The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 118

“Of course, my Lord Rand.” Sandair made a bow. “But ... the inn?”

“I will let you know when we find one.” Rand turned Red, then paused. Selene's note crackled in his pocket. “I need to find a young woman from Cairhien. The Lady Selene. She is my age, and beautiful. I don't know her House.”

Sandair and Tavolin exchanged looks, then Sandair said, “I will make inquiries, my Lord. Perhaps I will be able to tell you something when you come tomorrow.”

Rand nodded and led Loial and Hurin into the city. They attracted little notice, though there were few riders. Even Loial attracted almost none. The people seemed nearly ostentatious about minding their own business.

“Will they take it the wrong way,” Rand asked Hurin, “my asking after Selene?”

“Who can say with Cairhienin, Lord Rand? They seem to think everything has to do with Daes Dae'mar.”

Rand shrugged. He felt as if people were looking at him. He could not wait to get a good, plain coat again, and stop pretending to be what he was not.

Hurin knew several inns in the city, though his time in Cairhien had been spent mainly in the Foregate. The sniffer led them to one called The Defender of the Dragonwall, the sign bearing a crowned man with his foot on another man's chest and his sword at the man's throat. The fellow on his back had red hair.

A hostler came to take their horses, darting quick looks at Rand and at Loial when he thought he was not observed. Rand told himself to stop having fancies; not everyone in the city could be playing this Game of theirs. And if they were, he was no part of it.

The common room was neat, with the tables laid out as strictly as the city, and only a few people at them. They glanced up at the newcomers, then back to their wine immediately; Rand had the feeling they were still watching, though, and listening. A small fire burned in the big fireplace, though the day was warming.

The innkeeper was a plump, unctuous man with a single stripe of green across his dark gray coat. He gave a start at his first sight of them, and Rand was not surprised. Loial, with the chest in his arms under its striped blanket, had to duck his head to make it in through the door, Hurin was burdened with all their saddlebags and bundles, and his own red coat was a sharp contrast to the somber colors the people at the tables wore.

The innkeeper took in Rand's coat and his sword, and his oily smile came back. He bowed, washing his smooth hands. “Forgive me, my Lord. It was just that for a moment I took you for — Forgive me. My brain is not what it was. You wish rooms, my Lord?” He added another, lesser bow for Loial. “I am called Cuale, my Lord.”

He thought I was Aiel, Rand thought sourly. He wanted to be gone from Cairhien. But it was the one place Ingtar might find them. And Selene had said she would wait for him in Cairhien.

It took a little time for their rooms to be readied, Cuale explaining with too many smiles and bows that it was necessary to move a bed for Loial. Rand wanted them all to share a room again, but between the innkeeper's scandalized looks and Hurin's insistence — “We have to show these Cairhienin we know what's right as well as they do, Lord Rand” — they ended with two, one for him alone, with a connecting door.

The rooms were much the same except that theirs had two beds, one sized for an Ogier, while his had only one bed, and that almost as big as the other two, with massive square posts that nearly reached the ceiling. His tallbacked, padded chair and the washstand were square and massive, too, and the wardrobe standing against his wall was carved in a heavy, rigid style that made the thing look ready enough to fall over on him. A pair of windows siding his bed looked out on the street, two floors below.

As soon as the innkeeper left, Rand opened the door and admitted Loial and Hurin into his room. “This place gnaws at me,” he told them. “Everybody looks at you as if they think you're doing something. I'm going back to the Foregate, for an hour anyway. At least the people laugh, there. Which of you is willing to take the first watch on the Horn?”

“I will stay,” Loial said quickly. “I'd like a chance to do a little reading. Just because I didn't see any Ogier does not mean there are no stonemasons down from Stedding Tsofu. It is not far from the city.”

“I'd think you would want to meet them.”

“Ah ... no, Rand. They asked enough questions the last time about why I was outside alone as it was. If they've had word from Stedding Shangtai ... Well, I will just rest here and read, I think.”

Rand shook his head. He often forgot that Loial had run away from home, in effect, to see the world. “What about you, Hurin? There's music in the Foregate, and people laughing. I'll wager no one is playing Daes Dae'mar there.”

“I would not be so certain of that myself, Lord Rand. In any case, I thank you for the invitation, but I think not. There's so many fights — and killings, too — in Foregate, that it stinks, if you know what I mean. Not that they're likely to bother a lord, of course; the soldiers would be down on them if they did. But if it pleases you, I would like to have a drink in the common room.”

“Hurin, you don't need my permission for anything. You know that.”

“As you say, my Lord.” The sniffer gave a suggestion of a bow.

Rand took a deep breath. If they did not leave Cairhien soon, Hurin would be bowing and scraping left and right. And if Mat and Perrin saw that, they would never let him forget it. “I hope nothing delays Ingtar. If he doesn't come quickly, we'll have to take the Horn back to Fal Dara ourselves.” He touched Selene's note through his coat. “We will have to. Loial, I'll come back so you can see some of the city.”

“I'd rather not risk it,” Loial said.

Hurin accompanied Rand downstairs. As soon as they reached the common room, Cuale was bowing in front of Rand, pushing a tray at him. Three folded and sealed parchments lay on the tray. Rand took them, since that was what the innkeeper seemed to intend. They were a fine grade of parchment, soft and smooth to his touch. Expensive.

“What are these?” he asked.

Cuale bowed again. “Invitations, of course, my Lord. From three of the noble Houses.” He bowed himself away.

“Who would send me invitations?” Rand turned them over in his hand. None of the men at the tables looked up, but he had the feeling they were watching just the same. He did not recognize the seals. None was the crescent moon and stars Selene had used. “Who wou