"Jordan, Robert - Wheel of Time 09 - Winter's Heart 2.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

Perrin nodded and hastily stepped aside, letting the Aiel set out at a trot. He doubted they could maintain that for very long, but he was sure they would keep the pace longer than anyone else could have. As the Maidens passed him, each quickly pressed fingers to the veil over her lips, then touched his shoulder. Sulin, right behind Gaul, gave him a nod, but none said a word. Faile would have known what they meant with their finger kissing.
There was something else odd about their departure, he realized as the last Maiden went by. They were letting Gaul lead. Normally, any of them would have stuck a spear in him before allowing that. Why . . .? Maybe . . . Chiad and Bain would have been with Faile. Gaul did not care one way of the other about Bain, but Chiad was a different matter. The Maidens certainly had not been encouraging Gaul's hope that Chiad would give up the spear to marry him -- anything but! -- yet maybe that was it.
Perrin grunted in disgust at himself. Chiad and Bain, and who else? Even blind with fear for Faile, he should have asked that much. If he was going to get her back, he needed to strangle fear and see. But it was like trying to strangle a tree.
The flat hilltop swarmed now. Someone had already led Stayer away, and Two Rivers men were leaving the ring around the crest, hurrying toward their camp in a scattered stream, shouting to one another about what they would have done had the lancers charged. Occasionally a man raised his voice asking about Faile, did anyone know if the Lady was safe, were they going to look for her, but others always shushed him hurriedly with worried glances at Perrin. The gai'shain went about their tasks placidly in the middle of all the rush. Unless commanded to stop, they would have done the same if a battle had swirled around them, not raising a hand to help or hinder. The Wise Ones had all gone into one of the tents with Seonid and Masuri, and the flaps were not only down, but tied. They did not want to be disturbed. They would be discussing Masema, no doubt. Possibly discussing how to kill the man without him or Rand learning they had done it.
He smacked a fist into his palm in irritation. He had actually forgotten Masema until now. The man was supposed to be following before nightfall, with that honor guard of a hundred men. With luck, the Mayener scouts would be back by then, and Elyas and the others soon after.
"My Lord Perrin?" Grady said behind him, and he turned. The two Asha'man stood in front of their horses, fiddling uncertainly with their reins. Grady drew breath and went on with Neald nodding agreement. "The pair of us could cover a lot of ground, Traveling. And if we find the lot who kidnapped her, well, I doubt even a few hundred Aiel could stop two Asha'man from taking her back." Perrin opened his mouth to tell them to start immediately, then closed it again. Grady had been a farmer, true, but never a hunter or woodsman. Neald thought any place without a stone wall was a village. They might know a footprint from an oak tree, yet if they did find tracks, very likely neither would be able to say which direction they were headed. Of course, he could go with them. He was not as good as Jondyn, but . . . He could go, and leave Dannil to deal with Arganda. And with Masema. Not to mention the Wise Ones' schemes.
"Go get yourselves packed," he said quietly. Where was Balwer? Nowhere in sight. Not very likely that he had gone haring off to find Faile. "You may be needed here."
Grady blinked in surprise, and Neald's mouth dropped open. Perrin gave them no chance to argue. He strode over to the low tent with the tied flaps. There was no way to undo the ties from the outside. When Wise Ones wanted to remain undisturbed, they wanted to remain undisturbed, by clan chiefs or anyone else. Including a wetlander lumbered with the title of Lord of the Two Rivers. He drew his belt knife, and bent to slice the ties, but before he could slide the blade through the tight crack between the entry flaps, they jerked as if someone was unfastening them from inside. He straightened and waited. The tentflaps opened, and Nevarin slipped out. Her shawl was tied around her waist, but except for the mist of her breath, she gave no evidence of the icy air. Her green eyes took in the knife in his hand, and she planted her fists on her hips in a rattle of bracelets. She was near enough bone-thin, with long sandy yellow hair held back by a dark folded kerchief, and more than a hand taller than Nynaeve, but that was who she always made him think of. She stood blocking the entrance to the tent.
"You are impetuous, Perrin Aybara." Her light voice was level, but he had the impression that she was considering boxing his ears. Very much like Nynaeve. "Though that might be understandable, in the circumstances. What do you want?"
"How . . .?" He had to stop to swallow. "How will they treat her?"
