Winter's Heart

## Chapter 2

#### Taken

The hawk soon passed out of sight, and the road remained empty of other travelers, but press as Perrin would, frozen ruts ready to break a horse’s leg and a rider’s neck allowed no great speed. The wind carried ice, and a promise of snow again tomorrow. It was mid-afternoon by the time he turned off through the trees into white drifts that were knee-deep on the horses in places, and covered the last mile to the forest camp where he had left the Two Rivers men and the Aiel, the Mayeners and Ghealdanin. And Faile. Nothing there was as he expected.

As always, there were four camps spaced out among the trees, in truth, but the Winged Guards’ smoking campfires stood abandoned around Berelain’s striped tents, amid overturned kettles and bits of gear dropped on the snow, and the same signs of haste dotted the trampled ground where Alliandre’s soldiers had been set up when he left that morning. The only evidence of life in either place was the horse handlers and farriers and cart drivers, bundled in woolens and huddled in clumps around the horselines and high-wheeled supply carts. They were all staring toward what caught his eye and held it.

Five hundred paces from the rocky, flat-topped hill where the Wise Ones had placed their low tents, the gray-coated Mayeners were drawn up, all nine hundred or so of them, horses stamping impatiently, red cloaks and the long red streamers on their lances rippling in the cold breeze. Nearer the hill and off to one side, just at the near bank of a frozen stream, the Ghealdanin made a block of lances just as large, these with green streamers. The mounted soldiers’ green coats and armor appeared drab compared with the Mayeners’ red helmets and breastplates, but their officers sparkled in silvered armor and scarlet coats and cloaks, with reins and saddlecloths fringed in crimson. A brave show, for men on parade, but they were not parading. The Winged Guards faced toward the Ghealdanin, the Ghealdanin toward the hill. And the crest of the hill was ringed by Two Rivers men, longbows in hand. No one had drawn, yet, but every man had a shaft nocked and ready. It was madness.

Booting Stayer to as near a gallop as the bay could manage, Perrin plowed through the snow, followed by the others, until he reached the head of the Ghealdanin formation. Berelain was there, in a fur-trimmed red cloak, and Gallenne, the one-eyed Captain of her Winged Guards, and Annoura, her Aes Sedai advisor, all apparently arguing with Alliandre’s First Captain, a short, hard-bitten fellow named Gerard Arganda, who was shaking his head so hard the fat white plumes quivered on his gleaming helmet. The First of Mayene looked ready to bite iron, vexation showed through Annoura’s Aes Sedai calm, and Gallenne was fingering the red-plumed helmet hanging at his saddle as though deciding whether to don it. At the sight of Perrin, they broke off and turned their mounts toward him. Berelain sat her saddle erect, but her black hair was windblown, and her fine-ankled white mare was shivering, the lather of a hard run freezing on her flanks.

With so many people about, it was all but impossible to make out individual scents, but Perrin did not need his nose to recognize trouble hanging by a hair. Before he could demand to know what in the Light they thought they were doing, Berelain spoke with a porcelain-faced formality that made him blink at first.

“Lord Perrin, your Lady wife and I were hunting with Queen Alliandre when we were attacked by Aiel. I managed to escape. No one else in the party has returned yet, though it may be the Aiel took prisoners. I have sent a squad of lancers to scout. We were about ten miles to the southeast, so they should return with news by nightfall.”

“Faile was captured?” Perrin said thickly. Even before crossing into Amadicia from Ghealdan they had heard of Aiel burning and looting, but it had always been somewhere else, the next village over or the one beyond that, if not farther. Never close enough to worry about, or to be sure they were more than rumor. Not when he had Rand bloody al’Thor’s orders to carry out! And look what it had cost.

“Why are you all still here?” he demanded aloud. “Why aren’t you all searching for her?” He realized he was shouting. He wanted to howl, to savage them. “Burn you all, what are you waiting for?” The levelness of her reply, as if reporting how much fodder was left for the horses, pushed needles of rage into his head. The more so because she was right.

“We were ambushed by two or three hundred, Lord Perrin, but you know as well as I, from what we have heard there easily could be a dozen or more such bands roaming the countryside. If we pursue in force, we may find a battle that will cost us heavily, against Aiel, without even knowing whether they are the ones who hold your Lady wife. Or even if she still lives. We must know that first, Lord Perrin, or the rest is worse than useless.”

