Mat was lying on his back, staring at the shadowed roof and wondering if the rain would break before morning—he wanted that letter out of his hands as quickly as possible—when he heard an axle creak into the stable. Rolling to the edge of the loft, he peered down. There was enough dusk left for him to see.
A slender woman was straightening from the shafts of the high-wheeled cart she had just dragged in out of the rain, pulling off her cloak and muttering to herself as she shook the wet from it. Her hair was plaited in a multitude of small braids, and her silk dress—he thought it was a pale green—was elaborately embroidered across her breasts. The dress had been fine, once, but now it was tattered and stained. She knuckled her back, still talking to herself in a low voice, and hurried to the stable doors to peer out into the rain. Just as hurriedly, she ducked out to pull the big doors shut, enclosing the stable in darkness. There was a rustling below, a clink and a slosh, and suddenly a small flare of light bloomed into a lantern in her hands. She looked around, found a hook on a stall post, hung the lantern, and went to dig under the roped canvas covering her cart.
“She did that quickly,” Thom said softly around his pipe. “She could have set fire to the stable striking flint and steel in the dark like that.”
The woman came out with the end of a loaf of bread, which she gnawed as if it were hard and her hunger did not care.
“Is there any of that cheese left?” Mat whispered. Thom shook his head.
The woman began sniffing at the air, and Mat realized she probably smelled Thom’s tabac smoke. He was about to stand and announce their presence when one of the stable doors opened again.
The woman crouched, ready to run, as four men walked in out of the rain, doffing their wet cloaks to reveal pale coats with wide sleeves and embroidery across the chest, and baggy breeches embroidered down the legs. Their clothes might be fancy, but they were all big men, and their faces were grim.
“So, Aludra,” a man in a yellow coat said, “you did not run so fast as you thought to, eh?” He had a strange accent, to Mat’s ear.
“Tammuz,” the woman said as if it were a curse. “It is not enough that you cause me to be cast out of the Guild with your blundering, you great ox-brain you, but now you chase after me as well.” She had the same odd way of speaking as the man. “Do you think that I am glad to see you?”
The one called Tammuz laughed. “You are a very large fool, Aludra, which I always knew. Had you merely gone away, you could have lived a long life in some quiet place. But you could not forget the secrets in your head, eh? Did you believe we would not hear that you try to earn your way making what it is the right of the Guild alone to make?” Suddenly there was a knife in his hand. “It will be a great pleasure to cut your throat, Aludra.”
Mat was not even aware that he had stood up until one of the doubled ropes dangling from the ceiling was in his hands and he had launched himself out of the loft. Burn me for a bloody fool!
He only had time for that one frantic thought, and then he was plowing through the cloaked men, sending them toppling like pins in a game of bowls. The ropes slipped through his hands, and he fell, tumbling across the straw-covered floor himself, coins spilling from his pockets, to end up against a stall. When he scrambled to his feet, the four men were already rising, too. And they all had knives in their hands, now. Light-blind fool! Burn me! Burn me!
“Mat!”
He looked up, and Thom tossed his quarterstaff down to him. He snagged it out of the air just in time to knock the blade out of Tammuz’s fist and thump him a sharp crack on the side of the head. The man crumpled, but the other three were right behind, and for a hectic moment Mat had all he could do with a whirling staff to keep knife blades away from him, rapping knees and ankles and ribs until he could land a good blow on a head. When the last man fell, he stared at them a moment, then raised his glare to the woman. “Did you have to choose this stable to be murdered in?”
She slipped a slim-bladed dagger back into a sheath at her belt. “I would have helped you, but I feared that you might mistake me for one of these great buffoons if I came near with steel in my hand. And I chose this stable because the rain is wet and so am I, and no one was watching this place.”
She was older than he had thought, at least ten or fifteen years older than he, but pretty still, with large, dark eyes and a small, full mouth that seemed on the point of a pout. Or getting ready for a kiss. He gave a small laugh and leaned on his staff. “Well, what is done is done. I suppose you were not trying to bring us trouble.”
