many Ghealdanin lancers waited, in shining armor and conical green helmets, and spoke softly to the fellow who would be commanding them, a lean man named Kireyin who Perrin suspected was nobly born from the haughty gaze visible behind the face-bars of his silvered helmet. Arganda was short enough that Kireyin had to bend to listen to what he had to say, and the necessity frosted the taller man’s face even more. One of the men behind Kireyin was carrying a staff with a red banner bearing the three six-pointed Silver Stars of Ghealdan instead of a green-streamered lance, and one of the Winged Guards carried Mayene’s Golden Hawk on blue.
Aram was there, too, though off to one side and not ready to ride. Wrapped in his putrid green cloak, sword hilt rising behind his shoulder, he shared his jealous scowls between the Mayeners and the Ghealdanin. When he saw Perrin, the man’s scowl turned sullen, and he hurried off, blundering through the Two Rivers men waiting for their breakfast. He did not pause to offer apologies when he bumped someone. Aram had grown increasingly touchy, snapping and sneering at everyone but Perrin as the days passed and they sat and waited. Yesterday, he had almost come to blows with a pair of Ghealdanin over something none of them could quite recall once they were separated, except that Aram said the Ghealdanin had no respect and they said he had a bad mouth. That was why the former Tinker was staying behind this morning. Things were likely to be touchy enough in So Habor without Aram starting a fight when Perrin was not looking.
“Keep an eye on Aram,” he said quietly when Dannil brought up his bay. “And keep a close eye on Arganda,” he added, stuffing the purses into his saddlebags and buckling the flaps down tight. The weight of Berelain’s contribution balanced his and Arganda’s together very nicely. Well, she had cause to be generous. Her men were as hungry as anyone else. “Arganda looks a man ready to do something stupid, to me.” Stayer frisked a little and tossed his head as Perrin took the reins, but the stallion settled quickly under a firm, gentle hand.
Dannil rubbed his tusk-like mustaches with a cold-reddened knuckle and eyed Arganda sideways, then exhaled heavily in a mist. “I’ll watch him, Lord Perrin,” he muttered, giving his cloak a hitch, “but no matter what you said about me being in charge, as soon as you’re out of sight, he won’t listen to a thing I say.”
Unfortunately, that was true. Perrin would rather have taken Arganda with him and left Gallenne here, but neither had been willing to accept that. The Ghealdanin did accept that men and horses would begin starving soon unless food and fodder were found somewhere, but he could not make himself spend a day farther from his queen than he already was. In some ways, he seemed even more frantic than Perrin, or maybe just more ready to give in to it. Left to himself, Arganda would have been edging a little nearer the Shaido every day until he was right under their noses. Perrin was ready to die to free Faile. Arganda just seemed ready to die.
“Do what you can to keep him from doing anything stupid, Dannil.” After a moment, he added, “As long as it doesn’t come to blows.” There was only so far he could expect Dannil to restrain the fellow, after all. There were three Ghealdanin for every Two Rivers man, and Faile would never be freed if it came to them killing each other. Perrin very nearly rested his head on Stayer’s flank. Light, but he was tired, and he could not see any place ahead of him anywhere.
A slow clop of hooves announced the arrival of Masuri and Seonid, with their three Warders riding close behind wrapped in cloaks that made most of each man vanish, along with part of his horse. Both Aes Sedai wore shimmering silk, and a heavy gold necklace, layers of thick strands, showed under the edge of Masuri’s dark cloak. A small white jewel dangled onto Seonid’s forehead from a fine golden chain fastened in her hair. Annoura relaxed, settling more easily in her saddle. Back among the Aiel tents, the Wise Ones stood in a line watching, six tall women with their heads wrapped in dark shawls. The people of So Habor might be about as welcoming to Aiel as the people of Maiden would have been, but Perrin had not been sure the Wise Ones would let either sister come alone. They had been the last reason for waiting. The sun was a red-gold rim on the treetops.
“The sooner there, the sooner back,” he said, climbing into the bay’s saddle. As he rode through the gap that had been made to let the carts out, Two Rivers men were already beginning to replace the missing stakes. No one lacked for wariness with Masema’s people nearby.
It was a hundred paces to the treeline, but his eye caught movement, someone on a horse slipping away into the deeper shadows beneath the towering trees. One of Masema’s watchers, no doubt, racing to tell the Prophet that Perrin and Berelain had left the camp. No matter how fast he rode, though, he could not be in time. If Masema wanted Berelain or Perrin dead, as seemed likely, he would have to wait on another opportunity.