If she still lived. He shivered; the cold was inside him, suddenly. In his bones. His heart. She had to be alive. She had to be. Oh, Light, he should have let her come to Abila with him. Annoura’s wide-mouthed face was a mask of sympathy framed by thin Taraboner braids. Suddenly he became aware of pain in his hands, cramping on the reins. He forced them to loosen their grip, flexed his fingers inside his gauntlets.

“She’s right,” Elyas said quietly, moving his gelding closer. “Hold on to yourself. Blunder around with Aiel, and you’re asking to die. Maybe take a lot of men with you to a bad end. Dying does no good if it leaves your wife a prisoner.” He tried to make his voice lighter, but Perrin could smell the strain. “Anyway, we’ll find her, boy. She could well have escaped them, a woman like that. Be trying to make her way back here afoot. Take time, that would, in a dress. The First’s scouts will locate traces.” Raking fingers through his long beard, Elyas gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “If I can’t find more than the Mayeners, I’ll eat bark. We’ll get her back for you.”

Perrin was not fooled. “Yes,” he said harshly. Nobody could escape Aiel afoot. “Go now. Hurry.” Not fooled at all. The man expected to find Faile’s body. She had to be alive, and that meant captive, but better a prisoner than . . .

They could not talk between themselves as they did with wolves, but Elyas hesitated as if he understood Perrin’s thoughts. He did not try to deny them, though. His gelding set off southeast at a walk, as quick as the snow would allow, and after a quick glance at Perrin, Aram followed, his face dark. The one-time Tinker did not like Elyas, but he near enough worshipped Faile, if only because she was Perrin’s wife.

It would do no good to founder the animals, Perrin told himself, frowning at their retreating backs. He wanted them to run. He wanted to run with them. Fine cracks seemed to be spidering through him. If they returned with the wrong news, he would shatter. To his surprise, the three Warders trotted their mounts through the trees after Elyas and Aram in splashes of snow, plain woolen cloaks streaming behind, then matched speed when they caught up.

He managed to give Masuri and Seonid a grateful nod, and included Edarra and Carelle. Whoever had made the suggestion, there was no doubt who had granted permission. It was a measure of the control the Wise Ones had established that neither sister was trying to take charge. They very likely wanted to, but their gloved hands remained folded on the pommels of their saddles, and neither betrayed impatience by so much as the flicker of an eyelid.

Not everyone was watching the departing men. Annoura alternated between beaming sympathy at him and studying the Wise Ones out of the corner of her eye. Unlike the other two sisters, she had made no promises, but she was almost as circumspect with the Aielwomen as they. Gallenne’s one eye was on Berelain, awaiting a sign he should draw the sword he was gripping, while she was intent on Perrin, her face still smooth and unreadable. Grady and Neald had their heads together, casting quick, grim glances in his direction. Balwer sat very still, like a sparrow perched on the saddle, trying to be invisible, listening intently.

Arganda pushed his tall roan gelding past Gallenne’s heavy-chested black, ignoring the Mayener’s one-eyed glare of outrage. The First Captain’s mouth worked angrily behind the shining face-bars of his helmet, but Perrin heard nothing. Faile filled his head. Oh, Light, Faile! His chest felt bound with iron straps. He was near to panic, holding to the precipice with his fingernails.

Desperately he reached out with his mind, frantically searching for wolves. Elyas must have tried this already—Elyas would not have given way to panic at the news—but he had to try himself.

Searching, he found them, Three Toes’ pack and Cold Water’s, Twilight’s and Springhorn’s and others. Pain flowed out with his plea for help, but grew greater inside him rather than less. They had heard of Young Bull, and they commiserated over the loss of his she, but they kept clear of the two-legs, who frightened away all the game and were death for any wolf caught alone. There were so many packs of two-legs about, afoot and riding the hard-footed four-legs, that they could not say whether any they knew of were the one he sought. Two-legs were two-legs, to them, indistinguishable except for those who could channel, and the few who could speak with them. Mourn, they told him, and move on, and meet her again in the Wolf Dream.

One by one, the images that his mind turned to words faded away, until only one lingered. Mourn, and meet her again in the Wolf Dream. Then that also was gone.

