New Spring: The Novel (wheel of time) Page 28

  "It was our plan to stop briefly for food, my Lady," Bukama said, lowering his eyes respectfully. He did not add that they would have eaten there last night, and slept in beds, if not for her. Had she followed them to Manala, it would have meant nothing. Following Lan into the forest meant she had some interest in them or their plans.

  A sprawling collection of stone houses roofed in red or green tiles, Manala was not far short of being called a town, with above twenty streets crisscrossing a pair of low hills. Three inns fronted a large green in the hollow between the hills, alongside the road. There the men of two large merchant trains headed east were reluctantly hitching their horses under the watchful eye of the mounted merchants. A train of some thirty or so wagons was already lumbering away to the west, with some of the outriding guards looking over their shoulders instead of keeping watch as they should. The Bel Tine festivities were under way in Manala.

  They had not come to the games of skill and strength and speed yet, but newly married men and women were formally dancing the Spring Pole in the center of the green, feet flashing but bodies rigidly upright as they entwined the two-span-tall pole in long brightly dyed linen ribbons, while older and unmarried adults were dancing in more lively fashion to the music of fiddles and flutes and drums in half a dozen sizes. Everyone wore their feastday best, the women's pale blouses and wide trousers and the men's bright coats encrusted with elaborate embroidery. They crowded the wide, open space, yet they were not the whole population of Manala. A steady trickle flowed up the hills, men and women bound on some errand, and a steady trickle flowed back down, often carrying dishes of food to the long tables set out on the far side. It was a merry sight. Laughing children, their faces smeared with honey often as not, ran and played through it all, some of the older ones occasionally feeding the small Bel Tine fires at the corners of the green. Lan was not sure how many really believed that leaping those low flames would burn away any bad luck accumulated since the previous Bel Tine, but he did believe in luck. Both kinds. In the Blight, you lived or died by luck as often as by skill or lack of it.

  In stark counterpoint to the merriment on the green, beside the road stood six stakes holding the large heads of Trollocs, wolf-snouted, ram-horned, eagle-beaked below all too human eyes. They looked no more than two or three days old, although the weather was still cool enough to retard decay, too cool for flies. These were the reasons each of those dancing men wore a sword, and the women carried long knives at their belts. He smelled no charred wood, though, so it had been a small raid, and unsuccessful.

  "Lady Alys" stopped her mare beside the stakes and stared at them. Not in amazement or fear or disgust. Her face was a perfect mask of calm. For an instant, he could almost believe she truly was Aes Sedai.

  "I should have hated to face these creatures armed only with a sword," she murmured. "I cannot imagine the courage needed to do that."

  "You have faced Trollocs?" Lan asked in surprise. Ryne and Bukama exchanged startled looks.

  "Yes." She grimaced faintly, as if the word had slipped out before thought.

  "Where, if I may ask?" he said. Few southerners had ever seen a Trolloc. Some called them tales to frighten children.

  Alys eyed him coolly. Very coolly. "Shadowspawn can be found in places you never dream of, Master Lan. Choose us an inn, Ryne," she added with a smile. The woman actually believed she was in charge. From the way Ryne jumped to obey, so did he.

  The Plowman's Blade was two stories of red-roofed stone with arrowslits rather than windows on the ground floor and a two-handed sword of the sort farmers carried on their plows hanging point-down above a door of heavy planks. This near the Blight, inns served as strong-points against a Trolloc attack, and so did many houses. The innkeeper, a stout graying woman, her billowing blouse worked with red and yellow flowers and her wide trousers covered in red and blue, came from the green when she saw them tying their horses to the hitching rings set in the front of the inn. Mistress Tomichi looked uneasy about two Malkieri stopping at her inn, but she brightened when Alys began issuing commands for her breakfast.

  "As you say, my Lady," the round-faced innkeeper murmured, giving Alys a deep curtsy. The Cairhienin had given no name, but her manner and dress did suggest a Lady. "And will you want rooms for yourself and your retainers?"

