One step inside the sitting room, a floral scent of perfume told Perrin there was another woman there before he saw her. When he did, he stared. “Min?” The hair in short curls, the embroidered blue coat and breeches were wrong, but the face was right. “Min, it is you!” Laughing, he caught her up in a hug. “We are gathering everybody, aren’t we? Faile, this is Min. I told you about her.”

That was when he realized what he was smelling from his wife, and put Min down while she was still grinning at him. Suddenly he was too much aware that those tight breeches showed the shape of Min’s legs very well. Faile had very few faults, but she did have a slight tendency toward jealousy. He was not supposed to know she had chased Calle Coplin half a mile with a stick, as if he would ever look twice at another woman when he had her.

“Faile?” Min said, holding out her hands. “Any woman who can put up with this hairy lummox long enough to marry him has my admiration. I suppose he might make a good husband at that, once you house break him.”

Faile took Min’s hands smiling, but oh, that acrid, bristly scent. “I’ve not succeeded in the house breaking yet, Min, but I intend to keep him at least until I do.”

“Mistress Luhhan curtsies?” Rand shook his head in disbelief. “I will have to see that to believe it. Where’s Loial? Did he come? You didn’t leave him outside?”

“He came,” Perrin said, trying to keep an eye on Faile without being obvious, “but not all the way, not yet. He said he was tired, and needed a stedding, so I told him one I know of, an abandoned one north of the road from Whitebridge, and he set off for it afoot. He said he would be able to feel it once he was within ten miles or so.”

“I suppose you know Rand and Perrin very well?” Faile asked, and Min glanced at Rand.

“For a while, anyway. I met them right after they first left the Two Rivers. They thought Baerlon was a grand city.”

“On foot?” Rand said.

“Yes,” Perrin said slowly. Faile’s scent was changing, the thorny jealousy dwindling away. Why? “He would rather use his feet, you know. He bet me a gold crown he would be here in Caemlyn no more than ten days after us.” The two women were looking at one another, Faile smiling and Min coloring slightly; Min smelled faintly embarrassed, Faile pleased. And surprised, though only a hint showed on her face. “I didn’t want to take his coin—he has to go fifty miles or more out of his way—but he insisted. He wanted to make it five days.”