Perrin shivered. If the Trollocs did attack, they would have as much fun as a dance at Sunday. Ihvon and the Aiel were the only ones really ready to fight back. And Faile; her dark eyes shone with fury. He had to get her to safety.
The Warder did not offer his own horse for the wounded, which made sense. The animal was not likely to let anyone else on its back, and a wartrained horse with its master in the saddle would be a formidable weapon if the Trollocs came again. Perrin tried to put Faile up on Swallow, but she stopped him. “The wounded, you said,” she told him softly. “Remember?”
To his disgust, she insisted he ride Stepper. He expected the others to protest, after he had brought them to disaster, but no one did. There were just enough horses for those who could not walk, and those unable to walk far — grudgingly he admitted that he was one of the latter — so he ended up in his saddle. Half the other riders had to cling to theirs. He sat upright, gritting his teeth to do it.
Those who walked or stumbled, and some who rode, clutched their bows as if they meant salvation. Perrin carried one, too, and so did Faile, though he doubted she could even draw a Two Rivers longbow. It was appearance that counted now; illusion that might see them safe. Like Ihvon, alert as a coiled whip; the three Aiel looked unchanged as they glided ahead, spears stuck through the harness of the bow cases on their backs, horn bows in hand and ready. The rest, including himself, were a ragbag remnant, nothing like the band he had led here, so confident and full of his own pride. Yet illusion worked as well as reality. For the first mile through the tangle vagrant breezes brought him Trolloc stink, the scent of Trollocs shadowing, stalking. Then the stench slowly faded and vanished as the Trollocs fell behind, deluded by a mirage.
Faile walked beside Stepper, one hand on Perrin's leg as though she meant to hold him up. Now and then she looked up at him, smiling encouragingly, but with worry creasing her forehead. He smiled back as best he could, trying to make her think he was all right. Twentyseven. He could not stop the names from running through his head. Colly Garren and Jared Aydaer, Dael al'Taron and Ken Chandin. Twentyseven Two Rivers folk he had killed with his stupidity. Twentyseven.
They took the most direct route back out of the Waterwood, breaking clear sometime in the afternoon. It was hard to tell exactly how late with the sky still blanketed in gray and everything blandly shadowed. Highgrass pasture dotted with trees stretched in front of them, and some scattered sheep, and a few farmhouses in the distance. No smoke rose from any of the chimneys; if there was anyone in those houses, something hot would have been cooking in the fireplace. The nearest rising smoke plume looked five miles off at least.
“We should find a farm for the night,” Ihvon said. “Some place under cover in case it rains again. A fire. Food.” He looked at the Two Rivers men and added, “Water and bandages.”
Perrin only nodded. The Warder was better than he at knowing the right thing to do. Old Bili Congar with his head full of ale was probably better. He just let Stepper follow Ihvon's gray.
Before they had gone much beyond a mile, a faint thread of music caught Perrin's ear, fiddles and flutes playing merry tunes. At first he thought he was dreaming, but then the others heard, too, exchanging incredulous looks, then relieved grins. Music meant people, and happy people by the sound, someone celebrating. That anyone might have something to celebrate was enough to pick their feet up somewhat.
Chapter 41
(Leaf)
Among the Tuatha'an
A gathering of wagons came in sight, a little off to the south, like small houses on wheels, tall wooden boxes, painted and lacquered in violent shades of red and blue and green and yellow, all standing in a large, rough circle around a few broadlimbed oak trees. The music came from there. Perrin had heard there were Tinkers, Traveling People, in the Two Rivers, but he had not seen them until now. Hobbled horses cropped the long grass nearby.
“I will sleep elsewhere,” Gaul said stiffly when he saw Perrin meant to go to the wagons, and loped away without another word.
Bain and Chiad spoke softly yet urgently to Faile. Perrin caught enough to know they were trying to convince her to spend the night with them in some snug thicket and not with “the Lost Ones.” They sounded appalled at the idea of speaking to the Tinkers, much less eating or sleeping with them. Faile's hand tightened on his leg as she refused, quietly, firmly. The two Maidens frowned at each other, blue eyes meeting gray with a deep measure of concern, but before the Traveling People's wagons came much closer, they trotted away after Gaul. They seemed to have recovered some of their spirits, though. Perrin heard Chiad suggesting they induce Gaul to play some game called Maidens' Kiss. They were both laughing as they passed out of his earshot.
Men and women were working in the camp, sewing, mending harness, cooking, washing clothes and children, levering a wagon up to replace a wheel. Other children ran playing, or danced to the tunes of half a dozen men playing fiddle or flute. From oldest to youngest, the Tinkers wore clothes even more colorful than their wagons, in eyewrenching combinations that had to have been chosen blindly. No sane man would have worn anything near those hues, and not many women.
As the ragtag party approached the wagons, silence fell, people stopping where they were to watch with worried expressions, women clutching infants and children running to hide behind adults, peering around a leg or hiding their faces in skirts. A wiry man, grayhaired and short, stepped forward and bowed gravely, both hands pressed to his chest. He wore a bright blue, highcollared coat and baggy trousers of a green that almost seemed to glow tucked into kneeboots. “You are welcome to our fires. Do you know the song?”
