Mat understood, in a manner of speaking. A man always tried to make whoever was commanding the troops against him believe that he was doing something other than what he was, that he was going where he had no intention of going, and the enemy tried to do the same to him, if the enemy was any good at the craft. Sometimes both sides could get so confused that very strange things happened. Tragedies, sometimes. Cities burned that no one had any interest in burning, except that the burners believed what was untrue, and thousands died. Crops destroyed for the same reason, and tens of thousands died in the famine that followed.
"So I won't crack my teeth about this a'dam for men," he said. "I suppose somebody has thought to tell… him?" Colors flashed. Maybe he could just ignore them, or grow used to them. They were gone as fast as they came, and they did not hurt. He just did not like things he could not understand. Especially when they might have to do with the Power in some way. The silver foxhead under his shirt might protect him against the Power, but that protection had as many holes as his own memories.
"We have not exactly been in regular communication," Thom said dryly, waggling his eyebrows. "I suppose Elayne and Nynaeve have found some way to let him know, if they think it important."
"Why should they?" Juilin said, bending to tug off a boot with a grunt. "The thing is at the bottom of the sea." Scowling, he hurled the boot at the bundled dresses in the corner. "Are you going to let us get any sleep tonight, Mat? I don't think we'll have any tomorrow night, and I like to sleep at least every other night."
That night, Mat chose to sleep in Tylin's bed. Not for old times' sake. That thought made him laugh, though his laughter had too much of the sound of a whimper to be very funny. It was just that a good feather mattress and goose-down pillows were preferable to a hayloft when a man did not know when his next decent night's sleep would come.
The trouble was that he could not sleep. He lay there in the dark with an arm behind his head and the medallion's leather cord looped through itself on his wrist, ready to hand in case the gholam slid through the crack under the door, but it was not the gholam that kept him awake. He could not stop going over the plan in his head. It was a good plan, and simple; as simple as it could be, in the circumstances. Only, no battle ever went according to plan, even the best. Great captains earned their reputation not just for laying brilliant plans, but for still being able to find victory after those plans began to fall apart. So when first light illumined the windows, he was still lying there, rolling the medallion across the back of his fingers and trying to think of what was going to go wrong.
Chapter 30: Another Plan
The day dawned cold, with gray clouds that obscured the rising sun and winds off the Sea of Storms that rattled loose panes of glass in the window casements. In stories, not the sort of day for grand rescues and escapes. It was a day for murders. Not a pleasant thought when you were hoping to live past another dawn. But the plan was simple. Now that he had a Seanchan Blood to use, nothing could possibly go wrong. Mat tried very hard to convince himself of that.
Lopin brought him breakfast, bread and ham and some hard yellow cheese, while he dressed. Nerim was folding a few last pieces of clothing that were to go to the inn, including some of the shirts Tylin had had made. They were good shirts, after all, and Nerim claimed he could do something about the lace, though as usual he made it sound as if he was offering to sew a shroud. The lugubrious, gray-haired little fellow was handy with a needle, as Mat knew well. He had sewn up enough of Mat's wounds.
"Nerim and I will take Olver out by the refuse gate at the rear of the Palace," Lopin recited with exaggerated patience, his hands clasped at his waist. Servants in a palace seldom missed meals, and his dark Tairen coat fit more tightly than ever over his round belly. For that matter, the bottom of the coat did not appear to flare as much as it once had. "There is never anyone there except the guards until the refuse cart leaves in the afternoon, and they are accustomed to us taking my Lord's things out that way, so they won't remark us. At The Wandering Woman, we will secure my Lord's gold and the rest of my Lord's garments, and Metwyn, Fergin and Gorderan will meet us with the horses. We and the Redarms will then take young Olver through the Dal Eira Gate at midafternoon. I have the lottery tokens for the horses, including both pack animals, in my pocket, my Lord. There is an abandoned stable on the Great North Road, about a mile north of the Circuit of Heaven, where we will wait until we see my Lord. I trust I have my Lord's instructions correctly?"
