Winter's Heart

## Chapter 29

#### Another Plan

The beam-ceilinged basement of The Wandering Woman was large, yet it seemed as cramped as the room Thom and Juilin shared, though it held only five people. The oil lamp set on an upended barrel cast flickering shadows. Farther away, the basement was all shadow. The aisle between the shelves and the rough stone walls was barely wider than a barrel was tall, but that was not what made it seem crowded.

“I asked for your help, not a noose around my neck,” Joline said coldly. After near a week in Mistress Anan’s care, eating Enid’s cooking, the Aes Sedai no longer looked haggard. The frayed dress Mat had first seen on her was gone, replaced by high-necked fine blue wool with a touch of lace at her wrists and under her chin. In the wavering light, her face half shadowed, she looked furious, her eyes trying to bore holes through Mat’s face. “If anything went awry—anything!—I’d be helpless!”

He was having none of it. Offer to help out of the goodness of your heart—well, sort of—and see what it got you. He practically shook the a’dam under her nose. It wiggled in his hand like a long silver snake, glinting in the dim lamplight, the collar and bracelet both scraping across the stone floor, and Joline gathered her dark skirts and stepped back to avoid being touched. It might have been a viper from the way her mouth twisted. He wondered whether it would fit her; the collar seemed larger than her slim neck. “Mistress Anan will take it off as soon as we get you outside the walls,” he growled. “You trust her, don’t you? She risked her head to hide you down here. I’m telling you, it is the only way!” Joline raised her chin stubbornly. Mistress Anan muttered angrily under her breath.

“She does not want to wear the thing,” Fen said in a flat voice behind Mat.

“If she doesn’t want to wear it, then she doesn’t wear it,” Blaeric said in an even flatter, at Fen’s side.

Joline’s dark-haired Warders were like peas in a pod for men so different. Fen, with his dark tilted eyes and a chin that could chip stone, was a touch shorter than Blaeric, and maybe a little heavier in the chest and shoulders, yet they could have worn each other’s clothes without much difficulty. Where Fen’s straight black hair hung almost to his shoulders, blue-eyed Blaeric’s very short hair was slightly lighter in color. Blaeric was Shienaran, and he had shaved his topknot and was letting his hair grow in to avoid notice, but he did not like it. Fen, a Saldaean, seemed not to like much except for Joline. They both liked Joline a lot. The pair of them talked alike, thought alike, moved alike. They wore dingy shirts and workmen’s plain woolen vests that hung down below their hips, yet anyone who took them for laborers, even in this poor light, was blind. By day, in the stables where Mistress Anan had them working . . . . Light! They were looking at Mat as lions might look at a goat that had bared its teeth at them. He moved so he did not have to see the Warders even from the corner of his eye. The knives hidden about him in various places were small comfort, with them at his back.

“If you will not listen to him, Joline Maza, you will listen to me.” Planting her hands on her hips, Setalle rounded on the slender Aes Sedai, her hazel eyes glaring. “I mean to see you back in the White Tower if I have to walk every step of the way pushing you! Perhaps along the way you will show me that you know what it means to be Aes Sedai. I’d settle for a glimpse of a grown woman. So far, all I have seen is a novice sniveling in her bed and throwing tantrums!”

Joline stared at her, those big brown eyes as wide as they would go, as if she could not believe her ears. Mat was not sure he believed his, either. Innkeepers did not leap down Aes Sedai’s throats. Fen grunted, and Blaeric muttered something that sounded uncomplimentary.

“There’s no need for you to go farther than beyond sight of the guards at the gates,” Mat told Setalle hastily, hoping to divert any explosion Joline might be considering. “Keep the hood of your cloak pulled up . . . ” Light, he had to get her one of those fancy cloaks! Well, if Juilin could steal an a’dam, he could steal a bloody cloak, too. “ . . . and the guards will just see another sul’dam. You can be back here before daybreak, and no one the wiser. Unless you insist on wearing your marriage knife.” He laughed at his own joke, but she did not.

