Beside the road behind the stakes stood a contraption of wood and thick, twisted rope, with a nearby pile of stones bigger than a man's head. Ihvon noticed Perrin frowning at it as they came closer. "Catapult," the Warder said. "Six, so far. Your carpenters knew what to do once Tomas and I showed them. The stakes will hold off charging Trollocs or Whitecloaks, either one." He might have been discussing the prospects for more rain.
"I told you your village was preparing to defend itself." Faile sounded fiercely proud, as though it were her village. "A hard people, for such a soft land. They could almost be Saldaean. Moiraine always said Manetheren's blood runs strong here still."
Perrin could only shake his head.
The hard-packed dirt streets were nearly crowded enough for a city, the gaps between houses filled with carts and wagons, and through open doors and unshuttered windows he could see more people. The crowd parted before Ihvon and the Aiel, and rustling whispers accompanied them along the street.
"It's Perrin Goldeneyes."
"Perrin Goldeneyes."
"Perrin Goldeneyes."
He wished they would not do that. These people knew him, some of them. What did they think they were doing? There was horse-faced Neysa Ayellin, who had paddled his ten-year-old backside that time Mat talked him into stealing one of her gooseberry pies. And there was pink-cheeked, big-eyed Cilia Cole, the first girl he had ever kissed and still pleasingly plump, and Pel Aydaer, with his pipe and his bald head, who had taught Perrin how to catch trout with his hands, and Daise Congar herself, a tall, wide woman who made Alsbet Luhhan seem soft, with her husband Wit, a scrawny man overshadowed as always by his wife. And they were all staring at him, and whispering to the people from off, who might not know who he was. When old Cenn Buie lifted a little boy up on his shoulder, pointing at Perrin and talking enthusiastically to the boy, Perrin groaned. They had all gone mad.
Townsfolk trailed after Perrin and the others, around them, in a parade that rode a swell of murmurs. Chickens scurried every which way under people's feet. Bawling calves and pigs squealing in pens behind the houses competed with the noise of the humans. Sheep crowded the Green, and black-and-white milkcows cropped the grass in company with flocks of geese, gray and white.
And in the middle of the Green rose a tall pole, the red-bordered white banner at its peak rippling lazily, displaying a red wolf's head. He looked at Faile, but she shook her head, as surprised as he.
"A symbol."
Perrin had not heard Verin approach, though now he caught hushed whispers of "Aes Sedai" floating around her. Ihvon did not look surprised. People stared at her with awe-filled eyes.
"People need symbols," Verin went on, resting a hand on Stepper's shoulder. "When Alanna told a few of the villagers how much Trollocs fear wolves, everyone seemed to think this banner a grand idea. Don't you, Perrin?" Was there a dryness in her voice then? Her dark eyes looked up at him, birdlike. A bird watching a worm?
"I wonder what Queen Morgase will think of that," Faile said. "This is part of Andor. Queens seldom like strange banners being raised in their realms."
"That's nothing but lines on a map," Perrin told her. It was good to be still; the throbbing from the arrowhead seemed to have abated somewhat. "I did not even know we were supposed to be part of Andor until I went to Caemlyn. I doubt many people here do."
"Rulers have a tendency to believe maps, Perrin." There was no doubt of the dryness in Faile's tone. "When I was a child, there were parts of Saldaea that had not seen a taxman in five generations. Once Father could turn his attention from the Blight for a time, Tenobia made sure they knew who their queen was."
"This is the Two Rivers," he said, grinning, "not Saldaea." They did sound very fierce, up there in Saldaea. As he turned back to Venn, the grin became a frown. "I thought you were… hiding… who you are." He could not say which was more disturbing; Aes Sedai there in secret, or Aes Sedai in the open.
The Aes Sedai's hand hovered an inch from the broken-off arrow jutting from his side. Something tingled around the wound. "Oh, this is not good," she murmured. "Caught in the rib, and some infection in spite of that poultice. This needs Alanna, I think." She blinked and pulled her hand back; the tingle went, too. "What? Hiding? Oh. With what has been stirred up here now, we could hardly remain hidden. I suppose we could have… gone away. You wouldn't want that, would you?" There was that sharp, considering, birdlike stare again.
