The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  As well as what? Mat wondered. “You believe it?”

  For a moment Perrin looked up; his eyes gathered the light of the candle, shining a burnished golden yellow. “There doesn’t seem to be much doubt, to me. It’s all too close to the truth.”

  Mat shifted uncomfortably. “Does Rand know?” Perrin only nodded and went back to his packing. “Well, what does he say?”

  Perrin paused, staring at the folded cloak in his hands. “He started muttering to himself. ‘He said he’d do it. He said he would. I should have believed him.’ Like that. It made no sense. Then he grabbed me by the collar and said he had to do ‘what they don’t expect.’ He wanted to me to understand, but I’m not certain he does himself. He didn’t seem to care whether I leave or stay. No, I take that back. I think he was relieved I’m leaving.”

  “Boil it down, and he’s not going to do anything,” Mat said. “Light, with Callandor he could blast a thousand Whitecloaks! You saw what he did to those bloody Trollocs. You’re going, are you? Back to the Two Rivers? Alone?”

  “Unless you are coming, too.” Perrin stuffed the cloak into the saddlebags. “Are you?”

  Instead of answering, Mat paced back and forth, his face in half-light and shadow by turns. His mother and father were in Emond’s Field, and his sisters. Whitecloaks had no reason to hurt them. If he went home, he had the feeling he would never leave again, that his mother would marry him off before he could sit down. But if he did not go, if the Whitecloaks harmed them . . . . All it took was rumor, for Whitecloaks, so he had heard. But why should there be any rumor about them? Even the Coplins, liars and troublemakers to a man, liked his father. Everyone liked Abell Cauthon.

  “You don’t have to,” Perrin said quietly. “Nothing I heard mentioned you. Only Rand, and me.”

  “Burn me, I will g—” He could not say it. Thinking of going was easy enough, but saying he would? His throat tightened up to strangle the words. “Is it easy for you, Perrin? Going, I mean? Don’t you . . . feel anything? Trying to hold you back? Telling you reasons you shouldn’t go?”

  “A hundred of them, Mat, but I know it comes down to Rand, and ta’veren. You won’t admit that, will you? A hundred reasons to stay, but the one reason to go outweighs them. The Whitecloaks are in the Two Rivers, and they’ll hurt people trying to find me. I can stop it, if I go.”

  “Why should the Whitecloaks want you enough to hurt anybody? Light, if they go asking for somebody with yellow eyes, nobody in Emond’s Field will know who they’re talking about! And how can you stop anything? One more pair of hands won’t do much good. Aaah! The Whitecloaks have bitten a mouthful of leather if they think they can push Two Rivers folk around.”

  “They know my name,” Perrin said softly. His gaze swung to where his axe hung on the wall, the belt tied around the haft and the wall hook. Or maybe it was his hammer he was staring at, standing propped against the wall beneath the axe; Mat could not be sure. “They can find my family. As for why, they have their reasons, Mat. Just as I have mine. Who can say who has the better?”

  “Burn me, Perrin. Burn me! I want to g-g—See? I can’t even say it, now. Like my head knows I’ll do it if I say it. I can’t even get it out in my mind!”

  “Different paths. We’ve been sent down different paths before.”

  “Different paths be bloodied,” Mat grunted. “I’ve had all I want of Rand, and Aes Sedai, shoving me down their bloody paths. I want to go where I want for a change, do what I want!” He turned for the door, but Perrin’s voice halted him.

  “I hope your path is a happy one, Mat. The Light send you pretty girls and fools who want to gamble.”

  “Oh, burn me, Perrin. The Light send you what you want, too.”

  “I expect it will.” He did not sound happy at the prospect.

  “Will you tell my da I’m all right? And my mother? She always did worry. And look after my sisters. They used to spy on me and tell Mother everything, but I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”

  “I promise, Mat.”

