A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

Rand’s gaze swept slowly around the hall, over all the nobles waiting silently. Under his stare, none dared move a muscle. The scent of fear far outweighed any other, convulsing sharply. Except for the Hunters, everyone there had given him the same oath as had Colavaere. Perhaps just being in this gathering was treason, too? Perrin did not know.

“This audience is at an. end,” Rand said. “I will forget every face that departs now.”

Those at the front, the highest-ranking, the most powerful, began their progress toward the doors without too much haste, avoiding the Maidens and the Asha’man standing in the aisle, while the rest waited their turn. Every mind must have been turning over what Rand had said, though. What precisely did he mean by “now”? Purposeful strides quickened, skirts were lifted. Hunters, nearest the doors, began slipping out, first one at a time, then in a flood, and seeing them, lesser nobles among the Cairhienin and Tairens darted ahead of the higher. In moments it was a milling mass at the doors, men and women pushing and elbowing to get out. Not one looked back at the woman stretched out before the throne she had held so briefly.

Chapter 6

Old Fear, and New Fear

* * *

Rand passed through the struggling mob without any difficulty, of course. Maybe it was the presence of the Maidens and the Asha’man, or maybe Rand or one of the black-coated fellows did something with the Power, but the crowd parted for him, with Min holding to his arm, and a very subdued Annoura attempting to speak to him, and Loial, who was still trying with some difficulty to write in his book and carry his axe. Staring at one another, Perrin and Faile missed their chance to join them before the crowd closed up again.

She said nothing for a time, and neither did he, not what he wanted to say, not with Aram there, staring at them like some worshipful hound. And Dobraine, frowning down at the unconscious woman put in his charge. No one else remained on the dais. Havien had gone with Rand, to find Berelain, and as soon as Rand went, the other attendants had darted away toward the doors without a second glance at Perrin or Faile. Or Colavaere. Without the first glance, for that matter. They just lifted their striped skirts and ran. Grunts and curses drifted from the pack, not all in men’s voices. Even with Rand gone those people wanted to be elsewhere, and now. Perhaps they thought Perrin stayed to watch and report, though had any glanced back, they would have seen his eyes were not on them.

Climbing the rest of the way, he took Faile’s hand and breathed in the scent of her. This close, the lingering perfumes did not matter. Anything else could wait. She produced a red lace fan from somewhere, and before spreading it to cool herself, touched first her cheek, then his. There was a whole language of fans in her native Saldaea. She had taught him a little. He wished he knew what the cheek-touching meant; it must be something good. On the other hand, her scent carried a spiky shading he knew too well.

“He should have sent her to the block,” Dobraine muttered, and Perrin shrugged uncomfortably. From the man’s tone, it was not clear whether he meant that that was what the law called for or that it would have been more merciful. Dobraine did not understand. Rand could have sprouted wings first.

Faile’s fan slowed to barely moving, and she eyed Dobraine sideways over the crimson lace. “Her death might be best for everyone. That is the prescribed penalty. What will you do, Lord Dobraine?” Sidelong or not, it still managed to be very direct, a very meaningful gaze.

Perrin frowned. Not a word for him, but questions for Dobraine? And there was that undertone of jealousy in her aroma, making him sigh.

The Cairhienin gave her a level look in return while thrusting his gauntlets behind his sword belt. “What I was commanded to do. I keep my oaths, Lady Faile.”

The fan snapped open and shut, faster than thought. “He actually sent Aes Sedai to the Aiel? As prisoners?” Disbelief tinged her voice.

“Some, Lady Faile.” Dobraine hesitated. “Some swore fealty on their knees. This I saw with my own eyes. They went to the Aiel, too, but I do not think they can be called prisoners.”

“I saw it, too, my Lady,” Aram put in from his place on the steps, and a wide smile split his face when she glanced at him.

Red lace described a fluttering hitch. What she did with the fan seemed almost unconscious. “You both saw.” The relief in her voice — and in her scent — was so strong that Perrin stared.

“What did you think, Faile? Why would Rand lie, especially when everyone would know in a day?”

