The Great Hunt

## Chapter 21

#### The Nine Rings

Rand expected the common room to be empty, since it was nearly suppertime, but half a dozen men crowded one table, dicing among their jacks of ale, and another sat by himself over a meal. Though the dicers carried no weapons in sight and wore no armor, only plain coats and breeches of dark blue, something about the way they held themselves told Rand they were soldiers. His eyes went to the solitary man. An officer, with the tops of his high boots turned down, and his sword propped against the table beside his chair. A single slash of red and one of yellow crossed the chest of the officer’s blue coat from shoulder to shoulder, and the front of his head was shaved, though his black hair hung long in the back. The soldiers’ hair was clipped short, as if it all had been cut under the same bowl. All seven turned to look as Rand and the others came in.

The innkeeper was a lean woman with a long nose and graying hair, but her wrinkles seemed part of her ready smile more than anything else. She came bustling up, wiping her hands on a spotless white apron. “Good even to you”—her quick eyes took in Rand’s gold-embroidered red coat, and Selene’s fine white dress—“my Lord, my Lady. I am Maglin Madwen, my Lord. Be welcome to The Nine Rings. And an Ogier. Not many of your kind come this way, friend Ogier. Would you be up from Stedding Tsofu, then?”

Loial managed an awkward half bow under the weight of the chest. “No, good innkeeper. I come the other way, from the Borderlands.”

“From the Borderlands, you say. Well. And you, my Lord? Forgive me for asking, but you’ve not the look of the Borderlands, if you don’t mind my saying it.”

“I’m from the Two Rivers, Mistress Madwen, in Andor.” He glanced at Selene—she did not seem to admit he existed; her level look barely admitted that the room existed, or anyone in it. “The Lady Selene is from Cairhien, from the capital, and I am from Andor.”

“As you say, my Lord.” Mistress Madwen’s glance flickered to Rand’s sword; the bronze herons were plain on scabbard and hilt. She frowned slightly, but her face was clear again in a blink. “You’ll be wanting a meal for yourself and your beautiful Lady, and your followers. And rooms, I expect. I’ll have your horses seen to. I’ve a good table for you, right this way, and pork with yellow peppers on the fire. Would you be hunting the Horn of Valere, then, my Lord, you and your Lady?”

In the act of following her, Rand almost stumbled. “No! Why would you think we were?”

“No offense, my Lord. We’ve had two through here already, all polished to look like heroes—not to suggest anything of the kind about you, my Lord—in the last month. Not many strangers come here, except traders up from the capital to buy oats and barley. I’d not suppose the Hunt has left Illian, yet, but maybe some don’t think they really need the blessing, and they’ll get a jump on the others by missing it.”

“We are not hunting the Horn, mistress.” Rand did not glance at the bundle in Loial’s arms; the blanket with its colorful stripes hung bunched over the Ogier’s thick arms and disguised the chest well. “We surely are not. We are on our way to the capital.”

“As you say, my Lord. Forgive me for asking, but is your Lady well?”

Selene looked at her, and spoke for the first time. “I am quite well.” Her voice left a chill in the air that stifled talk for a moment.

“You’re not Cairhienin, Mistress Madwen,” Hurin said suddenly. Burdened down with their saddlebags and Rand’s bundle, he looked like a walking baggage cart. “Pardon, but you don’t sound it.”

Mistress Madwen’s eyebrows rose, and she shot a glance at Rand, then grinned. “I should have known you’d let your man speak freely, but I’ve grown used to—” Her glance darted toward the officer, who had gone back to his own meal. “Light, no, I’m not Cairhienin, but for my sins, I married one. Twenty-three years I lived with him, and when he died on me—the Light shine on him—I was all ready to go back to Lugard, but he had the last laugh, he did. He left me the inn, and his brother the money, when I was sure it would be the other way round. Tricksome and scheming, Barin was, like every man I’ve ever known, Cairhienin most of all. Will you be seated, my Lord? My Lady?”

The innkeeper gave a surprised blink when Hurin sat at table with them—an Ogier, it seemed, was one thing, but Hurin was clearly a servant in her eyes. With another quick look at Rand, she bustled off to the kitchens, and soon serving girls came with their meal, giggling and staring at the lord and the lady, and the Ogier, till Mistress Madwen chased them back to their work.

