“Did you expect public announcements, Toy?” Tuon said incredulously. “As it is, Suroth may be considering taking her own life for the shame. Do you expect her to spread such an ill omen for the Return about for everyone to see on top of that?”
So Egeanin had been right. It still seemed impossible. And it did not seem at all important compared to the dice stopping. What hadhappened’? He had shaken hands with Tuon, that was all. Shaken hands and made a bargain. He meant to keep his side, but what had the dice told him? That she would keep hers? Or that she would not? For all he knew, Seanchan noblewomen were in the habit of marrying - what was it she had said she was going to make him? - a cupbearer - maybe they married cupbearers all the time.
“There’s more, Mat,” Thorn said, eyeing Tuon thoughtfully, and with a hint of surprise. It came to Mat that she did not appear overly concerned that Suroth might kill herself. Maybe she was as tough as Domon thought. Whatwere the bloody dice trying to tell him? That was what was important. Then Thorn went on, and Mat forgot about how tough Tuon might be and even the dice. “Tylin’s dead. They’re keeping it quiet for fear of disturbances, but one of the Palace Guards, a young lieutenant who couldn’t hold his brandy, told me they’re planning her funeral feast and Beslan’s coronation for the same day.”
“How?” Mat demanded. She was older than he, but not that much older! Beslan’s coronation. Light! How would Beslan cope with that, when he hated the Seanchan? It had been his plan to fire those supplies on theBay Road. He would have tried an uprising if Mat had not convinced him it would only result in a slaughter, and not of Seanchan.
Thorn hesitated, stroking his mustaches with a thumb. Finally, he sighed. “She was found in her bedchamber the morning after we left, Mat, still bound hand and foot. Her head. . . . Her head had been torn off.”
Mat did not realize his knees had given way until he found himself sitting on the floor with his head buzzing. He could hear her voice.You’ll get your bead cut off yet if you’re not careful, piglet, and I wouldn’t like that. Setalle leaned forward on the narrow bed to press a hand against his cheek in commiseration.
“The Windfinders?” he said hollowly. He did not have to say more.
“According to what that lieutenant said, the Seanchan have set?tled on Aes Sedai for the blame. Because Tylin had sworn the Sean?chan oaths. That’s what they’ll announce at her funeral feast.”
“Tylin dies the same night the Windfinders escape, and the Seanchan believe Aes Sedai killed her?” He could not imagine Tylin dead.I’m going to have you for supper, duckling. “That doesn’t make sense, Thorn.”
Thorn hesitated, frowning as he considered. “It could be po?litical, in part, but I think that’s what they really believe, Mat. That lieutenant said they’re sure the Windfinders were running too hard to stop or go out of their way, and the quickest path out of the palace from thedamane kennels goes nowhere near Tylin’s apartments.”
Mat grunted. He was sure it was not so. And if it were, there was nothing in the world he could do about it.
“Themar’ath’damane had reason to murder Tylin,” Selucia said suddenly. “They must fear her example for others. What reason had thedamane you speak of? None. The hand of justice requires motive and proof, even fordamane andda’covale.” She sounded as though she were reading the words off a page. And she was looking at Tuon from the corner of her eye.
Mat looked over his shoulder, but if the tiny woman had been using her hands to tell Selucia what to say, they were resting in her lap, now. She was watching him, a neutral expression on her face. “Did you care for Tylin so deeply?” she said in a cautious voice.
“Yes. No. Burn me, Iliked her!” Turning away, he scrubbed fingers through his hair, pushing the cap off. He had never been so glad to get away from a woman in his life, but this . . . ! “And I left her tied up and gagged so she couldn’t even call for help, easy prey for thegholam,” he said bitterly. “It was looking for me. Don’t shake your head. Thorn. You know it as well as I do.”
“What is a . . .gholam?” Tuon asked.
“Shadowspawn, my Lady,” Thorn said. He frowned worriedly. He did not take easily to worry, but anybody except a fool would worry about agholam. “It looks like a man, but it can slip through a mousehole, or under a door, and it’s strong enough to. . . .” He harrumphed through his mustaches. “Well, enough of that. Mat, she could have had a hundred guards around her, and it wouldn’t have stopped that thing.” She would not have needed a hundred guards if she had not taken up with Mat Cauthon.
