The dogs trailed along beside them, wagging their tails, as Elyas led the way into the trees. Perrin felt the wolves slow, and knew they would not enter. They were not afraid of the dogs—they were contemptuous of dogs, who had given up freedom to sleep by a fire—but people they avoided.
Elyas walked surely, as if he knew the way, and near the center of the stand the Tinkers’ wagons appeared, scattered among the oak and ash.
Like everyone else in Emond’s Field, Perrin had heard a good deal about the Tinkers even if he had never seen any, and the camp was just what he expected. Their wagons were small houses on wheels, tall wooden boxes lacquered and painted in bright colors, reds and blues and yellows and greens and some hues to which he could not put a name. The Traveling People were going about work that was disappointingly everyday, cooking, sewing, tending children, mending harness, but their clothes were even more colorful than the wagons—and seemingly chosen at random; sometimes coat and breeches, or dress and shawl, went together in a way that hurt his eyes. They looked like butterflies in a field of wildflowers.
Four or five men in different places around the camp played fiddles and flutes, and a few people danced like rainbow-hued hummingbirds. Children and dogs ran playing among the cookfires. The dogs were mastiffs just like those that had confronted the travelers, but the children tugged at their ears and tails and climbed on their backs, and the massive dogs accepted it all placidly. The three with Elyas, tongues hanging out, looked up at the bearded man as if he were their best friend. Perrin shook his head. They were still big enough to reach a man’s throat while barely getting their front feet off the ground.
Abruptly the music stopped, and he realized all the Tinkers were looking at him and his companions. Even the children and dogs stood still and watched, warily, as if on the point of flight.
For a moment there was no sound at all, then a wiry man, gray-haired and short, stepped forward and bowed gravely to Elyas. He wore a high-collared red coat, and baggy, bright green trousers tucked into knee boots. “You are welcome to our fires. Do you know the song?”
Elyas bowed in the same way, both hands pressed to his chest. “Your welcome warms my spirit, Mahdi, as your fires warm the flesh, but I do not know the song.”
“Then we seek still,” the gray-haired man intoned. “As it was, so shall it be, if we but remember, seek, and find.” He swept an arm toward the fires with a smile, and his voice took on a cheerful lightness. “The meal is almost ready. Join us, please.”
As if that had been a signal the music sprang up again, and the children took up their laughter and ran with the dogs. Everyone in the camp went back to what they had been doing just as though the newcomers were long-accepted friends.
The gray-haired man hesitated, though, and looked at Elyas. “Your . . . other friends? They will stay away? They frighten the poor dogs so.”
“They’ll stay away, Raen.” Elyas’s headshake had a touch of scorn. “You should know that by now.”
The gray-haired man spread his hands as if to say nothing was ever certain. As he turned to lead them into the camp, Egwene dismounted and moved close to Elyas. “You two are friends?” A smiling Tinker appeared to take Bela; Egwene gave the reins up reluctantly, after a wry snort from Elyas.
“We know each other,” the fur-clad man replied curtly.
“His name is Mahdi?” Perrin said.
Elyas growled something under his breath. “His name’s Raen. Mahdi’s his title. Seeker. He’s the leader of this band. You can call him Seeker if the other sounds odd. He won’t mind.”
“What was that about a song?” Egwene asked.
“That’s why they travel,” Elyas said, “or so they say. They’re looking for a song. That’s what the Mahdi seeks. They say they lost it during the Breaking of the World, and if they can find it again, the paradise of the Age of Legends will return.” He ran his eye around the camp and snorted. “They don’t even know what the song is; they claim they’ll know it when they find it. They don’t know how it’s supposed to bring paradise, either, but they’ve been looking near to three thousand years, ever since the Breaking. I expect they’ll be looking until the Wheel stops turning.”
They reached Raen’s fire, then, in the middle of the camp. The Seeker’s wagon was yellow trimmed in red, and the spokes of its tall, red-rimmed wheels alternated red and yellow. A plump woman, as gray as Raen but smooth-cheeked still, came out of the wagon and paused on the steps at its back end, straightening a blue-fringed shawl on her shoulders. Her blouse was yellow and her skirt red, both bright. The combination made Perrin blink, and Egwene made a strangled sound.
