The Shadow Rising twot-4

by Robert Jordan

"It isn't that. Faile, this Perrin Goldeneyes business is getting out of hand. I do not know who they think I am, but they keep asking me what to do, asking if it's all right, when they already know what has to be done, when they could figure it out with two minutes' thought."

  For a long moment she studied his face, those dark, tilted eyes thoughtful, then said, "How many years has it been since the Queen of Andor ruled here in fact?"

  "The Queen of Andor? I don't really know. A hundred years, maybe. Two hundred. What does that have to do with anything?"

  "These people do not remember how to deal with a queen — or a king. They are trying to puzzle it out. You must be patient with them."

  "A king?" he said weakly. He let his head drop down onto his arms on the table. "Oh, Light!"

  Laughing softly, Faile ruffled his hair. "Well, perhaps not that. I doubt very much that Morgase would approve. A leader, at least. But she would very definitely approve a man who brought lands back to her that her throne has not controlled in a hundred years or more. She would surely make that man a lord. Perrin of House Aybara, Lord of the Two Rivers. It has a good sound."

  "We do not need any lords in the Two Rivers," he growled at the oak tabletop. "Or kings, or queens. We are free men!"

  "Free men can have a need to follow someone, too," she said gently. "Most men want to believe in something larger than themselves, something wider than their own fields. That is why there are nations, Perrin, and peoples. Even Raen and Ila see themselves as part of something more than their own caravan. They have lost their wagons and most of their family and friends, but other Tuatha'an still seek the song, and they will again, too, because they belong to more than a few wagons."

  "Who owns these?" Aram asked suddenly.

  Perrin raised his head. The young Tinker was on his feet, staring uneasily at the spears lining the walls. "They belong to anybody who wants one, Aram. Nobody is going to hurt you with any of them, believe me." He was not sure if Aram did believe, not the way he began walking slowly around the room with his hands stuffed into his pockets, eyeing spears and halberds sideways.

  Perrin was more than grateful to dig in when Marin brought him a plate of sliced roast goose, with turnips and peas and good crusty bread. At least, he would have dug in, if Faile had not tucked a flower-embroidered napkin under his chin and snatched the knife and fork out of his hands. She seemed to find it amusing to feed him the way Bode and Eldrin had been feeding Aram. The Cauthon girls giggled at him, and Natti and Marin wore little smiles, too. Perrin did not see what was so funny. He was willing to indulge Faile, though, even if he could have fed himself more easily. She kept making him stretch his neck to take what she had on the fork.

  Aram's slow wandering took him around the room three times before he stopped at the foot of the stairs, staring at the barrel of ill-assorted swords. Then he reached out and pulled a sword from the cluster, hefting it awkwardly. The leather-wrapped hilt was long enough for both of his hands. "Can I use this one?" he asked.

  Perrin nearly choked.

  Alanna appeared at the head of the stairs, with Ila; the Tuatha'an woman looked weary, but the bruise was gone from her face. "…best thing is sleep," the Aes Sedai was saying. "It is shock to his mind that troubles him most, and I cannot Heal that."

  Ila's eyes fell on her grandson, on what he held, and she screamed as if that blade had gone into her flesh. "No, Aram! Nooooo!" She almost fell in her haste to get down the stairs and flung herself on Aram, trying to pull his hands from the sword. "No, Aram," she panted breathlessly. "You must not. Put it down. The Way of the Leaf. You must not! The Way of the Leaf! Please, Aram! Please!"

  Aram danced with her, fending her off clumsily, trying to hold the sword away from her. "Why not?" he shouted angrily. "They killed Mother! I saw them! I might have saved her, if I had had a sword. I could have saved her!"

  The words sliced at Perrin's chest. A Tinker with a sword seemed an unnatural thing, almost enough to make his hackles stand, but those words…. His mother. "Leave him alone," he said, more roughly than he intended. "Any man has a right to defend himself, to defend his… He has a right."

  Aram pushed the sword toward Perrin. "Will you teach me how to use it?"

  "I don't know how," Perrin told him. "You can find someone, though."

  Tears rolled down Ila's contorted face. "The Trollocs took my daughter," she sobbed, her entire body shaking, "and all my grandchildren but one, and now you take him. He is Lost, because of you, Perrin Aybara. You have become a wolf in your heart, and now you will make him one, too." Turning, she stumbled back up the steps, still racked with sobs.

