A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

The last of the nobles forced their way from the Grand Hall, without anyone being trampled. Sending Aram off to tell Dannil to bring the Two Rivers men into the city — and wondering how he was going to feed them — Perrin offered Faile his arm and led her out, leaving Dobraine with Colavaere, who was finally showing signs of awakening. He had no wish to be around when she woke, and Faile, with her hand on his wrist, seemed not to either. They walked quickly, eager to reach their rooms, if not necessarily for the same reasons.

The nobles apparently had not stopped their flight once they were out of the Grand Hall. The corridors were empty except for servants who kept their eyes down at a silent rush, but before they had gone very far, Perrin caught the sound of footsteps and realized they were being followed. It seemed unlikely that Colavaere had any open supporters still, but if there were any, they might think to strike at Rand through his friend, walking alone with his wife while the Dragon Reborn was elsewhere.

Only, when Perrin spun about, hand to his axe, he stared instead of drawing the weapon. It was Selande and her friends from the entry hall, with eight or nine new faces. They gave a start when he turned, and exchanged abashed glances. Some were Tairens, including a woman who stood taller than all but one of the Cairhienin men. She wore a man’s coat and tight breeches, just like Selande and the rest of the women, with a sword on her hip. He had not heard that this nonsense had spread to the Tairens.

“Why are you following us?” he demanded. “If you try to make me any of your wool-head trouble, I vow I’ll kick the lot of you from here to Bel Tine!” He had had problems before with these idiots, or some just like them, anyway. All they thought about was their honor, and fighting duels, and taking one another gai’shain. That last really set the Aiel’s teeth on edge.

“Attend my husband and obey,” Faile put in sharply. “He is not a man to be trifled with.” Gawking stares vanished, and they backed away, bowing, competing over flourishes. They were still at it when they vanished around a turn.

“Bloody young buffoons,” Perrin muttered, offering Faile his wrist again.

“My husband is wise in his years,” she murmured. Her tone was utterly serious; her smell was something else again.

Perrin managed not to snort. True, a few of them might be a year or two older than he, but they all were like children with their playing at Aiel. Now, with Faile in a good mood, seemed as good a time as any to begin what they had to talk about. What he had to talk about. “Faile, how did you come to be one of Colavaere’s attendants?”

“The servants, Perrin.” She spoke softly; nobody two steps away could have heard a word. She knew all about his hearing, and the wolves. That was nothing a man could keep from his wife. Her fan touched her ear, admonishing caution in speech. “Too many people forget servants are there, but servants listen too. In Cairhien, they listen far too much.”

None of the liveried people he saw were doing any listening. The few who did not duck down side corridors when they saw him and Faile went by at a near run, gazes on the floor and gathered in on themselves. Any sort of news spread quickly in Cairhien. Events in the Grand Hall would have flown. The word was in the streets by now, probably on its way out of the city already. Without any doubt there were eyes-and-ears in Cairhien for the Aes Sedai, and the Whitecloaks, and likely more thrones than not.

In that hushed voice, she went on despite her caution to him. “Colavaere could not be fast enough to take me in, once she learned who I am. My father’s name impressed her as much as my cousin’s.” She finished with a little nod, as if she had answered everything.

It was a good enough answer. Almost. Her father was Davram, High Seat of House Bashere, Lord of Bashere, Tyr and Sidona, Guardian of the Blightborder, Defender of the Heartland, and Marshal-General to Queen Tenobia of Saldaea. Faile’s cousin was Tenobia herself. More than reason for Colavaere to leap at Faile for one of her attendants. But he had had time to mull things over now, and he prided himself that he was becoming used to her ways. Married life taught a man about women; or about one woman, anyway. The answer she had not given, confirmed something. Faile had no concept of danger, not where she herself was concerned.

He could not speak of it there in the corridor, of course. Whisper how he would, she did not have his ears, and doubtless she would insist every servant within fifty was

listening. Holding his patience, he walked on with her until they reached the rooms that had been set aside for them what seemed an age ago now. The lamps had been lit, making shimmers on the dark polished walls, each tall wooden panel carved in concentric rectangles. In the square stone fireplace the hearth was swept bare and laid with a few pitiful branches of leatherleaf. They were almost green.

Faile went straight to a small table where two golden pitchers stood beaded with moisture on a tray. “They have left us blueberry tea, my husband, and wine punch. The wine is from Tharon, I think. They cool the punch in the cisterns beneath the palace. Which would you prefer?”

Perrin unbuckled his belt and tossed belt and axe on a chair. He had planned out what he had to say very carefully on the way here. She could be a prickly woman. “Faile, I missed you more than I can say, and worried about you, but — “

“Worried about me!” she snapped, spinning to face him. She stood straight and tall, eyes fierce as those of her falcon namesake, and her fan made a coring motion toward his middle. Not part of the language of fans; she made the same gesture with a knife sometimes. “When almost the first words from your mouth were to ask after that . . . that woman!”

