The women they had sometimes met and guided even deeper into the mountains included every sort: a beggar woman in rags struggling afoot through a snowstorm; a merchant by herself leading a string of laden packhorses; a lady in silks and fine furs, with redtasseled reins on her palfrey and gold worked on her saddle. The beggar departed with a purse of silver — more than Perrin thought they could afford to give, until the lady left an even fatter purse of gold. Women from every station in life, all alone, from Tarabon, and Ghealdan, and even Amadicia. But he had never expected to see one of the Tuatha'an.
“A bloody Tinker?” Uno exclaimed. The others echoed his surprise.
Ragan's topknot waved as he shook his head. “A Tinker wouldn't be mixed in this. Either she's not a Tinker, or she is not the one we are supposed to meet.”
“Tinkers,” Masema growled. “Useless cowards.”
Uno's eye narrowed until it looked like the pritchel hole of an anvil; with the red painted eye on his patch, it gave him a villainous look. “Cowards, Masema?” he said softly. “If you were a woman, would you have the flaming nerve to ride up here, alone and bloody unarmed?” There was no doubt she would be unarmed if she was of the Tuatha'an. Masema kept his mouth shut, but the scar on his cheek stood out tight and pale.
“Burn me, if I would,” Ragan said. “And burn me if you would either, Masema.” Masema hitched at his cloak and ostentatiously searched the sky.
Uno snorted. “The Light send that flaming carrion eater was flaming alone,” he muttered.
Slowly the shaggy brownandwhite mare meandered closer, picking a way along the clear ground between broad snowbanks. Once the brightly clad woman stopped to peer at something on the ground, then tugged the cowl of her cloak further over her head and heeled her mount forward in a slow walk. The raven, Perrin thought. Stop looking at that bird and come on, woman. Maybe you've brought the word that finally takes us out of here. If Moiraine means to let us leave before spring. Burn her! For a moment he was not sure whether he meant the Aes Sedai, or the Tinker woman who seemed to be taking her own time.
If she kept on as she was, the woman would pass a good thirty paces to one side of the thicket. With her eyes fixed on where her piebald stepped, she gave no sign that she had seen them among the trees.
Perrin nudged the stallion's flanks with his heels, and the dun leaped ahead, sending up sprays of snow with his hooves. Behind him, Uno quietly gave the command, “Forward!”
Stepper was halfway to her before she seemed to become aware of them, and then she jerked her mare to a halt with a start. She watched as they formed an arc centered on her. Embroidery of eyewrenching blue, in the pattern called a Tairen maze, made her red cloak even more garish. She was not young — gray showed thick in her hair where it was not hidden by her cowl — but her face had few lines, other than the disapproving frown she ran over their weapons. If she was alarmed at meeting armed men in the heart of mountain wilderness, though, she gave no sign. Her hands rested easily on the high pommel of her worn but wellkept saddle. And she did not smell afraid.
Stop that! Perrin told himself. He made his voice soft so as not to frighten her. “My name is Perrin, good mistress. If you need help, I will do what I can. If not, go with the Light. But unless the Tuatha'an have changed their ways, you are far from your wagons.”
She studied them a moment more before speaking. There was a gentleness in her dark eyes, not surprising in one of the Traveling People. “I seek an... a woman.”
The skip was small, but it was there. She sought not any woman, but an Aes Sedai. “Does she have a name, good mistress?” Perrin asked. He had done this too many times in the last few months to need her reply, but iron was spoiled for want of care.
“She is called... Sometimes, she is called Moiraine. My name is Leya.”
Perrin nodded. “We will take you to her, Mistress Leya. We have warm fires, and with luck something hot to eat.” But he did not lift his reins immediately. “How did you find us?” He had asked before, each time Moiraine sent him out to wait at a spot she named, for a woman she knew would come. The answer would be the same as it always was, but he had to ask.
Leya shrugged and answered hesitantly. “I... knew that if I came this way, someone would find me and take me to her. I... just... knew. I have news for her.”
Perrin did not ask what news. The women gave the information they brought only to Moiraine.
And the Aes Sedai tells us what she chooses. He thought. Aes Sedai never lied, but it was said that the truth an Aes Sedai told you was not always the truth you thought it was. Too late for qualms, now. Isn't it?
“This way, Mistress Leya,” he said, gesturing up the mountain. The Shienarans, with Uno at their head, fell in behind Perrin and Leya as they began to climb. The Borderlanders still studied the sky as much as the land, and the last two kept a special watch on their backtrail.
For a time they rode in silence except for the sounds the horses' hooves made, sometimes crunching through old snowcrust, sometimes sending rocks clattering as they crossed bare stretches. Now and again Leya cast glances at Perrin, at his bow, his axe, his face, but she did not speak. He shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, and avoided looking at her. He always tried to give strangers as little chance to notice his eyes as he could manage.
Finally he said, “I was surprised to see one of the Traveling People, believing as you do.”
“It is possible to oppose evil without doing violence.” Her voice held the simplicity of someone stating an obvious truth.
Perrin grunted sourly, then immediately muttered an apology. “Would it were as you say, Mistress Leya.”
“Violence harms the doer as much as the victim,” Leya said placidly. “That is why we flee those who harm us, to save them from harm to themselves as much for our own safety. If we do violence to oppose evil, soon we would be no different from what we struggle against. It is with the strength of our belief that we fight the Shadow.”
Perrin could not help snorting. “Mistress, I hope you never have to face Trollocs with the strength of your belief. The strength of their swords will cut you down where you stand.”
“It is better to die than to —” she began, but anger made him speak right over her. Anger that she just would not see. Anger that she really would die rather than harm a