He hesitated, and finally sighed. "I suppose not."
"Oh, that is good to hear," she said with a smile.
"Why did you really come here, Verin?"
She did not seem to hear him. Or did not want to. "Now we need to see to that thing in you. And these other lads need to be looked after, too. Alanna and I will see to the worst, but…"
The men with him were as stunned by what they found here as he was. Ban scratched his head at the banner, and a few just stared around in amazement. Most looked at Verin, though, wide-eyed and uneasy; they had surely heard the whispers of "Aes Sedai." Perrin was not escaping those looks entirely himself, he realized, talking to an Aes Sedai as though she were just any village woman.
Verin considered them right back, then suddenly, without seeming to look, reached behind her to snatch a girl of about ten or twelve out of the onlookers. The girl, her long dark hair caught up with blue ribbons, went rigid with shock. "You know Daise Congar, girl?" Verin said. "Well, you find her and tell her there are injured men who need a Wisdom's herbs. And tell her to jump. You tell her I'll have no patience with her airs. Do you have that? Off with you."
Perrin did not recognize the girl, but evidently she did know Daise, because she flinched at the message. But Verin was an Aes Sedai. After a moment of weighing — Daise Congar against an Aes Sedai — the girl scampered away into the crowd.
"And Alanna will take care of you," Verin said, peering up at him again.
He wished she did not sound as though there might be two meanings to that.
Chapter 43
(Flame of Tar Valon)
Care for the Living
Taking Stepper's bridle, Verin led him to the Winespring Inn herself, the crowd melting back to let her through, then falling in after. Dannil and Ban and the others trailed along on horse and afoot, kin mingling with them now. Astounded as they were by the changes in Emond's Field, the lads still showed their pride by striding even if they limped, or sitting up straighter in the saddle; they had faced Trollocs and come home. But women ran their hands over sons and nephews and grandsons, often biting back tears, and their low moans made a soft, pained murmur. Tight-eyed men tried to hide their worries behind proud smiles, clapping shoulders and exclaiming over newly begun beards, yet frequently their hugs just happened to turn into a shoulder to lean on. Sweethearts rushed in with kisses and loud cries, equal parts happiness and commiseration, and little brothers and sisters, uncertain, alternated between fits of weeping and clinging in wide-eyed wonder to a brother everyone seemed to be taking for a hero.
It was the other voices Perrin wished he could not hear.
"Where is Kenley?" Mistress Ahan was a handsome woman, with streaks of white in her nearly black braid, but she wore a fear-filled frown as she scanned faces and saw eyes flinch from hers. "Where's my Kenley?"
"Bili!" old Hu al'Dai called uncertainly. "Has anyone seen Bili al'Dai?"
"…Hu…!"
"…Jared…!"
"…Tim…!"
"…Colly…!"
In front of the inn, Perrin fell out of the saddle in his need to escape those names, not even seeing whose hands caught him. "Get me inside!" he grated. "Inside!"
"…Teven…!"
"…Haral…!"
"…Had…!"
The door cut off the heart-lost wails, and the cries of Dael al'Taron's mother for someone to tell her where her son was.
In a Trolloc cookpot, Perrin thought as he was lowered into a chair in the common room. In a Trolloc's belly, where I put him, Mistress al'Taron. Where I put him.
Faile had his head in her hands, peering into his face worriedly. Care for the living, he thought. I'll weep for the dead later. Later.
"I am all right," he told her. "I just got a little light-headed dismounting. I've never been a good rider." She did not seem to believe him.
"Can't you do something?" she demanded of Verin.
The Aes Sedai calmly shook her head. "I think better not, child. A pity neither of us is Yellow, but Alanna is still a much better Healer than I. My Talents lie in other directions. Ihvon will bring her. Wait with patience, child. "The common room had been turned into an armory of sorts. Except in front of the fireplace, the walls were a solid mass of propped spears of every description, with the occasional halberd or bill mixed in, and some polearms with oddly shaped blades, many pitted and discolored where old rust had been scoured away. Even more surprisingly, a barrel near the foot of the stairs held swords all jumbled together, most without scabbards and no two alike. Every attic within five miles must have been turned out for relics dust-covered for generations. Perrin would not have suspected there were five swords in the whole Two Rivers. Before the Whitecloaks and Trollocs came, anyway.
