Nandera only shrugged. “He does this sometimes.” She appeared calm enough, with her arms folded and her face impassive, but she smelled irritated, a scent like tiny burrs. “He slips away without even one Maiden to guard his back, sometimes for as long as half a day. He thinks we do not know. I thought you might know where he has gone.” Something in her voice made Perrin think that if she found out, she intended to follow.
“No,” he sighed. “I have no idea.”
“Pay attention to the game, Loial,” Faile murmured. “Surely you didn’t mean to put a stone there.”
Perrin sighed again. Today he had decided to stay every moment at Faile’s side. She would have to speak to him sooner or later, and besides, Berelain would surely leave him alone if he was with his wife. Well, at least Berelain had indeed left him alone, but as soon as Faile realized he was not going hunting again, she had collared Loial before he could run off to the Library, and they had been playing endless games of stones ever since. In silence, for all practical purposes. Perrin wished he were wherever Rand was.
Lying on his back on the bed, Rand stared up at the thick basement rafters, not really seeing them. The bed was not large, but it had two feather mattresses and goose-down pillows and good linen sheets. There was a sturdy chair, and a small table, plain yet well made. His muscles still ached from being transported here inside one of the chests. The Power had doubled him up easily, with his head between his knees; simple cords had sufficed to make a package of him.
Metal grating on metal made him turn his head. Galina had used a large iron key to unlock a flap in the iron cage that surrounded bed and table and chair. A graying woman with a wrinkled face thrust her arms inside the cage long enough to set a cloth-covered tray on the table, then all but leaped back.
“I intend to deliver you to the Tower in reasonable health,” Galina said coldly as she relocked the flap. “Eat, or you will be fed.”
Rand turned his eyes back to the rafters. Six Aes Sedai sat in chairs around the cage, sustaining the shield on him. He maintained the Void, in case they should slip, but he did not lunge at the barrier. When they first pushed him stumbling into the cage, he had; some of them had laughed, those who took any notice. Now he reached gingerly instead toward the fury of saidin, a storm of fire and ice still just out of sight beyond the corner of his eye. He reached, and felt at the invisible wall cutting him off from the Source, slid along it as though trying to find an edge. What he found was a place where the wall seemed to become six points; they stopped him as effectively, but they were six, not one, and definitely points.
How long had he been here? A gray bleakness had settled over him, blanketing time, blanketing him in lethargy. He had been here long enough to be hungry, but the Void made sensation distant, and even the smell of hot stew and warm bread coming from the covered tray sparked no interest. Rising seemed too much effort. So far, twelve Aes Sedai had taken turns around the cage, and not one a face he had seen before they appeared in the basement. How many were there in the house? That might be important later. Where was the house? He had no notion how far he had been carried in that chest, most of the way jolted about in a wagon or cart. Why had he forgotten Moiraine’s advice. Trust no Aes Sedai, not an inch, not a hair. Six Aes Sedai channeling enough of saidar to hold that shield should be felt outside by any woman who could channel. All he needed was Amys or Bair or some other to pass by in the street and wonder. They had to be thinking now that he had vanished when Coiren left the palace. If there was a street outside. All he needed . . .
He felt at the shield again, softly, so they would not feel. Six points. Six soft points, somehow. That had to mean something. He wished Lews Therin would speak again, but the only sound in his head was his own thoughts sliding along the Void. Six points.
Hurrying along the dusk-covered street by the great stone house where the Aes Sedai were, Sorilea could barely sense them still channeling inside. She could only just sense it because she could only just channel at all, but that was not why she ignored it. They had been channeling day and night in there since their arrival; none of the Wise Ones wasted thought on why any longer. Sorilea certainly had more important matters to think of now. Back at the treekiller’s palace, the Maidens were beginning to grow itchy over Rand al’Thor, muttering that the Car’a’carn would have some explaining to do when he returned this time. Sorilea had lived a great deal longer than any of those Maidens, longer than any other Wise One, weak in the Power or not, and she was uneasy. Like most men, Rand al’Thor went when he wished, where he wished — men were like cats in that — but this time, at the same time he was flitting off, Min had vanished somewhere between the tents and the palace. Sorilea did not like coincidences, no matter how many surrounded the Car’a’carn. Wrapping her shawl against a sudden feel of chill in her bones, she hurried on toward the tents.
Chapter 52
Weaves of the Power
* * *
The men sitting around the table in the common room of The Wandering Woman were mainly local. Those who wore the long vest sported it in bright silk, often brocaded, over pale shirts with wide sleeves. Garnets or pearls adorned finger rings, hoop earrings were gold not gilded, and moonstones and sapphires sparkled on the pommels of curved knives stuck through belts. Several men had silk coats slung about their shoulders, with a chain of silver or gold strung between the narrow lapels embroidered with flowers or animals. The coats looked odd, really — too small to put on; never meant for anything but a cape — but their wearers carried long narrow swords as well as the curved dagger, and seemed equally willing to use either, for a wrong word, a wrong look, or because they happened to feel like it.
