The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  “You can hardly blame them,” Egeanin drawled, studying the board. “You and I are supposed to be fleeing lovers, but you spend more time with . . . her . . . than with me.” She still had trouble not calling Tuon High Lady. “You behave like a man courting.” She reached to place her stone, then stopped with her hand above the board. “You can’t think she’ll complete the ceremony, can you? You can’t be that big a fool.”

  “What ceremony? What are you talking about?”

  “You named her your wife three times that night in Ebou Dar,” she said slowly. “You really don’t know? A woman says three times that a man is her husband, and he says three times she’s his wife, and they’re married. There are blessings involved, usually, but it’s saying it in front of witnesses that makes it a marriage. You really didn’t know?”

  Mat laughed, and shrugged his shoulders, feeling the knife hanging behind his neck. A good knife gave a man a feeling of comfort. But his laugh was hoarse. “But she didn’t say anything.” He had bloody well been stuffing a gag in her mouth at the time! “So whatever I said, it doesn’t mean anything.” But he knew what Egeanin was going to say. Sure as water was wet, he knew. He had been told who he was going to marry.

  “With the Blood, it’s a little different. Sometimes a noble from one end of the Empire marries a noble from the other. An arranged marriage. The Imperial family never has any other kind. They may not want to wait until they can be together, so one acknowledges the marriage where she is, and the other where he is. As long as they both speak in front of witnesses, inside a year and a day, the marriage is legal. You truly didn’t know?”

  Sure was sure, but the stones still spilled from his hand onto the board, bouncing everywhere. The bloody girl knew. Maybe she thought this whole thing was an adventure, or a game. Maybe she thought being kidnapped was as much fun as training horses or bloody damane! But he knew he was a trout waiting for her to set the hook.

  He stayed away from the purple wagon for two days. There was no use running—he already had the bloody hook in his mouth, and he had put it there himself—but he did not have to swallow the flaming thing. Only, he knew it was just a matter of when she decided to jerk the line tight.

  As slowly as the show moved, eventually they reached the ferry across the Eldar, running from Alkindar on the west bank to Coramen on the east, tidy little walled towns of tile-roofed stone buildings with half a dozen stone docks each. The sun was climbing high, hardly a cloud crossed the sky, and those white as new-washed wool. No rain today, maybe. It was an important crossing, with trading ships from upriver tied to some of the docks and big barge-like ferries crawling from one town to the other on long sweeps. The Seanchan apparently thought so, too. They had military camps outside both towns, and from the stone walls beginning to rise around the camps and the stone structures going up inside, they had no intention of leaving soon.

  Mat crossed over with the first wagons, riding Pips. The brown gelding looked ordinary enough to an undiscerning eye; it would not seem out of place for him to be ridden by a fellow in a rough woolen coat with a woolen cap pulled down over his ears against the cold. He was not actually considering making a run for the hilly wooded ridge country behind Coramen. Thinking about it, but not really considering. She was going to set the hook whether he ran or not. So he sat Pips at the end of one of the stone ferry landings, watching the show cross over and trundle away through the town. There were Seanchan on the landings, a squad of beefy men in segmented armor painted blue and burnt gold under a lean young officer with one thin blue plume on his odd-looking helmet. They seemed to be there just to keep order, but the officer checked Luca’s horse warrant, and Luca inquired whether the noble lord might know of ground outside the town suitable for his show to perform. Mat could have wept. He could see soldiers wearing striped armor in the street behind him, wandering in and out of shops and taverns. A raken swooped down out of the sky on long, ribbed wings, alighting outside one of the camps across the river. Three or four of the snake-necked creatures were already on the ground. There had to be hundreds of soldiers in those camps. Maybe a thousand. And Luca was going to put on his show.

  Then one of the ferries hit the rope-padded bumpers at the end of the landing, and the ramp came down to let the windowless purple wagon rumble off onto the stones. Setalle was driving. Selucia sat on one side of her, peering out from the hood of a faded red cloak. On the other side, swathed in a dark cloak so not an inch of her showed, was Tuon.

