Whether captured in battle or on a raid, the gai'shain were sworn to serve obediently for one year and a day, touching no weapon, doing no violence, at the end returning to their own clan and sept as if nothing had happened. A strange echo of the Way of the Leaf. Ji'e'toh, honor and obligation, required it, and breaking ji'e'toh was nearly the worst thing an Aiel could do. Perhaps the worst. It was possible that some of these men and women were serving their own clan chief, but neither would acknowledge it by the blink of an eye so long as the period of gai'shain held, not even for a son or daughter.
It struck Rand suddenly that this was the real reason that some Aiel took what he had revealed so hard. To those, it must seem that their ancestors had sworn gai'shain, not only for themselves but for all succeeding generations. And those generations — all, down to the present day — had broken ji'e'toh by taking up the spear. Had the men in front of him ever worried along those lines? Ji'e'toh was very serious business to an Aiel.
The gai'shain departed on soft slippered feet, barely making a sound. None of the clan chiefs touched their wine, or the food.
“Is there any hope that Couladin will meet with me?” Rand knew there was not; he had stopped sending requests for a meeting once he learned Couladin was having the messengers skinned alive. But it was a way to start the others talking.
Han snorted. “The only word we have had from him is that he means to flay you when next he sees you. Does that sound as if he will talk?”
“Can I break the Shaido away from him?”
“They follow him,” Rhuarc said. “He is not a chief at all, but they believe he is.” Couladin had never entered those glass columns; he might even still believe as he claimed, that everything Rand had said was a lie. “He says that he is the Car'a'carn, and they believe that as well. The Shaido Maidens who came, came for their society, and that because Far Dareis Mai carried your honor. None else will.”
“We send scouts to watch them,” Bruan said, “and the Shaido kill them when they can — Couladin builds the makings of half a dozen feuds — but so far he shows no signs of attacking us here. I have heard that he claims we have defiled Rhuidean, and that attacking us here would only deepen the desecration.”
Erim grunted and shifted on his cushion. “He means there are enough spears here to kill every Shaido twice over and to spare.” He popped a piece of white cheese into his mouth, growling around it. “The Shaido were ever cowards and thieves.”
“Honorless dogs,” Bael and Jheran said together, then stared at one another as though each thought the other had tricked him into something.
“Honorless or not,” Bruan said quietly, “Couladin's numbers are growing.” Calm as he sounded, he still took a deep drink from his goblet before going on. “You all know what I am speaking of. Some of those who run, after the bleakness, do not throw away their spears. Instead they join with their societies among the Shaido.”
“No Tomanelle has ever broken clan,” Han barked.
Bruan looked past Rhuarc and Erim at the Tomanelle chief and said deliberately, “It has happened in every clan.” Without waiting for another challenge to his word, he settled back on his cushion. “It cannot be called breaking clan. They join their societies. Like the Shaido Maidens who have come to their Roof here.”There were a few mutters, but no one disputed him this time. The rules governing Aiel warrior societies were complex, and in some ways their members felt as closely bound to society as to clan. For instance, members of the same society would not fight each other even if their clans were in blood feud. Some men would not marry a woman too closely related to a member of their own society, just as if that made her their own close blood kin. The ways of Far Dareis Mai, the Maidens of the Spear, Rand did not even want to think about.
“I need to know what Couladin intends,” he told them. Couladin was a bull with a bee in his ear; he might charge in any direction. Rand hesitated. “Would it violate honor to send people to join their societies among the Shaido?” He did not need to describe what he meant any further. To a man, they stiffened where they lay, even Rhuarc, eyes cold enough to banish the heat from the room.
“To spy in that manner” — Erim twisted his mouth around “spy” as if the word tasted foul — “would be like spying on your own sept. No one of honor would do such a thing.”
Rand refrained from asking whether they might find someone with a slightly less prickly honor. The Aiel sense of humor was a strange thing, often cruel, but about some matters they had none at all.
To change the subject, he asked, “Is there any word from across the Dragonwall?” He knew the answer; that sort of news spread quickly even among as many Aiel as were gathered around Rhuidean.