  "I could have saved her!" Aram called after her. "Grandmother! I could have saved her!" She never looked back, and when she vanished around the corner, he slumped against the banister, weeping. "I could have saved her, grandmother. I could have…"

  Perrin realized Bode was crying, too, with her face in her hands, and the other women were frowning at him as though he had done something wrong. No, not all of them. Alanna studied him from the head of the stairs with that unreadable Aes Sedai calm, and Faile's face was nearly as blank.

  Wiping his mouth, he tossed the napkin on the table and got up. There was still time to tell Aram to put the sword back, to go ask Ila's pardon. Time to tell him… what? That maybe next time he would not be there to watch his loved ones die? That maybe he could just come back to find their graves?

  He put a hand on Aram's shoulder, and the man flinched, hunching around the sword as if expecting him to take it. The Tinker's scent carried a wash of emotions, fear and hate and bone-deep sadness. Lost, Ila had called him. His eyes looked lost. "Wash your face, Aram. Then go find Tam al'Thor. Say I ask him to teach you the sword."

  Slowly the other man raised his face. "Thank you," he stammered, scrubbing at the tears on his cheeks with his sleeve. "Thank you. I will never forget this. Never. I swear it." Suddenly he hoisted the sword to kiss the straight blade; the hilt had a brass wolfhead for a pommel. "I swear. Is that not how it is done?"

  "I suppose it is," Perrin said sadly, wondering why he should feel sad. The Way of the Leaf was a fine belief, like a dream of peace, but like the dream it could not last where there was violence. He did not know of a place without that. A dream for some other man, some other time. Some other Age perhaps. "Go on, Aram. You have a lot to learn, and there may not be much time." Still bubbling thanks, the Tinker did not wait to wash his tears away, but ran straight out of the inn, carrying the sword upright before him in both hands.

  Conscious of Eldrin's scowl and Marin's fists on her hips and Natti's frown, not to mention Bode's weeping, Perrin walked back to his chair. Alanna had gone from her place at the top of the stairs. Faile watched him pick up his knife and fork. "You disapprove?" he said quietly. "A man has a right to defend himself, Faile. Even Aram. No one can make him follow the Way of the Leaf if he doesn't want to."

  "I do not like to see you in pain," she said very softly.

  His knife paused in cutting a piece of goose. Pain? That dream was not for him. "I am just tired," he told her, and smiled. He did not think she believed him.

  Before he had time to take a second mouthful, Bran stuck his head in at the front door. He wore his round steel cap again. "Riders coming from the north, Perrin. A lot of riders, I think it must be the Whitecloaks."

  Faile darted away as Perrin rose, and by the time he was outside on Stepper, with the Mayor muttering to himself about what he meant to say to the Whitecloaks, she came riding her black mare around the side of the inn. More people were running north than stayed at their tasks. Perrin was in no particular hurry. The Children of the Light might well be there to arrest him. They probably were. He did not mean to go along in chains, but he was not anxious to ask people to fight Whitecloaks for him. He followed behind Bran, joining the stream of men and women and children crossing the Wagon Bridge across the Winespring Water, Stepper's and Swallow's hooves clattering on the thick planks. A few tall willows grew here along
the water. The bridge was where the North Road began, than ran to Watch Hill and beyond. Some of the distant smoke plumes had thinned to wisps as fires burned themselves out.

  Where the road left the village, he found a pair of wagons blocking the road and men gathered behind pointed, slanting stakes with their bows and spears and such, smelling of excitement, murmuring to each other and all jammed together to watch what was coming down the road: a long double column of white-cloaked horsemen trailing a cloud of dust, conical helmets and burnished plate-and-mail shining in the afternoon sun, steel-tipped lances all at the same angle. At their head rode a youngish man, stiff-backed and stern-faced, who looked vaguely familiar to Perrin. With the arrival of the Mayor, the murmurs hushed expectantly. Or maybe it was Perrin's arrival that quieted them.

  Two hundred paces or so from the stakes, the stern-faced man raised a hand, and the column halted with sharp orders echoing down the files. He came on with just half a dozen Whitecloaks for company, running his eyes over the wagons and sharp stakes and the men behind. His manner would have named him a man of importance even without the knots of rank beneath the flaring sunburst on his cloak.

