A Crown of Swords

## Chapter 39

#### Promises to Keep

We are bloody well getting out of here now,” Mat said again later, and this time there was argument. There had been argument for the past half hour, near enough. Outside, the sun was past its noon peak. The trade winds cut the heat a little; stiff yellow curtains fastened over the tall windows bulged and snapped at gusts. Three hours back in the Tarasin Palace, the dice still bouncing in his head, and he wanted to kick something. Or somebody. He tugged at the scarf tied around his neck; it felt as though the rope that had given him the scar under that scarf was back and tightening slowly. “Love of the Light, are you all blind? Or just deaf?”

The room Tylin had provided was large, with green walls and high blue ceiling, and no furnishings but gilded chairs and small tables set with pearlshell, yet it was crowded even so. It seemed so, anyway. Tylin herself sat before one of the three marble fireplaces with her knees crossed, watching him with those dark eagle’s eyes and a small smile, idly kicking her layered blue and yellow petticoats, idly toying with the jeweled hilt of her curved knife. He suspected Elayne or Nynaeve had spoken to her. They were there, too, seated to either side of the Queen, somehow in clean dresses and apparently even bathed, though they had only been out of his sight for minutes at a stretch since returning to the palace. They almost matched Tylin for regal dignity in their bright silks; he was not sure who they wanted to impress, with all that lace and elaborate embroidery. They looked ready for a royal ball, not a journey. He himself was still in his muck, with his dusty green coat hanging open and the silver foxhead caught in the neck of his half undone shirt. Knotting the leather cord had shortened it, but he wanted the medallion touching his skin. He was around women who could channel, after all.

Truth, those three women could probably have crowded the room by themselves. Tylin could have done it by herself, so far as he was concerned; if Nynaeve or Elayne had spoken to her, it was a very good thing that he was going. They three could have done it alone, but . . .

“This is preposterous,” Merilille announced. “I’ve never heard of any Shadowspawn called a gholam. Have any of you?” That was directed to Adeleas and Vandene, Sareitha and Careane. Facing Tylin, the cool-eyed Aes Sedai serenity of all five made a fair job of turning their high-backed armchairs into thrones. He could not understand why Nynaeve and Elayne just sat like lumps, coolly serene too, but absolutely silent. They knew, they understood, and for some reason, Merilille and that lot slathered their tongues with meekness for them, now. Mat Cauthon, on the other hand, was a hairy-eared lout who needed to be kicked, and from Merilille on down, they were all ready to do the kicking.

“I saw the thing,” he snapped, “Elayne saw the thing, Reanne and the Wise Women saw it. Ask any of them!”

Gathered at one end of the room, Reanne and the five surviving Wise Women shrank back like huddling hens, afraid of actual questions. All but Sumeko, anyway; thumbs tucked behind her long red belt, the round woman kept frowning at the Aes Sedai, then shaking her head, frowning, then shaking her head. Nynaeve had had a considerable talk with her in the privacy of the cabin on the boat coming back, and Mat thought that had something to do with her newfound attitude. He had caught mention of Aes Sedai more than once; not that he had been trying to eavesdrop. The rest seemed to be wondering whether they should offer to fetch tea. Only Sumeko had even appeared to consider the offer of a chair. Sibella, flapping bony arms in shock, had nearly fainted.

“No one denies the word of Elayne Aes Sedai, Master Cauthon,” said Renaile din Calon Blue Star in a cool deep voice. Even had the dignified woman in silks to match the red-and-yellow floor tiles not been named to him earlier, the old memories meshed into his own would have identified her as Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships by the ten fat gold rings in her earlobes, those in each ear connected by a golden chain and half-hidden by the narrow wings of white in her straight black hair. The medallions clustered along the finer chain that ran to her nose ring would tell him what clan she came from among other things. So would the tattoos on her slim dark hands. “What we question is the danger,” she continued. “We do not like leaving the water without good cause.”

Nearly twenty Sea Folk women stood gathered behind her chair, a riot of colorful silks and earrings and medallions on chains for the most part. The first odd thing he had noticed about them was their attitude toward the Aes Sedai. They were perfectly respectful, on the surface at any rate, but he had never before seen anyone look at Aes Sedai smugly. The second odd thing came from those other men’s memories; he did not know a great deal about the Sea Folk from them, but enough. Every Atha’an Miere, man or woman, began as the lowest deckhand whether they were destined one day to become the Master of the Blades or the Mistress of the Ships herself, and every step of the way between, the Sea Folk were sticklers for rank to make any king or Aes Sedai look a sloven. The women behind Renaile were a peculiar lot by any measure—Windfinders to Wavemistresses rubbing shoulders with Windfinders from soarers, by their medallions—but two wore bright blouses of plain wool above the dark oily breeches of deckhands, each with a single thin ring in her left ear. A second and third ring in the right indicated they were being trained as Windfinders, but with two more to earn, not to mention the nose ring, it would be a long while yet that either would find herself called to haul sail whenever the deckmaster needed her, and find the deckmaster’s flail across her rump if she did not move quickly enough. Those two did not belong in this gathering by any memory he had; normally, the Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships would not even have spoken to one of them.