When she saw the people following Raen, the woman came down with a welcoming smile. She was Ila, Raen’s wife, a head taller than her husband, and she soon made Perrin forget about the colors of her clothes. She had a motherliness that reminded him of Mistress al’Vere and had him feeling welcome from her first smile.
Ila greeted Elyas as an old acquaintance, but with a distance that seemed to pain Raen. Elyas gave her a dry grin and a nod. Perrin and Egwene introduced themselves, and she clasped their hands in both of hers with much more warmth than she had shown Elyas, even hugging Egwene.
“Why, you’re lovely, child,” she said, cupping Egwene’s chin and smiling. “And chilled to the bone, too, I expect. You sit close to the fire, Egwene. All of you sit. Supper is almost ready.”
Fallen logs had been pulled around the fire for sitting. Elyas refused even that concession to civilization. He lounged on the ground, instead. Iron tripods held two small kettles over the flames, and an oven rested in the edge of the coals. Ila tended them.
As Perrin and the others were taking their places, a slender young man wearing green stripes strolled up to the fire. He gave Raen a hug and Ila a kiss, and ran a cool eye over Elyas and the Emond’s Fielders. He was about the same age as Perrin, and he moved as if he were about to begin dancing with his next step.
“Well, Aram”—Ila smiled fondly—“you have decided to eat with your old grandparents for a change, have you?” Her smile slid over to Egwene as she bent to stir a kettle hanging over the cookfire. “I wonder why?”
Aram settled to an easy crouch with his arms crossed on his knees, across the fire from Egwene. “I am Aram,” he told her in a low, confident voice. He no longer seemed aware that anyone was there except her. “I have waited for the first rose of spring, and now I find it at my grandfather’s fire.”
Perrin waited for Egwene to snicker, then saw that she was staring back at Aram. He looked at the young Tinker again. Aram had more than his share of good looks, he admitted. After a minute Perrin knew who the fellow reminded him of. Wil al’Seen, who had all the girls staring and whispering behind his back whenever he came up from Deven Ride to Emond’s Field. Wil courted every girl in sight, and managed to convince every one of them that he was just being polite to all the others.
“Those dogs of yours,” Perrin said loudly, and Egwene gave a start, “look as big as bears. I’m surprised you let the children play with them.”
Aram’s smile slipped, but when he looked at Perrin it came back again, even more sure than before. “They will not harm you. They make a show to frighten away danger, and warn us, but they are trained according to the Way of the Leaf.”
“The Way of the Leaf?” Egwene said. “What is that?”
Aram gestured to the trees, his eyes fastened intently on hers. “The leaf lives its appointed time, and does not struggle against the wind that carries it away. The leaf does no harm, and finally falls to nourish new leaves. So it should be with all men. And women.” Egwene stared back at him, a faint blush rising in her cheeks.
“But what does that mean?” Perrin said. Aram gave him an irritated glance, but it was Raen who answered.
“It means that no man should harm another for any reason whatsoever.” The Seeker’s eyes flickered to Elyas. “There is no excuse for violence. None. Not ever.”
“What if somebody attacks you?
” Perrin insisted. “What if somebody hits you, or tries to rob you, or kill you?”
Raen sighed, a patient sigh, as if Perrin was just not seeing what was so clear to him. “If a man hit me, I would ask him why he wanted to do such a thing. If he still wanted to hit me, I would run away, as I would if he wanted to rob or kill me. Much better that I let him take what he wanted, even my life, than that I should do violence. And I would hope that he was not harmed too greatly.”
“But you said you wouldn’t hurt him,” Perrin said. “I would not, but violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it.” Perrin looked doubtful. “You could cut down a tree with your axe,” Raen said. “The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.”
