Faile nodded in fierce agreement, but Perrin ignored her. “I won’t be turned aside, Master al’Vere. The Whitecloaks want me, and if they do not get me, they might turn to the next Aybara they can find. Whitecloaks don’t need much to decide somebody is guilty. They are not pleasant people.”

“We know,” Mistress al’Vere said softly.

Her husband stared at his hands on the table. “Perrin, your family is gone.”

“Gone? You mean the farm is burned already?” Perrin’s fist tightened around the silver cup. “I hoped I was in time. I should have known better, I suppose. Too long before I heard. Maybe I can help my da and Uncle Eward rebuild. Who are they staying with? I want to see them first, at least.”

Bran grimaced, and his wife stroked his shoulder comfortingly. But strangely her eyes stayed on Perrin, all sadness and comfort.

“They are dead, my boy,” Bran said in a rush.

“Dead? No. They can’t be—” Perrin frowned as wetness suddenly slopped over his hand, stared at the crumpled cup as though wondering where it had come from. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to—” He pulled at the flattened silver, trying to force it back out with his fingers. That would not work. Of course not. Very carefully, he put the ruined cup in the middle of the table. “I will replace it. I can—” He wiped his hand on his coat, and suddenly found he was caressing the axe hanging at his belt. Why was everyone looking at him so oddly? “Are you sure?” His voice sounded far away. “Adora and Deselle? Paet? My mother?”

“All of them,” Bran told him. “Your aunts and uncles, too, and your cousins. Everybody on the farm. I helped bury them, my boy. On that low hill, the one with the apple trees.”

Perrin stuck his thumb in his mouth. Fool thing to do, cutting himself on his own axe. “My mother likes apple blossoms. The Whitecloaks. Why would they—? Burn me, Paet was only nine. The girls … .” His voice was very flat. He thought he should have had some emotion in those words. Some emotion.

“It was Trollocs,” Mistress al’Vere said quickly. “They have come back, Perrin. Not the way they did when you went away, not attacking the village, but out in the countryside. Most farms without close neighbors have been abandoned. No one goes outside at night, even near to the village. It is the same down to Deven Ride and up to Watch Hill, maybe to Taren Ferry. The Whitecloaks, bad as they are, are our only real protection. They’ve saved two families that I know, when Trollocs attacked their farms.”

“I wished—I hoped—” He could not quite remember what it was he had wished. Something about Trollocs. He did not want to remember. The Whitecloaks protecting the Two Rivers? It was almost enough to make him laugh. “Rand’s father. Tam’s farm. Was that Trollocs, too?”

Mistress al’Vere opened her mouth, but Bran cut her off. “He deserves the truth, Marin. That was Whitecloaks, Perrin. That, and the Cauthon place.”

“Mat’s people too. Rand’s, and Mat’s, and mine.” Strange. He sounded as if he were talking about whether it might rain. “Are they dead, too?”

“No, my boy. No, Abell and Tam are hiding in the Westwood somewhere. And Mat’s mother and sisters … . They’re alive, too.”

“Hiding?”

“There is no need to go into that,” Mistress al’Vere said briskly. “Bran, bring him another cup of brandy. And you drink this one, Perrin.” Her husband sat where he was, but she only frowned at him and went on. “I would offer you a bed, but it isn’t safe. Some people are like as not to run off hunting for Lord Bornhald if they find out you are here. Eward Congar and Hari Coplin fawn after the Whitecloaks like heel-hounds, eager to please and name names, and Cenn Buie isn’t much better. And Wit Congar will carry tales, too, if Daise doesn’t stop him. She is the Wisdom, now. Perrin, it is best for to go. Believe me.”

Perrin shook his head slowly; it was too much to take in. Daise Congar the Wisdom? The woman was like a bull. Whitecloaks protecting Emond’s Field. Hari and Eward and Wit cooperating. Not much more could be expected from Congars or Coplins, but Cenn Buie was on the Village Council. Lord Bornhald. So Geofram Bornhald was there. Faile was watching him, her eyes large and moist. Why should she be on the edge of tears?

“There is more, Brandelwyn al’Vere,” Gaul said. “Your face says so.”

“There is,” Bran agreed. “No, Marin,” he added firmly when she gave a small shake of her head. “He deserves the truth. The whole truth.” She folded her hands with a sigh; Marin al’Vere very nearly always got her way—except when Bran’s face was set, as now, with his eyebrows drawn down hard as a plow.

“What truth?” Perrin asked. His mother liked apple blossoms.

“First off, Padan Fain is with the Whitecloaks,” Bran said. “He calls himself Ordeith now, and he won’t answer to his own name at all, but it’s him, stare down his nose as he will.”

“He’s a Darkfriend,” Perrin said absently. Adora and Deselle always put apple blossoms in their hair in the spring. “Admitted from his own mouth. He brought the Trollocs, on Winternight.” Paet liked to climb in the apple trees; he would throw apples at you from the branches if you did not watch him.

“Is he, now,” the Mayor said grimly. “Now, that is interesting. He has some authority with the Whitecloaks. The first we heard they were here was after they burned Tam’s farm. That was Fain’s work; he led the Whitecloaks that did it. Tam feathered four or five of them with arrows before he made it to the woods, and he reached the Cauthon farm in the nick to stop them taking Abell. But they arrested Natti and the girls. And Haral Luhhan, and Alsbet, too. I think Fain might have hung them, except Lord Bornhald wouldn’t allow it. Not that he let them go, either. They haven’t been harmed, as far as I can discover, but they’re being held in the Whitecloak camp up at Watch Hill. For some reason, Fain has a hate for you, and Rand, and Mat. He’s offered a hundred pieces of gold for anyone related to the three of you; two hundred for Tam or Abell. And Lord Bornhald seems to have some interest in you, especially. When a Whitecloak patrol comes here, he usually comes, too, and asks questions about you.”

“Yes,” Perrin said. “Of course. He would.” Perrin of the Two Rivers, who ran with wolves. Darkfriend. Fain could have told them the rest. Fain, with the Children of the Light? It was a distant thought. Better than thinking about Trollocs, though. He grimaced at his hands, made them be still on the table. “They protect you from the Trollocs.”

Marin al’Vere leaned toward him, frowning. “Perrin, we need the Whitecloaks. Yes, they burned Tam’s farm, and Abell’s, they’ve arrested people, and they stamp around as if they own everything they see, but Alsbet and Natti and the rest are unharmed, only held, and that can be straightened out somehow. The Dragon’s Fang has been scrawled on a few doors, but nobody except the Congars and Coplins pay any mind, and they’re likely the ones who did the scrawling. Tam and Abell can stay in hiding until the Whitecloaks go. They have to go sooner or later. But as long as there are Trollocs here, we do need them. Please understand. It isn’t that we would not rather have you than them, but we need them and we don’t want them to hang you.”

“You call this being protected, roofmistress?” Bain said. “If you ask the lion to protect you from wolves, you have only chosen to end in one belly instead of another.”

“Can you not protect yourselves?” Chiad added. “I have seen Perrin fight, and Mat Cauthon, and Rand al’Thor. They are the same blood as you.”

Bran sighed heavily. “We are farmers, simple people. Lord Luc talks of organizing men to fight the Trollocs, but that means leaving your family unprotected while you go off with him, and no one much likes that idea.”

Perrin was confused. Who was Lord Luc? He asked as much, and Mistress al’Vere answered.

“He came about the time the Whitecloaks did. He’s a Hunter of the Horn. You know the story, The Great H

Tags: Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time Fantasy
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