Thom was climbing down from the loft, awkwardly because of his leg, and Aludra looked from him to Mat. The gleeman had put his cloak back on; he seldom let anyone see him without it, especially for the first time. “This is like a story,” she said. “I am rescued by a gleeman and a young hero”—she frowned at the men sprawled on the stable floor—“from these whose mothers were pigs!”
“Why did they want to kill you?” Mat asked. “He said something about secrets.”
“The secrets,” Thom said in very nearly his performing voice, “of making fireworks, unless I miss my guess. You are an Illuminator, are you not?” He made a courtly bow with an elaborate swirl of his cloak. “I am Thom Merrilin, a gleeman, as you have seen.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “And this is Mat, a young man with a knack for finding trouble.”
“I was an Illuminator,” Aludra said stiffly, “but this great pig Tammuz, he ruined a performance for the King of Cairhien, and nearly he destroyed the chapter house, too. But me, I was Mistress of the Chapter House, so it was me that the Guild held responsible.” Her voice became defensive. “I do not tell the secrets of the Guild, no matter what that Tammuz says, but I will not let myself starve while I can make fireworks. I am no more in the Guild, so the laws of the Guild, they do not apply to me now.”
“Galldrian,” Thom said, sounding almost as wooden as she had. “Well, he is a dead king now, and he’ll see no more fireworks.”
“The Guild,” she said, sounding tired, “they all but blame me for this war in Cairhien, as if that one night of disaster, it made Galldrian die.” Thom grimaced. “It seems I can no longer remain here,” she went on. “Tammuz and these other oxen, they will wake soon. Perhaps this time they will tell the soldiers that I stole what I have made.” She eyed Thom and then Mat, frowning in thought, and seemed to reach a decision. “I must reward you, but I have no money. However, I have something that is perhaps as good as gold. Maybe better. We shall see what you think.”
Mat exchanged glances with Thom as she went to root under the canvas covering her cart. I’ll help anyone who can pay. He thought a speculative light had appeared in Thom’s blue eyes.
Aludra separated one bundle from a number like it, a short roll of heavy, oiled cloth almost as fat as her arms would go around. Setting it down on the straw, she undid the binding cords and unrolled the cloth across the floor. Four rows of pockets ran along the length of it, the pockets in each row larger than those in the one before. Each pocket held a wax-coated cylinder of paper just large enough for its end, trailing a dark cord, to stick out.
“Fireworks,” Thom said. “I knew it. Aludra, you must not do this. You can sell those for enough to live ten days or more at a good inn, and eat well every day. Well, anywhere but here in Aringill.”
Kneeling beside the long strip of oiled cloth, she sniffed at him. “Be quiet, you old one you.” She made it sound not unkindly. “I am not allowed to show gratitude? You think I would give you this if I had no more for selling? Attend me closely.”
Mat squatted beside her, fascinated. He had seen fireworks twice in his life. Peddlers had brought them to Emond’s Field, at great expense to the Village Council. When he was ten, he had tried to cut one open to see what was inside, and had caused an uproar. Bran al’Vere, the Mayor, had cuffed him; Doral Barran, who had been the Wisdom then, had switched him; and his father had strapped him when he got home. Nobody in the village would talk to him for a month, exc
ept for Rand and Perrin, and they mostly told him what a fool he had been. He reached out to touch one of the cylinders. Aludra slapped his hand away.
“Attend me first, I say! These smallest, they will make a loud bang, but no more.” They were the size of his little finger. “These next, they make a bang and a bright light. The next, they make the bang, and the light, and many sparkles. The last”—these were fatter than his thumb—“make all of those things, but the sparkles, they are many colors. Almost like a night-flower, but not up in the sky.”
Nightflower? Mat thought.
“You must be especially careful of these. You see, the fuse, it is very long.” She saw his blank look, and waggled one of the long, dark cords at him. “This, this!”
“Where you put the fire,” he muttered. “I know that.” Thom made a sound in his throat and stroked his mustaches with a knuckle as if covering a smile.
