Fergin caught sight of Mat, and bit off an oath as his hammer missed the tent peg and hit his thumb. Dropping the hammer, he stuck the thumb in his mouth and squatted there complaining shrilly around it. “We’re going to be out in this all night guarding those women, my Lord. Can’t you hire some of those horse handlers to do this so we can at least stay dry till we have to get wet?”
Gorderan poked Fergin’s shoulder with a thick finger. He was as wide as Fergin was skinny, and a Tairen despite his gray eyes. “Horse handlers’ll put up the tent and steal everything in it that’s loose, Fergin.” Another poke. “You want one of those lightfingers walking off with my crossbow, or my saddle? That’s a good saddle.” A third poke nearly pushed Fergin over sideways. “We don’t get this tent up, and Harnan’ll have us standing guard all night.”
Fergin glowered and grumbled, but he picked up his hammer, wiping the mud off on his coat. He was a good enough soldier, but not very bright.
Vanin spat through the gap in his teeth, just missing the kettle. The stew smelled wonderful after whatever Latelle was making, but Mat decided he was not going to eat here, either. Tapping his wooden spoon on the rim of the kettle to clean it, the fat man looked up at Mat through heavy-lidded eyes. His round face often looked half-asleep, but only a fool believed it. “At this rate, we’ll reach Lugard about the end of summer. If we ever do.”
“We will, Vanin,” Mat said, more confidently than he felt at the moment. The rough woolen coat he had donned dry a few hours ago only shed rain in spots, and water was trickling down his back. It was hard to feel confident with icy rain sliding down your backbone. “Winter’s almost done. We’ll move faster once spring comes. You’ll see. Come the middle of spring, and we’ll be in Lugard.”
He was not so sure of that, either. They covered no more than two leagues that first day, and after that, two and a half made a good day. Not many places could be called towns along the Great North Road
, a name that began to change very quickly as the show crept north. People called it “the Ebou Dar Road
,” or “the Ferry Road
,” or sometimes just “the road,” as if there were only one. But Luca stopped at every last town, real or so-called, walled or jumped-up village with six streets and a rough-paved excuse for a town square. Near half a day went into just getting the show set up and the canvas wall erected around it with that huge red-lettered blue banner hung across the entrance. Valan Luca’s Grand Traveling Show. It was just not in Luca to pass up the chance of a crowd. Or the coins in their purses. Or the chance to flourish one of his bright red cloaks and bask in their adulation. Luca liked that almost as much as the coin. Almost.
The strangeness of the performers and the caged animals from far-off lands were sufficient to pull people. The animals from not so far were enough, for that matter; few had been far enough into the countryside to see a bear much less a lion. Only heavy rain lessened the crowd, and when the rain was too stiff, the jugglers and acrobats refused to perform anyway without some sort of covering overhead. Which made Luca stalk about in a sullen snit and talk wildly of finding enough canvas tarps to shelter every act, or having a tent made large enough to hold the entire show. One tent! The man was nothing if not grandiose in his ambitions. Why not a palace on wheels while he was about it?
If Luca and the slow way the show moved had been all Mat had to worry about, though, he would have been a happy man. Sometimes, two or three slow-moving trains of Seanchan settlers who had gotten an early start passed with their strangely shaped, peaked wagons and odd-looking cattle or sheep or goats before the first wagon from the show began to move. Sometimes columns of Seanchan soldiers overtook them as they ambled along at a slow walk, ranks of men wearing helmets like huge insects’ heads, stepping out smartly, and columns of horsemen with their armor of overlapping plates painted in stripes. Once, the riders were on form, bronze-scaled creatures like horse-sized cats. Except for having three eyes, anyway. Twenty or so of them snaking along in a sinuous lope faster than a horse could trot. Neither the riders nor their mounts gave the show a second glance, but the show’s horses went wild as the form passed, screaming and rearing in the traces. The lions and leopards and bears roared in their cages, and the peculiar deer flung themselves against the bars trying to flee. It took hours to quiet everything down enough for the wagons to move again, and Luca insisted on having the caged animals’ scrapes seen to first. His animals were a large investment. Twice, officers in thin-plumed helmets decided to check the warrant for Lucas horses, and Mat oozed cold sweat the size of grapes until they moved on again, satisfied. As the show crept north, the numbers of Seanchan on the road dwindled, yet he still sweated when he saw another party, soldiers or settlers either one. Maybe Suroth really was keeping Tuon’s disappearance a secret, but the Seanchan would be searching for her. All it would take was one meddlesome officer who actually compared the numbers on the warrant with the number of horses. He would search the wagons with a fine-tooth comb after that, for certain. Just one officious sul’dam who thought there might be a woman who could channel among the jugglers and tumblers and contortionists. He sweated plums! Unfortunately, not everyone had a proper regard for their own skins.
