This week, Reading The Wheel of Time is covering chapter four of Knife of Dreams, in which Perrin makes a deal with the Dark One, but not quite literally, and proves that he’s a lot better at strategy than he thinks he is.
Perrin and Berelain wait on the edge of a clearing to meet the Seanchan with whom they hope to make an alliance against the Shaido. Gallene is concerned about Berelain’s safety, as is Annoura. Berelain is still angry at Annoura, and isn’t listening to her advice. Arganda is particularly anxious over whether or not the Seanchan will stand them up, while Aram tells them that the Prophet says they won’t, or that it’s a trap, and that they can’t trust the Seanchan.
Perrin held his silence, but felt his own spike of irritation, as much with himself as with the onetime Tinker. Balwer had informed him that Aram had begun spending time with Masema, yet it had seemed unnecessary to tell the man not to let Masema know everything Perrin was doing. There was no putting the egg back into the shell, but he would know better in the future. A workman should know his tools, and not use them to breaking. The same went for people. As for Masema, no doubt he was afraid they would meet someone who knew he himself was dealing with the Seanchan.
They have fifty of the Winged Guards and as many Ghealdanin, as well as Grady and two Two Rivers men, one of whom is carrying Perrin’s Red Wolfhead banner and the other the Red Eagle of Manetheren.
Perrin hears the warning “bluetits’ trills” of the Two Rivers men he has as sentries in the woods, and smells approaching horses, before anyone else. He waits until the calls get closer and everyone knows that the Seanchan are coming, and in greater numbers that were agreed. Perrin reminds Gallenne that they have planned for this eventuality, and Berelain confirms that Perrin knows what he’s doing.
The Seanchan party, escorted by Tallanvor, reaches the clearing, and Perrin instructs Aram to stay behind—he’s worried Aram might say something rash and endanger the agreement. Perrin, Arganda, Berelain and Gallenne, followed by ten of each of the party of soldiers, are met in the middle of the clearing by Tallanvor, two armored Seanchan, and the sul’dam and damane pair.
Tallanvor makes formal introductions. The Seanchan are Banner-General Tylee Khirgan and Captain Bakayar Mishima. The first thing Banner-General Khirgan does is quote from the Prophecies of the Dragon.
“When the Wolf King carries the hammer, thus are the final days known. When the fox marries the raven, and the trumpets of battle are blown.”
She also remarks upon Berelain’s name, and how her family being descended from Artur Paendrag makes her a distant cousin of the Imperial Royal Family, and that no doubt the Empress will honor her, as long as she makes no claim to Hawkwing’s empire. Berelain replies that she claims only Mayene, and that she will defend that to her last breath.
Perrin interrupts them. He isn’t interested in any of this, although the idea that he is mentioned in the Prophecies is upsetting. They briefly discuss the fact that they have both brought more men than was agreed upon, and Mishima points out that neither side can trust the other. But Perrin is insistent that Seanchan must trust him—he has every reason not to attack them, but the same cannot be said in the other direction. He executes the first part of his plan to force the Seanchan out of the woods, and lifts a heavy branch he has brought for the purpose.
*“I expect your men are probably good soldiers. My men aren’t soldiers, though they’ve fought Trollocs and Shaido and done well against both.” Gripping the branch at its base, he held it high overhead, the shaved sides uppermost and facing either side. “But they’re used to hunting lions and leopards and ridgecats come down out of the mountains after our flocks, and wild boar and bear, animals that hunt back, in forests not much different from this.”
Perrin put his two best archers in position for this demonstration, and shows the Seanchan how both arrows were not just on target, but went clean through the branch, as they will through armor as well. Then he tosses the branch in the air and it bursts into flame. The sul’dam tells Khirgan that the act was not done by an Aes Sedai, demonstrating that Perrin has an Asha’man with him.
Finally, Perrin presents the Manetheren standard to the Banner-General, telling her that his home lies in the heart of what was once Manetheren, and pointing out how troublesome a claim to Manetheren could be for them. He promises, if they will agree to help free Faile, to give up that claim, and to sign any document they want to that effect.