  Mat thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head. If his heart did not pound its way out of his chest first. The dice had started up in his head, that rattling feel of dice rolling across a table. They were going to come up the Dark One’s eyes, this time; he just knew it.

  There was nothing to do except fall in beside the purple wagon, though, riding along as though life were wonderful, riding along the wide main street through criers for shops and hawkers selling things from trays. And Seanchan soldiers. They were not marching in formation now, and they eyed the brightly painted wagons with interest. Riding along and waiting for Tuon to shout. She had given her word, but a prisoner would say anything to get the shackles loosened. All she had to do was raise her voice, and summon a thousand Seanchan soldiers for rescue. The dice bounced and spun in Mat’s head. Riding along, waiting for the Dark One’s eyes.

  Tuon never spoke a word. She peeked curiously past the edge of her deep cowl, curiously and cautiously, but she kept her face hidden, and even her hands, all wrapped in that dark cloak and even huddling against Setalle like a child seeking the protection of her mother in a strange crowd. Never a word until they had passed the gates of Coramen and were rumbling toward the base of the ridge that rose behind the town, where Luca was already gathering the show’s wagons. That was when Mat really knew there was no escape for him. She was going to set the hook all right. She was just biding her bloody time.

  He made sure all the Seanchan stayed in their wagons that night, and the Aes Sedai, too. Nobody had seen any sul’dam or damane that Mat knew, but the Aes Sedai did not argue for once. Tuon did not argue, either. She made a demand that sent Setalle’s eyebrows almost to her hairline. It was phrased as a request, in a way, a reminder of a promise he had made, but he knew a demand when a woman made one. Well, a man had to trust the woman he was going to marry. He told her he had to think on it, just so she would not start imagining she could have anything she wanted out of him. He thought on it all the day that Luca put on his show, thinking and sweating while as many Seanchan as not came to gape at the performers. He thought on it while the wagons wound eastward through the hills, moving slower than ever, but he knew what answer he had to give.

  On the third day after leaving the river, they reached the salt town of Jurador, and he told Tuon that he would. She smiled at him, and the dice in his head stopped dead. He would always remember that. She smiled, and then the dice stopped. A man could weep!

  CHAPTER

  29

  Something Flickers

  “This do be madness,” Domon rumbled from where he stood with his arms folded as if blocking the way out of the wagon. Maybe he was. His jaw was thrust forward belligerently, sticking out a beard that was trimmed short but still longer than the hair on his head, and he was working his hands like a man thinking of making fists, or grappling with something. A wide man, Domon, and not as fat as he looked on first glance. Mat wanted to avoid fists or grappling, if he could.

  He finished tying the black silk scarf around his neck, hiding his scar, and tucked the long ends into his coat. The chance that there was anyone in Jurador who knew about a man in Ebou Dar wearing a black scarf . . . Well, the odds seemed good even discounting his luck. Of course, there was always his being ta’veren to be factored in, but if that was going to bring him face-to-face with Suroth or a fistful of servants from the Tarasin Palace, he could stay in bed with a blanket wrapped around his head, and it still would happen. Sometimes, you just had to trust to luck. The trouble was, when he w
oke this morning, the dice had again been tumbling in his head. They were bouncing off the inside of his skull still.

  “I promised,” he said. It was good to be back in decent clothes. The coat was a fine green wool, well cut and hanging almost to his knees and the turned-down tops of his boots. There was no embroidery—maybe it could do with a little—but he had a touch of lace at his cuffs. And a good silk shirt. He wished he had a mirror. A man needed to look his best on a day like this. Picking up his cloak from the bed, he swung it across his shoulders. Not a gaudy thing like Luca’s. Dark gray, nearly as dark as night. Only the lining was red. His cloak pin was simple silver knots no larger than his thumbs.

