Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6)

Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6) Page 132

Suddenly the wine tasted sour. Another place like Tarabon and Arad Doman, torn just by hearing of him. How far did the ripples spread? Were there wars he would never hear of in lands he would never hear of, because of him?

Death rides on my shoulder, Lews Therin muttered. Death walks in my footsteps. I am death.

Shuddering, Rand set his goblet on the table. How much did the Prophecies demand in all those tantalizing hints and grandly roundabout verses? Was he supposed to add Shara, or whatever it was really called, to Cairhien and the rest? The entire world? How, when he could not even hold Tear or Cairhien completely? It would take more than one man’s lifetime. Andor. If he was meant to rip every other land apart, rip the whole world, he would hold Andor safe for Elayne. Somehow.

“Shara, or whatever it’s called, is a long way from here. One step at a time, and Sammael is the first step.”

“Sammael,” Rhuarc agreed. Berelain shivered, and emptied her goblet.

For a time they talked of the Aiel who were still moving south. Rand intended the hammer being made in Tear to be clearly big enough to smash anything Sammael could put in its way. Rhuarc seemed content; it was Berelain who complained that more needed to be kept in Cairhien. Until Rhuarc shushed her. She muttered something about him being too stubborn for his own good, but she went on to the efforts to resettle farmers on the land. She thought by next year there would be no need for grain from Tear. If the drought ever broke. If it did not, Tear would not be supplying grain to itself, much less anywhere else. The first tendrils of trade were beginning to reappear. Merchants had begun coming in from Andor and Tear and Murandy, down from the Borderlands. A Sea Folk ship had even dropped anchor in the river that very morning, which she found strange, so far from the sea, but welcome.

Berelain’s face took on an intensity, and her voice a brisk tone, as she moved around the table to take up this sheaf of papers or that, discussing what Cairhien needed to buy and what it could afford to buy, what it had to sell now and what it would have in six months, in a year. Depending on the weather, of course. She brushed by that as if it was of no matter, though giving Rand a level look that said he was the Dragon Reborn and if there was any way to stop the heat, he should find it. Rand had seen her meltingly seductive, he had seen her frightened, defiant, wrapped in arrogance, but never like this. She seemed a different woman altogether. Rhuarc, seated on one of his cushions puffing on his pipe, appeared amused as he watched her.

“. . . this school of yours might do some good,” she said, frowning at a long sheet covered in a precise hand, “if they would stop thinking of new things long enough to make what they have already thought of.” She tapped her lips with a finger, peering at nothing thoughtfully. “You say give them what gold they ask, but if you would let me hold back unless they actually—”

Jalani put her plump face in at the door—Aiel seemed not to understand knocking—and said, “Mangin is here to speak with Rhuarc and you, Rand al’Thor.”

“Tell him I’ll be happy to talk with him later—” Rand got that far before Rhuarc broke in quietly.

“You should speak with him now, Rand al’Thor.” The clan chief’s face looked grave; Berelain had replaced the long paper on the table and was studying the floor.

“Very, well,” Rand said slowly.

Jalani’s head vanished, and Mangin came in. Taller than Rand, he had been one of those who crossed the Dragonwall in search of He Who Comes With the Dawn, one of the handful who took the Stone of Tear. “Six days ago I killed a man,” he began without preamble, “a treekiller, and I must know if I have toh to you, Rand al’Thor.”

“To me?” Rand said. “You can defend yourself, Mangin; Light, you know tha—” For a moment he was silent, meeting gray eyes that were sober but certainly not afraid. Curious, maybe. Rhuarc’s face told him nothing; Berelain was still not meeting his gaze. “He did attack you, didn’t he?”

Mangin shook his head slightly. “I saw that he deserved to die, so I killed him.” He said it conversationally; he saw the drains needed cleaning, so he cleaned them. “But you have said we cannot kill the oathbreakers except in battle, or if they attack us. Do I have toh toward you now?”

Rand remembered what he had said. . . . him will I hang. His chest felt tight. “Why did he deserve to die?”

“He wore what he had no right to,” Mangin replied.

“Wore what? What did he wear, Mangin?”

Rhuarc answered, touching his left forearm. “This.” He meant the Dragon coiled around his arm. Clan chiefs did not display them often, or even speak of them; almost everything about the markings were shrouded in mystery, and the chiefs were content to leave it so. “It was a thing of needles and inks, of course.” A tattoo.

“He was pretending to be a clan chief?” Rand realized he was searching for an excuse. . . . him will I hang. Mangin had been one of the first to follow him.

“No,” Mangin said. “He was drinking, and showing off what he should not have had. I see your eyes, Rand al’Thor.” He grinned suddenly. “It is a puzzle. I was right to kill him, but now I have toh to you.”

“You were wrong to kill him. You know the penalty for murder.”

“A rope around the neck, as these wetlanders use.” Mangin nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me where and when; I will be there. May you find water and shade today, Rand al’Thor.”

“May you find water and shade, Mangin,” Rand told him sadly.

“I suppose,” Berelain said when the door closed behind Mangin, “that he really will walk to his own hanging of his own accord. Oh, don’t look at me that way, Rhuarc. I don’t mean to impugn him, or Aiel honor.”

“Six days,” Rand growled, rounding on her. “You knew why he was here, both of you. Six days ago, and you left it to me. Murder is murder, Berelain.”

She drew herself up regally, but she sounded defensive. “I am not used to men coming to me and saying they have just committed murder. Bloody ji’e’toh. Bloody Aielmen and their bloody honor.” The curses sounded odd coming from her mouth.

“You have no cause to be angry with her, Rand al’Thor,” Rhuarc put in. “Mangin’s toh is to you, not to her. Or to me.”

“His toh was to the man he murdered,” Rand said coldly. Rhuarc looked shocked. “The next time somebody commits murder, don’t wait for me. You follow the law!” That way, perhaps he would not have to pass sentence again on a man he knew and liked. He would if he had to. He knew that, and it saddene