"I cannot say, Perrin Aybara." There was no sympathy on her face, no expression at all. Aiel could give Aes Sedai lessons in that. "Taking wetlanders captive is against custom, except for Treekillers, though that has changed. So is killing without need. But many have refused to accept the truths the Car'a'carn revealed. Some were taken by the Bleakness and threw down their spears, yet they may have taken them up again. Others simply left, to live as they believe we are meant to. I cannot say what customs might be kept or abandoned by those who have abandoned clan and sept." The only emotion she displayed was a hint of disgust at the end, for those who abandoned clan and sept.
"Light, woman, you must have some idea! Surely you can make a guess -- "
"Do not become irrational," she broke in sharply. "Men often do in such situations, but we have need of you. 1 think it will do your standing with the other wetlanders no good if we must bind you until you calm down. Go to your tent. If you cannot control your thoughts, drink until you cannot think. And do not bother us when we are in council." She ducked back into the tent, and the flaps jerked closed and began to twitch as they were tied again. Perrin considered the closed flaps, running his thumb over the blade of his knife, then shoved it into the sheath. They just might do as Nevarin had threatened if he barged in. And they could not tell him anything he wanted to know. He did not think she would keep secrets at a time like this. Not about Faile, anyway.
The hilltop had grown quieter, with most of the Two Rivers men gone. The remainder, still watchful of the Ghealdanin camp below, stamped their feet against the cold, but no one talked. The scurrying gai'shain hardly made a sound. Trees obscured parts of the Ghealdanin and Mayener camps, but Perrin could see carts being loaded in both. He decided to leave men on guard anyway. Arganda could be trying to lull him. A man who smelled like that could be . . .
Irrational, he finished the thought dryly.
There was nothing left for him to do on the hill, so he set out to walk the half-mile to his tent. The tent he shared with Faile. He stumbled as much as walked, laboring when the snow rose around his legs. As much to stop it snapping in the wind as for warmth, he held his cloak tight around him. There was no warmth. The Two Rivers camp was a swarm with activity when he arrived. The carts still made a big circle, with men and women from Dobraine's estates back in Cairhien loading them, and others readying horses for saddling. In this depth of snow, cartwheels might as well have tried to roll through mud, so they were all lashed to the sides of the carts, now, replaced by pairs of broad wooden sleds. Bundled against the weather till most seemed twice as wide as they really were, the Cairhienin hardly paused to glance at him, but every Two Rivers man who saw him stopped to stare until someone else prodded the fellow to get on with whatever he was about. Perrin was glad none gave words to the sympathy in those stares. He thought he might break down and cry if anyone did. There seemed to be nothing for him to do here, either. His big tent -- his and Faile's -- was already down and on a cart, along with its contents. Basel Gill was walking along the carts with a long list in his hands. The stout man had taken to the job of shambayan, running Faile's household, Perrin's, like a squirrel to a corncrib. More used to cities than traveling outside their walls, though, he suffered from the cold, and wore not only a cloak but a thick scarf around his neck, a floppy-brimmed felt hat and heavy woolen gloves. For some reason, Gill flinched at the sight of him, and mumbled something about seeing to the carts before hurrying off as fast as he could. Odd.
Perrin did think of one thing then, and minding Dannil, he gave orders to relieve the men on the hill every hour and make sure everyone had a hot meal. "Take care of the men and horses first," a thin but strong voice said. "But then you must take care of yourself. There's hot soup in the kettle, and bread of a sort, and I've put by some smoked ham. A full belly will make you look less like murder walking."
"Thank you, Lini," he said. Murder walking? Light, he felt like one of the dead, not a murderer. "I'll eat in a little while."
Faile's chief maid was a frail-appearing woman, with skin like parchment and white hair in a bun on top of her head, but her back was straight and her dark eyes were clear and sharp. Worry creased her forehead now, though, and her hands gripped her cloak too tightly, straining. She would be worried about Faile, certainly, but . . .
"Maighdin was with her," he said, and did not need her nod. Maighdin was always with Faile, it seemed. A treasure, Faile called her. And Lini seemed to consider the woman her daughter, though sometimes Maighdin did not appear to enjoy that as much as Lini did. "I'll get them back," he promised. "All of them." His voice almost broke on that. "Get on with your work," he went on roughly, hurriedly. "I'll eat in a bit. I have to see to . . . to. . ." He strode away without finishing.
There was nothing he had to see to. Nothing he could think of, except Faile. He hardly knew where he was heading until his steps took him outside the circle of carts.
