The Dragon Reborn

## Chapter 28

#### A Way Out

Clad only in his breeches, Mat was just finishing a snack after breakfast—some ham, three apples, bread, and butter—when the door of his room opened, and Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne filed in, all smiling at him brightly. He got up for a shirt, then stubbornly sat down again. They could at least have knocked. In any case, it was good to see their faces. At first, it was.

“Well, you do look better,” Egwene said.

“As if you had had a month of good food and rest,” Elayne said.

Nynaeve pressed a hand to his forehead. He flinched before he recalled that she had done much the same for at least five years, back home. She was just the Wisdom then, he thought. She wasn’t wearing that ring.

She had noticed his flinch. She gave him a tight smile. “You look ready to be up and about, to me. Are you tired of being cooped up, yet? You never could stand two days in a row indoors.”

He eyed the last apple core reluctantly, then dropped it back on the plate. Almost, he started to lick the juice off his fingers, but they were all three looking at him. And still smiling. He realized he was trying to decide which of them was prettiest, and could not. Had they been anybody but who—and what—they were, he would have asked any and all of them to dance a jig or a reel. He had danced with Egwene often enough, back home, and even once with Nynaeve, but that seemed a long time ago.

“ ‘One pretty woman means fun at the dance. Two pretty women mean trouble in the house. Three pretty women mean run for the hills.’ ” He gave Nynaeve an even tighter smile than her own. “My da used to say that. You’re up to something, Nynaeve. You are all smiling like cats staring at a finch caught in a thornbush, and I think I am the finch.”

The smiles flickered and vanished. He noticed their hands and wondered why they all looked as if they had been washing dishes. The Daughter-Heir of Andor surely never washed a dish, and he had as hard a time imagining Nynaeve at it, even knowing she had done her own back in Emond’s Field. They all three wore Great Serpent rings, now. That was new. And not a particularly pleasant surprise. Light, it had to happen sometime. It’s none of my business, and that is all there is to it. None of my business. It just isn’t.

Egwene shook her head, but it seemed as much for the other two women as for him. “I told you we should ask him straight out. He’s stubborn as any mule when he wants to be, and tricksome as a cat. You are, Mat. You know it, so stop frowning.”

He put his grin back quickly.

“Hush, Egwene,” Nynaeve said. “Mat, just because we want to ask you a favor does not mean we don’t care how you feel. We do care, and you know that, unless you’re being even more wool-headed than usual. Are you well? You look remarkably well compared to how I last saw you. It really does look more like a month than two days.”

“I’m ready to run ten miles and dance a jig at the end of it.” His stomach growled, reminding him how long it was to midday yet, but he ignored it, and hoped they had not noticed. He almost did feel as if he had had a month of rest and food. And had had one meal in the last day. “What favor?” he asked suspiciously. Nynaeve did not ask favors, in his recollection; Nynaeve told people what to do and expected to see it done.

“I want you to carry a letter for me,” Elayne said before Nynaeve could speak. “To my mother, in Caemlyn.” She smiled, making a dimple in her cheek. “I would appreciate it so very much, Mat.” The morning light through the windows seemed to pick out highlights in her hair.

I wonder if she likes to dance. He pushed the thought right out of his head. “That does not sound too very hard, but it’s a long trip. What do I get out of it?” From the look on her face, he did not think that dimple had failed her very often.

She drew herself up, slim and proud. He could almost see a throne behind her. “Are you a loyal subject of Andor? Do you not wish to serve the Lion Throne, and your Daughter-Heir?”

Mat snickered.

“I told you that would not work either,” Egwene said. “Not with him.”

Elayne had a wry twist to her mouth. “I thought it worth a try. It always works on the Guards, in Caemlyn. You said if I smiled—” She cut off short, very obviously not looking at him.

What did you say, Egwene, he thought, furious. That I’m a fool for any girl who smiles at me? He kept his outward calm, though, and managed to maintain his grin.

“I wish asking were enough,” Egwene said, “but you do not do favors, do you, Mat? Have you ever done anything without being coaxed, wheedled, or bullied?”

He only smiled at her. “I will dance with both of you, Egwene, but I won’t run errands.” For an instant he thought she was going to stick out her tongue at him.

