“The king again,” one of the men squatting with Mat muttered. It was the fifth time in a row Mat had thrown the king.
He had won the bet of a gold mark, not even caring by this time that his Andoran mark outweighed the other man’s Illianer coin, but he scooped the dice into the leather cup, rattled it hard, and spun them across the floor again. Five crowns. Light, it can’t be. Nobody ever threw the king six times running. Nobody.
“The Dark One’s own luck,” another man growled. He was a bulky fellow, his dark hair tied at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon, with heavy shoulders, scars on his face, and a nose that had been broken more than once.
Mat was scarcely aware of moving before he had the bulky man by the collar, hauling him to his feet, slamming him back against the wall. “Don’t you say that!” he snarled. “Don’t you ever say that!” The man blinked down at him in astonishment; he was a full head taller than Mat.
“Just a saying,” somebody behind him was muttering. “Light, it’s just a saying.”
Mat released his grip on the scar-faced man’s coat and backed away. “I. . . . I . . . I don’t like anybody saying things like that about me. I’m no Darkfriend!” Burn me, not the Dark One’s luck. Not that! Oh, Light, did that bloody dagger really do something to me?
“Nobody said you was,” the broken-nosed man muttered. He seemed to be getting over his surprise, and trying to decide whether to be angry.
Gathering his belongings from where he had piled them behind him, Mat walked out of the tavern, leaving the coins where they lay. It was not that he was afraid of the big man. He had forgotten the man, and the coins, too. All he wanted was to be outside, in fresh air, where he could think.
In the street, he leaned against the wall of the tavern not far from the door, breathing the coolness in. The dark streets of Southharbor were all but empty, now. Music and laughter still floated from the inns and taverns, but few people made their way through the night. Holding the quarterstaff upright in front of him with both hands, he lowered his head to his fists and tried to think at the puzzle from every side.
He knew he was lucky. He could remember always being lucky. But somehow, his memories from Emond’s Field did not show him as lucky as he had been since leaving. Certainly he had gotten away with a great deal, but he could remember also being caught in pranks he had been sure would succeed. His mother had always seemed to know what he was up to, and Nynaeve able to see through whatever defenses he put up. But it was not just since leaving the Two Rivers that he had become lucky. The luck had come once he took the dagger from Shadar Logoth. He remembered playing at dice back home with a sharp-eyed, skinny man who worked for a merchant come down from Baerlon to buy tabac. He remembered the strapping his father had given him, too, on learning Mat owed the man a silver mark and four pence.
“But I’m free of the bloody dagger,” he mumbled. “Those bloody Aes Sedai said I was.” He wondered how much he had won tonight.
When he dug into his coat pockets, he found them filled with loose coins, crowns and marks, both silver and gold that glittered and glinted in the light from nearby windows. He had two purses now, it seemed, and both fat. He undid the strings, and found more gold. And still more stuffed into his belt pouch between and around and on top of his dice cups, crumpling Elayne’s letter and the Amyrlin’s paper. He had a memory of tossing silver pence to serving girls because they had pretty smiles or pretty eyes or pretty ankles, and because silver pence were not worth keeping.
Not worth keeping? Maybe they weren’t. Light, I’m rich! I am bloody rich! Maybe it was something the Aes Sedai did. Something they did Healing me. By accident, maybe. That could be it. Better that the other. Those bloody Aes Sedai must have done it to me.
A big man moved out from the tavern, the door already swinging shut to cut off the light that might have shown his face.
Mat pressed his back close against the wall, stuffed the purses back into his coat, and firmed his grip on the quarterstaff. Wherever his luck tonight had come from, he did not mean to lose all that gold to a footpad.
The man turned toward him, peered, then gave a start. “C-cool night,” he said drunkenly. He staggered closer, and Mat saw that most of his size was fat. “I have to. . . . I have to. . . .” Stumbling, the fat man moved on up the street, talking to himself disjointedly.
“Fool!” Mat muttered, but he was not sure whether he meant it for the fat man or for himself. “Time to find a ship to take me away from here.” He squinted at the black sky, trying to estimate how long till dawn. Two, maybe three hours, he thought. “Past time.” His stomach growled at him; he dimly recalled eating in some of the inns, but he did not remember what. The fever of the dice had had him by the throat. A hand pushed into the scrip found only crumbs. “Way past time. Or one of them will come pick me up with her fingers and stick me in her pouch.” He pushed away from the wall and started for the docks, where the ships would be.
At first he thought the faint sounds behind him were echoes of his boots on the cobblestones. Then he realized someone was following him. And trying to be stealthy. Well, these are footpads, for sure.
Hefting the quarterstaff, he briefly considered turning to confront them. But it was dark, and the footing on cobblestones uncertain, and he had no idea how many there were. Just because you did well against Gawyn and Galad doesn’t make you a bloody hero out of a story.
He turned down a narrower, twisting side street, trying to walk on tiptoe and move quickly at the same time. Every window was dark here, and most shuttered. He was almost to the end when he saw movement ahead, two men peering into the side street from where it let out onto another. And he heard slow footsteps behind him, soft scrapes of boot leather on stone.
In an instant he ducked into t
he shadowy corner where one building stuck out further than the next. It seemed the best he could do for the moment. Gripping the quarterstaff nervously, he waited.
A man appeared from back the way he had come, crouching as he eased himself ahead one slow step at a time, and then another man. Each carried a knife in his hand and moved as if stalking.
Mat tensed. If they came just a few steps closer before they noticed him hiding in the deeper shadows of the corner, he could take them by surprise. He wished his stomach would stop fluttering. Those knives were a great deal shorter than the practice swords, but they were steel, not wood.
One of the men squinted toward the far end of the narrow street and suddenly straightened, shouting, “Didn’t he come your way, then?”
“I have seen nothing but the shadows,” came the answer in a heavy accent. “I wish to be out of this. There are the strange things moving this night.”
Not four paces from Mat, the two men exchanged looks, sheathed their knives, and trotted back the way they had come.
He let out a long, slow breath. Luck. Burn me if it’s not good for more than dice.
He could no longer see the men at the mouth of the street, but he knew they were still out on the next street somewhere. And more behind him the other way.
One of the buildings he was crouched against stood only a single story high here, and the roof looked flat enough. And a white stone frieze carved in huge grape leaves ran up the joining of the two buildings.