“Quiet?” Min said with a faint smile. “I’ve heard men talk about you Two Rivers folk. I’ve heard the jokes about wooden-headed sheepherders, and then there are men who have actually been downcountry.”
“Wooden-headed?” Rand said, frowning. “What jokes?”
“The ones who know,” she went on as if he had not spoken, “say you walk around all smiles and politeness, just as meek and soft as butter. On the surface, anyway. Underneath, they say, you’re all as tough as old oak roots. Prod too hard, they say, and you dig up stone. But the stone isn’t buried very deep in you, or in your friends. It’s as if a storm has scoured away almost all the covering. Moiraine didn’t tell me everything, but I see what I see.”
Old oak roots? Stone? It hardly sounded like the sort of thing the merchants or their people would say. That last made him jump, though.
He looked around quickly; the stableyard was empty, and the nearest windows were closed. “I don’t know anybody named—what was it again?”
“Mistress Alys, then, if you prefer,” Min said with an amused look that made his cheeks color. “There’s no one close enough to hear.”
“What makes you think Mistress Alys has another name?”
“Because she told me,” Min said, so patiently that he blushed again. “Not that she had a choice, I suppose. I saw she was . . . different . . . right away. When she stopped here before, on her way downcountry. She knew about me. I’ve talked to . . . others like her before.”
“ ‘Saw’?” Rand said.
“Well, I don’t suppose you’ll go running to the Children. Not considering who your traveling companions are. The Whitecloaks wouldn’t like what I do any more than they like what she does.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She says I see pieces of the Pattern.” Min gave a little laugh and shook her head. “Sounds too grand, to me. I just see things when I look at people, and sometimes I know what they mean. I look at a man and a woman who’ve never even talked to one another, and I know they’ll marry. And they do. That sort of thing. She wanted me to look at you. All of you together.”
Rand shivered. “And what did you see?”
“When you’re all in a group? Sparks swirling around you, thousands of them, and a big shadow, darker than midnight. It’s so strong, I almost wonder why everybody can’t see it. The sparks are trying to fill the shadow, and the shadow is trying to swallow the sparks.” She shrugged. “You are all tied together in something dangerous, but I can’t make any more of it.”
“All of us?” Rand muttered. “Egwene, too? But they weren’t after—I mean—”
Min did not seem to notice his slip. “The girl? She’s part of it. And the gleeman. All of you. You’re in love with her.” He stared at her. “I can tell that even without seeing any images. She loves you, too, but she’s not for you, or you for her. Not the way you both want.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When I look at her, I see the same as when I look at . . . Mistress Alys. Other things, things I don’t understand, too, but I know what that means. She won’t refuse it.”
“This is all foolishness,” Rand said uncomfortably. His headache was fading to numbness; his head felt packed with wool. He wanted to get away from this girl and the things she saw. And yet. . . . “What do you see when you look at . . . the rest of us?”
“All sorts of things,” Min said, with a grin as if she knew what he really wanted to ask. “The War . . . ah . . . Master Andra has seven ruined towers around his head, and a babe in a cradle holding a sword, and. . . .” She shook her head. “Men like him—you understand?—always have so many images they crowd one another. The strongest images around the gleeman are a man—not him—juggling fire, and the White Tower, and that doesn’t make any sense at all for a man. The strongest things I see about the big, curly-haired fellow are a wolf, and a broken crown, and trees flowering all around him. And the other one—a red eagle, an eye on a balance scale, a dagger with a ruby, a horn, and a laughing face. There are other things, but you see what I mean. This time I can’t make up or down out of any of it.” She waited then, still grinning, until he finally cleared his throat and asked.
“What about me?”
Her grin stopped just short of outright laughter. “The same kind of things as the rest. A sword that isn’t a sword, a golden crown of laurel leaves, a beggar’s staff, you pouring water on sand, a bloody hand and a white-hot iron, three women standing over a funeral bier with you on it, black rock wet with blood—”
“All right,” he broke in uneasily. “You don’t have to list it all.”
“Most of all, I see lightning around you, some striking at you, some coming out of you. I don’t know what any of it means, except for one thing. You and I will meet again.” She gave him a quizzical look, as if she did not understand that either.
