Nynave paid their fares—and twice as much again for the horses—with such a look on her face that neither Egwene nor Elayne spoke to her until long after the Darter had wallowed away from Jurene.
CHAPTER
40
A Hero in the Night
Leaning on the rail, Mat watched the walled town of Aringill come closer as the sweeps worked the Gray Gull in toward the long, tarred-timber docks. Protected by high stone wing-walls that thrust out into the river, those docks swarmed with people, and more were leaving the ships of various sizes that lay tied all along them. Some of the people pushed barrows, or pulled sledges or tall-wheeled carts, all piled high with furniture and chests lashed in place, but most carried bundles on their backs, if that. Not everyone bustled. Many men and women huddled together uncertainly, and children clung crying to their legs. Soldiers in red coats and shiny breastplates kept trying to make them move off the docks into the town, but most seemed too frightened to move.
Mat turned and shaded his eyes to peer at the river they were leaving. The Erinin was busier here than he had seen it south of Tar Valon, with nearly a dozen vessels under way in sight, ranging from a long, sharp-prowed splinter darting upriver against the current, pushed by two triangular sails, to a wide, bluff-bowed ship with square sails, still wallowing along well to the north.
Nearly half the ships he could see had nothing to do with the river trade, though. Two broad-beamed craft with empty decks were lumbering across the river, toward a smaller town on the far bank, while three others labored back toward Aringill, their decks packed with people like barrels of fish. The setting sun, still its own height above the horizon, shadowed a banner flying over that other town. That shore was Cairhien, but he did not need to see the banner to know it was the White Lion of Andor. There had been talk enough in the few Andoran villages where the Gray Gull had stopped briefly.
He shook his head. Politics did not interest him. As long as they don’t try telling me again I’m an Andorman just because of some map. Burn me, they might even try to make me fight in their bloody army, if this Cairhien business spreads. Following orders. Light! With a shiver, he turned back to Aringill. Barefoot men on the Gray Gull were readying ropes to toss to others on the docks.
Captain Mallia was eyeing him from back by the tiller. The fellow had never given up his efforts to ingratiate himself with them, his attempts to learn what their important mission was. Mat had finally shown him the sealed letter and told him that he was carrying it from the Daughter-Heir to the Queen. A personal message from a daughter to her mother; no more. Mallia had only seemed to hear the words “Queen Morgase.”
Mat grinned to himself. A deep coat pocket held two purses fatter than when he had boarded the vessel; he had enough loose coin to more than fill another two. His luck had not been quite so good as on that first, strange night when the dice and everything else had seemed to go crazy, but still it was good enough. After the third night, Mallia had given up trying to show his friendliness by gambling, but his money chest was already lighter by then. It would be lighter still after Aringill. Mallia had need to restock his food—Mat glanced at the people milling on the docks—if he could, here, at any price.
The grin faded as his thoughts went back to the letter. A little work with a hot knife blade, and the golden lily seal had been lifted. He had found nothing: Elayne was studying hard and making progress and eager to learn. She was a dutiful daughter, and the Amyrlin Seat had punished her for running away and told her never to speak of it again, so her mother would understand why she could not say more. She said she had been raised to the Accepted, and was that not wonderful, so soon, and she was being trusted with greater duties now, and would have to leave Tar Valon for just a short time on the service of the Amyrlin herself. Her mother was not to worry.
It was all very well for her to tell Morgase not to worry. It was him she had landed in the soup kettle. This silly letter had to be the reason those men had come after him, but even Thom had been able to make nothing of it, though he muttered about “ciphers” and “codes” and “the Game of Houses.”
Mat had the letter safe in the lining of his coat, now, its seal replaced, and he was willing to bet no one would ever know. If someone wanted it badly enough to kill him for it, they might try again. I told you I’d deliver it, Nynaeve, and I bloody will, no matter who tries to stop me. Even so, he would have words to say the next time he saw those three irritating women—If I ever do. Light, I never thought of that—words he did not think they would enjoy hearing.