“Very much as I said, Renaile,” Merilille said, icily condescending. She had certainly noticed those smug glances. That tone did not change as she shifted her attention to him. “Do not grow petulant, Master Cauthon. We are willing to listen to reason. If you have any.”

Mat gathered patience; he hoped he could find enough. Maybe if he used both hands and both feet. “Gholam were created in the middle of the War of the Power, during the Age of Legends,” he began from the beginning. Almost from the beginning of what Birgitte had told him. He turned, facing each group of women as he spoke. Burn him if he was going to let one bunch think they were more important. Or that he was bloody pleading with them. Especially since he was. “They were made to assassinate Aes Sedai. No other reason. To kill people who could channel. The One Power won’t help you; the Power won’t touch a gholam. In fact, they can sense the ability to channel, if they’re within, say, fifty paces of you. They can feel the power in you, too. You won’t know the gholam until it’s too late. They look just like anybody else. On the outside. Inside . . . Gholam have no bones; they can squeeze themselves under a door. And they’re strong enough to rip a door off steel hinges with one hand.” Or rip out a throat. Light, he should have let Nalesean stay in bed.

Suppressing a shiver, he pressed on. The women, all of them, watched him, almost not appearing to blink. He would not let them see him shiver. “There were only six gholam made—three male and three female; at least, that’s what they look like. Apparently even the Forsaken were a little uneasy about them. Or maybe they just decided six was enough. Either way, we know one is in Ebou Dar, probably kept alive since the Breaking in a stasis-box. We don’t know if any others were put into that box, but one is more than enough. Whoever sent him—and it had to be one of the Forsaken—knew to follow us across the river. He had to have been sent after the Bowl of the Winds, and by what he said to me, to kill Nynaeve or Elayne, maybe both.” He spared them a quick look, soothing and sympathetic; nobody could feel easy knowing that thing was after them. In return he received a puzzled frown from Elayne, just the smallest wrinkling of her forehead, and from Nynaeve a slight wave of the hand, an impatient wave, to get on with it.

“ . . . To continue,” he said, shooting the pair of them a glare. It was very hard not to sigh, dealing with women. “Whoever sent the gholam has to know the Bowl is here in the Tarasin Palace, now. If he, or she, sends the gholam here, some of you are going to die. Maybe a lot of you. I can’t protect all of you at once. Maybe he’ll get the Bowl, too. And that’s on top of Falion Bhoda; small chance she’s alone, even with Ispan a prisoner, so that means we have the Black Ajah to worry about, as well. Just in case the Forsaken and gholam aren’t enough for you.” Reanne and the Wise Women drew themselves up even more indignantly than Merilille and her friends at mention of the Black Ajah, and the Aes Sedai, stiffening and gathering skirts, looked ready to stalk out in a huff. Press on; that was all he could do. “Now . . . Now do you see why you all have to leave the palace and take the Bowl somewhere the gholam doesn’t know about? Somewhere the Black Ajah doesn’t know? Do you see why it has to be done now?”

Renaile’s sniff would have startled geese in the next room. “You merely repeat yourself, Master Cauthon. Merilille Sedai says she has never heard of this gholam. Elayne Sedai says there was a strange man, a creature, but little else. What is this . . . stasis-box! You have not explained that. How do you know what you claim to know? Why should we go any further from the water than we are on the word of a man who creates fables from air?”

Mat looked to Nynaeve and Elayne, though with little hope. If they would only open their mouths, this could been have been finished long since, but they gazed back at him, practicing expressionless Aes Sedai masks till their jaws must be creaking. He could not understand their silence. A bare-bones account of events in the Rahad had been all they gave, and he was willing to bet they would not have mentioned the Black Ajah at all had there been any other way to explain showing up in the palace with an Aes Sedai bound and shielded. Ispan was being held in another part of the palace, her presence known only to a handful. Nynaeve had forced some concoction down her throat, a foul-smelling mix of herbs that bulged the woman’s eyes going down and had her giggling and stumbling in short order, and the rest of the Knitting Circle occupied the room with her for guards. Unwilling guards, but very assiduous; Nynaeve had made it extremely clear that should they let Ispan get away, they had best start running before she laid hands on them again.

He very carefully did not look toward Birgitte, standing beside the door with Aviendha. The Aiel woman wore an Ebou Dari dress; not the plain wool she had returned in, but a silver-gray silk riding dress that jarred with her plain-sheathed horn-handled belt knife. Birgitte had been quick to shed her own dress for her usual short coat and wide trousers, these dark blue and dark green. A quiver already hung at her hip. She was the source of everything he knew about gholam—and stasis-boxes—except what his eyes had seen in the Rahad. And he would not have revealed that on a hot grill.

“I read a book once that talked about—” he began, and Renaile cut him off.

“A book,” she sneered. “I will not abandon the salt for a book Aes Sedai do not know.”

