“How old are you?” He had heard that she was only a few years younger than he, but looking at her in that sack of a dress, it seemed impossible.
To his surprise, that dangerous spark burst into flame. Not just heat lightning, this time. He should have been fried on the spot. Tuon threw back her shoulders and drew herself to her full height. Such as that was; he doubted she could reach five feet with her heels flat however she stretched. “My fourteenth true-name day will come in five months,” she said in a voice that was far fromcold. In fact, it could have heated the wagon better than the stove. He felt a moment of hope, but she was not finished. “No; you keep your birth names here, don’t you. That will be my twentieth nam?ing day. Are you satisfied, Toy? Did you fear you had stolen a . . . child?” She almost hissed the last word.
Mat waved his hands in front of him, frantically dismissing the suggestion. A woman started hissing at him like a kettle, a man with any brains found a way to cool her down fast. She was gripping the cup so tightly that tendons stood out on the back of her hand, and he did not want to try his hip with another fall to the floor. Come to think on it, he was not sure how hard she had tried to hit him the first time. Her hands were very fast. “I just wanted to know, that’s all,” he said quickly. “I was curious, mak?ing conversation. I’m only a little older myself.” Twenty. So much for hoping she was too young to marry for another three or four years. Anything that came between him and his wedding day would have been welcome.
Tuon studied him suspiciously with her head tilted, then tossed the cup onto the bed beside Mistress Anan and seated herself on the stool again, taking as much care about arranging her volu?minous woolen skirts as if they had belonged to a silk gown. But she continued to examine him through her long eyelashes. “Where is your ring?” she demanded.
Unconsciously, he thumbed the finger on his left hand where the long ring usually lay. “I don’t wear it all the time.” Not when everybody in theTarasinPalaceknew he wore it. The thing would have stood out, with his rough layabout’s garb, in any case. It was not even his signet, anyway, just a carver’s try-piece. Strange, how his hand felt noticeably lighter without it. Too light. Strange that she remarked on it, too. But then, why not? Light, those dice had him shying at shadows and jumping at sighs. Or maybe it was just her, a discomforting thought.
He moved to sit on the unoccupied bed, but Selucia swung herself up onto it so quickly any of the acrobats might have been jealous, and stretched out with her head propped on her hand. That pushed her scarf askew for a moment, but she hurriedly straightened it, all the while staring at him proud and cold as a queen. He looked at the other bed, and Mistress Anan set down herembroidery long enough to ostentatiously smooth her skirts, mak?ing it clear she did not intend to share an inch. Burn her, she was behaving as though she were guarding Tuon from him! Women always seemed to club together so a man never had a fair chance. Well, he had managed to keep Egeanin from taking charge so far, and he was not about to be bullied by Setalle Anan or a bosomy lady’s maid or the high and mighty High Lady Daughter of the Nine bloody Moons! Only, he could hardly go shoving one of them out of the way to find a place to sit.
Leaning against a drawered cabinet at the foot of the bed Mis?tress Anan was seated on, he tried to think of what to say. He never had trouble thinking of what to say to women, but his brain seemed deafened by the sound of those dice. All three women gave him disapproving looks - he could all but hear one of them telling him not to slouch! - so he smiled. Most women thought his best smile very winning.
Tuon let out a long breath that did not sound won over in the slightest. “Do you remember Hawkwing’s face, Toy?” Mistress Anan blinked in surprise, and Selucia sat up on the bed frowning. At him. Why would she frown athim? Tuon just continued to look at him, hands folded in her lap, as cool and collected as a Wisdom at Sunday.
Mat’s smile felt frozen. Light, what did she know? How could she know anything?He lay beneath the burning sun, holding his side with both hands, trying to keep the last of life from leaking out and won?dering whether there was any reason to hold on. Aideshar was finished, after this day’s work. A shadow blotted the sun for an instant, and then a tall man in armor crouched beside him, helmet tucked under his arm, dark deep-set eyes framing a hooked nose. “You fought well against me today, Culain, and many days past,” that memorable voice said. “Will you live with me in peace?” With his last breath, he laughed in Artur Hawkwing’s face. Hehated to remember dying. A dozen other encounters skit?tered through his mind, too, ancient memories that were his, now. Artur Paendrag had been a difficult man to get along with even before the wars started.
