The Warder’s long legs outdistanced Perrin’s, and by the time he pushed through the throng outside the inn doors, Lan was already striding up the stairs, not seeming in any particular hurry. Perrin made himself walk as slowly. From the doorway behind him came grumbles about people pushing ahead of other people.

“Again?” Orban was saying, holding his silver cup up to be refilled. “Aye, very well. They lay in ambush close beside the road we traveled, and an ambush I did not expect so close to Remen. Screaming, they rushed upon us from the crowding brush. In a breath they were in our midst, their spears stabbing, slaying two of my best men and one of Gann’s immediately. Aye, I knew Aiel when I saw them, and. . . .”

Perrin hurried up the stairs. Well, Orban knows them now.

Voices came from behind Moiraine’s door. He did not want to hear what she had to say about this. He hurried past to stick his head into Loial’s room.

The Ogier bed was a low, massive thing, twice as long and half as wide as any human bed Perrin had ever seen. It took up much of the room, and that was as large and as fine as Moiraine’s. Perrin vaguely remembered Loial saying something about it being sung wood, and at any other time he might have stopped to admire those flowing curves that made it seem as if the bed had somehow grown where it stood. Ogier really must have stopped in Remen at some time in the past, for the innkeeper had also found a wooden armchair that fit Loial, and filled it with cushions. The Ogier was comfortably sitting on them in his shirt and breeches, idly scratching a bare ankle with a toenail as he wrote in a large, cloth-bound book on an arm of the chair.

“We’re leaving!” Perrin said.

Loial gave a jump, nearly upsetting his ink bottle and almost dropping the book. “Leaving? We only just arrived,” he rumbled.

“Yes, leaving. Meet us at the stable as quickly as you can. And don’t let anyone see you go. I think there’s a back stair that runs down by the kitchen.” The smell of food at his end of the hall had been too strong for there not to be.

The Ogier gave one regretful look at the bed, then started tugging on his high boots. “But why?”

“The Whitecloaks,” Perrin said. “I’ll tell you more later.” He ducked back out before Loial could ask any more.