Galloping through the village with Faile at his heels, Perrin found the men on the south side in a cluster, peering out over the cleared fields and muttering, some with bows half-drawn. Two wagons blocked the gap the Old Road made in the sharp stakes. The nearest low stone fence still standing, bordering a field of tabac, lay five hundred paces off, with nothing between taller than barley stubble; the ground short of it sprouted arrows like weeds. Smoke curled up in the far distance, a dozen or more thick black plumes, some wide enough to be fields burning.
Cenn Buie was there, and Hari and Darl Coplin. Bili Congar had an arm around the shoulders of his cousin Wit, Daise’s bony husband, who looked as if he wished Bili would not breathe on him. None smelled of fear, only excitement. And Bili of ale. At least ten men at once tried to tell him what had happened; some were louder than others.
“The Trollocs tried us here, as well,” Hari Coplin shouted, “but we showed them, didn’t we?” There were murmurs of agreement, but just as many or more eyed each other doubtfully and shifted their feet.
“We’ve some heroes here, too,” Darl said in a loud, rough voice. “Your lot up at the wood aren’t the only ones.” A bigger man than his brother, he had that same weasel-narrow Coplin face, the same tight mouth as if he had just bitten a green persimmon. When he thought Perrin was not looking, he shot him a spiteful look. It did not necessarily mean he really wished he had been up facing the Westwood; Darl and Hari and most of their relatives usually found a way to see themselves being cheated, whatever the situation.
“This calls for a drink!” old Bili announced, then scowled in disappointment when no one echoed him.
A head lifted above the distant wall and hurriedly ducked back down, but not before Perrin saw a brilliant yellow coat. “Not Trollocs,” he growled disgustedly. “Tinkers! You were shooting at Tuatha’an. Get those wagons out of the way.” Standing in his stirrups, he cupped hands to his mouth. “You can come on!” he shouted. “It is all right! No one will hurt you! I said move those wagons,” he snapped at the men standing around staring at him. Taking Tinkers for Trollocs! “And go fetch your arrows; you’ll have real need for them sooner or later.” Slowly some moved to obey, and he shouted again, “No one will harm you! It is all right! Come on!” The wagons rolled to either side with the creak of axles that needed grease.
A few brightly garbed Tuatha’an climbed over the fence, then a few more, and started toward the village in a hesitant, footsore half-run, seeming almost as afraid of what lay ahead as whatever lay behind. They huddled together at the sight of men dashing out from the village, balancing on the edge of turning back even when the Two Rivers folk trotted by, looking at them curiously, to begin pulling arrows out of the dirt. Yet they did stumble on.
Perrin’s insides turned to ice. Twenty men and women, perhaps, some carrying small children, and a handful of older children running, too, their dazzling colors all torn and stained with dirt. And some with blood, he saw as they came closer. That was all. Out of how many in the caravan? There was Raen, at least, shuffling as though half-dazed and being guided by Ila, one side of her face a dark, swollen bruise. At least they had survived.
Short of the opening, the Tuatha’an stopped, staring uncertainly at the sharp stakes and the mass of armed men. Some of the children clutched their elders and hid their faces. They smelled of fear, of terror. Faile jumped down and ran to them, but though Ila hugged her, she did not take another step nearer. The older woman seemed to be drawing comfort from the younger.
“We won’t hurt you,” Perrin said. I should have made them come. The Light burn me, I should have made them! “You are welcome to our fires.”
“Tinkers.” Hari’s mouth twisted scornfully. “What do we want with a bunch of thieving Tinkers? Take everything that isn’t nailed down.”
Darl open his mouth, to support Hari no doubt, but before he could speak someone in the crowd shouted, “So do you, Hari! And you’ll take the nails, too!” Sparse laughter snapped Darl’s jaws shut. Not many laughed, though, and those that did eyed the bedraggled Tuatha’an and looked down in discomfort.
“Hari is right!” Daise Congar called, bulling through, pushing men out of her path. “Tinkers steal, and not just things! They steal children!” Shoving her way to Cenn Buie, she shook a finger as thick as Cenn’s thumb under his nose. He backed away as much as he could in the press; she overtopped him by a head and outweighed him by half. “You are supposed to be on the Village Council, but if you don’t want to listen to the Wisdom, I’ll bring the Women’s Circle into this, and we will take care of it.” Some of the men nodded, muttering.
Cenn scratched his thinning hair, eyeing the Wisdom sideways. “Aaah . . . well . . . Perrin,” he said slowly in that scratchy voice, “the Tinkers do have a reputation, you know, and—” He cut off, jumping back as Perrin whirled Stepper to face the Two Rivers folk.
