Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9)

Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9) Page 43

Perrin’s sigh misted in front of his mouth. “I understand, Master Gill.” He did. He himself wanted to rescue everyone, but he knew if he had to choose, he would take Faile and let the others go. Everything could go, to save her. Horse-scent was heavy in the air, but he smelled someone else who was irritated, and looked over his shoulder.

Lini was glaring at him from the middle of the turmoil, shifting her ground just enough to keep from being ridden down accidentally by men jostling to form ragged files. One bony hand gripped the edge of her cloak, and the other held a brass-studded cudgel, nearly as long as her arm. It was a wonder she had not gone with Tallanvor.

“You’ll hear as soon as I do,” he promised her. A rumbling in his middle reminded him suddenly and forcefully of that stew he had scorned. He could almost taste the mutton and lentils. Another yawn cracked his jaws. “Forgive me, Lini,” he said when he could talk. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Or a bite to eat. Is there anything? Some bread, and whatever’s to hand?”

“Everyone’s eaten long since,” she snapped. “The scraps are gone, and the kettles cleaned and stored away. Sup from too many dishes, and you deserve a bellyache that’ll split you open. Especially when they’re not your dishes.” Trailing off into dissatisfied mutters, she scowled at him a moment longer before stalking away, glaring at the world.

“Too many dishes?” Perrin muttered. “I haven’t had a one; that’s my trouble, not a bellyache.” Lini was making her way across the campground, threading her way between horses and carts. Three or four men spoke to her in passing, and she barked at every one, even shaking her cudgel if they failed to take the hint. The woman must be out of her mind over Maighdin. “Or was that one of her sayings? They usually make more sense than that.”

“Ah . . . well, as to that, now . . .” Gill snatched his hat off again and peered inside, then stuffed it back on. “I . . . ah . . . I have to see to the carts, my Lord. Need to make sure all’s ready.”

“A blind man could see the carts are ready,” Perrin told him. “What is it?”

Gill’s head swung wildly in search of another excuse. Finding none, he wilted. “I . . . I suppose you’ll hear sooner or later,” he mumbled. “You see, my Lord, Lini . . .” He drew a deep breath. “She walked over to the Mayener camp this morning, before sunrise, to see how you were and . . . ah . . . why you hadn’t come back. The First’s tent was dark, but one of her maids was awake, and she told Lini . . . She implied . . . I mean to say . . . Don’t look at me that way, my Lord.”

Perrin smoothed the snarl from his face. Tried to, at any rate. It stayed in his voice. “Burn me, I slept in that tent, man. That is all I did! You tell her that!”

A violent coughing fit wracked the stout man. “Me?” Gill wheezed once he could talk. “You want me to tell her? She’ll crack my pate if I mention a thing like that! I think the woman was born in Far Madding in a thunderstorm. She probably told the thunder to be quiet. It probably did.”

“You’re shambayan,” Perrin told him. “It can’t all be loading carts in the snow.” He wanted to bite someone!

Gill seemed to sense it. Mumbling his courtesies, he made a jerky bow and scurried away clutching his cloak close. Not to find Lini, Perrin was sure. Gill ordered the household, such as it was, but never her. No one ordered Lini except Faile.

Glumly Perrin watched the scouts ride out through the falling snow, ten men already watching the trees around them before they were beyond sight of the carts. Light, women would believe anything about a man so long as it was bad. And the worse it was, the more they had to talk about it. He had thought Rosene and Nana were all he had to worry about. Likely Lini had told Breane, Faile’s other maid, first thing on getting back, and by this time, Breane surely had told every woman in the camp. There were plenty among the horse handlers and cart drivers, and Cairhienin being Cairhienin, they probably had been eager to pass everything on to the men, too. That sort of thing was not seen with charity in the Two Rivers. Once you gained the reputation, losing it was not easy. Suddenly the men backing away to give him room took on a new light, and the uncertain way they had looked at him, and even Lem spitting. In memory, Kenly’s grin became a smirk. The one bright spot was that Faile would not believe it. Of course she would not. Certainly not.

Kenly returned at a stumbling trot through the snow, drawing Stepper and his own rangy gelding behind. Both horses were miserable with the cold, their ears folded back and tails tight, and the dun stallion made no effort to bite at Kenly’s mount, as he usually would have.

“Don’t show your teeth all the time,” Perrin snapped, snatching Stepper’s reins. The boy eyed him doubtfully, then slunk away glancing back over his shoulder.

Growling under his breath, Perrin checked the stallion’s saddle girth. It was time to find Masema, but he did not mount. He told himself it was because he was tired and hungry, that he wanted just a bit of rest and something in his belly, if he could find anything. He told himself that, but he kept seeing burned farms and bodies hanging by the side of the road, men and women and even children. Even if Rand was still in Altara, it was a long way. A long way, and he had no choice. None he could make himself take.

He was standing with his forehead sunk against Stepper’s saddle when a delegation of the young fools who had attached them selves to Faile sought him out, near a dozen of them. He straightened wearily, wishing the snow would bury them all.

Selande planted herself alongside Stepper’s hindquarters, a short slender woman with green-gloved fists on her hips and an angry scowl creasing her forehead. She managed to swagger standing still. Despite the falling snow, one side of her cloak was thrown back to give easy access to her sword, exposing six bright slashes across the front of her dark blue coat. All the women wore men’s clothing and swords, and usually they were twice as ready to use them as the men, which was saying quite a bit. Men and women alike, they were touchy with everyone, and would have been fighting duels every day had not Faile put a stop to it. Men and women alike, the lot with Selande smelled angry, sullen, sulky and petulant, all jumbled together, a scent that twitched uncomfortably in his nose.

“I see you, my Lord Perrin,” Selande said formally in the crisp accents of Cairhien. “Preparations are being made to move out, but still we are refused our horses. Will you have this made right?” S