It was a varied crowd, altogether. Two Murandian merchants with curled mustaches and those ridiculous little beards on the point of the chin, and a Domani with hair below his shoulders and thin mustaches who wore a gold bracelet, a close-fitting gold necklace, and a large pearl in his left ear. A dark Atha’an Miere in a bright green coat, with tattooed hands and two knives thrust into a red sash, and a Taraboner with a transparent veil covering thick mustaches that almost hid his mouth, and a number of outlanders who might have been from anywhere. But every man had a pile of coins in front of him, though the size did vary. So close to the Tarasin Palace, The Wandering Woman attracted patrons with gold to spare.
Rattling the five dice in the leather cup, Mat spun them out on the table. They stopped with two crowns, two stars and a cup showing. A fair toss; no better. His luck ran in waves, and at the moment the wave seemed low, meaning he won no more than half his tosses at most. So far he had managed to lose ten in a row, an unusual run for him at any time. The dice passed to a blue-eyed outlander, a hard, narrow-faced man who seemed to have plenty of coin to fling about despite his plain brown coat.
Vanin bent to whisper in Mat’s ear. “They’re out again. Thom says he still doesn’t know how.” Mat directed a grimace at the fat man that made him straighten more quickly that you would think someone his size could.
Swallowing half the dewmelon punch in his silver cup, Mat frowned down the table. Again! The blue-eyed man’s toss rolled across the table, and the dice stopped showing three crowns, a rose and a rod. Murmurs rounded the table at his win.
“Blood and ashes,” Mat muttered. “Next, the Daughter of the Nine Moons is going to walk in and claim me.” The blue-eyed fellow choked on his celebratory drink. “Do you know the name?” Mat asked.
“My punch went down the wrong way,” the man said in a soft, slurring accent Mat did not recognize. “What name was that?”
Mat made a pacifying gesture; he had seen fights start over less. Scraping his gold and silver back into his purse, he stuffed it into his coat pocket as he rose. “I am done. The Light’s blessing on all here.” Everyone at the table repeated the benison, even the outlanders. People were very polite in Ebou Dar.
Even short of midmorning, the common room was fairly full, and another dice game added its share of laughter and groans. Two of
Mistress Anan’s younger sons were helping the serving girls hand out late breakfasts. The innkeeper herself was sitting at the back of the room near the railless white stone stairs, keeping an eye on everything, with a young, pretty woman whose big black eyes had a merry twinkle, as though she knew a joke no one else did. Her face was a perfect oval framed by glossy black hair, and the deep neckline of her red-belted gray dress showed a tantalizing view. The amusement in her eyes deepened as she smiled at Mat.
“With your luck, Lord Cauthon,” Mistress Anan said, “my husband should ask you where to send his fishing boats.” For some reason, her tone was very dry.
Mat accepted the title without a blink. In Ebou Dar, few would challenge a lord except other lords; it was a simple calculation of numbers to him. There were a lot fewer lords than commoners, which meant fewer chances somebody would try to stick a knife in him. Even so, he had had to crack three heads in the last ten days. “I’m afraid my luck doesn’t run to things like that, Mistress.”
Olver seemed to just pop up at his side. “Can we go horse-racing, Mat?” he demanded eagerly.
Frielle, Mistress Anan’s middle daughter, trotted up to catch the boy by the shoulders. “Your pardon, Lord Cauthon,” she said anxiously. “He just slipped away from me. Light’s truth, he did.” Soon to be married — the snug silver necklace for her marriage knife already encircled her slim throat — she had volunteered to look after Olver, laughing about how she wanted six sons of her own. Mat suspected she was beginning to hope for daughters.
It was Nalesean, coming down the stairs, who got Mat’s glare, hard enough to stop the Tairen in his tracks. It was Nalesean who had entered Wind in two races, with Olver riding — boys did the riding here — and Mat not knowing a thing till it was done. That Wind had proven as fast as his name did not help matters. Two victories gave Olver a taste for more. “Not your fault, Mistress,” Mat told Frielle. “Put him in a barrel if you must, with my blessing.”
Olver gave him an accusatory look, but a moment later he whipped around to give Frielle an insolent grin he had picked up somewhere. It looked odd with his big ears and wide mouth; he was never going to be a handsome lad. “I will sit quietly if I can look at your eyes. You have beautiful eyes.”