  "Thank you, no," Alys replied. "I intend to ride on soon."

  Ryne showed no offense at being called a retainer, accepting the word as easily as Alys did, but Bukama's perpetual scowl darkened. He said nothing, of course, not here, and perhaps would not ever, given his pledge. Lan decided he would have a few quiet words with Alys when he had the chance. There was a limit to how many insults a man could swallow in silence.

  He and the other men ordered dark bread and strong tea, and bowls of porridge with slivers of ham in it. Alys did not invite them to share her table in the large common room, so they took benches at another. There were plenty to choose from, given that they were alone except for Mistress Tomichi, who served them with her own hands, explaining that she did not want to pull anyone from the festivities. Indeed, once she had taken payment, she returned to them herself.

  Taking advantage of their privacy, Lan and the others discussed the diminutive woman who had attached herself to them. Or rather, they argued about her, in low voices so as not to be overheard. Utterly convinced that Alys was Aes Sedai, Ryne recommended asking no questions. Questions could be dangerous with Aes Sedai, and you might not like the answers. Bukama maintained that they needed to know what she wanted with them, especially if she were Aes Sedai. Tangling in some unknown Aes Sedai scheme could be hazardous. A man could acquire enemies without knowing it, or be sacrificed without warning to further her plans. Lan forbore mentioning that it was Bukama who had placed their feet in that snare. He himself just could not believe she was a sister. He thought her a wilder placed to watch him-by Edeyn, though he did not mention her name, of course. Edeyn likely had eyes-and-ears the breadth of the Borderlands. It did seem an unlikely coincidence that she would happen to have a wilder waiting for him in Canluum, but there had been those six men, and he could not think of anyone else who might have sent them.

  "I still say," Bukama began, then bit off an oath. "Where did she go?"

  Alys' bowl sat empty on the table where she had been sitting, but there was no sign of the woman herself. Lan's eyebrows rose in admiration in spite of himself. He had not heard a sound of her leaving.

  Scraping his bench back noisily, Ryne rushed to one of the arrowslits and peered out. "Her horse is still there. Maybe she's just visiting the privy." Lan winced inwardly at the crudity. There were matters one spoke of and matters one did not. Ryne fingered one of his braids, then gave it a hard tug that made its bells jingle. "I say we leave her her silver and go before she comes back."

  "Go if you wish," Lan said, rising. "Bukama pledged to her, and I'll honor his pledge."

  "Better if you honor your own," Bukama grumbled.

  Ryne grimaced and gave his braid another hard pull. "If you stay, I stay."

  Perhaps the woman had just gone out for a glimpse of the festivities. Telling Bukama to remain in case she returned, Lan took Ryne out to see. She was nowhere among the dancers or the onlookers, though. In her silks, she would have stood out among all that embroidered linen and wool. Some of the women asked them to dance, and Ryne smiled at the prettier ones-the man would stop to smile at a pretty face if a dozen Trollocs were charging him! — but Lan sent him off to look among the houses on the southern hill, while he climbed the one behind The Plowman's Blade. He did not want Alys meeting someone behind his back, perhaps arranging some surprise for later in the day. Just because the woman had not tried to kill him did not mean Edeyn wanted him alive.

  He found her in a nearly empty street halfway up the hill, receiving the curtsy of a lean young woman whose blouse and wide trousers were embroidered in red and gold patterns as intricate as those on Alys' riding dress. Kandori were as bad as southerners when it came to emb
roidery. Stepping softly, he closed to listening distance of Alys' back and stopped.

  "There's some Saheras live three streets that way, my Lady," the lean woman said with a gesture. "And I think there's some live on South Hill. But I don't know if any are named Avene."

  "You have been a great help, Mistress Marishna," Alys said warmly. "Thank you." Accepting another curtsy, she stood watching the other woman walk on uphill. Once Mistress Marishna was beyond earshot, she spoke again, and her voice was anything but warm. "Shall I show you how eavesdropping is punished in the White Tower, Master Lan?"

