A Crown of Swords (84 page)

“Old Cully won’t like this, Spar,” the bigger man growled, and rat-face darted forward, rusty blade flashing from hand to hand.

He did not count on the knife that suddenly appeared in Mat’s left hand and sliced across his wrist. The dagger clattered to the paving stones, but the fellow flung himself at Mat anyway. As Mat’s other blade stabbed into his chest, he squealed, eyes going wide, arms wrapping around Mat convulsively. The bald fellow’s sneer widened, his club rising as he stepped in.

The grin vanished as two beggars swarmed over him, snarling and stabbing.

Staring incredulously, Mat shoved rat-face’s corpse away. The street was clear for fifty paces except for combatants, and everywhere beggars rolled on the pavement, two or three or sometimes four stabbing at one, beating him with clubs or rocks.

Beslan caught Mat’s arm. There was blood on his face, but he was grinning. “Let’s get out of here and let the Fellowship of Alms finish its business. There’s no honor in fighting beggars, and besides, the guild won’t leave any of these interlopers alive. Follow me.” Nalesean was scowling—doubtless he saw no honor in fighting beggars either—and Beslan’s friends, several with their costumes awry and one with his mask off so another could dab at a cut across his forehead. The man with the cut was grinning, too. Birgitte bore not a scratch that Mat could see, and her costume looked as neat as it had back in the palace. She made her knife disappear; there was no way she could hide a blade under those feathers, but she did.

Mat made no protest at being drawn away, but he did growl, “Do beggars always go around attacking people in this . . . this city?” Beslan might not appreciate hearing it called a bloody city.

The man laughed. “You are
ta’veren
, Mat. There’s always excitement around
ta’veren.
”

Mat smiled back with gritted teeth. Bloody fool, bloody city, and bloody
ta’veren.
Well, if a beggar slit his throat, he would not have to go
back to the palace and let Tylin peel him like a ripe pear. Come to think of it, she had called him her little pear. Bloody everything! The street between the dyer’s shop and The Rose of the Eldar had its share of revelers, though not many scantily clad. Apparently you had to have coin to go near naked. Though the acrobats in front of the merchant’s house on the corner came close, the men barefoot and bare-chested in tight, brightly colored breeches, the women in even tighter breeches and thin blouses. They all had a few feathers in their hair, as did the capering musicians playing in front of the small palace at the far corner, a woman with a flute, another blowing on a tall, twisted black tube covered with levers, and a fellow beating a tambour for all he was worth. The house they had come to watch looked shut up tight.

The tea at The Rose was as bad as ever, which meant it was much better than the wine. Nalesean stuck to the sour local ale. Birgitte said thanks without saying for what, and Mat shrugged it off silently; they grinned at each other and tapped cups. The sun rose, and Beslan sat balancing first one boot on the toe of the other, then the other way around, but his companions began growing restive, no matter how often he pointed out that Mat was
ta’veren.
A scuffle with beggars was hardly proper excitement, the street was too narrow for any settings to pass, the women were not as pretty as elsewhere, and even looking at Birgitte seemed to pall once they realized that she did not intend to kiss even one of them. With protestations of regret that Beslan would not come, they hurried off to find somewhere more exhilarating. Nalesean took a stroll down the alley beside the dyer’s, and Birgitte vanished into The Rose’s murky interior to find, she said, whether there was anything at all fit to drink hidden in some forgotten corner.

“I never expected to see a Warder garbed like that,” Beslan said, changing his boots around.

Mat blinked. The fellow had sharp eyes. She had not removed her mask once. Well, as long as he did not know about—

“I think you will be good for my Mother, Mat.”

Choking, Mat sprayed tea into the passersby. Several glared at him angrily, and one slender woman with a nice little bosom gave him a coy smile from beneath a blue mask he thought was meant to be a wren. She stamped a foot and stalked off when he did not smile back. Luckily, no one was angry enough to take it beyond glares before they too went on their way. Or maybe unluckily. He would not have minded if six or eight piled on him right then.

“What do you mean?” he said hoarsely.

Beslan’s head whipped around in wide-eyed surprise. “Why, her choosing you for her pretty, of course. Why is your face so red? Are you angry? Why—?” Suddenly he slapped his forehead and laughed. “You think I will be angry. Forgive me, I forget you’re an outlander. Mat, she’s my mother, not my wife. Father died ten years ago, and she has always claimed to be too busy. I am just glad she chose someone I like. Where are you going?”

He did not realize he was on his feet until Beslan spoke. “I just . . . need to clear my head.”

“But you’re drinking tea, Mat.”

Dodging around a green sedan chair, he half saw the door of the house open and a woman with a blue-feathered cloak over her dress slip out. Unthinkingly—his head was spinning too much to think clearly—he fell in behind her. Beslan
knew
! He
approved
! His own mother, and he. . . .

“Mat?” Nalesean shouted behind him. “Where are you going?”