Aludra grunted. “Where you put the fire. Yes. Do not stay close to any of them, but these largest, you run away from when you light the fuse. You comprehend me?” She briskly rolled up the long cloth. “You may sell these if you wish, or use them. Remember, you must never put this close to fire. Fire will make them all explode. So many as this at once, it could destroy a house, maybe.” She hesitated over retying the cords, then added, “And there is one last thing, which you may have heard. Do not cut open any of these, as some great fools do to see what is inside. Sometimes when what is inside touches air, it will explode without the need of fire. You can lose fingers, or even a hand.”
“I’ve heard that,” Mat said dryly.
She frowned at him as if wondering whether he meant to do it anyway, then finally pushed the rolled bundle toward him. “Here. I must go now, before these sons of goats awaken.” Glancing at the still open door, and the rain falling in the night beyond, she sighed. “Perhaps I will find somewhere else dry. I think I will go toward Lugard, tomorrow. These pigs, they will expect me to go to Caemlyn, yes?”
It was even further to Lugard than to Caemlyn, and Mat suddenly remembered that hard end of bread. And she had said she had no money. The fireworks would buy no meals until she found someone who could afford them. She had never even looked at the gold and silver that had spilled from his pockets when he fell; it glittered and sparkled among the straw in the lantern light. Ah, Light, I cannot let her go hungry, I suppose. He scooped up as much as he could reach quickly.
“Uh . . . Aludra? I have plenty, you can see. I thought perhaps. . . .” He held out the coins toward her. “I can always win more.”
She paused with her cloak half around her shoulders, then smiled at Thom as she swept it the rest of the way on. “He is young yet, eh?”
“He is young,” Thom agreed. “And not half so bad as he would like to think himself. Sometimes he is not.”
Mat glowered at both of them and lowered his hand.
Lifting the shafts of her cart, Aludra got it turned around and started for the door, giving Tammuz a kick in the ribs as she passed. He groaned groggily.
“I would like to know something, Aludra,” Thom said. “How did you light that lantern so quickly in the dark?”
Stopping short of the door, she smiled over her shoulder at him. “You wish me to tell you all of my secrets? I am grateful, but I am not in love. That secret, not even the Guild knows, for it is my discovery alone. I will tell you this much. When I know how to make it work properly, and work only when I want it to, sticks will make my fortune for me.” Throwing her weight against the shafts, she pulled the cart into the rain, and the night swallowed her.
“Sticks?” Mat said. He wondered if she might not be a little strange in the head.
Tammuz groaned again.
“Best we do the same as she, boy,” Thom said. “Else it’s a choice between slitting four throats and maybe spending the next few days explaining ourselves to the Queen’s Guards. These look the sort who’d set them on us out of spite. And they have enough to be spiteful for, I suppose.” One of Tammuz’s companions twitched as if coming to, and muttered something incomprehensible.
By the time they had gathered everything and saddled the horses, Tammuz was up on his hands and knees with his head hanging, and the others were stirring and groaning, too.
Swinging into his saddle, Mat stared at the rain outside the open door, falling harder than ever. “A bloody hero,” he said. “Thom, if I ever look like acting the hero again, you kick me.”
“And what would you have done differently?”
Mat scowled at him, then pulled up his hood and spread the tail of his cloak over the fat roll tied behind the high cantle of his saddle. Even with oiled cloth, a little more protection from the rain could not hurt. “Just kick me!” He booted his horse in the ribs and galloped into the rainy night.
CHAPTER
41
A Hunter’s Oath
As the Snow Goose moved toward the long stone docks of Illian, sails furled and propelled by its sweeps, Perrin stood near the stern watching great numbers of long-legged birds wading in the tall marsh grass that all but encircled the great harbor. He recognized the small white cranes, and could guess at their much larger blue brothers, but many of the crested birds—red-feathered or rosy, some with flat bills broader than a duck’s—he did not know at all. A dozen sorts of gulls swooped and soared above the harbor itself, and a black bird with a long, sharp beak skimmed just above the water, its underbeak cutting a furrow. Ships three and four times as long as the Snow Goose lay anchored across the expanse of the harbor, waiting their turns at the docks, or for the tides to shift so they could sail beyond the long breakwater. Small fishing boats worked close to the marsh, and in the creeks winding through it, two or three men in each dragging nets on long poles swung out from either side of the boat.
