Crossroads of Twilight (93 page)

“Master Balwer sends word, my Lord,” Latian said softly, head down. “His friend is traveling to sell his wares, but is expected back tomorrow or the next day. He said to ask whether it will be all right if we catch up to you then.” Peering under the horse’s belly at the winnowers down by the river, he added, “Though it hardly looks as if you will be away before.”

Perrin scowled down at the winnowing. He scowled at the line of carts waiting their turn to be loaded, at the half dozen or so that already had their canvas covers lashed down. One of those held the first of the leather for patching boots and candles and such. No oil, though. The lamp oil in So Habor smelled as rancid as the cooking oil. What if Gaul and the Maidens brought word of Faile? An actual sighting, perhaps? He would give anything to talk to someone who had seen her, could tell him she was unharmed. What if the Shaido began to move suddenly? “Tell Balwer not to wait too long,” he growled. “As for me, I’ll be away inside the hour.”

He was as good as his word. Most of the carts and drivers had to be left behind to make the one-day journey back to camp on their own, and Kireyin and his green-helmeted soldiers to guard them, with orders that no one was to cross the bridges. Cold-eyed, appearing completely recovered from
his breakdown, the Ghealdanin assured him that he was fit and ready. Very likely, orders or not, he would be going back into So Habor just to convince himself he was not afraid. Perrin did not waste time trying to talk him out of it. For one thing, Seonid had to be found. She was not precisely hiding, yet she had learned of his departure, and, leaving her Warders to hold her horse quite openly, she dodged about on foot trying to keep carts between herself and him. The pale Aes Sedai could not hide her scent, though, or if she could, she did not know it was necessary. She was surprised when he tracked her down quickly, and indignant when he marched her to her horse ahead of Stayer. Even so, he was well under the hour riding away from So Habor, with the Winged Guards making their ring of red armor around Berelain, the Two Rivers men surrounding the eight loaded carts that trundled along behind the three remaining banners, and Neald grinning for all he was worth. Not to mention trying to chat up the Aes Sedai. Perrin did not know what to do if the fellow really was going mad. As soon as the rise hid So Habor behind them, he felt the loosening of a knot he had not realized was riding between his shoulders. That left only ten others, and a knot of impatience twisting his belly. Berelain’s obvious sympathy could not loosen those.

Neald’s gateway took them from the snow-covered field to the small clearing of the Traveling ground amid the towering trees, four leagues in a step, but Perrin did not wait for the handful of carts to come through. He thought he heard Berelain make a vexed sound when he booted Stayer to a quick trot, back toward the camp. Or maybe it was one of the Aes Sedai. Much more likely.

There was a sense of stillness when he rode in among the Two Rivers men’s tents and huts. The sun still hung not too far off overhead in the gray sky, but there were no cookpots on the fires and very few of the men gathered around the campfires, holding their cloaks close and peering intently into the flames. A handful were sitting on the rough stools that Ban Crawe knew how to make; the rest stood or squatted. No one so much as looked up. Certainly no one came running to take his horse. Not stillness, he realized. Tension. The smell somehow minded him of a bow drawn to the point of breaking. He could almost hear the creak.

As he dismounted in front of the red-striped tent, Dannil appeared from the direction of the low Aiel tents, walking fast. Sulin and Edarra, one of the Wise Ones, were following him, and keeping up easily though neither appeared to hurry. Sulin’s face was a sun-dark leather mask. Edarra’s, barely revealed by the dark shawl wrapped around her head, was an image of calm.
Despite her bulky skirts, she made as little sound as the white-haired Maiden, not so much as a faint clink from her gold and ivory bracelets and necklaces. Dannil was chewing the edge of one thick mustache, absently pulling his sword an inch out of its rough leather scabbard and shoving it back hard. Pull and shove. He drew a deep breath before speaking.

“The Maidens brought in five Shaido, Lord Perrin. Arganda took them over to the Ghealdanin tents to put them to the question. Masema’s with them.”

Perrin brushed aside Masema’s presence inside the camp. “Why did you let Arganda take them?” he asked Edarra. Dannil could not have stopped it, but the Wise Ones were a different proposition.

