Knife of Dreams

  "I wish to visit the common room of an inn," she announced. "Or a tavern. I have never seen the inside of either. You will take me to one in this town, Toy."

  He let himself breathe again. "That's easy enough. Just as soon as Thom or Juilin lets me know it's safe."

  "It must be a low place. What is called a hell."

  His mouth fell open. Low? Hells were the lowest of the low. dirty and dimly lit, where the ale and wine were cheap and still not worth half what you paid, the food was worse, and any woman who sat on your lap was trying to pick your pocket or cut your purse or else had two men waiting upstairs to crack you over the head as soon as you walked into her room. At any hour of the day or night you would find dice rolling in a dozen games, sometimes for surprising stakes given the surroundings. Not gold—only a stone fool displayed gold in a hell—but silver often crossed the tables. Few of the gamblers would have come by their coin by any means even halfway honest, and those few would be as hard-eyed as the headcrackers and knife-men who preyed on drunks in the night. Hells always had two or three strong-arms with cudgels about to break up fights, and most days they worked hard for their pay. They usually stopped the patrons from killing one another, but when they failed, the corpse was dragged out the back and left in an alley somewhere or on a rubbish heap. And while they were dragging, the drinking never slowed, or the gambling either. That was a hell. How had she even heard of such places?

  "Did you plant this fool notion in her head?" he demanded of Setalle.

  "Why, what in the Light makes you think that?'' she replied, going all wide-eyed the way women did when pretending to be innocent. Or when they wanted you to think they were pretending, just to confuse you. He could not see why they bothered. Women confused him all the time without trying.

  "It's out of the question, Precious. I walk into a hell with a woman like you, and I'll be in six knife fights inside the hour, if I survive that long."

  Tuon gave a pleased smile. Just a flicker, but definitely pleased. "Do you really think so?"

  "I know so for a fact." Which produced another brief smile of delight. Delight! The bloody woman wanted to see him in a knife fight!

  "Even so. Toy, you promised."

  They were arguing over whether he had made a promise—well, he was calmly presenting the logic that saying something was easy was no promise; Tuon just stubbornly insisted he had promised, while Setalle took up her embroidery hoop and Selucia watched him with the amused air of someone watching a man try to defend the indefensible: and he did not shout, no matter what Tuon said—when a knock came at the door.

  Tuon paused. "You see, Toy," she said after a moment, "that is how it is done. You knock and then wait." She made a simple gesture over one shoulder at her maid.

  "You may enter the presence," Selucia called, drawing herself up regally. She probably expected whoever came in to prostrate themselves!

  It was Thom, in a dark blue coat and dark gray cloak that would make him unremarked in any common room or tavern, neither well-to-do nor poor. A man who could afford to pay for his own drink while listening to the gossip, or buy another man a cup of wine to pay for hearing his news and the latest rumors. He did not prostrate himself, but he did make an elegant bow despite his bad right leg. "My Lady," he murmured to Tuon before turning his attention to Mat. "Harnan said he saw you strolling this way. I trust I'm not interrupting? I heard . . . voices."

  Mat scowled. He had not been shouting. "You're not interrupting. What did you find out?"

  "That there may be Seanchan in the town from time to time. No soldiers, but it seems they're building two farm villages a few miles to the north of the road and three more a few miles south. The villagers come to town to buy things now and then."

  Mat managed to keep from smiling as he spoke over his shoulder. He even got a smattering of regret into his voice. "I'm afraid there's no jaunt into Maderin for you, Precious. Too dangerous."

  Tuon folded her arms, emphasizing her bosom. There were more curves to her than he once had thought. Not like Selucia, certainly, but nice curves. "Farmers, Toy," she drawled dismissively. "No farmer has ever seen my face. You promised me a tavern or a common room, and you won't escape on this puny excuse."

  "A common room should present no difficulties," Thom said. "It's a pair of scissors or a new pot these farmers are after, not drink. They make their own ale, it seems, and don't much like the local brew."

  "Thank you, Thom," Mat said through gritted teeth. 'She wants to see a hell."

  The white-haired man gave a wheezing cough and knuckled his mustache vigorously. "A hell." he muttered.