A good many scattered before the dun, but Perrin did not care. “We’ll not turn anyone away,” he said in a tight voice. “No one! Or do you mean to send children off for the Trollocs?” One of the Tuatha’an children began to cry, a sharp wailing, and he wished he had not said that, but Cenn’s face went red as a beet, and even Daise looked abashed.
“Of course we’ll take them in,” the thatcher said gruffly. He rounded on Daise, all puffed up like a banty rooster ready to fight a mastiff. “And if you want to bring the Women’s Circle into it, the Village Council will sit the whole lot of you down sharp! You see if we don’t!”
“You always were an old fool, Cenn Buie,” Daise snorted. “Do you think we’d let you send children back out there for Trollocs?” Cenn’s jaw worked furiously, but before he could get a word out Daise put a hand on his narrow chest and thrust him aside. Donning a smile, she strode out to the Tuatha’an and put a comforting arm around Ila. “You just come along with me, and I’ll see you all get hot baths and somewhere to rest. Every house is crowded, but we’ll find places for everyone. Come.”
Marin al’Vere came hurrying through the crowd, and Alsbet Luhhan, Natti Cauthon and Neysa Ayellin and more women, taking up children or putting arms around Tuatha’an women, urging them along, scolding the Two Rivers men to make way. Not that anybody was balking, now; it just took a little time for so many to jostle back and open a path.
Faile gave Perrin an admiring look, but he shook his head. This was not ta’veren work; Two Rivers people might need the right way pointed out to them sometimes, but they could see it when it was. Even Hari Coplin, watching the Tinkers brought in, did not look as sour as he had. Well, not quite as sour. There was no use expecting miracles.
Shambling by, Raen looked up at Perrin dully. “The Way of the Leaf is the right way. All things die in their appointed time, and . . . ” He trailed off as if he could not remember what he had been going to say.
“They came last night,” Ila said, mumbling because of her swollen face. Her eyes were almost as glazed as her husband’s. “The dogs might have helped us escape, but the Children killed all the dogs, and . . . There was nothing we could do.” Behind her, Aram shivered in his yellow-striped coat, staring at all the armed men. Most of the Tinker children were crying now.
Perrin frowned at the smoke rising to the south. Twisting in his saddle, he could make out more to the north and east. Even if most of those represented houses already abandoned, the Trollocs had had a busy night. How many would it take to fire that many farms, even running between and taking no more time than needed to toss a torch into an empty house or unwatched field? Maybe as many as they had killed today; What did that say about Trolloc numbers already in the Two Rivers? It did not seem possible one band had done it all, burning all those houses and destroying the Traveling People’s caravan, too.
Eyes falling on the Tuatha’an being led away, he felt a stab of embarrassment. They had seen kith and kin killed last night, and here he was coldly considering numbers. He could hear some of the Two Rivers men muttering, trying to decide which smoke represented whose farm. To all of these people those fires meant real losses, lives to be rebuilt if they could, not just numbers. He was useless here. Now, while Faile was caught up in helping see to the Tinkers, was the time for him to be off after Loial and Gaul.
Master Luhhan, in his blacksmith’s vest and long leather apron, caught Stepper’s bridle. “Perrin, you have to help me. The Warders want me to make parts for more of those catapults, but I’ve twenty men clamoring for me to repair bits of armor their grandfathers’ fool grandfathers bought from some fool merchants’ guards.”
“I would like to give you a hand,” Perrin said, “but I have something else that needs doing. I’d likely be rusty, anyway. I haven’t had much work at a forge the last year.”
“Light, I didn’t mean that. Not for you to work a hammer.” The blacksmith sounded shocked. “Every time I send one of those goose-brains off with a bee in his ear, he’s back ten minutes later with a new argument. I cannot get any work done. They’ll listen to you.”
Perrin doubted it, not if they would not listen to Master Luhhan. Aside from being on the Village Council, Haral Luhhan was big enough to pick up nearly any man in the Two Rivers and toss him out bodily if need be. But he went along to the makeshift forge Master Luhhan had set up beneath a hastily built, open-sided shed near the Green. Six men clustered around the anvils salvaged from the smithy the Whitecloaks had burned, and another idly pumping the big leather bellows until the blacksmith chased him away from the long handles with a shout. To Perrin’s surprise they did listen when he told them to go, with no speech to bend men ‘round a ta’veren’s will, just a plain statement that Master Luhhan was busy. Surely the blacksmith could have done as much himself, but he shook Perrin’s hand and thanked him profusely before setting to work.
