Winter's Heart

by Jordan, Robert

  Waiting for his horse, he moved close to the blaze. Faile said he had to live with all the Lord Perrining and bowing and scraping, and most of the time he managed to ignore it, but today it was another drop of bile. He could feel a chasm growing wider between him and the other men from home, and he seemed to be the only one who wanted to bridge it. Gill found him muttering to himself as he held his hands out to the flames.

  “Forgive me for bothering you, my Lord,” Gill said, bowing and briefly snatching off his floppy hat to reveal a thinly thatched scalp. The hat went right back on his head again to keep off the snow. City bred, he felt the cold badly. The stout man was not obsequious—few Caemlyn innkeepers were—but he seemed to enjoy a certain amount of formality. He had certainly fitted into his new job well enough to please Faile. “It’s young Tallanvor. At first light, he saddled his horse and went off. He said you gave him permission, if . . . if the search parties hadn’t gotten back by then, but I wondered, since you wouldn’t let anyone else go.”

  The fool. Everything about Tallanvor marked him an experienced soldier, though he had never been very clear about his background, but alone against Aiel, he was a hare chasing weasels. Light, I want to be riding with him! I shouldn’t have listened to Berelain about ambushes. But there had been another ambush. Arganda’s scouts might end the same way. But he had to move. He had to.

  “Yes,” he said aloud. “I told him he could.” If he said otherwise, he might have to take notice later. Lords had to do that sort of thing. If he ever saw the man alive again. “You sound as though you want to go hunting yourself.”

  “I am . . . very fond of Maighdin, my Lord,” Gill replied. Quiet dignity marked his voice, and a degree of stiffness, as though Perrin had said he was too old and fat for the task. He certainly smelled of vexation, all prickly and ginger, though his cold-reddened face was smooth. “Not like Tallanvor—nothing like that, of course—but very fond all the same. And of the Lady Faile, of course,” he added hastily. “It’s just that it seems I’ve known Maighdin my whole life. She deserves better.”

  Perrin’s sigh misted in front of his mouth. “I understand, Master Gill.” He did. He himself wanted to rescue everyone, but he knew if he had to choose, he would take Faile and let the others go. Everything could go, to save her. Horse-scent was heavy in the air, but he smelled someone else who was irritated, and looked over his shoulder.

  Lini was glaring at him from the middle of the turmoil, shifting her ground just enough to keep from being ridden down accidentally by men jostling to form ragged files. One bony hand gripped the edge of her cloak, and the other held a brass-studded cudgel, nearly as long as her arm. It was a wonder she had not gone with Tallanvor.

  “You’ll hear as soon as I do,” he promised her. A rumbling in his middle reminded him suddenly and forcefully of that stew he had scorned. He could almost taste the mutton and lentils. Another yawn cracked his jaws. “Forgive me, Lini,” he said when he could talk. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Or a bite to eat. Is there anything? Some bread, and whatever’s to hand?”

  “Everyone’s eaten long since,” she snapped. “The scraps are gone, and the kettles cleaned and stored away. Sup from too many dishes, and you deserve a bellyache that’ll split you open. Especially when they’re not your dishes.” Trailing off into dissatisfied mutters, she scowled at him a moment longer before stalking away, glaring at the world.

  “Too many dishes?” Perrin muttered. “I haven’t had a one; that’s my trouble, not a bellyache.” Lini was making her way across the campground, threading her way between horses and carts. Three or four men spoke to her in passing, and she barked at every one, even shaking her cudgel if they failed to take the hint. The woman must be out of her mind over Maighdin. “Or was that one of her sayings? They usually make more sense than that.”

  “Ah . . . well, as to that, now. . . .” Gill snatched his hat off again and peered inside, then stuffed it back on. “I . . . ah . . . I have to see to the carts, my Lord. Need to make sure all’s ready.”

  “A blind man could see the carts are ready,” Perrin told him. “What is it?”

  Gill’s head swung wildly in search of another excuse. Finding none, he wilted. “I . . . I suppose you’ll hear sooner or later,” he mumbled. “You see, my Lord, Lini . . .” He drew a deep breath. “She walked over to the Mayener camp this morning, before sunrise, to see how you were and . . . ah . . . why you hadn’t come back. The First’s tent was dark, but one of her maids was awake, and she told Lini . . . She implied . . . I mean to say . . . Don’t look at me that way, my Lord.”

