquire enemies without knowing it, or be sacrificed without warning to further her plans. Lan forbore mentioning that it was Bukama who had placed their feet in that snare. He himself just could not believe she was a sister. He thought her a wilder placed to watch him—by Edeyn, though he did not mention her name, of course. Edeyn likely had eyes-and-ears the breadth of the Borderlands. It did seem an unlikely coincidence that she would happen to have a wilder waiting for him in Canluum, but there had been those six men, and he could not think of anyone else who might have sent them.