The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  His injury hurt like fury; every step his horse took jolted that arrowhead. “I feel fine,” he said, not gritting his teeth. “Maybe we’ll have a dance in Emond’s Field tonight. And you? Did you pass a good night playing Maidens’ Kiss?” Gaul stumbled and nearly fell on his face. “What is the matter?”

  “Who did you hear suggest this game?” the Aielman said quietly, staring straight ahead.

  “Chiad. Why?”

  “Chiad,” Gaul muttered. “The woman is Goshien. Goshien! I should take her back to Hot Springs as gai’shain.” The words sounded angry, but not his odd tone. “Chiad.”

  “Will you tell me what is the matter?”

  “A Myrddraal has less cunning than a woman,” Gaul said in a flat voice, “and a Trolloc fights with more honor.” After a moment he added, in a fierce undertone, “And a goat has more sense.” Quickening his pace, he ran forward to join the two Maidens. He did not speak to them, as far as Perrin could make out, only slowed to walk alongside.

  “Did you understand any of that?” Perrin asked Ihvon. The Warder shook his head.

  Faile sniffed. “If he thinks to make trouble for them, they will hang him by his heels from a branch to cool off.”

  “Did you understand it?” Perrin asked her. She walked along, neither looking at him nor answering, which he took to mean she did not. “I think I might have to find Raen’s camp again. It has been a long time since I saw the tiganza. It was . . . interesting.”

  She muttered something under her breath, but he caught it: “You could do with hanging by the heels yourself!”

  He smiled down at the top of her head. “But I won’t have to. You promised to dance this sa’sara for me.” Her face went crimson. “Is it anything close to the tiganza? I mean, there is no point, otherwise.”

  “You muscle-brained oaf!” she snapped, glaring up at him. “Men have thrown their hearts and fortunes at the feet of women who danced the sa’sara. If Mother suspected I knew it—” Her teeth clicked shut as though she had said too much, and her head whipped back to face forward; scarlet mortification covered her from her dark hair down to the neck of her dress.

  “Then there isn’t any reason for you to dance it,” he said quietly. “My heart and fortune, such as they are, already lie at your feet.”

  Faile missed a step, then laughed softly and pressed her cheek against his booted calf. “You are too clever for me,” she murmured. “One day I will dance it for you, and boil the blood in your veins.”

  “You already do that,” he said, and she laughed again. Pushing her arm behind his stirrup, she hugged his leg to her as she walked.

  After a while even the thought of Faile dancing—he extrapolated from the Tinker dance; it must be something to top that—could not compete with the pain in his side. Every stride Stepper took was agony. He held himself upright. It seemed to hurt a fraction less that way. Besides, he did not want to spoil the lift the Tuatha’an had given everyone’s spirits. The other men were sitting up straight in their saddles, too, even those who had been hunched over and clinging the day before. And Ban and Dannil and the others walked with heads up. He would not be the first to slump.

  Wil began to whistle “Coming Home from Tarwin’s Gap,” and three or four more took it up. After a time, Ban began to sing in a clear, deep voice.

  “My home is waiting there for me,

  and the girl I left behind.

  Of all the treasure that waits for me,

  that’s what I want to find.

  Her eyes so merry, and her smile so sweet,

  her hugs so warm, and her ankle neat,

  her kisses hot, now there’s a treat.

  If there’s a treasure greater, it lies not in my mind.”

  More joined in on the second verse, until everyone sang, even Ihvon. And Faile. Not Perrin, of course; he had been told often enough that he sounded like a stepped-on frog, singing. Some even fell into step with the music.

  “Oh, I have seen stark Tarwin’s Gap,

  and the Trollocs’ raving horde.

  I have stood ’fore the Halfman’s charge,

  and walked on death’s cold borde.

  But a winsome lass, she waits for me,

  for a dance, and a kiss ’neath the apple tree . . . .”

  Perrin shook his head. A day before they had been ready to run and hide. Today they sang, about a battle so long ago that it had left no memory but this song in the Two Rivers. Perhaps they were becoming soldiers. They would have to, unless he managed to close that Waygate.

  Farms began to appear more often, closer together, until they traveled along hard-packed dirt between fields bordered by hedges or low, rough stone walls. Abandoned farms. No one here clung to the land.