“Agholam,” Tuon murmured wryly. Suddenly she rapped Mat hard on the top of the head with her knuckles. Clapping a hand to his scalp, he stared over his shoulder incredulously. “I’m very happy that you show loyalty to Tylin, Toy,” she told him in a severe voice, “but I won’t have superstition in you. I will not have it. It does Tylin no honor.” Burn him, Tylin’s death seemed to concern her as little as whether or not Suroth committed suicide. What kind of woman was he going to marry?
When a fist pounded on the door this time, he did not even bother to stand. He felt numb at the core and scraped raw on the surface. Blaeric pushed into the wagon without asking, his dark brown cloak dripping rain. It was an old cloak, worn thin in spots, but he appeared not to care whether rain leaked through. The Warder ignored everyone but Mat, or almost everyone. The man actually took a moment to consider Selucia’s bosom! “Joline wants you, Cauthon,” he said, still studying her. Light! This was all Mat needed to make it a fine day.
“Who is Joline?” Tuon demanded.
Mat ignored her. “Tell Joline I’ll see her once we’re on the road, Blaeric.” The last thing he wanted was to be forced to listen to more of the Aes Sedai’s grievances now.
“She wants you now, Cauthon.”
With a sigh, Mat got to his feet and gathered his cap from the floor. Blaeric looked as if he might try to drag him, otherwise. In his own current mood, he thought he might put a knife in the man if he tried. And get his neck broken for his pains; a Warder would not take a knife in the ribs lightly. He was fairly sure he had already died the one time he was allowed, and not in an old mem?ory. Sure enough not to take risks he could sidestep.
“Who is Joline, Toy?” If he had not known better, he would have said Tuon sounded jealous.
“A bloody Aes Sedai,” he grumbled, tugging the cap on, and got one small pleasure for the day. Tuon’s jaw dropped in shock. He shut the door behind him on the way out before she could find a word to say. A very small pleasure. One butterfly on a midden heap. Tylin dead, and the Windfinders might take the blame yet, whatever Thorn said. And that was aside from Tuon and the bloody dice. A very tiny butterfly on a very large midden.
The sky was full of dark clouds, now, and the downpour steady. A soaking rain, they would have called it back home. It began to slick his hair, cap or no, and seep through his coat as soon as he stepped outside. Blaeric hardly seemed to notice, barely gathering his cloak. There was nothing for it but for Mat to hunch his shoul?ders and splash through the widening puddles on the dirt streets. By the time he could reach his wagon for a cloak, he would be drenched to the skin anyway. Besides, the weather fit his spirits.
To his surprise, rain or no rain, an incredible amount of work had been done in the short time he was inside. The canvas wall was gone as far as he could see in either direction, and half the storage wagons that had been around Tuon’s wagon were missing, too. So were most of the animals that had been picketed on the horselines. A large, iron-barred cage containing a black-maned lion trundled past toward the road behind a plodding team, the horses as uncon?cerned with the apparently sleeping lion behind them as they were with the shower. Performers were already taking to the road, too, though how they determined the order of leaving was a mystery. Most of the tents seemed to have vanished; in one place three of the brightly colored wagons together might be missing, another place every second wagon, while elsewhere the wagons standing and waiting still seemed a solid mass. The only thing that said the showfolk were not scattering was Luca himself, a bright red cloak gathered around him against the wet as he paraded along the street, stopping now and then to clap a man on the shoulder or murmur something to a woman that made her laugh. If the show had been breaking apart, Luca would have been out chasing down those who tried to leave. He held the show together as much by persuasion as anything else, and he never let anyone leave without talking himself hoarse trying to argue them out of it. Mat knew he should feel good about seeing Luca still there, though it had never occurred to him that the man would run out on the gold, but right at that moment, he doubted that anything could make him feel anything but numb and angry.
The wagon that Blaeric took him to was almost as large as Luca’s, but it had been whitewashed rather than painted. The white had long since run and streaked and faded, and the rain was washing it a little more toward gray, where the wood was not already bare. The wagon belonged to a company of fools, four morose men who painted their faces for the show’s patrons, dous?ing each other with water and hitting each other with inflated pig-bladders, and otherwise spent their time and money imbibing as much wine as they could buy. With what Mat had paid for rent, they might be drunk for months, and it had cost more than that to
