The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,174

let on that he was pleased, but he looked like a cat having its ears scratched.

Remen looked like any of a dozen towns to Perrin—it was full of man-made aromas and man smell; with a strong smell of the river, of course—and he was wondering what Lan could have meant when the hair on the back of his neck stirred as he scented something—wrong. As soon as his nose took it in, it was gone like a horse hair dropped onto hot coals, but he remembered it. He had smelled the same smell at Jarra, and it had vanished the same way, then. It was not a Twisted One or a Neverborn—Trolloc, burn me, not a Twisted One! Not a Neverborn! A Myrddraal, a Fade, a Halfman, anything but a Neverborn!—not a Trolloc or a Fade, yet the stench had been every bit as sharp, every bit as vile. But whatever gave off that scent left no lasting trail, it seemed.

They rode into the town square. One of the big paving blocks had been pried up, right in the middle of the square, so a gibbet could be erected. A single thick timber rose out of the dirt, supporting a braced crosspiece from which hung an iron cage, the bottom of it four paces high. A tall man dressed all in grays and browns sat in the cage, holding his knees under his chin. He had no room to do otherwise. Three small boys were pitching stones at him. The man looked straight ahead, not flinching when a stone made it between the bars. More than one trickle of blood stained his face. The townspeople walking by paid no more mind to what the boys were doing than the man did, though every last one of them looked at the cage, most of them with approval, and some with fear.

Moiraine made a sound in her throat that might have been disgust.

“There is more,” Lan said. “Come. I’ve already arranged rooms at an inn. I think you will find it interesting.”

Perrin looked back over his shoulder at the caged man as he rode after them. There was something familiar about the man, but he could not place it.

“They shouldn’t do that.” Loial’s rumble sounded halfway to a snarl. “The children, I mean. The grown-ups should stop them.”

“They should,” Perrin agreed, barely paying attention. Why is he familiar?

The sign over the door of the inn Lan led them to, nearer the river, read Wayland’s Forge, which Perrin took for a good omen, though there seemed to be nothing of the smithy about the place except the leather-aproned man with a hammer painted on the sign. It was a large, purple-roofed, three-story building of squared and polished gray stones, with large windows and scroll-carved doors, and it had a prosperous look. Stablemen came running to take the horses, bowing even more deeply after Lan tossed them coins.

Inside, Perrin stared at the people. The men and women at the tables were all dressed in their feastday clothes, it seemed to him, with more embroidered coats, more lace on dresses, more colored ribbons and fringed scarves, than he had seen in a long time. Only four men sitting at one table wore plain coats, and they were the only ones who did not look up expectantly when Perrin and the others walked in. The four men kept on talking softly. He could make out a little of what they were saying, about the virtues of ice peppers over furs as cargo and what the troubles in Saldaea might have done to prices. Captains of trading ships, he decided. The others seemed to be local folk. Even the serving women appeared to be wearing their best, their long aprons covering embroidered dresses with bits of lace at the neck.

The kitchen was working heavily; he could smell mutton, lamb, chicken, and beef, as well as some sort of vegetables. And a spicy cake that made him forget meat for a moment.

The innkeeper himself met them just inside, a plump, bald-headed man with shining brown eyes in a smooth pink face, bowing and dry-washing his hands. If he had not come to them, Perrin would never have taken him for the landlord, for instead of the expected white apron, he wore a coat like everyone else, all white-and-green embroidery on stout blue wool that had the man sweating with its weight.

Why are they all wearing clothes for festival? Perrin wondered.

“Ah, Master Andra,” the innkeeper said, addressing Lan. “And