“Do you think I could remain anywhere women are turned into animals because they can channel?” she demanded, stalking across the floor till she stood toe-to-toe with him. “Do you think I’d let my family stay?” If her eyes had glared at Joline, they blazed up at him. Frankly, he had never considered the question. Certainly he would like to see the damane freed, but why should it matter this much to her? Plainly, it did, though; her hand slid along the hilt of the long curved dagger stuck behind her belt, caressing it. Ebou Dari did not take kindly to insults, and she was pure Ebou Dari to that extent. “I began negotiating the sale of The Wandering Woman two days after the Seanchan arrived, when I could see what they are. I should have handed everything over to Lydel Elonid days ago, but I’ve been holding off because Lydel would not expect to find an Aes Sedai in the basement. When you are ready to go, I can hand over the keys and go with you. Lydel is growing impatient,” she added significantly over her shoulder to Joline.

And what about his gold? he wanted to ask indignantly. Would Lydel have let him take that away, a windfall under her kitchen floor? Still, it was something else that made him choke. Suddenly he could see himself saddled with Mistress Anan’s whole family, including the married sons and daughters with their children, and maybe a few aunts and uncles and cousins, as well. Dozens of them. Scores, maybe. She might be from off, but her husband had relations all over the city. Blaeric slapped him on the back so hard that he staggered.

He showed the fellow his teeth and hoped the Shienaran would take it for a smile of thanks. Blaeric’s expression never altered. Bloody Warders! Bloody Aes Sedai! Bloody, bloody innkeepers!

“Mistress Anan,” he said carefully, “the way I mean to get away from Ebou Dar, there’s only room for so many.” He had not told her about Luca’s show yet. There was a chance he could not convince the man, after all. And the more people he had to convince Luca to take, the harder it would be. “Come back here once we’re outside the city. If you have to leave, go on one of your husband’s fishing boats. I suggest you wait a few days, though. Maybe a week or so. Once the Seanchan discover two damane missing, they’ll be all over anything trying to leave.”

“Two?” Joline put in sharply. “Teslyn and who?”

Mat winced. He had not meant to let that slip. He had Joline pegged, and petulant, willful and spoiled were the words that came most readily to mind. Anything at all that made her think this more difficult, more likely to fail, might just be enough to make her decide to try some crackbrained scheme of her own. Something that would no doubt ruin his own plans. She would be captured for sure if she tried to run on her own, and she would fight. And once the Seanchan learned there had been an Aes Sedai in the city, right under their noses, they would intensify the searches for marath’damane again, increase the street patrols more than they already had for the “mad killer,” and worst of all, they might well make it even harder to pass the gates.

“Edesina Azzedin,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t know any thing more about her.”

“Edesina,” Joline said slowly. A tiny frown creased her smooth forehead. “I heard that she had—” Whatever she had heard, she snapped her teeth shut on it and fixed him a fierce stare. “Are they holding any other sisters? If Teslyn is getting free, I won’t leave any other sister to them!”

It took an effort on Mat’s part not to gape. Petulant and spoiled? He was looking at a lioness to match Blaeric and Fen. “Believe me, I won’t leave an Aes Sedai in the kennels unless she wants to stay,” he said, making his voice as wry as he could. The woman was still willful. She might insist on trying to rescue the other two like Pura. Light, he should never have let himself get tangled with Aes Sedai, and he did not need any ancient memories to warn him! His own would do very well, thank you.

Fen poked him on the back of his left shoulder with a hard finger. “Don’t be so light-tongued,” the Warder said warningly.

Blaeric poked him on the back of the other shoulder. “Remember who you are talking to!”

Joline sniffed at his tone, but she did not probe further.

Mat felt a knot loosen in the back of his neck, about where a headsman’s axe would strike. Aes Sedai twisted words with other people; they did not expect others to use their own tricks on them.

He turned to Setalle. “Mistress Anan, you can see your husband’s boats are much better—”

“It might be so,” she broke in, “except that Jasfer sailed with all ten of his boats and all of our kin three days ago. I expect the guilds will want to talk to him if he ever returns. He isn’t supposed to carry passengers. They are coasting to Illian, where they will wait for me. I don’t really intend to go as far as Tar Valon, you see.”