  "A hell. Do you know a hell in this town where I might take her without starting a riot?" He intended the question for sarcasm, but Thom surprised him by nodding.

  "I might just know a place at that," the man said slowly. "The White Ring. I intend to go there anyway, to see what news I can pick up."

  Mat blinked. However unremarked Thom might be elsewhere, he would be looked at askance in a hell wearing that coat. More than askance. The usual garb there was coarse dirty wool and stained linen. Besides, asking questions in a hell was a good way to have a knife planted in your back. But maybe Thom meant that this White Ring was not a hell at all. Tuon might not know the difference if the place were only a little rougher than the usual. "Should I get Harnan and the others?" he asked, testing.

  "Oh, I think you and I should be protection enough for the Lady," Thom said with what might have been the ghost of a smile, and knots loosened in Mat's shoulders.

  He still cautioned the two women—there was no question of Selucia staying behind, of course; Mistress Anan refused Tuon's invitation to accompany them, saying she had already seen as many hells as she had any wish to—about keeping their hoods well up. Tuon might believe no farmer had ever seen her face, but if a cat could gaze on a king, as the old saying said, then a farmer might have gazed on Tuon some time or other, and it would be just their luck to have one or two of them turn up in Maderin. Being ta'veren usually seemed to twist the Pattern for the worst in his experience.

  "Toy," Tuon said gently as Selucia settled the blue cloak on her slim shoulders, "I have met many farmers while visiting the country, but they very properly kept their eyes on the ground even if I allowed them to stand. Believe me, they never saw my face."

  Oh. He went to fetch his own cloak. White clouds nearly obscured the sun, still short of its midday peak, and it was a brisk day for spring, with a strong breeze to boot.

  People from the town crowded the main street of the show, men in rough woolens or sober coats of finer stuff with just a touch of embroidery on the cuffs; women, many wearing lace caps, in somber, collared dresses beneath long white aprons or dark, high-necked dresses with embroidery curling across the bosom; children darting everywhere, escaping their parents and being chased down, all of them oohing and aahing at Miyora's leopards or Latelle's bears, at the jugglers or Balat and Abar eating fire, the lean brothers moving in unison. Not pausing for so much as a glimpse of the female acrobats, Mat threaded through the throng with Tuon on his arm, which he assured by placing her hand on his left wrist. She hesitated a moment, then nodded slightly, a queen giving assent to a peasant. Thom had offered his arm to Selucia, but she stayed at her mistress's left shoulder. At least she did not try to crowd between.

  Luca, in scarlet coat and cloak, was beneath the big banner at the entrance watching coins clink into the glass pitcher, clink again as they were dropped into the strongbox. He wore a smile on his face. The line waiting to get in stretched near a hundred paces along the canvas wall, and more people were trickling out of the town and heading toward the show. "I could take in a fine bit here over two or three days," he told Mat. "After all, this place is solid, and we're far enough from—“ His smile flickered out like a snuffed candle. "You think we're far enough, don't you?"

  Mat sighed. Gold would defeat fear every time in Valan Luca.

  He could not hold his cloak closed with Tuon on his arm,
so it flared behind him in the stiff breeze, yet that was to the good. The gate guards, slouching in a ragged line, eyed them curiously, and one made a sketchy bow. Silk and lace had that effect, with country armsmen, at least, and that was what these men were no matter how brightly they had burnished their helmets and coin-armor coats. Most leaned on their halberds like farmers leaning on shovels. But Thom stopped, and Mat was forced to halt too, a few paces into the town. After all, he had no idea where The White Ring lay.

  "A heavy guard, Captain," Thom said, worry touching his voice. "Are there brigands in the area?"

  "No outlaws around here," a grizzled guard said gruffly. A puckered white scar slanting across his square face combined with a squint to give him a villainous appearance. He was not one of the leaners, and he held his halberd as if he might know how to use it. "The Seanchan cleaned out the few we hadn't caught. Move along, now, old fellow. You re blocking the way.'' There was not a wagon or cart in sight, and the few people leaving the town afoot had plenty of room. The gate arch was wide enough for two wagons abreast, though it might be a squeeze.

