A Crown of Swords (104 page)

Mat would have gotten out and pulled the coach himself, if he could. He thought they might have moved faster. The streets were already full with the sun not all the way up, wagons and carts wending their way nosily through the crowds and windblown dust to shouts and curses both from drivers and those forced to get out of the way. So many barges slid along the canals on the bargemen’s poles that a man almost could have walked the canals like streets, stepping from one barge to the next. A noisy hum hung over the gleaming white city. Ebou Dar seemed to be trying to make up for time lost yesterday, not to mention at High Chasaline and the Feast of Lights, and well it might, considering that tomorrow night was the Feast of Embers, with Maddin’s Day, celebrating the founder of Altara, two days after that, and the Feast of the Half Moon the following night. Southerners had a reputation for industry, but he thought it was because they had to work so hard to make up for all the festivals and feastdays. The wonder was that they had the strength for it.

Eventually the coaches did reach the river, drawing up at one of the long stone landings that jutted out into the water, all lined with steps for boarding the boats tied alongside. Sticking a wedge of dark yellow cheese and a butt end of bread into his pocket, he stuffed the basket well under the seat. He was hungry, but someone in the kitchens had been in too
much of a hurry; most of the basket was filled by a clay pot full of oysters, but the kitchens had forgotten to cook them.

Scrambling down behind Lan, he left Nalesean and Beslan to help Vanin and the others down from the last coaches. Nearly a dozen men, and not even the Cairhienin really small, they had been jammed in like apples in a barrel and clambered out stiffly. Mat strode ahead of the Warder toward the lead coach, the
ashandarei
slanted across his shoulder. Nynaeve and Elayne were both going to get a piece of his mind no matter who was listening. Trying to keep Moghedien hidden! Not to mention two of his men dead! He was going to—! Suddenly very conscious of Lan towering behind him like a stone statue with that sword on his hip, he amended his thoughts. The Daughter-Heir at least was going to hear about keeping that sort of secret.

Nynaeve was standing on the landing, tying on her blue-plumed hat and talking back up into the coach when he reached it. “. . . Will work out, of course, but who would think the Sea Folk, of all people, would demand such a thing, even just in private?”

“But, Nynaeve,” Elayne said as she stepped down with her green-plumed hat in her hand, “if last night was as glorious as you say, how can you complain about—?”

That was when they became aware of him and Lan. Of Lan, really. Nynaeve’s eyes opened wider and wider, filling her face as it reddened to shame two sunsets. Maybe three. Elayne froze with one foot still on the coach step, giving the Warder such a frown you would have thought he had sneaked up on them. Lan gazed down at Nynaeve, though, with no more expression than a fence post, and for all Nynaeve appeared ready to crawl under the coach and hide, she stared up at Lan as if no one else existed in the world. Realizing her frown was wasted there, Elayne took her foot off the step and moved out of the way of Reanne and the two Wise Women who had shared the coach, Tamarla and a graying Saldaean woman named Janira, but the Daughter-Heir did not give up; oh, no. She transferred that scowl to Mat Cauthon, and if it altered a whit, it was to deepen. He snorted and shook his head. Usually when a woman was in the wrong, she could find so many things to blame on the nearest man that he wound up thinking maybe he really was at fault. In his experience, old memories or new, there were only two times a woman admitted she was wrong: when she wanted something, and when it snowed at midsummer.

Nynaeve seized at her braid, but not as if her heart was in it. Her fingers
fumbled and fell away, and she started wringing her hands instead. “Lan,” she began unsteadily, “you mustn’t think I would talk about—”

The Warder cut in smoothly, bowing and offering her his arm. “We are in public, Nynaeve. Whatever you want to say in public, you may. May I escort you to the boat?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding so vigorously that her hat nearly fell off. She straightened it hurriedly with both hands. “Yes. In public. You will escort me.” Taking his arm, she regained some measure of composure, at least insofar as her face went. Gathering her dustcloak in her free hand, she practically dragged him across the quay toward the landing.

Mat wondered whether she might be ill. He rather enjoyed seeing Nynaeve dropped a peg or six, but she hardly ever let it last two breaths. Aes Sedai could not Heal themselves. Maybe he should suggest to Elayne that she deal with whatever was wrong with Nynaeve. He avoided Healing like death or marriage himself, but it was different for other people as he saw it. First, though, he had a few choice words to say about secrets.

Opening his mouth, he raised an admonitory finger . . . .

 . . . and Elayne poked him in the chest with hers, her scowl beneath that plumed hat so cold it made his toes hurt. “Mistress Corly,” she said in the icy voice of a queen pronouncing judgment, “explained to Nynaeve and me the significance of those red flowers on the basket, which I see you at least have shame enough to have hidden.”

His face went redder than Nynaeve’s had thought of. A few paces away, Reanne Corly and the other two were tying on hats and adjusting dresses the way women did every time they stood up, sat down or moved three steps. Yet despite giving their attention to their clothes, they had enough left over for glances in his direction, and for once they were neither disapproving nor startled. He had not known the bloody flowers meant anything! Ten sunsets would not have done for his face.

