Ignoring Luca, the Seanchan officer stepped up onto his geld?ing, adjusted his sword, and barked orders that sent his men flow?ing into their saddles and forming a column of twos that moved off at a slow walk toward the entrance. Luca stood watching them leave with a fixed smile on his face, poised for another bow if any looked back.
Mat stayed well to the side of the street and let his mouth hang open, affecting to gape in wonder as the soldiers rode by. Not that any of them so much as glanced his way - the officer stared straight ahead and so did the soldiers behind him - but no one ever paid any mind to a country yokel, or remembered one.
To his surprise, Egeanin studied the ground in front of her toes, clutching the scarf knotted beneath her chin, until the last horseman passed. Lifting her head to look after them, she pursed her lips for a moment. “It seems I do know that boy,” she drawled softly. “I carried him to Palme onFearless. His servant died, mid-voyage, and he thought he could use one of my crew. I had to put him straight. You’d have though he was of the Blood, the fuss he put up.”
“Blood and bloody ashes,” Mat breathed. How many other peo?ple had she gotten crosswise, fixing her face in their minds? Egeanin being Egeanin, probably hundreds. And he had been let?ting her walk around with just a wig and a change of clothes for disguise! Hundreds? Thousands, more likely. She could irritate a brick.
In any case, the officer was gone now. Mat exhaled slowly. His luck really was still with him. At times he thought that was all that kept him from bawling like a baby. He headed for Luca to find out what the soldiers had wanted.
Domon and Blaeric reached Luca as quickly as he and Egeanin did, and the scowl on Domon’s round face deepened as he stared at Mat’s arm around Egeanin’s shoulder. The Illianer understood the necessity for the pretense, or said he did, yet he seemed to believe they could carry it off without so much as touching hands. Mat removed his arm from her - there was nothing to carry off here; Luca knew the truth; of everything - and Egeanin started to release him, too, yet after a look at Domon, she tightened her grip on Mat’s waist instead, all without the slightest change of expression. Domon continued to scowl, but at the ground, now. Mat decided he would understand the Seanchan long before he understood women. Or Illianers, for that matter.
“Horses,” Luca growled almost before Mat stopped walking. His frown took in all of them, but he focused most of his anger on Mat. A little the taller, Luca stretched to stare down at Mat. “That’s what he wanted. I showed him the warrant exempting me from the horse lottery, signed by the High Lady Suroth herself, but was he impressed? It didn’t matter to him that I rescued a high-ranking Seanchan.” The woman had not been high-ranking, and he had not so much rescued her as given her a way to travel as a hired performer, but Luca always exaggerated to his own advantage. “I don’t know how long that exemption is really good for, anyway. The Seanchan are desperate for horses. They might take it back any day!” His face was turning almost as red as his coat, and he jabbed a finger at Mat repeatedly. “You’re going to get my horses taken! How do I move my show with no horses? Answer me that, if you can. I was ready to leave as soon as I saw that madness in the har?bor, until you twisted my arm. You’re going to get my head cut off! I could be a hundred miles from here, if not for you, riding in out of the night and snaring me in your crazy schemes! I’m not earning a penny here! There haven’t been enough patrons the last three days to pay for feeding the animals one day! Half a day! I should have left a month ago! More! I should have!”
Mat almost laughed as Luca ran down into splutters. Horses. That was all; just horses. Besides, the notion that the show’s heavy-laden wagons could cover a hundred miles in five days was as ludi?crous as Luca’s wagon. The man could have gone a month ago, two months, except for wanting to eke every copper he could out of Ebou Dar and its Seanchan conquerors. And as for talking him into staying, six nights past, that had been as easy as falling out of bed.
Instead of laughing, Mat put a hand on Luca’s shoulder. The fellow was vain as a peacock, and greedy besides, but there was no point making him angrier than he already was. “If you’d left that night, Luca, you think nobody would have gotten suspicious? You would have had Seanchan tearing your wagons apart before you made two leagues. You could say I saved you from that.” Luca glowered. Some people just could not see beyond their own noses. “Anyway, you can stop worrying. As soon as Thorn returns from the city, we can put as many miles behind us as you want.”
