The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Faile would very much have liked to hurry on herself. Cold feet were only a small part of it, and eagerness to do Sevanna’s laundry less. Too many eyes could see her standing there in the open with Someryn, and even with her deep cowl hiding her face, the broad mesh belt of shiny golden links around her waist and a close-fitting collar to match marked her as one of Sevanna’s servants. No one called them that—in Aiel eyes, being a servant was demeaning—but that was what they were, the wetlanders at least, just unpaid and with fewer rights and less freedom than any servant Faile had ever heard tell of. Sooner or later Sevanna herself was going to learn that Wise Ones were stopping her gai’shain to question them. Sevanna had well over a hundred servants and kept adding to them, and Faile was certain that every last one was repeating every word they heard Sevanna say to the Wise Ones.

  It was a brutally efficient trap. Sevanna was a harsh mistress, in a rather casual way, never snapping, seldom openly angry, but the slightest infraction, the smallest slip in demeanor or behavior, was punished immediately with the switch or the strap, and every night the five gai’shain who had pleased her least that day were chosen out for further punishment, sometimes a night bound and gagged on top of a beating, just to encourage the rest. Faile did not want to think of what the woman would order for a spy. On the other hand, the Wise Ones had made it clear that anyone who did not talk freely of what they heard, anyone who tried to hold back or bargain, faced an uncertain future, possibly ending in a shallow grave. Harming a gai’shain beyond the permitted limits of discipline was a violation of ji’e’toh, the web of honor and obligation that governed the lives of Aiel, but wetlander gai’shain seemed to stand outside a number of the rules.

  Sooner or later, one side or the other of that trap would snap shut. All that had held the jaws apart this long was that the Shaido seemed to see their wetlander gai’shain as no different from cart horses or pack animals, though in truth the animals received far better treatment. Now and then a gai’shain tried to run away, but aside from that, one simply gave them food and shelter, put them to work and punished them if they faltered. The Wise Ones no more expected them to disobey, Sevanna no more expected them to spy on her, than they expected a cart horse to sing. Sooner or later, though . . . And that was not the only trap Faile was caught in.

  “Wise One, I have nothing more to tell,” she murmured when Someryn said nothing. Unless you were addled in the head, you did not just walk away from a Wise One, not until she dismissed you. “The Wise One Sevanna talks freely in front of us, but she says little.”

  The tall woman remained silent, and after a long moment Faile dared to raise her eyes a little more. Someryn was staring over Faile’s head, her mouth hanging open in stunned amazement. Frowning, Faile shifted the basket on her shoulder and looked behind her, but there was nothing to account for Someryn’s expression, just the sprawl of the camp, dark low Aiel tents mingled with peaked tents and walled tents and every sort of tent, most in shades of dirty white or pale brown, others green or blue or red or even striped. The Shaido took everything valuable when they struck, everything that might prove useful, and they left behind nothing that resembled a tent.

  As it was, they hardly had enough shelter to go around. There were ten septs gathered here, more than seventy thousand Shaido and nearly as many gai’shain, by her estimate, and everywhere she saw only the usual bustle, dark-clad Aiel going about their lives among scurrying white-clad captives. A smith was working the bellows on his forge in front of an open tent with his tools laid out on a tanned bull hide, children were herding flocks of bleating goats with switches, a trader was displaying her goods in an open pavilion of yellow canvas, everything from golden candlesticks and silver bowls to pots and kettles, all looted. A lean man with a horse on a lead stood talking with a gray-haired Wise One named Masalin, no doubt seeking a cure for some ailment the animal had, from the way he kept pointing at the horse’s belly. Nothing to make Someryn gape.

  Just as Faile was about to turn back around, she noticed a dark-haired Aiel woman facing the other way. Not just dark hair, but hair black as a raven’s wing, a great rarity among Aiel. Even from behind, Faile thought she recognized Alarys, another of the Wise Ones. There were over four hundred Wise Ones in the camp, but she had learned quickly to know all of them on sight. Mistaking a Wise One for a weaver or a potter was a quick way to earn a switching.

  It might have meant nothing that Alarys was standing stock-still and looking in the same direction as Someryn, or that she had let her shawl slide to the ground, except that just beyond her, Faile recognized still another Wise One, also looking off to the north and west, and slapping at people who walked in front of her. That had to be Jesain, a woman who would have been called short even if she were not Aiel, with a great mass of hair red enough to make fire look pale and a temper to match. Masalin was talking to the man with the horse and gesturing to the animal. She could not channel, but three Wise Ones who could were all staring in the same direction. Only one thing could account for it; they saw someone channeling up there on the forested ridgeline beyond the camp. A Wise One channeling surely would not make any of them stare. Could it be an Aes Sedai? Or more than one? Better not to get her hopes up. It was too soon.

  A clout on the head staggered her, and she nearly dropped the basket.

  “Why are you standing like a lump?” Someryn snarled. “Go on with your work. Go, before I . . . !”

