Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

Jalani put her plump face in at the door — Aiel seemed not to understand knocking — and said, “Mangin is here to speak with Rhuarc and you, Rand al’Thor.”

“Tell him I’ll be happy to talk with him later — ” Rand got that far before Rhuarc broke in quietly.

“You should speak with him now, Rand al’Thor.” The clan chief’s face looked grave; Berelain had replaced the long paper on the table and was studying the floor.

“Very well,” Rand said slowly.

Jalani’s head vanished, and Mangin came in. Taller than Rand, he had been one of those who crossed the Dragonwall in search of He Who Comes With the Dawn, one of the handful who took the Stone of Tear. “Six days ago I killed a man,” he began without preamble, “a treekiller, and I must know if I have toh to you, Rand al’Thor.”

“To me?” Rand said. “You can defend yourself, Mangin; Light, you know tha—” For a moment he was silent, meeting gray eyes that were sober but certainly not afraid. Curious, maybe. Rhuarc’s face told him nothing; Berelain was still not meeting his gaze. “He did attack you, didn’t he?”

Mangin shook his head slightly. “I saw that he deserved to die, so I killed him.” He said it conversationally; he saw the drains needed cleaning, so he cleaned them. “But you have said we cannot kill the oathbreakers except in battle, or if they attack us. Do I have toh toward you now?”

Rand remembered what he had said . . . him will I hang. His chest felt tight. “Why did he deserve to die?”

“He wore what he had no right to,” Mangin replied.

“Wore what? What did he wear, Mangin?”

Rhuarc answered, touching his left forearm. “This.” He meant the Dragon coiled around his arm. Clan chiefs did not display them often, or even speak of them; almost everything about the markings were shrouded in mystery, and the chiefs were content to leave it so. “It was a thing of needles and inks, of course.” A tattoo.

“He was pretending to be a clan chief?” Rand realized he was searching for an excuse . . . him will I hang. Mangin had been one of the first to follow him.

“No,” Mangin said. “He was drinking, and showing off what he should not have had. I see your eyes, Rand al’Thor.” He grinned suddenly. “It is a puzzle. I was right to kill him, but now I have toh to you.”

“You were wrong to kill him. You know the penalty for murder.”

“A rope around the neck, as these wetlanders use.” Mangin nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me where and when; I will be there. May you find water and shade today, Rand al’Thor.”

“May you find water and shade, Mangin,” Rand told him sadly.

“I suppose,” Berelain said when the door closed behind Mangin, “that he really will walk to his own hanging of his own accord. Oh, don’t look at me that way, Rhuarc. I don’t mean to impugn him, or Aiel honor.”

“Six days,” Rand growled, rounding on her. “You knew why he was here, both of you. Six days ago, and you left it to me. Murder is murder, Berelain.”

She drew herself up regally, but she sounded defensive. “I am not used to men coming to me and saying they have just committed murder. Bloody ji’e’toh. Bloody Aielmen and their bloody honor.” The curses sounded odd coming from her mouth.

“You have no cause to be angry with her, Rand al’Thor,” Rhuarc put in. “Mangin’s toh is to you, not to her. Or to me.”

“His toh was to the man he murdered,” Rand said coldly. Rhuarc looked shocked. “The next time somebody commits murder, don’t wait for me. You follow the law!” That way, perhaps he would not have to pass sentence again on a man he knew and liked. He would if he had to. He knew that, and it saddened him. What had he become?

The wheel of a man’s life. Lews Therin murmured. No mercy. No pity.

Chapter 18

A Taste of Solitude

* * *

Are there any more problems you want me to deal with?” Rand’s tone made it clear he meant problems they should have already solved. Rhuarc shook his head slightly; Berelain’s face reddened as well. “Good. Set a date for Mangin’s hanging — ” If it hurts too much, Lews Therin laughed in a hoarse whisper, make it hurt someone else instead. His responsibility. His duty. He stiffened his back to keep that mountain from crushing him. “Hang him tomorrow. Tell him I said so.” He paused, glaring, then realized he was waiting for Lews Therin’s comment, not theirs. Waiting for a dead man’s voice, a dead madman. “I’m going to the school.”

Rhuarc pointed out that the Wise Ones were probably on their way from the tents, and Berelain that Tairen and Cairhienin nobles alike would be clamoring to know where she was hiding Rand, but he told them to tell the truth. And tell the lot of them not to follow him; he would return when he returned. The pair looked as if they had swallowed sour plums, but he snatched up the Dragon Scepter and left.

In the hallway, Jalani and a yellow-haired Red Shield not much older than she came smoothly to their feet, glancing at one another hastily. Otherwise the corridor was empty except for a few scurrying servants. One of each; it figured, though Rand wondered whether Urien had had to wrestle Sulin to make it so.

Motioning them to follow, he went straight down to the nearest stable, where the stalls were the same green marble as the columns that held the high ceiling. The head groom, a gnarled fellow with big ears, the Rising Sun of Cairhien worked on his short leather vest, was so shocked by Rand appearing with only two Aiel for escort that he kept staring at the stable doors for more and bowed so often between stares that Rand wondered whether he would ever get a horse. But once the man shouted “A horse for the Lord Dragon!” six stablemen leaped to prepare a tall, fiery-eyed bay gelding with a gold-fringed bridle and a gold-worked saddle atop a sky-blue saddlecloth fringed and embroidered with rising suns in gold.

As quickly as they moved, the big-eared head groom was gone by the time Rand swung into the saddle. To hunt for the coterie of followers the Dragon Reborn must have, possibly. Or to tell someone Rand was leaving the palace practically alone. Cairhien was like that. The sleek bay wanted to frisk, but while still trying to settle his dancing, Rand trotted him out of the palace grounds, past startled Cairhienin guards. He was not worried about assassins laying an ambush from the big-eared man’s warning; anyone who ambushed him would find they had come to the shearing without clippers. Any delay, though, and likely he would have nobles crowding around so thickly he could not leave without them. It felt good to be alone for a change.