“Perrin Aybara and Mat Cauthon,” Semirhage murmured, inspecting the two shapes. “So that is what they look like. Who knows, Moridin. If you had shared this with us before now, they might already have been dead.”
Moridin’s fist came down hard on the arm of his chair. “Find them! Make doubly sure that your followers know their faces. Find Aybara and Cauthon and kill them! The Time is coming, and they must be dead!”
Aran’gar took a sip of her wine. She had no objections to killing these two if she happened to come across them, but Moridin was going to be terribly disappointed over Rand al’Thor.
CHAPTER 4 A Deal
Perrin sat Stepper’s saddle a little back from the edge of the trees and watched the large meadow where red and blue wildflowers were beginning to poke through the winter-brown grass that the now vanished snows had flattened into a mat. This stand was mainly leatherleaf that kept its broad dark foliage through the winter, but only a few small pale leaves decorated the branches of the sweet-gums among them. The dun stallion stamped a hoof with an impatience Perrin shared, though he let none of it show. The sun stood almost overhead; he had been waiting there nearly an hour. A stiff, steady breeze blew out of the west, down the meadow toward him. That was good.
Every so often his gauntleted hand stroked a nearly straight branch hacked from an oak, thicker than his forearm and more than twice as long, that lay across the saddle in front of him. For half its length he had shaved two sides flat and smooth. The meadow, ringed by huge oaks and leatherleaf, towering pine and shorter sweetgum, was less than six hundred paces wide, though longer than that. The branch should be broad enough. He had planned for every possibility he could imagine. The branch fit more than one.
“My Lady First, you should return to the camp,” Gallenne said, not for the first time, rubbing irritably at his red eyepatch. His crimson-plumed helmet hung from the pommel of his saddle, leaving his shoulder-length gray hair uncovered. He had been heard to say, in Berelain’s hearing, that most of those gray hairs were presents from her. His black warhorse tried to take a nip at Stepper, and he reined the heavy-chested gelding sharply without taking his attention from Berelain. He had counseled against her coming in the first place. “Grady can take you back and return while the rest of us wait a while longer to see whether the Seanchan are going to show up.”
“I will remain, Captain. I will remain.” Berelain’s tone was firm and calm, yet beneath her usual smell of patience lay an edge of concern. She was not so certain as she made herself sound. She had taken to wearing a light perfume that smelled of flowers. Perrin sometimes found himself trying to puzzle out which flowers, but he was too focused for idle thoughts today.
Vexation spiked in Annoura’s scent, though her ageless Aes Sedai face, framed by dozens of thin braids, remained as smooth as ever. But then, the beak-nosed Gray sister had smelled vexed ever since the rift between her and Berelain. It was her own fault, visiting Masema behind Berelain’s back. She also had counseled Berelain to stay behind. Annoura edged her brown mare closer to the First of Mayene, and Berelain moved her white mare just that far away without so much as a glance in her advisor’s direction. Vexation spiked again.
Berelain’s red silk dress, heavily embroidered in golden scrollwork, displayed more bosom than she had in some time, though a wide necklace of firedrops and opals provided a degree of modesty. A wide matching belt, supporting a jeweled dagger, cinched her waist. The narrow crown of Mayene resting on her black hair, holding a golden hawk in flight above her brows, appeared ordinary beside the belt and necklace. She was a beautiful woman, the more so, it seemed to him, since she had stopped chasing him, though still not a patch on Faile, of course.
Annoura wore an unadorned gray riding dress, but most of them were in their best. For Perrin, that was a dark green silk coat with silver embroidery covering the sleeves and shoulders. He was not much for fancy clothes—Faile had chivvied him into buying what little he had; well, she had chivvied him gently—but today he needed to impress. If the wide, plain leather belt fastened over the coat spoiled the impression a little, so be it.
“She must come,” Arganda muttered. A short stocky man, Alliandre’s First Captain had not removed his silvered helmet with its three short white plumes, and he sat his saddle, easing his sword in its scabbard, as though awaiting a charge. His breastplate was silver-plated, too. He would be visible for miles out in the sunlight. “She must!”
“The Prophet says they won’t.” Aram put in, and not softly, heeling his leggy gray up beside Stepper. The brass wolfhead pommel of his sword stuck up over the shoulder of his green-striped coat. Once, he had seemed too good looking for a man, but now his face grew grimmer every day. There was a haggardness about him, his eyes sunken and his mouth tight. “The Prophet says either that, or it’s a trap. He says we shouldn’t trust the Seanchan.”
Perrin held his silence, but felt his own spike of irritation, as much with himself as with the onetime Tinker. Balwer had informed him that Aram had begun spending time with Masema, yet it had seemed unnecessary to tell the man not to let Masema know everything Perrin was doing. There was no putting the egg back into the shell, but he would know better in the future. A workman should know his tools, and not use them to breaking. The same went for people. As for Masema, no doubt he was afraid they would meet someone who knew he himself was dealing with the Seanchan.
They were a large party, though most would remain right there among the trees. Fifty of Berelain’s Winged Guards in rimmed red helmets and red breastplates, scarlet streamers floating from their slender steel-tipped lances, were mounted behind the golden hawk on blue of Mayene, rippling on the breeze. Beside them fifty Ghealdanin in burnished breastplates and dark green conical helmets sat their horses behind Ghealdan’s three silver stars on red. The streamers on their lances were green. They made a brave show, yet all of them together were far less deadly than Jur Grady, with his weathered farmer’s face, even if they made him appear drab in his plain black coat with a silver sword pin on the high collar. He knew it, whether or not they did, and he stood beside his bay gelding with the ease of a man resting before the day’s labor.
In contrast, Leof Torfinn and Tod al’Caar, the only other Two Rivers men present, were still all but bouncing in their saddles with excitement despite the long wait. It might have taken some of their pleasure away had they known they had been chosen in large part because they came nearest fitting their borrowed coats of dark, finely woven green wool. Leof carried Perrin’s own Red Wolfhead banner, Tod, the Red Eagle of Manetheren, both rippling on staffs a little longer than the lances. They had almost come to blows over who was to carry which. Perrin hoped it was not because neither wanted to carry the red-bordered Wolfhead. Leof looked happy enough. Tod looked ecstatic. Of course, he did not know why Perrin had brought the thing along. In any trade, you needed to make the other fellow think he was getting something extra, as Mat’s father often said. Colors swirled in Perrin’s head, and for a brief instant he thought he saw Mat talking to a small dark woman. He shook off the image. Here and now, today, were all that mattered. Fa