This time, Mat could not stop a wince. He had intended falling back on Jasfer Anan’s fishing boats if he failed to persuade Luca. A dangerous option, true, more than dangerous. Mad, maybe. The sul’dam on the docks likely would have wanted to check any order that sent damane out on fishing boats, especially in the night. But the boats had always been in the back of his mind. Well, he was just going to have twist Luca’s arm hard, just as hard as necessary.

“You let your kin go out in this season?” Disbelief and scorn mingled in Joline’s voice. “When the worst storms are brewing?”

Her back to the Aes Sedai, Mistress Anan raised her head proudly, but it was not pride in herself. “I trust Jasfer to sail into the teeth of a cemaros, if need be. I trust him as much as you do your Warders, Green. More.”

Frowning suddenly, Joline picked up the lamp by the iron base and moved it to cast light on the innkeeper’s face. “Have we met somewhere before? Sometimes, when I cannot see your face, your voice sounds familiar.”

Instead of answering, Setalle took the a’dam from Mat and fumbled at the flat segmented bracelet on one end of the round silver leash. The whole thing was made in segments, fitted together so cunningly you could not see how it had been done. “We might as well get the testing over with.”

“Testing?” he said, and those hazel eyes gave him a withering look.

“Not every woman can be a sul’dam. You should know that by now. I have hopes that I can, but better we find out before the last hour.” Scowling at the stubbornly closed bracelet, she turned it in her hands. “Do you know how to open this thing? I cannot even find where it opens.”

“Yes,” he said faintly. The only times he had talked with Seanchan about sul’dam and damane, it had been cautious questions about how they were used in battle. He had never even thought about how sul’dam were chosen. He might have to fight them—those ancient memories hardly let him stop thinking about how to fight battles—but he had certainly never meant to recruit any. “Better to test it now.” Instead of . . . Light!

The catches were a simple matter for him, the bracelet easiest. That was just a matter of squeezing the right spots, top and bottom, not quite opposite the leash. It could be done with one hand, and the bracelet popped open on one with a metallic click. The collar was a little trickier, and required both hands. Putting his fingers on the proper spots on either side of where the leash attached, he pressed, then twisted and pulled while holding the pressure. Nothing happened, that he could see, until he twisted the two sides the other way. Then they came apart right beside the leash, with a sharper click than the bracelet. Simple. Of course, figuring it out had taken him nearly an hour, back in the Palace, even with what Juilin had seen to help. Nobody here praised him, though. Nobody even looked as though he had done anything they could not!

Snapping the bracelet around her wrist, Setalle looped the leash in coils on her forearm, then held up the open collar. Joline stared it with loathing, her hands tightening into fists gripping her skirts.

“Do you want to escape?” the innkeeper asked quietly.

After a moment, Joline straightened and lifted her chin. Setalle closed the collar around the Aes Sedai’s neck with the same crisp snap it had made opening. He must have been wrong about the size; it fit her quite snugly atop the high neck of her dress. Joline’s mouth twitched, that was all, but Mat could almost feel Blaeric and Fen tensing behind him. He held his breath.

Side by side, the two women took a small step, brushing by Mat, and he began to breathe. Joline frowned uncertainly. Then they took a second step.

With a cry, the Aes Sedai fell to the floor, writhing in agony. She could not form words, only increasingly louder moans. She huddled in on herself, her arms and legs and even her fingers twitching and crooking at odd angles.

Setalle dropped to her knees as soon as Joline hit the floor, her hands going to the collar, but she was no quicker than Blaeric and Fen, though their actions did seem odd. Kneeling, Blaeric raised a wailing Joline and supported her against his chest while he began to massage her neck, of all things. Fen worked his fingers along her arms. The collar came loose, and Setalle fell back on her heels, but Joline continued to jerk and whimper, and her Warders continued to work over her as though trying to rub away cramps. They shot cold stares at Mat as though it were all his fault.

Looking down on all his fine plans lying in ruins, Mat barely saw the men. He did not know what to do next, where to begin. Tylin might be back in two more days, and he was sure he had to be gone before she returned.

Squeezing past Setalle, he patted her on the shoulder. “Tell her we’ll try something else,” he muttered. But what? Obviously it had to be a woman with a sul’dam’s abilities to handle the a’dam.

