A peculiar woman to say the least. Kadere made no protest beyond the slightest grimace. If Keille was his partner, there was no doubt who was the senior. And if the hat kept Mat’s head from broiling, it really was worth the price so far as he was concerned. She bit the Tairen mark he handed her before releasing the hat. For a wonder, it fit. And if it was no cooler under that wide brim, at least it was blessedly shady. The kerchief went into his coat pocket.
“Anything for the rest of you?” The stout woman ran her eye over the Aiel, murmuring, “What a pretty child” to Aviendha with a baring of teeth that might have been a smile. To Rand, she said sweetly, “And you, good sir?” That voice coming out of that face was truly jarring, especially when it took on this honeyed tone. “Something to shelter you from this desperate land?” Turning Jeade’en so he could peer at the wagon drivers, Rand only shook his head. With that shoufa around his face, he really did look like an Aiel.
“Tonight, Keille,” Kadere said. “We open trade tonight, at a place called Imre Stand.”
“Do we, now.” For a long moment she peered at the Shaido column, and at the Wise Ones’ party for a longer. Abruptly she turned for her own wagon, saying over her shoulder to the other peddler, “Then why are you keeping these good sirs standing here? Move, Kadere. Move.” Rand stared after her, shaking his head again.
There was a gleeman back by her wagon. Mat blinked, thinking the heat had gotten to him, but the fellow did not vanish, a dark-haired man in his middle years wearing a patch-covered cloak. He watched the gathering apprehensively until Keille shoved him up the wagon’s step ahead of her. Kadere looked at her white wagon with less expression than one of the Aiel before stalking off to his own. Truly an odd lot.
“Did you see the gleeman?” Mat asked Rand, who nodded vaguely, eyeing the line of wagons as if he had never seen a wagon before. Rhuarc and Heirn were already on their way back to the rest of the Jindo. The hundred surrounding Rand waited patiently, dividing their gaze between him and anything that might hide even a mouse. The drivers began gathering their reins, but Rand did not move. “Strange people these peddlers, wouldn’t you say, Rand? But I suppose you have to be strange to come to the Waste. Look at us.” That brought a grimace from Aviendha, but Rand seemed not to have heard. Mat wanted him to say something. Anything. This silence was unnerving. “Would you have thought escorting a peddler would be such an honor Rhuarc and Couladin would argue over it? Do you understand any of this ji’e’toh?”
“You are a fool,” Aviendha muttered. “It had nothing to do with ji’e’toh. Couladin tries to behave as a clan chief. Rhuarc cannot allow that until—unless—he has gone to Rhuidean. The Shaido would steal bones from a dog—they would steal the bones and the dog—yet even they deserve a true chief. And because of Rand al’Thor we must allow a thousand of them to pitch their tents in our lands.”
“His eyes,” Rand said without looking away from the wagons. “A dangerous man.”
Mat frowned at him. “Whose eyes? Couladin’s?”
“Kadere’s eyes. All that sweating, going white in the face. Yet his eyes never changed. You always have to watch the eyes. Not what he seems.”
“Sure, Rand.” Mat shifted in his saddle, half lifted his reins as if to ride on. Maybe silence had not been so bad. “You have to watch the eyes.”
Rand changed his study to the tops of the nearest spires and buttes, twisting his head this way and that. “Time is the risk,” he murmured. “Time sets snares. I have to avoid theirs while setting mine.”
There was nothing up there that Mat could make out beyond an occasional scattering of brush and now and then a stunted tree. Aviendha frowned at the heights, then at Rand, adjusting her shawl. “Snares?” Mat said. Light, let him give me an answer that isn’t crazy. “Who’s setting snares?”
For a moment Rand looked at him as if he did not understand the question. The peddlers’ wagons were starting off with an escort of Maidens loping alongside, turning to follow the Jindo as they trotted past, mirrored by the Shaido. More Maidens sped ahead to scout. Only the Aiel around Rand stood still, though the Wise Ones’ party dawdled and watched, and from Egwene’s gestures, Mat thought she wanted to come check on them.
