Arganda, rigid beside Masema, was gripping his sword hilt so hard that his hand shook. “Perhaps you are willing to lose your wife, Aybara,” he grated, “but I will not lose my queen!”
“It has to be done,” Aram said, half pleading, half demanding. He was on Masema’s other side, clutching the edges of his green cloak as if to keep his hands from the sword on his back. His eyes were almost as hot as Masema’s. “You taught me that a man does what he must.”
Perrin forced his fists to unknot. What had to be done, for Faile.
Berelain and the Aes Sedai came pushing through the crowd, Berelain wrinkling her nose slightly at the sight of the man stretched out between the pegs. The three Aes Sedai might have been looking at a piece of wood for all their expression. Edarra and Sulin were with them, neither more affected. Some of the Ghealdanin soldiers frowned at the two Aiel women and muttered under their breath. Masema’s rumpled, dirty-faced men glared at Aiel and Aes Sedai alike, but most edged away from the three Warders, and those who did not were pulled away by their companions. Some fools knew the limits of stupidity. Masema glared at Berelain with burning eyes before deciding to pretend she did not exist. Some fools knew no limits.
Bending, Perrin untied the rag around the pegged man’s mouth and tugged the wad from between his teeth. He just managed to snatch his hand back from a snap as vicious as any Slayer could have given.
Immediately, the Aielman threw back his head and began to sing in a deep, clear voice:
“Wash the spears;
while the sun climbs high.
Wash the spears;
while the sun falls low.
Wash the spears
who fears to die?
Wash the spears;
no one I know!”
Masema’s laughter rose in the middle of the singing. Perrin’s hackles rose, too. He had never heard Masema laugh before. It was not a pleasant sound.
He did not want to lose a finger, so he pulled his axe out of its belt loop and carefully used the top of the axe head against the man’s chin to push his mouth shut. Eyes the color of the sky looked up at him out of a sun-dark face, unafraid. The man smiled.
“I don’t ask you to betray your people,” Perrin said. His throat hurt with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “You Shaido captured some women. All I want to know is how to get them back. One is named Faile. She’s as tall as one of your women, with dark tilted eyes, a strong nose and a bold mouth. A beautiful woman. You’d remember her, if you had seen her. Have you?” Pulling the axe away, he straightened.
The Shaido stared at him for a moment, then raised his head and began to sing again, never taking his eyes from Perrin. It was a jolly song, with the rollicking sound of a dance:
“I once met a man who was far from home.
His eyes were yellow and his wits were stone.
He asked me to hold smoke in my hand,
and said he could show me a watery land.
He put his head in the ground and his feet in the air,
and said he could dance like a woman fair.
He said he could stand till he turned to stone.
When I blinked my eyes, he was gone.”
Letting his head fall back, the Shaido chuckled, deep and rich. He could have been lounging at ease on a feather bed.
“If. . . . If you can’t do this,” Aram said desperately, “then go away. I’ll help see to it.”
What had to be done. Perrin looked at the faces around him. Arganda, scowling with hatred, at him as much as the Shaido, now. Masema, stinking of madness and filled with a scornful hate. You must be willing and able to hurt a stone. Edarra, her face as unreadable as the Aes Sedai’s, arms folded calmly beneath her breasts. Even Shaido know how to embrace pain. It will take days. Sulin, the scar across her cheek still pale on her leathery skin, her gaze level and her scent implacable. They will yield slowly and as little as possible. Berelain, smelling of judgment, a ruler who had sentenced men to death and never lost a night’s sleep. What had to be done. Willing and able to hurt a stone. Embrace pain. Oh, Light, Faile.
The axe was as light as a feather rising in his hand, and came down like a hammer on the anvil, the heavy blade shearing through the Shaido’s left wrist.