Knife of Dreams (95 page)

Selucia shifted in her saddle, and Tuon signed
PATIENCE
in high imperative form, a command. She kept her face smooth, but inside, she was furious. Knowing where soldiers were gave clues to where they were going. There had to be some way to burn that map. That would be as important as laying hands on one of the crossbow cranks.

“I’ll want to talk with Master Roidelle, too,” Toy said.

Soldiers came to take the horses, and for a while all seemed confusion
and milling about. A gap-toothed fellow took Akein’s reins, and Tuon gave him explicit instructions on caring for the mare. He returned her a sour look along with his bow. Commoners in these lands seemed to believe themselves equal to everyone. Selucia gave the same sort of instructions to the lanky young man who took Rosebud. She thought that an appropriate name for a dresser’s horse. The young man stared at Selucia’s chest, until she slapped him. Hard. He only grinned and led the dun away rubbing his cheek. Tuon sighed. That was all very well for Selucia, but for herself, striking a commoner would lower her eyes for months.

Soon enough, though, she was settled on a folding stool with Selucia at her back, and stout Lopin presented them with tin cups full of dark tea, bowing quite properly to Selucia as well as to her. Not deeply enough, but the balding man did try. Her tea was honeyed to perfection, lightly, but then, he had served her often enough to know how she liked it. Activity bustled about them. Talmanes had a brief reunion with gray-haired Nerim, who apparently was his serving man, and happy to be reunited with him. At least, the thin man’s normally mournful countenance actually flashed a momentary smile. That sort of thing should have been done in private. Leilwin and Domon allowed Master Charin to lead Olver off to explore the camp with Juilin and Thera—Thom and Aludra went too, to stretch their legs—then deliberately took stools close by. Leilwin even went so far as to stare unblinking at Tuon for a long moment. Selucia made a low sound very like a growl, but Tuon ignored the provocation and gestured Mistress Anan to bring her stool over beside her. Eventually, the traitors would be punished, and the thief, the property restored to its rightful owners, and the
marath’damane
leashed, but those things had to wait on what was more important.

Three more officers appeared, young noblemen with that red hand on their dark silk coats, and had their own reunion with Toy, with a great deal of laughing and hitting each other on the shoulder, which they seemed to take as a sign of fondness. She soon had them sorted out. Edorion was the dark, lean man with the serious expression except when smiling, Reimon the broad-shouldered fellow who smiled a great deal, and Carlomin the tall, slender one. Edorion was clean-shaven, while Reimon and Carlomin both had dark beards that were trimmed to points and glistened as if oiled. All three made much over the Aes Sedai, bowing deeply. They even bowed to Bethamin and Seta! Tuon shook her head.

“I’ve told you often enough it’s a different world than you’re used to,” Mistress Anan murmured, “but you still don’t quite believe it, do you?”

“Just because a thing is a certain way,” Tuon replied, “doesn’t mean it should be that way, even if it has been for a long time.”

“Some might say the same of your people, my Lady.”

“Some might.” Tuon let it rest there, though she usually enjoyed her private conversations with the woman. Mistress Anan argued against leashing
marath’damane
, as might be expected, and even against keeping
da’covale
of all things, yet they were discussions rather than arguments, and Tuon had made her concede a few points. She had hopes of bringing the woman around eventually. Not today, though. She wanted her mind focused on Toy.

Master Roidelle appeared, a graying, round-faced man whose bulk strained his dark coat, followed by six fit-appearing younger men each carrying a long, cylindrical leather case. “I brought all the maps of Altara I have, my Lord,” he told Talmanes in a musical accent as he bowed. Did everyone in these lands speak as if racing to get the words out? “Some cover the whole country, they do, some no more than a hundred square miles. The best are my own, of course, those I made these past weeks.”

“Lord Mat will tell you what he wants to see,” Talmanes said. “Shall we leave you to it, Mat?”

But Toy was already telling the mapmaker what he wanted, the map marked with the Seanchan camps. In short order it was sorted out from the others in one of the cases and spread on the ground with Toy squatting on his heels beside it. Master Roidelle sent one of his assistants running to fetch him a stool. He would have burst his coat buttons trying to imitate Toy, and likely have fallen over besides. Tuon stared at that map hungrily. How to get her hands on it?