Suddenly a huge gale springs out of nowhere, strong enough to pelt them with grit and stinking of sulfur. The horses are terrified, and it takes a while to calm them. Khirgan makes a sign against the Dark One and wonders what that breeze could have been, but Perrin redirects her to the question at hand.
The Banner-General observes that a claim on Manetheren would be a huge problem, and that most of Amadicia is buzzing with talk of Perrin and that banner. She has Mishima sound the withdrawal. Perrin calls instructions for his own men to follow suit once the last Seanchan has departed.
Perrin lays out all the information about the Shaido camp for Khirgan, including that they have three or four Wise Ones who can channel in their midst. This is a surprise to Khirgan, but she has her orders and is resigned to making an attempt to fight the Shaido, even though she knows she will fail and have to apologize to the Empress. Perrin doesn’t know why that’s a problem, but he assures her that he has a plan. It is based on the fact that Tallanvor has told him that the Seanchan have a tea that “makes a woman who can channel go wobbly in the knees.” The tea also works on men, and Perrin has a plan to feed it to all the Wise Ones without their noticing, but he needs cartloads at least, since there will be no way to heat the water.
Khirgan points out a few obstacles. Firstly, to obtain such amounts she will have to go to the factory where it is made, which is on the other side of Amadicia. Secondly, to obtain such large amounts, she will have to tell the plan to a superior. But Perrin has an answer to both problems. The first is Traveling, with Grady’s help. The second is the letter Berelain’s spy, Santes, stole from Masema, stating that the bearer is under the personal protection of Suroth Sabelle Meldarath, to give him whatever aid he requires “in service to the Empire” and to speak of it to no one but Suroth herself.
Handing the paper to Mishima, the Banner-General stared at Perrin. That sharp, hard scent was back, stronger than ever. “Aes Sedai, Asha’man, Aiel, your eyes, that hammer, now this! Who are you?”
Perrin answers that he is a man who wants his wife back, and as the two shake hands, he thinks that he has made a deal with the Dark One, but that he will do anything to get Faile back.
I appreciated that Perrin was conscious of the sul’dam and damane pair, and that he thought more than once about how making this alliance was making a deal with the Dark One himself. It isn’t, technically, since the Seanchan as a nation are not allied with the Dark. But watching Perrin make a deal with a group he despises raised some interesting moral questions, and especially reminded me of a question I was asking at the end of the last book: How far will Perrin actually be willing to go?
The question of morality in his temporary alliance with the Seanchan is a tricky one, I think. On the one hand, it’s hard to argue that Perrin should be morally obligated to oppose the Seanchan at every turn. He could have laid a trap to take this group of them out, of course, but generally speaking, he doesn’t command enough forces to drive them from Amadicia or execute any other opposition on the scale of war. We saw how difficult it was for Rand when he tried it, and Rand had more soldiers and many more Asha’man at his disposal than Perrin has, plus the use of Callandor, as much as that backfired.
Also, if Perrin were to lead his followers against the Seanchan, it would put Berelain and Arganda in a difficult political position, making a statement about Ghealdan and Mayne’s official attitudes towards the Seanchan.
He does, of course, have a moral responsibility to his wife, as well as a moral and legal one to Alliandre, who is his liege woman, and the others who were under his and Faile’s command and therefore under their care. Arganda has his own legal duty to his Queen, of course, which might not be the motivating factor in his decisions, but so far his drive to free Faile also serves those other obligations, so there’s no conflict.
I don’t think Perrin has an obligation to try to free the damane, either. I kind of want to say he does, morally speaking, but realistically, such an attempt would come at a heavy cost to his own forces, and Perrin probably knows at least a little about the damane resistance to being freed. One might argue that there is an obligation to try to free the slave in front of you rather than ignoring her in favor of those who are far away and currently out of your reach, but not if she’s likely to resist your attempts, and when you have a legal, as well as moral, duty to those other prisoners.
