An Old Pipe

An Old Pipe

A gust of wind swirling dust down the Lugard street caught Gareth Bryne's velvet hat, sweeping it from his head directly under one of the lumbering wagons. An iron-rimmed wheel ground the hat into the hard clay of the street, leaving a flattened ruin behind. For a moment he stared at it, then walked on. It was showing travel stains anyway, he told himself. His silk coat had been dusty before reaching Murandy, too; brushing no longer did much good, when he even took the trouble. It looked more brown than gray, now. He should find something plainer; he was not on his way to a ball.

Dodging between wagons rumbling down the rutted street, he ignored the drivers' curses that followed him - any decent squadman could give better in his sleep - and ducked into a red-roofed inn called The Wagon Seat. The painting on the sign gave the name an explicit interpretation.

The common room was like every common room he had seen in Lugard, wagon drivers and merchants' guards packed in with stablemen, farriers, laborers, every sort of man, all talking or laughing as loud as they could while drinking as much as they could, one hand for the cup and one to fondle the serving girls. For that matter, it was not all that much different from common rooms and taverns in many other towns, though most were considerably milder. A buxom young woman, in a blouse that seemed about to fall off, capered and sang atop a table at one side of the room, to the supposed music of two flutes and a twelve-string bittern.

He had little ear for music, but he paused a moment to appreciate her song; she would have gone over well in any soldiers' camp he had ever seen. But then, she would have been as popular if she could not sing a note. Wearing that blouse, she would have found a husband in short order.

Joni and Barim were already there, Joni's size enough to grant them a table by the 727j924h mselves despite his thin hair and the bandage he still wore around his temples. They were listening to the girl sing. Or at least staring at her. He touched each man on the shoulder and nodded toward the side door that led to the stableyard, where a sullen groom with a squint delivered their horses for three silver pennies. A year or so earlier Bryne could have bought a fair horse for no more. The troubles to the west and in Cairhien were playing havoc with trade and prices.

No one spoke until they passed the city gates and were on a seldom-traveled road winding north toward the River Storn, little more than a wide dirt track. Then Barim said, "They was here yesterday, my Lord."

Bryne had learned that much himself. Three pretty young women together, obvious outlanders, could not pass through a city like Lugard without being remarked. By men, anyway.

"Them and a fellow with shoulders," Barim went on. "Sounds maybe like that Dalyn was with them when they burned down Nem's barn. Anyway, whoever he is, they was at The Nine Horse Hitch for a bit, but all they did was drink some and leave. That Domani girl the lads was telling me about, she nearly kicked up a fuss flashing her smile and swaying about, but then she calmed everything down again the same way. Burn me, but I'd like to meet me a Domani woman."

"Did you hear which way they went, Barim?" Bryne asked patiently. He had not been able to learn that.

"Uh, no, my Lord. But I heard there's been plenty of Whitecloaks passing through, all heading west. You think maybe old Pedron Niall's planning something? Maybe in Altara?"

"That's not our business anymore, Barim." Bryne knew his patience sounded a little frayed this time, but Barim was an old enough campaigner to stick to the matter at hand.

"I know where they went, my Lord," Joni said. "West, on the Jehannah Road, and pushing hard by what I heard." He sounded troubled. "My Lord, I found two merchant's guards, lads who used to be in the Guards, and had a drink with them. Happens they were in a stew called The Good Night's Ride when that girl Mara came in and asked for a job singing. She didn't get it - didn't want to show her legs the way the singers in most of these places do, as who can blame her? - and she left. From what Barim told me, it was right after that they all set off west. I don't like it, my Lord. She isn't the kind of girl to want a job in a place like that. I think she's trying to get away from that Dalyn fellow."

Strangely, despite the lump on his head, Joni had no animosity toward the three young women. It was his opinion, often expressed since leaving the manor, that the girls were in some sort of predicament and needed to be rescued. Bryne suspected that if he did catch up to the young women and take them back to his estate, Joni would be after him to turn them over to Joni's daughters to mother.