  Perrin smoothed the snarl from his face. Tried to, at any rate. It stayed in his voice. “Burn me, I slept in that tent, man. That is all I did! You tell her that!”

  A violent coughing fit wracked the stout man. “Me?” Gill wheezed once he could talk. “You want me to tell her? She’ll crack my pate if I mention a thing like that! I think the woman was born in Far Madding in a thunderstorm. She probably told the thunder to be quiet. It probably did.”

  “You’re shambayan,” Perrin told him. “It can’t all be loading carts in the snow.” He wanted to bite someone!

  Gill seemed to sense it. Mumbling his courtesies, he made a jerky bow and scurried away clutching his cloak close. Not to find Lini, Perrin was sure. Gill ordered the household, such as it was, but never her. No one ordered Lini except Faile.

  Glumly Perrin watched the scouts ride out through the falling snow, ten men already watching the trees around them before they were beyond sight of the carts. Light, women would believe anything about a man so long as it was bad. And the worse it was, the more they had to talk about it. He had thought Rosene and Nana were all he had to worry about. Likely Lini had told Breane, Faile’s other maid, first thing on getting back, and by this time, Breane surely had told every woman in the camp. There were plenty among the horse handlers and cart drivers, and Cairhienin being Cairhienin, they probably had been eager to pass everything on to the men, too. That sort of thing was not seen with charity in the Two Rivers. Once you gained the reputation, losing it was not easy. Suddenly the men backing away to give him room took on a new light, and the uncertain way they had looked at him, and even Lem spitting. In memory, Kenly’s grin became a smirk. The one bright spot was that Faile would not believe it. Of course she would not. Certainly not.

  Kenly returned at a stumbling trot through the snow, drawing Stepper and his own rangy gelding behind. Both horses were miserable with the cold, their ears folded back and tails tight, and the dun stallion made no effort to bite at Kenly’s mount, as he usually would have.

  “Don’t show your teeth all the time,” Perrin snapped, snatching Stepper’s reins. The boy eyed him doubtfully, then slunk away glancing back over his shoulder.

  Growling under his breath, Perrin checked the stallion’s saddle girth. It was time to find Masema, but he did not mount. He told himself it was because he was tired and hungry, that he wanted just a bit of rest and something in his belly, if he could find anything. He told himself that, but he kept seeing burned farms and bodies hanging by the side of the road, men and women and even children. Even if Rand was still in Altara, it was a long way. A long way, and he had no choice. None he could make himself take.

  He was standing with his forehead sunk against Stepper’s saddle when a delegation of the young fools who had attached themselves to Faile sought him out, near a dozen of them. He straightened wearily, wishing the snow would bury them all.

  Selande planted herself alongside Stepper’s hindquarters, a short slender woman with green-gloved fists on her hips and an angry scowl creasing her forehead. She managed to swagger standing still. Despite the falling snow, one side of her cloak was thrown back to give easy access to her sword, exposing six bright slashes across the front of her dark blue coat. All the women wore men’s clothing and swords, and usually they were twice as ready to use them as the men, which was saying quite a bit. Men and women alike, they were touchy with everyone, an
d would have been fighting duels every day had not Faile put a stop to it. Men and women alike, the lot with Selande smelled angry, sullen, sulky and petulant, all jumbled together, a scent that twitched uncomfortably in his nose.

  “I see you, my Lord Perrin,” Selande said formally in the crisp accents of Cairhien. “Preparations are being made to move out, but still we are refused our horses. Will you have this made right?” She made it sound a demand.

  She saw him, did she? He wished he did not see her. “Aiel walk,” he growled, and stifled a yawn, not caring a whit for the furious glares that earned him. He tried to put sleep out of his mind. “If you won’t walk, ride on the carts.”

  “You cannot do that!” one of the Tairen women announced haughtily, one hand tight on the edge of her cloak, the other on her sword hilt. Medore was tall, with bright blue eyes in a dark face, and if she missed beautiful, it was not by much. The fat, red-striped sleeves of her coat looked decidedly odd with her full bosom. “Redwing is my favorite mount! I won’t be denied her!”

