Winter's Heart

## Chapter 31

#### What the Aelfinn Said

The Seanchan noblewoman expressed surprise, and no little irritation, when Mat accompanied her toward the kennels. Seta and Renna knew the way, of course, and he was supposed to be getting his cloak and whatever else he meant to carry. The two sul’dam followed them through the poorly lit halls, cloaks hanging down their backs and eyes on the floor. Domon brought up the rear as though shepherding the pair. The braid hanging down the side of his head swayed as his eyes darted down every crossing corridor, and sometimes he felt at his waist as though expecting to find a sword or a cudgel. Except for them, the tapestry-lined hallways were silent and still.

“I have a small errand up there,” Mat told Egeanin, as casually as he knew how, and smiled for her. “No need to bother yourself. Won’t take a minute.” His very best smile seemed to make no more impression than it had yesterday in her room at the inn.

“If you wreck me now—” she growled in a threatening tone.

“Just remember who planned this,” he muttered, and she grunted. Light, women always seemed to think they could just step in and take over, and do a better job than the man whose job it was!

At least she made no further complaint. They climbed quickly to the top floor of the Palace, then up the dark narrow stairs to the sprawling attic. Only a few of the lamps were lit, not even as many as in the hallways below, and the maze of narrow corridors between the tiny wooden rooms was a mass of pale shadows. Nothing moved, and Mat breathed a little more easily. He would have breathed easier still if Renna had not sighed with obvious relief.

She and Seta knew where the various damane were kenneled, and if they did not exactly hurry, they made no delay in heading deeper in the attic, perhaps because Domon still walked at their heels. It was not an image to inspire confidence. Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. A man made do with what he had. Especially when he had no choice.

Egeanin gave him a last hard look and growled again, wordlessly this time, then strode off after the others, her cloak flaring behind her. He grimaced at her back. The way the woman walked, you could take her for a man if she was not wearing a dress.

He did have an errand, and maybe not so small. It was not something he wanted to do. Light, he had tried to talk himself out of it! It was something he bloody well had to do, though. As soon as Egeanin vanished around a corner after Domon and the others, he darted for the nearest room that he remembered containing one of the Sea Folk.

Easing open the plain wooden door soundlessly, he slipped into the pitch-black interior. The sleeping woman inside snored with a rasping sound. Slowly he felt his way forward until his knee bumped into the bed, then felt along the mound beneath the blankets more quickly, finding her head just in time to clamp his hand over her mouth as she jerked awake.

“I want you to answer a question,” he whispered. Blood and ashes, what if he had mistaken the room? What if this was not a Windfinder at all, but one of the bloody Seanchan women? “What would you do if I took that collar off your neck?” Lifting his hand, he held his breath.

“I would free my sisters, if it pleases the Light that should happen.” The Sea Folk accents in the darkness made him breathe again. “The Light be willing, we would cross the harbor, somehow, to where our people are held, and free as many as we were able.” The unseen woman’s voice remained low, but grew fiercer by the word. “The Light be willing, we would take back our ships, and fight our way to sea. Now! If this is a trick, punish me for it and be done, or kill me for it. I was on the brink of yielding, of giving up myself, and the shame of that will burn me forever, but you have reminded me who I am, and now I will never yield. Do you hear me? Never!”

“And if I asked you to wait for three hours?” he asked, still crouching over her. “I remember the Atha’an Miere judging the passage of an hour within minutes.” That fellow had not been him, but the memory was his now, passage on an Atha’an Miere vessel from Allorallen to Barashta, and a bright-eyed Sea Folk woman who wept when she refused to follow him ashore.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I’m called Mat Cauthon, if it makes a difference.”

“I am Nestelle din Sakura South Star, Mat Cauthon.” He heard her spit, and knew what she was doing. He spat on his own palm, and their two hands found each other in the darkness. Hers was as callused as his, her grip strong. “I will wait,” she said. “And I will remember you. You are a great and good man.”