Bending down from Stepper’s saddle, Perrin caught one of the men by the shoulder, a bald-headed farmer named Get Eldin, and asked him to stay and warn off anyone else who tried to bother Master Luhhan. Get must have been three times his age, but the leathery, wrinkle-faced man just nodded and took up a station near where Haral had his hammer ringing on hot iron. Now he could be off, before Faile turned up.
Before he could as much as turn Stepper, Bran appeared, spear on his shoulder and steel cap under one stout arm. “Perrin, there has to be a faster way to bring the shepherds and herdsmen in if we’re attacked again. Even sending the fastest runners in the village, Abell couldn’t get half of them back here before those Trollocs came out of the wood.”
That was easy to solve, a matter of remembering an old bugle, tarnished nearly black, that Cenn Buie had hanging on his wall, and settling on a signal of three long blasts that the farthest shepherd could hear. It did bring up signals for other things, of course, such as sending everyone to their places if an attack was expected. Which led to how to know when an attack was expected. Bain and Chiad and the Warders turned out to be more than amenable to scouting, but four were hardly enough, so good woodsmen and trackers had to be found, and provided with horses so they could reach Emond’s Field ahead of any Trollocs they spotted.
After that, Buel Dowtry had to be settled down. The white-haired old fletcher, with a nose nearly as sharp as a broadhead point, knew very well that most farmers usually made their own arrows, but he was adamantly opposed to anyone helping him here in the village, as if he could keep every quiver filled by himself. Perrin was not sure how he smoothed Buel’s ruffled temper, but somehow he left the man happily teaching a knot of boys to tie and glue goose-feather fletchings.
Eward Candwin, the stout cooper, had a different problem. With so many folks needing water, he had more buckets and barrels to make than he could hoop in weeks, alone. It did not take long to find him hands he trusted to chamfer staves at least, but more people came with questions and problems they seemed to think only Perrin had the answers for, from where to burn the bodies of the dead Trollocs to whether it was safe to return to their farms to save what they could. That last he answered with a firm no whenever it was asked—and it was asked more often than any other, by men and women frowning at the smoke rising in the countryside—but most of the time he simply inquired what the questioner thought was a good solution and told him to do that. It was seldom he really had to come up with an answer; people knew what to do, they just had this fool notion they had to ask him.
Dannil and Ban and the others found him and insisted on riding about at his heels with that banner, as if the big one over the Green was not bad enough, until he sent them off to guard the men who had gone back to felling trees along the Westwood. It seemed that Tam had told them some tale about something called the Companions, in Illian, soldiers who rode with the general of an Illianer army and were thrown in wherever the battle was hottest. Tam, of all people! At least they took the banner with them. Perrin felt a right fool with that thing trailing after him.
In the middle of the morning, Luc rode in, all golden-haired arrogance, nodding slightly to acknowledge a few cheers, though why anyone wanted to cheer him seemed a mystery. He brought a trophy that he pulled out of a leather bag and had set on a spear at the edge of the Green for everyone to gawk at. A Myrddraal’s eyeless head. The fellow was modest enough, in a condescending sort of way, but he did let slip that he had killed the Fade when he ran into a band of Trollocs. An admiring train took him around to see the scene of the battle here—they were calling it that—where horses were dragging Trollocs off to great pyres already sending up pillars of oily black smoke. Luc was properly admiring in turn, making only one or two criticisms of how Perrin had disposed his men; that was how the Two Rivers folk told it, with Perrin lining everybody up and giving orders he certainly never had.
To Perrin, Luc gave a patronizing smile of approval. “You did very well, my boy. You were lucky, of course, but there is such a thing as the luck of the beginner, is there not.”
When he went off to his room in the Winespring Inn, Perrin had the head taken down and buried. Not a thing people should be staring at, especially the children.
The questions continued as the day wore on, until he suddenly realized the sun stood straight overhead, he had had nothing to eat, and his stomach was talking to him in no uncertain terms. “Mistress al’Caar,” he said wearily to the long-faced woman at his stirrup, “I suppose the children can play anywhere, so long as somebody watches to make sure they don’t go beyond the last houses. Light, woman, you know that. You certainly know children better than I do! If you don’t, how have you managed to raise four of your own?” Her youngest was six years older than he was!
Nela al’Caar frowned and tossed her head, gray-streaked braid swinging. For a moment he thought she was going to snap his nose off, talking that way to her. He almost wished she would, for a change from everybody wanting to know what he thought should be done. “Of course I know children,” she said. “I just want to make sure it’s done the way you want. That’s what we’ll do, then.”