At first, Rand stared at his food doubtfully. The pork was cut in small bits, mixed with long strips of yellow peppers, and peas, and a number of vegetables and things he did not recognize, all in some sort of clear, thick sauce. It smelled sweet and sharp, both at the same time. Selene only picked at hers, but Loial was eating with a will.

Hurin grinned at Rand over his fork. “They spice their food oddly, Cairhienin do, Lord Rand, but for all that, it’s not bad.”

“It won’t bite you, Rand,” Loial added.

Rand took a hesitant mouthful, and almost gasped. It tasted just as it smelled, sweet and sharp together, the pork crisp on the outside and tender inside, a dozen different flavors, spices, all blending and contrasting. It tasted like nothing he had ever put in his mouth before. It tasted wonderful. He cleaned his plate, and when Mistress Madwen returned with the serving girls to clear away, he nearly asked for more the way Loial did. Selene’s was still half full, but she motioned curtly for one of the girls to take it.

“A pleasure, friend Ogier.” The innkeeper smiled. “It takes a lot to fill up one of you. Catrine, bring another helping, and be quick.” One of the girls darted away. Mistress Madwen turned her smile on Rand. “My Lord, I had a man here who played the bittern, but he married a girl off one of the farms, and she has him strumming reins behind a plow, now. I couldn’t help noticing what looks like a flute case sticking out of your man’s bundle. Since my musician’s gone, would you let your man favor us with a little music?”

Hurin looked embarrassed.

“He doesn’t play,” Rand explained. “I do.”

The woman blinked. It appeared lords did not play the flute, at least not in Cairhien. “I withdraw the request, my Lord. Light’s own truth, I meant no offense, I assure you. I’d never ask one such as yourself to be playing in a common room.”

Rand hesitated only a moment. It had been too long since he had practiced the flute rather than the sword, and the coins in his pouch would not last forever. Once he was rid of his fancy clothes—once he turned the Horn over to Ingtar and the dagger over to Mat—he would need the flute to earn his supper again while he searched for somewhere safe from Aes Sedai. And safe from myself? Something did happen back there. What?

“I don’t mind,” he said. “Hurin, hand me the case. Just slide it out.” There was no need to show a gleeman’s cloak; enough unspoken questions shone in Mistress Madwen’s dark eyes as it was.

Worked gold chased with silver, the instrument looked the sort a lord might play, if lords anywhere played the flute. The heron branded on his right palm did not interfere with his fingering. Selene’s salves had worked so well he hardly thought of the brand unless he saw it. Yet it was in his thoughts now, and unconsciously he began to play “Heron on the Wing.”

Hurin bobbed his head to the tune, and Loial beat time on the table with a thick finger. Selene looked at Rand as if wondering what he was—I’m not a lord, my Lady. I’m a shepherd, and I play the flute in common rooms—but the soldiers turned from their talk to listen, and the officer closed the wooden cover of the book he had begun reading. Selene’s steady gaze struck a stubborn spark inside Rand. Determinedly he avoided any song that might fit in a palace, or a lord’s manor. He played “Only One Bucket of Water” and “The Old Two Rivers Leaf,” “Old Jak’s Up a Tree” and “Goodman Priket’s Pipe.”

With the last, the six soldiers began to sing in raucous tones, though not the words Rand knew.

“We rode down to River Iralell
just to see the Tairen come.
We stood along the riverbank
with the rising of the sun.
Their horses blacked the summer plain,
their banners blacked the sky.
But we stood our ground on the banks of River Iralell.
Oh, we stood our ground.
Yes, we stood our ground.
Stood our ground along the river in the morning.”

It was not the first time that Rand had discovered a tune had different words and different names in different lands, sometimes even in villages in the same land. He played along with them until they let the words die away, slapping each other’s shoulders and making rude comments on one another’s singing.

When Rand lowered the flute, the officer rose and made a sharp gesture. The soldiers fell silent in mid-laugh, scraped back their chairs to bow to the officer with hand on breast—and to Rand—and left without a backwards look.

The officer came to Rand’s table and bowed, hand to heart; the shaven front of his head looked as if he had dusted it with white powder. “Grace favor you, my Lord. I trust they did not bother you, singing as they did. They are a common sort, but they meant no insult, I assure you. I am Aldrin Caldevwin, my Lord, Captain in His Majesty’s Service, the Light illumine him.” His eyes slid over Rand’s sword; Rand had the feeling Caldevwin had noticed the herons as soon as he came in.

