Every day Rhuarc came to Rand’s apartments or Rand went to the study Rhuarc shared with Berelain. Rand was pleased to see her hard at work over reports of grain shipments and resettlement of refugees and repairs to damage from what some Cairhienin were calling the Second Aiel War, in spite of every effort to name it the Shaido War. Rhuarc claimed to have decided to ignore the Cairhienin playing, as he called it, at ji’e’toh, though he still grumbled every time he saw a Cairhienin woman with a sword or young men and women garbed all in white. The rebels still seemed to be sitting in the hills waiting, their numbers growing, but they did not concern him either. What did concern him were the Shaido, and how many spears still moved south each day toward Tear. Scouts, those who returned, reported the Shaido stirring in Kinslayer’s Dagger. There was no sign of which direction they intended to move or when. Rhuarc actually mentioned the number of Aiel who still gave way to the bleakness and tossed down their spears, the number who refused to put off gai’shain white when their time was done, even those few who still headed north to join the Shaido. It was a sign of his unease. Surprisingly, Sevanna had been in the tents, even in the city itself, leaving the day after Rand arrived. Rhuarc only mentioned it in passing.
“Would it not have been better to seize her?” Rand asked. “Rhuarc, I know she is supposed to be a Wise One, but she can’t be, the way I understand it. I’d not be surprised if the Shaido turned reasonable without her.”
“I doubt that,” Rhuarc said dryly. He was seated on one of his cushions against the study wall, smoking his pipe. “Amys and the others pass looks behind Sevanna’s back, but they receive her as a Wise One. If the Wise Ones say Sevanna is a Wise One, then she is. I have seen chiefs I would not waste a waterskin on if I stood between ten pools, but they were still chiefs.”
Sighing, Rand studied the map spread on the table. Rhuarc truly did not seem to need it; without looking he could name any feature of the terrain the map showed. Berelain sat in her high-backed chair on the other side of the table, her feet curled up beneath her and a sheaf of papers on her lap. She had a pen in her hand, and an ink jar stood on the small table beside her chair. Every so often she glanced at him, but whenever she saw Rhuarc looking she would bend her head over the reports again. For some reason, Rhuarc frowned whenever he looked at her, and she always blushed and firmed her jaw stubbornly. Sometimes Rhuarc looked disapproving, which made no sense. She was taking care of her duties now.
“You will have to stop sending spears south,” Rand said at last. He did not like it. It was vital that Sammael see the biggest hammer in the world coming at him, but not at the cost of having to root the Shaido out of Cairhien again. “I don’t see any other way.”
The days passed, and every one filled somehow. He had smiling lords and ladies so cordial to one another that he was sure they were scheming against each other beneath the surface. Wise Ones counseled him on how to deal with Aes Sedai, whether from the Tower or Salidar; Amys and Bair made Melaine appear mild; Sorilea made his blood run cold. Young Cairhienin rioted in the streets against Rhuarc’s ban on dueling. Rhuarc handled it by giving them a taste of what it was really like to be made gai’shain; sitting naked in the sun all day under guard quenched their ardor somewhat, but Rhuarc was not about to go against custom so far as to put wetlanders in white, and those the Red Shields had caught actually began to swagger over the affair. Rand overheard Selande telling another young woman with a sword and her hair cut short, in a very self-important tone, that the other woman would never truly understand ji’e’toh until she had been captive to Aiel. It was uplifting, whatever that was supposed to mean.
But despite Shaido and nobles, Wise Ones and riot, despite wondering whether Fel was ever going to come back from fishing, those days seemed . . . pleasant. Refreshing. Maybe it was just because he had been so tired on arrival. And maybe it really was only by comparison with those last hours in Caemlyn, yet it did seem that Lews Therin was quieter. Rand even found himself enjoying Min’s teasing enough that once or twice he had to remind himself that it was only teasing. By the time he had been ten days in Cairhien, he thought this would not be such a bad way to spend the rest of his life. Of course, he knew it could not last.
For Perrin those ten days were not pleasant at all. Before very long he sought Loial’s company, but Loial had found a paradise in the Royal Library, where he spent the better part of every daylight. Perrin liked to read, and he might have enjoyed those seemingly endless rooms full of books to their high vaulted ceilings, but an Aes Sedai haunted those rooms, a slender dark-haired woman who seldom seemed to blink. She did not appear to notice him, but he had not been particularly trusting of Aes Sedai even before events in Caemlyn. With Loial’s company largely denied to him, Perrin went hunting a great deal with Gaul, and a few times with Rhuarc, who he had met in the Stone and liked. Perrin’s problem was his wife. Or maybe it was Berelain. Or both. If Rand had not been so busy, Perrin would have asked his advice. In a general sort of way; Rand knew women, but there were things a man simply could not talk about right out.
It began that very first day, when he had been in Cairhien scarcely long enough to be shown to rooms in the Sun Palace Faile went off with Bain and Chiad to explore, and he was stripped to the waist and washing when he suddenly smelled perfume, not heavy but strong to his nose, and a warm voice behind him said, “I always did think you must have a beautiful back, Perrin.”
He spun around so fast he nearly knocked over the washstand.
“I hear that you have come with . . . a wife?” Berelain stood in the door to the sitting room, smiling.
Yes, he had; a wife who would not be pleased at finding him alone and shirtless with any woman wearing that dress. Especially not the First of Mayene. Tugging a shirt over his head, he told Berelain that Faile was out, that he did not know when she would be back for visitors, and put her out into the hall as fast as he could without picking her up and tossing her. He thought it was done with; Berelain was gone, and he had managed to call Faile wife six times in as many sentences and say how much he loved her twice. Berelain knew he was married, knew he loved his wife, and that should have been that.
When Faile returned a short time later, she took two steps into the bedchamber and began radiating the smells of jealousy and rage, prickly and knife-sharp, a blend that should have made his nose bleed. Perrin did not understand; he could still smell Berelain’s perfume, but his sense of smell was nearly as acute as a wolf’s. Surely Faile could not. It was very strange. Faile smiled. Not one untoward word passed her lips. She was as loving as ever, and even more fierce than usual, raking deep furrows into his shoulders with her fingernails, which