“None worth the telling,” Rhuarc replied. “With the troubles among the treekillers, few peddlers come into the Threefold Land.” That was the Aiel name for the Waste; a punishment for their sin, a testing ground for their courage, an anvil to shape them. “Treekillers” was what they called Cairhienin. “The Dragon banner still flies over the Stone of Tear. Tairens have moved north into Cairhien as you ordered, to distribute food among the treekillers. Nothing more.”
“You should have let the treekillers starve,” Bael muttered, and Jheran closed his mouth with a snap. Rand suspected he had been about to say much the same.
“Treekillers are fit for nothing except to be killed or sold as animals in Shara,” Erim said grimly. Those were two of the things Aiel did to those who came into the Waste uninvited; only gleemen, peddlers, and Tinkers had safe passage, though Aiel avoided the Tinkers as if they carried fever. Shara was the name of the lands beyond the Waste; not even the Aiel knew much about them.
From the corner of his eye, Rand saw two women standing expectantly just inside the tall, arched doorway. Someone had hung strings of colored beads there, red and blue, to replace the missing doors. One of the women was Moiraine. For a moment he considered making them wait; Moiraine had that irritatingly commanding look on her face, clearly expecting them to break off everything for her. Only, there was really nothing left to discuss, and he could tell from the men's eyes that they did not want to make conversation. Not so soon after speaking of the bleakness, and the Shaido.
Sighing, he stood, and the clan chiefs imitated him. All except Han were as tall as he or taller. Where Rand had grown up, Han would have been considered of average height or better; among Aiel, he was accounted short. “You know what must be done. Bring in the rest of the clans, and keep an eye on the Shaido.” He paused a moment, then added, “It will end well. As well for the Aiel as I can manage.”
“The prophecy said you would break us,” Han said sourly, “and you have made a good beginning. But we will follow you. Till shade is gone,” he recited, “till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the Last Day.” Sightblinder was one of the Aiel names for the Dark One.
There was nothing for Rand except to make the proper response. Once he had not known it. “By my honor and the Light, my life will be a dagger for Sightblinder's heart.”
“Until the Last Day,” the Aiel finished, “to Shayol Ghul itself.” The harper played on pacifically.
The chiefs filed out past the two women, eyeing Moiraine respectfully. There was nothing of fear in them. Rand wished he could be as sure of himself. Moiraine had too many plans for him, too many ways of pulling strings he did not know she had tied to him.
The two women came in as soon as the chiefs were gone, Moiraine as cool and elegant as ever. A small, pretty woman, with or without those Aes Sedai features he could never put an age to, she had abandoned the damp, cooling cloth for her temples. In its place, a small blue stone hung suspended on her forehead from a fine golden chain in her dark hair. It would not have mattered if she had kept it; nothing could diminish her queenly carriage. She usually seemed to own a foot more height than she actually had, and her eyes were all confidence and command.
The other woman was taller, though still short of his shoulder, and young, not ageless. Egwene, whom he had grown up with. Now, except for her big dark eyes, she could almost have passed as an Aiel woman, and not only for her tanned face and hands. She wore a full Aiel skirt of brown wool and a loose white blouse of a plant fiber called algode. Algode was softer than even the finestwoven wool; it would do very well for trade, if he ever convinced the Aiel. A gray shawl hung around Egwene's shoulders, and a folded gray scarf made a wide band to hold back the dark hair that fell below her shoulders. Unlike most Aiel women, she wore only one bracelet, ivory carved into a circle of flames, and a single necklace of gold and ivory beads. And one more thing. A Great Serpent ring on her left hand.
Egwene had been studying with some of the Aiel Wise Ones — exactly what, Rand did not know, though he more than suspected something to do with dreams; Egwene and the Aiel women were closemouthed — but she had studied in the White Tower, too. She was one of the Accepted, on the way to becoming Aes Sedai. And passing herself off, here and in Tear at least, as full Aes Sedai already. Sometimes he teased her about that; she did not take his japes very well, though.
“The wagons will be ready to leave for Tar Valon soon,” Moiraine said. Her voice was musical, crystalline.