“You keep an eye on that lot,” Perrin cautioned. “If one of them starts any trouble — if he even looks as if he will — you have Lamgwin crack his head.” And if it was one of the women? They were just as likely, maybe more so. Perrin grunted. Faile’s “retainers” were going to tie his belly into permanent knots yet. Too bad she could not be satisfied with the likes of Master Gill and Maighdin. “You didn’t mention Balwer. Has he decided to go on alone?” Just then, a shift in the breeze brought him Balwer’s scent, an alert smell very much at odds with the fellow’s almost desiccated exterior.
Even for so reedy a man, Balwer made surprisingly little noise on the dried leaves underfoot. In a sparrow-brown coat, he offered a quick bow, and his tilted head added to the image of a bird. “I am staying, my Lord,” he said cautiously. Or maybe that was just his manner. “As your gracious Lady’s secretary. And yours, if it pleases you.” He stepped closer, very nearly a hop. “I am well versed, my Lord. I possess a good memory and write a good hand, and my Lord can be assured that whatever he confides in me will never pass my lips to another. The ability to keep secrets is a primary skill of a secretary. Don’t you have pressing duties for our new mistress, Master Gill?”
Gill frowned at Balwer, opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. Spinning on his heel, he trotted away toward the tent.
For a moment Balwer watched him go, head to one side, lips pursed thoughtfully. “I can offer other services, as well, my Lord,” he said finally. “Knowledge. I overheard some of my Lord’s men speaking, and I understand that my Lord may have had some . . . difficulties . . . with the Children of the Light. A secretary learns many things. I know a surprising amount about the Children.”
“With any luck I can avoid Whitecloaks,” Perrin told him. “Better if you knew where the Prophet is. Or the Seanchan.” He did not expect any of that, of course, but Balwer surprised him.
“I cannot be certain, of course, but I think the Seanchan have not spread far beyond Amador as yet. Fact is difficult to sift from rumor, my Lord, but I keep my ears open. Of course, they do seem to move with unexpected suddenness. A dangerous people, with large numbers of Taraboner soldiers. I believe from Master Gill that my Lord knows of them, but I observed them closely in Amador, and what I saw is at my Lord’s disposal. As to the Prophet, there are as many rumors concerning him as the Seanchan, but I believe I can say reliably that he was recently at Abila, a largish town some forty leagues south of here.” Balwer smiled thinly, a brief self-satisfied smile.
“How can you be so sure?” Perrin said slowly.
“As I said, my Lord, I keep my ears open. The Prophet reportedly closed a number of inns and taverns, and tore down those he considered too disreputable. Several were mentioned, and by chance, I happen to know there are inns of those names in Abila. I think there is little chance another town would have inns with the same names.” He flashed another narrow smile. He certainly smelled pleased with himself.
Perrin scratched his beard thoughtfully. The man just happened to remember where some inns that Masema supposedly had torn down were located. And if Masema turned out not to be there after all, well, these days rumors sprouted like mushrooms after rain. Balwer sounded a man trying to build up his own importance. “Thank you, Master Balwer. I’ll keep that to mind. If you hear any more, be sure to tell me.” As he turned to go, the man caught his sleeve.
Balwer’s skinny fingers leaped away immediately, as though burned, and he made one of those birdlike bows, dry-washing his hands. “Forgive me, my Lord. I hesitate to press, but do not take the Whitecloaks too lightly. Avoiding them is wise, but it may not be possible. They are much closer than the Seanchan. Eamon Valda, the new Lord Captain Commander, led most of their numbers toward northern Amadicia before Amador fell. He was hunting the Prophet, also, my Lord. Valda is a dangerous man, and Rhadam Asunawa, the Grand Inquisitor, makes Valda seem pleasant. And I fear neither has any love for your own Lord. Forgive me.” He bowed again, hesitated, then went on smoothly. “If I may say so, my Lord’s display of Manetheren’s banner is inspired. My Lord will be more than a match for Valda and Asunawa, if he takes care.”
Watching him bow himself away, Perrin thought he knew part of Balwer’s story now. Clearly, he also had run afoul of the Whitecloaks. That could take no more than being on the same street with them, a frown at the wrong time, but it seemed Balwer had a grudge. A sharp mind, too, seeing right away about the Red Eagle. And a sharp
tongue with Master Gill.
Gill was on his knees beside Maighdin, talking rapidly despite Lini’s effort to hush him. Maighdin had turned to stare after Balwer as the fellow hurried through the trees toward the carts, but now and then her gaze swung to Perrin. The rest of them clustered close to her, peering now at Balwer, now at Perrin. If he had ever seen a group of people worried about what somebody else had said, it was they. But what were they worried he might have heard? Backbiting, probably. Tales of resentments and misdeeds, real or imagined. People cooped up together tended to start pecking at one another. If that was it, maybe he could put a stop before somebody drew blood. Tallanvor was fondling his sword hilt again! What did Faile intend to do with the fellow?
“Aram, I want you to go talk to Tallanvor and that lot. Tell them what Balwer said to me. Just slide it into the talk, but tell everything.” That should soothe fears of tale-bearing. Faile said servants needed to be made to feel at home. “Make friends with them if you can, Aram. But if you decide to moon over one of the women, be sure it’s Lini. The other two are taken.”
The man had a smooth tongue for any pretty woman, but he managed to look surprised and offended, both. “As you wish, Lord Perrin,” he muttered sulkily. “I’ll catch you up quickly.”
“I will be over with the Aiel.”
Aram blinked. “Ah. Yes. Well, it might take a while, at that, if I’m to make friends with them. They don’t look like they much want friends, to me.” This from a fellow who stared suspiciously at anyone except Faile who came near Perrin and never smiled for anyone not wearing a skirt.