“If we can go back to what we planned in the first place,” Nynaeve said in a too-calm voice. The other two nodded, and she turned her attentions on him. For the first time since coming in, she looked like the Wisdom of old, with a stare that could pin you in your tracks and her braid ready to lash like a cat’s tail.

“You are even ruder than I remembered, Matrim Cauthon. With you sick so long—and Egwene, and Elayne, and I taking care of you like a babe in swaddling—I had almost forgotten. Even so, I would think you’d have a little gratitude in you. You’ve talked about seeing the world, seeing great cities. Well, what better city than Caemlyn? Do what you want, show your gratitude, and help someone all at the same time.” She produced a folded parchment from inside her cloak and set it on the table. It was sealed with a lily, in golden yellow wax. “You cannot ask for more than that.”

He eyed the paper regretfully. He barely remembered passing through Caemlyn, once, with Rand. It was a shame to stop them now, but he thought it best. If you want the fun of the jig, you have to pay the harper sooner or later. And the way Nynaeve was now, the longer he kept from paying, the worse it would be. “Nynaeve, I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you cannot? Are you a fly on the wall, or a man? A chance to do a favor for the Daughter-Heir of Andor, to see Caemlyn, to meet Queen Morgase herself in all probability, and you cannot? I really do not know what more you could possibly want. Don’t you skitter away like grease on a griddle this time, Matrim Cauthon! Or has your heart changed so you like seeing these all around you?” She waved her left hand in his face, practically hitting him in the nose with her ring.

“Please, Mat?” Elayne said, and Egwene was staring at him as if he had grown horns like a Trolloc.

He squirmed on his chair. “It is not that I don’t want to. I cannot! The Amyrlin’s made it so I can’t get off the bloo—the island. Change that, and I will carry your letter in my teeth, Elayne.”

Looks passed between them. He sometimes wondered if women could read each other’s minds. They certainly seemed to read his when he least wanted it. But this time, whatever they had decided silently among themselves, they had not read his thoughts.

“Explain,” Nynaeve said curtly. “Why would the Amyrlin want to keep you here?”

He shrugged, and looked her straight in the eye, and gave her his best rueful grin. “It’s because I was sick. Because it went on so long. She said she would not let me go until she was sure I wouldn’t go off somewhere and die. Not that I’m going to, of course. Die, I mean.”

Nynaeve frowned, and jerked her braid, and suddenly took his head between her hands; a chill ran through him. Light, the Power! Before the thought was done, she had released him.

“What . . . ? What did you do to me, Nynaeve?”

“Not a tenth part of what you deserve, in all likelihood,” she said. “You are as healthy as a bull. Weaker than you look, but healthy.”

“I told you I was,” he said uneasily. He tried to get his grin back. “Nynaeve, she looked like you. The Amyrlin, I mean. Managing to loom even if she is a foot too short for it, and bullying . . . ” The way her eyebrows climbed, he decided that was not a road to go down any further. As long as he kept them away from the Horn. He wondered if they knew. “Well. Anyway, I think they want to keep me here because of that dagger. I mean, until they figure out exactly how it did what it did. You know how Aes Sedai are.” He gave a small laugh. They all just looked at him. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Burn me! They want to be bloody Aes Sedai. Burn me, I’m going on too long. I wish Nynaeve would stop staring at me like that. Keep it short. “The Amyrlin made it so I cannot cross a bridge or board a ship without an order from her. You see? It’s not that I do not want to help. I just can’t.”

“But you will if we can get you out of Tar Valon?” Nynaeve said intently.

“You get me out of Tar Valon, and I’ll carry Elayne to her mother on my back.”

Elayne’s eyebrows went up, this time, and Egwene shook her head, mouthing his name with a sharp look in her eyes. Women had no sense of humor, sometimes.

Nynaeve motioned the two of them to follow her to the windows, where they turned their backs to him and talked so softly he could catch only a murmur. He thought he heard Egwene say something about only needing one if they stayed together. Watching, he wondered if they really thought they could get around the Amyrlin’s order. If they can do that, I will carry their bloody letter. I really will carry it in my teeth.

Without thinking, he picked up an apple core and bit off the end. One chew, and he hastily spit the mouthful of bitter seeds back onto the plate.