“Are you listening?” Arganda demanded roughly. He was not a smooth-faced noble, and despite his silks and the gold-work atop the silver of his breastplate he looked like what he was, a graying soldier who had first hefted a lance as a boy and probably carried two dozen scars. His dark eyes were almost as fevered as those of Masema’s men. He smelled of rage, and fear. “Those savages took Queen Alliandre, as well!”

“We will find your Queen when we find my wife,” Perrin said, his voice as cold and hard as the edge of his axe. She had to be alive. “Suppose you tell me what all this is about, you drawn up ready to charge, it looks like. And facing my people, at that.” He had other responsibilities, too. Acknowledging that was bitter as gall. Nothing else counted alongside Faile. Nothing! But the Two Rivers men were his people.

Arganda dashed his mount close and seized Perrin’s sleeve in a gauntleted fist. “You listen to me! The First Lady Berelain says it was Aiel took Queen Alliandre, and there are Aiel sheltering behind those archers of yours. I have men who will be happy enough to put them to the question.” His heated gaze swung back to Edarra and Carelle for a moment. Perhaps he was thinking that they were Aiel with no archers barring his path.

“The First Captain is . . . overwrought,” Berelain murmured, laying a hand on Perrin’s other arm. “I have explained to him that none of the Aiel here were involved. I’m sure that I can convince him—”

He shook her off, ripped his arm away from the Ghealdanin. “Alliandre swore fealty to me, Arganda. You swore fealty to her, and that makes me your lord. I said I’ll find Alliandre when I find Faile.” The edge of an axe. She was alive. “You question no one, touch no one, unless I say. What you will do is take your men back to your camp, now, and be ready to ride when I give the order. If you’re not ready when I call, you will be left behind.”

Arganda stared at him, breathing hard. His eyes strayed again, this time toward Grady and Neald, then jerked back to Perrin’s face. “As you command, my Lord,” he said stiffly. Wheeling his roan, he shouted orders to his officers and was already galloping away before they began issuing their own. The Ghealdanin began to peel away by columns, riding after their First Captain. Toward their camp, though whether Arganda intended to remain there was anyone’s guess. And whether it might not be for the worse if he did.

“You handled that very well, Perrin,” Berelain said. “A difficult situation, and a painful time for you.” Not formal at all, now. Just a woman full of pity, her smile compassionate. Oh, she had a thousand guises, Berelain did.

She stretched out a red-gloved hand, and he backed Stayer away before she could touch him. “Give it over, burn you!” he snarled. “My wife has been taken! I’ve no patience for your childish games!”

She jerked as if he had struck her. Color bloomed in her cheeks, and she changed again, becoming supple and willowy in her saddle. “Not childish, Perrin,” she murmured, her voice rich and amused. “Two women contesting over you, and you the prize? I would think you’d be flattered. Attend me, Lord Captain Gallenne. I suppose we, too, should be ready to ride at command.”

The one-eyed man rode back toward the Winged Guards at her side, as close to a canter as the snow made possible. He was leaning toward her as if hearing instructions. Annoura paused where she was, gathering the reins other brown mare. Her mouth was a razored line beneath her beak of a nose. “Sometimes you are a very large fool, Perrin Aybara. Quite often, in fact.”

He did not know what she was talking about, and did not care. At times she seemed resigned to Berelain chasing after a married man, and other times amused by it, even helping out by arranging for Berelain to be alone with him. Right then, First and Aes Sedai both disgusted him. Heeling Stayer in the flanks, he trotted away from her without a word.

The men on the hilltop opened enough to let him through, muttering to one another and watching the lancers below ride toward their respective camps, parted again to let the Wise Ones and Aes Sedai and Asha’man pass. They did not break up and crowd around him, as he had expected, for which he was grateful. The whole hilltop smelled of wariness. Most of it did.

The snow atop the hill had been trampled until some patches were clear except for frozen clumps and others were sheets of ice. The four Wise Ones who had remained behind when he rode to Abila were standing in front of one of the low Aiel tents, tall unruffled women with dark woolen shawls around their shoulders, watching the two sisters dismount with Carelle and Edarra, and seemingly paying no mind to what was going on around them. The gai’shain who served them in place of servants were going about their normal tasks quietly, meekly, faces hidden in the deep cowls of their white robes. One fellow was even beating a carpet hung over a rope tied between two trees! The only sign among the Aiel that they might have been on the brink of a fight was Gaul and the Maidens. They had been squatting on their heels, shoufa around their heads and black veils hiding all but their eyes, short spears and bull-hide bucklers in hand. As Perrin jumped down from his saddle, they rose.

