“It will be getting dark soon, Elyas,” Perrin said. “We have to camp somewhere. Why not with them, if they'll have us?” Mistress Luhhan had a Tinkermended pot that she claimed was better than new. Master Luhhan was not too happy about his wife's praise of the Tinker work, but Perrin wanted to see how it was done. Yet there was a reluctance about Elyas that he did not understand. “Is there some reason we shouldn't?”
Elyas shook his head, but the reluctance was still there, in the set of his shoulders and the tightness of his mouth. “May as well. Just don't pay any mind to what they say. Lot of foolishness. Most times the Traveling People do things any which way, but there's times they set a store by formality, so you do what I do. And keep your secrets. No need to tell the world everything.”
The dogs trailed along beside them, wagging their tails, as Elyas led the way into the trees. Perrin felt the wolves slow, and knew they would not enter. They were not afraid of the dogs — they were contemptuous of dogs, who had given up freedom to sleep by a fire — but people they avoided.
Elyas walked surely, as if he knew the way, and near the center of the stand the Tinkers' wagons appeared, scattered among the oak and ash.
Like everyone else in Emond's Field, Perrin had heard a good deal about the Tinkers even if he had never seen any, and the camp was just what he expected. Their wagons were small houses on wheels, tall wooden boxes lacquered and painted in bright colors, reds and blues and yellows and greens and some hues to which he could not put a name. The Traveling People were going about work that was disappointingly everyday, cooking, sewing, tending children, mending harness, but their clothes were even more colorful than the wagons — and seemingly chosen at random; sometimes coat and breeches, or dress and shawl, went together in a way that hurt his eyes. They looked like butterflies in a field of wildflowers.
Four or five men in different places around the camp played fiddles and flutes, and a few people danced like rainbowhued hummingbirds. Children and dogs ran playing among the cookfires. The dogs were mastiffs just like those that had confronted the travelers, but the children tugged at their ears and tails and climbed on their backs, and the massive dogs accepted it all placidly. The three with Elyas, tongues hanging out, looked up at the bearded man as if he were their best friend. Perrin shook his head. They were still big enough to reach a man's throat while barely getting their front feet off the ground.
Abruptly the music stopped, and he realized all the Tinkers were looking at him and his companions. Even the children and dogs stood still and watched, warily, as if on the point of flight.
For a moment there was no sound at all, then a wiry man, grayhaired and short, stepped forward and bowed gravely to Elyas. He wore a highcollared red coat, and baggy, bright green trousers tucked into knee boots. “You are welcome to our fires. Do you know the song?”
Elyas bowed in the same way, both hands pressed to his chest. “Your welcome warms my spirit, Mahdi, as your fires warm the flesh, but I do not know the song.”
“Then we seek still,” the grayhaired man intoned. “As it was, so shall it be, if we but remember, seek, and find.” He swept an arm toward the fires with a smile, and his voice took on a cheerful lightness. “The meal is almost ready. Join us, please.”
As if that had been a signal the music sprang up again, and the children took up their laughter and ran with the dogs. Everyone in the camp went back to what they had been doing just as though the newcomers were long accepted friends.
The grayhaired man hesitated, though, and looked at Elyas. “Your ... other friends? They will stay away? They frighten the poor dogs so.”
“They'll stay away, Raen.” Elyas's headshake had a touch of scorn. “You should know that by now.”
The grayhaired man spread his hands as if to say nothing was ever certain. As he turned to lead them into the camp, Egwene dismounted and moved close to Elyas. “You two are friends?” A smiling Tinker appeared to take Bela; Egwene gave the reins up reluctantly, after a wry snort from Elyas.
“We know each other,” the furclad man replied curtly.
“His name is Mahdi?” Perrin said.
Elyas growled something under his breath. “His name's Raen. Mahdi's his title. Seeker. He's the leader of this band. You can call him Seeker if the other sounds odd. He won't mind.”
“What was that about a song?” Egwene asked.
“That's why they travel,” Elyas said, “or so they say. They're looking for a song. That's what the Mahdi seeks. They say they lost it during the Breaking of the World, and if they can find it again, the paradise of the Age of Legends will return.” He ran his eye around the camp and snorted. “They don't even know what the song is; they claim they'll know it when they find it. They don't know how it's supposed to bring paradise, either, but they've been looking near to three thousand years, ever since the Breaking. I expect they'll be looking until the Wheel stops turning.”
They reached Raen's fire, then, in the middle of the camp. The Seeker's wagon was yellow trimmed in red, and the spokes of its tall, redrimmed wheels alternated red and yellow. A plump woman, as gray as Raen but smoothcheeked still, came out of the wagon and paused on the steps at its back end, straightening a bluefringed shawl on her shoulders. Her blouse was yellow and her skirt red, both bright. The combination made Perrin blink, and Egwene made a strangled sound.
When she saw the people following Raen, the woman came down with a welcoming smile. She was Ila, Raen's wife, a head taller than her husband, and she soon made Perrin forget about the colors of her clothes. She had a motherliness that reminded him of Mistress al'Vere and had him feeling welcome from her first smile.
Ila greeted Elyas as an old acquaintance, but with a distance that seemed to pain Raen. Elyas gave her a dry grin and a nod. Perrin and Egwene introduced themselves, and she clasped their hands in both of hers with much more warmth than she had shown Elyas, even hugging Egwene.
“Why, you're lovely, child,” she said, cupping Egwene's chin and smiling. “And chilled to the bone, too, I expect. You sit close to the fire, Egwene. All of you sit. Supper is almost ready.”
Fallen logs had been pulled around the fire for sitting. Elyas refused even that concession to civilization. He lounged on the ground, instead. Iron tripods held two small kettles over the flames, and an oven rested in the edge of the coals. Ila tended them.
As Perrin and the others were taking their places, a slender young man wearing green stripes strolled up to the fire. He gave Raen a hug and Ila a kiss, and ran a cool eye over Elyas and the Emond's Fielders. He was about the same age as Perrin, and he moved as if he were about to begin dancing with his next step.
“Well, Aram” — Ila smiled fondly — “you have decided to eat with your old grandparents for a change, have you?” Her smile slid over to Egwene as she bent to stir a kettle hanging over the cookfire. “I wonder why?”
Aram settled to an easy crouch with his arms crossed on his knees, across the fire from Egwene. “I am Aram,” he told her in a low, confident voice. He no longer seemed aware that anyone was there except her. “I have waited for the first rose of spring, and now I find it at my grandfather's fire.”
Perrin waited for Egwene to snicker, then saw that she was staring back at Aram. He looked at the young Tinker again. Aram had more than his share of good looks, he admitted. After a minute Perrin knew who the fellow reminded him of. Wil al'Seen, who had all the girls staring and whispering behind his back whenever he came up from Deven Ride to Emond's Field. Wil courted every girl in sight, and managed to convince every one of them that he was just being polite to all the others.
“Those dogs of yours,” Perrin said loudly, and Egwene gave a start, “look as big as bears. I'm surprised you let the children play with them.”
Aram's smile slipped, but when he looked at Perrin it came back again, even more sure than before. “They will not harm you. They make a show to frighten away danger, and warn us, but they are trained according to the Way of the Leaf. ”