Mat swallowed the last of the cheese and dusted his hands. "You think I'm making you go over it too often?" he said, shrugging into his coat. A plain dark green coat. A man wanted to be plain while about business like today's. "I want to make sure you have it by heart. Remember, if you don't see me before sunrise tomorrow, you keep moving until you find Talmanes and the Band." The alarm would go up with the morning inspection of the kennels, and if he was not out of the city before that, he expected to learn whether his luck ran to stopping a headsman's axe. He had been told that he was fated to die and live again—a prophecy, or near enough one—but he was pretty sure that had already happened.
"Of course, my Lord," Lopin said blandly. "It will be as my Lord commands."
"Certainly, my Lord," Nerim murmured, funereal as ever. "My Lord commands, and we obey."
Mat suspected they were lying, but two or three days waiting would not hurt them, and by that time, they would have to see he was not coming. Metwyn and the other two soldiers would convince them, if need be. Those three might follow Mat Cauthon, but they were not fool enough to stretch their necks on the chopping block if his head had already fallen. For some reason, he was not as sure of Lopin and Nerim.
Olver was not as upset over leaving Riselle as Mat had feared he would be. He brought the subject up while he was helping the boy bundle his belongings to be carried over to the inn. All of Olver's things were laid out neatly on the narrow bed in what had been the sulking room, a small sitting room, when the apartments had been Mat's.
"She is getting married, Mat," Olver said patiently, as though explaining to someone who didn't see the obvious. Popping open a narrow little carved box Riselle had given him, just long enough to make sure his redhawk's feather was safe, he snapped it shut and tucked it into the leather scrip he would be carrying on his shoulder. He was as careful of the feather as he had been of the purse holding twenty gold crowns and a fistful of silver. "I don't think her husband would like her to keep teaching me to read. I would not, if I were her husband."
"Oh," Mat said. Riselle had worked quickly once she made her mind up. Her marriage to Banner-General Yamada had been announced publicly yesterday and was to take place tomorrow, though by custom there was usually a wait of months between. Yamada might be a good general—Mat did not know—but he had never stood a chance against Riselle and that marvelous bosom. Today they were looking at a vineyard in the Rhiannon Hills that the groom was buying for her wedding gift. "I just thought you might want to—I don't know—take her with us, or something."
"I'm not a child, Mat," Olver said dryly. Folding the linen cloth back around his striped turtle shell, he added that to the scrip. "You will play Snakes and Foxes with me, won't you? Riselle enjoys playing, and you never have time any more." Despite the clothes Mat was bundling up in a cloak that would go into a pack hamper, the boy had a spare pair of breeches and some clean shirts and stockings in the scrip, too. And the game of Snakes and Foxes his dead father had made for him. You were less likely to lose what you kept on your person, and Olver had already lost more in his ten years than most people did in a lifetime. But he still believed you could win at Snakes and Foxes without breaking the rules, too.
"I will," Mat promised. He would if he managed to make it out of the city. He was certainly breaking enough rules to deserve to win. "You just take care of Wind till I get there." Olver grinned widely, and for him, that was very wide indeed. The boy loved that leggy gray gelding almost as much as he did Snakes and Foxes.
Unfo
rtunately, Beslan was another who seemed to think you could win at Snakes and Foxes.
"Tonight," he growled, stalking up and down in front of the fireplace in Tylin's sitting room. The slender man's eyes were cold enough to take away the warmth of the blaze, and his hands were clasped behind his back as if to keep them from the hilt of his narrow-bladed sword. The jeweled cylinder-clock on the wave-carved marble mantel chimed four times for the second hour of the morning. "With a few days' warning, I could have laid on something magnificent!"
"I don't want anything magnificent," Mat told him. He did not want anything from the man, but by chance Beslan had seen Thom slipping into the stableyard of The Wandering Woman a little earlier. Thom had gone to keep Joline amused until Egeanin brought her sul'dam that evening, to settle her nerves and jolly her along with courtly manners, but there could have been any number of reasons for him to visit the inn. Well, maybe not that many, with it full of Seanchan, but several, surely. Only, Beslan had leaped to the reason like a duck leaping on a beetle, and he refused to be left out. "It will be enough if a few of your friends fire some of the stores the Seanchan have stockpiled on the Bay Road. After midnight, mind, as near as they can reckon it; better an hour later than any time before." With any luck, he would be out of the city before midnight. "That will draw their attention away south, and you know losing stores will hurt them."