“I’m just a gambler,” he told her. Her hand guided his to the segmented collar around her neck, and it came open for him with a metallic snick. She drew a very long breath.

He only had to put her fingers in the proper places and show her the trick once before she got it, but he made her close and open the collar three times before he was satisfied. If he was going to do this, he might as well make sure it was done right. “Three hours, as near as you can,” he reminded her.

“As near as I can,” she whispered.

She could ruin everything, but if he could not take a chance, then who could? He was the man with the luck, after all. Maybe it had not been all that much in evidence lately, but he had found Egeanin just when he needed her. Mat Cauthon still had the luck.

Slipping out of the room as quietly as he had entered, he closed the door. And almost choked on his tongue. He was staring at the back of a wide, gray-haired woman in a red-paneled dress. Beyond her stood Egeanin drawn up to her full height, and Teslyn, connected to Renna by the silver length of an a’dam. There was no sign of Domon or Seta or this Edesina he still had not seen to know her. Egeanin looked fierce as a lioness over her kill, but Teslyn was wide-eyed and trembling, terrified half out other wits, and Renna’s mouth had a twist that said she might sick up any moment now.

Not daring to breathe, he took a cautious step toward the gray-haired woman, stretching out his hands. If he overpowered her before she could cry out, they could hide her . . . Where? Seta and Renna would want to kill her. No matter what hold Egeanin had on them, the woman could name them.

Egeanin’s stern blue eyes caught his over the gray-haired sul’dam shoulder for a brief instant before focusing on the other woman’s face again. “No!” she said sharply. “There is no time to waste with changes to my plans, now. The High Lady Suroth said I could use any damane I wish, Der’sul’dam.”

“Of course, my Lady,” the gray-haired woman replied, sounding confused. “I merely pointed out that Tessi is not really trained. I actually came up to look in on her. She is coming along very nicely, now, my Lady, but . . . ”

Still not breathing, Mat backed away on tiptoe. He eased down the dark narrow stairs using his hands against the walls to support as much of his weight as possible. He did not remember any creaky steps coming up, but there were chances, and then there were chances. A man took those he had to, and did not press his luck otherwise. That was the way to a long life, something he wished for very much.

At the foot of the steps, he paused to suck in air until his heart stopped pounding. Until it slowed a little, anyway. It might not stop pounding till tomorrow. He was not sure he had drawn breath since seeing the gray-haired woman. Light! If Egeanin thought she had the matter in hand, well and bloody good, but just the same, Light! She must have nooses around the two sul’dam’s necks! Her plan? Well, she had been right about no time to waste. He ran.

He ran until his hip gave a sharp twinge, and he stumbled into a turquoise-inlaid table. He caught a summer tapestry to keep from falling, and the bright-flowered length of silk tore free from the yellow marble cornice for half its length. The tall white porcelain vase sitting on the table toppled, shattering on the blue-and-red floor tiles with a crash that echoed along the hallway. After that, he hobbled. But he hobbled as fast as any man ever had. If anyone came to investigate the noise, they were not going to find Mat Cauthon standing over that mess, or within two corridors of it.

Limping the rest of the way to Tylin’s apartments, he was across the sitting room and into the bedchamber before he realized that the lamps were all lit. The blaze in the bedroom fireplace had been renewed with split billets from the gilded wood-basket. Tylin, her arms doubled behind her to work at her buttons, looked up at his entrance and frowned. Her dark green riding dress was wrinkled. The fire crackled and spat a shower of sparks up the chimney.

“I didn’t expect you back yet,” he said, trying to think. Of everything he had considered going amiss tonight, Tylin returning early had never been in it. His brain seemed frozen.

