The Great Hunt twot-2

by Robert Jordan

  Hurin caught his arm. "Please, Lord Rand." His voice was an urgent whisper. "Please don't do that again."

  "Again? You really think I'll receive more?"

  "I'm certain. Light, but you mind me of the time Teva got so mad at a hornet buzzing round his ears, he kicked the nest. You've likely just convinced everyone in the room you are in some deep part of the Game. It must be deep, as they'll see it, if you deny playing at all. Every lord and lady in Cairhien plays it." The sniffer glanced at the invitations, curling blackly in the fire, and winced. "And you have surely made enemies of three Houses. Not great Houses, or they'd not have moved so quickly, but still noble. You must answer any more invitations you receive, my Lord. Decline if you will — though they'll read things into whose invitations you do decline. And into whose you accept. Of course, if you decline them all, or accept them all—"

  "I'll have no part of it," Rand said quietly. "We are leaving Cairhien as soon as we can." He thrust his fists into his coat pockets, and felt Selene's note crumple. Pulling it out, he smoothed it on his coat front. "As soon as we can," he muttered, putting it back in his pocket again. "Have your drink, Hurin."

  He stalked out angrily, not sure whether he was angry with himself, or with Cairhien and its Great Game, or Selene for vanishing, or Moiraine. She had started it all, stealing his coats and giving him a lord's clothes instead. Even now that he called himself free of them, an Aes Sedai still managed to interfere in his life, and without even being there.

  He went back through the same gate by which he had entered the city, since that was the way he knew. A man standing in front of the guardhouse took note of him — his bright coat marked him out, as well as his height among the Cairhienin — and hurried inside, but Rand did not notice. The laughter and music of the Foregate were pulling him on.

  If his gold-embroidered red coat made him stand out inside the walls, it fit right into the Foregate. Many of the men milling through the crowded streets were dressed just as darkly as those in the city, but just as many wore coats of red, or blue, or green, or gold — some bright enough to be a Tinker's clothes — and even more of the women had embroidered dresses and colored scarves or shawls. Most of the finery was tattered and ill-fitting, as if made for someone else originally, but if some of those who wore it eyed his fine coat, none seemed to take it amiss.

  Once he had to stop for another procession of giant puppets. While the drummers beat their tambours and capered, a pig-faced Trolloc with tusks fought a man in a crown. After a few desultory blows, the Trolloc collapsed to laughter and cheers from the onlookers.

  Rand grunted. They don't die so easily as that.

  He glanced into one of the large, windowless buildings, stopping to look through the door. To his surprise, it seemed to be one huge room, open to the sky in the middle and lined with balconies, with a large dais at one end. He had never seen or heard of anything like it. People jammed the balconies and the floor watching people perform on the dais. He peeked into others as he passed them, and saw jugglers, and musicians, any number of tumblers, and even a gleeman, with his cloak of patches, declaiming a story from The Great Hunt of the Horn in sonorous-voice High Chant.

  That made him think of Thom Merrilin, and he hurried on. Memories of Thom were always sad. Thom had been a friend. A friend who had died for him. While I ran away and let him die.

  In another of the big structures, a woman in voluminous white robes appeared to make things vanish from one basket and appear in another, then disappear from her hands in great puffs of smoke. The crowd watching her oohed and aahed loudly.

  "Two coppers, my good Lord," a ratty little man in the doorway said. "Two coppers to see the Aes Sedai."

  "I don't think so." Rand glanced back at the woman. A white dove had appeared in her hands. Aes Sedai? "No." He gave the ratty man a small bow and left.

  He was making his way through the throng, wondering what to see next, when a deep voice, accompanied by the plucking of a harp, drifted out from a doorway with the sign of a juggler over it.

  "… cold blows the wind down Shara Pass; cold lies the grave unmarked. Yet every year at Sunday, upon those piled stones appears a single rose, one crystal teardrop like dew upon the petals, laid by the fair hand of Dunsinin, for she keeps fast to the bargain made by Rogosh Eagle-eye."

  The voice drew Rand like a rope. He pushed through the doorway as applause rose within.