  Closing the door behind him, Mat wandered down the hallways aimlessly. His sisters. Eldrin and Bodewhin had always been ready to run shouting “Mama, Mat’s in trouble again, Mat’s doing what he shouldn’t, Mama.” Especially Bode. They would be sixteen and seventeen, now. Probably thinking of marriage before too much longer, already with some dull farmer picked out whether the fellow knew it or not. Had he really been gone so long? It did not seem so, sometimes. Sometimes he felt as if he had left Emond’s Field just a week or two past. Other times it seemed years gone, only dimly remembered at all. He could remember Eldrin and Bode smirking when he had been switched, but their faces were no longer sharp. His own sisters’ faces. These bloody holes in his memory, like holes in his life.

  He saw Berelain coming toward him and grinned in spite of himself. For all her airs, she was a fine figure of a woman. That clinging white silk was thin enough for a handkerchief, not to mention being scooped low enough at the top to expose a considerable amount of excellent pale bosom.

  He swept her his best bow, elegant and formal. “A good evening to you, my Lady.” She started to sweep by without a glance, and he straightened angrily. “Are you deaf as well as blind, woman? I’m not a carpet to walk over, and I distinctly heard myself speak. If I pinch your bottom, you can slap my face, but until I do, I expect a civil word for a civil word!”

  The First stopped dead, eyeing him in that way women had. She could have sewn him a shirt and told his weight, not to mention when he had his last bath, from that look. Then she turned away, murmuring something to herself. All he caught was “too much like me.”

  He stared after her in amazement. Not a word to him! That face, that walk, and her nose so far in the air it was a wonder her feet touched the ground. That was what he got, speaking to the likes of Berelain and Elayne. Nobles who thought you were dirt unless you had a palace and bloodlines back to Artur Hawkwing. Well, he knew a plump cook’s helper—just plump enough—who did not think he was dirt. Dara had a way of nibbling his ears that . . . .

  His thoughts stopped dead in their tracks. He had been considering seeing whether Dara was awake and up for a cuddle. He had even considered flirting with Berelain. Berelain! And the last words he had said to Perrin. Look after my sisters. As if he had already decided, already knew what to do. Only he had not. He would not, not so easily, just sliding into it. There was a way, perhaps.

  Digging a gold coin from his pocket, he flipped it into the air and snatched it onto the back of his other hand. A Tar Valon mark, he saw for the first time, and he was staring at the Flame of Tar Valon, stylized like a teardrop. “Burn all Aes Sedai!” he announced loudly. “And burn Rand al’Thor for getting me into this!”

  A black-and-gold liveried servant stopped in midstride, staring at him worriedly. The man’s silver tray was piled high with rolled bandages and jars of ointment. As soon as he realized Mat had seen him, he gave a jump.

  Mat tossed the gold mark onto the man’s tray. “From the biggest fool in the world. Mind you spend it well, on women and wine.”

  “Th-thank you, my Lord,” the man stammered as if stunned.

  Mat left him standing there. The biggest fool in the world. Aren’t I just!

  CHAPTER 14

  Customs of Mayene

  Perrin shook his head as the door closed behind Mat. Mat would as soon hit himself on the head with a hammer as go back to the Two Rivers. Not unless he must. Perrin wished there was some way he could avoid going home, too. But there was no way; it was a fact as hard as iron and less forgiving. The difference between Mat and himself was that he was willing to accept that, even when he did not want to.

  Easing his shirt off made him grunt, careful as he could be. A large bruise, already faded to browns and yellows, stained his entire left shoulder. A Trolloc had slipped past his axe, and only Faile’s quick work with a knife had kept it from being more than it was. The shoulder made washing painful, but at least there was no worry
about cold water in Tear.

  He was packed and ready, only a change of clothes for the morning remaining out of his saddlebags. As soon as the sun rose, he would go find Loial. No point in bothering the Ogier tonight. He was probably already abed, where Perrin meant to be shortly. Faile was the only problem he had not figured out how to deal with. Even staying in Tear would be better for her than going with him.

  The door opened, surprising him. Perfume wafted in to him as soon as the door cracked; it made him think of climbing flowers on a hot summer night. A tantalizing scent, not heavy, not to anyone but him, but nothing Faile would wear. Still, he was even more surprised when Berelain stepped into his room.

  Holding the edge of the door, she blinked, making him realize how dim the light must be for her. “You are going somewhere?” she said hesitantly. With the light of the hallway’s lamps behind her, it was difficult not to stare.