“Why shouldn’t we?” he said. “I’ll be coming back this way on my way home.”
“I suppose you will, at that.” Suddenly her grin was back, wry and mysterious, and she patted his cheek. “But if I told you everything I saw, you’d be as curly-haired as your friend with the shoulders.”
He jerked back from her hand as if it were red-hot. “What do you mean? Do you see anything about rats? Or dreams?”
“Rats! No, no rats. As for dreams, maybe it’s your idea of a dream, but I never thought it was mine.”
He wondered if she was crazy, grinning like that. “I have to go,” he said, edging around her. “I . . . I have to meet my friends.”
“Go, then. But you won’t escape.”
He didn’t exactly break into a run, but every step he took was quicker than the step before.
“Run, if you want,” she called after him. “You can’t escape from me.” Her laughter sped him across the stableyard and out into the street, into the hubbub of people. Her last words were too close to what Ba’alzamon had said. He blundered into people as he hurried through the crowd, earning hard looks and hard words, but he did not slow down until he was several streets away from the inn.
After a time he began to pay attention again to where he was. His head felt like a balloon, but he stared and enjoyed anyway. He thought Baerlon was a grand city, if not exactly in the same way as cities in Thom’s stories. He wandered up broad streets, most paved with flagstone, and down narrow, twisting lanes, wherever chance and the shifting of the crowd took him. It had rained during the night, and the streets that were unpaved had already been churned to mud by the crowds, but muddy streets were nothing new to him. None of the streets in Emond’s Field was paved.
There certainly were no palaces, and only a few houses were very much bigger than those back home, but every house had a roof of slate or tile as fine as the roof of the Winespring Inn. He supposed there would be a palace or two in Caemlyn. As for inns, he counted nine, not one smaller than the Winespring and most as large as the Stag and Lion, and there were plenty of streets he had not seen yet.
Shops dotted every street, with awnings out front sheltering tables covered with goods, everything from cloth to books to pots to boots. It was as if a hundred peddlers’ wagons had spilled out their contents. He stared so much that more than once he had to hurry on at the suspicious look of a shopkeeper. He had not understood the first shopkeeper’s stare. When he did understand, he started to get angry until he remembered that here he was the stranger. He could not have bought much, anyway. He gasped when he saw how many coppers were exchanged for a dozen discolored apples or a handful of shriveled turnips, the sort that would be fed to the horses in the Two Rivers, but people seemed eager to pay.
There were certainly more than enough people, to his estimation. For a while the sheer number of them almost overwhelmed him. Some wore clothes of finer cut than anyone in the Two Rivers—almost as fine as Moiraine’s—and quite a few had long, fur-lined coats that flapped around their ankles. The miners everybody at the inn kept talking about, they had the hunched look of men who grubbed undergr
ound. But most of the people did not look any different from those he had grown up with, not in dress or in face. He had expected they would, somehow. Indeed, some of them had so much the look of the Two Rivers in their faces that he could imagine they belonged to one family or another that he knew around Emond’s Field. A toothless, gray-haired fellow with ears like jug handles, sitting on a bench outside one of the inns and peering mournfully into an empty tankard, could easily have been Bili Congar’s close cousin. The lantern-jawed tailor sewing in front of his shop might have been Jon Thane’s brother, even to the same bald spot on the back of his head. A near mirror image of Samel Crawe pushed past Rand as he turned a corner, and. . . .
In disbelief he stared at a bony little man with long arms and a big nose, shoving hurriedly through the crowd in clothes that looked like a bundle of rags. The man’s eyes were sunken and his dirty face gaunt, as if he had not eaten or slept in days, but Rand could swear. . . . The ragged man saw him then, and froze in mid-step, heedless of people who all but stumbled over him. The last doubt in Rand’s mind vanished.
“Master Fain!” he shouted. “We all thought you were—”
As quick as a blink the peddler darted away, but Rand dodged after him, calling apologies over his shoulder to the people he bumped. Through the crowd he just caught sight of Fain dashing into an alleyway, and he turned after.