A hundred paces beyond the horselines, a low, stony ridge thrust a black peak through the snow. From there, he would be able to see the tracks left by Elyas and the others. From there, he would see them returning. His nose told him he was not alone well before he reached the narrow crest of the ridge, told him who was up there. The other man was not listening, because Perrin crunched his way to the top before he sprang up from where he had been crouching on his heels. Tallanvor's gauntleted hands kneaded his long sword hilt, and he peered at Perrin uncertainly. A tall man who had taken hard knocks in his life, he usually was very sure of himself. Perhaps he expected a tirade for not having been there when Faile was taken, though she had rejected the armsman as a bodyguard, rejected any bodyguard. Beyond Bain and Chiad, at least, who apparently did not count. Or maybe he just thought he would be sent away, back to the carts, so Perrin could be alone. Perrin tried to make his face look less like -- what had Lini called it? -- murder walking? Tallanvor was in love with Maighdin, and would be wed to her soon if Faile's suspicions were correct. The man had a right to keep watch.
They stood there on the ridge while twilight fell, and nothing moved in the snowy forest they watched. Darkness came without movement, and without Masema, but Perrin did not even think of Masema. The gibbous moon shone white on the snow, giving nearly as much light as a full moon, it seemed. Until scudding clouds began to hide it, and moonshadows raced across the snow, thicker and thicker. Snow began to fall with a dry rustling. Snow that would bury traces and tracks. Silent in the cold, the two men stood there, watching into the snowfall, waiting, hoping.
Chapter 3
Customs
From the first hour after being captured, laboring through the snowy woods, Faile worried about freezing. Breezes stirred and died, stirred and died. Few of the scattered trees still carried leaves, and most of those hung dead and brown. The breezes swirled through the forest unhindered, and small as the gusts were, they carried ice. Perrin hardly entered her thoughts, except for a hope that he somehow learned of Masema's secret dealings. And of the Shaido, of course. Even if that trull Berelain was the only one who could tell him, now. She hoped Berelain had escaped the ambush and told Perrin everything. And then fallen into a hole and broken her neck. But she had far more pressing concerns than her husband.
She had called this weather autumnal, yet people froze to death in a Saldaean autumn, and of her clothes she retained only her dark woolen stockings. One lashed her elbows tight behind her back, while the second had been tied around her neck for a leash. Brave words made scant covering for bare skin. She was too cold for sweat, yet her legs soon ached with the struggle to keep up with her captors. The Shaido column, veiled men and Maidens, slowed when the snow rose toward their knees but immediately resumed a steady trot when it sank toward their ankles, and they did not seem to tire. Horses could not have moved faster over the distance. Shivering, she labored on at the end of her leash, doing her best to gulp air through teeth gritted to stop their chattering. The Shaido were fewer than she had estimated during the attack, no more than a hundred and fifty she thought, and nearly all carried spears or bows at the ready. Small chance anyone could surprise them. Always alert, they ghosted along in silence except for the faint crunch of the snow under their soft, knee-high boots. The greens and grays and browns of their clothing stood out against the white landscape, though. Green had been added to the cadin'sor since crossing the Dragonwall, so Bain and Chiad had told her, to aid concealment in a green land. Why had these people not added white, for the winter? As it was, they could be seen at some distance. She tried to notice everything, remember anything that might prove useful later, when it came time to escape. She hoped her fellow prisoners were doing as much. Perrin would be hunting for her, certainly, but the thought of rescue never entered her calculations. Wait for rescue, and you might wait forever. Besides, they needed to escape as quickly as possible, before their captors joined with the rest of the Shaido. She could not see how, yet, but there must be a way. The one bit of luck was that the main body of Shaido must be days distant. This part of Amadicia was chaos, but thousands of Shaido could not be too near without her having heard of them. Once, early on, she tried to look back at the women who had been captured with her, but the only result was a stumbling fall into a snowbank. Half-buried in the white powder, she gasped from the icy shock, and gasped again when the great hulking Shaido who held her leash set her back on her feet. As wide as Perrin and a full head taller, Rolan simply hauled her upright by a fistful of her hair, set her moving again with a brisk slap on her bare bottom, and once more took up the long strides that forced her to step quickly. The slap might have been given to make a pony move. Despite her nakedness, there was nothing of a man looking at a woman in Rolan's blue eyes. Part of her was very grateful. Part her was vaguely . . . taken aback. She certainly did not want him gazing at her with lust or even interest, but those bland glances were almost insulting! After that she made sure not to fall, though as the hours passed without a pause in the march, simply staying upright became more and more of an effort. In the beginning she worried over which bits of her would freeze first, but by the time morning had rolled into afternoon without a pause in the march, she was focused on her feet. Rolan and those ahead of him trampled a sort of path for her, yet enough snowcrust remained for sharp edges, and she began to leave red stains freezing in her footprints. Worse was the cold itself. She had seen frostbite. How long before her toes began to turn black? Staggering, she flexed each foot as she swung it forward, and worked her hands constantly. Fingers and toes were in the worst danger, but any exposed skin was at risk. About her face and the rest of her she could only hope. The flexing hurt, making the cuts on her feet burn, but any feeling was better than none. When sensation went, she would have very little time left. Flex and stride, flex and stride. That filled her thoughts. She kept moving on quivering legs, and kept her hands and feet from freezing. She kept moving.