The innkeeper caught him in the dark at the foot of the stairs leading up to the kitchen while he was gathering his hat and cloak. A stout, plain wool cloak with no embroidery. A man could do without embroidery. He certainly did not miss it. And all that lace! Certainly not!

“Do you have another plan ready?” she asked. He could not make out her face in the dark, but the silver length of the a’dam gleamed even so. She was groping at the bracelet on her wrist.

“I always have another plan,” he lied, undoing the bracelet for her. “At least you can forget about risking your neck. As soon as I take Joline off your hands, you can go join your husband.”

She just grunted. He suspected she knew he had no plan.

He wanted to avoid the common room full of Seanchan, so he went out through the kitchen into the stableyard and out through the gate into the Mol Hara. He was not afraid that any of them would mark him out or wonder why he was there. In his drab clothes, they seemed to take him for someone running an errand for the innkeeper when he came in. But there had been three sul’dam among the Seanchan, two with damane. He was beginning to be afraid he would have to leave Teslyn and Edesina collared, and he just did not want to look at damane right then. Blood and bloody ashes, he had only promised to try!

The weak sun still stood high in the sky, but the sea wind was picking up, full of salt and a cold promise of rain. Except for a squad of Deathwatch Guards marching across the square, humans rather than Ogier, everyone in the Mol Hara was hurrying to be done with whatever they were about before the rain came. As he reached the base of Queen Nariene’s tall bare-breasted statue, a hand fell on his shoulder.

“I did no recognize you at first, without your fancy clothes, Mat Cauthon.”

Mat turned to find himself facing the heavyset Illianer so’jhin he had seen the day Joline reappeared in his life. It was not a pleasant association. The round-faced fellow did look odd, between that beard and half the hair on his head missing, and he was shivering in his shirtsleeves, of all things.

“You know me?” Mat said cautiously.

The heavyset man beamed a wide smile at him. “Fortune prick me, I do. You did take a memorable voyage on my ship, once, with Trollocs and Shadar Logoth at one end and a Myrddraal and Whitebridge in flames at the other. Bayle Domon, Master Cauthon. Do you remember me now?”

“I remember.” He did, after a fashion. Most of that voyage was vague in his head, tattered by the holes those other men’s memories had filled. “We’ll have to sit down over hot spiced wine some time and talk over old times.” Which would never happen if he saw Domon first. What remained in his memory of that voyage was strangely unpleasant, like remembering a deathly illness. Of course, he had been ill, in a way. Another unpleasant memory.

“There be no time like now,” Domon laughed, swinging a thick arm around Mat’s shoulders and turning him back toward The Wandering Woman.

Short of fighting, there seemed to be no way to escape the man, so Mat went. A knock-down fight was no way to avoid being noticed. Anyway, he was not sure he would win. Domon looked fat, but the fat was layered over hard muscle. A drink would not go amiss in any case. Besides which, hadn’t Domon been something of a smuggler? He might know paths in and out of Ebou Dar that others did not, and he might reveal them to a little judicious questioning. Especially over wine. A fat purse of gold lay in Mat’s coat pocket, and he did not mind spending it all to get the man drunk as a fiddler at Sunday. Drunk men talked.

Domon hustled him through the common room, bowing left and right to Blood and officers who barely saw him if that, but he did not enter the kitchens, where Enid might have given them a bench in the corner. Instead, he took Mat up the railless stairs. Until he ushered Mat into a room at the back of the inn, Mat assumed Domon was going to fetch his coat and cloak. A good fire blazing on the hearth warmed the room, but Mat suddenly felt colder than he had outside.

Closing the door behind them, Domon planted himself in front of it with his arms folded across his chest. “You do be in the presence of Captain of the Green Lady Egeanin Tamarath,” he intoned, then added in a more normal tone, “This be Mat Cauthon.”

Mat looked from Domon to the tall woman seated stiffly on a ladder-backed chair. Her pleated dress was pale yellow today, and she wore a flower-embroidered robe over it, but he remembered her. Her pale face was hard, and her blue eyes were every bit as predatory as Tylin’s. Only, he suspected Egeanin was not after kisses. Her hands were slender, but they had swordsman’s calluses. He had no chance to ask what this was about, and no need.