“They didn’t insult me.” The officer’s accent reminded him of Moiraine’s, precise and every word pronounced to its full. Did she really let me go? I wonder if she’s following me. Or waiting for me. “Sit down, Captain. Please.” Caldevwin drew a chair from another table. “Tell me, Captain, if you don’t mind. Have you seen any other strangers recently? A lady, short and slender, and a fighting man with blue eyes. He’s tall, and sometimes he wears his sword on his back.”

“I have seen no strangers at all,” he said, lowering himself stiffly to his seat. “Saving yourself and your Lady, my Lord. Few of the nobility ever come here.” His eyes flicked toward Loial with a minute frown; Hurin he ignored for a servant.

“It was only a thought.”

“Under the Light, my Lord, I mean no disrespect, but may I hear your name? We have so few strangers here that I find I wish to know every one.”

Rand gave it—he claimed no title, but the officer seemed not to notice—and said as he had to the innkeeper, “From the Two Rivers, in Andor.”

“A wondrous place I have heard, Lord Rand—I may call you so?—and fine men, the Andormen. No Cairhienin has ever worn a blademaster’s sword so young as you. I met some Andormen, once, the Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards among them. I do not remember his name; an embarrassment. Perhaps you could favor me with it?”

Rand was conscious of the serving girls in the background, beginning to clean and sweep. Caldevwin seemed only to be making conversation, but there was a probing quality to his look. “Gareth Bryne.”

“Of course. Young, to hold so much responsibility.”

Rand kept his voice level. “Gareth Bryne has enough gray in his hair to be your father, Captain.”

“Forgive me, my Lord Rand. I meant to say that he came to it young.” Caldevwin turned to Selene, and for a moment he only stared. He shook himself, finally, as if coming out of a trance. “Forgive me for looking at you so, my Lady, and forgive me for speaking so, but Grace has surely favored you. Will you give me a name to put to such beauty?”

Just as Selene opened her mouth, one of the serving girls let out a cry and dropped a lamp she was taking down from a shelf. Oil splattered, and caught in a pool of flame on the floor. Rand leaped to his feet along with the others at the table, but before any of them could move, Mistress Madwen appeared, and she and the girl smothered the flames with their aprons.

“I have told you to be careful, Catrine,” the innkeeper said, shaking her now-smutty apron under the girl’s nose. “You’ll be burning the inn down, and yourself in it.”

The girl seemed on the point of tears. “I was being careful, Mistress, but I had such a twinge in my arm.”

Mistress Madwen threw up her hands. “You always have some excuse, and you still break more dishes than all the rest. Ah, it’s all right. Clean it up, and don’t burn yourself.” The innkeeper turned to Rand and the others, all still standing around the table. “I hope none of you take this amiss. The girl really won’t burn down the inn. She’s hard on the dishes when she starts mooning over some young fellow, but she’s never mishandled a lamp before.”

“I would like to be shown to my room. I do not feel well after all.” Selene spoke in careful tones, as though uncertain of her stomach, but despite that she looked and sounded as cool and calm as ever. “The journey, and the fire.”

The innkeeper clucked like a mother hen. “Of course, my Lady. I have a fine room for you and your Lord. Shall I fetch Mother Caredwain? She has a fine hand with soothing herbs.”

Selene’s voice sharpened. “No. And I wish a room by myself.”

Mistress Madwen glanced at Rand, but the next moment she was bowing Selene solicitously toward the stairs. “As you wish, my Lady. Lidan, fetch the Lady’s things like a good girl, now.” One of the serving girls ran to take Selene’s saddlebags from Hurin, and the women disappeared upstairs, Selene stiff-backed and silent.

Caldevwin stared after them until they were gone, then shook himself again. He waited until Rand had seated himself before taking his chair again. “Forgive me, my Lord Rand, for staring so at your Lady, but Grace has surely favored you in her. I mean no insult.”

“None taken,” Rand said. He wondered if every man felt the way he did when they looked at Selene. “As I was riding to the village, Captain, I saw a huge sphere. Crystal, it seemed. What is it?”

The Cairhienin’s eyes sharpened. “It is part of the statue, my Lord Rand,” he said slowly. His gaze flickered toward Loial; for an instant he seemed to be considering something new.

“Statue? I saw a hand, and a face, too. It must be huge.”

“It is, my Lord Rand. And old.” Caldevwin paused. “From the Age of Legends, so I am told.”