Luca leaped so suddenly that Mat stepped back in alarm, but all the man did was caper in a little circle laughing. Domon gog?gled at him, and even Blaeric stared. Sometimes, Luca seemed a flat bull-goose fool.
Luca had barely begun his dance when Egeanin shoved Mat away from her. “As soon as Merrilin returns? I gave orders no one was to leave!” Her glare swung between him and Luca in cold fury, a cold that burned. “I expect my orders to be obeyed!”
Luca stopped cavorting abruptly and eyed her sideways, then suddenly made her a bow with so many flourishes you could prac?tically see the cloak. You could almost see theembroidery on the cloak! He thought he had a way with a women, Luca did. “You command, my sweet Lady, and I leap to obey.” Coming upright, he shrugged apologetically. “But Master Cauthon has gold, and I fear gold commands my first obedience.” Mat’s chest full of gold coins in this very wagon had been all the arm-twisting needed to convince him. Maybe Mat beingta’veren had helped, but for enough gold, Valan Luca would help kidnap the Dark One.
Egeanin drew a deep breath, ready to berate Luca further, but the man turned his back and went scampering up the steps into his wagon shouting, “Latelle! Latelle! We must roust everybody out immediately! We’re leaving at last, the minute Merrilin returns! The Light be praised!”
A moment later, he was back again, dashing back down the short stair followed by his wife drawing a black velvet cloak, sewn with glittering spangles, around herself. A stern-faced woman, she wrinkled her nose at Mat as though he had a bad smell and gave Egeanin a look that likely made her trained bears climb trees. Latelle disliked the idea of a woman running away from her hus?band even when she knew it was a lie. Luckily, she seemed to wor?ship Luca for some reason, and she liked gold nearly as well as he did. Luca ran to the nearest wagon and began pounding on the door, and Latelle did the same at the next.
Not waiting around to watch, Mat hurried off down one of theside streets. More of an alley compared to the main street, it wound among the same sort of wagons and tents, all shut up tight against the cold, with smoke streaming from the metal chimneys. There were no platforms for performers here, but lines for drying laundry hung between some of the wagons, and here and there wooden toys lay scattered on the ground. This street was for living only, the nar?rowness meant to discourage outsiders.
He moved quickly despite his hip - he had walked most of the ache out - but he had not gone ten steps before Egeanin and Domon caught up to him. Blaeric had vanished, probably gone to tell the sisters they were still safe and could finally leave. The Aes Sedai, masquerading as servants sick with worry that their mis?tress’s husband would catch them, were fed up with being confined to their wagon, not to mention fed up with sharing with thesul’dam. Mat had made them share, so the Aes Sedai could watch thesul’dam while thesul’dam kept the Aes Sedai out of his hair. Still Mat was glad Blaeric had taken away the necessity for him to visit that wagon again. One or another of the sisters had summoned him four or five times a day since their escape from the city, and he went when he could not avoid it, but it was never a pleasant experience.
Egeanin did not put her arm around him this time. She strode at his side staring straight ahead, not bothering to check her wig, for once. Domon lumbered behind like a bear, muttering under his breath in his heavy Illianer accent. The stocking cap exposed the fact that his dark beard stopped abruptly at the middle of each ear, with only stubble above. It made him look . . . unfinished.
“Two captains on one ship make sure course for disaster,” Egeanin drawled with overdone patience. Her understanding smile looked as if it hurt her face.
“We aren’t on a ship,” Mat replied.
“The principle’s the same, Cauthon! You are a farmer. I know you’re a good man in a tight spot.” Egeanin shot a dark look over her shoulder at Domon. He was the one who had brought her and Mat together, back when she thought she was getting a hired man. “But this situation needs judgment and experience. We’re in dan?gerous waters, and you have no knowledge of command.”
“More than you might think,” he told her dryly. He could have spun out a list of the battles he remembered commanding, butonly an historian would recognize most of them, and maybe not even an historian. No one would believe it, anyway. He certainly would not if someone else had made that claim. “Shouldn’t you and Domon be getting ready? You wouldn’t want to leave anything behind.” Everything she owned was already stowed away in the wagon she and Mat shared with Domon - not a comfortable arrangement, that - but he quickened his step, hoping she would take the hint. Besides, he