  Luc had appeared from somewhere, resplendent on his shiny black stallion in rich red wool and golden embroidery. Perhaps it was natural enough that the Whitecloak officer chose to address himself to Luc, though his dark eyes continued to probe. "I am Dain Bornhald," he announced, reining in, "Captain of the Children of the Light. You have done this for us? I have heard that Emond's Field is closed to the Children, yes? Truly a village of the Shadow if it is closed to the Children of the Light."

  Dain Bornhald, not Geofram. A son, perhaps. Not that it made any difference. Perrin supposed one would try to arrest him as soon as another. Sure enough, Bornhald's gaze swept past him, then jerked back. A convulsion seemed to seize the man; one gauntleted hand darted to his sword, his lips peeled back in a silent snarl, and for a moment Perrin was sure the man was about to charge, fling his horse onto the spiky barrier, to reach him. The man looked as if he bore Perrin a personal hatred. Up close, that hard face had a touch of slackness to it, a shine in those eyes that Perrin was used to seeing in Bili Congar's. He thought he could smell brandy fumes.

  The hollow-cheeked man beside Bornhald was more than familiar. Perrin would never forget those deep-set eyes, like dark burning coals. Tall and gaunt and hard as an anvil, Jaret Byar truly did look at him with hate. Whether or not Bornhald was a zealot, Byar surely was.

  Luc apparently had the sense not to try usurping Bran's place — indeed, he appeared intent on examining the white-cloaked column as the dust settled, revealing more Children stretching up the road — to Perrin's disgust, though Bran looked to him — to the blacksmith's apprentice — waited for his nod before answering. He was the Mayor! Bornhald and Byar plainly took note of the silent exchange.

  "Emond's Field is not precisely closed to you," Bran said, standing up straight with his spear propped out to one side. "We have decided to defend ourselves, and have this very morning. If you want to see our work, look there." He pointed toward the smoke rising from the Trollocs' pyres. A sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh drifted in the air, but no one except Perrin seemed to notice.

  "You have killed a few Trollocs?" Bornhald said contemptuously. "Your luck and skill amaze me."

  "More than a few!" somebody called out of the Two Rivers crowd. "Hundreds!"

  "We had a battle!" another voice cried, and dozens more shouted angrily on top of one another.

  "We fought them and won!"

  "Where were you?"

  "We can defend ourselves without any Whitecloaks!"

  "The Two Rivers!"

  "The Two Rivers and Perrin Goldeneyes!"

  "Goldeneyes!"

  "Goldeneyes!"

  Leof, who should have been over guarding the woodsmen, started waving that crimson wolfhead banner.

  Bornhald's hot-eyed hate took them all in, but Byar danced his bay gelding forward with a snarl. "Do you farmers think you know battle?" he roared. "Last night one of your villages was all but wiped out by Trollocs! Wait until they come at you in numbers, and you will wish your mother had never kissed your father!" He fell silent at a weary gesture from Bornhald, a fierce-trained dog obeying his master, but his words had quieted the Two Rivers people.

  "Which village?" Bran's voice was dignified and troubled both. "We all know people in Watch Hill, and Deven Ride."

  "Watch Hill has not been troubled," Bornhald replied, "and I know nothing of Deven Ride. This morning a rider brought me word that Taren Ferry hardly exists any longer. If you have friends there, many people did escape across the river. Across the river." His face tightened momentarily. "I myself lost nearly fifty good soldiers."

  The news produced a few queasy murmurs; no one liked to hear that sort of thing, but on the other hand, no one here knew anyone in Taren Ferry. Likely none of them had ever been that far.

  Luc pushed his horse forward, the stallion snapping at Stepper. Perrin reined his own mount tightly before the two began fighting, but Luc appeared not to notice or care. "Taren Ferry?" he said in a flat voice. "Trollocs attacked Taren Ferry last night?"

  Bornhald shrugged. "I said it, did I not? It seems that the Trollocs have at last decided to raid the villages. How providential that you here were warned in time to prepare these fine defenses." His stare ran over the pointed hedge and the men behind it before settling on Perrin.

  "Was the man called Ordeith at Taren Ferry last night?" Luc asked.

