"I hear," Rand said, "that every young man who can pick up a sword wants to join the Band of the Red Hand. Talmanes and Nalesean are having to turn them away in droves. And Dareid has doubled the number of his pikemen."
Mat paused in lowering himself into the chair Aracome had used. "It's true. A fine lot of young... fellows wanting to be heroes."
"The Band of the Red Hand," Moiraine murmured. "Shen an Calhar. A legendary group of heroes indeed, though the men in it must have changed many times in a war that lasted well over three hundred years. It is said they were the last to fall to the Trollocs, guarding Aemon himself, when Manetheren died. Legend says a spring rose where they fell, to mark their passing, but I rather think the spring was already there."
"I wouldn't know about that." Mat touched his foxhead medallion, and his voice picked up strength. "Some fool got the name from somewhere, and they all started using it."
| Profile(s) | Character & RPer details | Short summary of the character |
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Ace AIM: AdamVanderheiden ICQ: 7085667 |
The five stones made a smoothly spinning circle above Mat's hands, one red, one blue, one clear green, the others striped in interesting ways. He rode on, guiding Pips with his knees, the black-hafted spear thrust behind the saddle girth on the opposite side from his unstrung bow. The stones made him think of Thom Merrilin, who had taught him to juggle, and he wondered whether the old fellow was still alive. Probably not. Rand had sent the gleeman haring after Elayne and Nynaeve what seemed a very long time ago now, supposedly to look out for them. If any two women needed looking out for less, Mat did not know them, but no two were more likely to get a man killed because they would not listen to reason. Nynaeve, poking into everything a man did or said or thought and tugging her bloody braid at a fellow all the time, and Elayne the bloody Daughter-Heir, thinking she could get her way by sticking her nose in the air and telling you what for was as bad as Nynaeve ever did, only Elayne was worse, because if frosty high-handedness failed, Elayne smiled and flashed her dimple and expected everybody to fall down because she was pretty. He hoped Thom managed to survive their company. He hoped they were all right too, but he would not mind if they found themselves in the pickling kettle at least once since scurrying off to the Light knew where. Let them see what it was like without him to haul them out, and never an honest word of thanks when he was there to do it. Not too hot a kettle, mind - just enough to make them wish Mat Cauthon were around to rescue them again like an idiot. |
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Egwene drew a deep breath and opened her mouth, but whatever she had been going to say vanished as the door of the inn opened and a man with shaggy white hair came hurrying out as if pursued. The door of the inn banged shut behind the white-haired man, and he spun around to glare at it. Lean, he would have been tall if not for the stoop to his shoulders, but he moved in a spry fashion that belied his apparent age. His cloak seemed a mass of patches, in odd shapes and sizes, fluttering with every breath of air, patches in a hundred colors. It was really quite thick, Rand saw, despite what Master al'Vere had said, with the patches merely sewn on like decorations. “The gleeman!” Egwene whispered excitedly. The white-haired man whirled, cloak flaring. His long coat had odd, baggy sleeves and big pockets. Thick mustaches, as snowy as the hair on his head, quivered around his mouth, and his face was gnarled like a tree that had seen hard times. He gestured imperiously at Rand and the others with a long-stemmed pipe, ornately carved, that trailed a wisp of smoke. Blue eyes peered out from under bushy white brows, drilling into whatever he looked at. |
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Talmanes of House Delovinde, his con three yellow stars on blue and his banner a black fox, was even shorter than Daerid and had three years on Mat at most, but he led these Cairhienin although there were older men and even gray hair present. His eyes held as little expression as Daerid's, and he looked like a coiled whip. His armor and sword were utterly plain. Once he had told Mat his name the man listened quietly while Mat laid out his plan, leaning a little out of the saddle to cut lines in the ground with the sword-bladed spear. The other Cairhienin lords gathered round on their horses, watching, but none so sharply as Talmanes. Talmanes studied the map he drew, and studied him from boots to hat, even his spear. When he was done, the fellow still did not speak until Mat barked, “Well? I don't care whether you take it or leave it, but your friends will be hip-deep in Aiel in not much longer.” “The Tairens are no friends of mine. And Daerid is... useful. Certainly not a friend.” Dry chuckles ran through the onlooking lords at the suggestion. “But I will lead one half, if you lead the other.” |
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The commander of the pikemen proved to be a pale, slender Cairhienin, half a head shorter than Mat and mounted on a gray gelding that looked past ready for the pasture. Daerid had hard eyes, though, an oft-broken nose, and three white scars criss-crossing his face, one of them not very old. He took off his bell-shaped helmet while he talked with Mat; the front of his head was shaved. No lord, he. Maybe he had been a part of the army, before the civil war started. Yes, his men knew how to form a hedgehog. He had not faced Aiel, but he had faced brigands, and Andoran calvary. There was an implication that he had fought other Cairhienin as well, for one of the Houses contesting for the throne. Daerid sounded neither eager nor relunctant; he sounded like a man with a job of work to do. |
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The last, named by all three just before him, had been Chel Vanin, an Andoran who had lived in Maerone but ranged wide on both sides of the Erinin. Vanin could steal a hen pheasant's eggs without disturbing her on the nest, though it was unlikely he would fail to put her in the sack too. Vanin could steal a horse out from under a nobleman without the nobleman knowing it for two days. Or so his recommenders claimed in tones of awe. With a gap-toothed smile and a look of utter innocence on his round face, Vanin had protested he was a stableman and sometimes farrier, when he could find work. But he would take the job for four times the Band's normal pay. So far, he had been more than worth it.. Sitting his dun in front of Mat on that hilltop, Vanin looked disturbed. He approved of Mat not wanting to be called “my Lord,” since he did not much like bowing to anyone, but he managed to knuckle his forehead casually in a rough sort of salute. “I think you got to see this. I don't know what to make of it myself. You got to look for yourself.” |