The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time #8)

“They’re afraid you don’t trust them,” Aram said suddenly. Perrin looked at him in surprise, and Aram shifted his shoulders in his coat. “I’ve talked to them, some. They think if a lord tends his own horses, it must be because he doesn’t trust them. You might send them off, with no way to get home.” His tone said they were fools to think that, but he gave Perrin a sideways glance and shrugged again, uncomfortably. “I think they’re embarrassed, too. If you don’t behave the way they think a lord should, it reflects on them, as they see it.”

“Light!” Perrin muttered. Faile had said the same — about them being embarrassed, anyway — but he had believed it just a lord’s daughter talking. Faile had grown up surrounded by servants, yet how could a lady know the thoughts of a man who had to work for his bread? He frowned toward the horselines. Five of the farriers stood together watching him, now. Embarrassed that he wanted to look after his own horses, and upset that he did not want them pulling wool and scratching gravel all over the place. “Do you think I ought to act like a fool in silk smallclothes?” he asked. Aram blinked, and began studying his boots. “Light!” Perrin growled.

Spotting Basel Gill hurrying from the direction of the carts, Perrin moved to meet him. He did not think he had done very well at making Gill feel at ease yesterday. The stout man was talking to himself and once more mopping his head with a kerchief, sweating away in a rumpled dark gray coat. The day’s heat was beginning to take hold already. He did not see Perrin until Perrin was nearly on him, and then he gave a jump, stuffing the kerchief into a coat pocket and making a bow. He looked curried and brushed fit for a feastday.

“Ah. My Lord Perrin. Your Lady told me to take a cart into Bethal. She says I’m to find you some Two Rivers tabac, if I can, but I don’t know that’s possible. Two Rivers leaf has always been dear, and trade isn’t what it was.”

“She’s sending you for tabac?” Perrin said, frowning. He supposed secrecy had gone down the well, but still. “I bought three casks, two villages back. Enough for everybody.”

Gill shook his head firmly. “Not Two Rivers leaf, and your Lady says you like that above any other. The Ghealdanin leaf will do for your men. I’m to be your shambayan, she called it, and keep you and her supplied with what you need. Not much different from what I did running the Blessing, really.” The similarity seemed to amuse him; his belly shook with quiet chuckles. “I have quite a list, though I can’t say how much of it I’ll find. Good wine, herbs, fruit, candles and lamp oil, oilcloth and wax, paper and ink, needles, pins, oh, all sorts of things. Tallanvor and Lamgwin and I are going, with some of your Lady’s other retainers.”

His Lady’s other retainers. Tallanvor and Lamgwin were bringing out yet another chest for the women to sort through. They had to pass by the squatting clump of young fools, who never offered to lend a hand. In fact, the layabouts ignored them completely.

“You keep an eye on that lot,” Perrin cautioned. “If one of them starts any trouble — if he even looks as if he will — you have Lamgwin crack his head.” And if it was one of the women? They were just as likely, maybe more so. Perrin grunted. Faile’s “retainers” were going to tie his belly into permanent knots yet. Too bad she could not be satisfied with the likes of Master Gill and Maighdin. “You didn’t mention Balwer. Has he decided to go on alone?” Just then, a shift in the breeze brought him Balwer’s scent, an alert smell very much at odds with the fellow’s almost desiccated exterior.

Even for so reedy a man, Balwer made surprisingly little noise on the dried leaves underfoot. In a sparrowbrown coat, he offered a quick bow, and his tilted head added to the image of a bird. “I am staying, my Lord,” he said cautiously. Or maybe that was just his manner. “As your gracious Lady’s secretary. And yours, if it pleases you.” He stepped closer, very nearly a hop. “I am well versed, my Lord. I possess a good memory and write a good hand, and my Lord can be assured that whatever he confides in me will never pass my lips to another. The ability to keep secrets is a primary skill of a secretary. Don’t you have pressing duties for our new mistress, Master Gill?”

Gill frowned at Balwer, opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. Spinning on his heel, he trotted away toward the tent.

For a moment Balwer watched him go, head to one side, lips pursed thoughtfully. “I can offer other services, as well, my Lord,” he said finally. “Knowledge. I overheard some of my Lord’s men speaking, and I understand that my Lord may have had some... difficulties... with the Children of the Light. A secretary learns many things. I know a surprising amount about the Children.”

“With any luck I can avoid Whitecloaks,” Perrin told him. “Better if you knew where the Prophet is. Or the Seanchan.” He did not expect any of that, of course, but Balwer surprised him.

“I cannot be certain, of course, but I think the Seanchan have not spread far beyond Amador as yet. Fact is difficult to sift from rumor, my Lord, but I keep my ears open. Of course, they do seem to move with unexpected suddenness. A dangerous people, with large numbers of Taraboner soldiers. I believe from Master Gill that my Lord knows of them, but I observed them closely in Amador, and what I saw is at my Lord’s disposal. As to the Prophet, there are as many rumors concerning him as the Seanchan, but I believe I can say reliably that he was recently at Abila, a largish town some forty leagues south of here.” Balwer smiled thinly, a brief selfsatisfied smile.

“How can you be so sure?” Perrin said slowly.

“As I said, my Lord, I keep my ears open. The Prophet reportedly closed a number of inns and taverns, and tore down those he considered too disreputable. Several were mentioned, and by chance, I happen to know there are inns of those names in Abila. I think there is little chance another town would have inns with the same names.” He flashed another narrow smile. He certainly smelled pleased with himself.

Perrin scratched his beard thoughtfully. The man just happened to remember where some inns that Masema supposedly had torn down were located. And if Masema turned out not to be there after all, well, these days rumors sprouted like mushrooms after rain. Balwer sounded a man trying to build up his own importance. “Thank you, Master Balwer. I’ll keep that to mind. If you hear any more, be sure to tell me.” As he turned to go,