“Suroth learned that an army had vanished in Murandy,” Tylin replied slowly, straightening. She spoke absently, giving what she said a fraction of the attention she put into studying Mat Cauthon. “What army, or how any army can vanish, I don’t know, but she decided her return was urgent. We left everyone behind, came as fast as one of the beasts could carry just the two of us and the woman who handled it, and commandeered two horses to ride up from the docks alone. She even went to that inn across the square where all their officers are instead of coming here. I don’t think she intends to sleep tonight, or let any of them . . . ”

Letting her words trail off, Tylin glided to him across the carpets and fingered his plain green coat. “The trouble with having a pet fox,” she murmured, “is that sooner or later it remembers it is a fox.” Those big dark eyes peered up at him. Suddenly she seized two handfuls of his hair and pulled his head down for a kiss that curled his toes in his boots. “That,” she said breathlessly when she finally let him go, “is to show you how much I will miss you.” Without the slightest change of expression, she slapped him so hard that silver flecks floated in front of his eyes. “And that is for trying to sneak away while I was gone.” Turning her back, she pulled her mane of raven hair over one shoulder. “Undo my buttons for me, my pretty little fox. We arrived so late I decided not to wake my maids, but these fingernails make buttons all but impossible. One last night together, and tomorrow I will send you on your way.”

Mat rubbed his cheek. The woman could have broken a tooth for him! At least she had jarred his thoughts loose. If Suroth was at The Wandering Woman, she was not in the Tarasin Palace to see what she should not. His luck was still good. He only had to worry about the woman in front of him. The only way was forward.

“I’m going tonight,” he said, putting his hands on Tylin’s shoulders. “And when I do, I’m taking a couple of Aes Sedai from the attic. Come with me. I’ll send Thom and Juilin to find Beslan, and—”

“Go with you?” she said incredulously, moving away and turning to face him. Her proud face was scornful. “Pigeon, I don’t fancy becoming your pretty, and I have no intention of becoming a refugee. Or of leaving Altara to whoever the Seanchan choose to replace me. I am the Queen of Altara, the Light help me, and I will not abandon my country now. You really mean to try freeing the Aes Sedai? I wish you well in it, if you must—I wish the sisters well—but it seems a good way to have your head stuck up on a spike, sweetling. It’s too pretty a head to be cut off and covered with tar.”

He tried to take her by the shoulders again, but she stepped back with a piercing look that made his hands fall. He put every scrap of urgency he could find into his voice. “Tylin, I made sure everybody knew I was leaving, and anxious to be gone before you returned, so the Seanchan would know you didn’t have anything to do with it, but now—”

“I returned and surprised you,” she broke in fiercely, “and you tied me up and left me under the bed. When I am discovered in the morning, I will be furious with you. Outraged!” She smiled, but her eyes glittered, not that far from outrage now, whatever she said about foxes and sending him on his way. “I will offer a bounty for you, and tell Tuon she can buy you when you’re caught, if she still wants you. I will be the perfect High Blood in my anger. They’ll believe me, duckling. I’ve already told Suroth I intend to shave my hair.”

Mat grinned weakly. He certainly believed her. She really would sell him if he was caught. “Women are a maze through briars in the night,” the old saying went, and even they do not know the way.

Tylin insisted on supervising her own binding. She seemed to take pride in it. She had to be bound with strips cut from her skirts, as if she had come on him by surprise and been overpowered. The knots had to be tight, so she could not escape however she struggled, and she did struggle against them once they were tied, thrashing about hard enough that it seemed she really was trying to get free. Maybe she was; her mouth twisted in a snarl when she failed. Her ankles and wrists had to be tied together in the small of her back, and a leash run from her neck to one leg of the bed, so she could not wriggle her way across the floor and out into the hall. And of course, she could not be able to shout for help, either. When he gently pushed one of her silk kerchiefs into her mouth and tied another to hold it in place, she smiled, but her eyes were fierce. A maze through briars in the night.

“I am going to miss you,” he said quietly as he pushed her beneath the edge of the bed. To his surprise, he realized that he really would. Light! Hurriedly he gathered his cloak and gloves and spear, and snuffed the lamps on his way out. Women could tangle a man in that maze before he knew it.

