She passed some women milling grain, then walked around a fresh batch of wild scallions lying on a blanket beside them, waiting to be made into soup. She was glad she’d left and met Perrin, but that didn’t excuse her actions. With a grimace, she remembered forcing Perrin to travel the Ways in the darkness, alone. She didn’t even recall what he’d done to set her off, though she’d never admit that to him.
Her mother had once called her spoiled, and she’d been right. Her mother had also insisted that Faile learn to run the estates, and all the while Faile had dreamed of marrying a Hunter for the Horn and spending her life far away from armies and the boring duties of lords.
Light bless you, Mother, Faile thought. What would she, or Perrin, have done without that training? Without her mother’s teachings, Faile would have been useless. Administration of the entire camp would have rested on Aravine’s shoulders. Capable though the woman was as Perrin’s camp steward, she couldn’t have managed this all on her own. Nor should she have been expected to.
Faile reached the quartermaster’s station, a small pavilion at the very heart of the cooking pits. The breeze brought an amalgamation of scents: fat seared by flames, potatoes boiling, peppered sauces spiced with garlic, the wet, sticky scent of potato peelings being carried to the small herd of hogs they’d managed to bring out of Malden.
The quartermaster, Bavin Rockshaw, was a pale-faced Cairhienin with blond speckled through his graying brown hair, like the fur on a mixed-breed dog. He was spindly through the arms, legs and chest, yet had an almost perfectly round paunch. He had apparently worked at quartermastering as far back as the Aiel War, and was an expert—a master as practiced in overseeing supply operations as a master carpenter was at woodworking.
That, of course, meant that he was an expert at taking bribes. When he saw Faile, he smiled and bowed stiffly enough to be formal, but without ornamentation. “I’m a simple soldier, doing his duty,” that bow said.
“Lady Faile!” he exclaimed, waving over some of his serving men. “Here to inspect the ledgers, I assume?”
“Yes, Bavin,” she said, though she knew there would be nothing suspicious in them. He was far too careful.
Still, she made a cursory motion of going through the records. One of the men brought her a stool, another a table upon which to place the ledgers, and yet another a cup of tea. She was impressed at how neatly the columns added up. Her mother had explained that often, a quartermaster would make many messy notations, referencing other pages or other ledgers, separating different types of supplies into different books, all to make it more difficult to track what was going on. A leader who was befuddled by the notations would assume that the quartermaster must be doing his job.
There was none of that here. Whatever tricks of numbering Bavin was using to obscure his thievery, they were nothing short of magical. And he was stealing, or at least being creative in how he doled out his foodstuffs. That was inevitable. Most quartermasters didn’t really consider it thievery; he was in charge of his supplies, and that was that.
“How odd it is,” Faile said as she leafed through the ledger. “The strange twists of fate.”
“My Lady?” Bavin asked.
“Hmm? Oh, it is nothing. Only that Torven Rikshan’s camp has received their meals each evening a good hour ahead of the other camps. I’m certain that’s just by chance.”
Bavin hesitated. “Undoubtedly, my Lady.”
She continued to leaf through the ledgers. Torven Rikshan was a Cairhienin lord, and had been placed in charge of one of the twenty camps within the larger mass of refugees. He had an usually large number of nobles in his particular camp. Aravine had brought this to Faile’s attention; she wasn’t certain what Torven had given to receive supplies for meals more quickly, but it wouldn’t do. The other camps might feel that Perrin was favoring one over another.
“Yes,” Faile said, laughing lightly. “Merely coincidence. These things happen in a camp so large. Why, just the other day Varkel Tius was complaining to me that he had put in a requisition for canvas to repair torn tents, but hasn’t had his canvas for nearly a week now. Yet I know for a fact that Soffi Moraton ripped her tent during the stream crossing but had it repaired by that evening.”
Bavin was silent.
Faile made no accusations. Her mother had cautioned that a good quartermaster was too valuable to toss into prison, particularly when the next man was likely to be half as capable and equally corrupt. Faile’s duty was not to expose or embarrass Bavin. It was to make him worried enough that he kept himself in check.
“Perhaps you can do something about these irregularities, Bavin,” she said, closing the ledger. “I loathe to burden you with silly matters, but the problems must not reach my husband’s ears. You know how he is when enraged.”
Actually, Perrin was about as likely to hurt a man like Bavin as Faile was to flap her arms and fly away. But the camp didn’t see it that way. They heard reports of Perrin’s fury in battle, along with her occasional arguments with him—provoked by Faile so that they could have a proper discussion—and assumed he had a terrible temper. That was good, so long as they also thought of him as honorable and kind. Protective of his people, yet filled with rage at those who crossed him.