Sighing, he only waited for her to turn away before reining Stepper around toward the Winespring Inn. Two or three voices called to him, but he refused to listen. What he wanted done. What was wrong with these people? Two Rivers folk did not follow this way. Certainly not Emond’s Fielders. They wanted a say in everything. Arguments in front of the Village Council, arguments among the Council, had to come to blows before they occasioned comment. And if the Women’s Circle thought they kept their own affairs more circumspect, there was not a man who did not know the meaning of tight-jawed women stalking about with their braids all but bristling like angry cats’ tails.
What I want! he thought angrily. What I want is something to eat, someplace where no one is jabbering in my ear. Stepping down in front of the inn, he staggered, and thought he could add a bed to that short list. Only midday, with Stepper doing all the work, and he already felt bone-weary. Maybe Faile had been right after all. Maybe going after Loial and Gaul really was a bad idea.
When he walked into the common room, Mistress al’Vere took one look at him and all but pushed him into a chair with a motherly smile. “You can just give over handing out orders for a while,” she told him firmly. “Emond’s Field can very well survive an hour by itself while you put some food inside you.” She bustled away before he could say Emond’s Field could very well survive by itself without him at all.
The room was almost empty. Natti Cauthon sat at one table, rolling bandages and adding them to the pile in front of her, but she also managed to keep an eye on her daughters, across the room, though both were old enough to be wearing their hair in a braid. The reason was plain enough. Bode and Eldrin sat on either side of Aram, coaxing the Tinker to eat. Feeding him, actually, and wiping his chin, too. From the way they were grinning at the fellow, Perrin was surprised Natti was not at the table with them, braids or no. The fellow was good-looking, he supposed; maybe handsomer than Wil al’Seen. Bode and Eldrin certainly seemed to think so. For his part, Aram smiled back occasionally—they were plumply pretty girls; he would have to be blind not to see it, and Perrin did not think Aram was ever blind to a pretty girl—but he hardly swallowed without running a wide-eyed gaze over the spears and polearms against the walls. For a Tuatha’an, it had to be a horrible sight.
“Mistress al’Vere said you had finally gotten tired of your saddle,” Faile said, popping in through the door to the kitchen. Startlingly, she wore a long white apron like Marin’s; her sleeves were pushed up above her elbows, and she had flour on her hands. As if just realizing it, she whipped the apron off, wiping her hands hastily, and laid it across the back of a chair. “I have never baked anything before,” she said, shoving her sleeves down as she joined him. “It is rather fun kneading dough. I might like to do it again someday.”
“If you don’t bake,” he said, “where are we going to get bread? I don’t intend to spend my whole life traveling, buying meals or eating what I can snare or fetch with bow or sling.”
She smiled as if he had said something very pleasing, though he could not for the life of him see what. “The cook will bake, of course. One of her helpers, really, I suppose, but the cook will oversee it.”
“The cook,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “Or one of her helpers. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“What is the matter, Perrin? You look worried. I don’t think the defenses could be any sounder without a fortress wall.”
“It isn’t that. Faile, this Perrin Goldeneyes business is getting out of hand. I do not know who they think I am, but they keep asking me what to do, asking if it’s all right, when they already know what has to be done, when they could figure it out with two minutes’ thought.”
For a long moment she studied his face, those dark, tilted eyes thoughtful, then said, “How many years has it been since the Queen of Andor ruled here in fact?”
“The Queen of Andor? I don’t really know. A hundred years, maybe. Two hundred. What does that have to do with anything?”
“These people do not remember how to deal with a queen—or a king. They are trying to puzzle it out. You must be patient with them.”
“A king?” he said weakly. He let his head drop down onto his arms on the table. “Oh, Light!”
Laughing softly, Faile ruffled his hair. “Well, perhaps not that. I doubt very much that Morgase would approve. A leader, at least. But she would very definitely approve a man who brought lands back to her that her throne has not controlled in a hundred years or more. She would surely make that man a lord. Perrin of House Aybara, Lord of the Two Rivers. It has a good sound.”
“We do not need any lords in the Two Rivers,” he growled at the oak tabletop. “Or kings, or queens. We are free men!”
“Free men can have a need to follow someone, too,” she said gently. “Most men want to believe in something larger than themselves, something wider than their own fields. That is why there are nations, Perrin, and peoples. Even Raen and Ila see themselves as part of something more than their own caravan. They have lost their wagons and most of their family and friends, but other Tuatha’an still seek the song, and they will again, too, because they belong to more than a few wagons.”
“Who owns these?” Aram asked suddenly.
