Perrin can’t sleep, so he walks in on Moiraine changing and finally sees a naked woman. He goes outside, frees the Aielman, and they kill the Whitecloaks who discover them.
The innkeeper shows everyone to their rooms. Perrin sits in his room and overthinks shit. There was a woman in the common room who looked at me. She looked at me! Why me? And that Aielman in the cage — it isn’t right, and I didn’t even try to help. I’m a horrible person. And the award for Most Insecure Character goes to… Perrin Aybara! Congratulations, dude!
Perrin heads over to Moiraine’s room to inflict his obsessive thought patterns on someone else. Opening the door, he gets an eyeful of Moiraine’s birthday suit peeking out of the open front of her robe. He goes beet-red in the face and stammers out an apology. Perrin asks a bunch of stupid questions and leaves, trying to convince himself that he didn’t just think about putting the moves on Moiraine. This guy really needs to get laid.
Outside, the town square is dark and deserted. Maybe Perrin can’t do anything about his woman problems, but he can do something about the Aiel. He frees the man, who does not immediately run away. Let me say that another way. He introduces himself as Gaul, then sticks around to chat, in the dark, right next to the cage. Oh yes. No rush! Gaul says he’s looking for He Who Comes With The Dawn, just like Urine was. Perrin tells him that he’s looking for the same man, and that he knows Rand is bound for Tear. Gaul starts yapping about prophecy, when suddenly a group of Whitecloaks surround them. Before he knows it, corpses litter the ground, and Perrin is definitely responsible for one or two of them.
Perrin realizes the woman from the common room saw the whole thing, but she scurries off when Lan arrives at a run.