  "Two coppers, my good Lord," said a rat-faced man who could have been twin to the other. "Two coppers to see —"

  Rand dug out some coins and thrust them at the man. He walked on in a daze, staring at the man bowing on the dais to the clapping of his listeners, cradling his harp in one arm and with the other spreading his patch-covered cloak as if to trap all the sound they made. He was a tall man, lanky and not young, with long mustaches as white as the hair on his head. And when he straightened and saw Rand, the eyes that widened were sharp and blue.

  "Thom." Rand's whisper was lost in the noise of the crowd.

  Holding Rand's eye, Thom Merrilin nodded slightly toward a small door beside the dais. Then he was bowing again, smiling and basking in the applause.

  Rand made his way to the door and through it. It was only a small hallway, with three steps leading up to the dais. In the other direction from the dais Rand could see a juggler practicing with colored balls, and six tumblers limbering themselves.

  Thom appeared on the steps, limping as though his right leg did not bend as well as it had. He eyed the juggler and the tumblers, blew out his mustaches disdainfully, and turned to Rand. "All they want to hear is The Great Hunt of the Horn. You would think, with the news from Haddon Mirk and Saldaea, one of them would ask for The Karaethon Cycle. Well, maybe not that, but I'd pay myself to tell something else." He looked Rand up and down. "You look as if you're doing well, boy." He fingered Rand's collar and pursed his lips. "Very well."

  Rand could not help laughing. "I left Whitebridge sure you were dead. Moiraine said you were still alive, but I … Light, Thom, it's good to see you again! I should have gone back to help you."

  "Bigger fool if you had, boy. That Fade" — he looked around; there was no one close enough to hear, but he lowered his voice anyway—"had no interest in me. It left me a little present of a stiff leg and ran off after you and Mat. All you could have done was die." He paused, looking thoughtful. "Moiraine said I was still alive, did she? Is she with you, then?"

  Rand shook his head. To his surprise, Thom seemed disappointed.

  "Too bad, in a way. She's a fine woman, even if she is …" He left it unsaid. "So it was Mat or Perrin she was after. I won't ask which. They were good boys, and I don't want to know." Rand shifted uneasily, and gave a start when Thom fixed him with a bony finger. "What I do want to know is, do you still have my harp and flute? I want them back, boy. What I have now are not fit for a pig to play."

  "I have them, Thom. I'll bring them to you, I promise. I can't believe you are alive. And I can't believe you aren't in Illian. The Great Hunt setting out. The prize for the best telling of The Great Hunt of the Horn. You were dying to go."

  Thom snorted. "After Whitebridge? Likely I'd die if I did go. Even if I could have reached the boat before it sailed, Domon and his whole crew would be spreading the tale all over Illian about how I was being chased by Trollocs. If they saw the Fade, or heard of it, before Domon cut his lines … Most Illianers think Trollocs and Fades are fables, but enough others might want to know why a man was pursued by them to make Illian somewhat more than uncomfortable."

  "Thom, I have so much to tell you."

  The gleeman cut him off. "Later, boy." He was exchanging glares down the length of the hall with the narrow-faced man from the door. "If I don't go back and tell another, he will no doubt send the juggler out, and that lot will tear the hall down around our heads. You come to The Bunch of Grapes, just beyond the Jangai Gate. I have a room there. Anyone can tell you where to find it. I'll be there in another hour or so. One more tale will have t
o satisfy them." He started back up the steps, flinging over his shoulder, "And bring my harp and my flute!"

  Chapter 26

  (Harp)

  Discord

  Rand darted through the common room of The Defender of the Dragonwall and hurried upstairs, grinning at the startled look the innkeeper had given him. Rand wanted to grin at everything. Thom's alive!

  He flung open the door to his room and went straight to the wardrobe.

  Loial and Hurin put their heads in from the other room, both in their shirtsleeves and with pipes in their teeth trailing thin streams of smoke.

  "Has something happened, Lord Rand?" Hurin asked anxiously.

  Rand slung the bundle made from Thom's cloak on his shoulder. "The best thing that could, next to Ingtar coming. Thom Merrilin's alive. And he's here, in Cairhien."

  "The gleeman you told me about?" Loial said. "That is wonderful, Rand. I would like to meet him."

  "Then come with me, if Hurin's willing to keep watch awhile."