A few steps into the alleyway the peddler had stopped in his tracks. A tall fence made it into a dead end. As Rand skidded to a halt, Fain rounded on him, crouching warily and backing away. He flapped grimy hands at Rand to stay back. More than one rip showed in his coat, and his cloak was worn and tattered as if it had seen much harder use than it was meant for.
“Master Fain?” Rand said hesitantly. “What is the matter? It’s me, Rand al’Thor, from Emond’s Field. We all thought the Trollocs had taken you.”
Fain gestured sharply and, still in a crouch, ran a few crabbed steps toward the open end of the alley. He did not try to pass Rand, or even come close to him. “Don’t!” he rasped. His head shifted constantly as he tried to see everything in the street beyond Rand. “Don’t mention”—his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, and he turned his head away, watching Rand with quick, sidelong glances—“them. There be Whitecloaks in the town.”
“They have no reason to bother us,” Rand said. “Come back to the Stag and Lion with me. I’m staying there with friends. You know most of them. They’ll be glad to see you. We all thought you were dead.”
“Dead?” the peddler snapped indignantly. “Not Padan Fain. Padan Fain knows which way to jump and where to land.” He straightened his rags as if they were feastday clothes. “Always have, and always will. I’ll live a long time. Longer than—” Abruptly his face tightened and his hands clutched hold of his coat front. “They burned my wagon, and all my goods. Had no cause to be doing that, did they? I couldn’t get to my horses. My horses, but that fat old innkeeper had them locked up in his stable. I had to step quick not to get my throat slit, and what did it get me? All that I’ve got left is what I stand up in. Now, is that fair? Is it, now?”
“Your horses are safe in Master al’Vere’s stable. You can get them anytime. If you come to the inn with me, I’m sure Moiraine will help you get back to the Two Rivers.”
“Aaaaah! She’s . . . she’s the Aes Sedai, is she?” A guarded look came over Fain’s face. “Maybe, though. . . .” He paused, licking his lips nervously. “How long will you be at this—What was it? What did you call it?—the Stag and Lion?”
“We leave tomorrow,” Rand said. “But what does that have to do with—?”
“You just don’t know,” Fain whined, “standing there with a full belly and a good night’s sleep in a soft bed. I’ve hardly slept a wink since that night. My boots are all worn out with running, and as for what I’ve had to eat. . . .” His face twisted. “I don’t want to be within miles of an Aes Sedai,” he spat the last words, “not miles and miles, but I may have to. I’ve no choice, have I? The thought of her eyes on me, of her even knowing where I am. . . .” He reached toward Rand as if he wanted to grab his coat, but his hands stopped short, fluttering, and he actually took a step back. “Promise me you won’t tell her. She frightens me. There’s no need to be telling her, no reason for an Aes Sedai to even be knowing I’m alive. You have to promise. You have to!”
“I promise,” Rand said soothingly. “But there’s no reason for you to be afraid of her. Come with me. The least you’ll get is a hot meal.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” Fain rubbed his chin pensively. “Tomorrow, you say? In that time. . . . You won’t forget your promise? You won’t be letting her . . . ?”
“I won’t let her hurt you,” Rand said, wondering how he could stop an Aes Sedai, whatever she wanted to do.
“She won’t hurt me,” Fain said. “No, she won’t. I won’t be letting her.” Like a flash he hared past Rand into the crowd.
“Master Fain!” Rand called. “Wait!”
He dashed out of the alley just in time to catch sight of a ragged coat disappearing around the next corner. Still calling, he ran after it, darted around the corner. He only had time to see a man’s back before he crashed into it and they both went down in a heap in the mud.
“Can’t you watch where you’re going?” came a mutter from under him, and Rand scrambled up in surprise.
“Mat?”
Mat sat up with a baleful glare and began scraping mud off his cloak with his hands. “You must really be turning into a city man. Sleep all morning and run right over people.” Climbing to his feet, he stared at his muddy hands, then muttered and wiped them off on his cloak. “Listen, you’ll never guess who I thought I just saw.”
“Padan Fain,” Rand said.
“Padan Fa—How did you know?”
“I was talking to him, but he ran off.”
