"Are you sure enough of that to risk it?" Lan spoke quietly, and his face did not change, but Zarine swallowed again.

"There is no need to threaten her, Lan," Perrin said. He was surprised to realize he was glaring at the Warder.

Moiraine's glance silenced him and the Warder both. "You believe you know what an Aes Sedai will not do, do you?" she said more softly than before. Her smile was not pleasant. "If you wish to go with us, this is what you must do." Lan's eyelids flickered in surprise; the two women stared at each other like falcon and mouse, but Zarine was not the falcon, now. "You will swear by your Hunter's oath to do as I say, to heed me, and not to leave us. Once you know more than you should of what we do, I will not allow you to fall into the wrong hands. Know that for truth, girl. You will swear to act as one of us, and do nothing that will endanger our purpose. You will ask no questions of where we go or why: you will be satisfied with what I choose to tell you. All of this you will swear, or you will remain here in Illian. And you will not leave this marsh until I return to release you, if it takes the rest of your life. That I swear."

Zarine turned her head uneasily, watching Moiraine out of one eye. "I may accompany you if I swear?" The Aes Sedai nodded. "I will be one of you, the same as Loial or stone-face. But I can ask no questions. Are they allowed to ask questions?" Moiraine's face lost a little of its patience. Zarine stood up straighter and held her head high. "Very well, then. I swear, by the oath I took as a Hunter. If I break one, I will have broken both. I swear it!"

"Done," Moiraine said, touching the younger woman's forehead; Zarine shivered. "Since you brought her to us, Perrin, she is your responsibility."

"Mine!" he yelped.

"I am no one's responsibility but my own!" Zarine nearly shouted.

The Aes Sedai went serenely on as if they had never opened their mouths. "It seems you have found Min's falcon, ta'veren. I have tried to discourage her, but it appears she will perch on your shoulder whatever I do. The Pattern weaves a future for you, it seems. Yet remember this. If I must, I will snip your thread from the Pattern. And if the girl endangers what must be, you will share her fate."

"I did not ask for her to come along!" Perrin protested. Moiraine calmly mounted Aldieb, adjusting her cloak over the white mare's saddle. "I did not ask for her!" Loial shrugged at him and silently mouthed something. No doubt a saying about the dangers of angering Aes Sedai.

"You are ta'veren?" Zarine said disbelievingly. Her gaze ran over his sturdy country clothes and settled on his yellow eyes. "Well, perhaps. Whatever you are, she threatens you as easily as she does me. Who is Min? What does she mean, I will perch on your shoulder?" Her face tightened. "If you try making me your responsibility, I will carve your ears. Do you hear me?"

Grimacing, he slipped his unstrung bow under the saddle girths along Stepper's flank, and climbed into the saddle. Restive after days on the ship, the dun lived up to his name until Perrin calmed him with a firm hand on the reins and pats to his neck.

"None of that deserves an answer," he growled. Min bloody told her! Burn you, Min! Burn you, too, Moiraine! And Zarine! He could never remember Rand or Mat being bullied by women on every side. Or himself, before leaving Emond's Field. Nynaeve had been the only one. And Mistress Luhhan, of course; she ran him and Master Luhhan both, everywhere but in the smithy. And Egwene had had a way about her, though mostly with Rand. Mistress al'Vere, Egwene's mother, always had a smile, but things seemed to end up being done as she wanted, too. And the Women's Circle had looked over everybody's shoulder.

Grumbling to himself, he reached down and took Zarine by an arm; she gave a squawk and nearly dropped her bundle as he hoisted her up behind his saddle. Those divided skirts of hers made it easy for her to straddle Stepper. "Moiraine will have to buy you a horse," he muttered. "You cannot walk the whole way."

"You are strong, blacksmith," Zarine said, rubbing her arm, "but I am not a piece of iron." She shifted around, stuffing her bundle and her cloak between them. "I can buy my own horse, if I need one. The whole way where?"

Lan was already riding off the dock into the city, with Moiraine and Loial behind him. The Ogier looked back at Perrin.

"No questions, remember? And my name is Perrin, Zarine. Not 'big man,' or 'blacksmith,' or anything else. Perrin. Perrin Aybara."

"And mine is Faile, shaggy-hair."

With something close to a snarl, he booted Stepper after the others. Zarine had to throw her arms around his waist to keep from being tossed over the dun's crupper. He thought she was laughing.

The hubbub of the city quickly submerged Zarine's laughter – if that was what it was – beneath all the clamor that Perrin remembered from Caemlyn and Cairhien. The sounds were different here, slower, and pitched differently, but they were the same, too. Boots and wheels and hooves on rough, uneven paving stones, cart and wagon axles squealing, music and song and laughter drifting from inns and taverns. Voices. A hum of voices like putting his head into a giant beehive. A great city, living.

From down a side street he heard the clang of hammer on anvil, and shifted his shoulders unconsciously. He missed the hammer and tongs in his hands, the white-hot metal giving off sparks as his blows shaped it. The smithy sounds faded behind, buried under the rumble of carts and wagons, and the babble of shopkeepers and people in the streets. Under all the smells of people and horses, cooking and baking, and a hundred scents he had found peculiar to cities lay the smell of marsh and salt water.

He was surprised the first time they came to a bridge inside the city – a low arch of stone over a waterway no more than thirty paces across – but by the third such bridge, he realized that Illian was crisscrossed by as many canals as streets, with men poling laden barges as often as plying whips to move heavy wagons. Sedan chairs wove through the crowds in the streets, and occasionally the lacquered coach of some wealthy merchant or a noble, with crest or House sign painted large on the doors. Many of the men wore peculiar beards that left their upper lip bare, while the women seemed to favor hats with wide brims and attached scarves that they wound around their necks.

Once they crossed a great square, many hides in extent, surrounded by huge columns of white marble at least fifteen spans tall and two spans thick, supporting nothing but a wreath of carved olive branches at the top of each. A huge, white palace stood at either end of the square, each all columned walks and airy balconies, slender towers and purple roofs. Each reflected the other exactly, at first glance, but then Perrin realized that one was just a fraction smaller in each dimension, its towers perhaps less than a pace shorter.

"The King's Palace," Zarine said against his back, "and the Great Hall of the Council. It is said the first King of Illian said the Council of Nine could have any palace they wished, just as long as they did not try to build one larger than his. So the Council copied the King's palace exactly, but two feet smaller in every measurement. That has been the way of Illian ever since. The King and the Council of Nine duel with each other, and the Assemblage struggles with both, and so while they carry on their battles, the people live much as they wish, with none to look over their shoulders too much. It is not a bad way to live, if you must be tied to one city. You would also like to know, I think, blacksmith, that this is the Square of Tammaz, where I took the Hunter's Oath. I think I will end up teaching you so much, no one will notice the hay in your hair."