Outside a flyspeck village called Weesin, a thatch-roofed little cluster of houses where not even Luca thought two coppers could be shaken loose, Mat stood with a heavy woolen cloak pulled around him in a driving rain and watched the three Aes Sedai steal back into the show as the sun set. Thunder boomed in the distance. They were swathed in dark cloaks with the hoods well up, yet he had no doubts who they were. In the downpour, they passed within ten feet without seeing him, but the silver medallion hanging beneath his shirt went cold against his chest. At least one of them was channeling, or holding the Power, anyway. Burn him, they were all three mad as loons.
No sooner did the Aes Sedai vanish among the wagons and tents than three more cloaked shapes appeared, hurrying after them. One of these women had a sharper eye, raising a hand to point at him, but the others only paused, and then they scurried after the Aes Sedai together. He started to curse, then left it unuttered. He was beyond that. If he named the people he wanted wandering around where a Seanchan patrol might see them, the Aes Sedai and the sul’dam would come about even with Tuon and Selucia.
“I wonder what they want?” Noal said behind him, and Mat gave a jump that let a torrent of rain into his cowl and down his neck. He wished the knobbly old man would quit sneaking up on him.
“I intend to find out,” he muttered, jerking his cloak straight. He hardly knew why he bothered. His coat was only a little damp, but his linen shirt was already soaked.
Oddly enough, Noal was no longer with him when he reached the gray-streaked wagon with its fading whitewash where the Aes Sedai and sul’dam slept. The man liked sticking his nose in everywhere. Maybe he had decided he was wet enough. Blaeric and Fen were already wrapped in their blankets beneath the wagon, apparently oblivious to rain or mud, but he would not have wagered on either being asleep. Indeed, one sat up as he squelched up to the wagon. Whichever it was, he said nothing, yet Mat could feel the man’s eyes. He did not hesitate, though, and he did not bother with knocking.
The interior was crowded with all six women on their feet, dripping cloaks still in hand. Two lamps mounted in gimbals on the walls gave a good light, better than he could have wished for, in a way. Six faces swiveled toward him with those frozen looks women gave a man when he put a foot where they did not want it. The air in the wagon smelled of damp wool and felt as if lightning had just struck, or might at any moment. Rain drummed on the roof, and thunder rolled, but the foxhead medallion felt no cooler than any other piece of silver. Maybe Blaeric and Fen had let him come inside thinking he would get his head snapped off. Maybe they just wanted to stay out of this themselves. But then, a Warder was ready to die if his Aes Sedai decided it was necessary. Not Mat Cauthon. He pushed the door shut with his hip. It hardly gave him a twinge anymore.
Seldom, anyway.
When he challenged them, Edesina fiercely, shaking out the black hair that spilled down her back. “I am grateful to you for rescuing me from the Seanchan, Master Cauthon, and I will show my gratitude, but there are limits. I am not your servant to be ordered about. There were no Seanchan in the village, and we kept our faces hidden. There was no need to send your . . . watchdogs . . . after us.” The look she shot at the three Seanchan women could have fried eggs. Edesina was over being nervous about anyone with a Seanchan accent. She wanted some of her own back, and the sul’dam were close to hand. Mat was counting on that fabled Aes Sedai self-control to keep matters short of violence. He hoped it was not already stretched too far to hold. Those old memories recalled Aes Sedai going up like an Illuminator’s wares.
