Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

Bashere’s rap cut off the snarling as though with a knife. “You may come,” a composed voice said loudly.

It was all Perrin could do not to push past Bashere, and once he was inside, his eyes sought out Faile anxiously, where she sat in a wide-armed chair just where the light from the windows became less sharp. The carpet was mostly dark red in here, making him think of blood, and one of the two wall hangings showed a woman on horseback killing a leopard with a spear. The other was a furious battle swirling around a White Lion banner. Her scent was a jumble of emotions he could not separate, and her left cheek bore a red handprint, but she smiled at him, if faintly.

Faile’s mother made Perrin blink. With all Bashere’s talk of doves, he expected a fragile woman, but Lady Deira stood inches taller than her husband, and she was . . . statuesque. Not big like Mistress Luhhan, who was round, or like Daise Congar, who looked as if she could take over a blacksmith’s hammer. She was buxom, which a man certainly should not think of his mother-in-law, and he could see where Faile got her beauty. Faile’s face was her mother’s face, without the slash of white through her dark hair on her temples. If that was how Faile would look when she reached that age, he was a very fortunate man. On the other hand, that bold nose gave Lady Deira the look of an eagle as those dark tilted eyes fastened on him, a fiery-eyed eagle ready to sink talons deep into a particularly insolent rabbit. She smelled of fury and contempt. The real surprise, though, was the crimson handprint on her cheek.

“Father, we were just talking of you,” Faile said with an affectionate smile, gliding to him and taking his hands. She kissed his cheeks, and Perrin felt a sudden stab of disgruntlement; a father did not deserve all that when there was a husband standing right there with only one brief smile to sustain him.

“Should I ride away and hide then, Zarine?” Bashere chuckled. Oh, a very rich chuckle. The man did not even seem to see that his wife and daughter had hit each other!

“She prefers Faile, Davram,” Lady Deira said absently. Arms folded beneath that ample bosom, she eyed Perrin up and down without any effort to disguise it.

He heard Faile whisper softly to her father, “It depends on him, now.”

Perrin supposed it did, if she and her mother had come to blows. Squaring his shoulders, he prepared to tell Lady Deira that he would be as gentle with Faile as if she were a kitten, that he himself would be meek as a lamb. The last part would be a lie, of course — Faile would spit a meek man and roast him for dinner — but peace had to be maintained. Besides, he did try to be gentle with her. Maybe the Lady Deira was why Bashere talked so about gentleness; no man would have the nerve to be anything else with this woman.

Before he could open his mouth, Faile’s mother said, “Yellow eyes do not make a wolf. Are you strong enough to handle my daughter, young man? From what she tells me, you’re a milksop, indulging her every whim, letting her twine you around her fingers whenever she wants to play cat’s cradle.”

Perrin stared. Bashere had taken the chair Faile had been sitting in, and now he was complacently studying his boots, one propped atop the toe of the other. Faile, seated on the broad arm of her father’s chair, gave her mother one indignant frown, then smiled at Perrin with all the confidence she had showed when telling him to stand up to Rand.

“I don’t think she twists me around her finger,” he said carefully. She tried, true, but he did not think he had ever let her. Except once in a while, to please her.

Lady Deira’s sniff spoke volumes. “Weaklings never think so. A woman wants a strong man, stronger than she, here.” Her finger poked his chest hard enough to make him grunt. “I’ll never forget the first time Davram took me by the scruff of the neck and showed me he was the stronger of us. It was magnificent!” Perrin blinked; that was an image his mind could not hold. “If a woman is stronger than her husband, she comes to despise him. She has the choice of either tyrannizing him or else making herself less in order not to make him less. If the husband is strong enough, though . . . “ She poked him again, even harder. “ . . . she can be as strong as she is, as strong as she can grow to be. You will have to prove to Faile that you’re strong.” Another poke, harder still. “The women of my family are leopards. If you cannot train her to hunt on your command, Faile will rake you as you deserve. Are you strong enough?” This time her finger drove Perrin back a step.

“Will you stop that?” he growled. He refrained from rubbing his chest. Faile was giving no help at all, merely smiling at him encouragingly. Bashere was studying him with pursed lips and a cocked eyebrow. “If I indulge her sometimes, it’s because I want to. I like to see her smile. If you expect me to trample on her, you can forget it.” Maybe he had lost with that. Faile’s mother began staring at him in a most peculiar way, and her scent was a tangle he could not make out, though anger was still in it, and icy disdain. But good impression or no, he was done with trying to say what Bashere and his wife wanted to hear. “I love her, and she loves me, and that’s the whole of it as far as I’m concerned.”