Rand felt a chill. The Age of Legends, when use of the One Power was everywhere, if the stories could be believed. What happened there? I know there was something.

“The Age of Legends,” Loial said. “Yes, it must be. No one has done work so vast since. A great piece of work to dig that up, Captain.” Hurin sat silently, as if he not only was not listening, but was not there at all.

Caldevwin nodded reluctantly. “I have five hundred laborers in camp beyond the diggings, and even so it will be past summer’s end before we have it clear. They are men from the Foregate. Half my work is to keep them digging, and the other half to keep them out of this village. Foregaters have a fondness for drinking and carousing, you understand, and these people lead quiet lives.” His tone said his sympathies were all with the villagers.

Rand nodded. He had no interest in Foregaters, whoever they were. “What will you do with it?” The captain hesitated, but Rand only looked back at him until he spoke.

“Galldrian himself has ordered that it be taken to the capital.”

Loial blinked. “A very great piece of work, that. I am not sure how something that big could be moved so far.”

“His Majesty has ordered it,” Caldevwin said sharply. “It will be set up outside the city, a monument to the greatness of Cairhien and of House Riatin. Ogier are not the only ones who know how to move stone.” Loial looked abashed, and the captain visibly calmed himself. “Your pardon, friend Ogier. I spoke in haste, and rudely.” He still sounded a little gruff. “Will you be staying in Tremonsien long, my Lord Rand?”

“We leave in the morning,” Rand said. “We are going to Cairhien.”

“As it happens, I am sending some of my men back to the city tomorrow. I must rotate them; they grow stale after too long watching men swing picks and shovels. You will not mind if they ride in your company?” He put it as a question, but as if acceptance were a foregone conclusion. Mistress Madwen appeared on the stairs, and he rose. “If you will excuse me, my Lord Rand, I must be up early. Until the morning, then. Grace favor you.” He bowed to Rand, nodded to Loial, and left.

As the doors closed behind the Cairhienin, the innkeeper came to the table.

“I have your Lady settled, my Lord. And I’ve good rooms prepared for you and your man, and you, friend Ogier.” She paused, studying Rand. “Forgive me if I overstep myself, my Lord, but I think I can speak freely to a lord who lets his man speak up. If I’m wrong . . . well, I mean no insult. For twenty-three years Barin Madwen and I were arguing when we weren’t kissing, so to speak. That’s by way of saying I have some experience. Right now, you’re thinking your Lady never wants to see you again, but it’s my way of thinking that if you tap on her door tonight, she’ll be taking you in. Smile and say it was your fault, whether it was or not.”

Rand cleared his throat and hoped his face was not turning red. Light, Egwene would kill me if she knew I’d even thought of it. And Selene would kill me if I did it. Or would she? That did make his cheeks burn. “I . . . thank you for your suggestion, Mistress Madwen. The rooms . . . ” He avoided looking at the blanket-covered chest by Loial’s chair; they did not dare leave it without someone awake and guarding it. “We three will all sleep in the same room.”

The innkeeper looked startled, but she recovered quickly. “As you wish, my Lord. This way, if you please.”

Rand followed her up the stairs. Loial carried the chest under its blanket—the stairs groaned under the weight of him and the chest together, but the innkeeper seemed to think it was just an Ogier’s bulk—and Hurin still carried all the saddlebags and the bundled cloak with the harp and flute.

Mistress Madwen had a third bed brought in and hastily assembled and made up. One of the beds already there stretched nearly from wall to wall in length, and had obviously been meant for Loial from the start. There was barely room to walk between the beds. As soon as the innkeeper was gone, Rand turned to the others. Loial had pushed the still-covered chest under his bed and was trying the mattress. Hurin was setting out the saddlebags.

“Do either of you know why that captain was so suspicious of us? He was, I’m sure of it.” He shook his head. “I almost think he thought we might steal that statue, the way he was talking.”

“Daes Dae’mar, Lord Rand,” Hurin said. “The Great Game. The Game of Houses, some call it. This Caldevwin thinks you must be doing something to your advantage or you wouldn’t be here. And whatever you’re doing might be to his disadvantage, so he has to be careful.”

Rand shook his head. “ ‘The Great Game’? What game?”