Barim had no such feelings. "Ghealdan." He scowled. "Or maybe Altara, or Amadicia. We'll kiss the Dark One getting them back. Hardly seems worth the annoyance for a barn and some cows."

Bryne said nothing. They had followed the girl this far, and Murandy was a bad place for Andormen; too many border troubles over too many years. Only a fool would chase into Murandy after an oathbreaker's eyes. How much bigger a fool to follow halfway across the world?

"Those lads I talked to," Joni said diffidently. "My Lord, it seems a lot of the old lads who - who served under you are being sent off." Emboldened by Bryne's silence, he went on. "Lots of new fellows in. Lots. Those lads said at least four or five for everyone told he wasn't wanted anymore. The sort that like to cause trouble more than stop it. There's some calling themselves the White Lions who only answer to this Gaebril" - he spat to show what he thought of that-"and a bunch more not part of the Guards at all. Not House levies. Near as they could say, Gaebril's got ten times as many men under arms as there are Guards, and they've all sworn to the throne of Andor, but not to the Queen."

"That's no longer our business, either," Bryne said curtly. Barim had his tongue stuffed into his cheek, the way he always did when he knew something he either did not want to tell or was not sure was important enough. "What is it, Barim? Out with it, man."

The leather-faced fellow stared at him in amazement. Barim had never figured out how Bryne knew he was holding back. "Well, my Lord, some of the folks I talked to said some of those Whitecloaks yesterday was asking questions. About a girl sounds like that Mara. Wanted to know who she was, where she went. Like that. I heard they got real interested when they learned she was gone. If they're after her, she could be hanged before we ever find her. If they have to go to the trouble of chasing her down, they might not ask too many questions about whether she's really a Darkfriend. Or whatever it is they're after her for."

Bryne frowned. Whitecloaks? What would the Children of the Light want with Mara? He would never believe she was a Darkfriend. But then, he had seen a baby-faced young fellow, hanged in Caemlyn, a Darkfriend who had been teaching children in the streets about the glories of the Dark One - the Great Lord of the Dark, he had called him. The lad had killed nine of them in three years, as near as could be discovered, when they looked like turning him in. No. That girl is no Darkfriend, and I'll stake my life on it. Whitecloaks were suspicious of everyone. And if they took it into their heads that she had fled Lugard to avoid them...

He booted Traveler to a canter. The big-nosed bay gelding was not flashy, but he had endurance, and courage. The other two caught up soon enough, and they kept their mouths shut, seeing the mood he was in.

Two miles or so from Lugard, he turned off into a thicket of oak and leatherleaf. The rest of his men had made a temporary camp here, in a clear space under thick, spreading oak limbs. Several small, smokeless fires were burning; they would take any opportunity to brew up some tea. Some were dozing; sleep was another thing an old soldier never missed a chance to snatch.

Those awake kicked the rest out of their naps, and they all looked up at him. For a moment he sat his saddle studying them. Gray hair and bald heads and age creased faces. Still hard and fit, but even so... He had been a fool to risk bringing them into Murandy just because he had to know why a woman had broken an oath. And maybe with Whitecloaks after them. No telling how far or how long from home before it was done. If he turned back now, they would have been gone more than a month before they saw Kore Springs again. If he went on, there was no guarantee the chase would stop short of the Aryth Ocean. He should be taking these men, and himself, home. He should. He had no call to ask them to try snatching those girls out of Whitecloak hands. He could leave Mara to Whitecloak justice.

"We will be heading west," he announced, and immediately there was a scramble of dousing fires with the tea and fastening pots to saddles. "We will have to press hard. I mean to catch them in Altara, if I can, but if not, there's no telling where they'll lead us. You could see Jehannah or Amador or Ebou Dar before we're done." He affected a laugh. "You'll find out how tough you are if we reach Ebou Dar. They've taverns there where the barmaids skin Illianers for dinner and spit Whitecloaks for sport."

They laughed harder than the jest was worth.

