A Memory of Light

afterthought. Something about a friend of hers, from back home?”
    “It’s Matrim Cauthon’s tabac,” Faile said with a grimace. “When he found that the Amyrlin had a store of Two Rivers leaf left, he insisted upon purchasing it.”
    “Tabac, at a time like this.” Laras shook her head, wiping her fingers on her apron. “I remember that boy. I’ve known a youth or two in my day like him, always skulking around the kitchens like a stray wanting scraps. Someone ought to find something useful for him to do.”
    “We’re working on it,” Faile said as Laras’ servant placed the trunk in Faile’s own wagon. She winced as he let it thump down, then dusted off his hands.
    Laras nodded, walking back into her warehouse. Faile rested her fingers on the chest. Philosophers claimed the Pattern did not have a sense of humor. The Pattern, and the Wheel, simply were\ they did not care, they did not take sides. However, Faile could not help thinking that somewhere, the Creator was grinning at her. She had left home with her head full of arrogant dreams, a child thinking herself on a grand quest to find the Horn.
    Life had knocked those out from under her, leaving her to haul herself back up. She had grown up, had started paying mind to what was really important. And now . . . now the Pattern, with almost casual indifference, dropped the Horn of Valere into her lap.
    She removed her hand and pointedly refusing to open the chest. She had the key, delivered to her separately, and she would check to see that the Horn was really in the chest. Not now. Not until she was alone and reasonably certain she was safe.
    She climbed into the wagon and rested her feet on the chest.
    “I still don’t like it,” Mandevwin was saying beside the warehouse.
    “You don’t like anything ,,” Vanin said. “Look, the work we’re doing is important. Soldiers have to eat.”
    “I suppose that is true,” Mandevwin said.
    “It is!” a new voice added. Harnan, another Redarm, joined them. Not one of the three, Faile noticed, jumped to help the servants load the caravan. “Eating is wonderful,” Harnan said. “And if there is an expert on the subject, Vanin, it is certainly you.”
    Harnan was a sturdily built man with a wide face and a hawk tattooed on his cheek. Talmanes swore by the man, calling him a veteran survivor of both “the Six-Story Slaughter” and Hinderstap, whatever those were.
    “Now, that wounds me, Harnan,” Vanin said from behind. “That wounds me badly.”
    “I doubt it,” Harnan said with a laugh. “To wound you badly, an attack would first have to penetrate through fat to reach the muscle. I’m not sure Trolloc swords are long enough for that!”
    Mandevwin laughed, and the three of them moved off. Faile went over the last few pages of the ledger, then began to climb down, to call for Setalle Anan. The woman had been acting as her assistant for these caravan runs. As she was climbing down, however, Faile noticed that not all three members of the Band had moved off. Only two of them had. Portly Vanin still stood back there. She saw him, and paused.
    Vanin immediately lumbered off toward some of the other soldiers. Had he been watching her?
    “Faile! Faile! Aravine says she has finished checking over the manifests for you. We can go, Faile.”
    Olver scrambled eagerly into the wagon seat. He had insisted on joining the caravan, and the members of the Band had persuaded her to allow it. Even Setalle had suggested it would be wise to bring him. Apparently, they worried that Olver would find his way to the fighting somehow if he wasn’t constantly under their watch. Faile had reluctantly set him to running errands.
    “All right, then,” Faile said, climbing back into the wagon. “I suppose we can be off.”
    The wagons lumbered into motion. She spent the entire trip out of the city trying not to look at the chest.
    She tried to distract herself from thinking about it, but that only brought her mind to another pressing concern. Perrin. She had seen him only briefly during a supply run to Andor. He’d warned her he might have another duty, but had been reluctant to tell her about it.
    Now he’d vanished. He’d made Tam steward in his place, had taken a gateway to Shayol Ghul and had vanished. She’d asked those who’d been there, but nobody had seen him since his conversation with Rand.
    All would be well with him, wouldn’t it? She was a soldier’s daughter and a soldier’s wife; she knew not