Exchanging glances and laughing as if being snubbed were the funniest thing in the world, Talmanes and the other three men strolled toward Tuon. The Aes Sedai gathered around the map on the ground until Toy told them to quit peering over his shoulder. They moved off a little, Bethamin and Seta heeling them at a distance, and began talking quietly among themselves, occasionally glancing in his direction. If Toy had been paying any heed to their expressions, especially Joline’s, he might have been worried in spite of the incredible
ter’angreal
Mistress Anan said he carried.

“We’re about here, right?” he said, marking a spot with his finger. Master Roidelle murmured that they were. “So this is the camp where the
raken
supposedly is? The flying beast?” Another murmur of assent. “Good. What kind of camp is it? How many men are there?”

“Reportedly it’s a supply camp, my Lord. For resupplying patrols.” The young man returned with another folding stool, and the stout man eased
himself down with a grunt. “Supposedly about a hundred soldiers, mostly Altaran, and about two hundred laborers, but I’m told there can be as many as five hundred more soldiers at times.” A careful man, Master Roidelle.

Talmanes made one of those odd bows, with one foot forward, and the other three mirrored him. “My Lady,” Talmanes said, “Vanin told me of your circumstances, and the promises Lord Mat made. I just want to tell you, he keeps his word.”

“That he does, my Lady,” Edorion murmured. “Always.” Tuon motioned him to step aside so she could continue to watch Toy, and he did so with a surprised glance at Toy and another for her. She gave him a stern look. The last thing she wanted was for these men to start imagining things. Not everything had fallen out as it had to, yet. There was still a chance this could all go awry.

“Is he a lord or is he not?” she demanded.

“Excuse me,” Talmanes said, “but would you say that again? I apologize. I must have dirt in my ears.” She repeated herself carefully, but it still took them a minute to puzzle out what she had said.

“Burn my soul, no,” Reimon said finally with a laugh. He stroked his beard. “Except to us. Lord enough for us.”

“He dislikes nobles for the most part,” Carlomin said. “I count it an honor to be among the few he doesn’t dislike.”

“An honor,” Reimon agreed. Edorion contented himself with nodding.

“Soldiers, Master Roidelle,” Toy said firmly. “Show me where the soldiers are. And more than any few hundred.”

“What is he doing?” Tuon said, frowning. “He can’t think to
sneak
this many men out of Altara even if he knows where every last soldier is. There are always patrols, and sweeps by
raken
.” Again they took their time before answering. Perhaps she should try speaking very fast.

“We’ve seen no patrols in better than three hundred miles, and no—
raken
?—no
raken
,” Edorion said quietly. He was studying her. Too late to stop his imaginings.

Reimon laughed again. “If I know Mat, he’s planning us a battle. The Band of the Red Hand rides to battle again. It’s been too long, if you ask me.”

Selucia sniffed, and so did Mistress Anan. Tuon had to agree with them. “A battle won’t get you out of Altara,” she said sharply.

“In that case,” Talmanes said, “he’s planning us a war.” The other three nodded agreement as if that were the most normal thing under the Light. Reimon even laughed. He seemed to think everything was humorous.

“Three thousand?” Toy said. “You’re sure? Sure enough, man. Sure enough will do. Vanin can locate them if they haven’t moved too far.”

Tuon looked at him, squatting there by the map, moving his fingers over its surface, and suddenly she saw him in a new light. A buffoon? No. A lion stuffed into a horse-stall might look like a peculiar joke, but a lion on the high plains was something very different. Toy was loose on the high plains, now. She felt a chill. What sort of man had she entangled herself with? After all this time, she realized, she had hardly a clue.