Dannil Lewin trotted up, chewing worriedly at the thick mustache that made his nose look even bigger than it was. He had his bow in one hand and was sliding an arrow back into the quiver at his belt. “I didn’t know what else to do, Perrin,” he said in a jerky voice. Dannil had been at Dumai’s Wells, and faced Trollocs back home, but this was outside his view of the world. “By the time we found out what happened, those Ghealdanin fellows were already starting this way, so I sent off Jondyn Barran and a couple of others, Hu Marwin and Get Ayliah, told the Cairhienin and your servants to make a circle with the carts and stay inside it—had to just about tie up those folks who’re always following the Lady Faile around; they wanted to go off after her, and not a one of them knows a footprint from an oak tree—then I brought everybody else here. I thought those Ghealdanin might charge us, until the First got there with her men. They must be crazy, thinking any of our Aiel would hurt the Lady Faile.” Even when they Perrined him, Faile nearly always received the honorific from the Two Rivers men.

“You did right, Dannil,” Perrin said, tossing him Stayer’s reins. Hu and Get were good woodsmen, and Jondyn Barran could follow yesterday’s wind. Gaul and the Maidens were starting to leave, in single file. They were still veiled. “Tell off one man in three to stay here,” Perrin told Dannil hurriedly; just because he had faced Arganda down was no reason to believe the man had changed his mind, “and send the rest back to pack up. I want to ride as soon as there’s word.”

Without waiting on a reply, he hurried to put himself in front of Gaul and stopped the taller man with a hand to his chest. For some reason, Gaul’s green eyes tightened above his veil. Sulin and the rest of the Maidens strung out behind him went up on the balls of their feet.

“Find her for me, Gaul,” Perrin said. “All of you, please find who took her. If anyone can track Aiel, it’s you.”

The tightness in Gaul’s eyes vanished as suddenly as it had come, and the Maidens relaxed, too. As much as Aiel ever could be said to relax. It was very strange. They could not think he blamed them in any way.

“We all wake from the dream one day,” Gaul said gently, “but if she still dreams, we will find her. But if Aiel took her, we must go. They will move quickly. Even in . . . this.” He put considerable disgust in the word, kicking at a clod of snow.

Perrin nodded and hastily stepped aside, letting the Aiel set out at a trot. He doubted they could maintain that for very long, but he was sure they would keep the pace longer than anyone else could have. As the Maidens passed him, each quickly pressed fingers to the veil over her lips, then touched his shoulder. Sulin, right behind Gaul, gave him a nod, but none said a word. Faile would have known what they meant with their finger kissing.

There was something else odd about their departure, he realized as the last Maiden went by. They were letting Gaul lead. Normally, any of them would have stuck a spear in him before allowing that. Why . . . ? Maybe . . . Chiad and Bain would have been with Faile. Gaul did not care one way of the other about Bain, but Chiad was a different matter. The Maidens certainly had not been encouraging Gaul’s hope that Chiad would give up the spear to marry him—anything but!—yet maybe that was it.

Perrin grunted in disgust at himself. Chiad and Bain, and who else? Even blind with fear for Faile, he should have asked that much. If he was going to get her back, he needed to strangle fear and see. But it was like trying to strangle a tree.

The flat hilltop swarmed now. Someone had already led Stayer away, and Two Rivers men were leaving the ring around the crest, hurrying toward their camp in a scattered stream, shouting to one another about what they would have done had the lancers charged. Occasionally a man raised his voice asking about Faile, did anyone know if the Lady was safe, were they going to look for her, but others always shushed him hurriedly with worried glances at Perrin. The gai’shain went about their tasks placidly in the middle of all the rush. Unless commanded to stop, they would have done the same if a battle had swirled around them, not raising a hand to help or hinder. The Wise Ones had all gone into one of the tents with Seonid and Masuri, and the flaps were not only down, but tied. They did not want to be disturbed. They would be discussing Masema, no doubt. Possibly discussing how to kill the man without him or Rand learning they had done it.