“So!” Elayne’s voice was low, for his ears alone, but it dripped disgust and contempt. She gave her cloak a twitch, to keep it from touching him. “It’s true! I could not
believe
it of you, not even you! I’m
sure
Nynaeve couldn’t. Any promise I made to you is
abolished
! I will not keep any promise to a man who could
force
his attentions on a woman, on
any
woman, but
especially
on a Queen who has offered him—”

“
Me
force
my
attentions on
her
!” he shouted. Or rather, he tried to shout; choking made it come out in a wheeze.

Seizing Elayne’s shoulders, he pulled her away from the carriages a little distance. Shirtless dockmen in stained green leather vests hurried by,
carrying sacks on their shoulders or rolling barrels along the quay, some pushing low barrows loaded with crates, all giving the coaches a wide berth. The Queen of Altara might not have much power, but her sigil on a coach door ensured that commoners would give it room. Nalesean and Beslan were chatting as they led the Redarms onto the landing, Vanin bringing up the rear and staring gloomily at the choppy river; he claimed to have a tender belly when it came to boats. The Wise Women from both coaches had gathered around Reanne, watching, but they were not close enough to overhear. He whispered hoarsely just the same.

“You listen to me! That woman won’t take no for an answer; I say no, and she
laughs
at me. She’s starved me, bullied me, chased me down like a stag! She has more hands than any six women I ever met. She threatened to have the serving women undress me if I didn’t let her—” Abruptly, what he was saying hit him. And who he was saying it to. He managed to close his mouth before he swallowed a fly. He became very interested in one of the dark metal ravens inlaid in the haft of the
ashandarei
, so he would not have to meet her eyes. “What I mean to say is, you don’t understand,” he muttered. “You have it all backwards.” He risked a glance at her under the edge of his hatbrim.

A faint blush crept into her cheeks, but her face became solemn as a marble bust. “It . . . appears that I may have misunderstood,” she said soberly. “That is . . . very
bad
of Tylin.” He thought her lips twitched. “Have you considered practicing different smiles in a mirror, Mat?”

Startled, he blinked. “What?”

“I have heard reliably that that is what young women do who attract the eyes of kings.” Something cracked the sobriety of her voice, and this time her lips definitely twitched. “You might try batting your eyelashes, too.” Catching her lower lip with her teeth, she turned away, shoulders shaking, dustcloak streaming behind as she hurried toward the landing. Before she darted beyond hearing, he heard her chortle something about “a taste of his own medicine.” Reanne and the Wise Women scurried in her wake, a flock of hens following a chick instead of the other way around. The few bare-chested boatmen up out of their boats stopped coiling lines or whatever they were doing and bowed their heads respectfully as the procession went by.

Snatching off his hat, Mat considered throwing it down and jumping on it. Women! He should have known better than to expect sympathy. He would like to throttle the bloody Daughter-Heir. And Nynaeve, too, on general principle. Except, of course, that he could not. He had made promises.
And those dice were still using his skull for a dice cup. And one of the Forsaken might be around somewhere. Settling the hat squarely back on his head, he marched down the landing, brushed past the Wise Women and caught up to Elayne. She was still trying to fight down giggles, but every time she cut her eyes his way, the color in her cheeks renewed itself and so did the giggles.

He stared straight ahead. Bloody women! Bloody promises. Removing his hat long enough to pull the leather cord from around his neck, he reluctantly shoved it in her direction. The silver foxhead dangled beneath his fist. “You and Nynaeve will have to decide which of you wears this. But I want it back when we leave Ebou Dar. You understand? The moment we leave—”

Suddenly he realized he was walking alone. Turning, he found Elayne standing stock still two paces back, staring at him with Reanne and the rest clustered behind her.

“What’s the matter now?” he demanded. “Oh. Yes, I know all about Moghedien.” A skinny fellow with red stones on his brass-hoop earrings, bending over a mooring line, jerked around so fast at that name that he pitched over the side with a loud yell and a louder splash. Mat did not care who heard. “Trying to keep her secret—and two of my men dead!—after you promised. Well, we’ll talk about that later. I made a promise, too; I promised to keep the pair of you alive. If Moghedien shows up, she’ll go after you two. Now, here.” He pushed the medallion at her again.

She shook her head slowly in puzzlement, then turned to murmur to Reanne. Only after the older women were on their way toward where Nynaeve stood beckoning them at the head of a flight of boat stairs did Elayne take the foxhead, turning it over in her fingers.

“Do you have any notion what I would have done to have this for study?” she said quietly. “Any notion at all?” She was tall for a woman, but she still had to look up at him. She might never have seen him before. “You are a troublesome man, Mat Cauthon. Lini would say I was repeating myself, but
you
. . . !” Expelling her breath, Elayne reached up to pull his hat off and slip the cord over his head. She actually tucked the foxhead into his shirt and patted it before handing him his hat. “I won’t wear that while Nynaeve doesn’t have one, or Aviendha, and I think they feel the same. You wear it. After all, you can hardly keep your promise if Moghedien kills
you.
Not that I think she’s still here. I think she believes she killed Nynaeve, and I would not be surprised if that was all she came for. You must be careful, though. Nynaeve says there’s a storm coming, and she doesn’t mean
this wind. I. . . .” That faint blush returned to her cheeks. “I am sorry I laughed at you.” She cleared her throat, looking away. “Sometimes I forget my duty to my subjects. You are a worthy subject, Matrim Cauthon. I will see that Nynaeve understands the right of . . . of you and Tylin. Perhaps we can help.”