  “Third time,” Selande said cryptically. “When we stop tonight, we will discuss your toh, Medore Damara.”

  Supposedly, Medore’s father was an aging man who had retired to his country estates years ago, but Astoril was still a High Lord for all that. As those things were reckoned, that put his daughter well above Selande, only a minor noble in Cairhien. Yet Medore swallowed hard, and her eyes widened till she looked as though she expected to be skinned alive.

  Abruptly Perrin had had all he could take of these idiots and their dog’s dinner of Aiel bits and pieces and pure highborn jacfoolery. “When did you start spying for my wife?” he demanded. They could not have gone stiffer had their backbones frozen.

  “We carry out such small tasks and errands as the Lady Faile might require of us from time to time,” Selande said after a long moment, in very careful tones. Wariness was thick in her scent. The whole gaggle of them smelled like foxes wondering whether a badger had taken over their den.

  “Did my wife really go hunting, Selande?” he growled heatedly. “She’s never wanted to before.” Anger roared in him, flames fanned by all the events of the day. He pushed Stepper away with one hand and stepped closer to the woman, looming over her. The stallion tossed his head, sensing Perrin’s humor. His fist ached in his gauntlet from its grip on the reins. “Or did she ride out to meet some of you, fresh from Abila? Was she kidnapped because of your bloody spying?”

  That made no sense, and he knew it as the words left his mouth. Faile could have talked with them anywhere. And she would never have arranged to meet her eyes-and-ears—Light, her spies!—in company with Berelain. It was always a mistake to speak without thinking. He knew about Masema and the Seanchan because of their spying. But he wanted to lash out, he needed to lash out, and the men he wanted to hammer into nothingness were miles away. With Faile.

  Selande did not back away from his anger. Her eyes narrowed to slits. Her fingers opened and closed on the hilt of her sword, and she was not alone. “We would die for the Lady Faile!” she spat. “Nothing we have done has put her in danger! We are sworn to her by water oath!” To Faile and not to him, her tone added.

  He should apologize. He knew he should. Instead, he said, “You can have your horses if you give me your word you’ll do as I say and not try anything rash.” “Rash” was not the word for this lot. They were capable of rushing off alone as soon as they learned where Faile was. They were capable of getting Faile killed. “When we find her, I will decide how to rescue her. If your water oath says different, tie a knot in it, or I’ll tie you in knots.”

  Her jaw tightened and her scowl deepened, but finally she said “I agree!” as though the words were being pried out of her. One of the Tairens, a long-nosed fellow named Carlon, grunted in protest, but Selande raised one finger, and he shut his mouth. With that narrow chin, he probably regretted shaving off his beard. The little woman had the rest of these fools in the palm of her hand, which did not make her any less a fool herself. Water oath, indeed! She did not take her eyes from Perrin’s. “We will obey you until the Lady Faile is returned. Then, we are hers again. And she can decide our toh.” That last seemed more for the others than him.

  “Good enough,” he told her. He attempted to moderate his tone, but his voice was still rough. “I know you are loyal to her, all of you. I respect that.” That was about all he did respect in them. As an apology it was not very much, and that was just how they took it. A grunt from Selande was the only reply he got, that and glowers from the rest as they stalked off. So be it. As long as they kept their word. The whole bunch had never done an honest day’s work between them.

  The camp was emptying out. The carts had begun moving south, sliding on their sleds behind the carthorses. The horses left deep tracks, but the sleds made only shallow ruts that the falling snow began to bury immediately. The last of the men from the hill were scrambling into their saddles and joining the others already riding with the carts. Just off to one side, the Wise Ones’ party began to pass, even the gai’shain leading the pack animals themselves mounted. However firm Dannil had dared to be, or not as was more likely, apparently it had been enough. The Wise Ones looked particularly awkward on horseback compared to the grace of Seonid and Masuri, though not so bad as the gai’shain. The white-robed men and women had all been riding since the third day in snow, yet they crouched low over the tall pommels of their saddles and clung to neck or mane as if expecting to fall off at the next step. Getting them mounted in the first place had required direct commands from the Wise Ones, and some would still slide down and walk if they were not watched.

  Perrin pulled himself up onto Stepper. He was not sure he might not fall off himself. It was time to make this ride he did not want to make, though. He would have killed for a piece of bread. Or some cheese. Or a nice rabbit.