"I said I would do it," Beslan said sourly, "but you can't say setting fires is exactly a grand gesture."
Sitting back, Mat rested his hands on the bamboo-carved arms of the chair and frowned. He wanted to rest his hands, anyway, but his signet ring made a metallic clicking on the gilded wood as he tapped his fingers. "Beslan, you will be seen at an inn when those fires are set, won't you?" The other man grimaced. "Beslan?"
Beslan flung up his hands. "I know; I know. I mustn't endanger Mother. I'll be seen. By midnight, I will be as drunk as an innkeeper's husband! You can wager I'll be seen! It just isn't very heroic, Mat. I'm at war with the Seanchan whether or not Mother is."
Mat tried not to sigh. He almost succeeded.
There was no way to hide the three Redarms moving horses out of the stables, of course. Twice that morning he noticed serving women handing coins to others, and both times the woman doing the handing over glared when she saw him. Even with Vanin and Harnan apparently still solidly ensconced in the long barracks room near the stables, the Palace knew that Mat Cauthon was leaving soon, and wagers were being paid already. He just had to make sure no one found out how soon before it was too late.
The wind picked up strength as the morning wore on, but he had Pips saddled and rode his endless circles in the Palace stable-yard, huddling a little in his saddle and clutching his cloak close. He rode more slowly than usual, so Pips' steel shoes made a lazy, plodding sound on the paving stones. Now and then he grimaced at the darkening clouds in the sky and shook his head. No, Mat Cauthon did not like being out in this weather. Mat Cauthon would be staying somewhere warm and dry until the skies cleared, yes, he would.
The sul'dam walking damane in their own circle in the stable-yard knew he was leaving soon, too. Maybe the serving women did not talk directly to the Seanchan women, but what one woman knew was always known to every woman inside a mile soon enough. Wildfire did not run through dry woods as fast as gossip ran through women. A tall yellow-haired sul'dam glanced in his direction and shook her head. A short stout sul'dam laughed out loud, splitting a face as dark as any of the Sea Folk. He was just Tylin's Toy.
The sul'dam did not concern him, but Teslyn did. For several days, until this morning, he had not seen her among the damane being exercised. Today the sul'dam let their cloaks fly with the wind, but the damane all held theirs tightly around them, except Teslyn's gray cloak flapped this way and that, forgotten, and she stumbled a little where the pavement was uneven. Her eyes were wide and worried in that Aes Sedai face. Occasionally she darted a glance at the buxom black-haired sul'dam wearing the other end of her silver leash, and when she did, she licked her lips uncertainly.
A tightness settled in Mat's belly. Where had the determination gone? If she was ready to knuckle under…
"Everything all right?" Vanin said when Mat dismounted and gave him Pips' reins. Rain had begun to fall, cold fat drops, and the sul'dam were hurrying their charges inside, laughing and running to avoid getting wet. Some of the damane were laughing, too, a sound to chill Mat's blood. Vanin took no chances anyone might wonder why they were standing in the rain to talk. The fat man bent to lift Pips' left foreleg and study the hoof. "You look a mite more peaked than usual."
"Everything is just fine," Mat told him. The ache in his leg and hip gnawed like a tooth, but he was barely aware of it or of the quickening rain. Light, if Teslyn was cracking now… "Just remember. If you hear shouting inside the Palace tonight, or anything that sounds like trouble, you and Harnan don't wait. You ride out right then and go find Olver. He'll be—"
"I know where the little tyke'll be." Letting go of Pips' leg and straightening, Vanin spat through one of the gaps in his teeth. Raindrops ran down his face. "Harnan ain't too stupid to put his boots on alone, and I know what to do. You just take care of your piece of it and make sure your luck is working. Come on there, boy," he added much more warmly to Pips. "I got some good oats for you. And a fine hot fish stew for me."