Suddenly it struck Mat that he was the only man present. Lan had gone off at Nynaeve’s command, gone as tamely as Beslan had at his mother’s. Thom and Juilin were packing to leave. Had probably finished packing by now. If there was any use to it; if they ever did leave. The only man, surrounded by a wall of women who apparently intended to let him beat his head against that wall till his brains were scrambled. It made no sense. None. They looked at him, waiting.

Nynaeve, in yellow-slashed lace-trimmed blue, had pulled her braid over her shoulder so it hung down between her breasts, but that heavy gold ring—Lan’s ring, he had learned—was carefully positioned to show anyway. Her face was smooth, and her hands rested in her lap, yet sometimes her fingers twitched. Elayne, in green Ebou Dari silk that made Nynaeve seem covered up despite the smoky lace collar under her chin, gazed back at him with eyes like cool pools of deep blue water. Her hands lay in her lap too, but now and again she would begin to trace the thread-of-gold embroidery that covered her skirts, then immediately stop. Why did they not say something? Were they trying to get back at him? Was it just a case of “Mat wants to be in charge so much, let him see how well he can do without us”? He might have believed it of Nynaeve, any time but this anyway, but not of Elayne, not anymore. So why?

Reanne and the Wise Women did not huddle away from him as they did from the Aes Sedai, but their manner toward him had changed. Tamarla gave him a decently respectful nod. Honey-haired Famelle went so far as a friendly smile. Strangely, Reanne blushed, a pale stain. But they did not count as opposition, really. The six women had not said a dozen unprompted words between them since entering this room. Every one would jump if Nynaeve or Elayne snapped her fingers, and keep jumping until told to stop.

He turned to the rest of the Aes Sedai. Faces infinitely calm, infinitely patient. Except . . . Merilille’s eyes flickered past him toward Nynaeve and Elayne for one instant. Sareitha began slowly smoothing her skirts under his gaze, seemingly unaware of doing so. A dark suspicion bloomed in his mind. Hands moving on skirts. Reanne’s blush. Birgitte’s ready quiver. A murky suspicion. He did not really know of what. Just that he had been going about this the wrong way. He gave Nynaeve a stern look, and Elayne a sterner. Butter would not have melted on their bloody tongues.

Slowly he walked toward the Sea Folk. He just walked, but he heard someone with Merilille sniff, and Sareitha muttered, “Such insolence!” Well, he was about to show them insolence. If Nynaeve and Elayne did not like it, they should have taken him into their confidence. Light, but he hated being used. Especially when he did not know how, or why.

Stopping in front of Renaile’s chair, he studied the dark faces of the Atha’an Miere women behind it before looking down to her. She frowned, stroking a knife set with moonstones thrust behind her sash. She was a handsome woman rather than pretty, somewhere in her middle years, and under different circumstances he might have enjoyed looking at her eyes. They were large black pools a man could spend an evening just gazing into. Under different circumstances. Somehow, the Sea Folk were the fly in the cream pitcher, and he had not a clue how to pluck it out. He managed to keep his irritation under control. Barely. What to bloody do?

“You can all channel, I understand,” he said quietly, “but that doesn’t mean much to me.” As well be straight from the start. “You can ask Adeleas or Vandene how much I care whether a woman can channel.”

Renaile looked past him toward Tylin, but it was not to the Queen she spoke. “Nynaeve Sedai?” she said dryly, “I believe there was no mention in your bargain of my having to listen to this young oakum picker. I—”

“I don’t bloody care about your bargains with anybody else, you daughter of the sands,” Mat snapped. So his irritation was not that well under control. A man could only take so much.

Gasps rose among the women behind her. Something over a thousand years ago a Sea Folk woman had called an Essenian soldier a son of the sands just before trying to plant a blade in his ribs; the memory lay tucked inside Mat Cauthon’s head, now. It was not the worst insult among the Atha’an Miere, but it came close. Renaile’s face gorged with blood; hissing, eyes bulging in fury, she leaped to her feet, that moonstone-studded dagger flashing in her fist.

Mat snatched it out of her hand before the blade could reach his chest and shoved her back into her chair. He did have quick hands. He could still hold on to his temper, too. No matter how many women thought they could dance him for a puppet, he could—“You listen to me, you bilge stone.” All right; maybe he could not hold it. “Nynaeve and Elayne need you, or I’d leave you for the gholam to crack your bones and the Black Ajah to pick over what’s left. Well, as far as you’re concerned, I’m the Master of the Blades, and my blades are bare.” What that meant exactly, he had no idea, except for having once heard, “When the blades are bare, even the Mistress of the Ships bows to the Master of the Blades.” “This is the bargain between you and me. You go where Nynaeve and Elayne want, and in return, I won’t tie the lot of you across horses like packsaddles and haul you there!”

That was no way to go on, not with the Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships. Not with a bilgeboy off a broken-backed darter, for that matter. Renaile quivered with the effort of not going for him with her bare hands, and never mind her dagger in his hand. “It is agreed, under the Light!” she growled. Her eyes nearly started out of her head. Her mouth worked, confusion and disbelief suddenly chasing one another across her face. This time, the gasps sounded as if the wind had ripped the curtains down.

“It is agreed,” Mat said quickly, and touching fingers to his lips, he pressed them to hers.

