Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6)

Making last goodbyes to Rand, Perrin took a deep breath and walked up the hallway. He found himself wishing he had his axe; Bashere was wearing his sword. “Lord Bashere?” Perrin made a bow that was not returned. The man reeked of cold fury. “I am Perrin Aybara.”

“We will talk,” Bashere said curtly and turned on his heel. Perrin had no choice but to follow, and to take quick strides despite his longer legs.

Two turnings later, Bashere entered a small sitting room and closed the door behind them. Tall windows let in plenty of light, and even more heat than the high ceiling could handle. Two chairs with padded seats and high, scroll-carved backs had been placed facing each other. A silver pitcher with a tall neck and two silver cups stood on a lapis-inlaid table. Not punch, this time; strong wine, by the smell.

Bashere filled the cups and thrust one at Perrin, gesturing peremptorily to one of the chairs. He wore a smile behind his mustaches, but eyes and smile could have belonged to two different men. The eyes could have driven nails. “I suppose Zarine told you all about my estates before you . . . married her. All about the Broken Crown. She was always talkative as a girl.”

The man remained standing, so Perrin did as well. Broken crown? Faile had certainly never mentioned any broken crown. “First she told me you were a fur trader. Or maybe it was a lumber merchant first, and then a fur trader. You sold ice peppers, too.” Bashere gave a start, repeating “Fur trader?” incredulously under his breath. “Her story changed,” Perrin went on, “but once too often she repeated something you had said about how a general should behave, and I asked her straight out, and . . .” He peered into his wine, then made himself meet the other man’s eyes. “When I found out who you were, I almost changed my mind about marrying her, only she had her mind set, and when Faile has her mind set, shifting her is like shifting a hitch of mules that have all decided to sit down at once. Besides, I loved her. I love her.”

“Faile?” Bashere barked. “Who in the Pit of Doom is Faile? We are talking about my daughter Zarine, and what you’ve done to her!”

“Faile is the name she took when she became a Hunter for the Horn,” Perrin said patiently. He had to make a good impression on this man; being at odds with your father-in-law was almost as bad as being at odds with your mother-in-law. “That was before she met me.”

“A Hunter?” Pride shone in the man’s voice, and his sudden grin. The scent of anger almost vanished. “The little minx never said a word to me about that. I must say, Faile suits her better than Zarine. That was her mother’s notion, and I—” Suddenly he gave himself a shake, and Perrin a suspicious stare. Anger began scenting the air again. “Don’t try changing the subject, boy. What we are about is you and my daughter and this supposed marriage of yours.”

“Supposed?” Perrin had always been good at holding his temper; Mistress Luhhan said he never had one. When you were bigger and stronger than the other boys growing up, and might hurt somebody by accident, you learned to hold your temper. Right then he was having a little difficulty, though. “The Wisdom performed the ceremony, the same as everybody’s been married in the Two Rivers since time out of mind.”

“Boy, it wouldn’t matter if you had the words said by an Ogier Elder with six Aes Sedai standing witness. Zarine still isn’t old enough to marry without her mother’s permission, which she never asked, much less received. She is with Deira right now, and if she doesn’t convince her mother she’s old enough to be married, she goes back to the camp, probably doing duty as her mother’s saddle. And you. . . .” Bashere’s fingers stroked the hilt of his sword, though he did not seem aware of it. “You,” he said in an almost jolly tone, “I get to kill.”

“Faile is mine,” Perrin growled. Wine slopped over his wrist, and he looked down in surprise at the winecup, crushed in his fist. He set the twisted piece of silver on the table carefully, beside the pitcher, but he could do nothing about his voice. “Nobody can take her from me. Nobody! You take her back to your camp—or anywhere!—and I’ll come for her.”

“I have nine thousand men with me,” the other man said in a surprisingly mild tone.

“Are they any harder to kill than Trollocs? Try taking her—try!—and we’ll find out!” He was shaking, Perrin realized, his hands clenched into fists so hard they hurt. It shocked him; he had not been angry, really angry, in so long that he no longer remembered what it was like.

Bashere studied him up and down, then shook his head. “It might be a shame to kill you. We need some new blood. It’s getting thin in the House. My grandfather used to say we were all becoming soft, and he was right. I’m half the man he was, and much as it shames me to say it, Zarine is terribly soft. Not weak, mind . . .” He frowned hard for a moment, nodding when he saw Perrin was not going to say Faile was weak. “. . . but soft, just the same.”

And that shocked Perrin so, he sat down before he realized he had moved to the chair. He almost forgot to be angry. Was this man mad, changing about like that? And Faile, soft? She could be deliriously soft at times, true, but any man who thought she was soft in the way her father meant would probably have his head handed to him. Himself included.

Bashere picked up the crushed winecup, studied it, then replaced it and took the other chair. “Zarine told me a good bit about you before she went with her mother, all about Lord Perrin of the Two Rivers, Slayer of Trollocs. That’s good, that. I like a man who can stand toe to toe with a Trolloc and not back up. Now I want to know what kind of man you are.” He waited expectantly, sipping his wine.

Perrin wished he had some more of Rand’s melon punch, or even his winecup undented. His throat had gone dry. He wanted to make that good impression, but he had to start with the truth. “The fact of it is, I am not really a lord. I’m a blacksmith. You see, when the Trollocs came. . . .” He trailed off because Bashere was laughing so hard the man had to wipe his eyes.

“Boy, the Creator never made the Houses. Some forget it, but go far enough back in any House, and you’ll find a commoner who showed uncommon courage or kept his head and took charge when everybody else was running around like plucked geese. Mind you, another thing some like to forget is the road down can be just as sudden. I’ve two maids in Tyr who would be ladies if their forebears two hundred years ago hadn’t been fools even a fool wouldn’t follow, and a woodcutter in Sidona who claims his ancestors were kings and queens before Artur Hawkwing. He might be telling the truth; he’s a good woodcutter. As many roads down as up, and the roads down as slippery as the others.” Bashere snorted hard enough to make his mustaches stir. “A fool moans when fortune takes him down, and it takes a true fool to moan when fortune takes him up. What I want to know about you isn’t what you were, or even so much what you are, as what you are inside. If my wife leaves Zarine with a whole hide, and I don’t kill you, do you know how to