When they came back to the table, Egwene handed him a thick, folded paper. He eyed them suspiciously before opening it out. As he read, he began humming to himself without knowing it.

What the bearer does is done at my order and by my authority. Obey, and keep silent, at my command.

Siuan Sanche
Watcher of the Seals
Flame of Tar Valon
The Amyrlin Seat

And sealed at the bottom with the Flame of Tar Valon in a circle of white wax as hard as stone.

He realized he was humming “A Pocket Full of Gold” and stopped. “Is this real? You didn’t . . . ? How did you get this?”

“She did not forge it, if that is what you mean,” Elayne said.

“Never you mind how we got it,” Nynaeve said. “It is real. That is all that need concern you. I would not show it around, were I you, or the Amyrlin will take it back, but it will get you past the guards and onto a ship. You said you’d take the letter, if we did that.”

“You can consider it in Morgase’s hands right now.” He did not want to stop reading the paper, but he folded it back up anyway, and laid it on top of Elayne’s letter. “You wouldn’t happen to have a little coin to go with this, would you? Some silver? A gold mark or two? I have almost enough for my passage, but I hear things are growing expensive downriver.”

Nynaeve shook her head. “Don’t you have money? You gambled with Hurin almost every night until you grew too sick to hold the dice. Why should things be more expensive downriver?”

“We gambled for coppers, Nynaeve, and he would not even do that after a while. It doesn’t matter. I will manage. Don’t you listen to what people say? There’s civil war in Cairhien, and I hear it is bad in Tear, too. I’ve heard a room at an inn in Aringill costs more than a good horse back home.”

“We have been busy,” she said sharply, and exchanged worried looks with Egwene and Elayne that set him wondering again.

“It doesn’t matter. I can make out.” There had to be gaming in the inns near the docks. A night with the dice would put him aboard a ship in the morning with a full purse.

“Just you deliver that letter to Queen Morgase, Mat,” Nynaeve said. “And do not let anyone know you have it.”

“I’ll take it to her. I said I would, didn’t I? You would think I didn’t keep my promises.” The looks he got from Nynaeve and Egwene reminded him of a few he had not kept. “I will do it. Blood and—I will do it!”

They stayed awhile longer, talking of home for the most part. Egwene and Elayne sat on the bed, and Nynaeve took the armchair, while he kept his stool. Talk of Emond’s Field made him homesick, and it seemed to make Nynaeve and Egwene sad, as if they were speaking of something they would never see again. He was sure their eyes moistened, but when he tried to change the subject, they brought it back again, to people they knew, to the festivals of Bel Tine and Sunday, to harvest dances and picnic gatherings for the shearing.

Elayne talked to him of Caemlyn, of what to expect at the Royal Palace and who to speak to, and a little of the city. Sometimes she held herself in a way that made him all but see a crown on her head. A man would have to be a fool to let himself get involved with a woman like her. When they rose to leave, he was sorry to see them go.

He stood, suddenly feeling awkward. “Look, you have done me a favor here.” He touched the Amyrlin’s paper, on the table. “A big favor. I know you’re all going to be Aes Sedai”—he stumbled a little on that—“and you will be a queen one day, Elayne, but if you ever need help, if there is ever anything I can do, I will come. You can count on it. Did I say something funny?”

Elayne had a hand over her mouth, and Egwene was struggling openly with a laugh. “No, Mat,” Nynaeve said smoothly, but her lips twitched. “Just something I have observed about men.”

“You would have to be a woman to understand,” Elayne said.

“Journey well and safely, Mat,” Egwene said. “And remember, if a woman does need a hero, she needs him today, not tomorrow.” The laughter bubbled out of her.

He stared at the door closing behind them. Women, he decided for at least the hundredth time, were odd.

Then his eye fell on Elayne’s letter, and the folded paper lying atop it. The Amyrlin’s blessed, not-to-be-understood, but welcome-as-a-fire-in-winter paper. He danced a little caper in the middle of the flowered carpet. Caemlyn to see, and a queen to meet. Your own words will free me of you, Amyrlin. And get me away from Selene, too.

“You’ll never catch me,” he laughed, and meant it for both of them. “You’ll never catch Mat Cauthon.”