After a moment, she did the same, fingers trembling against his mouth. He held out the dagger, and she stared dully at it before taking it from him. The blade went back into its jeweled sheath. It was not polite to kill someone you had sealed a bargain with. At least, not until the terms were fulfilled. Murmurs began among the women behind her chair, rising, and Renaile stirred herself to clap her hands once. That silenced Windfinders to Wavemistresses as quickly as the two deckhands in training.

“I think I have just made a bargain with a ta’veren,” she said in that cool, deep voice. The woman could teach Aes Sedai how to pull themselves together quickly. “But one day, Master Cauthon, if it pleases the Light, I think you will walk a rope for me.”

He did not know what that meant, except that she made it sound unpleasant. He made his best leg. “All things are possible, if it pleases the Light,” he murmured. Courtesy paid, after all. But her smile was disturbingly hopeful.

When he turned back to the rest of the room, you would have thought he had horns and wings, for the stares. “Is there any further argument?” he asked in a wry tone, and did not wait for answers. “I thought not. In that case, I suggest you pick out some spot well away from here, and we can be on our way as soon as you bundle up your belongings.”

They made a show of discussion. Elayne mentioned Caemlyn, sounding at least half-serious, and Careane suggested several remote villages in the Black Hills, all easily reached by gateway. Light, anywhere was easily reached by gateway. Vandene spoke of Arafel, and Aviendha suggested Rhuidean, in the Aiel Waste, with the Sea Folk women growing glummer the farther from the sea were the places named. All a show. To Mat, at least, that was clear by Nynaeve’s impatient fiddling with her braid despite the suggestions coming hot and fast.

“If I may speak, Aes Sedai?” Reanne said timidly at last. She even raised her hand. “The Kin maintain a farm on the other side of the river, a few miles north. Everyone knows it is a retreat for women who need contemplation and quiet, but no one connects it to us. The buildings are large and quite comfortable, if there’s any need to stay long, and—”

“Yes,” Nynaeve broke in. “Yes, I think that sounds just the thing. What do you say, Elayne?”

“I think it sounds wonderful, Nynaeve. I know Renaile will appreciate staying close to the sea.” The other five sisters practically piled on top of her saying how agreeable it sounded, how superior to any other suggestion.

Mat rolled his eyes to the heavens. Tylin was a study in not seeing what lay under her nose, but Renaile snapped at it like a trout taking a lacewing. Which was the point, of course. For some reason she was not to know that Nynaeve and Elayne had had everything arranged beforehand. She led the rest of the Sea Folk women out to gather whatever belongings they had brought before Nynaeve and Elayne could change their minds.

Those two would have followed Merilille and the other Aes Sedai, but he crooked a finger at them. They exchanged glances—he would have had to talk an hour to say as much as passed in those looks—then, somewhat to his surprise, came to him. Aviendha and Birgitte watched from the door, Tylin from her chair.

“I am very sorry to have used you,” Elayne said before he could get a word out. Her smile flashed that dimple at him. “We did have reasons, Mat; you must believe that.”

“Which you do not need to know,” Nynaeve put in firmly, flipping her braid back over her shoulder with a practiced toss of her head that made the gold ring bounce on her bosom. Lan must be insane. “I must say, I never expected you to do what you did. Whatever in the world made you think of trying to bully them? You could have ruined everything.”

“What’s life if you don’t take a chance now and then?” he said blithely. As well by him if they thought it was planned instead of temper. But they had used him again without telling him, and he wanted a bit back for that. “Next time you have to make a bargain with the Sea Folk, let me make it for you. Maybe that way, it won’t turn out as badly as the last one.” Spots of color blooming in Nynaeve’s cheeks told him he had hit the mark squarely. Not bad shooting blindfolded.

Elayne, though, just murmured “A most observant subject” in tones of rueful amusement. Being in her good books might turn out less comfortable than being in her bad.

They swept toward the door without letting him say more. Well, he had not really thought they would explain anything. Both were Aes Sedai to the bone. A man learned to live with what he had to.

Tylin had all but slipped from his mind, but he had not from hers. She caught him up before he took two steps. Nynaeve and Elayne paused at the door with Aviendha and Birgitte, watching. So they saw when Tylin pinched his bottom. Some things, nobody could learn to live with. Elayne put on a face of commiseration, Nynaeve of glowering disapproval. Aviendha fought laughter none too successfully, while Birgitte wore her grin openly. They all bloody knew.

“Nynaeve thinks you are a little boy needing protection,” Tylin breathed up at him. “I know you are a grown man.” Her smoky chuckle made that the dirtiest comment he had ever heard. The four women by the door got to watch his face turn beet red. “I will miss you, pigeon. What you did with Renaile was magnificent. I do so admire masterful men.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” he muttered. To his shock, that was simple truth. He was leaving Ebou Dar just in time. “But if we meet again, I’ll do the chasing.”

She chortled at him, and those dark eagle’s eyes almost glowed. “I admire masterful men, duckling. But not when they try being masterful with me.” Seizing his ears, she pulled his head down where she could kiss him.