For a moment, trying not to hunch around the arrow in him, Perrin could only stare. He knew this man, the Mahdi, or Seeker, of this band. What chance? he wondered. Of all the Tinkers in the world, what chance it should be folk I know? Coincidences made him uneasy; when the Pattern produced coincidence, the Wheel seemed to be forcing events. I'm beginning to sound like a bloody Aes Sedai. He could not manage the bow, but he remembered the ritual. “Your welcome warms my spirit, Raen, as your fires warm the flesh, but I do not know the song.” Faile and Ihvon gave him startled looks, but no more than did the Two Rivers men. Judging by the mutters he heard from Ban and Tell and others, he had just given them something else to talk about.
“Then we seek still,” the wiry man intoned. “As it was, so shall it be, if we but remember, seek, and find.” Grimacing, he surveyed the bloody faces confronting him, his eyes flinching away from the weapons. The Traveling People would not touch anything they considered a weapon, “You are welcome to our fires. There will be hot water, and bandages and poultices. You know my name,” he added, looking at Perrin searchingly. “Of course. Your eyes.”
Raen's wife had come to his side as he spoke, a plump woman, grayhaired but smoothcheeked, a head taller than her husband. Her red blouse and bright yellow skirt and greenfringed shawl jarred the eye, but she had a motherly manner. “Perrin Aybara!” she said. “I thought I knew your face. Is Elyas with you?”
Perrin shook his head. “I have not seen him in a long time, Ila.”
“He leads a life of violence,” Raen said sadly. “As you do. A violent life is stained even if long.”
“Do not try to bring him to the Way of the Leaf standing here, Raen,” Ila said briskly, but not unkindly. “He is hurt. They all are.”
“What am I thinking of?” Raen muttered. Raising his voice, he called, “Come, people. Come and help. They are hurt. Come and help.”
Men and women gathered quickly, murmuring their sympathy as they helped injured men down from their horses, guiding men toward their wagons, carrying them when necessary. Wil and a few of the others looked concerned over being separated, but Perrin was not. Violence was the farthest thing from the Tuatha'an. They would not raise a hand against anyone, even to defend their own lives.
Perrin found he had to accept Ihvon's assistance to dismount. Climbing down sent jolts of pain radiating out from his side. “Raen,” he said, a touch breathless, “you shouldn't be out here. We fought Trollocs not five miles from this spot. Take your people to Emond's Field. They will be safe there.”
Raen hesitated — and seemed surprised at it — before shaking his head. “Even if I wished to, the people would not want it, Perrin. We try not to camp very close to even the smallest village, and not only because the villagers may falsely accuse us of stealing whatever they have lost or of trying to convince their children to find the Way. Where men have built ten houses together, there is the potential for violence. Since the Breaking the Tuatha'an have known this. Safety lies in our wagons, and in always moving, always seeking the song.” A plaintive expression came over his face. “Everywhere we hear news of violence, Perrin. Not just here in your Two Rivers. There is a feel in the world of change, of destruction. Surely we must find the song soon. Else I do not believe it will ever be.”
“You will find the song,” Perrin said quietly. Maybe they abhorred violence too much for a ta'veren to overcome; maybe even a ta'veren could not fight the Way of the Leaf. It had seemed attractive to him once, too. “I truly hope that you will.”
“What will be, will be,” Raen said. “All things die in their time. Perhaps even the song.” Ila put a comforting arm around her husband, though her eyes were as troubled as his.
“Come,” she said, trying to hide her ill ease, “we must get you inside. Men will talk if their coats are afire.” To Faile, she said, “You are quite beautiful; child. Perhaps you should beware of Perrin. I never see him but in the company of beautiful girls.” Faile gave Perrin a flat, considering look, then tried to gloss it over quickly.
He made it as far as Raen's wagon — yellow trimmed in red, with red and yellow spokes in tall, redrimmed wheels, and red and yellow trunks lashed to the outside, standing beside a cook fire in the middle of the camp — but when he put his foot on the first of the wooden steps at the back, his knees gave way. Ihvon and Raen more than halfcarried him inside, followed hurriedly by Faile and Ila, and laid him on the bed built into the front of the wagon, with just room to get by to the sliding door leading to the driver's seat.
It truly was like a little house, even to pale pink curtains at the two small windows on either side. He lay there staring at the ceiling. Here, too, the Tinkers made use of their colors; the ceiling was lacquered sky blue, the high cabinets green and yellow. Faile unfastened his belt and took away his axe and quiver while Ila rummaged in one of the cabinets. Perrin could not seem to rouse any interest in what they were doing.
“Anyone can be surprised,” Ihvon said. “Learn from it, but do not take it too much to heart. Not even Artur Hawkwing won every battle.”
“Artur Hawkwing.” Perrin tried to laugh, but it turned into a groan. “Yes,” he managed. “I am certainly not Ar