  "The Seanchan said we didn't set enough guards," a stocky fellow about Mat's age put in cheerfully, "and Lord Nathin listens close when the Seanchan talk."

  The grizzled man clouted him with a gauntleted hand on the back of his helmet hard enough to stagger him. "You watch your mouth with people from off, Keilar," the older man growled, "else you'll be back behind a plow before you can blink. My Lord," he added to Mat, raising his voice, "you want to call your servant before he gets himself in trouble."

  "My apologies, Captain," Thom said humbly, ducking his white head, the very image of a chastened serving man. "No offense meant. My apologies."

  "He would have thumped you, too, if I hadn't been here," Mat told him when he caught up. Thom was limping noticeably. He must have been tired for it to show that much. "He almost did anyway. And what did you learn that was worth risking that?"

  "I wouldn't have asked without you, in that coat," Thom chuckled as they walked deeper into the town. "The first lesson is what questions to ask. The second, and just as important, is when and how to ask. I learned there aren't any brigands, which is always good to know, though I've heard of very few bands big enough to attack something as large as the show. I learned Nathin is under the Seanchan thumb. Either he's obeying a command with those extra guards, or he takes their suggestions as commands. And most important, I learned that Nathin's armsmen don't resent the Seanchan." Mat quirked an eyebrow at him.

  "They didn't spit when they said the name, Mat. They didn't grimace or growl. They won't fight the Seanchan, not unless Nathin tells them to, and he won't." Thom exhaled heavily. "It's very strange. I've found the same everywhere from Ebou Dar to here. These outlanders come, take charge, impose their laws, snatch up women who can channel, and if the nobles resent them, very few among the common people seem to. Unless they've had wife or relation collared, anyway. Very strange, and it bodes ill for getting them out again. But then, Altara is Altara. I'll wager they're finding a colder reception in Amadicia and Tarabon." He shook his head. "We had best hope they are, else. . . ." He did not say what else, but it was easy to imagine.

  Mat glanced at Tuon. How did she feel hearing Thom talk about her people so? She said nothing, only walked at his side peering curiously at everything from the shelter of her cowl.

  Tile-roofed buildings three and four stories tall, most of brick, lined the wide, stone-paved main street of Maderin; shops and inns with signs that swung in the stiff breeze crowded in beside stables and rich people's homes with large lamps above the arched doorways and humbler structures that housed poorer folk, by the laundry hanging from nearly every window. Horse carts and hand-barrows laden with bales or crates or barrels slowly made their way through a moderately thick throng, men and women with brisk strides, full of that storied southern industry, children dashing about in games of catch. Tuon studied it all with equal interest. A fellow pushing a wheeled grindstone and crying that he sharpened scissors or knives till they could cut wishes caught her attention as much as a lean, hard-faced woman in leather trousers with two swords strapped to her back. Doubtless a merchant's guard or perhaps a Hunter for the Horn, but a rarity either way. A buxom Domani in a clinging red dress that fell just short of transparent with a pair of bulky bodyguards in scale-armor jerkins at her back got neither more nor less study than a lanky one-eyed fellow in frayed wool hawking pins, needles and ribbons from a tray. He had not noticed this sort of curiosity from her in Jurador, but she had been intent on finding silk in Jurador. Here, she seemed to be trying to memorize all she saw.

  Thorn soon led them off into a maze of twisting streets, most of which deserved the name only because they were paved with rough stone blocks the size of a man's two fists. Buildings as big as those on the main street, some housing shops on the ground floor, loomed over them, almost shutting out the sky. Many of those ways were too narrow for horse carts—in some Mat would not have had to extend his arms fully to touch the walls on either side—and more than once he had to press Tuon against the front of a building to let a heavy-loaded hand-barrow rumble past over the uneven paving stones, the barrow-man calling apologies for the inconvenience without slowing. Porters trudged through that cramped warren, too, men walking bent nearly parallel to the ground, each with a bale or crate on his back held level by a padded leather roll strapped to his hips. Just the sight of them made Mat's own back ache. They reminded him how much he hated work.