Nevertheless, he went over and squatted on his heels where he could speak to Gill and the others. Even from a distance their standoffishness was plain. They continued with their work, only now and then saying a word to Aram, and they looked at each other as often as at him. Skittish as green quail in summer, when the foxes were teaching the cubs to hunt. But at least they were talking.
Perrin wondered what mischief Aram had gotten up to with the Aiel — there did not seem to have been any time for it! — but he did not wonder long. Any serious trouble with Aiel usually meant someone dead, and not the Aiel. In truth, he was not so eager to meet the Wise Ones himself. He walked around the curve of the hill, but instead of climbing the slope, his feet carried him all the way to the Mayeners. He had stayed away from their camp as much as possible, too, and not simply because of Berelain. There were disadvantages to having too keen a nose.
Fortunately, a freshening breeze was carrying most of the stink away, though it did little for the heat. Sweat rolled down the faces of the mounted sentries in their red armor. At the sight of him, they sat up even more rigidly in their saddles, which was saying something. Where the Two Rivers men rode like fellows heading out to the fields, the Mayeners usually were statues on horseback. They could fight, though. The Light send there was no need.
Havien Nurelle came running, buttoning up his coat, before Perrin was well past the sentries. The dozen or so other officers followed at Nurelle’s heels, all coated and some fastening the straps of their red breastplates. Two or three carried helmets with thin red plumes tucked under their arms. Most were years older than Nurelle, some twice his age, graying men with hard, scarred faces, but Nurelle’s reward for helping to rescue Rand had been to be named Gallenne’s second, his First Lieutenant, they called it.
“The First hasn’t returned, yet, Lord Perrin,” Nurelle said, making a bow mirrored by the others. A tall slender man, he did not look as young as he had before Dumai’s Wells. There was an edge to his eyes, which had seen more blood than most veterans of twenty battles. But if his face was harder, there was still an eagerness to please in his scent. To Havien Nurelle, Perrin Aybara was a man who could fly or walk on water as he chose. “The morning patrols saw nothing, those that are back. I would have reported, otherwise.”
“Of course,” Perrin told him. “I . . . just wanted to look about a bit.”
He simply meant to walk around until he could work up his nerve to face the Wise Ones, but the young Mayener followed him with the rest of the officers, anxiously watching for Lord Perrin to find some flaw in the Winged Guards, wincing whenever they came on bare-chested men tossing dice on a blanket or some fellow snoring away with the sun on the climb. He need not have bothered; to Perrin, the camp looked laid out with a plumb line and level. Each man had his blankets, and his saddle for a pillow, not more than two paces from where his horse was tied to one of the long ropes drooping between chest-high poles set upright in the ground. A cook fire stood every twenty paces, with lances stacked in steel-tipped cones between. The whole made a sort of box around five peaked tents, one striped gold-and-blue and larger than the other four combined. All very different from the Two Rivers men’s every-which-way arrangement.
Perrin walked along briskly, trying not to look too much a fool. He was not sure how much success he was having. He itched to stop and look over a horse or two — just to be able to pick up a hoof without somebody practically fainting — but mindful of what Aram had said, he kept his hands to himself. Everyone seemed as startled as Nurelle at his pace. Tough-eyed bannermen chivvied men to their feet only to have Perrin stride by with a nod before they were all upright. A puzzled murmur trailed in the air behind him, and his ears caught a few comments about officers, lords in particular, that he was just as glad Nurelle and the others missed. Finally, he found himself on the verge of the camp, staring up the brushy slope toward the Wise Ones’ tents. Only a few of the Maidens were visible among the scattered trees up there, and some of the gai’shain.
“Lord Perrin,” Nurelle said hesitantly. “The Aes Sedai . . . ” He stepped closer and lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “I know they swore to the Lord Dragon, and . . . I’ve seen things, Lord Perrin. They do camp chores! Aes Sedai! This morning, Masuri and Seonid came down to fetch water! And yesterday, after you returned . . . Yesterday, I thought I heard someone up there . . . crying out. It couldn’t have been one of the sisters, of course,” he added hurriedly, and laughed to show how ridiculous the idea was, a very shaky laugh. “You . . . You will see that everything is . . . all right . . . with them?” He had ridden into forty thousand Shaido leading two hundred lancers, but talking about this had him hunching his shoulders and shifting his feet. Of course, he had ridden into forty thousand Shaido because an Aes Sedai wanted him to.
“I’ll do what I can,” Perrin muttered. Maybe matters were worse than he had thought. Now he had to stop them getting worse still. If he could. He would rather have faced the Shaido again.
Nurelle nodded as though Perrin had promised all he asked and more. “That is well, then,” he said, sounding relieved. Casting sideways glances at Perrin, he worked himself up to say something else, but apparently this was not so touchy as the Aes Sedai. “I heard that you let the Red Eagle stay.”
Perrin very nearly jumped. Even for just around the hill, news had traveled fast. “It seemed the thing to do,” he said slowly. Berelain would have to know the truth, yet if too many knew, that truth would spread from the next village they passed, the next farm. “This used to be part of Manetheren,” he added, as if Nurelle did not know that perfectly well. Truth! He had gotten so he could bend truth like an Aes Sedai, and to men on his side. “Not the first time that flag’s been raised around here, I’ll warrant, but none of those fellows had the Dragon Reborn behind him.” And if that did not set the necessary seeds, he did not know how to plow a furrow.
Abruptly he realized that what seemed every last one of the Winged Guards was watching him with their officers. No doubt wondering what he was saying, after all but running through that way. Even the lean balding old soldier Gallenne called his dogrobber had come out to stare, and Berelain’s maids, a pair of plump plain-faced women garbed to match their mistress’s tent. Perrin had hardly seen a thing, but he knew he had to give some sort of praise.