The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,244

were protocols to conspiracy in the Great Game; anyone might try to listen to a private conversation, but they would not intrude on it.

Verin and Ingtar were standing together, and thus also alone. Ingtar looked a little dazed. Verin gave Rand and the other three a brief glance, frowned at their expressions, then resettled her shawl and started for the entry hall.

As they reached it, Barthanes appeared as if someone had told him they were leaving. “You go so soon? Verin Sedai, can I not entreat you to stay longer?”

Verin shook her head. “We must go, Lord Barthanes. I’ve not been in Cairhien in some years. I was glad of your invitation to young Rand. It has been . . . interesting.”

“Then Grace see you safely to your inn. The Great Tree, is it not? Perhaps you will favor me with your presence again? You would honor me, Verin Sedai, and you, Lord Rand, and you, Lord Ingtar, not to mention you, Loial, son of Arent son of Halan.” His bow was a little deeper for the Aes Sedai than for the others, but still no more than a slight inclination.

Verin nodded in acknowledgment. “Perhaps. The Light illumine you, Lord Barthanes.” She turned for the doors.

As Rand moved to follow the others, Barthanes caught his sleeve with two fingers, holding him back. Mat looked as if he might stay, too, until Hurin pulled him to join Verin and the rest.

“You wade even deeper in the Game than I thought,” Barthanes said softly. “When I heard your name, I could not believe it, yet you came, and you fit the description, and. . . . I was given a message for you. I think I will deliver it after all.”

Rand had felt a prickling along his backbone as Barthanes spoke, but at the last, he stared. “A message? From whom? Lady Selene?”

“A man. Not the sort for whom I would usually carry messages, but he has . . . certain . . . claims on me that I cannot ignore. He gave no name, but he was a Lugarder. Aaah! You know him.”

“I know him.” Fain left a message? Rand looked around the wide hall. Mat and Verin and the others were waiting by the doors. Liveried servants stood stiffly along the walls, ready to leap at a command yet appearing neither to hear nor see. The sounds of the gathering floated from deeper in the manor. It did not look like a place where Darkfriends might attack. “What message?”

“He says he will wait for you on Toman Head. He has what you seek, and if you want it, you must follow. If you refuse to follow him, he says he will hound your blood, and your people, and those you love until you will face him. It sounds mad, of course, a man like that saying he will hound a lord, and yet, there was something about him. I think he is mad—he even denied you are a lord, as any eye can plainly see—but there is still something. What is it he carries with him, with Trollocs to guard it? What is it you seek?” Barthanes seemed shocked at the directness of his own questions.

“The Light illumine you, Lord Barthanes.” Rand managed a bow, but his legs wobbled as he joined Verin and the others. He wants me to follow? And he’ll hurt Emond’s Field, Tam, if I don’t. He had no doubt Fain could do it, would do it. At least Egwene is safe, in the White Tower. He had sickening images of Trollocs descending in hordes on Emond’s Field, of eyeless Fades stalking Egwene. But how can I follow him? How?

Then he was out in the night, mounting Red. Verin and Ingtar and the others were all already on their horses, and the escort of Shienarans was closing round them.

“What did you find?” Verin demanded. “Where does he keep it?” Hurin cleared his throat loudly, and Loial shifted in his high saddle. The Aes Sedai peered at them.

“Fain has taken the Horn to Toman Head through a Waygate,” Rand said dully. “By this time, he’s probably already waiting there for me.”

“We will speak of this later,” Verin said, so firmly that no one spoke at all on the ride back to the city, to The Great Tree.

Uno left them there, after a quiet word from Ingtar, taking the soldiers back to their inn in the Foregate. Hurin took one look at Verin’s set face by the light