He smacked a fist into his palm in irritation. He had actually forgotten Masema until now. The man was supposed to be following before nightfall, with that honor guard of a hundred men. With luck, the Mayener scouts would be back by then, and Elyas and the others soon after.

“My Lord Perrin?” Grady said behind him, and he turned. The two Asha’man stood in front of their horses, fiddling uncertainly with their reins. Grady drew breath and went on with Neald nodding agreement. “The pair of us could cover a lot of ground, Traveling. And if we find the lot who kidnapped her, well, I doubt even a few hundred Aiel could stop two Asha’man from taking her back.”

Perrin opened his mouth to tell them to start immediately, then closed it again. Grady had been a farmer, true, but never a hunter or woodsman. Neald thought any place without a stone wall was a village. They might know a footprint from an oak tree, yet if they did find tracks, very likely neither would be able to say which direction they were headed. Of course, he could go with them. He was not as good as Jondyn, but . . . He could go, and leave Dannil to deal with Arganda. And with Masema. Not to mention the Wise Ones’ schemes.

“Go get yourselves packed,” he said quietly. Where was Balwer? Nowhere in sight. Not very likely that he had gone haring off to find Faile. “You may be needed here.”

Grady blinked in surprise, and Neald’s mouth dropped open.

Perrin gave them no chance to argue. He strode over to the low tent with the tied flaps. There was no way to undo the ties from the outside. When Wise Ones wanted to remain undisturbed, they wanted to remain undisturbed, by clan chiefs or anyone else. Including a wetlander lumbered with the title of Lord of the Two Rivers. He drew his belt knife, and bent to slice the ties, but before he could slide the blade through the tight crack between the entry flaps, they jerked as if someone was unfastening them from inside. He straightened and waited.

The tentflaps opened, and Nevarin slipped out. Her shawl was tied around her waist, but except for the mist of her breath, she gave no evidence of the icy air. Her green eyes took in the knife in his hand, and she planted her fists on her hips in a rattle of bracelets. She was near enough bone-thin, with long sandy yellow hair held back by a dark folded kerchief, and more than a hand taller than Nynaeve, but that was who she always made him think of. She stood blocking the entrance to the tent.

“You are impetuous, Perrin Aybara.” Her light voice was level, but he had the impression that she was considering boxing his ears. Very much like Nynaeve. “Though that might be understandable, in the circumstances. What do you want?”

“How . . . ?” He had to stop to swallow. “How will they treat her?”

“I cannot say, Perrin Aybara.” There was no sympathy on her face, no expression at all. Aiel could give Aes Sedai lessons in that. “Taking wetlanders captive is against custom, except for Treekillers, though that has changed. So is killing without need. But many have refused to accept the truths the Car’a’carn revealed. Some were taken by the Bleakness and threw down their spears, yet they may have taken them up again. Others simply left, to live as they believe we are meant to. I cannot say what customs might be kept or abandoned by those who have abandoned clan and sept.” The only emotion she displayed was a hint of disgust at the end, for those who abandoned clan and sept.

“Light, woman, you must have some idea! Surely you can make a guess—”

“Do not become irrational,” she broke in sharply. “Men often do in such situations, but we have need of you. I think it will do your standing with the other wetlanders no good if we must bind you until you calm down. Go to your tent. If you cannot control your thoughts, drink until you cannot think. And do not bother us when we are in council.” She ducked back into the tent, and the flaps jerked closed and began to twitch as they were tied again.

Perrin considered the closed flaps, running his thumb over the blade of his knife, then shoved it into the sheath. They just might do as Nevarin had threatened if he barged in. And they could not tell him anything he wanted to know. He did not think she would keep secrets at a time like this. Not about Faile, anyway.

The hilltop had grown quieter, with most of the Two Rivers men gone. The remainder, still watchful of the Ghealdanin camp below, stamped their feet against the cold, but no one talked. The scurrying gai’shain hardly made a sound. Trees obscured parts of the Ghealdanin and Mayener camps, but Perrin could see carts being loaded in both. He decided to leave men on guard anyway. Arganda could be trying to lull him. A man who smelled like that could be . . . Irrational, he finished the thought dryly.