Gaul took a place off to one side, near the stairs that led up to the inn's rooms and the al'Veres' living quarters, watching Perrin but plainly aware of Verin and every move she made. On the other side of the room, watching Faile and all else, the two Maidens cradled their spears in the crook of an elbow and took a hipshot stance that seemed at once casual and yet balanced on the toes. The three young fellows who had carried Perrin in shifted their feet by the door, staring at him and the Aes Sedai and the Aiel with equally wide eyes. That was all.
"The others," Perrin said. "They need—"
"They will be taken care of," Verin interrupted smoothly, seating herself at another table. "They will want to be with their families. Much better to have loved ones close."
Perrin felt a stab of pain — the graves below the apple trees flashed in his mind — but he pushed it down. Take care of the living, he reminded himself harshly. The Aes Sedai brought out her pen and ink and began making notes in that small book in a precise hand. He wondered whether she cared how many Two Rivers folk died, so long as he lived, to be used in the White Tower's plans for Rand.
Faile squeezed his hand, but it was to the Aes Sedai that she spoke. "Should we not take him up to a bed?"
"Not yet," Perrin told her irritably. Verin looked up and opened her mouth, and he repeated in a firmer voice, "Not yet." The Aes Sedai shrugged and went back to her note-taking. "Does anyone know where Loial is?"
"The Ogier?" one of the three by the door said. Dav Ayellin was stockier than Mat, but he had that same twinkle in his dark eyes. He had the same rumpled, uncombed look about him as Mat, too. In the old days, what little mischief Mat did not get up to, Dav did, though Mat usually led the way. "He's out with the men clearing back the Westwood. You'd think we were cutting down his brother every time we cut a tree, but he clears three to anybody else's one with that monstrous axe he had Master Luhhan make. If you want him, I saw Jaim Thane running to tell them you had come in. I'll bet they all come to get a look at you." Peering at the broken-off arrow, he winced and rubbed his own side in sympathy. "Does it hurt much?"
"It hurts enough," Perrin said curtly. Coming to get a look at him. What am I, a gleeman? "What about Luc? I don't want to see him, but is he here?"
"I'm afraid not." The second man, Elam Dowtry, rubbed his long nose. Incongruous with his farmer's wool coat and his cowlick, he wore a sword at his belt; the hilt had been freshly wrapped in rawhide and the leather scabbard flaked and peeling. "Lord Luc is off hunting the Horn of Valere, I think. Or maybe Trollocs."
Dav and Elam were Perrin's friends, or had been, companions in hunting and fishing, both his age near enough, but their thrilled grins made them seem younger. Either Mat or Rand could have passed for five years older at least. Maybe he could, too.
"I hope he comes back soon," Elam went on. "He has been showing me how to use a sword. Did you know he's a Hunter for the Horn? And a king, if he had his rights. Of Andor, I hear."
"Andor has queens," Perrin muttered absently, meeting Faile's gaze, "not kings."
"So he is not here," she said. Gaul shifted slightly; he looked ready to go hunting for Luc, his eyes blue ice. It would not have surprised Perrin to see Bain and Chiad veil themselves on the spot.
"No," Verin said vaguely, manifestly more intent on her notes than what she was saying. "Not that he hasn't been a help sometimes, but he does have a way of causing trouble when he is here. Yesterday, before anyone knew what he was doing, he led a delegation out to meet a Whitecloak patrol and told them Emond's Field was closed to them. He apparently told them not to come within ten miles. I cannot approve of Whitecloaks, but I do not suppose they took that very well. Not wise to antagonize them more than is strictly necessary." Frowning at what she had written, she rubbed her nose, seemingly unaware of leaving a smudge of ink.
Perrin did not much care how the Whitecloaks took anything. "Yesterday," he breathed. If Luc had come back to the village yesterday, it was not likely he could have had anything to do with Trollocs being where they were not expected. The more Perrin thought about how that ambush turned around, the more he thought the Trollocs must have been expecting them. And the more he wanted to blame Luc. "Wanting won't make a stone cheese," he muttered. "But he still smells like cheese to me."