His jaw dropped. How could he have forgotten the smell filling his nostrils? He nearly put a hand up to see whether his nose was bleeding. “Faile, I wanted her thief-catchers. Be — ”No, he was not stupid enough to repeat that name. “She said she had proof of the poison before I left. You heard her! I just wanted the proof, Faile.”

It did no good. That spiky stench softened not a whit, and the thin, sour smell of hurt joined it. What under the Light had he said to hurt her?

“Her proof! What I gathered went for nothing, but her proof put Colavaere’s head on the block. Or should have.” That was his opening, but she was not about to let him push a word in edgewise. She advanced on him, looking daggers, her fan darting like one. All he could do was back away. “Do you know what story that woman put about?” Faile almost hissed. A black viper could not have dripped so much venom. “Do you? She said the reason you were not here was that you were at a manor not far from the city. Where she could visit you! I told the story I prepared — that you were hunting, and the Light knows you spent enough days hunting! — but everyone believed I was putting a good face on you and her! Together! Colavaere delighted in it. I could believe she only took that Mayener strumpet as an attendant to throw the two of us together. ‘Faile, Berelain, come lace my gown.’ ’Faile, Berelain, come hold the mirror for the hairdresser.’ ‘Faile, Berelain, come wash my back.’ So she could amuse herself waiting for us to claw one another’s eyes out! That is what I have put up with! For you, you hairy-eared —!”

His back thumped against the wall. And something snapped inside him. He had been frightened spitless for her, terrified, ready to face down Rand or the Dark One himself. And he had done nothing, had never encouraged Berelain, had done everything in his wits to chase the woman away. For which his thanks was this.

Gently he took her by the shoulders and lifted her until those big tilted eyes were level with his. “You listen to me,” he said calmly. He tried to make his voice calm, at least; it came out more of a growl in his throat. “How dare you speak to me like that? How dare you? I worried myself near to death for fear you’d been hurt. I love you, and nobody else but you. I want no other woman but you. Do you hear me? Do you?” Crushing her to his chest, he held her, wanting to never let her go. Light, he had been so afraid. He shook even now, for what might have been. “If anything happened to you, I’d die, Faile. I would lie down on your grave and die! Do you think I don’t know how Colavaere found out who you are? You made sure she found out.” Spying, she had told him once, was a woman’s work. “Light, woman, you could have ended like Maire. Colavaere knows you’re my wife. My wife. Perrin Aybara, Rand al’Thor’s friend. Did it ever occur to you she might be suspicious? She could have . . . Light, Faile, she could have . . . ”

Abruptly he realized what he was doing. She was making sounds against his chest, but no words he could recognize. He wondered that he did not hear her ribs creaking. Berating himself for an oaf, he let her go, arms springing apart, but before he could apologize, her fingers clutched his beard.

“So you love me?” she said softly. Very softly. Very warmly. She was smiling, too. “A woman likes to hear that said the right way.” She had dropped the fan, and her free hand drew fingernails down his cheek, not far from hard enough to draw blood, but her throaty laugh held heat, and the smoldering in her eyes was as far from anger as possible. “A good thing you didn’t say you never looked at another woman, or I would think you had gone blind.”

He was too stunned for words, too stunned even to gape. Rand understood women, Mat understood women, but Perrin knew he never would. She was always as much kingfisher as falcon, changing direction faster than he could think, yet this . . . That thorny scent was gone completely, and in its place was another smell of her he knew well. A smell that was her, pure and strong and clean. Add that to her eyes, and any moment she was going to say something about farmgirls at harvest. They were notorious, apparently, Saldaean farmgirls.

“As for you lying down on my grave,” she went on, “if you do, my soul will haunt yours, I promise you. You will mourn me a decent time, and then you’ll find yourself another wife. Someone I’d approve of, I hope.” With a soft laugh, she stroked his beard. “You really aren’t fit to take care of yourself, you know. I want your promise.”

Best not to crack his teeth on that. Say he would not, and this wonderful mood might be swallowed in a firestorm. Quicksilver was not in it, really. Say he would . . . By the smell of her, every word was the Light’s pure truth, but he would believe that when horses roosted in trees. He cleared his throat. “I need to bathe. I haven’t seen soap in I don’t know how long. I must smell like an old barn.”

Leaning against his chest, she drew a deep breath. “You smell wonderful. Like you.” Her hands moved on his shoulders. “I feel as — ”The door banged open.

“Perrin, Berelain isn’t — I’m sorry. Forgive me.” Rand stood shifting his feet, not at all like the Dragon Reborn. There were Maidens in the hallway outside. Min put her head around the doorframe, took one look, grinned at Perrin and ducked back out of sight.

Faile stepped away so smoothly, so stately, that no one would ever have guessed what she had been saying a moment before. Or what she had been about to say. There were spots of color in her cheeks, though, bright and hot. “So kind of you, my Lord Dragon,” she said coolly, “to drop in so unexpectedly. I apologize for not hearing your knock.” Maybe those blushes were as much anger as embarrassment.