There was nothing left for him to do on the hill, so he set out to walk the half-mile to his tent. The tent he shared with Faile. He stumbled as much as walked, laboring when the snow rose around his legs. As much to stop it snapping in the wind as for warmth, he held his cloak tight around him. There was no warmth.

The Two Rivers camp was a swarm with activity when he arrived. The carts still made a big circle, with men and women from Dobraine’s estates back in Cairhien loading them, and others readying horses for saddling. In this depth of snow, cartwheels might as well have tried to roll through mud, so they were all lashed to the sides of the carts, now, replaced by pairs of broad wooden sleds. Bundled against the weather till most seemed twice as wide as they really were, the Cairhienin hardly paused to glance at him, but every Two Rivers man who saw him stopped to stare until someone else prodded the fellow to get on with whatever he was about. Perrin was glad none gave words to the sympathy in those stares. He thought he might break down and cry if anyone did.

There seemed to be nothing for him to do here, either. His big tent—his and Faile’s—was already down and on a cart, along with its contents. Basel Gill was walking along the carts with a long list in his hands. The stout man had taken to the job of shambayan, running Faile’s household, Perrin’s, like a squirrel to a corncrib. More used to cities than traveling outside their walls, though, he suffered from the cold, and wore not only a cloak but a thick scarf around his neck, a floppy-brimmed felt hat and heavy woolen gloves. For some reason, Gill flinched at the sight of him, and mumbled something about seeing to the carts before hurrying off as fast as he could. Odd.

Perrin did think of one thing then, and minding Dannil, he gave orders to relieve the men on the hill every hour and make sure everyone had a hot meal.

“Take care of the men and horses first,” a thin but strong voice said. “But then you must take care of yourself. There’s hot soup in the kettle, and bread of a sort, and I’ve put by some smoked ham. A full belly will make you look less like murder walking.”

“Thank you, Lini,” he said. Murder walking? Light, he felt like one of the dead, not a murderer. “I’ll eat in a little while.”

Faile’s chief maid was a frail-appearing woman, with skin like parchment and white hair in a bun on top of her head, but her back was straight and her dark eyes were clear and sharp. Worry creased her forehead now, though, and her hands gripped her cloak too tightly, straining. She would be worried about Faile, certainly, but . . .

“Maighdin was with her,” he said, and did not need her nod. Maighdin was always with Faile, it seemed. A treasure, Faile called her. And Lini seemed to consider the woman her daughter, though sometimes Maighdin did not appear to enjoy that as much as Lini did. “I’ll get them back,” he promised. “All of them.” His voice almost broke on that. “Get on with your work,” he went on roughly, hurriedly. “I’ll eat in a bit. I have to see to . . . to . . . ” He strode away without finishing.

There was nothing he had to see to. Nothing he could think of, except Faile. He hardly knew where he was heading until his steps took him outside the circle of carts.

A hundred paces beyond the horselines, a low, stony ridge thrust a black peak through the snow. From there, he would be able to see the tracks left by Elyas and the others. From there, he would see them returning.

His nose told him he was not alone well before he reached the narrow crest of the ridge, told him who was up there. The other man was not listening, because Perrin crunched his way to the top before he sprang up from where he had been crouching on his heels. Tallanvor’s gauntleted hands kneaded his long sword hilt, and he peered at Perrin uncertainly. A tall man who had taken hard knocks in his life, he usually was very sure of himself. Perhaps he expected a tirade for not having been there when Faile was taken, though she had rejected the armsman as a bodyguard, rejected any bodyguard. Beyond Bain and Chiad, at least, who apparently did not count. Or maybe he just thought he would be sent away, back to the carts, so Perrin could be alone. Perrin tried to make his face look less like—what had Lini called it?—murder walking? Tallanvor was in love with Maighdin, and would be wed to her soon if Faile’s suspicions were correct. The man had a right to keep watch.

They stood there on the ridge while twilight fell, and nothing moved in the snowy forest they watched. Darkness came without movement, and without Masema, but Perrin did not even think of Masema. The gibbous moon shone white on the snow, giving nearly as much light as a full moon, it seemed. Until scudding clouds began to hide it, and moonshadows raced across the snow, thicker and thicker. Snow began to fall with a dry rustling. Snow that would bury traces and tracks. Silent in the cold, the two men stood there, watching into the snowfall, waiting, hoping.