The hallways remained empty, and silent save for the sound of his own limping bootsteps, but any relief he felt vanished when he reached the anteroom off the stableyard.

The single lit stand-lamp still cast a wavering light on those inevitable flowered tapestries, but Juilin and his woman were not there, and neither were Egeanin and the others. With the time he had taken up with Tylin, they all should have been waiting on him by now. Beyond the columned walk the rain was sheeting down in a solid black curtain that hid everything. Could they have gone on to the stables? That Egeanin seemed to change his plan whenever it suited her.

Grumbling under his breath, he hitched his cloak around him and prepared to make his way to the stables through the downpour. He had had just about all he could take of women tonight.

“So you are intending to leave. I cannot allow that, Toy.”

With an oath, he spun on his heel and found himself facing Tuon, her dark face stern behind her long transparent veil. The narrow circlet holding the veil on her shaven head was a mass of firedrops and pearls, yet another fortune taken together with the wide jeweled belt that cinched her waist and the long necklace around her neck. A fine time it was to be noticing jewels, however rich. What in the Light was she doing awake? Blood and ashes, if she went running off, shouting for guards to stop him . . . !

Desperately he reached for the skinny girl, but she writhed away from his grip and sent the ashandarei flying with a sharp blow that half numbed his wrist. He expected her to flee, but instead she rained blows at him, punching with folded knuckles, chopping her hands like axe blades. He had quick hands, the quickest Thom had ever seen according to the old gleeman, but it was all he could do to ward her off, forget about grabbing her. If he had not been trying so hard to keep her from breaking his nose—or something else, maybe; she hit very hard for such a tiny thing—except for that, he might have found the whole thing laughable. He towered over her, though he was not much above average height, yet she came at him in a concentrated fury, as though she were the taller and stronger and expected to overwhelm him. For some reason, after a few moments her full lips curved in a smile, and if he had not known better, he would have said those big liquid eyes took on a glow of delight. Burn him, thinking about how pretty a woman was at a time like this was as bad as trying to price her gems!

Abruptly, she flowed back from him, using both hands to readjust the circle of gems that secured her veil. There was certainly nothing like delight on her face now. Her expression was all concentration. Placing her feet carefully, never taking her eyes from his face, she began slowly gathering her white pleated skirts in her hands, inching them up above her knees in folds.

He could not understand why she was not already shouting for help, but he knew she was about to kick at him. Well, not if he had anything to say about it! He leaped for her, and everything happened at once. A stab of pain in his hip sent him to one knee. Tuon snatched her skirts almost to her own hips, and her slim, white-stockinged leg flashed out at him in a kick that passed over his head as she was suddenly hoisted into the air.

He thought he must be as surprised to see Noal with his arms wrapped around the girl as she was to have those arms there, but he reacted faster than she. As she opened her mouth to shout at last, Mat scrambled to his feet and began stuffing her veil between her teeth, tipping the jeweled circlet to the floor with a flip of his hand. She did not cooperate the way Tylin had, of course. A firm grip on her jaw was all that kept her from sinking her teeth into his fingers. Angry sounds came from her throat, and her eyes showed a fury they never had at the worst of her attack. She twisted in Noal’s grip and flailed her legs, but the worn old man managed to shift his burden and himself to avoid every kick other heels. Worn or not, he seemed to have no difficulty hanging on to her.

“Do you often have this sort of trouble with women?” he asked mildly around a gap-toothed smile. He was wearing his cloak, and his bundled belongings were tied over it across his back.

“Always,” Mat replied sourly, and grunted when a knee caught his aching hip. Managing to untie his neck-scarf one-handed, he used it to secure the wadded veil in Tuon’s mouth at the cost of a nipped thumb. Light, what was he going to do with her?