  He was on the point of asking Thom how far they had to go— Maderin was not that big a town—when they reached The White Ring, on one of those winding streets where his arms could more than compass the width of the pavement, a brick building of three floors across from a cutler's shop. The painted sign hanging over the inn's red door, a frilly white circle of lace, made the knots return to his shoulders. Ring, it might be called, but that was a woman's garter if ever he had seen one. It might not be a hell, but inns with signs like that usually were rowdy enough in their own right. He eased the knives up his coatsleeves, and those in his boot tops, as well, felt the blades under his coat, shrugged just to get the feel of the one hanging behind his neck. Though if it went that far. . . . Tuon nodded approvingly. The bloody woman was dying to see him get into a knife fight! Selucia had the sense to frown.

  "Ah, yes," Thom said. "A wise precaution." And he checked his own knives, tightening those knots in Mat's shoulders a little more. Thom carried almost as many blades as he did, up his sleeves, beneath his coat.

  Selucia writhed her fingers at Tuon, and suddenly they were in a silent argument, fingers flashing. Of course, it could not be that— Tuon bloody well owned Selucia the same as owning a dog, and you did not argue with your dog—but an argument it seemed, both women with their jaws set stubbornly. Finally, Selucia folded her hands and bowed her head in acquiescence. A reluctant submission.

  "It will be well." Tuon told her in a jollying tone. "You will see. It will be well."

  Mat wished he was sure of that. Taking a deep breath, he extended his wrist for her hand again and followed Thom.

  The spacious, wood-paneled common room of The White Ring held better than two dozen men and women, nearly half obvious outlanders, at square tables beneath a thick-beamed ceiling. All neatly dressed in finely woven wool with little by way of ornamentation, most were talking quietly over their wine in pairs, cloaks draped over their low-backed chairs, though three men and a woman with long beaded braids were tossing bright red dice from a winecup at one table. Pleasant smells drifted from the kitchen, including meat roasting. Goat, most likely. Beside the wide stone fireplace, where a parsimonious fire burned and a polished brass barrel-clock sat on the mantel, a saucy-eyed young woman who rivaled Selucia—and with her blouse unlaced nearly to her waist to prove it—swayed her hips and sang, accompanied by a hammered dulcimer and a flute, a song about a woman juggling all of her lovers. She sang in a suitably bawdy voice. None of the patrons appeared to be listening
. "As I walked out one fine spring day, I met young Jac who was pitching hay, his hair so fair, and his eyes were, too. Well, I gave him a kiss; oh, what could I do? We snuggled and we tickled while the sun rose high, and I won't say how often he made me sigh."

  Lowering her hood, Tuon stopped just inside the door and frowned around the room. "Are you certain this is a hell, Master Merrilin?" she asked. In a low voice, thank the Light. Some places, a question of that sort could get you thrown out and roughly, silk coat or no. In others, the prices just doubled.

  "I assure you, you won't find a bigger collection of thieves and rascals anywhere in Maderin at this hour," Thom murmured, stroking his mustaches.

  "Now Jac gets an hour when the sky is clear, and Willi gets an hour when my father’s not near. It's the hayloft with Moril, for he shows no fear, and Keilin comes at midday: he's oh so bold! Lord Brelan gets an evening when the night is cold. Master Andril gets a morning, but he's very old. Oh, what, oh, what is a poor girl to do? My loves are so many and the hours so few."

  Tuon looked doubtful, but with Selucia at her shoulder, she walked over to stand in front of the singer, who faltered a moment at Tuon's intense scrutiny before catching the song up again. She sang over the top of Tuon's head, plainly attempting to ignore her. It seemed that with every other verse, the woman in the song added a new lover to her list. The male musician, playing the dulcimer, smiled at Selucia and got a frosty stare back. The two women got other looks as well, the one so small and with very short black hair, the other rivaling the singer and with her head wrapped in a scarf, but no more than glances. The patrons were intent on their own business.

  "It isn't a hell," Mat said softly, "but what is it? Why would so many people be here in the middle of the day?" It was mornings and evenings when common rooms filled up like this.

  "The locals are selling olive oil, lacquerware or lace," Thom replied just as quietly, "and the outlanders are buying. It seems local custom is to begin with a few hours of drink and conversation. And if you have no head for it," he added dryly, "you sober up to find you've made much less of a bargain than you thought in your wine."