Crossroads of Twilight

  Furniture littered the streets, large overturned tables and ornate chests and chairs, and sometimes a crumpled wall hanging or broken dishes. Bits of clothing lay everywhere, coats and breeches and dresses, most sliced to tatters. The Shaido had seized anything made of gold or silver, anything that had gems, anything useful or edible, but the furnishings must have been hauled outside in the frenzy of looting, then abandoned when whoever was carry­ing them decided that a little gilded edging or fine carving did not make them worth the effort. Aiel did not use chairs in any case, except for chiefs, and there was no room on the carts and wagons for any of those heavy tables. A few Shaido still wandered through, searching the houses and inns and shops for anything they might have missed, yet most people she saw were gai’shain carrying buck­ets. Aiel had no interest in cities except as storehouses to be plun­dered. A pair of Maidens passed her, using the butts of their spears to drive a naked, wild-eyed man, his arms bound behind him, toward the gates. Doubtless he had thought he could hide in a basement or attic until the Shaido were gone. Doubtless the Maid­ens had thought to find a cache of coin or plate. When a huge man in the cadin’sor of an algai’d’siswai stepped in front of her, she swerved to go around him as smoothly as she could. A gai’shain always made way for any Shaido.

  “You are very pretty,” he said, putting himself in her way. He was the biggest man she had ever seen, perhaps seven feet tall and thick in proportion. Not fat - she had never seen a fat Aiel - but very wide. He belched, and she smelled wine fumes. Drunken Aiel she had seen, since they found all those casks of wine here in Maiden. She felt no fear, though. Gai’shain might be punished for any number of infractions, often for transgressions few of the wet-landers understood, but the white robes gave a certain protection, too, and she had another layer besides.

  “I am gai’shain to the Wise One Sevanna,” she said in as obsequious a tone as she could manage. To her disgust, she had gotten so she could manage it very well. “Sevanna would be displeased if I shirked my duties to talk.” She tried again to step around him, and gasped when he seized her arm in a hand that could have wrapped around it twice with inches to spare.

  “Sevanna has hundreds of gai’shain. She will not miss one for an hour or two.”

  The basket fell to the street as he plucked her into the air as easily as picking up a pillow. Before she knew what was happen­ing, he had her tucked beneath his arm, her own arms trapped at her sides. She opened her mouth to scream, and he used his free hand to press her face flat against his chest. The smell of sweaty wool filled her nose. All she could see was gray-brown wool. Where were those two Maidens? Maidens of the Spear would not let him do this! Any Aiel who saw would step in! She never expected help from any of the gai’shain. One or two might run for help, if she was lucky, but the very first lesson a gai’shain learned was that even a threat of violence got you hung up by the ankles and beaten till you howled. The first lesson wetlanders learned, at least; Aiel already knew: & gai’shain was forbidden to offer violence for any reason. Any reason. Which did not stop her from kicking at the man furiously. She might as well have been kicking a wall for all the impression it made. He was moving, carrying her some­where. She bit as hard down as hard as she could, and got a mouthful of coarse dirty wool for her pains, her teeth sliding over muscle with no slack to give her purchase. He seemed made of stone. She screamed, but her shriek sounded muffled even to her own ears.

  Abruptly, the monster carrying her stopped.

  “I made this one gai’shain, Nadric,” another man’s deep voice said.

  Faile felt a rumble of laughter in the chest against her face even before she heard it. She did not stop her kicking, never stopped writhing or trying to shout, yet her captor seemed unaware of her efforts. “She belongs to Sevanna now, Brotherless,” the huge man - Nadric? - said contemptuously. “Sevanna takes what she wants, and I take what I want. It is the new way.”

  “Sevanna took her,” the other man replied calmly, “but I never gave her to Sevanna. I never offered to trade her to Sevanna. Do you abandon your honor because Sevanna abandons hers?”

  There was a long silence broken only by the smothered noises Faile was making. She did not stop struggling, could not stop, but she might as well have been an infant in swaddling.

  “She is not pretty enough to fight over,” Nadric said finally. He did not sound frightened or even concerned.

  His hands fell away from her, and Faile’s teeth ripped loose from his coat so suddenly she thought one or two might be jerked out, but the ground smashed into her back and all of the air rushed out of her lungs along with most of the wits from her head. By the time she could gather enough breath to push up on her hands, the huge man was striding away down the alley, almost back to the street. It was an alley, a narrow track of dirt between two stone buildings. No one would have seen what he did back here. Shivering - she was not trembling, just shivering! - spitting out the taste of unwashed wool and Nadric’s sweat, she glared at his back. If the knife she had hidden away had been within reach, she would have stabbed him. Not pretty enough to fight over, was she? Part of her knew that was ludicrous, but she was grabbing hold of anything that could feed her anger, just for the warmth of it. To help her stop shivering. She would have stabbed him and stabbed him, until she could not lift her arms.