  They came to the Old Road, which ran north from the White River, the Manetherendrelle, through Deven Ride to Emond’s Field, and at last began to see sheep in the pastures, great clumps like a dozen men’s flocks gathered together, with ten shepherds where there once would have been one, and half of them grown men. Bow-armed shepherds watched them pass, singing at the tops of their lungs, not knowing quite what to make of it.

  Perrin did not know what to make of his first view of Emond’s Field, and neither did the other Two Rivers men, from the way their singing faltered and died.

  The trees, fences and hedges closest to the village were simply gone, cleared away. The westernmost houses of Emond’s Field had once stood among the trees on the edge of the Westwood. The oaks and leatherleaf between the houses remained, but now the forest’s brim stood five hundred paces away, a long bowshot, and axes rang loud as men pushed it back farther. Row on row of waist-high stakes, driven into the ground at an angle, surrounded the village a little out from the houses and presented a continuous hedge of sharpened points, except where the road ran in. At intervals behind the stakes men stood like sentries, some wearing bits of old armor or leather shirts sewn with rusty steel discs, a few in dented old steel caps, with boar spears, or halberds rooted out of attics, or bush hooks fitted to long poles. Other men, and boys, were up on some of the thatched roofs with bows; they stood when they saw Perrin and the others coming, and shouted to people below.

  Beside the road behind the stakes stood a contraption of wood and thick, twisted rope, with a nearby pile of stones bigger than a man’s head. Ihvon noticed Perrin frowning at it as they came closer. “Catapult,” the Warder said. “Six, so far. Your carpenters knew what to do once Tomas and I showed them. The stakes will hold off charging Trollocs or Whitecloaks, either one.” He might have been discussing the prospects for more rain.

  “I told you your village was preparing to defend itself.” Faile sounded fiercely proud, as though it were her village. “A hard people, for such a soft land. They could almost be Saldaean. Moiraine always said Manetheren’s blood runs strong here still.”

  Perrin could only shake his head.

  The hard-packed dirt streets were nearly crowded enough for a city, the gaps between houses filled with carts and wagons, and through open doors and unshuttered windows he could see more people. The crowd parted before Ihvon and the Aiel, and rustling whispers accompanied them along the street.

  “It’s Perrin Goldeneyes.”

  “Perrin Goldeneyes.”

  “Perrin Goldeneyes.”

  He wished they would not do that. These people knew him, some of them. What did they think they were doing? There was horse-faced Neysa Ayellin, who had paddled his ten-year-old backside that time Mat talked him into stealing one of her gooseberry pies. And there was pink-cheeked, big-eyed Cilia Cole, the first girl he had ever kissed and still pleasingly plump, and Pel Aydaer, with his pipe and his bald head, who had taught Perrin how to catch trout with his hands, and Daise Congar herself, a tall, wide woman who made Alsbet Luhhan seem soft, with her husband Wit, a scrawny man overshadowed as always by his wife. And they were all staring at him, and whispering to the people from off, who might not know who he was. When old Cenn Buie lifted a little boy up on his shoulde
r, pointing at Perrin and talking enthusiastically to the boy, Perrin groaned. They had all gone mad.

  Townsfolk trailed after Perrin and the others, around them, in a parade that rode a swell of murmurs. Chickens scurried every which way under people’s feet. Bawling calves and pigs squealing in pens behind the houses competed with the noise of the humans. Sheep crowded the Green, and black-and-white milkcows cropped the grass in company with flocks of geese, gray and white.

  And in the middle of the Green rose a tall pole, the red-bordered white banner at its peak rippling lazily, displaying a red wolf’s head. He looked at Faile, but she shook her head, as surprised as he.

  “A symbol.”

  Perrin had not heard Verin approach, though now he caught hushed whispers of “Aes Sedai” floating around her. Ihvon did not look surprised. People stared at her with awe-filled eyes.

  “People need symbols,” Verin went on, resting a hand on Stepper’s shoulder. “When Alanna told a few of the villagers how much Trollocs fear wolves, everyone seemed to think this banner a grand idea. Don’t you, Perrin?” Was there a dryness in her voice then? Her dark eyes looked up at him, birdlike. A bird watching a worm?

