The quartermaster, Bavin Rockshaw, was a pale-faced Cairhienin with blond speckled through his graying brown hair, like the fur on a mixed-breed dog. He was spindly through the arms, legs and chest, yet had an almost perfectly round paunch. He had apparently worked at quartermastering as far back as the Aiel War, and was an expert—a master as practiced in overseeing supply operations as a master carpenter was at woodworking.

That, of course, meant that he was an expert at taking bribes. When he saw Faile, he smiled and bowed stiffly enough to be formal, but without ornamentation. “I’m a simple soldier, doing his duty,” that bow said.

“Lady Faile!” he exclaimed, waving over some of his serving men. “Here to inspect the ledgers, I assume?”

“Yes, Bavin,” she said, though she knew there would be nothing suspicious in them. He was far too careful.

Still, she made a cursory motion of going through the records. One of the men brought her a stool, another a table upon which to place the ledgers, and yet another a cup of tea. She was impressed at how neatly the columns added up. Her mother had explained that often, a quartermaster would make many messy notations, referencing other pages or other ledgers, separating different types of supplies into different books, all to make it more difficult to track what was going on. A leader who was befuddled by the notations would assume that the quartermaster must be doing his job.

There was none of that here. Whatever tricks of numbering Bavin was using to obscure his thievery, they were nothing short of magical. And he was stealing, or at least being creative in how he doled out his foodstuffs. That was inevitable. Most quartermasters didn’t really consider it thievery; he was in charge of his supplies, and that was that.

“How odd it is,” Faile said as she leafed through the ledger. “The strange twists of fate.”

“My Lady?” Bavin asked.

“Hmm? Oh, it is nothing. Only that Torven Rikshan’s camp has received their meals each evening a good hour ahead of the other camps. I’m certain that’s just by chance.”

Bavin hesitated. “Undoubtedly, my Lady.”

She continued to leaf through the ledgers. Torven Rikshan was a Cairhienin lord, and had been placed in charge of one of the twenty camps within the larger mass of refugees. He had an usually large number of nobles in his particular camp. Aravine had brought this to Faile’s attention; she wasn’t certain what Torven had given to receive supplies for meals more quickly, but it wouldn’t do. The other camps might feel that Perrin was favoring one over another.

“Yes,” Faile said, laughing lightly. “Merely coincidence. These things happen in a camp so large. Why, just the other day Varkel Tius was complaining to me that he had put in a requisition for canvas to repair torn tents, but hasn’t had his canvas for nearly a week now. Yet I know for a fact that Soffi Moraton ripped her tent during the stream crossing but had it repaired by that evening.”