He never saw Nynaeve and the others go, and he walked out on unsteady legs, tucking his shirt back in. He had to return to fetch his spear from the corner, and his hat. The woman had no shame. Not a scrap of it.

He found Thom and Juilin, coming out of Tylin’s apartments, followed by Nerim and Lopin, Nalesean’s stout man, who each lugged a large wicker pannier made for a packsaddle. Loaded with his belongings, he realized. Juilin carried Mat’s unstrung bow and had his quiver slung on one shoulder. Well, she had said she was moving him.

“I found this on your pillow,” Thom said, tossing him the ring he had bought what seemed a year ago. “A parting gift, it seems; there were loversknots and some other flowers strewn over both pillows.”

Mat jammed the ring onto his finger. “It’s mine, burn you. I paid for it myself.”

The old gleeman knuckled his mustaches and coughed in a failed effort to stifle a sudden wide grin. Juilin snatched off that ridiculous Taraboner hat and became engrossed in studying the inside of it.

“Blood and flaming—!” Mat drew a deep breath. “I hope you two spared a moment for your own belongings,” he said levelly, “because as soon as I grab Olver, we’re on our way, even if we happen to leave a moldy harp or a rusty sword-breaker behind.” Juilin tugged at the corner of his eye with one finger, whatever that was supposed to mean, but Thom actually frowned. Insults to Thom’s flute or his harp were insults to himself.

“My Lord,” Lopin said mournfully. He was a dark, balding man, rounder than Sumeko, and his black Tairen commoner’s coat, tight to the waist then flaring, like Juilin’s, fit very tightly indeed. Normally almost as solemn as Nerim, now he had reddened eyes, as though he had been weeping. “My Lord, is there any chance I might remain to see Lord Nalesean buried? He was a good master.”

Mat hated saying no. “Anybody left behind might be left for a long time, Lopin,” he said gently. “Listen, I’ll need someone to help look after Olver. Nerim has his hands full with me. For that matter, Nerim will go back to Talmanes, you know. If you’d like, I will take you on myself.” He had grown used to having a manservant, and these were hard times for a man hunting work.

“I would like that very much, my Lord,” the fellow said lugubriously. “Young Olver reminds me much of my youngest sister’s son.”

Only, when they entered Mat’s former rooms, the Lady Riselle was there, much more decently clothed than when he had last seen her, and quite alone.

“Why should I have kept him tied to me?” she said, that truly marvelous bosom heaving with emotion as she planted her fists on her hips. The Queen’s duckling, it seemed, was not supposed to take a snappish tone with the Queen’s attendants. “Clip a boy’s wings too far, and he will never grow to a proper man. He read his pages aloud sitting on my knee—he might have read all day, had I allowed it—and did his numbers, so I let him go. Why are you in such a bother? He promised to return by sunset, and he seems to set a great store by his promises.”

Propping the ashandarei in its old corner, Mat told the other men to drop their burdens and go find Vanin and the remaining Redarms. Then he left Riselle’s spectacular bosom and ran all the way to the rooms Nynaeve and the other women shared. They were all there, in the sitting room, and so was Lan, with his Warder’s cloak already draped down his back and saddlebags on his shoulders. His saddlebags and Nynaeve’s, it seemed. A good many bundles of dresses and not-so-small chests stood about the floor. Mat wondered if they would make Lan carry those, too.

“Of course you have to go find him, Mat Cauthon,” Nynaeve said. “Do you think we would just abandon the child?” To hear her, you would have thought that was exactly what he had intended.

Suddenly he was deluged with offers of help, not just Nynaeve and Elayne proposing to put off going to the farm, but Lan and Birgitte and Aviendha offering to join the search. Lan was stone cold about it, grim as ever, but Birgitte and Aviendha . . .

“My heart would break if anything happened to that boy,” Birgitte said, and Aviendha added, just as warmly, “I have always said you do not care for him properly.”

Mat ground his teeth. In the streets of the city, Olver might well elude eight men until he appeared back at the palace at sunset. He did keep his promises, but small chance he would give up one moment of freedom he did not have to. More eyes would mean a quicker search, especially if all of the Wise Women were brought into it. For the space of three heartbeats he hesitated. He had his own promises to keep, though he was wise enough not to put it that way.

“The Bowl is too important,” he told them. “That gholam is still out there, and maybe Moghedien, and the Black Ajah for sure.” The dice thundered in his head. Aviendha would not appreciate being lumped in with Nynaeve and Elayne, but he did not care right then. He addressed Lan and Birgitte. “Keep them safe until I can reach you. Keep all of them safe.”

Startlingly, Aviendha said, “We will. I promise.” She fingered the hilt of her knife. Apparently she did not understand she was one of those to be kept safe.

Nynaeve and Elayne did. Nynaeve’s sudden glare tried to bore a hole through his skull; he expected her to yank on her braid, but strangely, her hand only fluttered toward it before being put firmly to her side. Elayne contented herself with raising her chin, those big blue eyes frosty. No dimple here.

Lan and Birgitte understood, too.