Mat knew he should eat, too, but he felt as though he had swallowed a stone, and it did not leave room for food. Hobbling back up to Tylin's apartments, he threw his damp cloak over a chair, and for a time, stood staring at the corner where his black-hafted spear stood propped next to his unstrung bow. He planned to come back for the ashandarei at the last moment. The Blood should all be abed by the time he moved, and the servants, as well, with only the guards outside remaining awake, but he would not risk being seen with it before he had to. Even the Seanchan who called him Toy would take notice of him carrying a weapon through the halls in the middle of the night. He had meant to carry the bow, too. Good black yew was almost impossible to find outside the Two Rivers, and they cut it too short besides. Unstrung, a bow should be two hands taller than the man who would draw it. Maybe he should abandon it after all, though. He would need both hands to use the ashandarei, if it came to that, and the moment needed to drop the bow might be the moment that killed him.
"Everything will go according to plan," he said aloud. Blood and ashes, he sounded as wool-headed as Beslan! "I am not going to have fight my way out of the bloody Palace!" And almost as fool-witted. Luck was a very fine thing with the dice. Depending on luck other places could get a man dead.
Lying down on the bed, he propped one booted foot atop the other and lay studying the bow and the spear. With the door to the sitting room open, he could hear the cylinder-clock softly chime each hour away. Light, he needed his luck tonight.
The window light faded so slowly he almost got up to see whether the sun had stopped, but eventually gray light faded to purple twilight, then to full dark. The clock chimed twice, and then the only sounds were the drumming of the rain and the rush of the wind. Workmen who had been braving the weather would be downing tools to trudge home. No one came to light the lamps or tend the fires. No one expected him to be there, since he had slept in the bed the night before. The flames in the bedroom fireplace dwindled and died. Everything was in motion, now. Olver was snug in that old stable; it still had most of its roof. The clock sounded the first full hour of the night, and after no more than a week, four chimes for the second.
Rising from the bed, he felt his way into the pitch-dark sitting room and pulled open the hinged casement of one of the tall windows. The strong wind drove raindrops through the intricate white wrought-iron screen, quickly soaking his coat. The moon was hidden behind clouds, and the city was a mass of rain-shrouded darkness without even lightning to break it. All the street-lamps had apparently been extinguished by the rain and wind; the night would hide them when they left the Palace. And any patrol that saw them out in this weather would look
twice. Shivering as the wind cut through his damp coat, he shut the casement.
Taking a seat on the edge of one of the bamboo-carved chairs, he propped his elbows on his knees and watched the clock above the dead fireplace. He could not see it in the darkness, but here, he could hear the steady tick. He remained motionless, though the single chime of another hour made him twitch. There was nothing now but to wait. In a little while, Egeanin would be introducing Joline to her sul'dam. If she really had been able to find three who would do as she claimed. If Joline did not panic when they first put the a'dam on her. Thom, Joline and the others from the inn would meet him just before he reached the Dal Eira. And if he did not reach it, Thom had gone ahead with carving his turnip; he was sure he could get them past the gates with his forged order. At least they had a chance, if it all fell apart. If. Too many ifs to think about, now. It was too late for that.
Ding, from the clock, like a piece of crystal tapped with a spoon. Ding. About now, Juilin would be making his way to his precious Thera, and with any luck Beslan was starting to drink hard at an inn somewhere. Drawing a deep breath, he stood in the blackness and checked his knives by feel, up his sleeves, beneath his coat, tucked into the turned-down tops of his boots, one hanging down inside the back of his collar. That done, he left the apartments. Too late for anything but beginning.
The empty hallways he walked along were only dimly lit. One stand lamp in three or four carried flames in front of the mirrors, little pools of light with pale shadows between that never quite reached darkness. His boots were loud on the floor tiles. They rang on the marble stairs. It was unlikely anyone at all would be awake this late, but if someone did see him, he must not look as if he were skulking. Tucking his thumbs behind his belt, he made himself saunter. It was no worse than stealing a pie from a kitchen window sill. Though, come to think of it, the spotty memories that remained of his boyhood seemed to contain getting half-skinned for that a time or two.
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