“My so’jhin informs me you are not unfamiliar with danger, Master Cauthon,” she said as soon as Domon finished speaking. Her slow Seanchan drawl still sounded peremptory and commanding, but then, she was of the Blood. “I need such men to crew a ship, and I will pay well, in gold not silver. If you know others like yourself, I will hire them. They must be able to hold their tongues, though. My business is my own. Bayle mentioned two other names. Thom Merrilin and Juilin Sandar. If either is here in Ebou Dar, I can use their skills, as well. They know me, and know they can trust me with their lives. So can you, Master Cauthon.”

Mat sat down on the room’s second chair and threw back his cloak. He was not supposed to sit even with one of the lesser Blood—as her dark bowl-cut hair and green-lacquered little fingernails proclaimed her to be—but he needed to think. “You have a ship?” he asked, in the main to gain time. She opened her mouth angrily. Asking questions of the Blood was supposed to be done delicately.

Domon grunted and shook his head, and for a moment she looked even angrier, but then her stern face smoothed. On the other hand, her eyes bored into Mat like augers, and she rose to stand with her feet apart and her hands on her hips, confronting him. “I will have a vessel by the end of spring at latest, as soon as my gold can be brought from Cantorin,” she said in an icy voice.

Mat sighed. Well, there really had been no chance he could take Aes Sedai out on a ship owned by a Seanchan, not really. “How do you know Thom and Juilin?” Domon could have told her about Thom, certainly, but, Light, how could she know Juilin?

“You ask too many questions,” she said firmly, turning away. “I fear I cannot use you after all. Bayle, put him out.” The last was a peremptory command.

Domon did not move from the door. “Tell him,” he urged her. “Soon or late, he must know everything or he will put you in greater danger than you face now. Tell him.” Even for so’jhin, he seemed to get away with a great deal. The Seanchan were great ones for property keeping its place. For everyone else keeping theirs, for that matter. Egeanin must not be a quarter as tough as she looked.

She looked very tough at the moment, kicking her skirts and striding back and forth, scowling at Domon, at Mat. Finally, she stopped. “I gave them some small aid in Tanchico,” she said. After a moment she added, “And two women who were with them, Elayne Trakand and Nynaeve al’Meara.” Her eyes focused on him intently, watching to see whether he knew the names.

Mat’s chest felt tight. It was not a pain, but more like watching a horse he had bet on streak toward the finish line with others close behind and the question still in doubt. What in the Light had Nynaeve and Elayne been up to in Tanchico that they had needed a Seanchan’s help, and had gotten it? Thom and Juilin had been closemouthed about the details. That was beside the point, anyway. Egeanin wanted men who could keep her secrets and did not mind danger. She herself was in danger. Very little was dangerous to one of the Blood, except for other Blood and . . . “The Seekers are after you,” he said.

The way her head came up was confirmation enough, and her hand went to her side as though reaching for a sword. Domon shifted his feet and flexed his big hands, his eyes on Mat. Eyes suddenly harder than Egeanin’s. The thick man no longer looked funny; he looked dangerous. Abruptly it came to Mat that he might not leave the room alive.

“If you need to get away from the Seekers, I can help you,” he said quickly. “You’ll have to go where the Seanchan aren’t in control. Anywhere they are, the Seekers can find you. And it’s best to go as soon as possible. You can always get more gold. If the Seekers don’t take you first. Thom tells me they’re getting very active about something. Heating the irons and getting the rack ready.”

For a time Egeanin stood motionless, staring at him. At last, she exchanged a long look with Domon. “Perhaps it would be well to leave as soon as possible,” she breathed. Her tone firmed immediately, though. If there had been worry on her face for a moment, it vanished. “The Seekers will not stop me leaving the city, I think, but they think they can follow me to something they want more than they want me. They will follow me, and until I leave the lands already held by the Rhyagelle, they can call on soldiers to arrest me, which they will as soon as they decide I am going to lands not yet gathered. That is when I will need the skills of your friend Thom Merrilin, Master Cauthon. Between here and there, I must vanish from the Seekers’ sight. I may not have the gold from Cantorin, but I have enough to reward your help handsomely. You can rest assured of that.”