  Faile went, balancing the basket with one hand, lifting the skirts of her robe out of the muddy snow with the other, and moving as quickly as she could without slipping and falling in the muck. Someryn never hit anyone, and she never raised her voice. If she was doing both, it was best to be out of her way with no delay. Humbly and obediently.

  Pride said to maintain a cool defiance, a quiet refusal to yield, yet sense said that was the way to find herself guarded twice as closely as she was. The Shaido might take the wetlander gai’shain for domesticated animals, but they were not completely blind. They must think that she had accepted her captivity as inescapable if she were to be able to escape, and that was very much on her mind. The sooner, the better. Certainly before Perrin caught up. She had never doubted that Perrin was following her, that he would find her somehow—the man would walk through a wall if he took it into his head!—but she had to escape before that. She was a soldier’s daughter. She knew the Shaido’s numbers, she knew the strength Perrin had to call on, and she knew she had to reach him before that clash could take place. There was just the little matter of getting free of the Shaido, first.

  What had the Wise Ones been looking at—the Aes Sedai or Wise Ones with Perrin? Light, she hoped not, not yet! But other matters took precedence, the laundry not least. She carried the basket toward what remained of the city of Malden, weaving through a steady flow of gai’shain. Those leaving the city each carried a pair of heavy buckets balanced on the ends of a pole carried across the shoulders, while the buckets of those going in swayed, empty, on their poles. As many people as were in the camp required a great deal of water, and this was how it came to them, bucket by bucket. It was easy to tell the gai’shain who had been inhabitants of Malden. This far north in Altara, they were fair rather than olive-complected, and some even had blue eyes, but all stumbled along in a daze. Shaido climbing the city walls in the night had overwhelmed the defenses before most of the residents knew they were in danger, and they still seemed unable to believe what their lives had come to.

  Faile searched for a particular face, though, someone she hoped would not be carrying water today. She had been looking ever since the Shaido made camp here, four days ago. Just outside the city gates, which stood open and shoved back against the granite walls, she found her, a white-clad woman taller than herself with a flat basket of bread on her hip and her hood pushed back just enough to show a bit of dark reddish hair. Chiad appeared to be studying the iron-strapped gates that had failed to protect Malden, but she turned away from them as soon as Faile approached. They paused si
de by side, not really looking at one another while they pretended to shift their baskets. There was no reason two gai’shain should not talk to one another, but no one should remember that they had been captured together. Bain and Chiad were not watched as closely as gai’shain serving Sevanna, but that might change if anyone remembered. Almost everyone in sight was gai’shain, and from west of the Dragonwall besides, yet too many had learned to curry favor by carrying tales and rumors. Most people did what they must to survive, and some always tried to feather their own nests, whatever the circumstances.

  “They got away the first night here,” Chiad murmured. “Bain and I led them out to the trees and obscured the tracks coming back. No one seems to realize they are gone, as far as I can see. With so many gai’shain, it seems a wonder these Shaido notice any who run away.”

  Faile heaved a small sigh of relief. Three days gone. The Shaido did notice runaways. Few managed a full day of freedom, but the chances of success increased with every day uncaught, and it seemed certain the Shaido would move on tomorrow, or the next day. They had not halted as long as this since Faile was captured. She suspected they might be trying to march back to the Dragonwall and recross into the Waste.

  It had not been easy talking Lacile and Arrela into leaving without her. What finally convinced them had been the argument that they could carry word to Perrin of where Faile was, along with a warning of how many Shaido there were and a claim that Faile already had her own escape well in hand and any interference by him might endanger that and her. She was sure she had made them believe all of that—she did have her escape in hand, in a way; she had several plans, in fact, and one of them had to work—but until this minute she had been half convinced the two women would decide their oaths to her required them to stay. Water oaths were tighter than oaths of fealty in some ways, yet they left considerable room for stupidity in the name of honor. In truth, she did not know whether the pair could find Perrin, but either way, they were free and she had only two other women to worry about. Of course, the absence of three of Sevanna’s servants would be noticed very quickly, within hours, and the best trackers would be sent to bring them back. Faile was accustomed to the woods, but she knew better than to pit herself against Aiel trackers. It was very unpleasant for “ordinary” gai’shain who ran away and were recaptured. For Sevanna’s gai’shain, it might be better to die in the attempt. At best, they would never be allowed the opportunity for a second try.

  “The rest of us would have a better chance if you and Bain came with us,” she said in a low voice. The flow of men and women in white carrying water by them continued, no one seeming to more than glance their way, but wariness had become ingrained in her these last two weeks. Light, it seemed more like two years! “What difference can there be between helping Lacile and Arrela reach the forest and helping the rest of us get further?” That was despair talking. She knew the difference—Bain and Chiad were her friends and had taught her about Aiel ways, about ji’e’toh and even a little Maiden handtalk—and it did not surprise her when Chiad turned her head slightly to regard her with gray eyes that had nothing of gai’shain meekness in them. Nor did her voice, though she still spoke quietly.