  “Aiel coming!” someone shouted from the head of the column, and everything came to a halt. More shouts rang out, passing the word as if everyone had not already heard, and men unlimbered bows from their backs. Cart drivers stood up on their seats, peering ahead, or leaped down to crouch beside the cart. Growling under his breath, Perrin heeled Stepper in the flanks.

  At the front of the column, Dannil was still in his saddle, and the two men carrying those bloody banners, but a good thirty were on the ground, coverings stripped from their bowstrings and arrows nocked. The men holding the horses for the dismounted men jostled about, pointing and trying to get a clear view. Grady and Neald were there, as well, peering ahead with intent faces but sitting on their horses calmly. Everyone else reeked of agitation. The Asha’man only smelled . . . ready.

  Perrin could make out what they were staring at through the trees a good deal more clearly than they. Ten veiled Aiel trotting toward them through the falling snow, one leading a tall white horse. A little behind them rode three men, cloaked and hooded. There seemed to be something odd in the way the Aiel moved. And there was a bundle tied to the white’s saddle. A fist gripped Perrin’s heart until he realized it was not nearly large enough to be a body.

  “Put up your bows,” he said. “That’s Alliandre’s gelding. It must be our people. Can’t you see the Aiel are all Maidens?” Not a one was tall enough to be an Aielman.

  “I can barely make out they’re Aiel,” Dannil muttered, giving him a sidelong look. They all took it for granted that his eyes were good, even took pride in it—or used to—but he tried to keep them from knowing how good. Right then, he did not care, though.

  “They are ours,” he told Dannil. “Everybody stay here.”

  Slowly he rode out to meet the returning party. The Maidens began unveiling as he approached. In one of the deep cowls on the mounted men, he made out Furen Alharra’s black face. The three Warders, then; they would have come back together. Their horses looked as tired as he felt, near exhaustion. He wanted to force Stepper to run, to hear what they had to report. He dreaded hearing. Ravens would have been at the bodies, and foxes, badgers maybe,
and the Light alone knew what besides. Maybe they thought they were sparing him by not bringing back what they had found. No! Faile had to be alive. He tried to fix that thought in his head, but it hurt like gripping a sharp blade barehanded.

  Dismounting in front of them, he stumbled and had to hold on to the saddle to keep from falling. He felt numb around the bright pain of holding on to that one thought. She had to be alive. Little details loomed large, for some reason. Not one bundle fastened to the elaborately tooled saddle, but a number of small bundles that looked like gathered rags. The Maidens wore snowshoes, rough-made of vines and supple pine branches with the needles still on. That was why they seemed to be moving oddly. Jondyn must have shown them how to make them. He tried to focus. He thought his heart was going to pound through his ribs.

  Gripping spears and buckler in her left hand, Sulin took one of the small bundles of cloth from the saddle before she came to him. The pink scar running down her leathery cheek twisted as she smiled. “Good news, Perrin Aybara,” she said softly, handing him the dark blue cloth. “Your wife lives.” Alharra exchanged glances with Seonid’s other Warder, Teryl Wynter, who frowned. Masuri’s man, Rovair Kirklin, stared straight ahead stonily. It was as plain as Wynter’s curled mustaches that they were not sure it was good news. “The others press on to see what more they can find,” she went on. “Though we already have found oddities enough.”

  Perrin let the bundle fall open in his hands. It was Faile’s dress, sliced down the front and along the arms. He inhaled deeply, pulling Faile’s scent into him, a faint trace of her flowery soap, a touch of her sweet perfume, but most of all, the smell that was her. And no hint of blood. The rest of the Maidens gathered around him, mostly older women with hard faces, though not as hard as Sulin’s. The Warders climbed down, showing no sign that they had been all night in the saddle, but they held back behind the Maidens.

  “All of the men were killed,” the wiry woman said, “but by the garments we found, Alliandre Kigarin, Maighdin Dorlain, Lacile Aldorwin, Arrela Shiego, and two more also were made gai’shain.” The other two must have been Bain and Chiad; mentioning them by name, that they had been taken, would have shamed them. He had learned a little about Aiel. “This goes against custom, but it protects them.” Wynter frowned in doubt, then tried to hide it by adjusting his hood.