“Master Harod has the key, good mistress. I don't know if he'll—”
She gave a tug, and the lock sprang open. Simion gaped at her. She lifted the lock free of the hasp, and the chinless man turned to Perrin.
“Is that safe, good master? He's my brother, but he bit Mother Roon when she tried to help, and he... he killed a cow. With his teeth,” he finished faintly.
“Moiraine,” Perrin said, “the man is dangerous.”
“All men are dangerous,” she replied in a cool voice. “Now be quiet.” She opened the door and went in. Perrin held his breath.
At her first step, Noam's lips peeled back from his teeth, and he began to growl, a rumble that deepened till his whole body quivered. Moiraine ignored it. Still growling, Noam wriggled backwards in the straw as she came closer to him, until he had backed himself into a corner. Or she had backed him.
Slowly, calmly, the Aes Sedai knelt and took his head between her hands. Noam's growl heightened to a snarl, then tailed off in a whimper before Perrin could move. For a long moment Moiraine held Noam's head, then just as calmly released it and rose. Perrin's throat tightened as she turned her back on Noam and walked out of the cage, but the man only stared after her. She pushed the slatted door to, slipped the lock back through the hasp, not bothering to snap it shut — and Noam hurled himself snarling against the wooden bars. He bit at them, and battered them with his shoulders, tried to force his head between them, all the while snarling and snapping.
Moiraine brushed straw from her skirt with a steady hand and no expression.
“You do take chances,” Perrin breathed. She looked at him — a steady, knowing gaze — and he dropped his eyes. His yellow eyes.
Simion was staring at his brother. “Can you help him, good mistress?” he asked hoarsely.
“I am sorry, Simion,” she said.
“Can't you do anything, good mistress? Something? One of those— ” his voice fell to a whisper — “Aes Sedai things?”
“Healing is not a simple matter, Simion, and it comes from within as much as from the Healer. There is nothing here that remembers being Noam, nothing that remembers being a man. There are no maps remaining to show him the path back, and nothing left to take that path. Noam is gone, Simion.”
“He — he just used to talk funny, good mistress, when he'd had too much to drink. He just...” Simion scrubbed a hand across his eyes and blinked. “Thank you, good mistress. I know you'd have done something if you could.” She put a hand on his shoulder, murmured comforting words, and then she was gone from the shed.
Perrin knew he should follow her, but the man — what had once been a man — snapping at the wooden bars, held him. He took a quick step and surprised himself by removing the dangling lock from the hasp. The lock was a good one, the work of a master smith.
“Good master?”
Perrin stared at the lock in his hand, at the man behind in the cage. Noam had stopped biting at the slats; he stared back at Perrin warily, panting. Some of his teeth had broken off jaggedly.
“You can leave him in here forever,” Perrin said, “but I — I don't think he'll ever get any better.”
“If he gets out, good master, he'll die!”
“He will die in here or out there, Simion. Out there, at least he'll be free, and as happy as he can be. He is not your brother anymore, but you're the one who has to decide. You can leave him in here for people to stare at, leave him to stare at the bars of his cage until he pines away. You cannot cage a wolf, Simion, not and expect it to be happy. Or live long.”
“Yes,” Simion said slowly. “Yes, I see.” He hesitated, then nodded, and jerked his head toward the shed door.
That was all the answer Perrin needed. He swung back the slatted door and stood aside.
For a moment Noam stared at the opening. Abruptly he darted out of the cage, running on all fours, but with surprising agility. Out of the cage, out of the shed, and into the night. The Light help us both, Perrin thought.
“I suppose it's better for him to be free.” Simion gave himself a shake. “But I don't know what Master Harod will say when he finds that door standing open and Noam gone.”
Perrin shut the cage door; the big lock made a sharp click as he refastened it. “Let him puzzle that out.”
Simion barked a quick laugh, abruptly cut off. “He'll make something out of it. They all will. Some of them say Noam turned into a wolf — fur and all! — when he bit Mother Roon. It's not true, but they say it.”
Shivering, Perrin leaned his head against the cage door. He may not have fur, but he's a wolf. He's wolf, not man. Light, help me.
“We didn't keep him here always,” Simion said suddenly. “He was at Mother Roon's house, but she and I got Master Harod to move him here after the Whitecloaks came. They always have a list of names, Darkfriends they're looking for. It was Noam's eyes, you see. One of the names the Whitecloaks had was a fellow named Perrin Aybara, a blacksmith. They said he has yellow eyes, and runs with wolves. You can see why I didn't want them to know about Noam.”
Perrin turned his head enough to look at Simion over his shoulder. “Do you think this Perrin Aybara is a Darkfriend?”
“A Darkfriend wouldn't care if my brother died in a cage. I suppose she found you soon after it happened. In time to help. I wish she'd come to Jarra a few months ago.”