Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

Beyond the Gate

* * *

Perrin paid scant attention as Rand instructed a Maiden, “Tell Sulin to prepare rooms for Perrin and Faile and obey them as she would me.” The two Aiel women took that as some sort of great joke, from the way they laughed and slapped thighs, but Perrin was staring at a slender man standing a little way down the tapestry-hung corridor. He had no doubt at all that the man was Davram Bashere. It was not just that he was Saldaean, and he surely looked nothing like Faile with those thick gray-streaked mustaches curving down to almost hide his mouth. He was no taller than Faile either, maybe a little shorter, but the way he stood, arms folded, face like a hawk staring down into a henyard, made Perrin certain. The man knew; that was certain, too.

Making last goodbyes to Rand, Perrin took a deep breath and walked up the hallway. He found himself wishing he had his axe; Bashere was wearing his sword. “Lord Bashere?” Perrin made a bow that was not returned. The man reeked of cold fury. “I am Perrin Aybara.”

“We will talk,” Bashere said curtly and turned on his heel. Perrin had no choice but to follow, and to take quick strides despite his longer legs.

Two turnings later, Bashere entered a small sitting room and closed the door behind them. Tall windows let in plenty of light, and even more heat than the high ceiling could handle. Two chairs with padded seats and high, scroll-carved backs had been placed facing each other. A silver pitcher with a tall neck and two silver cups stood on a lapis-inlaid table. Not punch, this time; strong wine, by the smell.

Bashere filled the cups and thrust one at Perrin, gesturing peremptorily to one of the chairs. He wore a smile behind his mustaches, but eyes and smile could have belonged to two different men. The eyes could have driven nails. “I suppose Zarine told you all about my estates before you . . . married her. All about the Broken Crown. She was always talkative as a girl.”

The man remained standing, so Perrin did as well. Broken crown? Faile had certainly never mentioned any broken crown. “First she told me you were a fur trader. Or maybe it was a lumber merchant first, and then a fur trader. You sold ice peppers, too.” Bashere gave a start, repeating “Fur trader?” incredulously under his breath. “Her story changed,” Perrin went on, “but once too often she repeated something you had said about how a general should behave, and I asked her straight out, and . . . ” He peered into his wine, then made himself meet the other man’s eyes. “When I found out who you were, I almost changed my mind about marrying her, only she had her mind set, and when Faile has her mind set, shifting her is like shifting a hitch of mules that have all decided to sit down at once. Besides, I loved her. I love her.”

“Faile?” Bashere barked. “Who in the Pit of Doom is Faile? We are talking about my daughter Zarine, and what you’ve done to her!”

“Faile is the name she took when she became a Hunter for the Horn,” Perrin said patiently. He had to make a good impression on this man; being at odds with your father-in-law was almost as bad as being at odds with your mother-in-law. “That was before she met me.”

“A Hunter?” Pride shone in the man’s voice, and his sudden grin. The scent of anger almost vanished. “The little minx never said a word to me about that. I must say, Faile suits her better than Zarine. That was her mother’s notion, and I — ” Suddenly he gave himself a shake, and Perrin a suspicious stare. Anger began scenting the air again. “Don’t try changing the subject, boy. What we are about is you and my daughter and this supposed marriage of yours.”

“Supposed?” Perrin had always been good at holding his temper; Mistress Luhhan said he never had one. When you were bigger and stronger than the other boys growing up, and might hurt somebody by accident, you learned to hold your temper. Right then he was having a little difficulty, though. “The Wisdom performed the ceremony, the same as everybody’s been married in the Two Rivers since time out of mind.”

“Boy, it wouldn’t matter if you had the words said by an Ogier Elder with six Aes Sedai standing witness. Zarine still isn’t old enough to marry without her mother’s permission, which she never asked, much less received. She is with Deira right now, and if she doesn’t convince her mother she’s old enough to be married, she goes back to the camp, probably doing duty as her mother’s saddle. And you . . . ” Bashere’s fingers stroked the hilt of his sword, though he did not seem aware of it. “You,” he said in an almost jolly tone, “I get to kill.”

“Faile is mine,” Perrin growled. Wine slopped over his wrist, and he looked down in surprise at the winecup, crushed in his fist. He set the twisted piece of silver on the table carefully, beside the pitcher, but he could do nothing about his voice. “Nobody can take her from me. Nobody! You take her back to your camp — or anywhere! — and I’ll come for her.”

“I have nine thousand men with me,” the other man said in a surprisingly mild tone.

“Are they any harder to kill than Trollocs? Try taking her — try! — and we’ll find out!” He was shaking, Perrin realized, his hands clenched into fists so hard they hurt. It shocked him; he had not been angry, really angry, in so long that he no longer remembered what it was like.

Bashere studied him up and down, then shook his head. “It might be a shame to kill you. We need some new blood. It’s getting thin in the House. My grandfather used to say we were all becoming soft, and he was right. I’m half the man he was, and much as it shames me to say it, Zarine is terribly soft. Not weak, mind . . . ” He frowned hard for a moment, nodding when he saw Perrin was not going to say Faile was weak. “ . . . but soft, just the same.”