  Getting up on legs that wobbled, she explored her teeth with her tongue. They were all sound, nothing broken or missing. Her face had been scraped by the rough wool of Nadric’s coat, and her lips were bruised, but she was unhurt. She reminded herself of that. She was unhurt, and free to walk out of the alley. As free as anyone in gai’shain robes could be, anyway. If there were many like Nadric who no longer saw the protection of those robes, then order was breaking down among the Shaido. The camp would be a more dangerous place, but disorder would bring more opportunities for escape. That was how she had to look at this. She had learned something that could aid her. If only she could stop shivering.

  At last, reluctantly, she looked at her rescuer. She had recog­nized his voice. He stood well back from her, watching her calmly, making no move to offer sympathy. She thought she would have screamed if he touched her. Another absurdity, since he had rescued her, but a fact all the same. Rolan was no more than a hand shorter than Nadric, and almost as wide, and she had reason to want to stab him, too. He was not Shaido, but one of the Brother-less, the Mera’din, men who had left their clans because they would not follow Rand al’Thor, and he had indeed been the one to “make her gai’shain.” True, he had kept her from freezing to death the night after she was captured by wrapping her in his own coat, yet she would not have needed the covering if he had not cut off every last stitch of her clothing in the first place. The first part of being made gai’shain was always being stripped, but that was no reason to forgive him for any of it.

  “Thank you,” she said, the words sour on her tongue.

  “I do not ask for gratitude,” he said mildly. “Do not look at me as though you want to bite me just because you could not bite Nadric.”

  She managed not to snarl at him - barely; she could not have summoned meekness right then had she wanted to - before she turned away and stalked back out to the street. Well, she tried to stalk. Her legs were still shaking enough that it was more of a lurch. The passing gai’shain barely glanced in her direction as they trudged along the street with their water buckets. Few of the cap­tives wanted to share anyone else’s troubles. They had enough of their own.

  Reaching the laundry basket, she gave a sigh. It lay on its side, white silk blouses and dark silk skirts divided for riding spilled out over the dirty ash-smeared pavement. At least it seemed no one had trodden on them. Anyone who had been carrying water all morning, and had a day of it to look forward to, could have been forgiven if they failed to step aside, with bits of clothing lying all around that had been cut off the people of Maiden who had been made gai’shain. She would have tried to forgive them. Righting the basket, she began gathering the clothes
, shaking off the dirt and ash that would come loose and careful not to grind in the rest. Unlike Someryn, Sevanna had taken to silk. She wore nothing else. She was as proud of her silks as she was of her jewelry, and equally possessive of both. She would not be pleased if any of these gar­ments failed to be returned clean.

  As Faile laid the last blouse atop the rest, Rolan reached past her and lifted the basket with one hand. On the brink of snapping at him - she could carry her own burdens, thank you very much! - she swallowed the words. Her brain was the only real weapon she possessed, and she had to use it instead of letting her temper have control. Rolan had not been here by chance. That was straining credulity too far. She had seen him frequently since she was cap­tured, much more often than chance could account for. He had been following her. What was it he had told Nadric? He had not given her to Sevanna or offered to trade her. For all that he had been the one to capture her, she thought he disapproved of making wetlanders gai’sbain - most of the Brotherless did - but apparently he still claimed his rights to her.

  She was sure she did not need to fear him trying to force her. Rolan had had his chance for that, when he had her naked and bound, and he could have been looking at a fence post then. Per­haps he did not like women in that way. In any case, the Brotherless were almost as much outsiders among the Shaido as the wetlanders. None of the Shaido really trusted them, and the Broth­erless themselves often seemed like men holding their noses, accepting what they considered a lesser wrong rather than embrace a greater, but no longer truly sure that it was lesser. If she could make a friend of the man, perhaps he would be willing to help her. Not to escape, certainly - that would asking too much - but. . . . Or would it? The only way to find out was to try.

  “Thank you,” she said again, and this time she worked up a smile. Surprisingly, he smiled back. A small smile, barely there at all, but Aiel were not demonstrative. They could seem stone-faced till you became used to them.

  For a few paces they walked along side by side in silence, him carrying the basket in one hand and her holding up the skirts of her robes. They might have been out for a stroll. If you squinted. Some of the passing gai’shain looked at them in surprise, but they always put their eyes down again quickly. She could not think of how to begin - she did not want him to think she was flirting; he might like women after all - but he took away the necessity.

  “I have watched you,” he said. “You are strong and fierce, and not afraid, I think. Most of the wetlanders are frightened half out of their heads. They bluster until they are punished, and then they weep and cower. I think you are a woman of much ji.”

  “I am frightened,” she replied. “I just try not let it show. Cry­ing never does any good.” Most men believed that. Tears could get in your way if you let them, but a few tears shed at night could help you make it through the next day.

  “There are times to weep and times to laugh. I would like to see you laugh.”

  She did laugh, a dry laugh. “There’s little reason while I wear white, Rolan.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Was she going too fast? But he only nodded.

  “Still, I would like to see it. Smiles suit your face. Laughter would suit it even better. I have no wife, but I can make a woman laugh, sometimes. I have heard you have a husband?”