“Nynaeve is my life,” Lan said simply, putting a hand on her shoulder. The odd thing was, she suddenly looked very sad, and then just as suddenly, her jaw set as though she was preparing to walk through a stone wall and make a large hole.

Birgitte gave Elayne a fond look, but it was to Mat she spoke. “I will,” she said. “Honor’s truth.”

Mat tugged at his coat uncomfortably. He still was not sure how much he had told her while drunk. Light, but the woman could soak it up like dry sand. Even so, he gave the proper response for a Barashandan lord, accepting her pledge. “The honor of blood; the truth of blood.” Birgitte nodded, and from the startled looks he received from Nynaeve and Elayne, she still kept his secrets close. Light, if any Aes Sedai ever found out about those memories, they might as well know he had blown the Horn as well; foxhead or no foxhead, they would stretch him out till they dug out every last why and how.

As he was turning to go, Nynaeve caught his sleeve. “Remember the storm, Mat. It’s going to break soon; I know it. You take care of yourself, Mat Cauthon. Do you hear me? Tylin has directions for the farm, when you get back with Olver.”

Nodding, he made his escape, the dice in his head like echoes of his running boots. Was it during the search that he was supposed to take care of himself, or while getting the directions from Tylin? Nynaeve and her Listening to the Wind. Did she think a little rain was going to melt him? Come to think, once they used the Bowl of the Winds, it would rain again. It seemed years since rain last fell. Something tugged at his thoughts, something about the weather, and Elayne, which made no sense, but he shrugged it off. One thing at a time, and the one thing right now was Olver.

The men were all waiting in the Redarms’ long room near the stables, everyone on their feet except Vanin, who lay sprawled on one of the beds with his fingers laced over his belly. Vanin said a man had to take rest when he could. He swung his boots over and sat up when Mat entered, though. He cared about Olver as much as any of the others; Mat was just afraid the man was going to start teaching him how to steal horses and poach pheasants. Seven sets of eyes focused on Mat intently.

“Riselle said Olver’s wearing his red coat,” he told them. “He gives them away, sometimes, but any urchin you see in a good red coat probably knows where Olver last was. Everybody goes in a different direction. Make loops out from the Mol Hara, and try to be back after about an hour. Wait till everybody is back before you go out again. That way, if somebody finds him, the rest of us won’t still be looking tomorrow. Does everybody understand?” They nodded.

Sometimes it amazed him. Lanky Thom with his white hair and mustaches, who had been a Queen’s lover once, and more willingly than himself, not to mention more than a lover, if you believed half he said. Square-jawed Harnan with that tattoo on his cheek and more elsewhere, who had been a soldier all his life. Juilin with his bamboo staff and his sword-breaker on his hip, who thought himself as good as any lord even if the idea of carrying a sword himself still made him uneasy, and fat Vanin, who made Juilin look a bootlicker by comparison. Skinny Fergin, and Gorderan, nearly as wide in the shoulders as Perrin, and Metwyn, whose pale Cairhienin face still looked like a boy’s despite being years older than Mat. Some of them followed Mat Cauthon because they thought he was lucky, because his luck might keep them alive when the swords were out, and some for reasons he was not really sure of, but they followed. Not even Thom had ever more than protested an order of his. Maybe Renaile had been more than luck. Maybe his being ta’veren did more than dump him in the-middle of trouble. Suddenly he felt . . . responsible . . . for these men. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Mat Cauthon and responsibility did not go together. It was unnatural.

“Take care of yourselves, and look sharp,” he said. “You know what’s out there. There’s a storm coming.” Now why had he said that? “Move. We’re wasting light.”

The wind still blew strongly, sweeping dust across the Mol Hara Square with its statue of a long-dead queen posing above the fountain, but there was no other sign of a storm. Nariene had been noted for her honesty, but not enough to have been depicted completely bare-chested. The afternoon sun burned high in a sky without a cloud, but people rushed through the square as quickly as they had in the morning cool. That was gone, wind or no, down here on the ground. The paving stones seemed a griddle under his boots.

Glaring across the square at The Wandering Woman, Mat headed toward the river. Olver had not gone off with the street urchins half as often while they were staying at the inn; he had been too content ogling the serving girls and Setalle Anan’s daughters. So much for the dice telling him he had to move into the palace. Anything he had done since leaving—anything he wanted to do, he amended, thinking of Tylin and her eyes; and her hands—any of it could have been done just as well from there. Those dice spun now, and he wished they would just go away.

He tried to move quickly, dodging impatiently around trundling carts and wagons, cursing at lacquered sedan chairs and coaches that nearly ran him down, eyes darting in search of a red coat close to the ground, but the bustle in the streets slowed him to a meander. Which was just as well, in truth. No point dashing by the boy without seeing him. Wishing he had brought Pips out of the palace stables, he frowned at the people streaming past; a man on horseback could have moved no faster in the throng, but up in the saddle, he could have seen farther. Then again, asking questions from a saddle would have been awkward; not many folk actually rode inside the city, and some people had a tendency to shy away from anyone on a horse.