“So the Tro—” Mat stopped to look around warily, but the crowd was passing them by with never a glance. Rand was glad he had learned a little caution. “So they didn’t get him. I wonder why he left Emond’s Field, without a word like that? Probably started running then, too, and didn’t stop until he got here. But why was he running just now?”
Rand shook his head and wished he had not. It felt as though it might fall off. “I don’t know, except that he’s afraid of M . . . Mistress Alys.” All this watching what you said was not easy. “He doesn’t want her to know he’s here. He made me promise I wouldn’t tell her.”
“Well, his secret is safe with me,” Mat said. “I wish she didn’t know where I was, either.”
“Mat?” People still streamed by without paying them any heed, but Rand lowered his voice anyway, and leaned closer. “Mat, did you have a nightmare last night? About a man who killed a rat?”
Mat stared at him without blinking. “You, too?” he said finally. “And Perrin, I suppose. I almost asked him this morning, but. . . . He must have. Blood and ashes! Now somebody’s making us dream things. Rand, I wish nobody knew where I was.”
“There were dead rats all over the inn this morning.” He did not feel as afraid at saying it as he would have earlier. He did not feel much of anything. “Their backs were broken.” His voice rang in his own ears. If he was getting sick, he might have to go to Moiraine. He was surprised that even the thought of the One Power being used on him did not bother him.
Mat took a deep breath, hitching his cloak, and looked around as if searching for somewhere to go. “What’s happening to us, Rand? What?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to ask Thom for advice. About whether to tell . . . anyone else.”
“No! Not her. Maybe him, but not her.”
The sharpness of it took Rand by surprise. “Then you believed him?” He did not need to say which “him” he meant; the grimace on Mat’s face said he understood.
“No,” Mat said slowly. “It’s the chances, that’s all. If we tell her, and he was lying, then maybe nothing happens. Maybe. But maybe just him being in our dreams is enough for. . .
. I don’t know.” He stopped to swallow. “If we don’t tell her, maybe we’ll have some more dreams. Rats or no rats, dreams are better than. . . . Remember the ferry? I say we keep quiet.”
“All right.” Rand remembered the ferry—and Moiraine’s threat, too—but somehow it seemed a long time ago. “All right.”
“Perrin won’t say anything, will he?” Mat went on, bouncing on his toes. “We have to get back to him. If he tells her, she’ll figure it out about all of us. You can bet on it. Come on.” He started off briskly through the crowd.
Rand stood there looking after him until Mat came back and grabbed him. At the touch on his arm he blinked, then followed his friend.
“What’s the matter with you?” Mat asked. “You going to sleep again?”
“I think I have a cold,” Rand said. His head was as tight as a drum, and almost as empty.
“You can get some chicken soup when we get back to the inn,” Mat said. He kept up a constant chatter as they hunted through the packed streets. Rand made an effort to listen, and even to say something now and then, but it was an effort. He was not tired; he did not want to sleep. He just felt as if he were drifting. After a while he found himself telling Mat about Min.
“A dagger with a ruby, eh?” Mat said. “I like that. I don’t know about the eye, though. Are you sure she wasn’t making it up? It seems to me she would know what it all means if she really is a soothsayer.”
“She didn’t say she’s a soothsayer,” Rand said. “I believe she does see things. Remember, Moiraine was talking to her when we finished our baths. And she knows who Moiraine is.”
Mat frowned at him. “I thought we weren’t supposed to use that name.”
“No,” Rand muttered. He rubbed his head with both hands. It was so hard to concentrate on anything.
“I think maybe you really are sick,” Mat said, still frowning. Suddenly he pulled Rand to a stop by his coat sleeve. “Look at them.”
Three men in breastplates and conical steel caps, burnished till they shone like silver, were making their way down the street toward Rand and Mat. Even the mail on their arms gleamed. Their long cloaks, pristine white and embroidered on the left breast with a golden sunburst, just cleared the mud and puddles of the street. Their hands rested on their sword hilts, and they looked around them as if looking at things that had wriggled out from under a rotting log. Nobody looked back, though. Nobody even seemed to notice them. Just the same, the three did not have to push through the crowd; the bustle parted to either side of the white-cloaked men as if by happenstance, leaving them to walk in a clear space that moved with them.
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