  Perrin stared at him. He had not known Luc even knew of Padan Fain, or the name he used now. But people did talk, especially when someone they knew as a peddler came back with authority among Whitecloaks. Bornhald's reaction was as strange as the question. His eyes glittered a hate as strong as he had shown for Perrin, but his face went pale, and he scrubbed at slack lips with the back of his hand as though he had forgotten he wore steel-backed gauntlets. "You know Ordeith?" he said, leaning toward Luc in his saddle.

  It was Luc's turn to shrug casually. "I have seen him here and there since coming to the Two Rivers. A disreputable-looking man, and those who follow him no less. The sort who might have been careless enough to allow a Trolloc attack to succeed. Was he there? If so, one can hope he died for his folly. If not, one hopes you have him here with you, close under your eye."

  "I do not know where he is," Bornhald snapped. "Or care! I did not come here to talk of Ordeith!" His horse pranced nervously as Bornhald flung out a hand, pointing at Perrin. "I arrest you as a Darkfriend. You will be taken to Amador, and there tried under the Dome of Truth."

  Byar stared at his Captain in disbelief. Behind the barrier separating the Whitecloaks from the Two Rivers men, angry mutters rose, spears and bills were hefted, bows raised. The farther Whitecloaks began spreading out in a gleaming line under shouted orders from a fellow as big in his armor as Master Luhhan, sliding lances into holders along their saddles, unlimbering short horsebows. At that range they could do little more than cover the escape of Bornhald and the men with him, if they did indeed manage an escape, but Bornhald appeared oblivious of any danger, and of anything at all save Perrin.

  "There will be no arrests," Bran said sharply, "We have decided that. No more arrests without proof of some crime, and proof we believe. You'll never show me anything to convince me Perrin is a Darkfriend, so you might as well put your hand down."

  "He betrayed my father to his death at Falme," Bornhald shouted. Rage shook him. "Betrayed him to Darkfriends and Tar Valon witches who murdered a thousand of the Children with the One Power!" Byar nodded vigorously.

  Some of the Two Rivers folk shifted uncertainly; word had spread of what Verin and Alanna had done that morning, and the deeds had grown in spreading. Whatever they thought about Perrin, a hundred tales of Aes Sedai, almost all wrong, made for easy belief in Aes Sedai destroying a thousand Whitecloaks. And if they believed that, they might come to believe the rest.

  "I betrayed no one," Perrin said in a
loud voice so everyone could hear. "If your father died at Falme, those who killed him are called the Seanchan. I don't know whether they are Darkfriends, but I do know they use the One Power in battle."

  "Liar!" Spittle flew from Bornhald's lips. "The Seanchan are a tale concocted by the White Tower to hide their foul lies! You are a Darkfriend!"

  Bran shook his head wonderingly, pushing his steel cap over to one side so he could scratch his fringe of gray hair. "I don't know anything about these — Seanchan? — about these Seanchan. What I do know is that Perrin is no Darkfriend, and you are not arresting anybody."

  The situation was growing more dangerous by the minute, Perrin realized. Byar saw it and tugged at Bornhald's arm, whispering to him, but the Whitecloak captain would not, or perhaps could not, back away now that he had Perrin in front of his eyes. Bran and the Two Rivers men had their heels planted, too; they might not be willing to let the Whitecloaks take him even if he confessed to everything Bornhald claimed. Unless someone tossed some water fast, everything was going to explode like a fistful of dry straw tossed on a forge-fire.

  He hated having to think quickly. Loial had the right of it. Hasty thinking led to people being hurt. But he thought he saw a way here. "Are you willing to hold off my arrest, Bornhald? Until the Trollocs are done with? I won't be going anywhere before then."

  "Why should I hold off?" The man was blind with hate. If he went on, a good many men were going to die, including him most likely, and he could not see. There was no use pointing it out.

  "Haven't you noticed all the farms burning this morning?" Perrin said instead. He made a sweeping gesture that took in all the dwindling plumes of smoke. "Look around. You said it yourself. The Trollocs aren't content with raiding a farm or two each night anymore. They're up to raiding villages. If you try to make it back to Watch Hill, you may not get there. You were lucky to come this far. But if you stay here, in Emond's Field…" Bran rounded on him, and other men shouted loud noes; Faile rode close and seized his arm, but he ignored all of them. "…you will know where I am, and your soldiers will be welcome to help our defenses."