Instead of answering immediately, she frowned down at Colavaere. “Is she still under? Not that it matters, I suppose. She knows more than I would say here. Everything we worked so hard to keep hidden. She let that slip to Maire, too. She knows too much.”

Dobraine thumbed one of Colavaere’s eyes open none too gently. “As if hit with a mace. A pity she did not break her neck on the steps. But she will go to her exile and learn to live as a farmer.” A brief, jaggedy, vexed smell wafted from Faile.

Abruptly it hit Perrin what his wife had been proposing so obliquely; what Dobraine had rejected just as indirectly. Every hair on his body tried to stand. From the start he had known that he had married a very dangerous woman. Just not how dangerous. Aram was peering at Colavaere, his lips pursed in dark thought; the man would do anything for Faile.

“I don’t think Rand would like it if anything prevented her reaching that farm,” Perrin said firmly, eyeing Aram and Faile in turn. “I wouldn’t like it, either.” He felt rather proud of himself. That was talking around the point as well as any of them.

Aram bowed his head briefly — he understood — but Faile tried to look innocent above her gently fluttering fan, with no notion what he was talking about. Suddenly he realized not all the fear scent came from the people still milling at the door. A thin, quivering thread of it wafted from her. Fear under control, yet it was there.

“What’s the matter, Faile? Light, you’d think Coiren and that lot had won instead of . . . ” Her face did not change, but the thread grew thicker. “Is that why you didn’t say anything at first?” he asked softly. “Were you afraid we had come back as puppets, and them pulling the strings?”

She eyed the rapidly diminishing crowd across the Grand Hall. The nearest of them was a long way, and all making a good deal of noise, but she lowered her voice even so. “Aes Sedai can do that sort of thing, I’ve heard. My husband, no one knows more than I that even Aes Sedai would find hard times trying to make you dance for a puppet, much harder than a man who’s just the Dragon Reborn, but when you walked in here, I was more afraid than at any time since you left.” Amusement trickled through in the first of that, like tiny bubbles in his nose, and warm fondness, and love, the smell of her, clear and pure and strong, but all of those faded by the end, leaving that thin trembling thread.

“Light, Faile, it’s true. Every word Rand said. You heard Dobraine, and Aram.” She smiled, and nodded, and worked her fan. That thread still quivered in his nostrils, though. Blood and ashes, what does it take to convince her? “Would it help if he had Verin dance the sa’sara? She will, if he tells her to.” He meant it for a joke. All he knew of the sa’sara was that it was scandalous — and that Faile had once admitted knowing how to dance it, though recently she sidestepped and all but denied it. He meant it for a joke, but she closed her fan and tapped it on her wrist. He knew that one: I am giving your suggestion serious thought.

“I don’t know what would be enough, Perrin.” She shivered slightly. “Is there anything an Aes Sedai would not do, or put up with, if the White Tower told her to? I have studied my history, and I was taught to read between the lines. Mashera Donavelle bore seven children for a man she loathed, whatever the stories say, and Isebaille Tobanyi delivered the brothers she loved to their enemies and the throne of Arad Doman with them, and Jestian Redhill . . . ” She shivered again, not so slightly.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, wrapping her in his arms. He had studied several books of history himself, but he had never seen those names. The daughter of a lord received a different education from a blacksmith’s apprentice. “It really is true.” Dobraine averted his eyes, and so did Aram, though with a pleased grin.

She resisted at first, but not very hard. He could never be sure when she would avoid a public embrace and when welcome it, only that if she did not want one, she made it clear in no uncertain terms, with or without words. This time she snuggled her face into his chest and hugged him back, squeezing harder.

“If any Aes Sedai ever harms you,” she whispered, “I will kill her.” He believed her. “You belong to me, Perrin t’ Bashere Aybara. To me.” He believed that, too. As her hug grew fiercer, so did the thorny scent of jealousy. He almost chuckled. It seemed the right to put a knife in him was reserved to her. He would have chuckled, except that filament of fear remained. That, and what she had said about Maire. He could not smell himself, but he knew what was there. Fear. Old fear, and new fear, for the next time.