Edarra appeared not much older than Perrin, yet her cool blue eyes seemed to have seen far more than he ever would. She folded her arms beneath her breasts in a rattle of bracelets. And with a touch of impatience. “Even Shaido know how to embrace pain, Perrin Aybara. It will take days to bring any of them to talk, and there seemed no reason to wait.”

If Edarra’s eyes were cool, Sulin’s were blue ice. “My spear-sisters and I could have done it faster ourselves, a little, but Dannil Lewin said you wanted no blows struck. Gerard Arganda is an impatient man, and he mistrusts us.” She sounded as though she would have spat if she were not Aiel. “You may not learn much, in any case. They are Stone Dogs. They will yield slowly, and as little as possible. In this, it is always necessary to put together a little from one with a little from another to make a picture.”

Embrace pain. There had to be pain, when you put a man to the question. He had not let that thought form in his head before this. But to get Faile back . . .

“Have somebody rub Stayer down,” he said roughly, thrusting the reins at Dannil.

The Ghealdanin portion of the camp could not have been more different from the rude shelters and haphazardly placed tents of the Two Rivers men. Here, the peaked canvas tents stood in precise rows, most with a steel-tipped cone of lances standing at the entry flaps and saddled horses tethered at the side, ready to mount. The flicking of the horses’ tails and the long streamers on the lances, lifting on a cold breeze, were the only disordered things to be seen. The paths between the tents were all the same width, and a straight line could have been drawn through the rows of cookfires. Even the creases in the canvas, from where the tents had been folded away at the bottom of carts until the snows came, made straight lines. All orderly and neat.

A smell of oatmeal porridge and boiled acorn hung in the air, and some green-coated men were scraping the last of the midday meal from their tin plates with their fingers. Others were already scouring out the cookpots. None showed any sign of tension. They were just eating and doing chores, with about equal pleasure. It was something that had to be done.

A large knot of men stood gathered in a ring near the sharpened stakes that marked the outer edge of the camp. No more than half wore the green coats and burnished breastplates of Ghealdanin lancers. Some of the others carried lances or had swords belted over their rumpled coats. Those ranged from fine silk or good wool to the pickings of a ragbag, but none could be called clean except in comparison to So Habor. You could always tell Masema’s men, even from the back.

Another smell came to him as he approached the circle of men. The smell of meat roasting. And there was a muffled sound that he tried not to hear. When he began pushing his way through, the soldiers looked around at him and gave way grudgingly. Masema’s men started back, muttering about yellow eyes and Shadowspawn. Either way, he gained passage to the front.

Four tall men, red-haired or pale in the gray-and-brown
cadin’sor,
lay bound with their wrists lashed to their ankles in the small of their backs and stout lengths of branch tied behind their knees and elbows. Their faces were battered and bruised, and they had wadded rags tied between their teeth. The fifth man was naked, staked out between four stout pegs driven into the ground and stretched so tight his sinews stood out. He thrashed as much as his binding allowed, though, and howled into the rags stuffing his mouth, a muffled bellow of agony. Hot coals made a small cluster on his belly, giving off a faint smoke. It was the smell of blistering flesh that Perrin’s nose had caught. The coals clung to the stretched man’s skin, and every time his writhing managed to throw one off, a grinning fellow in a filthy green silk coat, squatting beside him, used a pair of tongs to replace it with another from a potful melting a circle of mud in the ground. Perrin knew him. His name was Hari, and he liked to collect ears strung on a leather cord. Men’s ears, women’s ears, children’s ears; it never minded to Hari.

Without thinking, Perrin strode forward and kicked the little pile of coals off the bound man. Some of them struck Hari, who jumped back with a startled squeal that turned to a shriek when his hand came down in the pot. He toppled over sideways, cradling his burned hand and glaring at Perrin, a weasel in a human skin.

“The savage makes a sham, Aybara,” Masema said. Perrin had not even
noticed the man standing there, face like a scowling stone beneath his shaved scalp. His dark fevered eyes held a measure of contempt. The scent of madness skittered through the stink of burned flesh. “I know them. They pretend to feel pain, but they do not; not the way other men do. You must be willing and able to hurt a stone to make one of them talk.”

Arganda, rigid beside Masema, was gripping his sword hilt so hard that his hand shook. “Perhaps you are willing to lose your wife, Aybara,” he grated, “but I will not lose my queen!”