As the crewmen hurled their lines onto the dock, Thom came on deck, his instrument cases on his back and his bundle in one hand. Even with a limp he strutted to the rail, giving the tail of his cloak little flourishes to make the colored patches flutter, and blowing out his long, white mustaches importantly.
“Nobody is watching, Thom,” Mat said. “I don’t think they would even see a gleeman unless he had food in his hands.”
Thom stared at the docks. “Light! I had heard it was bad, but I did not expect this! Poor fools. Half of them look as if they are starving. It may cost us one of your purses for a room tonight. And the other for a meal, if you intend to keep on the way you’ve been going. Nearly made me ill to watch you. You try eating that way where those people down there can see you, and you may have your brains battered out.”
Mat only smiled at him.
Mallia came stumping down the deck, tugging the point of his beard, as the Gray Gull was warped into her berth. Crewmen ran to set a gangplank, and Sanor stood guard on it, heavy arms folded across his chest, in case the throng on the docks tried to board. None of them did.
“So you will be leaving me here,” Mallia told Mat. The captain’s smile was not as ready as it might have been. “Are you certain there is nothing I can do to help further? Burn my soul, I never saw such a rabble! Those soldiers ought to clear the docks—with the sword, if need be!—so decent traders can do business. Perhaps Sanor can make a path through this scum to your inn for you.”
So you’ll know where we are staying? Not bloody likely. “I had thought of eating before I went ashore, and maybe a game of dice to pass the time.” Mallia’s face went white. “But I think I would like a steady floor under me for my next meal. So we will leave you now, Captain. It has been an enjoyable voyage.”
While relief still battled consternation on the captain’s face, Mat picked up his things from the deck and, using the quarterstaff as a walking stick, made his way to the gangplank with Thom. Mallia followed as far as the head of the plank, murmuring regrets at their departure that jumped from real to insincere and back again. Mat was certain the man hated losing a chance to ingratiate himself with his High Lord Samon by learning details of a pact between Andor and Tar Valon.
As Mat and the gleeman pushed through the crowds, Thom muttered, “I know the man is far from likable, but why do you have to keep taunting him? Wasn’t it enough that you ate every scrap of what he thought would feed him all the way to Tear?”
“I have not been eating it all for nearly two days.” The hunger had simply been gone one morning, to his great relief. It had been as if Tar Valon had loosed its last hold on him. “I’ve been throwing most of it over the side, and a hard job it was making sure nobody saw.” Among these drawn faces, many of them children’s, it did not seem so funny anymore. “Mallia deserved taunting. What about that ship, yesterday? The one that was stuck on a mudbank or something. He could have stopped to help, but he would not go near it however much they shouted.” There was a woman with long, dark hair ahead who might have been pretty if she had not looked so bone weary, peering into the face of every man who passed her as if looking for someone; a boy little taller than her waist and two girls shorter clung to her, all crying. “All that talk about river brigands and traps. It didn’t look like any trap to me.”
Thom dodged around a high-wheeled cart—a cage holding two squealing pigs was lashed atop the canvas-covered mound—and nearly tripped over
a sledge being pulled, by a man and a woman. “And you go out of your way to help people, do you? Strange how that has escaped my eye.”
“I’ll help anyone who can pay,” Mat said firmly. “Only fools in stories do something for nothing.”
The two girls sobbed into their mother’s skirts while the boy fought his tears. The woman’s deep-set eyes rested on Mat for a moment, studying his face, before drifting on; they looked as if she wished she could weep, too. On impulse he dug a fistful of loose coins out of his pocket without looking to see what they were and pressed them into her hand. She gave a start of surprise, stared at the gold and silver in her hand with incomprehension that quickly turned to a smile, and opened her mouth, tears of gratitude filling her eyes.