  “I wonder what Queen Morgase will think of that,” Faile said. “This is part of Andor. Queens seldom like strange banners being raised in their realms.”

  “That’s nothing but lines on a map,” Perrin told her. It was good to be still; the throbbing from the arrowhead seemed to have abated somewhat. “I did not even know we were supposed to be part of Andor until I went to Caemlyn. I doubt many people here do.”

  “Rulers have a tendency to believe maps, Perrin.” There was no doubt of the dryness in Faile’s tone. “When I was a child, there were parts of Saldaea that had not seen a taxman in five generations. Once Father could turn his attention from the Blight for a time, Tenobia made sure they knew who their queen was.”

  “This is the Two Rivers,” he said, grinning, “not Saldaea.” They did sound very fierce, up there in Saldaea. As he turned back to Verin, the grin became a frown. “I thought you were . . . hiding . . . who you are.” He could not say which was more disturbing; Aes Sedai there in secret, or Aes Sedai in the open.

  The Aes Sedai’s hand hovered an inch from the broken-off arrow jutting from his side. Something tingled around the wound. “Oh, this is not good,” she murmured. “Caught in the rib, and some infection in spite of that poultice. This needs Alanna, I think.” She blinked and pulled her hand back; the tingle went, too. “What? Hiding? Oh. With what has been stirred up here now, we could hardly remain hidden. I suppose we could have . . . gone away. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” There was that sharp, considering, birdlike stare again.

  He hesitated, and finally sighed. “I suppose not.”

  “Oh, that is good to hear,” she said with a smile.

  “Why did you really come here, Verin?”

  She did not seem to hear him. Or did not want to. “Now we need to see to that thing in you. And these other lads need to be looked after, too. Alanna and I will see to the worst, but . . . .”

  The men with him were as stunned by what they found here as he was. Ban scratched his head at the banner, and a few just stared around in amazement. Most looked at Verin, though, wide-eyed and uneasy; they had surely heard the whispers of “Aes Sedai.” Perrin was not escaping those looks entirely himself, he realized, talking to an Aes Sedai as though she were just any village woman.

  Verin considered them right back, then suddenly, without seeming to look, reached behind her to snatch a girl of about ten or twelve out of the onlookers. The girl, her long dark hair caught up with blue ribbons, went rigid with shock. “You know Daise Congar, girl?” Verin said. “Well, you find her and tell her there are injured men who need a Wisdom’s herbs. And tell her to jump. You tell her I’ll have no patience with her airs. Do you have that? Off with you.”

  Perrin did not recognize the girl, but evidently she did know Daise, because she flinched at the message. But Verin was an Aes Sedai. After a moment of weighing—Daise Congar against an Aes Sedai—the girl scampered away into the crowd.

  “And Alanna will take care of you,” Verin said, peering up at him again.

  He wished she did not sound as though there might be two meanings to that.

  CHAPTER 43

  Care for the Living

  Taking Stepper’s bridle, Verin led him to the Winespring Inn herself, the crowd melting back to let her through, then falling in after. Dannil and Ban and the others trailed along on horse and afoot, kin mingling with them now. Astounded as they were by the changes in Emond’s Field, the lads still showed their pride by striding even if they limped, or sitting up straighter in the saddle; they had faced Trollocs and come home. But women ran their hands over sons and nephews and grandsons, often biting back tears, and their low moans made a soft, pained murmur. Tight-eyed men tried to hide their worries behind proud smiles, clapping shoulders and exclaiming over newly begun beards, yet frequently their hugs just happened to turn into a shoulder to lean on. Sweethearts rushed in with kisses and loud cries, equal parts happiness and commiseration, and little brothers and sisters, uncertain, alternated between fits of weeping and clinging in wide-eyed wonder to a brother everyone seemed to be taking for a hero.

  It was the other voices Perrin wished he could not hear.

  “Where is Kenley?” Mistress Ahan was a handsome woman, with streaks of white in her nearly black braid, but she wore a fear-filled frown as she scanned faces and saw eyes flinch from hers. “Where’s my Kenley?”

  “Bili!” old Hu al’Dai called uncertainly. “Has anyone seen Bili al’Dai?”

  “ . . . Hu . . . !”