“It isn’t a game at all, Rand,” Loial said from his bed. He had pulled a book from his pocket, but it lay unopened on his chest. “I don’t know much about it—Ogier don’t do such things—but I have heard of it. The nobles and the noble Houses maneuver for advantage. They do things they think will help them, or hurt an enemy, or both. Usually, it’s all done in secrecy, or if not, they try to make it seem as if they’re doing something other than what they are.” He gave one tufted ear a puzzled scratch. “Even knowing what it is, I don’t understand it. Elder Haman always said it would take a greater mind than his to understand the things humans do, and I don’t know many as intelligent as Elder Haman. You humans are odd.”

Hurin gave the Ogier a slanted look, but he said, “He has the right of Daes Dae’mar, Lord Rand. Cairhienin play it more than most, though all southerners do.”

“These soldiers in the morning,” Rand said. “Are they part of Caldevwin playing this Great Game? We can’t afford to get mixed in anything like that.” There was no need to mention the Horn. They were all too aware of its presence.

Loial shook his head. “I don’t know, Rand. He’s human, so it could mean anything.”

“Hurin?”

“I don’t know, either.” Hurin sounded as worried as the Ogier looked. “He could be doing just what he said, or . . . That’s the way of the Game of Houses. You never know. I spent most of my time in Cairhien in the Foregate, Lord Rand, and I don’t know much about Cairhienin nobles, but—well, Daes Dae’mar can be dangerous anywhere, but especially in Cairhien, I’ve heard.” He brightened suddenly. “The Lady Selene, Lord Rand. She’ll know better than me or the Builder. You can ask her in the morning.”

But in the morning, Selene was gone. When Rand went down to the common room, Mistress Madwen handed him a sealed parchment. “If you’ll forgive me, my Lord, you should have listened to me. You should have tapped on your Lady’s door.”

Rand waited until she went away before he broke the white wax seal. The wax had been impressed with a crescent moon and stars.

I must leave you for a time. There are too many people here, and I do not like Caldevwin. I will await you in Cairhien. Never think that I am too far from you. You will be in my thoughts always, as I know that I am in yours.

It was not signed, but that elegant, flowing script had the look of Selene.

He folded it carefully and put it in his pocket before going outside, where Hurin had the horses waiting.

Captain Caldevwin was there, too, with another, younger officer and fifty mounted soldiers crowding the street. The two officers were bare-headed, but wore steel-backed gauntlets, and gold-worked breastplates strapped over their blue coats. A short staff was fastened to the harness on each officer’s back, bearing a small, stiff blue banner above his head. Caldevwin’s banner bore a single white star, while the younger man’s was crossed by two white bars. They were a sharp contrast to the soldiers in their plain armor and helmets that looked like bells with metal cut away to expose their faces.

Caldevwin bowed as Rand came out of the inn. “Good morning to you, my Lord Rand. This is Elricain Tavolin, who will command your escort, if I may call it that.” The other officer bowed; his head was shaved as Caldevwin’s was. He did not speak.

“An escort will be welcome, Captain,” Rand said, managing to sound at ease. Fain would not try anything against fifty soldiers, but Rand wished he could be certain they were only an escort.

The captain eyed Loial, on his way to his horse with the blanket-covered chest. “A heavy burden, Ogier.”

Loial almost missed a step. “I never like to be far from my books, Captain.” His wide mouth flashed teeth in a self-conscious grin, and he hurried to strap the chest onto his saddle.

Caldevwin looked around, frowning. “Your Lady is not down yet. And her fine animal is not here.”

“She left already,” Rand told him. “She had to go on to Cairhien quickly, during the night.”

Caldevwin’s eyebrows lifted. “During the night? But my men . . . Forgive me, my Lord Rand.” He drew the younger officer aside, whispering furiously.

“He had the inn watched, Lord Rand,” Hurin whispered. “The Lady Selene must have gotten past them unseen somehow.”

Rand climbed to Red’s saddle with a grimace. If there had been any chance Caldevwin did not suspect them of something, it seemed Selene had finished it. “Too many people, she says,” he muttered. “There’ll be more people by far in Cairhien.”

“You said something, my Lord?”

Rand looked up as Tavolin joined him, mounted on a tall, dust-colored gelding. Hurin was in his saddle, too, and Loial stood beside his big horse’s head. The soldiers were formed up in ranks. Caldevwin was nowhere to be seen.

“Nothing is happening the way I expect,” Rand said.

Tavolin gave him a brief smile, hardly more than a twitch of his lips. “Shall we ride, my Lord?”

The strange procession headed for the hard-packed road that led to the city of Cairhien.