"We won't worry with you along, my Lord," Thad cackled, stuffing his tin cup into his saddlebags. His face was wrinkled like crumpled leather. "Why, I hear you had a run-in with the Amyrlin herself once, and -" Jar Silvin kicked him on the ankle, and he rounded on the younger man - gray-haired, but still younger - with a clenched fist. "Why'd you do that, Silvin? You want a broke head, you just - What?" The meaningful glares Silvin and some of the others were giving him finally sank in. "Oh. Oh, yes." He buried himself in checking the girth straps on his saddle, but no one was laughing anymore.

Bryne forced his face to relax from stoniness. It was time he put the past in the past. Just because a woman whose bed he had shared - and more, he had thought - just because that woman looked at him as though she had never known him was no reason to stop speaking her name. Just because she had exiled him from Caemlyn, on pain of death, for giving her the advice he had sworn to give... If she came a cropper with this Lord Gaebril who had suddenly appeared in Caemlyn, it was no longer any concern of his. She had told him, in a voice as flat and cold as smooth ice, that his name would never be spoken in the palace again, that only his long service kept her from sending him to the headsman for treason. Treason! He needed to keep spirits up, especially if this turned into a long chase.

Hooking a knee around the high cantle of his saddle, he took out his pipe and pouch and filled his pipe with tabac. The bowl was carved with a wild bull collared with the Rose Crown of Andor. For a thousand years that had been the sign of House Bryne; strength and courage in service of the queen. He needed a new pipe; this one was old.

"I didn't come out of that as well as you might have heard." He leaned down for one of the men to hand him a twig still glowing from one of the spent fires, then straightened to puff his pipe alight. "It was some three years ago. The Amyrlin was making a progression. Cairhien, Tear, Illian, and finishing up in Caemlyn before returning to Tar Valon. At that time we were having problems with Murandian border lords - as usual." Laughter rippled; they had all served on the Murandian border at one time or another. "I had sent some of the Guards down to set the Murandians straight on who owned the sheep and cattle on our side of the border. I never expected the Amyrlin to take an interest." He certainly had their attention; preparations to leave were still going on, but more slowly.

"Siuan Sanche and Elaida closeted themselves with Morgase -" There; he had said her name again, and it did not even smart. " - and when they came out, Morgase was half thunderhead, with lightning shooting out of her eyes, and half ten-year-old who'd been hauled up by her mother for stealing honeycakes. She's a tough woman, but caught between Elaida and the Amyrlin Seat..." He shook his head, and they chuckled; Aes Sedai attentions were one thing none of them envied lords and rulers. "She ordered me to remove all troops from the border with Murandy immediately. I asked her to discuss it with me in private, and Siuan Sanche jumped all over me. In front of half the court, she chewed me up one side and down the other like a raw recruit. Said if I couldn't do as I was told, she'd use me for fishbait." He had had to beg her pardon before it was done - in front of everyone, for trying to do as he had been sworn to do - but there was no need to add that. Even at the end he had not been sure that she would not make Morgase behead him, or have it done herself.

"Must have meant to catch herself a mighty big fish," someone laughed, and others joined in.

"The upshot was," Bryne went on, "my hide got singed, and the Guards were ordered back from the border. So if you're looking to me to protect you in Ebou Dar, just remember it's my opinion those barmaids would hang the Amyrlin out to dry along with the rest of us." They roared with mirth.

"Did you ever find out what it was about, my Lord?" Joni wanted to know.

Bryne shook his head. "Aes Sedai business of some sort, I expect. They don't tell the likes of you and me what they are up to." That earned a few chuckles as well.

They mounted up with an alacrity that belied their ages. Some of them are no older than me, he thought wryly. Too old to go chasing after a pretty pair of eyes young enough to be his daughter's if not his granddaughter's. I only want to know why she broke oath, he told himself firmly. Only that.

Raising his hand, he signaled forward, and they headed west, leaving a trail of dust. It would take hard riding to catch up. But he meant to. In Ebou Dar or the Pit of Doom, he would find them.