  “She gave her word, Bayle,” Egeanin said. “Her word. She will not break that, ever.” Egeanin sounded absolutely convinced. More convinced than Mat was, anyway. But sometimes a man had to take a chance. Even if he was wagering his neck. He had promised. And he did have his luck.

  “It still be madness,” Domon grumbled. But he moved grudgingly away from the door when Mat settled his broad-brimmed black hat on his head. Well, when Egeanin motioned him aside with a quick jerk of her head, anyway. He kept his glower, though.

  She followed Mat out of the wagon, scowling herself and fiddling with her long black wig. Maybe she still felt uneasy with it, or maybe it fit differently now that she had close to a month’s growth of her own hair underneath. Not enough to go about bare-headed yet, in any case. Not till there was at least another hundred miles between them and Ebou Dar. Maybe it would not be safe until they crossed the Damona Mountains into Murandy.

  The sky was clear, the sun just cresting the horizon, invisible yet behind the show’s canvas wall, and the morning was warm only compared to a snowstorm. Not the crispness of a late-winter morning in the Two Rivers, but a chill that slowly bored deep and put a faint mist in your breath. The showfolk were scurrying about like ants in a kicked anthill, filling the air with shouted demands to know who had moved those juggling rings or borrowed that pair of red-spangled breeches or shifted this performing platform. It looked and sounded like the start of a riot, yet there was no real anger in any of the voices. They shouted and waved arms all the time, but it never came to blows when there was a show in the offing, and somehow every performer would be in place and ready before the first patrons were let in. They might be slow packing up for the road, but performing meant money, and they could move fast enough for that.

  “You really do think you can marry her,” Egeanin muttered, striding along at his side, kicking her worn brown woolen skirts. There was nothing dainty about Egeanin. She had a long stride, and she kept up easily. Dress or no dress, she seemed to need a sword on her hip. “There’s no other explanation for this. Bayle is right. You are mad!”

  Mat grinned. “The question is, does she mean to marry me? The strangest people marry, sometimes.” When you knew you were going to hang, the only thing to do was grin at the noose. So he grinned and left her standing there with a scowl on her hard face. He thought she was growling curses under her breath, though he did not understand why. She was not the one who had to marry the last person on earth she wanted to. A noblewoman, all cool reserve and her nose in the air, when he liked barmaids with ready smiles and willing eyes. The heir to a throne, and not just any throne; the Crystal Throne, the Imperial Throne of Seanchan. A woman who spun his head like a top and left him wondering whether he held her captive or she held him. When fate gripped you by the throat, there was nothing to do but grin.

  He kept a jaunty pace till he was in sight of the windowless purple wagon, and then he missed a step. A cluster of acrobats, four limber men who called themselves the Chavana brothers though it was plain as their noses they came from different countries, not just different mothers, rushed out of a green wagon nearby, shouting and gesturing wildly at one another. They spared a glance for the purple wagon and another for Mat, but they were too engrossed in their argument, and trotting too fast, for more. Gorderan was leaning against one of the purple wheels, scratching his head and frowning at the two women who stood at the foot of the wagon’s wooden steps. Two women. Both swathed in dark cloaks, faces concealed, yet there was no mistaking the flowered head scarf hanging out of the taller woman’s cowl. Well. He should have know Tuon would want her maid along. Noblewomen never went anywhere without a maid. Bet a penny or bet a crown, in the end it all came down to a toss of the dice just the same. They had had their chance to betray him. Still, he was betting on a woman making the same choice twice running. On two women doing it. What fool would make odds on that? But he had to toss the dice. Except, they were already rolling.

  He met Selucia’s cold blue stare with a smile and swept off his hat to make an elegant leg to Tuon. Not too showy, with just a small flourish of his cloak. “Are you ready to go shopping?” He very nearly called her “my Lady,” but until she was willing to say his name . . .

  “I have been ready for an hour, Toy,” Tuon drawled coolly. Casually lifting an edge of his cloak, she glanced at the red silk lining and eyed his coat before letting the cloak fall. “Lace suits you. Perhaps I will have lace added to your robes if I make you a cupbearer.”