  Startled, Faile tripped over her own feet and caught herself on his arm. Quickly, she snatched her hand away, studying him past the edge of her cowl. He paused long enough for her to steady her­self, then walked on when she did. His expression was no more than mildly curious. Despite Nadric, Aiel custom was for a woman to do the asking, after a man attracted her interest. Giving her gifts was one way. Making her laugh was another. So much for his not liking women. “I do have a husband, Rolan, and I love him very much. Very much. I can’t wait to return to him.”

  “What happens while you are gai’shain cannot be held against you when you put off white,” he said calmly, “but perhaps you wet-landers do not see it that way. Still, it can be lonely when you are gai’shain. Perhaps we can talk sometimes.”

  The man wanted to see her laugh, and she did not know whether to laugh or cry. He was announcing that he did not intend to give up trying to attract her interest. Aiel women admired per­severance in a man. Still, if Chiad and Bain would not, could not, help beyond giving her aid in reaching the trees, Rolan was her best hope. She thought she could convince him, given time. Of course she could; faint hearts never succeeded! He was a scorned outcast, accepted only because the Shaido needed his spear. But she was going to have to give him a reason to persist.

  “I would like that,” she said carefully. A little flirting might be necessary after all, but she could not go from telling him how much she loved her husband straight to wide-eyed and breathless. Not that she had any intention of going that far - she was no Domani! - yet she might need to come close. For the time being, a little reminder that Sevanna had usurped his “right” would not go amiss. “I have work to do now, though, and I doubt Sevanna would be pleased if I spent the time talking to you instead.”

  Rolan nodded again, and Faile sighed. He might know how to make a woman laugh, as he claimed, but he certainly did not talk very much. She was going to have to work to draw him out if she intended to get anything more than jokes she did not understand. Even with Chiad and Bain’s help, Aiel humor remained incompre­hensible to her.

  They had reached the broad square in front of the fortress at the north end of the city, a towered mass of gray stone walls that had protected its inhabitants no better than the city walls. Faile thought she had seen the lady who had ruled Maiden and every­thing for twenty miles around, a handsome dignified widow in her middle years, among the gai’shain hauling water. White-clad men and women carrying buckets crowded the stone-paved square. At the eastern end of the square, what looked like a section of the city’s outer wall, gray and thirty feet high, was actually the wall of a huge cistern fed by an aqueduct. Four pumps, each worked by a pair of men, gushed out water to fill the buckets, a good bit more splashing to the paving stones than the men would have dared allow if they had known Rolan was close enough to see. Faile had considered crawling through the tunnel-like aqueduct to escape, but they had no way to keep anything dry, and wherever it let them out, they would be soaking wet and more likely to freeze to death than make it more than a mile or two in the snow.

  There were two other places in the city to get water, both fed by stone conduits underground, but here a long, lion-footed black-wood table had been placed at the foot of the cistern wall. Once it had been a banqueting table, the top inlaid with ivory, but the ivory wedges had been pried out and several wooden washtubs sat on the tabletop now. A pair of wooden buckets stood beside the table, and at one end a copper kettle steamed over a fire made from broken-up chairs. Faile doubted that Sevanna had her laundry carried into the city to save her gai’sbain the labor of hauling water out to the tents, but whatever the reason, Faile was grateful. A basket of laundry was lighter than full water buckets. She had carried enough of them to know. Two baskets stood on the table, but only one woman wearing the golden belt and collar was at work, the sleeves of her white robe rolled up as high as they would go and her long dark hair tied with a strip of white cloth to keep it from falling into the washtub’s water.

  When Alliandre saw Faile approaching with Rolan, she straightened, drying her bare arms on her robe. Alliandre Maritha Kigarin, Queen of Ghealdan, Blessed of the Light, Defender of Garen’s Wall and a dozen more titles, had been an elegant, reserved woman, poised and stately. Alliandre the gai’shain was still pretty, but she wore a perpetually harried expression. With damp patches on her robes and her hands wrinkled from long immersion in the water, she could have passed for a pretty washerwoman. Watching Rolan set down the basket and smile at Faile before striding away, watching Faile return the smile, she raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “He’s the one who captured me,” Faile said, setting pieces of clothing from the basket on the table. Even he
re among none but gai’shain, it was best to talk while working. “He’s one of the Brotherless, and I think he doesn’t really approve of making wetlanders gai’shain. I think he may help us.”

  “I see,” Alliandre said. With one hand she brushed delicately at the back of Faile’s robe.

  Frowning, Faile twisted to look over her shoulder. For a moment she stared at the dirt and ash that covered her back from the shoulders down; then heat flooded her face. “I fell,” she said quickly. She could not tell Alliandre what had happened with Nadric. She did not think she could tell anyone. “Rolan offered to carry my basket.”

  Alliandre shrugged. “If he helped me escape, I would marry him. Or not, as he wanted. He’s not quite pretty, but it wouldn’t be painful, and my husband, if I had one, would never have to know. If he had any sense, he would be overjoyed to have me back and ask no questions he didn’t want to hear answers to.”