Gallenne was not about to take any chances, though. No one had seen hide nor toenails of Santes or Gendar, Berelain’s two thief-catchers, since the day they failed to return from Masema’s camp, and to Gallenne that was as sure a message as their heads in a sack. He had his lancers spread in a sharp-eyed ring around Berelain before they reached the trees. And around Perrin, too, but that was only incidental. Given his wishes, Gallenne would have brought all nine hundred or so of his Winged Guards, or better yet, in his view, talked Berelain out of going. Perrin had tried that, as well, with no better luck. The woman had a way of listening, then doing exactly as she wished. Faile was like that, too. Sometimes a man just had to live with it. Most of the time, since there was nothing else to do.
The huge trees and stone outcrops sticking out of the snow broke up the formation, of course, but it was still a colorful sight even in the dim light of the forest, red streamers floating on light airs in slanted beams of sunlight, red-armored riders vanishing momentarily behind massive oaks and leatherleafs. The three Aes Sedai rode behind Perrin and Berelain, followed by their Warders, all watching the woods around them, and then the man with Berelain’s banner. Kireyin and the banner of Ghealdan came a little behind, his men dressed in neat, shining lines, or as near as they could manage. The forest’s openness was a deception, and ill suited to neat lines and bright banners, but add in embroidered silks and gems and a crown and Warders in those color-shifting cloaks, and it was a most impressive sight. Perrin could have laughed, though without much mirth.
Berelain seemed to sense his thoughts. “When you go to buy a sack of flour,” she said, “wear plain wool so the seller thinks you can’t afford to pay any more than you must. When you’re after flour by the wagonload, wear jewels so she thinks you can afford to come back for all she can lay hands on.”
Perrin snorted a laugh in spite of himself. It sounded very much like something Master Luhhan had told him, once, with a nudge in the ribs to say it was a joke and a look in his eye that said it was a little more. Dress poor when you want a small favor, and fine when you want a large one. He was very glad Berelain no longer smelled like a hunting wolf. At least that took one worry off his mind.
They soon caught up to the tail end of the carts, a line that was no longer moving by the time they reached the Traveling ground. Axework and sweat had removed the trees sheared off by gateways and made a little clearing, but it was crowded even before Gallenne spread his ring of lancers around it facing outward. Pager Neald was there already, a foppish Murandian with his mustache waxed to points, on a dapple gelding. His coat would do for anyone who had not seen an Asha’man before; the only other one he had was black as well, and at least he had no collar pins to mark him out. The snow was not deep, but the twenty Two Rivers men led by Wil al’Seen were on their horses, too, rather than standing and waiting for their feet to freeze in their boots. They looked a harder lot than the fellows who had left the Two Rivers with him, longbows slung across their backs, bristling quivers and swords of various descriptions at their belts. Perrin hoped he could send them home soon, or better, take them home.
Most were balancing a polearm over their saddles, but Tod al’Caar and Flann Barstere carried banners, Perrin’s own Red Wolf-head and the Red Eagle of Manetheren. Tod’s heavy jaw was set stubbornly, and Flann, a tall skinny fellow from up to Watch Hill, looked sullen. Likely he had not wanted the job. Maybe Tod had not, either. Wil gave Perrin one of those open, innocent looks that fooled so many girls back home — Wil liked too much embroidery on his coat at feastdays, and he purely loved riding ahead of those banners, probably in the hope some woman would think they were his — but Perrin let it pass. He had not expected the other three people in the clearing any more than he had the banners.
Holding his cloak around him as if the mild breeze were a gale, Balwer clumsily heeled his blunt-nosed roan forward to meet Perrin. Two of Faile’s hangers-on trailed after him with defiant expressions. Medore’s blue eyes looked odd in her dark Tairen face, but then, her coat, with its puffy green-striped sleeves, looked odd on her bosomy frame. The daughter of a High Lord, she was every inch a noblewoman, and men’s clothing just did not suit her. Latian, Cairhienin and pale in a coat almost as dark as Neald’s, though marked with four slashes of red and blue across the chest, was not much taller than she, and the way he sniffled with a cold and rubbed at his sharp nose made him look much less competent. Neither wore a sword, another surprise.
“My Lord; my Lady First,” Balwer said in that dry voice, ducking a bow in his saddle, a sparrow bobbing on a branch. His eyes flickered toward the Aes Sedai behind them, but that was the only sign he gave that he was aware of the sisters. “My Lord, I recalled that I have an acquaintance in this So Habor. A cutler who travels with his wares,