“I didn’t know this was what you were planning,” Noal said, not breathing hard in spite of the way the tiny woman thrashed herself about in his grip, “but as you can see, I’m leaving tonight, too. I thought that in a day or two, this might be an unpleasant place for someone you gave a bed to.”

“A wise decision,” Mat muttered. Light, he should have thought of warning Noal.

Lowering himself to his knees, he avoided Tuon’s kicks—most of them, anyway—long enough to catch her legs. A knife plucked from his sleeve started a cut in the hem of her dress, and he tore away a long strip to tie her ankles. It was a good thing he had gotten all that practice with Tylin earlier. He was not accustomed to tying women up. Tearing off a second strip of cloth from the bottom of her skirt, he picked up the circle of gems from the floor, and stood with one grunt for the effort and a deeper one for a last, two-legged kick that set fire to his hip. When he set the circlet back on her head, Tuon stared him straight in the eye. She had stopped thrashing about uselessly, but she was not afraid. Light, in her place, he would have been soiling himself.

Juilin finally arrived, then, cloaked and fully accoutered, with his short sword and notched sword-breaker at his belt and his thin bamboo staff in one hand. A slender, dark-haired woman in the thick white robes worn by da’covale outside clung to his right arm. She was pretty, in a pouty way, with a rosebud mouth, but five or six years older than Mat had expected, and her large dark eyes darted timidly. At the sight of Tuon, she squeaked and let go of Juilin as though he were a hot stove, folding herself to the floor beside the door with her head on her knees.

“I had to talk Thera into running away all over again,” the thief-catcher sighed, giving her a concerned look. That was all the explanation he made for his lateness, before turning his attention to Noal’s burden. Pushing back the ridiculous conical red cap he wore, he scratched his head. “And what do we do with her?” he asked simply.

“Leave her in the stables,” Mat replied. They would if Vanin had convinced the grooms to let him and Harnan tend to any messengers’ horses that came in. Until now, that had seemed like only an added precaution, not really necessary. Until now. “In the hayloft. She shouldn’t be found before morning, when they fork down fresh hay for the stalls.”

“And I thought you were kidnapping her,” Noal sighed, setting Tuon’s bound feet back on the floor and shifting his hold on her to gripping her upper arms. Head high, the little woman disdained to struggle. Even with a gag in her mouth, scorn was clear on her face. She refused to fight, not because it was hopeless, but because she did not choose to fight.

Bootsteps echoed in the corridor leading to the anteroom, growing louder. It could be Egeanin at last. Or the way the night seemed to be turning, it might be Deathwatch Guards. The Ogier sort.

Hastily, Mat motioned the other toward corners out of sight of anyone coming through the door, then hobbled over to pick up his black spear. Juilin pulled Thera to her feet and drew her to his left, where she crouched in the corner while he stood in front of her with his staff held in both hands. It appeared a frail weapon, but the thief-catcher could use it to great effect. Noal dragged Tuon to the opposite corner of the room and released one of her arms to put a hand inside his coat, where he kept his long knives. Mat planted himself in the middle of the room with his back to the rain-soaked night, the ashandarei upright in front of him. No matter who came into the room, he was not going to be able to dance about, with his hip knotted in a fist from Tuon’s kicks, but if worse came to worst, he could at least leave marks on a few people.

When Egeanin strode through that doorway, he sagged on the spear in relief. Two sul’dam entered after her, and Domon followed. Mat got his first look at Edesina to know who he was seeing, though he did recall her from one day when the damane were being exercised, a slender handsome woman in one of those plain gray dresses, with black hair spilling to her waist. Despite the a’dam leashing her to Seta’s wrist, Edesina looked about her calmly. An Aes Sedai on a leash, perhaps, but an Aes Sedai confident that leash was coming off soon. Teslyn, on the other hand, was a quivering mass of eagerness, licking her lips and staring at the door to the stableyard. Renna and Seta hurried the two Aes Sedai along behind Egeanin without taking their eyes from the stableyard door.

