“The sooner there, the sooner back,” he said, climbing into the bay’s saddle. As he rode through the gap that had been made to let the carts out, Two Rivers men were already beginning to replace the missing stakes. No one lacked for wariness with Masema’s peo?ple nearby.
It was a hundred paces to the treeline, but his eye caught movement, someone on a horse slipping away into the deeper shadows beneath the towering trees. One of Masema’s watchers, no doubt, racing to tell the Prophet that Perrin and Berelain had left the camp. No matter how fast he rode, though, he could not be in time. If Masema wanted Berelain or Perrin dead, as seemed likely, he would have to wait on another opportunity.
Gallenne was not about to take any chances, though. No one had seen hide nor toenails of Santes or Gendar, Berelain’s two thief-catchers, since the day they failed to return from Masema’s camp, and to Gallenne that was as sure a message as their heads in a sack. He had his lancers spread in a sharp-eyed ring around Berelain before they reached the trees. And around Perrin, too, but that was only incidental. Given his wishes, Gallenne would have brought all nine hundred or so of his Winged Guards, or better yet, in his view, talked Berelain out of going. Perrin had tried that, as well, with no better luck. The woman had a way of listening, then doing exactly as she wished. Faile was like that, too. Sometimes a man just had to live with it. Most of the time, since there was nothing else to do.
The huge trees and stone outcrops sticking out of the snow broke up the formation, of course, but it was still a colorful sight even in the dim light of the forest, red streamers floating on light airs in slanted beams of sunlight, red-armored riders vanishing momentarily behind massive oaks and leatherleafs. The three Aes Sedai rode behind Perrin and Berelain, followed by their Warders, all watching the woods around them, and then the man with Bere?lain’s banner. Kireyin and the banner of Ghealdan came a little behind, his men dressed in neat, shining lines, or as near as they could manage. The forest’s openness was a deception, and ill suited to neat lines and bright banners, but add in embroidered silks and gems and a crown and Warders in those color-shifting cloaks, and it was a most impressive sight. Perrin could have laughed, though without much mirth.
Berelain seemed to sense his thoughts. “When you go to buy a sack of flour,” she said, “wear plain wool so the seller thinks you can’t afford to pay any more than you must. When you’re after flour by the wagonload, wear jewels so she thinks you can afford to come back for all she can lay hands on.”
Perrin snorted a laugh in spite of himself. It sounded very much like something Master Luhhan had told him, once, with a nudge in the ribs to say it was a joke and a look in his eye that said it was a little more. Dress poor when you want a small favor, and fine when you want a large one. He was very glad Berelain no longer smelled like a hunting wolf. At least that took one worry off his mind.
They soon caught up to the tail end of the carts, a line that was no longer moving by the time they reached the Traveling ground. Axework and sweat had removed the trees sheared off by gateways and made a little clearing, but it was crowded even before Gallenne spread his ring of lancers around it facing outward. Pager Neald was there already, a foppish Murandian with his mustache waxed to points, on a dapple gelding. His coat would do for anyone who had not seen an Asha’man before; the only other one he had was black as well, and at least he had no collar pins to mark him out. The snow was not deep, but the twenty Two Rivers men led by Wil al’Seen were on their horses, too, rather than standing and waiting for their feet to freeze in their boots. They looked a harder lot than the fellows who had left the Two Rivers with him, long?bows slung across their backs, bristling quivers and swords of vari?ous descriptions at their belts. Perrin hoped he could send them home soon, or better, take them home.
Most were balancing a polearm over their saddles, but Tod al’Caar and Flann Barstere carried banners, Perrin’s own Red Wolf-head and the Red Eagle of Manetheren. Tod’s heavy jaw was set stubbornly, and Flann, a tall skinny fellow from up to Watch Hill, looked sullen. Likely he had not wanted the job. Maybe Tod had not, either. Wil gave Perrin one of those open, innocent looks that fooled so many girls back home - Wil liked too much embroidery on his coat at feastdays, and he purely loved riding ahead of those banners, probably in the hope some woman would think they were his - but Perrin let it pass. He had not expected the other three people in the clearing any more than he had the banners.