Perrin raised his head. The young Tinker was on his feet, staring uneasily at the spears lining the walls. “They belong to anybody who wants one, Aram. Nobody is going to hurt you with any of them, believe me.” He was not sure if Aram did believe, not the way he began walking slowly around the room with his hands stuffed into his pockets, eyeing spears and halberds sideways.
Perrin was more than grateful to dig in when Marin brought him a plate of sliced roast goose, with turnips and peas and good crusty bread. At least, he would have dug in, if Faile had not tucked a flower-embroidered napkin under his chin and snatched the knife and fork out of his hands. She seemed to find it amusing to feed him the way Bode and Eldrin had been feeding Aram. The Cauthon girls giggled at him, and Natti and Marin wore little smiles, too. Perrin did not see what was so funny. He was willing to indulge Faile, though, even if he could have fed himself more easily. She kept making him stretch his neck to take what she had on the fork.
Aram’s slow wandering took him around the room three times before he stopped at the foot of the stairs, staring at the barrel of ill-assorted swords. Then he reached out and pulled a sword from the cluster, hefting it awkwardly. The leather-wrapped hilt was long enough for both of his hands. “Can I use this one?” he asked.
Perrin nearly choked.
Alanna appeared at the head of the stairs, with Ila; the Tuatha’an woman looked weary, but the bruise was gone from her face. “ . . . best thing is sleep,” the Aes Sedai was saying. “It is shock to his mind that troubles him most, and I cannot Heal that.”
Ila’s eyes fell on her grandson, on what he held, and she screamed as if that blade had gone into her flesh. “No, Aram! Nooooo!” She almost fell in her haste to get down the stairs and flung herself on Aram, trying to pull his hands from the sword. “No, Aram,” she panted breathlessly. “You must not. Put it down. The Way of the Leaf. You must not! The Way of the Leaf! Please, Aram! Please!”
Aram danced with her, fending her off clumsily, trying to hold the sword away from her. “Why not?” he shouted angrily. “They killed Mother! I saw them! I might have saved her, if I had had a sword. I could have saved her!”
The words sliced at Perrin’s chest. A Tinker with a sword seemed an unnatural thing, almost enough to make his hackles stand, but those words . . . His mother. “Leave him alone,” he said, more roughly than he intended. “Any man has a right to defend himself, to defend his . . . He has a right.”
Aram pushed the sword toward Perrin. “Will you teach me how to use it?”
“I don’t know how,” Perrin told him. “You can find someone, though.”
Tears rolled down Ila’s contorted face. “The Trollocs took my daughter,” she sobbed, her entire body shaking, “and all my grandchildren but one, and now you take him. He is Lost, because of you, Perrin Aybara. You have become a wolf in your heart, and now you will make him one, too.” Turning, she stumbled back up the steps, still racked with sobs.
“I could have saved her!” Aram called after her. “Grandmother! I could have saved her!” She never looked back, and when she vanished around the corner, he slumped against the banister, weeping. “I could have saved her, grandmother. I could have . . . ”
Perrin realized Bode was crying, too, with her face in her hands, and the other women were frowning at him as though he had done something wrong. No, not all of them. Alanna studied him from the head of the stairs with that unreadable Aes Sedai calm, and Faile’s face was nearly as blank.
Wiping his mouth, he tossed the napkin on the table and got up. There was still time to tell Aram to put the sword back, to go ask Ila’s pardon. Time to tell him . . . what? That maybe next time he would not be there to watch his loved ones die? That maybe he could just come back to find their graves?
He put a hand on Aram’s shoulder, and the man flinched, hunching around the sword as if expecting him to take it. The Tinker’s scent carried a wash of emotions, fear and hate and bone-deep sadness. Lost, Ila had called him. His eyes looked lost. “Wash your face, Aram. Then go find Tam al’Thor. Say I ask him to teach you the sword.”
Slowly the other man raised his face. “Thank you,” he stammered, scrubbing at the tears on his cheeks with his sleeve. “Thank you. I will never forget this. Never. I swear it.” Suddenly he hoisted the sword to kiss the straight blade; the hilt had a brass wolfhead for a pommel. “I swear. Is that not how it is done?”
“I suppose it is,” Perrin said sadly, wondering why he should feel sad. The Way of the Leaf was a fine belief, like a dream of peace, but like the dream it could not last where there was violence. He did not know of a place without that. A dream for some other man, some other time. Some other Age perhaps. “Go on, Aram. You have a lot to learn, and there may not be much time.” Still bubbling thanks, the Tinker did not wait to wash his tears away, but ran straight out of the inn, carrying the sword upright before him in both hands.