“Buy them something to eat,” he said quickly, and hurried on before she could speak. He noticed Thom looking at him. “What are you gawking at? Coin comes easily as long as I can find somebody who likes to dice.” Thom nodded slowly, but Mat was not sure he had gotten his point across. Bloody children’s crying was getting on my nerves, that’s all. Fool gleeman will probably expect me to give gold away to every waif that comes along, now. Fool! For an uncomfortable moment, he was not certain whether the last had been meant for Thom or himself.
Taking himself in hand, he avoided looking at any face long enough to really see it until he found the one he wanted, at the foot of the dock. The helmetless soldier in red coat and breastplate, urging people into the town, had the grizzled look of a squadman, an experienced leader of ten or so. Squinting into the setting sun, he reminded Mat of Uno, though he had both his eyes. He looked almost as tired as the people he was chivying. “Move along,” he was shouting in a hoarse voice. “You can’t bloody stay here. Move along. Into the town with you.”
Mat stationed himself squarely in front of the soldier and put on a smile. “Your pardon, Captain, but can you tell me where I might find a decent inn? And a stable with good horses to sell. We have a long way to go, come morning.”
The soldier eyed him up and down, examined Thom and his gleeman’s cloak, then shifted back to Mat. “Captain, is it? Well, boy, you’ll have the Dark One’s own luck if you find a stable to sleep in. Most of this lot are sleeping under hedges. And if you find a horse that hasn’t been slaughtered for cooking, you’ll likely have to fight the man who owns it to make him sell.”
“Eating horse!” Thom muttered disgustedly. “Has it really become that bad on this side of the river? Isn’t the Queen sending food?”
“It is bad, gleeman.” The soldier looked as if he wanted to spit. “They’re crossing over faster than the mills can grind flour, or wagons carry foodstuffs from the farms. Well, it will not last much longer. The order has come down. Tomorrow, we stop letting anyone across, and if they try, we send them back.” He scowled at the people milling on the dock as if it were all their fault, then brought the same hard look to bear on Mat. “You are taking up space, traveler. Move along.” His voice rose to a shout again, directed at everyone within hearing. “Move along! You cannot bloody stay here! Move along!”
Mat and Thom joined the thin stream of people, carts, and sledges flowing toward the gates in the town wall, and into Aringill.
The main streets were paved with flat gray stones, but they were crowded with so many people that it was difficult to see the stones under your own boots. Most appeared to be moving aimlessly, with nowhere to go, and those who had given up squatted dejectedly along the sides of the street, the lucky ones with bundled belongings in front of them or some cherished possession clutched in their arms. Mat saw three men holding clocks, and a dozen or more with silver goblets or platters. The women held children to their breasts, mainly. A babble filled the air, a low, wordless hum of worry. He pushed through the crowd with a frown on his face, searching for the sign that would mark an inn. The buildings were every sort, wood and brick and stone all cheek by jowl, with roofs of tile, or slate, or thatch.
“It does not sound like Morgase,” Thom said after a time, half to himself. His bushy eyebrows were pulled down like a white arrow pointing to his nose.
“What does not sound like her?” Mat asked absently.
“Stopping the crossings. Sending people back. She always had a temper like lightning, but she always had a soft heart, too, for anyone poor or hungry.” He shook his head.
Mat saw a sign, then—The Riverman, it said, and showed a barefoot, shirtless fellow doing a jig—and turned that way, forcing an angle across the flow with the quarterstaff. “Well, it had to be her. Who else could it be? Forget Morgase, Thom. We’ve a long way to Caemlyn, yet. First let us see how much gold it takes to buy a bed for the night.”
The common room of The Riverman looked as crowded as the street outside, and when the innkeeper heard what Mat wanted, he laughed till his chins shook. “I am sleeping four to a bed, now. If my own mother came to me, I could not give her a blanket by the fire.”
“As you must have noticed,” Thom said, his voice taking on that echoing quality, “I am a gleeman. Surely you can find at least pallets in a corner in return for me entertaining your patrons with stories and juggling, eating of fire, and sleight of hand.” The innkeeper laughed in his face.