  “I will help you as far as I can because it is not right for the Shaido to hold you. You do not follow ji’e’toh. I do. If I cast aside my honor and my obligations just because the Shaido have, then I allow them to decide how I will act. I will wear white for a year and a day and then they will release me, or I will walk away, but I will not throw away who I am.” Without another word, Chiad strode off into the throngs of gai’shain.

  Faile half-raised a hand to stop her, then let it fall. She had asked that question before, receiving a gentler answer, and in asking again, she had insulted her friend. She would have to apologize. Not to keep Chiad’s help—the woman would not withdraw that—but because she had her own honor, even if she did not follow ji’e’toh. You did not insult friends and simply forget it, or expect them to. Apologies must wait, though. They dared not be seen talking too long.

  Malden had been a prosperous city, a producer of good wool and great quantities of fair-quality wine, but an empty ruin inside the walls, now. As many of the slate-roofed houses were timber as were stone, and fire had gotten loose during the looting. The southern end of the city was half piles of blackened timbers decorated with icicles, half scorched, roofless walls. The streets everywhere, whether stone-paved or dirt, were gray with windblown ash trampled into the snow, and the whole city stank of charred wood. Water was one thing Malden apparently never ran short of, but like all Aiel, the Shaido placed a very high value on it, and they knew nothing of fighting fires. There was little in the Aiel Waste that could burn. They might have let the entire city be consumed had they been finished with stealing, and as it was, they dithered over the waste of water before forcing gai’shain into bucket lines at spearpoint and letting the men of Malden bring out their pump-wagons. Faile would have thought the Shaido would at least have rewarded those men by allowing them to leave with the people who had escaped being chosen for gai’shain, but the men who worked the pumps were young and fit, just the sort the Shaido wanted for their gai’shain. The Shaido kept some of the rules regarding gai’shain—women who were pregnant or had children under the age of ten had been let go, and youths under sixteen, and the city’s blacksmiths, who had been both mystified and grateful—but gratitude never entered into it.

  Furniture littered the streets, large overturned tables and ornate chests and chairs, and sometimes a crumpled wall hanging or broken dishes. Bits of clothing lay everywhere, coats and breeches and dresses, most sliced to tatters. The Shaido had seized anything made of gold or silver, anything that had gems, anything useful or edible, but the furnishings must have been hauled outside in the frenzy of looting, then abandoned when whoever was carrying them decided that a little gilded edging or fine carving did not make them worth the effort. Aiel did not use chairs in any case, except for chiefs, and there was no room on the carts and wagons for any of those heavy tables. A few Shaido still wandered through, searching the houses and inns and shops for anything they might have missed, yet most people she saw were gai’shain carrying buckets. Aiel had no interest in cities except as storehouses to be plundered. A pair of Maidens passed her, using the butts of their spears to drive a naked, wild-eyed man, his arms bound behind him, toward the gates. Doubtless he had thought he could hide in a basement or attic until the Shaido were gone. Doubtless the Maidens had thought to find a cache of coin or plate. When a huge man in the cadin’sor of an algai’d’siswai stepped in front of her, she swerved to go around him as smoothly as she could. A gai’shain always made way for any Shaido.

  “You are very pretty,” he said, putting himself in her way. He was the biggest man she had ever seen, perhaps seven feet tall and thick in proportion. Not fat—she had never seen a fat Aiel—but very wide. He belched, and she smelled wine fumes. Drunken Aiel she had seen, since they found all those casks of wine here in Malden. She felt no fear, though. Gai’shain might be punished for any number of infractions, often for transgressions few of the wetlanders understood, but the white robes gave a certain protection, too, and she had another layer besides.

  “I am gai’shain to the Wise One Sevanna,” she said in as obsequious a tone as she could manage. To her disgust, she had gotten so she could manage it very well. “Sevanna would be displeased if I shirked my duties to talk.” She tried again to step around him, and gasped when he seized her arm in a hand that could have wrapped around it twice with inches to spare.

  “Sevanna has hundreds of gai’shain. She will not miss one for an hour or two.”

  The basket fell to the street as he plucked her into the air as easily as picking up a pillow. Before she knew what was happening, he had her tucked beneath his arm, her own arms trapped at her sides. She opened her mouth to scream, and he used his free hand to press her face flat against his chest. The smell of sweaty wool filled her nose. All she could see was gray-br
own wool. Where were those two Maidens? Maidens of the Spear would not let him do this! Any Aiel who saw would step in! She never expected help from any of the gai’shain. One or two might run for help, if she was lucky, but the very first lesson a gai’shain learned was that even a threat of violence got you hung up by the ankles and beaten till you howled. The first lesson wetlanders learned, at least; Aiel already knew: a gai’shain was forbidden to offer violence for any reason. Any reason. Which did not stop her from kicking at the man furiously. She might as well have been kicking a wall for all the impression it made. He was moving, carrying her somewhere. She bit as hard down as hard as she could, and got a mouthful of coarse dirty wool for her pains, her teeth sliding over muscle with no slack to give her purchase. He seemed made of stone. She screamed, but her shriek sounded muffled even to her own ears.