“Call me Mat,” he said, giving her his very best smile. Even hard-faced women softened for his best smile. Well, she did not soften visibly—if anything, she frowned slightly—but one thing he did know about women was the effect his smiles had. “I know how to make you vanish now. No use waiting, you know. The Seekers might decide to arrest you tomorrow.” That hit home. She did not flinch—he suspected very little made her flinch—but she almost nodded. “There is just one thing, Egeanin.” This still could blow up in his face like one of Aludra’s fireworks, but he did not hesitate. Sometimes, you just had to toss the dice. “I don’t need any gold, but I do have need of three sul’dam who will keep their mouths shut. Do you think you could supply those?”

After a moment that seemed to stretch hours, she nodded, and he smiled to himself. His horse had crossed first.

“Domon,” Thom said in a flat voice around the pipestem clenched between his teeth. He was lying with a thin pillow doubled up beneath his head, and he seemed to be studying the faint blue haze that hung in the air of the windowless room. The single lamp gave a fitful light. “And Egeanin.”

“And she is of the Blood, now.” Sitting on the edge of his bed, Juilin peered into the charred bowl of his pipe. “I do not know as I like that.”

“Are you saying we can’t trust them?” Mat demanded, tamping down his tabac with a careless thumb. He snatched his thumb out with a mild oath and stuck it in his mouth to suck the burn away. Yet again he had the choice of the stool or standing, but for once he did not mind the stool. Dealing with Egeanin had taken little enough of the afternoon, but Thom had been out of the Palace until after dark, while Juilin had taken even longer to appear. Neither appeared nearly as pleased with Mat’s news as he expected. Thom had just sighed that he had finally gotten a good look at one of the accepted seals, but Juilin glowered whenever he looked at the bundle lying in the corner of the room where he had hurled it. There was no bloody need for the man to carry on so just because they no longer needed the sul’dam dresses. “I tell you, they’re both scared spitless over the Seekers,” Mat went on when his thumb was cooled. Maybe not exactly spitless, but frightened nonetheless. “Egeanin may be Blood, but she never twitched an eyelid when I told her what I wanted sul’dam for. She just said she knew three who would do what we need, and she could have them ready tomorrow.”

“An honorable woman, Egeanin,” Thom mused. Every so often he paused to blow a smoke ring. “Odd, true, but then, she is Seanchan. I think even Nynaeve came to like her, and I know Elayne did. And she liked them. Even if they were Aes Sedai, as she believed. She was very useful in Tanchico. Very useful. More than merely competent. I truly would like to know how she came be raised to the Blood, but yes, I believe we can trust Egeanin. And Domon. An interesting man, Domon.”

“A smuggler,” Juilin muttered disparagingly. “And now he belongs to her. So’jhin are more than just property, you know. There are so’jhin who tell Blood what to do.” Thom raised a shaggy eyebrow at him. Just that, but after a moment, the thief-catcher shrugged. “I suppose Domon is trustworthy,” he said reluctantly. “For a smuggler.”

Mat snorted. Maybe they were jealous. Well, he was ta’veren, and they had to live with it. “Then tomorrow night, we leave. The only change in the plan is that we have three real sul’dam and one of the Blood to get us through the gates.”

“And these sul’dam are going to take three Aes Sedai out of the city, let them go, and never think of raising an alarm,” Juilin muttered. “Once, while Rand al’Thor was in Tear, I saw a tossed coin land on its edge five times in a row. We finally walked away and left it standing there on the table. I suppose anything can happen.”

“Either you trust them or you don’t, Juilin,” Mat growled. The thief-catcher glared at the bundled dresses in the corner, and Mat shook his head. “What did they do to help you in Tanchico, Thom? Blood and ashes, don’t the two of you go all flat-eyed on me again! You know, and they know, and I might as well.”

“Nynaeve said not to tell anyone,” Juilin said as if that really mattered. “Elayne said not to. We promised. You might say we swore an oath.”