Bethamin’s dark face showed no sign of alarm. She had finished shaking out her cloak and hanging it on a peg while Edesina was speaking, then smoothed her dress over her hips. Tonight, she wore faded green petticoats. She complained that the Ebou Dari garment was indecent, and he supposed that he would have to find her something else now they were away from the coast, but she did fill out that very low narrow neckline nicely. She sounded too much like a mother for his taste, though. “They did keep their faces hidden, my Lord,” she drawled, “and they stayed together. No one tried to sneak off. Very well behaved, all in all.” A mother praising her children. Or maybe a dog trainer praising the dogs. Yellow-haired Seta nodded approvingly. Definitely a dog trainer.
“If my Lord wishes to keep them confined,” Renna said ful-somely, “we can always use the a’dam. They really shouldn’t be trusted loose.” She even offered him a bow, in the Seanchan way, bending herself at a sharp right angle. Her big brown eyes looked hopeful. Teslyn gasped and clutched her wet cloak to her bosom. She certainly was not over her fear of the sul’dam, for all she looked as though she could eat nails. Joline, haughty as ever, drew herself up, eyes flashing. Aes Sedai serenity or no, lightning might as well strike when Joline’s eyes started flashing. It was often so with pretty women.
“No,” Mat said hastily. “There’s no need for that. You give those things to me, and I’ll get rid of them.” Light, why had he ever saddled himself with these women? What seemed the best idea at the time could look pure quill stupid in hindsight. “All of you just have to be careful. We’re not thirty miles from Ebou Dar yet. The roads are full of bloody Seanchan.” He gave an apologetic look to the three Seanchan women. They were on his side, after all. In a manner of speaking. They had nowhere else to go except Egeanin, and they had realized who had the money. Bethamin’s eyebrows twitched upward in surprise. Seanchan nobles did not apologize, even with a glance.
“Seanchan soldiers did pass through the village yesterday,” Teslyn said, her Illianer accent particularly strong. Joline’s flashing eyes shifted to her, but she took no notice beyond turning away to hang up her own cloak. “They did ask questions about strangers on the road. And some did complain about being sent north.” Teslyn glanced over her shoulder at the sul’dam, then jerked her eyes away and took a deep breath. “It does seem the Return be aimed east. The soldiers did believe the Ever Victorious Army will present Illian to their empress before the end of spring. The City itself, and all the rest.” Supposedly Aes Sedai gave up the lands of their birth when they went to the White Tower, but to any Illianer, the city of Illian was ‘the City,’ and you could hear the capital.
“That’s good,” Mat said half to himself, thinking. Soldiers talked out of turn all the time; that was one reason you did not tell your plans to every trooper until the last minute. Teslyn’s thin eyebrows rose, and he added, “It means the road to Lugard will be clear most of the way.” Teslyn’s nod was curt and not very pleased. What Aes Sedai were supposed to do and what they did were often widely different.
“We didn’t speak to anyone, my Lord, only watched the girls,” Bethamin said, even more slowly than usual, and Seanchan usually talked like honey pouring in a snowstorm. She was clearly in charge among the three sul’dam, but she looked at each of the others before going on. “In Ebou Dar, all the talk in the sul’dam quarters was of Illian. A fat land and a fat city, where many would earn new names. And wealth.” She tossed that in as if wealth hardly counted alongside a new name. “We should have realized you’d want to know about such things.” Another deep breath almost popped her out of that dress. “If you have any questions, my Lord, we’ll tell you what we know.”
Renna made him another bow, her face eager, and Seta piped up with, “We could listen in the towns and villages where we stop, too, my Lord. The girls can be shifty, but you can trust us.”
Why, when a woman offered to help you, did she always start by sticking you in a pot of hot water and stoking up the fire? Joline’s face became a disdainful mask of ice. The Seanchan women were beneath her notice; she made that clear with a glance. It was Mat bloody Cauthon who received her freezing gaze. Edesina’s mouth thinned, and she tried to stare holes in him and the sul’dam both. Even Teslyn managed indignation. She was grateful for rescue, too, but she was Aes Sedai. And she directed her frown at him. He suspected she would jump like a startled frog if one of the sul’dam clapped her hands.
“What I want,” he explained patiently, “is for all of you to stay with the wagons.” You had to be patient with women, including Aes Sedai. He was bloody well learning that by heart. “One whisper there’s an Aes Sedai with this show, and we’ll be hip-deep in Seanchan hunting for her. Rumors of Seanchan with the show won’t serve us any better. Either way, somebody will come to find out what’s behind it sooner or later, and we’ll all be in the pickling kettle. Don’t flaunt yourselves. You need to stay low till we get closer to Lugard. That isn’t so much to ask, now is it?” Lightning lit up the wagon’s windows with a blue flash, and thunder crashed overhead, so close it rattled the wagon.
