The noise was not enough to keep Rand from hearing what the Maidens were saying behind him.
“He has a fine sense of humor. Who is he?” That was Enaila.
“His name is Leiran,” Somara replied. “A Cosaida Chareen. You think he has humor because he thought your joke better than his. He does look to have strong hands.” Several of the Maidens chortled.
“Did you not think Enaila funny, Rand al’Thor?” Sulin was striding at his side. “You did not laugh. You never laugh. Sometimes I do not think you have a sense of humor.”
Stopping dead, Rand rounded on them so suddenly that several reached for their veils and looked about for what had startled him. He cleared his throat. “An irascible old farmer named Hu discovered one morning that his best rooster had flown into a tall tree beside his farm pond and wouldn’t come down, so he went to his neighbor, Wil, and asked for help. The men had never gotten along, but Wil finally agreed, so the two men went to the pond and began climbing the tree, Hu first. They meant to frighten the rooster out, you see, but the bird only kept flying higher, branch by branch. Then, just as Hu and the rooster reached almost the very top of the tree, with Wil right behind, there was a loud crack, the branch under Hu’s feet broke away, and down he went into the pond, splashing water and mud everywhere. Wil scrambled down as fast as he could and reached out to Hu from the bank, but Hu just lay there on his back, sinking deeper into the mud until only his nose stuck out of the water. Another farmer had seen what happened, and he came running and pulled Hu out of the pond. ‘Why didn’t you take Wil’s hand?’ he asked Hu. ‘You could have drowned.’ ‘Why should I take his hand now?’ Hu grumped. ‘I passed him just a moment ago in broad daylight, and he never spoke a word to me.’ ” He waited expectantly.
The Maidens exchanged blank looks. Finally Somara said, “What happened with the pond? Surely the water is the point of this story.”
Throwing up his hands, Rand started for the red-striped pavilion again. Behind him he heard Liah say, “I think it was supposed to be a joke.”
“How can we laugh when he doesn’t know what happened to the water?” Maira said.
“It was the rooster,” Enaila put in. “Wetlander humor is strange. I think it was something about the rooster.”
He tried to stop listening.
The Defenders stiffened even more rigidly at his approach, if that was possible, and the two standing before the gold-fringed entry flaps stepped aside smoothly, pulling them open. Their eyes stared past the Aiel women.
Rand had led the Defenders of the Stone once, in a desperate fight against Myrddraal and Trollocs in the halls of the Stone of Tear itself. They would have followed anyone who stepped forward to lead that night, but it had been him.
“The Stone still stands,” he said quietly. That had been their battlecry. Quick smiles flashed across some of those faces before they snapped back to wooden stillness. In Tear commoners did not smile at what a lord said unless absolutely sure the lord wanted them to smile.
Most of the Maidens squatted easily outside, spears across their knees, a posture they could hold for hours without moving a muscle, but Sulin followed Rand inside with Liah, Enaila and Jalani. If those Defenders had all been childhood friends of Rand, the Maidens would have been as cautious, but the men inside were not friends at all.
Colorful, fringed carpets floored the pavilion, Tairen mazes and elaborate scrollwork patterns, and in the middle sat a massive table, heavily carved and gilded and garishly inlaid with ivory and turquoise, that very likely needed a wagon all to itself for transport. The map-covered table separated a dozen sweaty-faced Tairens from half as many Cairhienin, who suffered even more from the heat, each man holding a golden goblet that self-effacing servants in black-and-gold livery kept filled with punch. All the nobles were in silk, but the clean-shaven Cairhienin, short, slight and pale compared to the men on the other side of the table, wore coats dark and sober except for bright horizontal slashes of their House colors across the chest, the number indicating the rank of the House, while the Tairens, most with beards oiled and trimmed to neat points, wore padded coats that were a garden of red and yellow and green and blue, satin and brocade, silver thread and thread-of-gold. The Cairhienin were solemn, even dour, most gaunt-cheeked and each with the front of his head shaved and powdered in what had once been the fashion only among soldiers in Cairhien, not lords. The Tairens smiled and sniffed scented handkerchiefs and pomanders that filled the pavilion with their heavy aromas. Beside the punch, the one thing they seemed to have in common was flat-eyed stares for the Maidens, followed hard by the pretense that the Aiel were invisible.
The High Lord Weiramon, oiled beard and hair streaked gray, bowed deeply. He was one of four High Lords there, in elaborately silver-worked boots, the others being unctuous, overly plump Sunamon; Tolmeran, whose iron-gray beard seemed a spear point on the shaft of his leanness; and potato-nosed Torean, looking more a farmer than most farmers—but Rand had given Weiramon the command. For the time being. The other eight were lesser lords, some clean-shaven though with no less gray in their hair; they were here through their oaths of fealty to one or another of the High Lords, yet they all had some experience of fighting.
Weiramon was not short for a Tairen, though Rand stood a head taller, but he always reminded Rand of a banty rooster, all puffed out chest and strutting. “All hail the Lord Dragon,” he intoned, bowing, “soon to be Conqueror of Illian. All hail the Lord of the Morning.” The rest were no more than a breath behind, Tairens spreading arms wide, Cairhienin touching hand to heart.
Rand grimaced. Lord of the Morning had been one of Lews Therin’s titles, or so the fragmentary histories said. A great deal of knowledge had been lost in the Breaking of the World, and more went up in smoke during the Trolloc Wars and later during the War of the Hundred Years, yet surprising shards sometimes survived. He was surprised that Weiramon’s use of the title had not brought Lews Therin’s mad yammering. Come to think of it, Rand had not heard that voice since shouting at it. As far as he could recall that was the first time he had ever actually addressed the voice sharing his head. The possibilities behind that sent a chill down his back.
“My Lord Dragon?” Sunamon dry-washed fleshy hands. He seemed to be trying not to see the shoufa wrapped around Rand’s head. “Are you—?” Swallowing his words, he put on an ingratiating smile; asking a potential madman—potential at the very least—whether he was well was perhaps not what he wanted to say. “Would the Lord Dragon like some punch? A Lodanaille vintage mixed with honeymelon.” A lanky Lord of the Land sworn to Sunamon, a man named Estevan with a hard jaw and harder eyes, motioned sharply, and a servant darted for a golden goblet from a side table against the canvas wall; a