Thom shook his head on the pillow. “Circumstances alter cases, Juilin. And in any case, it wasn’t an oath.” He blew three perfect smoke rings, one inside the other. “They helped us acquire and dispose of a sort of male a’dam, Mat. The Black Ajah apparently wanted to use it on Rand. You can see why Nynaeve and Elayne wanted it kept quiet. If word spread that such a thing ever existed, the Light knows what kind of tales would spring up.”

“Who cares what stories people tell?” A male a’dam? Light, if the Black Ajah had gotten that onto Rand’s neck, or the Seanchan had . . . Those colors whirled through his head again, and he made himself stop thinking about Rand. “Gossip isn’t going to hurt . . . anybody.” No colors that time. He could avoid it as long as he did not think about . . . The colors swirled again, and he ground his teeth on his pipestem.

“Not true, Mat. Stories have power. Gleemen’s tales, and bards’ epics, and rumors in the street alike. They stir passions, and change the way men see the world. Today, I heard a man say that Rand had sworn fealty to Elaida, that he was in the White Tower. The fellow believed it, Mat. What if, say, enough Tairens begin to believe? Tairens dislike Aes Sedai. Correct, Juilin?”

“Some do,” Juilin allowed, then added as though Thom had dragged it from him, “Most do. But not many of us have met Aes Sedai, not to know it. They way the law was, forbidding channeling, few Aes Sedai came to Tear, and they very seldom advertised who they were.”

“That’s beside the point, my fine Aes Sedai-loving Tairen friend. And it gives weight to my argument in any event. Tear holds to Rand, the nobles do at least, because they’re afraid if they do not, he’ll come back, but if they believe the Tower holds him, then maybe he can’t come back. If they believe he’s a tool of the Tower, it is just one more reason for them to turn on him. Let enough Tairens believe those two things, and he might as well have left Tear as soon as he drew Callandor. That is just the one rumor, and just Tear, but it could do as much harm in Cairhien, or Illian, or anywhere. I don’t know what sort of tales might spring from a male a’dam, in a world with the Dragon Reborn, and Asha’man, but I’m too old to want to find out.”

Mat understood, in a manner of speaking. A man always tried to make whoever was commanding the troops against him believe that he was doing something other than what he was, that he was going where he had no intention of going, and the enemy tried to do the same to him, if the enemy was any good at the craft. Sometimes both sides could get so confused that very strange things happened. Tragedies, sometimes. Cities burned that no one had any interest in burning, except that the burners believed what was untrue, and thousands died. Crops destroyed for the same reason, and tens of thousands died in the famine that followed.

“So I won’t crack my teeth about this a’dam for men,” he said. “I suppose somebody has thought to tell . . . him?” Colors flashed. Maybe he could just ignore them, or grow used to them. They were gone as fast as they came, and they did not hurt. He just did not like things he could not understand. Especially when they might have to do with the Power in some way. The silver foxhead under his shirt might protect him against the Power, but that protection had as many holes as his own memories.

“We have not exactly been in regular communication,” Thom said dryly, waggling his eyebrows. “I suppose Elayne and Nynaeve have found some way to let him know, if they think it important.”

“Why should they?” Juilin said, bending to tug off a boot with a grunt. “The thing is at the bottom of the sea.” Scowling, he hurled the boot at the bundled dresses in the corner. “Are you going to let us get any sleep tonight, Mat? I don’t think we’ll have any tomorrow night, and I like to sleep at least every other night.”

That night, Mat chose to sleep in Tylin’s bed. Not for old times’ sake. That thought made him laugh, though his laughter had too much of the sound of a whimper to be very funny. It was just that a good feather mattress and goose-down pillows were preferable to a hayloft when a man did not know when his next decent night’s sleep would come.

The trouble was that he could not sleep. He lay there in the dark with an arm behind his head and the medallion’s leather cord looped through itself on his wrist, ready to hand in case the gholam slid through the crack under the door, but it was not the gholam that kept him awake. He could not stop going over the plan in his head. It was a good plan, and simple; as simple as it could be, in the circumstances. Only, no battle ever went according to plan, even the best. Great captains earned their reputation not just for laying brilliant plans, but for still being able to find victory after those plans began to fall apart. So when first light illumined the windows, he was still lying there, rolling the medallion across the back of his fingers and trying to think of what was going to go wrong.