Conscious of Eldrin’s scowl and Marin’s fists on her hips and Natti’s frown, not to mention Bode’s weeping, Perrin walked back to his chair. Alanna had gone from her place at the top of the stairs. Faile watched him pick up his knife and fork. “You disapprove?” he said quietly. “A man has a right to defend himself, Faile. Even Aram. No one can make him follow the Way of the Leaf if he doesn’t want to.”
“I do not like to see you in pain,” she said very softly.
His knife paused in cutting a piece of goose. Pain? That dream was not for him. “I am just tired,” he told her, and smiled. He did not think she believed him.
Before he had time to take a second mouthful, Bran stuck his head in at the front door. He wore his round steel cap again. “Riders coming from the north, Perrin. A lot of riders, I think it must be the Whitecloaks.”
Faile darted away as Perrin rose, and by the time he was outside on Stepper, with the Mayor muttering to himself about what he meant to say to the Whitecloaks, she came riding her black mare around the side of the inn. More people were running north than stayed at their tasks. Perrin was in no particular hurry. The Children of the Light might well be there to arrest him. They probably were. He did not mean to go along in chains, but he was not anxious to ask people to fight Whitecloaks for him. He followed behind Bran, joining the stream of men and women and children crossing the Wagon Bridge across the Winespring Water, Stepper’s and Swallow’s hooves clattering on the thick planks. A few tall willows grew here along the water. The bridge was where the North Road began, than ran to Watch Hill and beyond. Some of the distant smoke plumes had thinned to wisps as fires burned themselves out.
Where the road left the village, he found a pair of wagons blocking the road and men gathered behind pointed, slanting stakes with their bows and spears and such, smelling of excitement, murmuring to each other and all jammed together to watch what was coming down the road: a long double column of white-cloaked horsemen trailing a cloud of dust, conical helmets and burnished plate-and-mail shining in the afternoon sun, steel-tipped lances all at the same angle. At their head rode a youngish man, stiff-backed and stern-faced, who looked vaguely familiar to Perrin. With the arrival of the Mayor, the murmurs hushed expectantly. Or maybe it was Perrin’s arrival that quieted them.
Two hundred paces or so from the stakes, the stern-faced man raised a hand, and the column halted with sharp orders echoing down the files. He came on with just half a dozen Whitecloaks for company, running his eyes over the wagons and sharp stakes and the men behind. His manner would have named him a man of importance even without the knots of rank beneath the flaring sunburst on his cloak.
Luc had appeared from somewhere, resplendent on his shiny black stallion in rich red wool and golden embroidery. Perhaps it was natural enough that the Whitecloak officer chose to address himself to Luc, though his dark eyes continued to probe. “I am Dain Bornhald,” he announced, reining in, “Captain of the Children of the Light. You have done this for us? I have heard that Emond’s Field is closed to the Children, yes? Truly a village of the Shadow if it is closed to the Children of the Light.”
Dain Bornhald, not Geofram. A son, perhaps. Not that it made any difference. Perrin supposed one would try to arrest him as soon as another. Sure enough, Bornhald’s gaze swept past him, then jerked back. A convulsion seemed to seize the man; one gauntleted hand darted to his sword, his lips peeled back in a silent snarl, and for a moment Perrin was sure the man was about to charge, fling his horse onto the spiky barrier, to reach him. The man looked as if he bore Perrin a personal hatred. Up close, that hard face had a touch of slackness to it, a shine in those eyes that Perrin was used to seeing in Bili Congar’s. He thought he could smell brandy fumes.
The hollow-cheeked man beside Bornhald was more than familiar. Perrin would never forget those deep-set eyes, like dark burning coals. Tall and gaunt and hard as an anvil, Jaret Byar truly did look at him with hate. Whether or not Bornhald was a zealot, Byar surely was.
Luc apparently had the sense not to try usurping Bran’s place—indeed, he appeared intent on examining the white-cloaked column as the dust settled, revealing more Children stretching up the road—to Perrin’s disgust, though Bran looked to him—to the blacksmith’s apprentice—waited for his nod before answering. He was the Mayor! Bornhald and Byar plainly took note of the silent exchange.
“Emond’s Field is not precisely closed to you,” Bran said, standing up straight with his spear propped out to one side. “We have decided to defend ourselves, and have this very morning. If you want to see our work, look there.” He pointed toward the smoke rising from the Trollocs’ pyres. A sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh drifted in the air, but no one except Perrin seemed to notice.
“You have killed a few Trollocs?” Bornhald said contemptuously. “Your luck and skill amaze me.”
“More than a few!” somebody called out of the Two Rivers crowd. “Hundreds!”
