“Hot food now will make the day’s ride easier,” she said firmly, sitting very straight in her saddle and staring a challenge at them. That was certainly like an Aes Sedai, but then, it was like most women. “I wish to reach Chachin as swiftly as possible, and I will not have you falling over from hunger in a foolish attempt to show me how tough you are.” Only Ryne met her gaze directly, with an uneasy smile. The man needed to decide whether he was besotted or afraid.
“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 t
wo 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 embroidery. 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 voic
e 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.