  “Yes, my Lady.” He bowed; not smoothly, but as well as he could. Faile could give all the sharp sniffs she wanted, but he saw no reason not to be polite. “In the morning.”

  “So am I.” She closed the door and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. He looked away, watching her from the corner of his eye, so she would not think he was goggling. She went on without noticing his reaction. The single candle flame was reflected in her dark eyes. “After tonight . . . . Tomorrow I will leave by carriage for Godan, and from there take ship for Mayene. I should have gone days ago, but I thought there must be some way to work matters out. Only, there wasn’t, of course. I should have seen that sooner. Tonight convinced me. The way he . . . . All that lightning, flowing down the halls. I will leave tomorrow.”

  “My Lady,” Perrin said in confusion, “why are you telling me?”

  The way she tossed her head reminded him of a mare he had sometimes shoed in Emond’s Field; that mare would try to take a bite out of you. “So you can tell the Lord Dragon, of course.”

  That made no more sense to him. “You can tell him yourself,” he said with more than a little exasperation. “I’ve no time for carrying messages before I go.”

  “I . . . do not think he would wish to see me.”

  Any man would want to see her, and she was beautiful to look at; she knew both things. He thought she had started to say something else. Could she have been that frightened by what had happened that night in Rand’s bedchamber? Or the attack and the way Rand had ended it? Perhaps, but this was not a woman to frighten easily, not from the cool way she was eyeing him. “Give your message to a servant. I doubt I’ll see Rand again. Not before I leave. Any servant will take a note to him.”

  “It would come better from you, a friend of the Lord—”

  “Give it to a servant. Or one of the Aiel.”

  “You will not do as I ask?” she asked incredulously.

  “No. Haven’t you been listening to me?”

  She tossed her head again, but there was a difference this time, though he could not have said what. Studying him thoughtfully, she murmured half to herself, “Such striking eyes.”

  “What?” Suddenly he realized he was standing there naked to the waist. Her intense scrutiny abruptly seemed like the study of a horse before purchase. Next thing, she would be feeling his ankles and inspecting his teeth. He snatched the shirt meant for morning from the bed and pulled it over his head. “Give your message to a servant. I want to go to bed now. I mean to be up early. Before sunrise.”

  “Where are you going tomorrow?”

  “Home. The Two Rivers. It is late. If you are leaving tomorrow, too, I suppose you want to get some sleep. I know I’m tired.” He yawned as widely as he could.

  She still made no move toward the door. “You are a blacksmith? I have need of a blacksmith in Mayene. Making ornamental ironwork. A short stay before returning to the Two Rivers? You would find Mayene . . . entertaining.”

  “I am going home,” he told her firmly, “and you are going back to your own rooms.”

  Her small shrug made him look away again hastily. “Perhaps another day. I always get what I want in the end. And I think I want . . .” She paused, eyeing him up and down. “ . . . ornamental ironwork. For the windows of my bedchamber.” She smiled so innocently that he felt alarm gongs sounding his head.

  The door opened again, and Faile came in. “Perrin, I went into the city looking for you, and I heard a rumor—” She stopped stock still, her eyes hard on Berelain.

  The First ignored her. Stepping close to Perrin, she ran a hand up his arm, across his shoulder. For an instant he thought she meant to try pulling his head down for a kiss—she certainly lifted her face as if for one—but she only trailed her hand along the side of his neck in a quick caress and stepped back. It was over and done before he could move to stop her. “Remember,” she said softly, as if they were alone, “I always get what I want.” And she swept past Faile and out of the room.

  He waited for an explosion from Faile, but she glanced at his stuffed saddlebags on the bed and said, “I see you’ve heard the rumor already. It is only a rumor, Perrin.”

  “Yellow eyes make it more than that.” She should have been erupting like a bundle of dry twigs tossed on a fire. Why was she so cool? “Very well. Moiraine is the next problem, then. Will she try to stop you?”

  “Not if she doesn’t know. If she tries, I will go anyway. I have family and friends, Faile; I won’t leave them to Whitecloaks. But I hope to keep it from her until I am well out of the city.” Even her eyes were calm, like dark pools in the forest. It made his hackles rise.