“We had a battle!” another voice cried, and dozens more shouted angrily on top of one another
“We fought them and won!”
“Where were you?”
“We can defend ourselves without any Whitecloaks!”
“The Two Rivers!”
“The Two Rivers and Perrin Goldeneyes!”
“Goldeneyes!”
“Goldeneyes!”
Leof, who should have been over guarding the woodsmen, started waving that crimson wolfhead banner.
Bornhald’s hot-eyed hate took them all in, but Byar danced his bay gelding forward with a snarl. “Do you farmers think you know battle?” he roared. “Last night one of your villages was all but wiped out by Trollocs! Wait until they come at you in numbers, and you will wish your mother had never kissed your father!” He fell silent at a weary gesture from Bornhald, a fierce-trained dog obeying his master, but his words had quieted the Two Rivers people.
“Which village?” Bran’s voice was dignified and troubled both. “We all know people in Watch Hill, and Deven Ride.”
“Watch Hill has not been troubled,” Bornhald replied, “and I know nothing of Deven Ride. This morning a rider brought me word that Taren Ferry hardly exists any longer. If you have friends there, many people did escape across the river. Across the river.” His face tightened momentarily. “I myself lost nearly fifty good soldiers.”
The news produced a few queasy murmurs; no one liked to hear that sort of thing, but on the other hand, no one here knew anyone in Taren Ferry. Likely none of them had ever been that far.
Luc pushed his horse forward, the stallion snapping at Stepper. Perrin reined his own mount tightly before the two began fighting, but Luc appeared not to notice or care. “Taren Ferry?” he said in a flat voice. “Trollocs attacked Taren Ferry last night?”
Bornhald shrugged. “I said it, did I not? It seems that the Trollocs have at last decided to raid the villages. How providential that you here were warned in time to prepare these fine defenses.” His stare ran over the pointed hedge and the men behind it before settling on Perrin.
“Was the man called Ordeith at Taren Ferry last night?” Luc asked.
Perrin stared at him. He had not known Luc even knew of Padan Fain, or the name he used now. But people did talk, especially when someone they knew as a peddler came back with authority among Whitecloaks.
Bornhald’s reaction was as strange as the question. His eyes glittered a hate as strong as he had shown for Perrin, but his face went pale, and he scrubbed at slack lips with the back of his hand as though he had forgotten he wore steel-backed gauntlets. “You know Ordeith?” he said, leaning toward Luc in his saddle.
It was Luc’s turn to shrug casually. “I have seen him here and there since coming to the Two Rivers. A disreputable-looking man, and those who follow him no less. The sort who might have been careless enough to allow a Trolloc attack to succeed. Was he there? If so, one can hope he died for his folly. If not, one hopes you have him here with you, close under your eye.”
“I do not know where he is,” Bornhald snapped. “Or care! I did not come here to talk of Ordeith!” His horse pranced nervously as Bornhald flung out a hand, pointing at Perrin. “I arrest you as a Darkfriend. You will be taken to Amador, and there tried under the Dome of Truth.”
Byar stared at his Captain in disbelief. Behind the barrier separating the Whitecloaks from the Two Rivers men, angry mutters rose, spears and bills were hefted, bows raised. The farther Whitecloaks began spreading out in a gleaming line under shouted orders from a fellow as big in his armor as Master Luhhan, sliding lances into holders along their saddles, unlimbering short horsebows. At that range they could do little more than cover the escape of Bornhald and the men with him, if they did indeed manage an escape, but Bornhald appeared oblivious of any danger, and of anything at all save Perrin.
“There will be no arrests,” Bran said sharply, “We have decided that. No more arrests without proof of some crime, and proof we believe. You’ll never show me anything to convince me Perrin is a Darkfriend, so you might as well put your hand down.”
“He betrayed my father to his death at Falme,” Bornhald shouted. Rage shook him. “Betrayed him to Darkfriends and Tar Valon witches who murdered a thousand of the Children with the One Power!” Byar nodded vigorously.
Some of the Two Rivers folk shifted uncertainly; word had spread of what Verin and Alanna had done that morning, and the deeds had grown in spreading. Whatever they thought about Perrin, a hundred tales of Aes Sedai, almost all wrong, made for easy belief in Aes Sedai destroying a thousand Whitecloaks. And if they believed that, they might come to believe the rest.
“I betrayed no one,” Perrin said in a loud voice so everyone could hear. “If your father died at Falme, those who killed him are called the Seanchan. I don’t know whether they are Darkfriends, but I do know they use the One Power in battle.”