She rose from the stool, handing the ledgers to one of the men, curly-haired and with ink stains on his fingers and jerkin. She smiled at Bavin, then made her way out of the supply ring. She noted with displeasure that the bunch of wild scallions beside the pathway had spoiled in the moments since she’d seen them last, their stalks melted and runny, as if they’d been rotting in the sun for weeks. These spoilings had begun only recently inside of camp, but by reports, it happened far more frequently out in the countryside.
It was hard to tell the hour with the sky so full of clouds, but it seemed from the darkening horizon that her time to meet with Perrin had come. Faile smiled. Her mother had warned her what would happen to her, had told her what was expected of her, and Faile had worried that she would feel trapped by life.
But what Deira hadn’t mentioned was how fulfilling it would be. Perrin made the difference. It was no trap at all to be caught with him.
Perrin stood with one foot up on the stump of a felled tree, facing north. The hilltop let him look out over the plains toward the cliffs of Garen’s Wall rising like the knuckles of a slumbering giant.
He opened his mind, questing out for wolves. There were some in the distance, almost too faint to feel. Wolves stayed away from large gatherings of men.
The camp spread out behind him, watchfires fluttering at its boundaries. This hillside was far enough away to be secluded, but not so distant as to be solitary. He wasn’t certain why Faile had asked him to meet her here at dusk, but she’d smelled excited, so he hadn’t pried. Women liked their secrets.
He heard Faile coming up the side of the hill, stepping softly on the wet grass. She was good at being quiet—not nearly as good as Elyas or one of the Aiel, but better than one might think of her. But he could smell her scent, soap with lavender. She used that particular soap only on days she deemed special.
She stepped atop the hillside, beautiful, impressive. She wore a violet vest over a long silk blouse of a lighter shade. Where had she gotten the clothing? He hadn’t seen her in this fine outfit before.
“My husband,” she said, stepping up to him. He could faintly hear others near the foot of the hill—probably Cha Faile. She’d left them behind. “You look concerned.”
“It’s my fault that Gill and the others were captured, Faile,” he said. “My failures continue to mount. It’s a wonder anyone follows me.”
“Perrin,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “We’ve spoken of this. You mustn’t say such things.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never known you to be a liar,” she said with a softly chiding tone.
He looked at her. It was growing dark, though he could still make out details. She’d have a harder time seeing them.
“Why do you continue to fight this?” she asked. “You are a good leader, Perrin.”
“I wouldn’t have given myself up for them,” he said.
She frowned. “What does that have to—”
“Back in the Two Rivers,” Perrin said, turning away from her, looking north again, “I was ready to do it. When the Whitecloaks had Mat’s family and the Luhhans, I’d have given myself up. This time, I wouldn’t have. Even when I spoke to their leader, asking his price, I knew I wouldn’t give myself up.”
“You’re becoming a better leader.”
“How can you say that? I’m growing callous, Faile. If you knew the things I did to get you back, the things I would have done…” He fingered the hammer at his side. The tooth or the claw, Young Bull, it matters not. He’d thrown away the axe, but could he blame it for his brutality? It was only a tool. He could use the hammer to do the same terrible things.
“It’s not callous,” Faile said, “or selfish. You’re a lord now, and you can’t let it be known that capturing your subjects will undermine your rule. Do you think Queen Morgase would abdicate to tyrants who kidnapped her subjects? No leader could rule that way. Your inability to stop evil men does not make you evil yourself.”
“I don’t want this mantle, Faile. I never have.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I wish I’d never left the Two Rivers. I wish I’d let Rand run off to his destiny, leaving regular folk behind to live their lives.”
He caught a scent of annoyance from her.
“But if I’d stayed,” he added hastily, “I’d never have met you. So I’m glad I left. I’m just saying I’ll be glad when this is all through and finished, and I can go back to someplace simple.”
“You think the Two Rivers will ever go back to being the way you remember it?”
He hesitated. She was right—when they’d gone, it had already been showing signs of change. Refugees from across the mountains moving in, the villages swelling. Now, with so many men joining him in war, getting ideas into their heads about having a lord…
“I could find someplace else,” he said, feeling stubborn. “There are other villages. They won’t all change.”
“And you’d drag me off to one of these villages, Perrin Aybara?” she said.
“I…” What would happen if Faile, his beautiful Faile, were confined to a sleepy village? He always insisted that he was only a blacksmith. But was Faile a blacksmith’s wife? “I would never force you to do anything, Faile,” he said, cupping her face in his hand. He always felt awkward when touching her satin cheeks with his thick, callused fingers.
“I’d go, if you really wanted me to,” she replied. That was odd. He’d normally expect a snap from her at his awkward tongue. “But is it what you want? Is it really?”
“I don’t know what I want,” he said frankly. No, he didn’t want to drag Faile off to a village. “Maybe…life as a blacksmith in a city, somewhere?”