  "It would be a pleasure, Lord Rand." Hurin took the pipe out of his mouth. "That lot in the common room kept trying to pump me — without letting on what they were doing, of course — about who you are, my Lord, and why we're in Cairhien. I told them we were waiting here to meet friends, but being Cairhienin, they figured I was hiding something deeper."

  "Let them think what they want. Come on, Loial."

  "I think not." The Ogier sighed. "I really would rather stay here." He raised a book with a thick finger marking his place. "I can meet Thom Merrilin some other time."

  "Loial, you can't stay cooped up in here forever. We do not even know how long we'll be in Cairhien. Anyway, we didn't see any Ogier. And if we do, they would not be hunting for you, would they?"

  "Not hunting, precisely, but … Rand, I may have been too hasty in leaving Stedding Shangtai the way I did. When I do go home, I may be in a great deal of trouble." His ears wilted. "Even if I wait until I'm as old as Elder Haman. Perhaps I could find an abandoned stedding to stay in until then."

  "If Elder Haman won't let you come back, you can live in Emond's Field. It's a pretty place." A beautiful place.

  "I am sure it is, Rand, but that would never work. You see —"

  "We will talk about it when it comes to that, Loial. Now you are coming to see Thom."

  The Ogier stood half again as tall as Rand, but Rand pushed him into his long tunic and cloak and down the stairs. When they came pounding through the common room, Rand winked at the innkeeper, then laughed at his startled look. Let him think I'm off to play his bloody Great Game. Let him think what he wants. Thom's alive.

  Once through the Jangai Gate, in the east wall of the city, everyone seemed to know The Bunch of Grapes. Rand and Loial quickly found themselves there, on a street that was quiet for the Foregate, with the sun halfway down the afternoon sky.

  It was an old three-story structure, wooden and rickety, but the common room was clean and full of people. Some men were playing at dice in one corner, and some women at darts in another. Half had the look of Cairhienin, slight and pale, but Rand heard Andoran accents as well as others he did not know. All wore the clothes of the Foregate, though, a blend of the styles of half a dozen countries. A few looked around when he and Loial came in, but they all turned back to what they had been doing.

  The innkeeper was a woman with hair as white as Thom's, and sharp eyes that studied Loial as well as Rand. She was not Cairhienin, by her dark skin and her speech. "Thom Merrilin? Aye, he has a room. Top of the stairs, first door on the right. Likely Dena will let you wait for him there" — she eyed Rand's red coat, with its herons on the high collar and golden brambles embroidered up the sleeves, and his sword—"my Lord."

  The stairs creaked under Rand's boots, let alone Loial's. Rand was not sure if the building would stand up much longer. He found the door and knocked, wondering who Dena was.

  "Come in," a woman's voice called. "I cannot open it for you."

  Rand opened the door hesitantly and put his head in. A big, rumpled bed was shoved against one wall, and the rest of the room was all but taken up by a pair of wardrobes, several brass-bound trunks and chests, a table and two wooden chairs. The slender woman sitting cross-legged on the bed with her skirts tucked under her was keeping six colored balls spinning in a wheel between her hands.

  "Whatever it is," she said, looking at her juggling, "leave it on the table. Thom will pay you when he comes back."

  "Are you Dena?" Rand asked.

  She snatched the balls out of the air and turned to regard him. She was only a handful of years older than he, pretty, with fair Cairhienin skin and dark hair hanging loose to her shoulders. "I do not know you. This is my room, mine and Thom Merrilin's."

  "The innkeeper said you might let us wait here for Thom," Rand said. "If you're Dena?"

  "Us?" Rand moved into the room so Loial could duck inside, and the young woman's eyebrows lifted. "So the Ogier have come back. I am Dena. What do you want?" She looked at Rand's coat so deliberately that the failure to add "my Lord" had to be purposeful, though her brows went up again at the herons on his scabbard and sword hilt.

  Rand hefted the bundle he carried. "I've brought Thom back his harp and his flute. And I want to visit with him," he added quickly; she seemed on the point of telling him to leave them. "I haven't seen him in a long time."