“But—”
“Enough,” Elyas growled, cutting Perrin off. “Raen, it’s bad enough you trying to convert village younglings to that nonsense—it gets you in trouble almost everywhere you go, doesn’t it?—but I didn’t bring this lot here for you to work on them. Leave over.”
“And leave them to you?” Ila said, grinding herbs between her palms and letting them trickle into one of the kettles. Her voice was calm, but her hands rubbed the herbs furiously. “Will you teach them your way, to kill or die? Will you lead them to the fate you seek for yourself, dying alone with only the ravens and your . . . your friends to squabble over your body?”
“Be at peace, Ila,” Raen said gently, as if he had heard this all and more a hundred times. “He has been welcomed to our fire, my wife.”
Ila subsided, but Perrin noticed that she made no apology. Instead she looked at Elyas and shook her head sadly, then dusted her hands and began taking spoons and pottery bowls from a red chest on the side of the wagon.
Raen turned back to Elyas. “My old friend, how many times must I tell you that we do not try to convert anyone. When village people are curious about our ways, we answer their questions. It is most often the young who ask, true, and sometimes one of them will come with us when we journey on, but it is of their own free will.”
“You try telling that to some farm wife who’s just found out her son or daughter has run off with you Tinkers,” Elyas said wryly. “That’s why the bigger towns won’t even let you camp nearby. Villages put up with you for your mending things, but the cities don’t need it, and they don’t like you talking their young folks into running off.”
“I would not know what the cities allow.” Raen’s patience seemed inexhaustible. He certainly did not appear to be getting angry at all. “There are always violent men in cities. In any case, I do not think the song could be found in a city.”
“I don’t mean to offend you, Seeker,” Perrin said slowly, “but. . . . Well, I don’t look for violence. I don’t think I’ve even wrestled anybody in years, except for feastday games. But if somebody hit me, I’d hit him back. If I didn’t, I would just be encouraging him to think he could hit me whenever he wanted to. Some people think they can take advantage of others, and if you don’t let them know they can’t, they’ll just go around bullying anybody weaker than they are.”
“Some people,” Aram said with a heavy sadness, “can never overcome their baser instincts.” He said it with a look at Perrin that made it clear he was not talking about the bullies Perrin spoke of.
“I’ll bet you get to run away a lot,” Perrin said, and the young Tinker’s face tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the Way of the Leaf.
“I think it is interesting,” Egwene said, glaring at Perrin, “to meet someone who doesn’t believe his muscles can solve every problem.”
Aram’s good spirits returned, and he stood, offering her his hands with a smile. “Let me show you our camp. There is dancing.”
“I would like that.” She smiled back.
Ila straightened from taking loaves of bread from the small iron oven. “But supper is ready, Aram.”
“I’ll eat with mother,” Aram said over his shoulder as he drew Egwene away from the wagon by her hand. “We will both eat with mother.” He flashed a triumphant smile at Perrin. Egwene was laughing as they ran.
Perrin got to his feet, then stopped. It was not as if she could come to any harm, not if the camp followed this Way of the Leaf as Raen said. Looking at Raen and Ila, both staring dejectedly after their grandson, he said, “I’m sorry. I am a guest, and I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t be foolish,” Ila said soothingly. “It was his fault, not yours. Sit down and eat.”
“Aram is a troubled young man,” Raen added sadly. “He is a good boy, but sometimes I think he finds the Way of the Leaf a hard way. Some do, I fear. Please. My fire is yours. Please?”
Perrin sat back down slowly, still feeling awkward. “What happens to somebody who can’t follow the Way?” he asked. “A Tinker, I mean.”
Raen and Ila exchanged a worried look, and Raen said, “They leave us. The Lost go to live in the villages.”
Ila stared in the direction her grandson had gone. “The Lost cannot be happy.” She sighed, but her face was placid again when she handed out the bowls and spoons.
Perrin stared at the ground, wishing he had not asked, and there was no more talk while Ila filled their bowls with a thick vegetable stew and handed out thick slices of her crusty bread, nor while they ate. The stew was delicious, and Perrin finished three bowls before he stopped. Elyas, he noted with a grin, emptied four.
