The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,195

balls, and six tumblers limbering themselves.

Thom appeared on the steps, limping as though his right leg did not bend as well as it had. He eyed the juggler and the tumblers, blew out his mustaches disdainfully, and turned to Rand. “All they want to hear is The Great Hunt of the Horn. You would think, with the news from Haddon Mirk and Saldaea, one of them would ask for The Karaethon Cycle. Well, maybe not that, but I’d pay myself to tell something else.” He looked Rand up and down. “You look as if you’re doing well, boy.” He fingered Rand’s collar and pursed his lips. “Very well.”

Rand could not help laughing. “I left Whitebridge sure you were dead. Moiraine said you were still alive, but I. . . . Light, Thom, it’s good to see you again! I should have gone back to help you.”

“Bigger fool if you had, boy. That Fade”—he looked around; there was no one close enough to hear, but he lowered his voice anyway—“had no interest in me. It left me a little present of a stiff leg and ran off after you and Mat. All you could have done was die.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Moiraine said I was still alive, did she? Is she with you, then?”

Rand shook his head. To his surprise, Thom seemed disappointed.

“Too bad, in a way. She’s a fine woman, even if she is. . . .” He left it unsaid. “So it was Mat or Perrin she was after. I won’t ask which. They were good boys, and I don’t want to know.” Rand shifted uneasily, and gave a start when Thom fixed him with a bony finger. “What I do want to know is, do you still have my harp and flute? I want them back, boy. What I have now are not fit for a pig to play.”

“I have them, Thom. I’ll bring them to you, I promise. I can’t believe you are alive. And I can’t believe you aren’t in Illian. The Great Hunt setting out. The prize for the best telling of The Great Hunt of the Horn. You were dying to go.”

Thom snorted. “After Whitebridge? Likely I’d die if I did go. Even if I could have reached the boat before it sailed, Domon and his whole crew would be spreading the tale all over Illian about how I was being chased by Trollocs. If they saw the Fade, or heard of it, before Domon cut his lines. . . . Most Illianers think Trollocs and Fades are fables, but enough others might want to know why a man was pursued by them to make Illian somewhat more than uncomfortable.”

“Thom, I have so much to tell you.”

The gleeman cut him off. “Later, boy.” He was exchanging glares down the length of the hall with the narrow-faced man from the door. “If I don’t go back and tell another, he will no doubt send the juggler out, and that lot will tear the hall down around our heads. You come to The Bunch of Grapes, just beyond the Jangai Gate. I have a room there. Anyone can tell you where to find it. I’ll be there in another hour or so. One more tale will have to satisfy them.” He started back up the steps, flinging over his shoulder, “And bring my harp and my flute!”

CHAPTER

26

Discord

Rand darted through the common room of The Defender of the Dragonwall and hurried upstairs, grinning at the startled look the innkeeper had given him. Rand wanted to grin at everything. Thom’s alive!

He flung open the door to his room and went straight to the wardrobe.

Loial and Hurin put their heads in from the other room, both in their shirtsleeves and with pipes in their teeth trailing thin streams of smoke.

“Has something happened, Lord Rand?” Hurin asked anxiously.

Rand slung the bundle made from Thom’s cloak on his shoulder. “The best thing that could, next to Ingtar coming. Thom Merrilin’s alive. And he’s here, in Cairhien.”

“The gleeman you told me about?” Loial said. “That is wonderful, Rand. I would like to meet him.”

“Then come with me, if Hurin’s willing to keep watch awhile.”

“It would be a pleasure, Lord Rand.” Hurin took the pipe out of his mouth. “That lot in the common room kept trying to pump me—without letting on what they were doing, of course—about who you are, my Lord, and why we’re in Cairhien. I told them we were waiting here to meet friends, but being Cairhienin, they