Holding his cloak around him as if the mild breeze were a gale, Balwer clumsily heeled his blunt-nosed roan forward to meet Per?rin. Two of Faile’s hangers-on trailed after him with defiant expres?sions. Medore’s blue eyes looked odd in her dark Tairen face, but then, her coat, with its puffy green-striped sleeves, looked odd on her bosomy frame. The daughter of a High Lord, she was every inch a noblewoman, and men’s clothing just did not suit her. Latian, Cairhienin and pale in a coat almost as dark as Neald’s, though marked with four slashes of red and blue across the chest, was not much taller than she, and the way he sniffled with a cold and rubbed at his sharp nose made him look much less competent. Neither wore a sword, another surprise.
“My Lord; my Lady First,” Balwer said in that dry voice, duck?ing a bow in his saddle, a sparrow bobbing on a branch. His eyes flickered toward the Aes Sedai behind them, but that was the only sign he gave that he was aware of the sisters. “My Lord, I recalled that I have an acquaintance in this So Habor. A cutler who travels with his wares, but he may be at home, and I’ve not seen him in several years.” This was the first time he had ever mentioned hav?ing a friend anywhere, and a town buried in the north of Altara seemed a peculiar place for it, but Perrin nodded. He suspected there was more to this friend than Balwer was letting on. He was beginning to suspect there was more to Balwer than the man let on.
“And your companions, Master Balwer?” Berelain’s face stayed smooth inside her fur-lined cowl, but she smelled amused. She knew very well that Faile had used her young followers as spies and was sure that Perrin made the same use of them.
“They wanted an outing, my Lady First,” the bony little man replied blandly. “I will vouch for them, my Lord. They’ve promised to cause no trouble, and they may learn something.” He smelled amused, too - a musty smell, of course, coming from him - though with a touch of irritation. Balwer knew she knew, which did not please him, but she never made open reference to the fact, which did. There definitely was more to Balwer than he let on.The man must have his reasons for taking them along. He had managed to take up all of Faile’s young followers one way and another, and had them eavesdropping and watching among the Ghealdanin and the Mayeners and even the Aiel. According to him, what your friends said and did could be as interesting as what your enemies planned, and that was when you were sure they were your friends. Of course, Berelain knew that her people were being spied on. And Balwer knew she knew that, too. And she knew that he. . . . It was all too sophisticated for a country blacksmith.
“We’re wasting time,” Perrin said. “Open the gateway, Neald.”
The Asha’man grinned at him and stroked his waxed mus?taches - Neald grinned too much since the Shaido were found; maybe he was eager to come to grips with them - he grinned and gestured grandly with one hand. “As you command,” he said in a cheerful voice, and the familiar silvery slash of light appeared, widening into a hole in the air.
Without waiting for anyone else, Perrin rode through into a snow-covered field, surrounded by a low stone wall, in rolling country that seemed almost treeless compared with the forest he had left behind, just a few miles from So Habor unless Neald had made a substantial error. If he had, Perrin thought he might pull those fool mustaches right off the man’s face. How could the fellow becheerful?
Soon, though, he was riding west beneath a gray cloudy sky, along a snowy road with the high-wheeled carts trundling along in a line after him and early-morning shadows stretching ahead. Stayer tugged at the reins, wanting to run, but Perrin held him to a steady walk, no faster than the carthorses could manage. Gallenne’s Mayeners had to cross fields beside the road to maintain their ring around him and Berelain, and that meant getting past the low walls of rough stone that divided field from field. Some had gates from one farmer’s property to the next, probably to allow sharing plow-teams, and others they jumped flamboyantly with the streamers on their lances flying, risking their animal’s legs and their necks. Perrin cared the less about their necks, in truth.
Wil and the two fools carrying the Wolfhead and the Red Ea?gle joined the Mayener bannerman behind the Aes Sedai and Warders, but the other Two Rivers men strung themselves outflanking the line of carts. There were far too many carts for fewer than twenty men to guard, yet the cart drivers would feel easier seeing them. Not that anyone expected brigands, or Shaido for that matter, but no one felt comfortable outside the protection of the camp. In any case, here they would be able to see any threat well before it reached them.
The low rolling hills did not really allow a very long view, but it was farm country, with sturdy thatch-roofed stone houses and barns scattered among the fields, and nothing of wildness about it anywhere. Even most of the small thickets clinging to the slopes were coppiced for firewood. But it struck Perrin suddenly that the snow on the road ahead of him was not fresh; yet the only tracks were those made by Gallenne’s foreriders. No one moved around any of those dark houses and barns; no smoke rose from any of the thick chimneys. The countryside seemed absolutely still and absolutely empty. The hair on the back of his neck