After the meal Raen filled his pipe, and Elyas produced his own and stuffed it from Raen’s oilskin pouch. When the lighting and tamping and relighting were done, they settled back in silence. Ila took out a bundle of knitting. The sun was only a blaze of red above the treetops to the west. The camp had settled in for the night, but the bustle did not slow, only changed. The musicians who had been playing when they entered the camp had been replaced by others, and even more people than before danced in the light of the fires, their shadows leaping against the wagons. Somewhere in the camp a chorus of male voices rose. Perrin slid down in front of the log and soon felt himself dozing.
After a time Raen said, “Have you visited any of the Tuatha’an, Elyas, since you were with us last spring?”
Perrin’s eyes drifted open and half shut again.
“No,” Elyas replied around his pipestem. “I don’t like being around too many people at once.”
Raen chuckled. “Especially people who live in a way so opposite to your own, eh? No, my old friend, don’t worry. I gave up years ago hoping you would come to the Way. But I have heard a story since last we met, and if you have not heard it yet, it might interest you. It interests me, and I have heard it again and again, every time we meet others of the People.”
“I’ll listen.”
“It begins in the spring two years ago, with a band of the People who were crossing the Waste by the northern route.”
Perrin’s eyes shot open. “The Waste? The Aiel Waste? They were crossing the Aiel Waste?”
“Some people can enter the Waste without being bothered,” Elyas said. “Gleemen. Peddlers, if they’re honest. The Tuatha’an cross the Waste all the time. Merchants from Cairhien used to, before the Tree, and the Aiel War.”
“The Aielmen avoid us,” Raen said sadly, “though many of us have tried to speak with them. They watch us from a distance, but they will not come near us, nor let us come near them. Sometimes I worry that they might know the song, though I suppose it isn’t likely. Among Aiel, men do not sing, you know. Isn’t that strange? From the time an Aiel boy becomes a man he will not sing anything but battle chants, or their dirge for the slain. I have heard them singing over their dead, and over those they have killed. That song is one to make the stones weep.” Ila, listening, nodded agreement over her knitting.
Perrin did some quick rethinking. H
e had thought the Tinkers must be afraid all the time, with all this talk of running away, but no one who was afraid would even think of crossing the Aiel Waste. From what he had heard, no one who was sane would try crossing the Waste.
“If this is some story about a song,” Elyas began, but Raen shook his head.
“No, my old friend, not a song. I am not sure I know what it is about.” He turned his attention to Perrin. “Young Aiel often travel into the Blight. Some of the young men go alone, thinking for some reason that they have been called to kill the Dark One. Most go in small groups. To hunt Trollocs.” Raen shook his head sadly, and when he went on his voice was heavy. “Two years ago a band of the People crossing the Waste about a hundred miles south of the Blight found one of these groups.”
“Young women,” Ila put in, as sorrowful as her husband. “Little more than girls.”
Perrin made a surprised sound, and Elyas grinned at him wryly.
“Aiel girls don’t have to tend house and cook if they don’t want to, boy. The ones who want to be warriors, instead, join one of the warrior societies, Far Dareis Mai, the Maidens of the Spear, and fight right alongside the men.”
Perrin shook his head. Elyas chuckled at his expression.
Raen took up the story again, distaste and perplexity mingled in his voice. “The young women were all dead except one, and she was dying. She crawled to the wagons. It was clear she knew they were Tuatha’an. Her loathing outweighed her pain, but she had a message so important to her that she must pass it on to someone, even us, before she died. Men went to see if they could help any of the others—there was a trail of her blood to follow—but all were dead, and so were three times their number in Trollocs.”
Elyas sat up, his pipe almost falling from between his teeth. “A hundred miles into the Waste? Impossible! Djevik K’Shar, that’s what Trollocs call the Waste. The Dying Ground. They wouldn’t go a hundred miles into the Waste if all the Myrddraal in the Blight were driving them.”
“You know an awful lot about Trollocs, Elyas,” Perrin said.