  He very nearly blinked. First she managed to leave the common without him hearing, and now she heard him when he was trying to be quiet. Remarkable. Perhaps she was Aes Sedai. Which meant she might be looking at Ryne for a Warder.

  "I think not," he told the back of her head. "We have business in Chachin that cannot wait. Perhaps your search will go more quickly if we help you find this Avene Sahera."

  She turned very quickly and peered up at him, straining for height. He thought she might be up on her toes. No, she was no Aes Sedai, despite the icy look of command on her face. He had seen shorter Aes Sedai dominate rooms full of men who had no idea who they were, and without any straining.

  "Better for you to forget hearing that name," she said coldly. "It is unwise to meddle in the affairs of Aes Sedai. You may leave me, now. But I expect to find you ready to go on when I am done. If, that is, Malkieri keep their word as I have been told they do." With that insult, she stalked off in the direction the lean woman had pointed. Light, the woman had a tongue like a knife!

  When he returned to The Plowman's Blade and told Bukama what he had learned, the older man brightened. Well, his scowl lessened a little. For him, that was as good as a grin from anyone else. "Maybe all she wants from us is protection until she finds this woman."

  "That doesn't explain why she followed us for a whole day," Lan said, dropping onto the bench in front of his breakfast bowl. He might as well finish the porridge. "And don't suggest she was afraid to approach us. I think that woman frightens as easily as you do." Bukama had no answer for that.

  CHAPTER 21

  Some Tricks of the Power

  Lan knew the ride to Chachin would be one he would rather forget, and the journey met his expectations. They rode hard, passing merchants' trains of wagons, never stopping long in a village and sleeping under the stars most nights, since no one had the coin for inns, not for four people with horses. Barns and haylofts had to do, when there was a barn or hayloft to be found come nightfall. Many of the hills along the road bore neither village nor farm, only towering oak and leatherleaf, pine and fir, with smaller beech and sourgum scattered through. In the Borderlands, there were no such things as isolated farms; sooner or later, a farm set off by itself became a graveyard.

  Alys continued her search for the Sahera woman in every village they passed, though she fell silent whenever Lan or one of the others approached, and eyed them frostily until they went away. The woman had a ready way with a frosty eye. For him, anyway. Ryne twitched and peered wide-eyed at her, fetched and trotted and offered up compliments like a courtier on a leash, still bouncing between enraptured and fearful, and she accepted his subservience and his praise alike as her due while laughing at his witticisms.

  Not that she focused only on him. She seldom let an hour go by without probing questions directed at each of them in turn, till it seemed she wanted to know the entire story of their lives. The woman was like a swarm of blackflies; no matter how many you swatted, there were always more to bite. Even Ryne knew enough to deflect that sort of interrogation. A man's past belonged to himself and the people who had lived it with him; it was not a matter for gossip with an inquisitive woman. Despite her questions, Bukama continued his carping. Day and night, it seemed every second comment out of his mouth regarded the pledge. Lan began to think the only way to silence the man would be to take oath not to give her the pledge.

  Twice thick black clouds rolled down out of the Blight to unleash driving downpours of freezing rain mixed with hail large enough to crack a man's head. The worst storms in spring came from the Blight. When the first of those clouds darkened the sky to the north, he began looking for a place where the trees' branches might be thick enough to afford some shelter, maybe with the aid of blankets stretched overhead, but when Alys realized what he was doing, she said coolly, "There is no need to stop, Master Lan. You are under my protection."

  Doubtful of that, he was still looking when the storm struck. Lightning flashed in blue-white streaks across a sky that seemed suddenly night and thunder crashed like monstrous kettledrums overhead, but the driving rain sheeted down an invisible dome that moved with their horses, and the hailstones bounced off it in an eerie silence, as though they had struck nothing at all. She performed the same service for the second storm, and both times, she seemed surprised at their offered thanks. Her face hardly altered in its smoothness, a very good imitation of an Aes Sedai's serene expression, but something flickered about her eyes. A strange woman.