  His smile slipped for an instant. Could she still make him da’covale if she married him? He would have to ask Egeanin. Light, why did women never make it easy?

  “Do you want me to come along, my Lord?” Gorderan asked slowly, not quite looking at the women now. He tucked his thumbs behind his belt and did not quite look at Mat, either. “Just to carry, maybe?”

  Tuon did not say a word. She just stood there looking up at Mat, waiting, big eyes getting cooler by the second. The dice bounced and rattled in his head. Well, he only hesitated a heartbeat before jerking his head to send the Redarm away. Maybe two heartbeats. He had to trust his luck. Trust her word. Trust is the sound of death. He stepped on that thought hard. This was no song, and no old memory could guide him. The dice inside his skull kept spinning.

  With a slight bow, he offered his arm, which Tuon examined as if she had never seen an arm before, pursing those full lips. Then she gathered her cloak and set off with Selucia gliding at her heels, leaving him to hurry after them. No, women never did make it easy.

  Despite the early hour, two burly fellows with cudgels were already guarding the entrance, and a third with a clear glass pitcher to take the coins and dump them through a slot in the iron-strapped box on the ground. Each of the three looked too clumsy to palm a copper without falling on his face, but Luca took no chances. Twenty or thirty people were already waiting inside the heavy ropes that led to the big blue banner naming Luca’s show, and unfortunately, Latelle was there, too, stern-faced in a dress sewn with crimson spangles and a cloak sewn with blue. Luca’s wife trained bears. Mat thought the bears did their tricks for fear she might bite them.

  “I have everything in hand,” he told her. “Believe me, there’s nothing to worry about.” He might as well have spared his breath.

  Latelle ignored him, frowning worriedly at Tuon and Selucia. She and her husband were the only two showfolk who knew who they were. There had seemed no reason to tell either about this morning’s jaunt. Luca, at least, would have had kittens. The stare Latelle shifted to Mat was not worried, just stone hard. “Remember,” she said quietly, “if you send us to the gallows, you send yourself.” Then she sniffed and went back to studying the people waiting to get in. Latelle was even better than Luca at judging the weight of a purse before the drawstrings were undone. She was also ten times tougher than her husband. The dice tumbled on. Whatever had set them spinning, he had not yet reached the fateful point. The deciding point.

  “She is a good wife for Master Luca,” Tuon murmured when they had gone a little way.

  Mat looked at her sideways, and resettled his hat on his head. There had been no mockery in her tone. Did she hate Luca that much? Or was she saying what sort of wife she would be? Or . . . ? Burn him, he could go as crazy as Domon thought he was, trying to puzzle this woman out. She had to be the re
ason for the feel of dice in his head. What was she going to do?

  It was a short walk away from the rising sun to the town, along a hard-packed road through hills that were treeless here, but people dotted the road the way windmills and salt pans dotted the hills. Staring straight ahead, they moved so purposefully they seemed not to see anyone in front of them. Mat dodged a round-faced man who nearly walked right into him, which made him have to jump away from a white-haired old fellow making a good speed on spindly legs. That put him in front of a plump girl who would have run up the front of him if he had not jumped again.

  “Are you practicing a dance, Toy?” Tuon said, peering up at him over a slim shoulder. Her breath made a faint white mist in front of her cowl. “It isn’t very graceful.”

  He opened his mouth, just to point out how crowded the road was, and suddenly he realized he could no longer see anyone beyond her and Selucia. The people who had been there were just gone, the road empty as far as he could see before it made a bend. Slowly, he turned his head. There was no one between him and the show, either, just the folk waiting in line, and that looked no longer than before. Beyond the show, the road wound into the hills toward a distant forest, empty. Not a soul in sight. He pressed fingers against his chest, feeling the foxhead medallion through his coat. Just a piece of silver on a rawhide cord. He wished it felt cold as ice. Tuon arched an eyebrow. Selucia’s stare named him fool.