For a moment he studied what he had written. It did not say enough, but it would have to do. He did not have the right words any more than he had time.
Carefully blotting the damp ink with sand, he folded the pages together. He very nearly wrote “Faile Bashere” on the outside before making it “Faile Aybara.” He realized he did not even know if a wife took her husband’s name in Saldaea; there were places where they did not. Well, she had married him in the Two Rivers; she would have to put up with Two Rivers customs.
He placed the letter in the middle of the mantel over the fireplace—perhaps it would reach her eventually—and adjusted the wide red marriage ribbon behind his collar so it hung down his lapels properly. He was supposed to wear it for seven days, an announcement to everyone who saw him that he was newly wed. “I will try,” he told the letter softly. Faile had tried to tie one in his beard; he wished he had let her.
“Pardon, Lord Perrin?” Ban said, still shifting his feet anxiously. “I didn’t hear.” Aram was chewing his lip, his eyes wide and frightened.
“Time to see to the day’s work,” Perrin said. Perhaps the letter would reach her. Somehow. He took his bow from the table and slung it on his back. Axe and quiver already hung at his belt. “And don’t call me that!”
In front of the inn, the Companions were gathered on their horses, Wil al’Seen with that fool wolfhead banner, the long staff resting on his stirrup iron. How long since Wil had refused to carry the thing? The survivors of those who had joined him the first day jealously guarded the right, now. Wil, with his bow on his back and a sword at his hip, looked proud as an idiot.
As Ban scrambled into his saddle, Perrin heard him say, “The man is as cool as a winter pond. Like ice. Maybe it won’t be so bad today.” He barely paid attention. The women were gathered on the Green.
They made a circle five or six deep around the tall pole where the larger red wolfhead flapped out in a breeze. Five or six deep, shoulder to shoulder, with polearms made from scythes and pitchforks, and wood-axes, and even stout kitchen knives and cleavers.
Throat tight, he mounted Stepper and rode toward them. The children were a tight mass inside the circle of women. All the children in Emond’s Field.
Riding slowly along the ranks, he felt the women’s eyes following him, and the children’s. Fear scent, and worry; the children showed it on their too-pale faces, but all smelled of it. He reined in where Marin al’Vere and Daise Congar and the rest of the Women’s Circle stood together. Alsbet Luhhan had one of her husband’s hammers on her shoulder, and her Whitecloak helmet acquired the night of her rescue sat slightly crooked because of her thick braid. Neysa Ayellin held a long-bladed carving knife firm in her hand, and had two more stuck behind her belt.
“We have planned this out,” Daise said, looking up at him as if she expected an argument and did not intend to allow it. She held a pitchfork, fastened to a pole nearly three feet taller than she, upright in front of her. “If the Trollocs break through anywhere, you men are going to be busy, so we will take the children out. The older ones know what to do, and they’ve all played hide-and-seek in the woods. Just to keep them safe until they can come out.”
The older ones. Boys and girls of thirteen and fourteen had toddlers strapped on their backs, and held smaller children by the hand. Girls older than that stood in the ranks with the women; Bode Cauthon had a wood-axe gripped in both hands, her sister Eldrin a boar spear with a broad point. Boys older were out with the men, or up on the thatched rooftops with their bows. The Tinkers were in with the children. Perrin glanced down at Aram, standing by his stirrup. They would not fight, but each adult had two babes fastened on his or her back and another cradled in the crook of an elbow. Raen and Ila, each with an arm around the other, would not look at him. Just to keep them safe until they could come out.
“I’m sorry.” He had to stop and clear his throat. He had not meant it to come to this. Think as hard as he could, nothing else came that he could have done. Even giving himself to the Trollocs would not have stopped them killing and burning. The end would have been the same. “It was not fair, what I did with Faile, but I had to. Please understand that. I had to.”
“Don’t be silly, Perrin,” Alsbet said, voice emphatic but round face smiling warmly. “I can never abide it when you’re silly. Do you think we would expect you to do any different?”
A heavy cleaver in one hand, Marin reached up to pat his knee with the other. “Any man worth cooking a meal for would have done the same.”
“Thank you.” Light, but he sounded hoarse. In a minute he would be snuffling like a girl. But for some reason he could not smooth his voice. They must think him an idiot. “Thank you. I shouldn’t have fooled you, but she’d not have gone if she suspected.”
“Oh, Perrin.” Marin laughed. She actually laughed, with all they faced, and smelling of fear as she did; he wished he had half her courage. “We knew what you were up to before you ever put her on her horse, and I am not sure she didn’t as well. Women do find themselves doing what they don’t want just to please you men. Now you go on and do what you have to. This is Women’s Circle business,” she added firmly.
Somehow he managed to smile back at her. “Yes, mistress,” he said, knuckling his forehead. “Beg pardon. I know enough to keep my nose out of that.” The women around her laughed in soft amusement as he turned Stepper away.
Ban and Tell were riding right behind him, he realized, with the rest of the Companions strung out after Wil and the banner. He motioned the pair to come up beside him. “If things go badly today,” he said when they were on either side of him, “the Companions are to come back here and help the women.”
“But—”
He cut Tell’s protest short. “You do what I say! If it goes wrong, you get the women and children out! You hear me?” They nodded; reluctantly, but they did it.
“What about you?” Ban asked quietly.
Perrin ignored him. “Aram, you stick with the Companions.”
Striding along between Stepper and Tell’s shaggy horse, the Tinker did not even look up. “I go where you go.” He said it simply, but his tone left no room for argument; he was going to do as he wanted whatever Perrin said. Perrin wondered if real lords ever had problems like this.
At the west end of the Green, the Whitecloaks were all mounted, cloaks with the golden sunburst bright, helmets and armor gleaming, lance points shining, a long column of fours that stretched back between the nearest houses. They must have spent half the night polishing. Dain Bornhald and Jaret Byar swung their horses to face Perrin. Bornhald sat straight in his saddle, but he smelled of apple brandy. Byar’s gaunt face twisted with an even deeper rage than usual as he stared at Perrin.
“I thought you would be at your places by now,” Perrin said.
Bornhald frowned at his horse’s mane, not answering. After a moment, Byar spat, “We are leaving here, Shadowspawn.” An angry mutter rose from the Companions, but the hollow-eyed man ignored them as he did Aram’s reaching over his shoulder to his sword hilt. “We will cut our way back to Watch Hill through your friends and rejoin the rest of our men.”
Leaving. Over four hundred soldiers, leaving. Whitecloaks, but mounted soldiers, not farmers, soldiers who had agreed—Bornhald had agreed!—to support the Two Rivers men wherever the fighting was hottest. If Emond’s Field was to have any chance at all, he had to hang on to these men. Stepper tossed his head and snorted as if catching his rider’s mood. “Do you still believe I’m a Darkfriend, Bornhald? How many attacks have you seen so far? Those Trollocs have tried to kill me as much as anybody else.”
Bornhald raised his head slowly, eyes haunted and at the same time half-glazed. Hands in steel-backed gauntlets flexed on his reins unconsciously. “Do you think I do not know by now that these defenses were prepared without you? It was none of your doing, yes? I will not keep my men here to watch you feed your own villagers to the Trollocs. Will you dance atop a pile of thei
r bodies when it is done, Shadowspawn? Not ours! I mean to live long enough to see you brought to justice!”