  They saw bandits, as rumored, usually a pack of ten or twelve roughly dressed men who counted the odds against three with arrows nocked and melted back into the trees before Lan and the rest reached them. He or Bukama always went after them, just far enough to make sure they really had gone, while the other two guarded Alys. It would have been foolish to ride into an ambush they knew might be waiting.

  Noon on the fourth day found them riding through the forested hills along a road that stretched empty as far as the eye could see in either direction. The sky was clear, with just a few scattered white clouds drifting high up, and the only sounds were their horses' hooves and squirrels chittering on branches. Suddenly horsemen burst from the trees on both sides of the road some thirty paces ahead, twenty or so scruffy fellows who formed a line blocking the way, and the pounding of hooves told of more behind.

  Dropping his reins on the pommel of his saddle, Lan snatched two more arrows and held them between his fingers as he drew the one already nocked. He doubted he would have time for even a second shot, but there was always a chance. Three of the men in front of him wore much-battered breastplates stained with rust over their dirty coats, and one had a rust-spotted helmet with a barred faceguard. None carried a bow, not that that made any great difference.

  "Twenty-three behind at thirty paces," Bukama called. "No bows. On your word."

  No difference at all, against a band large enough to attack most merchant trains. He did not loose, however. So long as the men only sat their horses, a chance remained. A small one. Life and death often turned on small chances.

  "Let's not be too hasty," the helmeted man called, removing it to reveal a grizzled head of greasy hair and a narrow, dirty face that had last been touched by a razor a week gone. His wide smile showed two missing teeth. "You might be able to kill two or three of us before we cut you down, but there's no need for that. Let us have your coin and the pretty lady's jewelry, and you can go on your way. Pretty ladies in silk and fur always have lots of jewels, eh?" He leered past Lan at Alys. Maybe he thought it a friendly smile.

  There was no temptation in the offer. These fellows wanted no casualties among themselves if they could manage it so, but surrender meant that he and Bukama and Ryne would have their throats slit. They probably intended to keep Alys alive until they decided she was a danger. If she had some trick of the Power up her sleeve, he wished she would-

  "You dare impede the way of an Aes Sedai?" she thundered, and it was thunder, setting some of the brigands' horses snorting and plunging. Cat Dancer, knowing what dropped reins meant, remained still beneath him, awaiting the pressures of knee and heel. "Surrender or face my wrath!" And red fire exploded with a roar above the bandits' heads, sending more of their mounts into panicked bucking that tumbled two of the poorer riders to the road.

  "I told you she was Aes Sedai, Coy," whined a fat, balding fellow in a breastplate that was too small for him. "Didn't I say th
at, Coy? A Green with her three Warders, I said."

  The lean man backhanded him across the face without taking his eyes from Lan. Or more likely, from Alys, behind him.

  "No talk of surrender, now. There's still fifty of us and four of you. Rather than face the noose, we'll take our chances on how many you can kill before we take you."

  "Well and good," Lan said. "But if I can see one of you at the count of ten, it begins." With the last word, he started counting in a loud voice.

  The bandits did not let him reach two before they were galloping back toward the trees; by four, the dismounted pair stopped trying to gain the saddles on their wild-eyed animals and took off afoot as fast as they could go. There was no need to follow. The pounding and crackle of horses being galloped through brush rather than around it was fast fading into the distance. In the circumstances, it was the best end that could be hoped for. Except that Alys did not see it so.

  "You had no right to let them go," she said indignantly, anger flashing in her eyes as she did her best to skewer each of them with her gaze. She reined her mare around to make certain they each received a dose. "Had they attacked, I could have used the One Power against them. How many people have they robbed and murdered, how many women ravished, how many children orphaned? We should have fought them and taken the survivors to the nearest magistrate."

  Lan, Bukama and Ryne took turns trying to convince her how unlikely it was that any of the four of them would have been among the survivors-the bandits would have fought hard to avoid the gallows, and sheer numbers did count-but she actually seemed to believe she could have defeated close on fifty men by herself. A very strange woman.