Abruptly, she stumbled into Rolan and rebounded from his wide chest, panting.
Half dazed, or maybe more than half, she had not realized that he had stopped. So had the others ahead, a few looking back, the rest facing outward and warily on guard, weapons up as though expecting attack. That was all she had time to see before Rolan seized a handful of her hair again and bent to lift one other feet. Light, the man really was treating her like a pony! Releasing her hair and her foot, he snaked an arm around her legs, and the next moment her vision whirled as she was heaved up onto his shoulder, head-down beside the horn bow cased on his back. Indignation welled up as he casually shifted her about to find the easiest position for carrying, but she tamped it down as fast as it rose. This was no place or time. Her feet were out of the snow; that was what mattered. And she could catch her breath, like this. He could have warned her, though.
With an effort, she arched her neck so she could see her companions, and felt relief to find them all still there. Naked prisoners, true, but she was sure only a corpse would have been left behind. The others who walked were leashed with stockings or strips of cloth cut from their lost garments, and most also had their arms tied behind. Alliandre was no longer trying to bend double in an attempt to shield herself. Other concerns had replaced modesty for the Queen of Ghealdan. Panting and trembling, she might have fallen if the squat Shaido examining her feet had not supported her by her bound elbows. Squat for an Aiel meant he could have passed unremarked most places, except for shoulders nearly as wide as Rolan's. The dark hair spilling down Alliandre's back was windblown, her face haggard. Behind her, Maighdin appeared in almost as bad a state, gulping air, red-gold hair in disarray and blue eyes staring, yet she managed to stay erect on her own with a bone-lean Maiden lifting her foot. Somehow, Faile's maid looked more a queen than Alliandre did, if a very disheveled queen. In comparison, Bain and Chiad seemed in no worse state than did the Shaido, though Chiad's cheek was yellowing and swollen from a blow when they were first taken, and the black blood matting Bain's short fiery hair and spread across her face seemed to have frozen. That was bad; that could scar. The two Maidens were not breathing hard, though, and even raised their own feet for examination. Alone of the prisoners they were unbound -- except by custom stronger than chains.
They had calmly accepted their fate, to serve a year and a day as gai'shain. Bain and Chiad might be of some help in escaping -- Faile was not sure how far custom constrained them -- but they themselves would not try to get away. The last prisoners, Lacile and Arrela, attempted to pattern themselves after the Maidens, of course, with indifferent success. A tall Aielman had simply tucked tiny Lacile under his arm to look at her feet, and crimson mortification stained her pale cheeks. Arrela was tall, but the pair of Maidens who had charge of her were taller than Faile herself, and they handled the Tairen woman with impersonal ease. A scowl contorted her dark face at their prodding, and maybe at the rapid handtalk they were exchanging. Faile hoped she would not make trouble, not now. Everyone in Cha Faile tried to be like the Aiel, to live as they thought the Aiel did, but Arrela wanted to be a Maiden, and she resented the fact that Sulin and the others would not teach her handtalk. She would have been worse if she knew Bain and Chiad had taught Faile a little. Not enough to make out more than every other word the Maidens were saying now, but some. As well Arrela could not understand. They thought the wetlander had soft feet, that she was altogether too pampered and soft, and that surely would have set the woman off.
