Can Perrin smell death?

[RAND AL THOR]

Extract from Lord of Chaos:

 

 

For another thing, people knew he was Rand's friend. Even had he not arrived as he did, some of the Aiel and Tairens remembered him from the Stone, and word spread. Lords and ladies he had never seen in his life introduced themselves in hallways, and Tairen High Lords who had stared down their noses at him in Tear addressed him like an old friend in Cairhien. Most smelled of fear, and an odor he could not put a name to.

They all wanted the same thing, he realized.

"I'm afraid the Lord Dragon doesn't always take me into his confidence, my Lady," he said politely to a cold-eyed woman named Colavaere, "and when he does, you wouldn't expect me to break that confidence." Her smile seemed to come from a great height; she seemed to be wondering how he would skin out for a lap rug.

She had a strange smell, hard and smooth and somehow ... high.

"I don't really know what Rand intends to do," he told Meilan. The man very nearly repeated his nosestaring, for all he smiled nearly as much as Colavaere. He had the smell too, just as potently. "Maybe you should ask him."

"If I did know, I'd hardly talk it all over the city," he told a white-haired weasel with too many teeth, a fellow called Maringil. By then he was growing tired of attempts to milk him. Maringil also gave off the smell, every bit as heavily as Colavaere or Meilan.

They three carried it far more than anyone else, a dangerous smell, he knew in his bones, like a dry mountain top before an avalanche.

 

What is this smell that Perrin does not recognize? A few pages before this extract, Min stated that those 3 were due to die through poisoning, hanging and stabbing. Is it possible that Perrin is able to somewhat predict someone's death? I can't think of anything else that these 3 have in common that Perrin is unable to identify.

 

Thoughts thoughts.

[DarkJustice]

He was probably smelling either arrogance or ambition.  All three of them exhibited both in extremely large quantities

[trakand_01]

I agree. And looking at his description of it - a dry mountaintop before an avalanche, suggests perhaps anticipation. 'Something' is going to happen...

[RAND AL THOR]

I think you're right.

See the beginning of the quote:

 

Most smelled of fear, and an odor he could not put a name to

 

Quite obviously not ALL the nobles died, so my thread is finished now.  :'(

[Spirit1025]

I don't think that he is smelling that they are about to die. I think he is smelling that they are dangerous (like an avalanche about to come down on him). And it could also have something to do with their arrogance, and their eagerness to use anyone around them to get what they want. If it's death he's smelling, it's the deaths those nobles are wanting to cause, not their own deaths.

[Elwinn Taron]

And don't forget, that the Aes Sedai from the Tower were telling all the nobles (including Berelain) that Rand was going to the Tower with them, and not coming back.  I always thought the raw emotion he was smelling was a wary ambition.

[trakand_01]

Also Wolves are quite civilised in their packs, and have quite definite actions regards weakness etc. Surely if they could smell that one of their number were about to die, they would actively abandon them / distance themselves from them so as to avoid danger and conflict?

 

Just a thought  :)