“If I’m not back by tomorrow,” Mat shouted back absently over his shoulder, “tell them they’ll have to find it for themselves!” He walked on after the woman in a daze, not hearing if Nalesean or Beslan shouted again. The man
knew
! He remembered once thinking that Beslan and his mother were both mad. They were worse! All of Ebou Dar was mad! He was hardly aware of the dice still spinning inside his skull.

From a window of the meeting room, Reanne watched Solain disappear down the street toward the river. Some fellow in a bronze coat followed in her wake, but if he tried to impede her, he would find out soon enough that Solain had no time for men, and no patience with them.

Reanne was not sure why the urge had grown so strong today. For days it had come on almost with the morning and faded with the sun, and for days she had fought—by the strict rules they did not quite dare call laws, that order was given at the half moon, still five nights off—but today. . . . She had spoken the order before she thought and been unable to make herself retract until the proper time. It would be well. No one had seen any sign of those two young fools calling themselves Elayne and Nynaeve anywhere in the city; thank the Light, there had been no need to take dangerous chances.

Sighing, she turned to the others, who waited until she took her chair before seating themselves. It would be well, as it always had been. Secrets would be kept, as they always had been. But, still. . . . She had no touch of
Foretelling or anything of that sort, yet perhaps that overwhelming urge had been telling her something. Twelve women watched her expectantly. “I think we should consider moving everyone who does not wear the belt to the farm for a little while.” There was little discussion; they were the Elders, but she was the Eldest. In that, at least, there was no harm in behaving as Aes Sedai did.

“I do not understand this,” Elayne protested. She had not been offered a chair; in fact, when she started to sit, she had been told curtly to remain standing. Five sets of eyes were focused on her, five women with set, grim faces. “You are behaving as if we’ve done something
terrible
when what we have
done
is find the Bowl of the Winds!” At least they were on the brink of it, she hoped; the message Nalesean had come running back with was none too clear. Mat had gone off shouting that he had found it. Or something very like, Nalesean allowed; the longer he talked, the more he bounced between absolute certainty and doubt. Birgitte had remained watching Reanne’s house; she seemed to be sweaty and bored. In any case, matters were in motion. Elayne wondered how Nynaeve was getting on. Better than herself, she hoped. She had certainly never expected this when she revealed their success.

“You have endangered a secret kept close by every woman to wear the shawl for over two thousand years.” Merilille sat stiff-backed, serenity almost abandoned on the tight-lipped brink of apoplexy. “You must have been insane! Only madness could excuse this!”

“What secret?” Elayne demanded.

Vandene, flanking Merilille with her sister, adjusted pale green silk skirts irritably and said, “Time enough for that when you’ve been properly
raised, child. I thought you had some sense.” Adeleas, in a dark gray wool with deep brown trim, nodded, mirroring Vandene’s disapproval.

“The child cannot be faulted for revealing a secret she did not know,” Careane Fransi said from Elayne’s left, shifting her bulk in her green-and-gilt armchair. She was not stout, but almost, with shoulders as wide and arms as thick as most men.

“Tower law does not allow for excuses,” Sareitha put in quickly, in somewhat self-important tones, her normally inquisitive brown eyes stern. “Once mere excuses are allowed, inevitably lesser and lesser excuses will become acceptable, until law itself is gone.” Her high-backed chair stood to the right. Only she wore her shawl, but Merilille’s sitting room had been arranged as a court, though no one called it that. So far, no one had. Merilille, Adeleas and Vandene confronted Elayne like judges, Sareitha’s chair was placed where the Seat of Rebuke would be, and Careane’s the Seat of Pardon, but the Domani Green who would have been her defender nodded thoughtfully as the Tairen Brown who would have been her prosecutor continued. “She has admitted guilt from her own mouth. I recommend that the child be confined to the palace until we leave, with some good hard work to occupy her mind and her hands. I also recommend a firm dose of the slipper at regular intervals to remind her not to go behind sisters’ backs. And the same for Nynaeve, as soon as she can be found.”

Elayne swallowed. Confined? Perhaps they did not need to name this a trial for it to be one. Sareitha might not yet have achieved the ageless face, but the weight of the other women’s years pressed at Elayne. Adeleas and Vandene with their hair nearly all white, even their ageless faces echoing years. Merilille’s hair was glossy black, yet Elayne would not have been surprised to learn she had worn the shawl as long or longer than most women not Aes Sedai lived. For that matter, Careane might have, as well. Not one of them approached her own strength in the Power, but. . . . All that experience as Aes Sedai, all that knowledge. All that . . . authority. A heavy reminder that she was only eighteen and had been in novice white a year ago.

Careane made no move to rebut Sareitha’s suggestions. Perhaps she best go on defending herself. “Plainly this secret you speak of has something to do with the Circle, but—”

“The Kin are no concern of yours, child,” Merilille broke in sharply. Drawing a deep breath, she smoothed gold-slashed skirts of silvery gray. “I propose to pass sentence,” she said in a cold voice.

“I concur, and defer to your decision,” Adeleas said. She gave Elayne a disappointed frown and shook her head.