But. But. I do think there is a line here, somewhere. How would the situation change if Perrin had found an escaped damane and the price of the alliance was to return her to the Seanchan? What if the Seanchan demanded a marath’damane from him, and Perrin’s choice was between turning over Annoura and losing this one chance to free Faile? It’s all well and good for him to be convinced that he will do whatever it takes, pay any price to free Faile, but so far the biggest test of that commitment has been his treatment of the Shaido prisoners, which is still, I think, in a gray area.
A modern reader is, of course, repelled by the idea of torture, but it is important to remember that being put to the Question is common in many cultures in this world, and that most also have distinct rules around what is and isn’t acceptable. They might not match the guidelines of the Geneva Convention, but they are regulations, and a code of morality to which good and honorable people subscribe. While Perrin’s action in cutting off the Shaido prisoners doesn’t exactly put him on the right side of morality, it does pale in comparison to the torture someone like Asunawa or Valda is willing to carry out, or the torture the Shaido inflict on their prisoners. In some ways, even the knowledge of how the Aes Sedai and Aiel handle the punishment of those they train makes a single lost hand feel trivial in comparison to the collective suffering of mankind (though not to the person who lost the hand, of course) in this world.
Even the torture that was being done by the ear collector and Masema’s other followers was being carried out by men who enjoyed inflicting pain, who saw it as a pleasure rather than a necessary evil, and Perrin didn’t enjoy what he did. It’s hard to compare the scale of chopping of a hand and immediately having the wound healed to a prolonged session of torture with hot coals, but Perrin’s actions did end the torture efficiently, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
If Perrin had carried out his threat to chop off hands and feet and leave the Aiel as beggars, or been willing and ready to carry out that threat if necessary—something I do not believe he would have done—I think that would have been crossing that line. I don’t really believe he would have carried the threat through, but we don’t know, because it worked. I’m still waiting for that narrative Chekhov’s gun to go off. And I think there will be more tests for Perrin before all this is over and Faile is back in his arms.
Is there some great mistake waiting for Perrin that’s much worse than any of the gray areas he’s stepped into so far? I can’t help but feel like there must be. It also occurs to me that the Aes Sedai with Perrin are probably safe from the Seanchan as long as he is allied with Khirgan, but if all the Shaido Wise Ones are dosed with forkroot, even a weak infusion of it, that will leave them helpless during the battle, not just unable to channel but possibly unable to fight with knives or fists. They might even be incapacitated to the point of not being able to participate in a retreat, and I don’t think Perrin could stop the Seanchan from taking them as damane.
The Shaido might be pretty awful, as a group, but not so awful that most of them deserve the fate of becoming damane. Therava might, if we take an eye-for-an-eye approach to justice, and possibly some of the others who Sevanna convinced to kill Desaine with the One Power, but there are many other Wise Ones there besides Sevanna’s little coterie of thirteen murderesses. The idea that so many of them might end up as damane is a chilling thought. Such a gain would also be a boon to the fighting strength of the Seanchan, which isn’t ideal, either.
It was very interesting to hear that bit of the Prophecies of the Dragon from Khirgan. Unlike Perrin, I wasn’t surprised to learn that he is mentioned in the Prophecies, but I don’t remember if we’ve encountered any passages that mention him before now. This is definitely the first mention of a wolf king and his hammer, although I seem to recall wolves being mentioned as a sign of the coming of the Last Battle, or being connected to it in some way.
The fox marrying the raven rings a bell though and is clearly a reference to Mat and Tuon. Mat even has the ring with the fox and ravens on it, which Tuon took special interest in. She, of course, must be well-versed in the Prophecies, and since she also had her fortune told and knows that Mat is going to be her husband, it would be easy enough for her to make that connection.
