The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3)

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3) Page 171

Perrin glanced around; none of the dockmen shuttling cargo about seemed to have heard. He was sure he would have smelled fear if they had. He bit back the sharp remark that hung on the end of his tongue. She had a quicker tongue, and a sharper.

“I wish you did not sound so eager,” Loial rumbled. “You seem to think it will all be as easy as Illian, Faile.”

“Easy?” Zarine muttered. “Easy! Loial, we were nearly killed twice in one night. Illian was enough for a Hunter's song in itself. What makes you call it easy?”

Perrin grimaced. He wished Loial had not decided to call Zarine by that name she had chosen; it was a constant reminder that Moiraine thought she was Min's falcon. And it did nothing to stop Perrin wondering if she was the beautiful woman Min had warned him against, too. At least I've not run up against the hawk. Or a Tuatha'an with a sword! Now that would be the strangest of all, or I am a wool merchant!

“Stop asking questions, Zarine,” he said as he swung up into Stepper's saddle. “You will find out why we are here when Moiraine decides to tell you.” He tried not to look at the Stone.

She turned those dark, tilted eyes on him. “I do not think you know why, blacksmith. I think that is why you will not tell me, because you cannot. Admit it, farmboy.”

With a small sigh, he rode off the docks after Moiraine and Lan. Zarine did not dig at Loial in that cutting way when the Ogier refused to answer her questions. He thought she must be trying to browbeat him into using that name. He would not.

Moiraine had tied the oiled cloak behind her saddle, atop the innocuouslooking bundle that held the Dragon banner, and despite the heat had donned the blue linen cloak from Illian. Its deep, wide hood hid her face. Her Great Serpent ring was on a cord around her neck. Tear, she had said, did not forbid the presence of Aes Sedai, only channeling, but the Defenders of the Stone kept a close eye on any woman who wore the ring. She did not want to be watched on this visit to Tear.

Lan had stuffed his colorshifting cloak into his saddlebags two days earlier, when it had become apparent that whoever had sent the Darkhounds — Sammael, Perrin thought with a shiver, and tried not to think of the name at all — whoever had sent them had not sent any more pursuit. The Warder had made no concessions to the heat of Illian, and he made none to the lesser heat of Tear. His graygreen coat was buttoned up all the way.

Perrin wore his coat half undone, and the neck of his shirt untied. Tear might be a little cooler than Illian, but it was still as hot as summer in the Two Rivers, and as always after rain, the dampness of the air made the heat seem worse. His axe belt hung looped around the tall pommel of his saddle. It was handy there, if he needed it, and he felt better not wearing it.

He was surprised at the mud in the first streets they rode along. Only villages and smaller towns had dirt streets, that he had seen, and Tear was one of the great cities. But the people did not seem to mind, many going barefoot. A woman walking on little wooden platforms caught his attention for a time, and he wondered why they did not all wear them. Those baggy breeches on the men looked as if they might be cooler than the snug ones he wore, but he was sure he would feel a fool if he tried them. He made a picture in his head of himself wearing those breeches and one of those round straw hats, and chuckled at it.

“What do you find funny, Perrin?” Loial asked. His ears were drooping till their tufts were hidden in his hair, and he looked at the people in the street worriedly. “These folk look... defeated, Perrin. They did not look this way when I was here last. Even people who let their grove be cut down do not deserve to look like this.”

As Perrin began to study faces instead of just looking at everything at once, he saw that Loial was right. Something had gone out of too many of those faces. Hope, maybe. Curiosity. They barely glanced at the party riding by, except to get out of the way of the horses. The Ogier, mounted on an animal as big as a draft horse, might as well have been Lan, or Perrin.

The streets changed, gaining wide stone paving, after they passed inside the gates of the high, gray city wall, past the hard, dark eyes of soldiers in breastplates over red coats with wide sleeves ending in narrow white cuffs, and rimmed, round helmets with a ridge over the top. Instead of the baggy breeches other men wore, theirs were tight, and tucked into kneehigh boots. The soldiers frowned at Lan's sword and fingered their own, stared sharply at Perrin's axe and his bow, but in a way, despite their frowns and sharp looks, there was something beaten in their faces, too, as if nothing were really worth the effort any longer.

The buildings were larger and taller inside the walls, though most were made no differently from those outside. The roofs looked a bit odd to Perrin, especially those that came to points, but he had seen so many different kinds of roof since leaving home that he only wondered what kind of nails they used with their tiles. In some places, the people did not use nails on their roof tiles at all.

Palaces and great buildings stood among the smaller and more ordinary, seemingly placed haphazardly; a structure of towers and squarish, white domes, surrounded on all sides by wide streets, might have shops and inns and houses on the other sides of those streets. A huge hall fronted by squared columns of marble four paces on a side, with fifty steps to climb to reach bronze doors five spans high, had a bakery one side and a tailor on the other.

More men wore coats and breeches like the soldiers' here, though in brighter colors and without armor, and some even wore swords. None of them went barefoot, not even those in baggy breeches. The women's dresses were often longer, their necklines lower to bare shoulders and even bosom, the cloth as likely to be silk as wool. The Sea Folk traded a good deal of silk through Tear. As many sedan chairs and carriages drawn by teams of horses moved through the streets as oxcarts and wagons. Yet too many of the faces had that same look of having given up.

The inn Lan chose, the Star, had a weaver's shop on one side and a smithy on the other, with narrow alleyways between. The smithy was of undressed gray stone, the weaver's and the inn of wood, though the Star stood four stories tall and had small windows in its roof as well. The rattle of looms was hardpressed to compete with the clang of the smith's hammer. They handed their horses over to stablemen, to be taken around back, and went inside the inn. There were fish smells from the kitchen, baking and perhaps stewing, and the scent of roast mutton. The men in the common room all wore the tight coats and loose breeches; Perrin did not think richer men — somehow he was sure the men in colorful coats with puffy sleeves and the bareshouldered women in bright silk were all rich, or nobles — those folk would not put up with the noise. Perhaps that