Always the same question. The first time he asked was at a bridge just below the Mol Hara, of a fellow selling honey-baked apples from a tray hanging from a strap around his neck. “Have you seen a boy, about so high, in a red coat?” Olver liked sweets.

“Boy, my Lord?” the fellow said, sucking his few remaining teeth. “Seen a thousand boys. Don’t remember no coat, though. Would my Lord like one apple, or two?” He scooped up two with bony fingers and pushed them at Mat; the way they gave under his fingers, they were softer than any baking could account for. “Did my Lord hear about the riot?”

“No,” Mat said sourly, and pushed on. At the other end of the bridge, he stopped a plump woman with a tray of ribbons. Ribbons held no fascination for Olver, but her red petticoats flashed beneath a skirt sewn up nearly to her left hip, and the cut of her bodice revealed rounded cleavage to equal Riselle’s. “Have you seen a boy . . . ?”

He heard about the riot from her, too, and from half the people he asked. That rumor, he suspected had begun with events at a certain house in the Rahad that very morning. A wagon driver with her long whip coiled around her neck even told him the riot had been across the river, once she allowed as how she never noticed boys unless they ran under her mules. A square-faced man who sold honeycomb—incredibly dry-looking honeycomb—said the riot had been down near the light tower at the end of the Bay Road, on the eastern side of the mouth of the bay, which was about as likely a place for rioting as the middle of the bay itself. There were always a thousand rumors in any city, if you listened, and he was forced to listen to snatches of all of them, it seemed. One of the most remarkably pretty women he had ever seen, standing outside a tavern—Maylin was a serving girl at The Old Sheep, but her only task seemed to be standing outside to attract customers, which she certainly did—told him there had been a battle that morning, in the Cordese Hills west of the city, she thought. Or maybe in the Rhannon Hills, across the bay. Or maybe . . . Remarkably pretty, Maylin, but not very bright; Olver might have watched her for hours, so long as she never opened her mouth. But she could not remember seeing any boy in a . . . What color coat had he said, again? He heard about riots and battles, he heard about enough strange things seen in the sky or the hills to populate the Blight. He heard that the Dragon Reborn was about to descend on the city with thousands of men who could channel, that the Aiel were coming, an army of Aes Sedai—no, it was an army of Whitecloaks; Pedron Niall was dead, and the Children intended to avenge him, though why in Ebou Dar was not exactly clear. You might have thought the city would be hip-deep in panic with all the tales floating around, but the fact was, even those who told a tale usually only half-believed it. So he heard all sorts of nonsense, but not a word about any boy in a red coat.

A few streets from the river, he began hearing thunder, great hollow booms that seemed to roll in from the sea. People looked up curiously at the cloudless sky, scratched their heads, and went on about their business. So did he, questioning every seller of sweets or fruit he saw, and every pretty woman afoot. All to no avail. Reaching the long stone quay that ran the whole length of the river side of the city, he paused, studying the gray docks stretching out into the river and the ships tied to them. The wind blew strong, heaving vessels at their mooring lines, grinding them against the stone docks despite the bags stuffed with wool hung down between for fenders. Unlike horses, ships did not interest Olver except as a way to go from here to there, and ships were men’s business in Ebou Dar even if the lading they carried often was not. Women on these docks would either be merchants keeping an eye on their goods or hard-armed members of the cargo-loader’s guild, and there would be no sweet-sellers here.

About to turn away, he realized almost no one was moving. The docks usually bustled, yet on every ship he could see, crewmen lined the rails and had climbed into the rigging to stare toward the bay. Barrels and crates stood abandoned while shirtless men and wiry women in green leather vests crowded together at the ends of the docks to peer between the ships, south, toward the thunder. Down that way, black smoke rose in thick towering columns, slanting sharply north on the wind.

Hesitating only a moment, he trotted out along the nearest dock. At first, ships tied to the long fingers of stone to the south blocked his view of anything except the smoke. Because of the way the shoreline lay, though, each dock stuck out farther than the next down; once he pushed into the murmuring crowd at the end, the broad river made an open path of choppy green water to the wave-tossed bay.

At least two dozen ships were burning out on the wide expanse of the bay, maybe more, engulfed in flame from end to end. A number of others had already settled, only a bow or stern still above water and that sliding under. Even as he looked, the bow of a broad two-masted ship flying a large banner of red and blue and gold, the banner of Altara, suddenly flew apart with a roar, a boom like thunder, and fast-thickening tendrils of smoke wafted away on the wind as the vessel began settling by the head. Hundreds of vessels were in motion, every craft in the bay, three-masted Sea Folk rakers and skimmers and two-masted soarers, coastal ships with their triangular sails, river ships under sail or sweep, some fleeing upriver, most trying to beat out to sea. Scores of other ships swanned into the bay before the wind, great bluff-bowed vessels as tall as any of the rakers, crashing through the rolling waves, throwing aside spray. His breath caught as he suddenly made out square, ribbed sails.

“Blood and bloody ashes,” he muttered in shock. “It’s the flaming Seanchan!”