An aside: It’s very interesting to me that ravens are associated with the Dark One and yet are the symbol of the Seanchan. Of course, not all ravens are spies for the Dark One, just like not all rats are, but the Aes Sedai still had wards to prevent any rats from entering the White Tower, and Rand was paying people to catch and kill them at one point, just knowing that some are the Dark One’s servants. Meanwhile, Perrin, Egwene, and Elyas almost got pecked to death by a flock of ravens back in The Eye of the World, so we know they can be a threat. And yet no one thinks picking that symbol to represent your entire nation is a questionable decision?
This reminds me that, when Egwene told Silviana and the others about her Dream of the Seanchan attack on the Tower, Silviana thought that ravens must indicate the Shadow, if the dream were indeed a true Dream. Egwene knows what her Dream means, of course, and I hadn’t really remarked the point at the time, but it’s an interesting little thought, now that I stop to consider it.
It took me a minute to remember where Perrin got that letter from Suroth—it’s the one that Berelain’s spy took from Masema’s tent when he was looking around in there. Berelain wished he had just made note of the contents rather than removing the document, but it sure is fortuitous that Perrin has it. It also makes me wonder what, exactly, Masema has been recruited to do for the Seanchan. I’d speculated that his hatred of channelers might align him with the Seanchan in some way, but this document seems rather too powerful to be based on such a flimsy connection. Since it’s from Suroth, there’s the likelihood that her motivations in giving it to him were more about carrying out the will of the Dark. And either way, Suroth is the leader of the Hailene. There aren’t very many Seanchan on this side of the Aryth Ocean who outrank her, which gives the bearer of that letter almost unlimited power and opportunities to do whatever he wants. Getting a couple wagonfuls of tea, even special tea like forkroot, is probably not as intense as whatever Masema was going to do with that piece of paper.
Speaking of Masema, I keep forgetting that the initial reason for Perrin’s whole trip was to get Masema and bring him back to Rand. Of course as soon as Perrin agreed to travel on foot rather than use channeling to bring Masema back Rand, something was bound to go wrong. It doesn’t really matter since Rand has already moved on to a lot of other important things and wouldn’t be around/have time to deal with Masema anyway. But it is another duty that Perrin is technically neglecting in his quest to rescue the prisoners—though I don’t think Rand would disagree with Perrin’s choices in the matter.
Some of the Two Rivers folks might also have some opinions about Perrin giving up the Manetheren banner, and any future claim to re-establishing that nation. He’s not actually giving up anything except the ability to use the threat of that claim for other political movements, but it’s clear that the idea of Manetheren means a lot to his men, which makes sense; we’ve seen how little contact the Two Rivers and surrounding areas have had with any governing body of Andor, and how unused they are to the idea of nobility, never mind royalty. But Perrin was one of them, he makes sense to them, and the idea of Manetheren and Perrin as Lord thereof can be tied to their own sense of identity much more easily than Andor and some Queen they’ve never seen. Not that Elayne would stand for Perrin, or anyone else, trying to carve his own kingdom out of hers, in any case. Perhaps Elayne and Rand will get legally married someday, though. That might appeal to the Emond’s Fielders, at least.
And then there’s Aram, whose relationship with Perrin continues to deteriorate. If the man is listening to Masema, I think it’s only a matter of time before he’s no longer loyal to Perrin; he might still be loyal to Faile, but she isn’t here, and Aram clearly needs more direction and support than he’s getting from Perrin. I’d say that this is another area where Perrin is dropping the ball in his single-minded pursuit of rescuing Faile, but I don’t actually think he’s ever known how to help Aram. His initial instinct was to support Aram’s right to make his own decisions, even if those were against the religion (I think it’s fair to call the Way of the Leaf a religion, or at least a faith) in which he was raised. But Perrin never really understood the void that Aram’s choices left in his life. In a single moment he lost his grandparents, his connection to the rest of the Tuatha’an, and the guiding principle of his life. And this was shortly after seeing his mother brutally murdered, as well.