Dav and the other two looked at each other doubtfully. Perrin supposed he must not seem to be making much sense.
"It was a bunch of Coplins, mainly," the third fellow said in a startlingly deep voice. "Darl and Hari and Dag and Ewal. And Wit Congar. Daise gave him a fit over it."
"I heard they all liked the Whitecloaks." Perrin thought the bass-voiced fellow seemed familiar. He was younger than Elam and Dav by two or three years yet an inch taller, lean-faced but with wide shoulders.
"They did." The fellow laughed. "You know them. They drift naturally toward anything that makes trouble for somebody else. Since Lord Luc has been talking, they're all for marching up to Watch Hill and telling the Whitecloaks to get out of the Two Rivers. Anyway, they're for somebody else marching up there. I think they mean to be well back in the pack."
If that face had been pudgy, and half a foot or more nearer the ground… "Ewin Einngar!" Perrin exclaimed. It could not be; Ewin was a stout, squeaky little nuisance who tried to crowd in whenever the older fellows got together. This lad would be as big as he was, or bigger, by the time he stopped growing. "Is that you?"
Ewin nodded with a broad grin. "We've been hearing all about you, Perrin," he said in that surprising bass, "fighting Trollocs, and having all kinds of adventures out in the world, so they say. I can still call you Perrin, can't I?"
"Light, yes!" Perrin barked. He was more than tired of this Goldeneyes business.
"I wish I'd gone with you last year." Dav rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Coming home with Aes Sedai, and Warders, and an Ogier." He made them sound like trophies. "All I ever do is herd cows and milk cows, herd cows and milk cows. That and hoe, and chop wood. You've had all the luck."
"What was it like?" Elam put in breathlessly. "Alanna Sedai said you've been all the way to the Great Blight, and I hear you've seen Caemlyn, and Tear. What's a city like? Are they really ten times as big as Emond's Field? Did you see a palace? Are there Darkfriends in the cities? Is the Blight really full of Trollocs and Fades and Warders?"
"Did a Trolloc give you that scar?" Voice like a bull or not, Ewin managed a sort of squeaky excitement. "I wish I had a scar. Did you see a queen? Or a king? I think I'd rather see a queen, but a king would be grand. What is the White Tower like? Is it as big as a palace?"
Faile smiled, amused, but Perrin blinked at the onslaught. Had they forgotten the Trollocs on Winternight, forgotten the Trollocs in the countryside right then? Elam clutched his sword hilt as if he wanted to be off for the Blight on the instant, and Dav was up on his toes, eyes gleaming, and Ewin lo
oked ready to grab Perrin's collar. Adventure? They were idiots. Yet there were hard times coming, harder than the Two Rivers had seen so far, he was afraid. It could not hurt if they had a little while longer before they learned the truth.
His side hurt, but he tried to answer. They seemed disappointed he had never seen the White Tower, or a king or a queen. He thought Berelain might suffice for a queen, but with Faile there he was not about to mention her. Some other things he shied away from; Falme, and the Eye of the World, the Forsaken, Callandor. Dangerous subjects, those, leading inevitably to the Dragon Reborn. He could tell them a little of Caemlyn, though, and Tear, of the Borderlands and the Blight. It was odd what they accepted and what not. The corrupted landscape of the Blight, seeming to rot while you looked at it, they ate up, and top-knotted Shienaran soldiers, and Ogier stedding where Aes Sedai could not wield the Power and Fades were reluctant to enter. But the size of the Stone of Tear, or the immensity of cities…
About his own supposed adventures, he said "Mainly I've just tried to keep from having my head split open. That's what adventures are, that and finding a place to sleep for the night, and something to eat. You go hungry a lot having adventures, and sleep cold or wet or both."
They did not like that very much, or appear to believe it any more than they believed that the Stone was as big as a small mountain. He reminded himself that he had known as little of the world before he left the Two Rivers. It did not help much. He had never been this wide-eyed. Had he? The common room seemed to be hot. He would have taken his coat off, but moving seemed too much effort.
The Shadow Rising twot-4 Page 79