As it turned out, Faile need not have worried about Arrela. The Tairen stiffened when one of the Maidens hefted her onto a shoulder -- pretending to stagger, the burdened woman used her free hand to flicker a message that made the other Maiden bark a laugh behind her veil -- but after a glance at Bain and Chiad, already meekly belly down on Aielmen's shoulders, Arrela sullenly let herself hang limp. Lacile squealed when the big man holding her abruptly spun her about to land in the same position, but she quieted after that, though her face was still bright scarlet. There were definite advantages to their emulation of Aiel. Alliandre and Maighdin, however, the last women Faile would have expected to cause problems, were another matter entirely. When they realized what was happening, the pair of them fought wildly. It was not much of a fight, two naked and exhausted women with their elbows bound tight behind their backs, but they twisted and shouted and kicked at anyone who came within reach, and Maighdin even sank her teeth into the hand of a careless Aielman, hanging on like a boarhound.
"Stop it, you fools!" Faile called to them. "Alliandre! Maighdin! Let them carry you! Obey me!" Neither her maid nor her vassal paid the slightest heed. Maighdin growled like a lion around her mouthful of Aiel. Alliandre was wrestled down, still shouting and flailing with her feet. Faile opened her mouth for another command.
"The gai'shain will be quiet," Rolan grunted, spanking her hard.
She ground her teeth and muttered under her breath. Which earned another slap! The man had her knives tucked behind his belt. If she could lay hands on just one . . .! No. What must be endured, could be endured. She intended to escape, not make useless gestures.
Maighdin's fight lasted a little longer than Alliandre's, until a pair of burly men could pry her jaws from the Shaido's hand. It required a pair. To Faile's surprise, instead of cuffing Maighdin, the bitten fellow shook blood off his hand and laughed! That did not save her, though. In a trice, Faile's maid was facedown in the snow alongside the Queen. They were given only a few moments to gasp and writhe in the added cold. Two Shaido, one a Maiden, appeared out of the surrounding trees, shaving the stubs from long switches with their heavy belt knives. A foot planted between each woman's shoulder blades, a fist on bound elbows to raise fluttering hands out of the way, and red welts began to bloom on white hips.
At first both women continued to fight, twisting about de spite the way they were held. Their struggle was even more use less than when they were upright. Little moved above their waists beyond tossing heads and wildly waving hands. Alliandre kept shrilling that they could not do this to her, understandable coming from a queen, if foolish in the circumstances. Plainly they could, and they were. Surprisingly, Maighdin raised her voice in the same piercing denials. Anyone would have thought her royalty instead of a lady's maid. Faile knew for a fact that Lini had taken a switch to Maighdin without all these histrionics. In any case, denials did no good for either woman. The methodical thrashings continued until they both were kicking and howling wordlessly, and a little longer for good measure. When they were finally hoisted like the other prisoners, they hung weeping, all fight gone out of them. Faile felt no sympathy. The fools had earned every stripe, in her opinion. Frostbite and cut feet aside, the longer they remained outside without clothes, the more chance that some of them might not survive to escape. The Shaido had to be taking them to some sort of shelter, and Alliandre and Maighdin had delayed reaching it. Maybe it was little more than a quarter hour's delay, but minutes could be the difference between the living and the dead. On top of which, even Aiel would surely let down their guard a little once they found shelter and made fires. And they could rest, being carried. They could be ready to take their chance when it came.
Carrying their prisoners, the Shaido set out again at that ground-covering pace.
If anything, they seemed to move through the forest more quickly than before. The hard leather bow case bumped Faile's side as she swayed, and she began to feel dizzy. Rolan's every long stride sent a jolt through her middle. Surreptitiously, she tried to find some position where she would not be poked and thudded quite so vigorously.
"Be still, or you will fall," Rolan muttered, patting her hip as he might have patted a horse to soothe it.
Raising her head, Faile peered back at Alliandre, scowling. There was not much to be seen of the Queen of Ghealdan, and that crisscrossed by scarlet welts from the tops of her hips almost to the backs of her knees. Come to think of it, a short delay and a few stripes might be a small price to pay for biting a chunk out of this oaf toting her like a sack of grain. Not his hand, though. His throat would be about right.
Bold thoughts, and worse than useless. Foolish. Even being carried, she knew she must fight the cold. In some ways, she began to realize, being carried was worse. Walking, at least she had had the struggle to stay erect and on her feet to keep her awake, but as evening came on and deepened to darkness, the swaying motion on Rolan's shoulder seemed to have a lulling effect. No. It was the cold that was numbing her mind. Making her blood sluggish. She had to fight it, or she would die.