It’s hardly surprising that a void was left in Aram’s life, and that he wouldn’t function well without having that void filled by something else. His almost fanatical devotion to Perrin, and later to Faile, filled that void for a while, with Aram’s love for them functioning both as a faith and a personal connection to other human beings. But neither Perrin nor Faile can be everything to Aram, even if they wanted to be. Faile was more aware of this issue than Perrin, and more aware of Perrin’s responsibility towards the young man, but at the end of the day they both have so many responsibilities, so many people to look after and so many crises to take care of, that Aram was bound to run into trouble unless he found something else to fill his life with.
And while Masema’s violent fanaticism isn’t very comparable to the Tuatha’an’s adherence to the Way of the Leaf, one thing that both beliefs offer is clarity. The Way of the Leaf gave Aram an exact set of rules to life his life by, and that is something that the Prophet can offer him as well. Plus, where Perrin was uncomfortable under the worshipful attitude Aram directed at him, Masema is very happy to be seen as something larger than life, someone more than an ordinary man. It makes perfect sense that Aram would be drawn to him.
Having just watched the most recent episode of The Wheel of Time television show, in which Rand took his journey through the columns of Rhuidean, I find myself thinking, too, about how many Aiel could not face the truth of learning who they were before the Breaking. And next week we will also be reminded of Mera’din, the Brotherless who were splintered from their clans because they could not accept that Rand, a wetlander, is the true Car’a’carn. This loss of connection to their families and clans is not unlike the loss Aram experienced when he chose to abandon the Way of the Leaf after realizing that he might have been able to save his mother’s life if he knew how to fight. But Aram doesn’t really belong to Emond’s Field or the Two Rivers, and that is beginning to show, just as the Brotherless don’t really belong to, or with, the Shaido, a fact that will come up again next week when we catch up with Faile.
I did appreciate how Perrin doesn’t resent Aram for anything. He may not have the time or the psychological understanding to deal properly with Aram’s issues, but he’s at least somewhat aware of his own responsibility in the matter.
Perrin’s use of strategy in this chapter is pretty impressive, and I think it’s a mark not only of how he is much smarter and more canny than he gives himself credit for, but also how much he has learned since he first started leading men back in The Shadow Rising. He knows how to use his archers to best effect, and how useful they can be even against superior numbers. His display of the archer’s power, demonstrating how the Shaido could easily be taken out without ever getting close enough to fight back, reminded me of the Battle of Agincourt and other such conflicts of the time, in which the longbow won victories for the English even when they were severely outnumbered. The speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V in which the titular character marvels at how few casualties his forces experienced compared to the French always struck me powerfully, especially when I first read it as a kid, and I felt a little of that awe when Perrin used the branch and impressed the Seanchan so thoroughly.
Finally, Amadicia is pretty far from Dragonmount, and I found myself wondering if the sudden wind that struck Perrin and the others during the negotiations had anything to do with the one that came to the Aes Sedai camp down off of that great volcanic mountain. The description is certainly similar, both from the fierceness of the gusts and the scent of sulfur. That’s probably what it is, but one can never be sure, and although volcanoes and lava are part of the natural world, so are ravens and rats. And lava is also associated with the Dark One, as we see a lake of it in (or maybe I should say comprising?) the Pit of Doom. That seems important, given everything that’s going on with the Dark One touching the world lately.
Two little extra observations:
I thought it was really cute that Perrin finds Berelain more beautiful now that she’s not sexually harassing him anymore. Berelain is such a funny character to me because when she’s not chasing unavailable men, she’s so cool and fun to read about, but when she is, she’s super annoying and I just want her to leave.
I also like the way a lot of the Seanchan generals and commanders are written. Khirgan is included in this, and I was particularly tickled when she complained about Perrin yelling too loudly. The image of her trying to stick a gauntleted finger in her ear was, frankly, hilarious.
The Banner-General stuck her little finger into her ear and wiggled it about in spite of her gauntlet. “You have a strong voice,” she said dryly.
Next week we’ll cover chapter five, the counterpart to this one, in which Faile also makes some strides in maybe, possibly, having a plan to escape Sevanna and the Shaido. Also, something weird happens with the Pattern. So that’s fun!