“He says,” Bashere said slowly, “that if you take our daughter away, he will take her back. He seems to think nine thousand Saldaean horse no match for a few hundred Two Rivers bowmen.”

His wife gazed at Perrin consideringly, then visibly took herself in hand, her head coming erect. “That is all very well, but any man can swing a sword. What I want to know is whether he can tame a willful, headstrong, disobedient — ”

“Enough, Deira,” Bashere cut in mildly. “Since you’ve obviously decided Zarine . . . Faile . . . is no longer a child, I think Perrin will do well enough.”

To Perrin’s surprise, Bashere’s wife bowed her head meekly. “As you say, my heart.” Then she glared at Perrin, not meekly at all, as if to say that was the way a man should handle a woman.

Bashere murmured something under his breath about grandchildren and making the blood strong again. And Faile? She smiled at Perrin with an expression he had never seen on her face before, an expression that made him decidedly uncomfortable. With her hands folded and her ankles crossed and her head tilted to one side, she somehow managed to look . . . submissive. Faile! Maybe he had married into a family where everyone was mad.

Closing the door on Perrin, Rand finished his goblet of

punch, then sprawled in a chair, thinking. He hoped Perrin got on well with Bashere. But then, if they struck sparks, maybe Perrin would be more amenable to Tear. He needed either Perrin or Mat there to convince Sammael that that was the true attack. The thought brought a soft, bitter laugh. Light, what a way to think about a friend. Lews Therin was giggling and muttering indistinctly about friends and betrayal. Rand wished he could sleep for a year.

Min entered without knocking or being announced, of course. The Maidens sometimes looked at her oddly, but whatever Sulin had said, or maybe Melaine, Min was now on the short list of those sent on in whatever he was doing. She took advantage, too; once already she had insisted on taking a stool beside his bathtub and talking as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all. Now she just paused to fill herself a goblet of punch and dropped into his lap with a little bounce. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on her face. She would not even try to learn how to ignore the heat, just laughing and saying she was not Aes Sedai and had no plans to be. He had become her favorite chair for these visits, it seemed, but he was certain if he merely pretended not to notice, she would give up her game sooner or later. That was why he had hid as best he could in his bath water instead of blindfolding her with Air. Once she knew she was affecting him, she would never stop the joke. Besides, much as it shamed him to admit it about Min, having a girl on his knees did feel nice. He was not made of wood.

“Did you have a good talk with Faile?”

“It didn’t last long. Her father came and got her, and she was too busy flinging arms around his neck to notice me. I went for a little walk after.”

“You didn’t like her?” he said, and Min’s eyes widened, her lashes making them look even larger. Women never expected a man to see or understand anything they did not want him to.

“It isn’t that I dislike her exactly,” she said, drawing the words out. “It’s just . . . Well, she wants what she wants when she wants it, and she will not take no for an answer. I pity poor Perrin, married to her. Do you know what she wanted with me? To make sure I had no designs on her precious husband. You may not have noticed — men never see these things — ” She cut off, looking up at him suspiciously through those long lashes. He had showed he could see some things, after all. Once she was satisfied he did not mean to laugh, or bring it up, she went on. “I could see at a glance he’s besotted with her, the poor fool. And she with him, for all the good it will do him. I don’t think he would even look twice at another woman, but she doesn’t believe it, not if the other woman looks first anyway. He’s found his falcon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she kills him when the hawk appears.” Her breath caught, and she glanced up at him again then busied herself drinking from the goblet.

She would tell him what she meant if he asked. He remembered her as saying nothing of her viewings unless they concerned him, but if that was so, she had changed for some reason. She would view anyone he asked now, and tell him everything she saw. Yet doing so made her uncomfortable.

Shut up! he shouted at Lews Therin. Go away! You’re dead! It had no effect; it often did not, now. That voice went on mumbling, maybe about being betrayed by friends, maybe about betraying them.

“Did you see anything that concerns me?” he asked.

With a grateful grin, Min settled companionably against his chest — well, she probably meant it to be companionable; or then again, very likely not — and began talking between sips of punch. “When you two were together, I saw those fireflies and the darkness stronger than ever. Um. I like melon punch. But with the two of you in the same room, the fireflies were holding their own instead of being eaten faster than they can swarm, the way they do when you’re alone. And something else I saw when you were together. Twice he’s going to have to be there, or you . . . ” She peered into her goblet so he could not see her face. “If he’s not, something bad will happen to you.” Her voice sounded small and frightened. “Very bad.”

Much as he would have liked to know more — like when and where and what — she would have told him already had she known. “Then I’ll just have to keep him around,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. He did not like for Min to be frightened.