  “ . . . Jared . . . !”

  “ . . . Tim . . . !”

  “ . . . Colly . . . !”

  In front of the inn, Perrin fell out of the saddle in his need to escape those names, not even seeing whose hands caught him. “Get me inside!” he grated. “Inside!”

  “ . . . Teven . . . !”

  “ . . . Haral . . . !”

  “ . . . Had . . . !”

  The door cut off the heart-lost wails, and the cries of Dael al’Taron’s mother for someone to tell her where her son was.

  In a Trolloc cookpot, Perrin thought as he was lowered into a chair in the common room. In a Trolloc’s belly, where I put him, Mistress al’Taron. Where I put him. Faile had his head in her hands, peering into his face worriedly. Care for the living, he thought. I’ll weep for the dead later. Later.

  “I am all right,” he told her. “I just got a little light-headed dismounting. I’ve never been a good rider.” She did not seem to believe him.

  “Can’t you do something?” she demanded of Verin.

  The Aes Sedai calmly shook her head. “I think better not, child. A pity neither of us is Yellow, but Alanna is still a much better Healer than I. My Talents lie in other directions. Ihvon will bring her. Wait with patience, child.”

  The common room had been turned into an armory of sorts. Except in front of the fireplace, the walls were a solid mass of propped spears of every description, with the occasional halberd or bill mixed in, and some polearms with oddly shaped blades, many pitted and discolored where old rust had been scoured away. Even more surprisingly, a barrel near the foot of the stairs held swords all jumbled together, most without scabbards and no two alike. Every attic within five miles must have been turned out for relics dust-covered for generations. Perrin would not have suspected there were five swords in the whole Two Rivers. Before the Whitecloaks and Trollocs came, anyway.

  Gaul took a place off to one side, near the stairs that led up to the inn’s rooms and the al’Veres’ living quarters, watching Perrin but plainly aware of Verin and every move she made. On the other side of the room, watching Faile and all else, the two Maidens cradled their spears in the crook of an elbow and took a hipshot stance that seemed at once casual and yet balanced on the toes. The three young fellows who had carried Perrin in shifted t
heir feet by the door, staring at him and the Aes Sedai and the Aiel with equally wide eyes. That was all.

  “The others,” Perrin said. “They need—”

  “They will be taken care of,” Verin interrupted smoothly, seating herself at another table. “They will want to be with their families. Much better to have loved ones close.”

  Perrin felt a stab of pain—the graves below the apple trees flashed in his mind—but he pushed it down. Take care of the living, he reminded himself harshly. The Aes Sedai brought out her pen and ink and began making notes in that small book in a precise hand. He wondered whether she cared how many Two Rivers folk died, so long as he lived, to be used in the White Tower’s plans for Rand.

  Faile squeezed his hand, but it was to the Aes Sedai that she spoke. “Should we not take him up to a bed?”

  “Not yet,” Perrin told her irritably. Verin looked up and opened her mouth, and he repeated in a firmer voice, “Not yet.” The Aes Sedai shrugged and went back to her note-taking. “Does anyone know where Loial is?”

  “The Ogier?” one of the three by the door said. Dav Ayellin was stockier than Mat, but he had that same twinkle in his dark eyes. He had the same rumpled, uncombed look about him as Mat, too. In the old days, what little mischief Mat did not get up to, Dav did, though Mat usually led the way. “He’s out with the men clearing back the Westwood. You’d think we were cutting down his brother every time we cut a tree, but he clears three to anybody else’s one with that monstrous axe he had Master Luhhan make. If you want him, I saw Jaim Thane running to tell them you had come in. I’ll bet they all come to get a look at you.” Peering at the broken-off arrow, he winced and rubbed his own side in sympathy. “Does it hurt much?”

  “It hurts enough,” Perrin said curtly. Coming to get a look at him. What am I, a gleeman? “What about Luc? I don’t want to see him, but is he here?”

  “I’m afraid not.” The second man, Elam Dowtry, rubbed his long nose. Incongruous with his farmer’s wool coat and his cowlick, he wore a sword at his belt; the hilt had been freshly wrapped in rawhide and the leather scabbard flaked and peeling. “Lord Luc is off hunting the Horn of Valere, I think. Or maybe Trollocs.”