The night was cool enough to send a small shiver through Perrin whenever the breeze gusted despite his fur-lined cloak. A halo around the fat crescent moon said there would be more rain before long. Thick clouds drifting across the moon made the pale light dim and strengthen, dim and strengthen, yet it was enough for his eyes. He sat Stepper just inside the edge of the trees and watched the cluster of four tall gray stone windmills in a clearing atop the ridge, their pale sails gleaming and shadowed by turns as they rotated. The machinery of the windmills groaned loudly. It seemed doubtful the Shaido even knew they should grease the works of the things. The stone aqueduct was a dark bar stretching east on high stone arches past abandoned farms and rail-fenced fields—the Shaido had planted, too early, with this much rain—toward another ridge and the lake beyond. Malden lay one more ridge west. He eased the heavy hammer in its loop on his belt. Malden and Faile. In a few hours, he would add a fifty-fourth knot to the leather cord in his pocket.

He cast his mind out.
Are you ready, Snowy Dawn?
he thought.
Are you close enough yet?
Wolves avoided towns, and with Shaido hunting parties in the surrounding forest during the day, they stayed farther from Malden than usual.

Patience, Young Bull
, came the reply, touched with irritation. But then, Snowy Dawn was irascible by nature, a scarred male of considerable age for a wolf who had once killed a leopard by himself. Those old injuries sometimes kept him from sleeping very long at a stretch.
Two days from now, you said. We will be there. Now let me try to sleep. We must hunt well tomorrow, since we cannot hunt the day after.
They were images and smells rather than words, of course—“two days” was the sun crossing the sky twice, and “hunt” a pack trotting with noses into the breeze blended with the scent of deer—but Perrin’s mind converted the images to words even as he saw them in his head.

Patience. Yes. Haste spoiled the work. But it was hard now that he was so close. Very hard.

A form appeared from the dark door at the base of the nearest windmill and waved an Aiel spear back and forth overhead. The groaning had convinced him the windmills must still be deserted—they had been when the Maidens scouted them earlier, and no one would put up with that noise any longer than they had to—but he had sent Gaul and some of the Maidens to be sure one way or another.

“Let’s go, Mishima,” he said, gathering his reins. “It’s done.” One way or another.

“How can you make out anything?” the Seanchan muttered. He avoided looking at Perrin, whose golden eyes would be glowing in the night. That had made the scarred man jump the first time he saw it. He did not smell amused tonight. He smelled tense. But he called softly over his shoulder. “Bring the carts ahead. Quickly, now. Quickly. And be quiet about it, or I’ll have your ears!”

Perrin heeled his dun stallion forward without waiting on the others, or the six high-wheeled carts. Liberally greased axles made them as silent as carts could be. They still sounded noisy to him, the cart horses’ hooves squelching in the mud, the carts themselves creaking as wood flexed and rubbed, but he doubted anyone else could have heard them fifty paces off, and maybe not closer. At the top of the gentle slope he dismounted and let Stepper’s reins fall. A trained warhorse, the stallion would stand there as if hobbled so long as his reins hung down. The windmill heads squealed, turning slightly as the breeze shifted. The slowly spinning arms were long enough that Perrin could have touched one by jumping when it swung low. He stared toward the last ridge that hid Malden. Nothing grew there taller than a bush. Nothing moved in the darkness. Just one ridge between him and Faile. The Maidens had come outside to join Gaul, all of them still veiled.

“There was no one,” Gaul said, not quietly. This close, the grinding of the windmills’ gears would have swallowed quiet words.

“The dust has not been disturbed since I was here last,” Sulin added.

Perrin scratched his beard. Just as well. Had they needed to kill Shaido, they could have carried away the bodies, but the dead would have been missed, and it would have drawn attention to the windmills and aqueduct. It might have started someone thinking about the water.

“Help me get the lids off, Gaul.” There was no need for him to do that. It would save only minutes, but he needed to be doing something. Gaul
simply stuck his spear through the harness holding his bowcase to join the others on his back.

The aqueduct ran along the ground on the ridgetop, between the four windmills, and stood shoulder-high on Perrin, less on Gaul, who climbed over. Just beyond the last pair of windmills, bronze handles on either side allowed them to lift off heavy pieces of stone two feet wide and five feet long until they had cleared a stretch of six feet. What the opening was used for, he did not know. There was another like it on the other side. Maybe to work on the flaps that made sure water flowed only one way, or to get inside to repair any leaks. He could see small ripples of motion as it streamed toward Malden, filling more than half the stone channel.