“You can’t see it, or feel it,” Rand said finally. Leaning a little toward Mat, he whispered loudly, as though pretending. “We ride with evil now, Mat. Watch yourself.” He wore that twisted grin again, as he watched the wagons lumber by.
“You think this Kadere is evil?”
“A dangerous man, Mat—the eyes always give it away—yet who can say? But what cause have I to worry, with Moiraine and the Wise Ones watching out for me? And we mustn’t forget Lanfear. Has any man ever been under so many watchful eyes?” Abruptly Rand straightened in his saddle. “It has begun,” he said quietly. “Wish that I have your luck, Mat. It has begun, and there is no turning back, now, however the blade falls.” Nodding to himself, he started his dapple after Rhuarc, Aviendha trotting alongside, the hundred Jindo following.
Mat was glad enough to follow too. Better than being left there, certainly. The sun burned high in a stark blue sky. There was a lot of traveling yet to be done before sunset. It had begun? What did he mean, it had begun? It had begun in Rhuidean; or better, in Emond’s Field on Winternight a year gone. “Riding with evil” and “no turning back”? And Lanfear? Rand was walking the razor’s edge, now. No doubt about it. There had to be a way out of the Waste before it was too late. From time to time Mat studied the peddlers’ wagons. Before it was too late. If it was not already.
CHAPTER 37
Imre Stand
The sun still stood more than its own height above the jagged western horizon when Rhuarc said that Imre Stand, where he intended to stay for the night, lay only a mile or so ahead.
“Why are we stopping already?” Rand asked. “There are hours more daylight left.”
It was Aviendha, walking along on the other side of Jeade’en from the clan chief, who answered, in the scornful tone he had come to expect. “There is water at Imre Stand. It is best to camp near water when the chance presents itself.”
“And the peddlers’ wagons cannot go much farther,” Rhuarc added. “When the shadows lengthen, they must stop or begin breaking wheels and mules’ legs. I do not want to leave them behind. I cannot spare anyone to watch over them, and Couladin can.”
Rand twisted in his saddle. Flanked now by Jindo Duadhe Mahdi’in, Water Seekers, the wagons were making heavy going a few hundred paces off to the side, lurching along, raising a tall plume of yellow dust. Most gullies were too deep or too steep-walled, forcing the drivers to go around, so the train twisted like a drunken snake. Loud curses floated from the wavering line, most blaming the mules for it all. Kadere and Keille were still inside their white-painted wagons.
“No,” Rand said, “you don’t want to do that.” He laughed softly in spite of himself.
Mat was looking at him oddly from under the broad brim of his new hat. He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, but Mat’s expression did not change. He’s going to have to take care of himself, Rand thought. Too much is riding on this.
Speaking of taking care, he became aware of Aviendha studying him, her shawl wrapped around her head much like a shoufa. He straightened himself again. Moiraine might have told her off to nurse him, but he had the impression the woman was waiting to see him fall. Doubtless she would find that funny, Aiel humor being what it was. He would have liked to think she simply resented being stuffed into a dress and set to watch him, but the glitter in her eyes seemed too personal for that.
For once Moiraine and the Wise Ones were not watching him. Halfway between the Jindo and the Shaido, Moiraine and Egwene were walking with Amys and the others, all six women looking at something in the Aes Sedai’s hands. It caught the light of the falling sun, sparkling like a gem; they certainly seemed as intent as any girl on a pretty. Lan rode back among the gai’shain and packhorses, as though they had sent him away.
The scene made Rand uneasy. He was used to being the center of attention for that lot. What had they found more interesting? Surely nothing he could be happy about, not with Moiraine, likely not with Amys or the others. They all had their plans for him. Egwene was the only one of them he really trusted. Light, I hope I can still trust her. The only one he could really trust was himself. When the boar breaks cover, there’s only you and your spear. His laugh was a touch bitter this time.