“Who?” demanded a stern-faced woman crowded next to him. A dark blue woolen dress of fine cut marked her a merchant as much as did the leather folder she carried for her bills of lading or the guild pin over one breast, a silver quill pen. “It’s the Aes Sedai,” she announced in tones of conviction. “I know channeling when I see it. The Children of the Light will do for them, just as soon as they arrive. You’ll see.”

A lanky, gray-haired woman in a grimy green vest twisted around to confront her, fingering the wooden hilt of her dagger. “Hold your tongue about Aes Sedai, you flaming penny-grubber, or I’ll peel you and stuff a Whitecloak down your bleeding gullet!”

Mat left them waving their arms and shouting at one another, and pushed clear of the crowd, running for the quay. Already he could see three—no, four—huge creatures circling over the city to the south on great pinions like those of a bat. Figures clung to the creatures’ backs, apparently in some sort of saddles. Another flying creature appeared, and more. Below them, flame suddenly fountained above the rooftops with a roar.

People ran now, buffeting Mat as he struggled through the streets. “Olver!” he shouted, hoping to be heard above other shouts from every side, and the screams. “Olver!”

Abruptly, everybody seemed to be heading the other way, battering past him. Stubbornly he forced on against the tide. And came to a street where what all those folk fled from was made plain.

A Seanchan column rushed by, a hundred or more men in helmets like insects’ heads and armor of overlapping plates, all riding animals like cats the size of horses, but covered in bronze scales rather than fur. Leaning forward in their saddles, blue-streamered lances slanted, they galloped toward the Mol Hara without looking to either side. Though “gallop” was not quite the word for the way those creatures moved; the speed was right, but they . . . flowed. It was time to be gone; past time. As soon as he found—

As the end of column went by a flash of red, waist high, caught his eye among the crowd in the street beyond the intersection. “Olver!” He darted across almost on the heels of the last scaled creature, pushing into the crowd in time to see a wide-eyed woman snatch up a little girl in a red dress and ran with the child clutched to her bosom. Wildly, Mat pressed ahead, shouldering people aside when they Bumped into him, Bumping into more than a few himself. “Olver! Olver!”

Twice more he saw a column of fire rise briefly above the rooftops, and smoke drifted to the sky in a dozen places. Several times he heard those booming roars, much closer than the bay, now. Inside the city, he was sure; more than once the ground quivered beneath his boots.

And then the street was clearing again, people fleeing in every direction, down alleys and into houses and shops, for Seanchan on horses were coming. Not all were armored men; near the head of that small thicket of lances rode a dark woman in a blue dress. Mat knew the large red panels on her skirts and bosom were worked with silver lightning. A silver leash, gleaming in the sun, ran from her left wrist to the neck of a woman in gray, a damane, who trotted beside the sul’dam’s horse like a pet dog. He had seen more of Seanchan at Falme than he wanted to, but unconsciously he paused at the mouth of an alleyway, watching. The roars and fires had showed that somebody in the city was trying to fight back, at least, and now he was going to see such an attempt.

The Seanchan were not the only reason everyone else had gotten out of sight. At the other end of the street, a good hundred mounted men swung long-pointed lances down. They wore baggy white breeches and green coats, and the gold cords on the officer’s helmet glittered. With a collective shout, a hundred or more of Tylin’s soldiers hurled themselves toward the city’s attackers. They outnumbered the Seanchan in front of them by at least two to one.

“Bloody fools,” Mat muttered. “Not like that. That sul’dam will—”

The only movement among the Seanchan was the woman in the lightning-marked dress raising her hand to point, as one might launch a hawk, or send off a hound. The golden-haired woman at the other end of the silvery leash took a small step forward. The foxhead medallion cooled against his chest.

Underneath the head of the Ebou Dari charge, the street suddenly erupted, paving stones and men and horses flying into the air with a deafening roar. The concussion knocked Mat flat on his back, or maybe it was the way the ground seemed to leap from under his feet. He pulled himself up in time to see the front of an inn across the way suddenly collapse into the street in a cloud of dust, exposing the rooms within.

Men and horses lay everywhere, pieces of men and horses, those still alive thrashing, around a hole in the ground half as wide as the street. Screams from the wounded filled the air. Fewer than half the Ebou Dari staggered to their feet, dazed and stumbling. Some seized up the reins of horses as wobbly-legged as they, heaving themselves into saddles, kicking the animals into some semblance of a run. Others just ran afoot. All away from the Seanchan. Steel they could face, but not this.

Running, Mat realized, seemed a particularly fine idea right then. A glance back down the alley showed dust and rubble piled at least a story high. He darted down the street ahead of the fleeing Ebou Dari, keeping as close to the walls as possible, hoping none of the Seanchan would think he was one of Tylin’s soldiers. He should never have worn a green coat.

The sul’dam apparently was not satisfied. The foxhead went cool again, and from behind another roar hammered him to the pavement, pavement that jumped up to meet him. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard masonry groan. Above him, the white-plastered brick wall began leaning outward.

“What happened to my bloody luck?” he shouted. He had time for that. And just time to realize, as brick and timbers crashed down on him, that the dice in his head had just stopped dead.