Drawing a deep breath, he took care choosing his words. This was no time to go spouting the Old Tongue. “Of course I don’t!” he lied. A man who could not lie convincingly got short shrift fromwomen. “Light, Hawkwing died a thousand years ago! What kind of question is that?”
Her mouth opened slowly, and for a moment he was sure she meant to answer question with question. “A foolish one, Toy,” she replied finally, instead. “I can’t say why it popped into my head.”
The stiffness in Mat’s shoulders relaxed, a little. Of course. He wasta’veren. People did things and said things around him they never would elsewhere. Nonsense qualified. Still, a thing like that could become uncomfortable when it hit too close to home. “My name is Mat. Mat Cauthon.” He might as well not have spoken.
“I cannot say what I will do after returning to Ebou Dar, Toy. I have not decided. I may have you madeda’covah. You are not pretty enough for a cupbearer, but it might please me to have you for one. Still, you have represented certain promises to me, so it pleases me now to promise, as well. So long as you keep your prom?ises, I will neither escape nor betray you in any way, nor will I cause dissension among your followers. I believe that covers everything necessary.” This time, Mistress Anan gaped at her, and Selucia made a sound in her throat, but Tuon appeared not to notice either woman. She just looked at him expectantly, waiting on a response.
He made a sound in his throat, too. Not a whimper, just a sound. Tuon’s face was as smooth as a stern mask of dark glass. Her calm was madness, but this made gibbering look sane! She wouldhave to be insane to think he would believe that offer. Except, he thought she did mean it. That, or she was a better liar than he ever hoped to be. Again he had that queasy sense that she knew more than he did. Ridiculous, of course, but there it was. He swallowed a lump in his throat. A hard lump.
“Well, that does all right for you,” he said, trying to buy time, “but what about Selucia?” Time for what? He could not think with those dice pounding in his skull.
“Selucia follows my wishes, Toy,” Tuon said impatiently. The blue-eyed woman herself straightened and stared at him as though indignant that he had doubted that. For a lady’s maid, she could look fierce when she tried.
Mat did not know what to say or do. Without thinking, he spat on his palm and offered his hand as if sealing a bargain on a horse.
“Your customs are . . . earthy,” Tuon said in a dry voice, but she spat on her own palm and clasped his hand. “ ‘Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made.’ What does that writing on your spear mean, Toy?”
He did whimper this time, and not because she had read the Old Tongue inscription on hisashandarei. A bloody stone would have whimpered. The dice had stopped as soon as he touched her hand. Light, what had happened?
Knuckles rapped on the door, and he was so on edge that he moved without thought, spinning, a knife coming into either hand ready to throw at whatever came in. “Stay behind me,” he snapped.
The door opened, and Thorn stuck his head in. The hood of his cloak was up, and Mat realized it was raining outside. Between Tuon and the dice, he had missed the sound of rain hitting the wagon’s roof. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything?” Thorn said, knuckling his long white mustaches.
Mat’s face heated. Setalle had frozen with her embroidery nee?dle trailing blue thread down to her work, and her eyebrows seemed to be trying to climb over the top of her head. Tensed on the edge of the other bed, Selucia watched him slip the knives back up his sleeves with considerable interest. He would not have thought she was the sort to like dangerous men. That kind of woman was worth avoiding; they tended to find ways to make a man need to be dangerous. He did not glance back at Tuon. She was probably staring at him as if he had been capering like Luca. Just because he did not want to get married did not mean he wanted his future wife to think him a fool.
“What did you find out, Thorn?” he asked brusquely.Something had happened, or the dice would not have stopped. A thought came that made his hair want to stand on end. This was the second time they had stopped in Tuon’s presence. The third, counting the gate leading out of Ebou Dar. Three bloody times, and all tied to her.
Limping slightly, the white-haired man came the rest of the way in, pushing back his hood, and pulled the door shut behind him. His limp came from an old injury, not trouble in the city. Tall and lean and leathery, with sharp blue eyes and snowy mustaches that hung below his chin, it seemed he would draw attention wherever he went, but he had practice at hiding in plain sight, and his dark bronze coat and brown wool cloak were suitable for a man with a little coin to spend but not too much. “The streets are full of rumors about her,” he said, nodding toward Tuon, “but nothing about her disappearing. I bought drinks for a few Seanchan officers, and they seem to believe she’s snug in theTarasinPalaceor off on an inspection trip. I didn’t sense any dissembling, Mat. They