As Mat pulled him back into the street, Thom growled in his normal voice, “You never gave me a chance to ask after his stable. Surely I could have gotten us a place in the hayloft, at least.”
“I have slept in enough stables and barns since leaving Emond’s Field,” Mat told him, “and under enough bushes, too. I want a bed.”
But at the next four inns he found, the innkeeper gave him the same answer as the first; the last two almost threw him out bodily when he offered to dice for a bed. And when the owner of the fifth told him he could not give a pallet to the Queen herself—this at a place called The Good Queen—he sighed and asked, “What about your stable, then? Surely we can bed down in the hayloft for a price.”
“My stable is for horses,” the round-faced man said, “not that many are left in the city.” He had been polishing a silver cup; now he opened one door of a shallow cupboard standing on top of a deep, drawered chest and placed it inside with others; none of them matched. A tooled-leather dice cup sat atop the chest, just beyond the arc of the cupboard’s doors. “I do not put people in there to frighten the horses, and perhaps make off with them. Those who pay me for stabling their animals want them well tended, and I’ve two of my own in there, besides. There are no beds in my stable for you.”
Mat eyed the dice cup thoughtfully. He pulled a gold Andoran crown out of his pocket and set it atop the chest. The next coin was a silver Tar Valon mark, then a gold one, and a gold Tairen crown. The innkeeper looked at the coins and licked his plump lips. Mat added two silver Illianer marks and another gold Andoran crown, and looked at the round-faced man. The innkeeper hesitated. Mat reached for the coins. The innkeeper’s hand reached them first.
“Perhaps just the two of you would not disturb the horses too greatly.”
Mat smiled at him. “Speaking of horses, what price for those two of yours? With saddles and bridles, of course.”
“I will not sell my horses,” the man said, clutching the coins to his chest.
Mat picked up the dice cup and rattled it. “Twice as much again against the horses, saddles, and bridles.” He shook his coat pocket to make the loose coins rattle, too, to show he had more to cover the wager. “My one toss against the best of your two.” He almost laughed as greed lit the innkeeper’s entire face.
When Mat walked into the stable, the first thing he did was check along the half-dozen stalls with horses in them for a pair of brown geldings. They were nondescript animals, but they were his. They needed currying badly, but otherwise they seemed in good condition, especially considering that all the stablemen but one had run off. The innkeeper had been extremely disparaging of their complaints that they could no longer live on what he paid them, and he seemed to think it a crime that the one man who remained had actually had the audacity to sa
y he was going home to bed just because he was tired from doing three men’s work.
“Five sixes,” Thom muttered behind him. The looks he cast around the stable did not seem as enthralled as they might, seeing that he had suggested it in the first place. Dust motes shone in the last light of the setting sun coming through the big doors, and the ropes used to hoist hay bales hung like vines from pulleys in the roof beams. The hayloft was dim in the gloom above. “When he threw four sixes and a five on his second toss, he thought you’d lost for sure, and so did I. You have not been winning every toss of late.”
“I win enough.” Mat was just as relieved not to be winning every throw. Luck was one thing, but remembering that night still sent shivers down his back. Still, for one moment as he shook that dice cup, he had all but known what the pips would be. As he tossed the quarterstaff up into the loft, thunder crashed in the sky. He scrambled up the ladder, calling back to Thom. “This was a good idea. I’d think you would be happy to be in out of the rain tonight.”
Most of the hay was in bales stacked against the outer walls, but there was more than enough loose for him to make a bed with his cloak over it. Thom appeared at the top of the ladder as he was pulling two loaves of bread and a wedge of green-veined cheese from his leather scrip. The innkeeper—his name was Jeral Florry—had parted with the food for merely enough coin to have bought one of those horses in more peaceful days. They ate while rain began drumming on the roof, washing the food down with water from their waterbottles—Florry had had no wine at any price—and when they were done, Thom dug out his tinderbox and thumbed his long-stemmed pipe full of tabac and settled back for a smoke.