Rhythmically she worked her hands and bound arms, tensed her legs and relaxed them, tensed and relaxed, forcing her muscles to work her blood. She thought of Perrin, solid planning thoughts of what he should do about Masema, and how she could convince him if he balked. She went over the argument they would have when he learned she been using Cha Faile as spies, planned how she would meet his anger and turn it. There was an art to guiding a husband's anger in the direction you wanted, and she had learned from an expert, her mother. It would be a splendid argument. And a splendid making-up, after. Thinking about making up with him made her forget to work her muscles, so she tried to concentrate on the argument, on the planning. Cold dulled her thoughts, though. She began losing the thread, having to shake her head and start over. Rolan's growls at her to be still helped, a voice to focus on, to keep her awake. Even the accompanying slaps on her upturned bottom helped, as much as she hated to admit the fact, each one a shock that jolted her to wakefulness. After a while, she began shifting more, then struggling almost to the point of falling, courting the rude smacks. Anything to stay awake. She could not have said how much time passed, but her twists and wriggles began to weaken, until Rolan no longer growled, much less gave her a slap. Light, she wanted the man to play her like a drum!
Why in the Light would I want a thing like that? she thought dully, and a dim corner of her mind realized the battle was lost. The night seemed darker than it should be. She could not even make out the glow of moonlight on the snow. She could feel herself sliding, though, sliding faster and faster toward a deeper dark. Wailing silently, she sank into a stupor.
Dreams came. She was sitting on Perrin's lap with his arms so tight around her she could barely move, before a great fire roaring in a broad stone fireplace. His curly beard scratched her cheeks as he nipped her ears almost painfully.
Suddenly a huge wind howled through the room, snuffing the fire like a candle. And Perrin turned to smoke that vanished in the gale. Alone in bitter darkness, she fought the wind, but it tumbled her end over end until she was so dizzy she could not tell up from down. Alone and endlessly tumbling into icy dark, knowing she would never find him again.
She ran across a frozen land, floundering from snowdrift to snowdrift, falling, scrambling up to run on in panic, gulping air so cold it sliced her throat like shards of glass. Icicles sparkled on stark branches around her, and a frigid wind keened through the leafless forest. Perrin was very angry, and she had to get away.
Somehow, she could not recall the specifics of the argument, just that somehow she had pushed her beautiful wolf to real anger, to the point of throwing things. Only, Perrin did not throw things. He was going to turn her over his knee, as he had done once, long ago. Why was she running from that, though? There would still be the making-up. And she would make him pay for the humiliation, of course. Anyway, she had drawn a little blood from him a time or two with a well-aimed bowl or pitcher, not really meaning to, and she knew he would never really hurt her. But she also knew that she had to run, to keep moving, or she would die.
If he catches me, she thought dryly, at least part of me will be warm. And she began to laugh at that, until the dead white land spun around her, and she knew that soon she would be dead, too.
The monstrous bonfire loomed over her, a towering pile of thick logs roaring with flame. She was naked. And cold, so cold. No matter how near the fire she edged, her bones felt frozen, her flesh ready to shatter at a blow. She moved closer, closer. The heat of the blaze grew till she flinched at it, but the bitter cold remained trapped inside her skin. Closer. Oh, Light, it was hot, too hot! And still cold within. Closer. She began to scream at the burning, the searing pain, but she was still ice inside. Closer. Closer. She was going to die. She shrieked, but there was only silence, and the cold. It was daylight, but leaden clouds filled the sky. Snow fell in a steady shower, feathery flakes swirling in the wind through the trees. Not a fierce wind, but it licked with tongues of ice. Ridges of white built on branches until they were tall enough to collapse from their own weight and the wind, sending heavier showers to the ground below. Hunger gnawed her belly with dull teeth. A very tall, bony man with a white woolen cowl sheltering his face forced something into her mouth, the rim of a large clay mug. His eyes were a startling green, like emeralds, and surrounded by puckered scars. He was kneeling on a large brown woolen blanket with her, and another blanket, striped in gray, was draped around her nakedness. The taste of hot tea thick with honey exploded on her tongue, and she seized the man's sinewy wrist weakly with both hands in case he tried to take the mug away. Her teeth chattered against the mug, but she gulped the steaming syrupy liquid greedily.