It was too much to ask, apparently, as the days wore on. Oh, the Aes Sedai kept their hoods well up when they went outside - the rain gave enough excuse for that; the rain and the cold - but one or another rode on the wagon seat as often as not, and they made no real effort to pass as servants around the showfolk. Not that they admitted who they were, of course, or ordered anyone about or even spoke to anyone much besides each other, but what servant clearly expected people to move out of her way? They went into the villages, too, and sometimes the towns, if they were sure there were no Seanchan there. When an Aes Sedai was sure of something, it had to be true. Twice they came scurrying back when they found a town half-full of settlers on their way north. They told him what they learned on their visits. He thought they did. Teslyn did seem grateful, after an Aes Sedai fashion. And Edesina. After a fashion.
Despite their differences, Joline, Teslyn and Edesina stuck together like herded geese. If you saw one, you saw all three. Likely that was because when you saw them taking a stroll, all neatly cloaked and hidden as they were, a minute later Bethamin and Renna and Seta appeared trailing after them. Oh so casually, but never letting ‘the girls’ out of sight. The goose-herds. A blind man could see there was tension between the two groups of women. A blind man could see none of them were servants. The sul’dam had held respected positions, positions of authority, and they moved almost as arrogantly as the Aes Sedai. He was stuck with the story, though.
Bethamin and the other two were as leery of other Seanchan as the Aes Sedai were, yet they also followed the Aes Sedai when they went into a village or town, and Bethamin always reported the tidbits they had picked up by eavesdropping, with Renna wearing an ingratiating smile and Seta chirping in that ‘the girls’ had missed this or that, or claimed not to have heard; you could never be sure with someone who had the audacity to call herself Aes Sedai; maybe he should reconsider having them leashed, just till everything was safe.
Their tales really were not that different from what the sisters told him. Townsfolk’s talk of what they had overheard from Seanchan passing through. Many of the settlers were nervous, their heads
full of tales about savage Aiel ravaging through Altara, though the local people all said that was up north somewhere. It seemed someone higher might be thinking the same, though, because many settlers had been diverted east, toward Illian. An alliance had been concluded with someone powerful who was expected to give the High Lady Suroth access to many lands. The women refused to be convinced that they need not listen for rumors. They never quite got around to handing over the a’dam, either. In truth, those silvery leashes and the three sul’dam were the only real lever he had with the Aes Sedai. Gratitude. From an Aes Sedai! Ha! Not that he really thought about putting those collars on the sisters again. Not often, anyway. He was well and truly stuck.
He truly did have no need of what the sul’dam and Aes Sedai learned. He had better sources, people he trusted. Well, he trusted Thorn, when the white-haired gleeman could be routed out from playing Snakes and Foxes with Olver or mooning over a much-creased letter he carried tucked in the breast of his coat. Thorn could walk into a common room, tell a story, maybe juggle a bit, and walk out knowing what was in the head of every man there. Mat trusted Juilin, too - he did almost as well as Thorn, without juggling or storytelling - but Juilin always insisted on taking Thera with him, demurely clutching his arm as they strolled into a town. To get her used to freedom again, the man said. She smiled up at Juilin, those big eyes shining darkly, that full little mouth asking to be kissed. Maybe she had been Panarch of Tarabon, the way Juilin and Thorn claimed, but Mat was beginning to doubt it. He had heard some of the contortionists joking about how the Taraboner serving girl was wearing the Tairen thief-catcher out till he could barely walk. Panarch or serving girl, though, Thera still started to kneel any time she heard a drawling accent. Mat figured that any Seanchan who asked her a question would get everything she knew, beginning with Juilin Sandar and ending with which wagon the Aes Sedai were in, all answers delivered from her knees. Thera was a bigger danger than Aes Sedai and sul’dam put together, in his book. Juilin bridled at the slightest suggestion his woman might be unreliable, though, and spun his bamboo staff as if he was considering cracking Mat’s head for him. There was no solution, but Mat found a stopgap, a way to get a little warning if the worst occurred.
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