  She eyed the bundle. "Thom always moans about losing the best flute and the best harp he ever had. You would think he was a court-bard, the way he carries on. Very well. You can wait, but I must practice. Thom says he will let me perform in the halls next week." She rose gracefully and took one of the two chairs, motioning Loial to sit on the bed. "Zera would make Thom pay for six chairs if you broke one of these, friend Ogier."

  Rand gave their names as he sat in the other chair — it creaked alarmingly under even his weight — and asked doubtfully, "Are you Thom's apprentice?"

  Dena gave a small smile. "You might say that." She had resumed her juggling, and her eyes were on the whirling balls.

  "I have never heard of a woman gleeman," Loial said.

  "I will be the first." The one big circle became two smaller, overlapping circles. "I will see the whole world before I am done. Thom says once we have enough money, we will go down to Tear." She switched to juggling three balls in each hand. "And then maybe out to the Sea Folk's islands. The Atha'an Miere pay gleemen well."

  Rand eyed the room, with all the chests and trunks. It did not look like the room of someone intending to move on soon. There was even a flower growing in a pot on the windowsill. His gaze fell on the single big bed, where Loial was sitting. This is my room, mine and Thom Merrilin's. Dena gave him a challenging look through the large wheel she had resumed. Rand's face reddened.

  He cleared his throat. "Maybe we ought to wait downstairs," he began when the door opened and Thom came in with his cloak flapping around his ankles, patches fluttering. Cased flute and harp hung on his back; the cases were reddish wood, polished by handling.

  Dena made the balls disappear inside her dress and ran to throw her arms around Thom's neck, standing atiptoe to do it. "I missed you," she said, and kissed him.

  The kiss went on for some time, so long that Rand was beginning to wonder if he and Loial should leave, but Dena let her heels drop to the floor with a sigh.

  "Do you know what that lack-wit Seaghan's done now, girl?" Thom said, looking down at her. "He's taken on a pack of louts who call themselves 'players.' They walk around pretending to be Rogosh Eagle-eye, and Blaes, and Gaidal Cain, and… Aaagh! They hang a scrap of painted canvas behind them, supposed to make the audience believe these fools are in Matuchin Hall, or the high passes of the Mountains of Dhoom. I make the listener see every banner, smell every battle, feel every emotion. I make them believe they are Gaidal Cain. Seaghan will have his hall torn down around his ears if he puts this lot on to follow me."

  "Thom, we have visitors. Loial, son of Arent son of Halan. Oh, and a boy who calls himself Ran
d al'Thor."

  Thom looked over her head at Rand, frowning. "Leave us for a while, Dena. Here." He pressed some silver coins into her hand. "Your knives are ready. Why don't you go pay Ivon for them?" He brushed her smooth cheek with a gnarled knuckle. "Go on. I'll make it up to you."

  She gave him a dark look, but she tossed her cloak around her shoulders, muttering, "Ivon better have the balance right."

  "She'll be a bard one day," Thom said with a note of pride after she was gone. "She listens to a tale once — once only, mind! — and she has it right, not just the words, but every nuance, every rhythm. She has a fine hand on the harp, and she played the flute better the first time she picked it up than you ever did." He set the wooden instrument cases atop one of the larger trunks, then dropped into the chair she had abandoned. "When I passed through Caemlyn on the way here, Basel Gill told me you'd left in company with an Ogier. Among others." He bowed toward Loial, even managing a flourish of his cloak despite the fact that he was sitting on it. "I am pleased to meet you, Loial, son of Arent son of Halan."

  "And I to meet you, Thom Merrilin." Loial stood to make his bow in return; when he straightened, his head almost brushed the ceiling, and he quickly sat down again. "The young woman said she wants to be a gleeman."

  Thom's head shake was disparaging. "That's no life for a woman. Not much of a life for a man, for that. Wandering from town to town, village to village, wondering how they'll try to cheat you this time, half the time wondering where your next meal is coming from. No, I'll talk her around. She'll be Court-bard to a king or a queen before she's done. Aaaah! You didn't come here to talk about Dena. My instruments, boy. You've brought them?"

  Rand pushed the bundle across the table. Thom undid it hurriedly — he blinked when he saw it was his old cloak, all covered with colorful patches like the one he wore — and opened the hard leather flute case, nodding at the sight of the gold-and-silver flute nestled inside.