“It has to be done,” Aram said, half pleading, half demanding. He was on Masema’s other side, clutching the edges of his green cloak as if to keep his hands from the sword on his back. His eyes were almost as hot as Masema’s. “You taught me that a man does what he must.”

Perrin forced his fists to unknot. What had to be done, for Faile.

Berelain and the Aes Sedai came pushing through the crowd, Berelain wrinkling her nose slightly at the sight of the man stretched out between the pegs. The three Aes Sedai might have been looking at a piece of wood for all their expression. Edarra and Sulin were with them, neither more affected. Some of the Ghealdanin soldiers frowned at the two Aiel women and muttered under their breath. Masema’s rumpled, dirty-faced men glared at Aiel and Aes Sedai alike, but most edged away from the three Warders, and those who did not were pulled away by their companions. Some fools knew the limits of stupidity. Masema glared at Berelain with burning eyes before deciding to pretend she did not exist. Some fools knew no limits.

Bending, Perrin untied the rag around the pegged man’s mouth and tugged the wad from between his teeth. He just managed to snatch his hand back from a snap as vicious as any Stayer could have given.

Immediately, the Aielman threw back his head and began to sing in a deep, clear voice:

“Wash the spears; while the sun climbs high.

Wash the spears; while the sun falls low.

Wash the spears; who fears to die?

Wash the spears; no one I know!”

Masema’s laughter rose in the middle of the singing. Perrin’s hackles rose, too. He had never heard Masema laugh before. It was not a pleasant sound.

He did not want to lose a finger, so he pulled his axe out of its belt loop and carefully used the top of the axe head against the man’s chin to push
his mouth shut. Eyes the color of the sky looked up at him out of a sun-dark face, unafraid. The man smiled.

“I don’t ask you to betray your people,” Perrin said. His throat hurt with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “You Shaido captured some women. All I want to know is how to get them back. One is named Faile. She’s as tall as one of your women, with dark tilted eyes, a strong nose and a bold mouth. A beautiful woman. You’d remember her, if you had seen her. Have you?” Pulling the axe away, he straightened.

The Shaido stared at him for a moment, then raised his head and began to sing again, never taking his eyes from Perrin. It was a jolly song, with the rollicking sound of a dance:

“I once met a man who was far from home.

His eyes were yellow and his wits were stone.

He asked me to hold smoke in my hand,

and said he could show me a watery land.

He put his head in the ground and his feet in the air,

and said he could dance like a woman fair.

He said he could stand till he turned to stone.

When I blinked my eyes, he was gone.”

Letting his head fall back, the Shaido chuckled, deep and rich. He could have been lounging at ease on a feather bed.

“If . . . If you can’t do this,” Aram said desperately, “then go away. I’ll help see to it.”

What had to be done. Perrin looked at the faces around him. Arganda, scowling with hatred, at him as much as the Shaido, now. Masema, stinking of madness and filled with a scornful hate. You must be willing and able to hurt a stone. Edarra, her face as unreadable as the Aes Sedai’s, arms folded calmly beneath her breasts. Even Shaido know how to embrace pain. It will take days. Sulin, the scar across her cheek still pale on her leathery skin, her gaze level and her scent implacable. They will yield slowly and as little as possible. Berelain, smelling of judgment, a ruler who had sentenced men to death and never lost a night’s sleep. What had to be done. Willing and able to hurt a stone. Embrace pain. Oh, Light, Faile.

The axe was as light as a feather rising in his hand, and came down like a hammer on the anvil, the heavy blade shearing through the Shaido’s left wrist.

The man grunted in pain, then reared up convulsively with a snarl,
deliberately spraying the blood that gouted from his wrist across Perrin’s face.

“Heal him,” Perrin said to the Aes Sedai, stepping back. He did not try to wipe his face. The blood was seeping into his beard. He felt hollow. He could not have lifted the axe again if he had to for his life.

“Are you mad?” Masuri said angrily. “We cannot give the man back his hand!”

“I said, Heal him!” he growled.

Seonid was already moving, though, lifting her skirts to glide across the ground and kneel at the man’s head. He was biting at his severed wrist, trying futilely to stem the flow of blood with the pressure of his teeth. But there was no fear in his eyes. Or in his smell. None.