“Liar!” Spittle flew from Bornhald’s lips. “The Seanchan are a tale concocted by the White Tower to hide their foul lies! You are a Darkfriend!”
Bran shook his head wonderingly, pushing his steel cap over to one side so he could scratch his fringe of gray hair. “I don’t know anything about these—Seanchan?—about these Seanchan. What I do know is that Perrin is no Darkfriend, and you are not arresting anybody.”
The situation was growing more dangerous by the minute, Perrin realized. Byar saw it and tugged at Bornhald’s arm, whispering to him, but the Whitecloak captain would not, or perhaps could not, back away now that he had Perrin in front of his eyes. Bran and the Two Rivers men had their heels planted, too; they might not be willing to let the Whitecloaks take him even if he confessed to everything Bornhald claimed. Unless someone tossed some water fast, everything was going to explode like a fistful of dry straw tossed on a forge-fire.
He hated having to think quickly. Loial had the right of it. Hasty thinking led to people being hurt. But he thought he saw a way here. “Are you willing to hold off my arrest, Bornhald? Until the Trollocs are done with? I won’t be going anywhere before then.”
“Why should I hold off?” The man was blind with hate. If he went on, a good many men were going to die, including him most likely, and he could not see. There was no use pointing it out.
“Haven’t you noticed all the farms burning this morning?” Perrin said instead. He made a sweeping gesture that took in all the dwindling plumes of smoke. “Look around. You said it yourself. The Trollocs aren’t content with raiding a farm or two each night anymore. They’re up to raiding villages. If you try to make it back to Watch Hill, you may not get there. You were lucky to come this far. But if you stay here, in Emond’s Field . . . ” Bran rounded on him, and other men shouted loud noes; Faile rode close and seized his arm, but he ignored all of them. “ . . . you will know where I am, and your soldiers will be welcome to help our defenses.”
“Are you sure about this, Perrin?” Bran said, grabbing Stepper’s stirrup, while from the other side Faile said urgently, “No, Perrin! It is too great a risk. You must not—I mean . . . please don’t—Oh, the Light burn me to bloody ash! You must not do this!”
“I won’t have men fighting men if I can stop it,” he told them firmly. “We are not going to do the Trollocs’ work for them.”
Faile practically flung his arm away. Scowling at Bornhald, she produced a sharpening stone from her pouch and a knife from somewhere, and began honing the blade with a silk-soft whisk-whisk.
“Hari Coplin won’t know what to think, now,” Bran said wryly. Straightening his round helmet, he turned back to the Whitecloaks and planted his spear butt. “You have heard his terms. Now hear mine. If you come into Emond’s Field, you arrest no one without the say-so of the Village Council, which you will not get, so you arrest no one. You don’t go into anybody’s house unless you are asked. You make no trouble, and you share in the defense where and when you’re asked. And I don’t want to so much as smell a Dragon’s Fang! Will you agree? If not, you can ride back as you came.” Byar stared at the round man as if a sheep had reared up on its hind legs and offered to wrestle.
Bornhald never took his eyes off Perrin. “Done,” he said at last. “Until the Trolloc threat is gone, done!” Wrenching his horse around, he galloped back toward the line of his men, snowy cloak billowing behind him.
As the Mayor ordered the wagons rolled aside, Perrin realized that Luc was looking at him. The fellow sat slumped easily in his saddle, a languorous hand on his sword hilt, blue eyes amused.
“I thought you would object,” Perrin said, “the way I hear you’ve been talking people up against the Whitecloaks.”
Luc spread his hands smoothly. “If these people want Whitecloaks among them, let them have Whitecloaks. But you should be careful, young Goldeneyes. I know something of taking an enemy into your bosom. His blade goes in quicker when he is close.” With a laugh, he pushed his stallion off through the crowd, back into the village.
“He is right,” Faile said, still stropping her knife on the stone. “Perhaps this Bornhald will keep his word not to arrest you, but what is to stop one of his men from putting a blade in your back? You should not have done this.”
“I had to,” he told her. “Better than doing the Trollocs’ work.”
The Whitecloaks were beginning to ride in, Bornhald and Byar at their head. Those two glared at him with unabated hatred, and the others, riding by in pairs . . . Cold, hard eyes in cold, hard faces swung to regard him as they passed. They did not hate, but they saw a Darkfriend when they saw him. And Byar, at least, was capable of anything.
He had had to do it, but he thought maybe it would not be such a bad idea to let Dannil and Ban and the others follow him around the way they wanted to. He was not going to be able to sleep easy without somebody guarding his door. Guards. Like some fool lord. At least Faile would be happy. If only he could make them lose that banner somewhere.