As the last line was tossed ashore and seized by a dockman, a girl in narrow, divided skirts burst out of the shadows between two warehouses, a bundle in her arms and a dark cloak streaming behind her. She leaped onto the deck just as the men at the sweeps began pushing off.

Adarra bustled from his place by the tiller, but she calmly set down her bundle and said briskly, “I will take passage downriver . . . oh . . . say, as far as he is going.” She nodded toward Perrin without looking at him. “I’ve no objections to sleeping on deck. Cold and wet do not bother me.”

A few minutes of bargaining followed. She passed over three silver marks, frowned at the coppers she got back, then stuffed them into her purse and came forward to stand beside Perrin.

She had an herbal scent to her, light and fresh and clean. Those dark, tilted eyes regarded him over high cheekbones, then turned to look back toward shore. She was about his own age, he decided; he could not decide if her nose fit her face, or dominated it. You are a fool, Perrin Aybara. Why care what she looks like?

The gap to the wharf was a good twenty paces, now; the sweeps dug in, cutting white furrows in black water. For a moment he considered tossing her over the side.

“Well,” she said after a moment, “I never expected my travels to take me back to Illian so soon as this.” Her voice was high, and she had a flat way of speaking, but it was not unpleasant. “You are going to Illian, are you not?” He tightened his mouth. “Don’t sulk,” she said. “You left quite a mess back there, you and that Aielman between you. The uproar was just beginning when I left.”

“You did not tell them?” he said in surprise.

“The townsfolk think the Aielman chewed through the chain, or broke it with his bare hands. They had not decided which when I left.” She made a sound suspiciously like a giggle. “Orban was quite loud in his disgust that his wounds would keep him from hunting down the Aielman personally.”

Perrin snorted. “If he ever sees an Aiel again, he’ll bloody soil himself.” He cleared his throat and muttered, “Sorry.”

“I do not know about that,” she said, as if his remark had been nothing out of the way. “I saw him in Jehannah during the winter. He fought four men together, killed two and made the other two yield. Of course, he started the fight, so that takes something away from it, but they knew what they were doing. He did not pick a fight with men who could not defend themselves. Still, he is a fool. He has these peculiar ideas about the Great Blackwood. What some call the Forest of Shadows. Have you ever heard of it?”