“I had to soothe the der’sul’dam,” Egeanin said, as soon as she was into the room. “They are very protective of their charges.” Noticing Juilin and Thera, she scowled; there had not seemed any reason to tell her about Thera, not when she was willing to help damane, but clearly she did not like the surprise of woolen robes. “Her seeing Seta and Renna changes a few things, of course,” she went on, “but—” Her words cut off as though sliced with a knife as her eyes fell on Tuon. Egeanin was a pale woman, but she went paler. Tuon glared back above her gag with the stern ferocity of a headsman. “Oh, Light!” Egeanin said hoarsely, sinking to her knees. “You madman! It’s death by slow torture to lay hands on the Daughter of the Nine Moons!” The two sul’dam gasped, and knelt without hesitation, not only pulling the two Aes Sedai down with them but gripping the a’dam right at the collar to force their faces to the floor.

Mat grunted as though Tuon had just kicked him square in the belly. He felt as if she had. The Daughter of the Nine Moons. The Aelfinn had told him truth, much as he hated knowing. He would die and live again, if he had not already. He would give up half the light of the world to save the world, and he did not even want to think about what that meant. He would marry . . . “She is my wife,” he said softly. Somebody made a choking sound; he thought it was Domon.

“What?” Egeanin squeaked, her head whipping toward him so fast that her tail of hair swung around to slap her face. He would not have thought she could squeak. “You cannot say that! You must not say that!”

“Why not?” he demanded. The Aelfinn always gave true answers. Always. “She is my wife. Your bloody Daughter of the Nine Moons is my wife!”

They stared at him, except for Juilin, who took off his cap and stared into that. Domon shook his head, and Noal laughed softly. Egeanin’s mouth hung open. The two sul’dam gaped as though at a madman, stark raving and loose. Tuon stared, but her expression was absolutely unreadable, hiding every thought behind those dark eyes. Oh, Light, what was he to do? For one thing, get a move on before . . .

Selucia scurried into the room, and Mat groaned. Was everybody in the whole bloody Palace going to walk in? Domon tried to grab her, but she eluded him, darting about. The buxom golden-haired so’jhin was not so stately as usual, wringing her hands and looking around in a hunted fashion. “Forgive me for speaking,” she said in a fear-filled voice, “but what you do is foolish beyond madness.” With a groan, she darted to half crouch between the kneeling sul’dam with one hand on the shoulder of each, as though seeking their protection. Her blue eyes never ceased flitting about the room. “Whatever the omens, this can still be rectified if you will only consent to draw back.”

“Be easy, Selucia,” Mat said in a soothing. She was not looking at him, but he made calming gestures anyway. In none of his memories could he find a way to deal with a hysterical woman. Except to hide. “No one is going to be hurt. No one! I promise you. You can be easy, now.”

For some reason, consternation flashed across her face, but she settled to her knees and folded her hands in her lap. Suddenly, all her fear vanished, and she was as regal as ever she had been. “I will obey you, so long as you do not harm my mistress. If you do, I will kill you.”

From Egeanin, that would have given him pause. Coming from this plump cream-cheeked woman, short even if she was taller than her mistress, he put it out of his mind. The Light knew women were dangerous, but he thought he could handle a lady’s maid. At least she was no longer hysterical. Odd, how that came and went in women.

“I suppose you mean to leave them both in the hayloft?” Noal said.

“No,” Mat replied, looking at Tuon. She stared right back, still with no expression he could read. A boy-slim little woman, when he liked women with flesh on their bones. Heir to the Seanchan throne, when noblewomen gave him goose bumps. A woman who had wanted to buy him, and now likely wanted to put a knife in his ribs. And she would be his wife. The Aelfinn always gave true answers. “We are taking them with us,” he said.

At last, Tuon showed expression. She smiled, as if she suddenly knew a secret. She smiled, and he shivered. Oh, Light, how he shivered.