The wind carried a sharp scent of salt, and did little to break the heat. The sun stood well over halfway down to the horizon, but it seemed like noon. The air felt damp; it was the only way he could think of it. Damp. His nose caught the smell of fresh fish from the boats, of old fish and mud from the marsh, and the sour stink of a large tanning yard that lay on a treeless island in the marsh grass.
Captain Adarra muttered something softly behind him, the tiller creaked, and the Snow Goose changed its course a trifle. Barefoot men at the sweeps moved as if not wanting to make a sound. Perrin did not glance at them beyond a flicker of his eye.
He peered at the tannery, instead, watching men scrape hides stretched on rows of wooden frames, and other men lift hides out of huge, sunken vats with long sticks. Sometimes they stacked the hides on barrows, wheeling them into the long, low building at the edge of the yard; sometimes the hides went back into the vats, with an addition of liquids poured from large stone crocks. They probably made more leather in a day than was made in Emond’s Field in months, and he could see another tannery on another island beyond the first.
It was not that he had any real interest in ships or fishing boats or tanning yards, or even very much in the birds—though he did wonder what those pale red ones could be fishing for with their flat bills, and some of them looked good to eat unless he watched himself—but anything at all was better than watching the scene behind him on the deck of the Snow Goose. The axe at his belt was no defense against that. A stone wall wouldn’t be defense enough, he thought.
Moiraine had been neither pleased nor displeased to discover that Zarine—I’ll not call her Faile, whatever she wants to name herself! She is no falcon!—knew she was Aes Sedai, though she had been perhaps a little upset with him for not telling her. A little upset. She called me a fool, but that was all. Then. Moiraine did not seem to care one way or another about Zarine being a Hunter of the Horn. But once she learned the girl thought they would lead her to the Horn of Valere, once she learned he had known that, too, and not told her—Zarine had been more than forthcoming about both subjects with Moiraine, to his mind—then her cold dark stare had taken on a quality that made him feel as if he had been packed in a barrel of
snow in the dead of winter. The Aes Sedai said nothing, but she stared too often and too hard for any comfort.
He looked over his shoulder and quickly returned to studying the shoreline. Zarine was sitting cross-legged on the deck near the horses tethered between the masts, her bundle and dark cloak beside her, her narrow, divided skirts neatly arrayed, pretending to study the rooftops and towers of the oncoming city. Moiraine was studying Illian, too, from just ahead of the men working the sweeps, but now and then she shot a hard look at the girl from under the deep hood of her fine gray wool cloak. How can she stand wearing that? His own coat was unbuttoned and his shirt unlaced at the neck.
Zarine met each Aes Sedai look with a smile, but every time Moiraine turned away, she swallowed and wiped her forehead.
Perrin rather admired her for managing that smile when Moiraine was watching. It was a good deal more than he could do. He had never seen the Aes Sedai truly lose her temper, but he himself was at the point of wishing she would shout, or rage, or anything but stare at him. Light, maybe not anything! Maybe the stare was bearable.
Lan sat further toward the bow than Moiraine—his color-shifting cloak was still in the saddlebags at his feet—outwardly absorbed in examining his sword blade, but making little effort to hide his amusement. Sometimes his lips appeared to quirk very close to a smile. Perrin was not certain; at times he thought it was only a shadow. Shadows could make a hammer seem to smile. Each woman obviously thought she was the object of that amusement, but the Warder did not appear to mind the tight-lipped frowns he received from both of them.
A few days earlier Perrin had heard Moiraine ask Lan, in a voice like ice, whether he saw something to laugh at. “I would never laugh at you, Moiraine Sedai,” he had replied calmly, “but if you truly intend to send me to Myrelle, I must become used to smiling. I hear that Myrelle tells her Warders jokes. Gaidin must smile at their bondholder’s quips; you have often given me quips to laugh at, have you not? Perhaps you would rather I stay with you after all.” She had given him a look that would have nailed any other man to the mast, but the Warder never blinked. Lan made cold steel seem like tin.
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