  “But it had to take weeks for that rumor to reach Tear, and it will take weeks more to ride to the Two Rivers. The Whitecloaks could be gone by then. Well, I have been wanting you to leave here. I should not complain. I just want you to know what to expect.”

  “It won’t take weeks by the Ways,” he told her. “Two days, maybe three.” Two days. He supposed there was no means to make it faster.

  “You are as mad as Rand al’Thor,” she said disbelievingly. Dropping on the foot of his bed, she folded her legs crosswise and addressed him in a voice suitable for lecturing children. “Go into the Ways, and you come out hopelessly mad. If you come out at all, which it is most likely you will not. The Ways are tainted, Perrin. They have been dark for—what?—three hundred years? Four hundred? Ask Loial. He could tell you. It was Ogiers built the Ways, or grew them, or whatever it was. Not even they use the Ways. Why, even if you managed to make it through them unscathed, the Light alone knows where you would come out.”

  “I have traveled them, Faile.” And a frightening trip it had been, too. “Loial can guide me. He can read the guideposts; that’s how we went before. He will do it for me again when he knows how important it is.” Loial was eager to be away from Tear, too; he seemed to be afraid that his mother knew where he was. Perrin was sure he would help.

  “Well,” she said, rubbing her hands together briskly. “Well, I wanted adventure, and this is certainly it. Leaving the Stone of Tear and the Dragon Reborn, traveling the Ways to fight Whitecloaks. I wonder whether we can persuade Thom Merrilin to come along. If we cannot have a bard, a gleeman will do. He could compose the story, and you and I the heart of it. No Dragon Reborn or Aes Sedai about to swallow up the tale. When do we leave? In the morning?”

  He took a deep breath to steady his voice. “I will be going alone, Faile. Just Loial and me.”

  “We will need a packhorse,” she said as if he had not spoken. “Two, I think. The Ways are dark. We will need lanterns, and plenty of oil. Your Two Rivers people. Farmers? Will they fight Whitecloaks?”

  “Faile, I said—”

  “I heard what you said,” she snapped. Shadows gave her a dangerous look, with her tilted eyes and high cheekbones. “I heard, and it makes no sense. What if these farmers won’t fight? Or don’t know how? Who is going to teach them? You? Alone?”

  “I will do what has to be done,” he said patiently. “Without you.”

  She bounced to her feet so fast he thought
she was coming for his throat. “Do you think Berelain will go with you? Will she guard your back? Or perhaps you prefer her to sit on your lap and squeal? Tuck your shirt in, you hairy oaf! Does it have to be so dark in here? Berelain likes dim light, does she? Much good she will do you against the Children of the Light!”

  Perrin opened his mouth to protest, and changed what he had been going to say. “She looks a pleasant armful, Berelain. What man wouldn’t want her on his lap?” The hurt on her face banded his chest with iron, but he made himself go on. “When I am done at home, I may go to Mayene. She asked me to come, and I might.”

  Faile said not a word. She stared at him with a face like stone, then whirled and ran out, slamming the door behind her with a crash.

  In spite of himself he started to follow, then stopped with his hands gripping the doorframe till his fingers hurt. Staring at the splintered gash his axe had made in the door, he found himself telling it what he could not tell her. “I killed Whitecloaks. They would have killed me if I hadn’t, but they still call it murder. I’m going home to die, Faile. That’s the only way I can stop them hurting my people. Let them hang me. I cannot let you see that. I can’t. You might even try to stop it, and then they’d . . . .”

  His head dropped against the door. She would not be sorry to see the last of him now; that was what was important. She would go find her adventure somewhere else, safe from Whitecloaks and ta’veren and bubbles of evil. That was all that was important. He wished he did not want to howl with grief.

  Faile strode through the halls at a near run, oblivious of who she passed or who had to scramble out of her way. Perrin. Berelain. Perrin. Berelain. He wants a milk-faced vixen who runs about half-naked, does he? He doesn’t know what he wants. Hairy lummox! Wooden-headed buffoon! Blacksmith! And that sneaking sow, Berelain. That prancing she-goat!