And that shocked Perrin so, he sat down before he realized he had moved to the chair. He almost forgot to be angry. Was this man mad, changing about like that? And Faile, soft? She could be deliciously soft at times, true, but any man who thought she was soft in the way her father meant would probably have his head handed to him. Himself included.

Bashere picked up the crushed winecup, studied it, then replaced it and took the other chair. “Zarine told me a good bit about you before she went with her mother, all about Lord Perrin of the Two Rivers, Slayer of Trollocs. That’s good, that. I like a man who can stand toe to toe with a Trolloc and not back up. Now I want to know what kind of man you are.” He waited expectantly, sipping his wine.

Perrin wished he had some more of Rand’s melon punch, or even his winecup undented. His throat had gone dry. He wanted to make that good impression, but he had to start with the truth. “The fact of it is, I am not really a lord. I’m a blacksmith. You see, when the Trollocs came . . . “ He trailed off because Bashere was laughing so hard the man had to wipe his eyes.

“Boy, the Creator never made the Houses. Some forget it, but go far enough back in any House, and you’ll find a commoner who showed uncommon courage or kept his head and took charge when everybody else was running around like plucked geese. Mind you, another thing some like to forget is the road down can be just as sudden. I’ve two maids in Tyr who would be ladies if their forebears two hundred years ago hadn’t been fools even a fool wouldn’t follow, and a woodcutter in Sidona who claims his ancestors were kings and queens before Artur Hawkwing. He might be telling the truth; he’s a good woodcutter. As many roads down as up, and the roads down as slippery as the others.” Bashere snorted hard enough to make his mustaches stir. “A fool moans when fortune takes him down, and it takes a true fool to moan when fortune takes him up. What I want to know about you isn’t what you were, or even so much what you are, as what you are inside. If my wife leaves Zarine with a whole hide, and I don’t kill you, do you know how to treat a wife? Well?”

Mindful of that good impression, Perrin decided not to explain that he would much rather be a blacksmith again. “I treat Faile as well as I know how,” he said carefully.

Bashere snorted again. “As well as you know how.” His flat tone became a growl. “You had better know well enough, boy, or I’ll . . . You hear me. A wife isn’t a trooper to go running when you shout. In some ways, a woman is like a dove. You hold her half as hard as you think is necessary, or you might hurt her. You don’t want to hurt Zarine. You understand me?” He grinned suddenly, disconcertingly, and his voice grew almost friendly. “You might do very well for a son-in-law, Aybara, but if you make her unhappy . . . ” He was stroking his sword hilt again.

“I try to make her happy,” Perrin said seriously. “Hurting her is the last thing I’d want to do.”

“Good. Because it would be the last thing you do, boy.” That was delivered with a grin too, but Perrin had no doubts Bashere meant every word. “I think it’s time to take you to Deira. If she and Zarine haven’t finished their discussion by now, best we step in before one of them kills the other. They always did get a little carried away when they argued, and Zarine’s too big now for Deira to put an end to it by spanking her.” Bashere put his cup on the table, and went on as they started for the door. “One thing you have to be aware of. Just because a woman says she believes something, doesn’t mean it is true. Oh, she’ll believe it, but a thing is not necessarily true just because a woman believes it is. You keep that in mind.”

“I will.” Perrin thought he understood what the man meant. Faile sometimes had only a passing acquaintance with the truth. Never about anything important, or at least not what she considered important, but if she promised to do something she did not want to do, she always managed to leave herself a hole to wriggle through and keep the letter of the promise while doing exactly as she wished. What he did not understand was what that could have to do wi

th meeting Faile’s mother.

It was a long walk through the Palace, along colonnades and up flights of stairs. There did not seem to be many Saldaeans about, but a good many Aielmen and Maidens, not to mention red-and-white-liveried servants, who bowed or curtsied, and white-robed men and women like those who had taken the horses. Those last scurried along with trays or armloads of toweling, eyes down, and seemed to take no notice of anyone. With a start Perrin realized that a number of them wore the same length of scarlet cloth around their temples that many of the Aielmen did. They must be Aiel, too. He noticed a small thing as well. As many women as men in the white robes wore the headband, and men in the drab coats and breeches, but no Maidens that he saw. Gaul had told him a little about the Aiel, but he had never mentioned the headbands.

As he and Bashere entered a room with ivory-inlaid chairs and small tables set on a patterned carpet of red and gold and green, Perrin’s ears picked up the muffled sound of women’s voices raised in an inner room. He could not make out words through the thick door, but he could tell that one of them was Faile. Abruptly there was a slap, followed almost immediately by another, and he winced. Only a complete wool-head stepped between his wife and her mother when they were arguing — by what he had seen, usually they both rounded on the poor fool — and he knew very well that Faile could stand up for herself in normal circumstances. But then again, he had seen strong women, themselves mothers and even grandmothers, allow themselves to be treated like children by their own mothers.

Squaring his shoulders, he strode for the inner door, but Bashere was there before, rapping with his knuckles as if they had all the time in the world. Of course, Bashere could not hear what sounded to Perrin like two cats in a sack. Wet cats.