Crossroads of Twilight twot-10

by Robert Jordan

  The man’s tone said enough, but worse, Mat realized the dice in his head were drumming, now. He flung the pack of cloth at the horse handlers with a hasty injunction to guard it as close as the coin-box or he would set the women on them, but he did not wait to see whether they took him seriously. Juilin darted back the way he had come at a run, and Mat ran after him, along the wide main street of the show where noisy gawking crowds were watching the four bare-chested Chavana brothers stand on one another’s shoulders, and contortionists in filmy trousers and glittering vests sit on their own heads, and a slack-rope walker in spangled blue breeches climbing a long wooden ladder to begin her performance. Short of the slack-rope walker, Juilin dodged into one of the narrower streets, where laundry hung from lines between the tents and wagons, performers sat on stools and wagon steps waiting to go on, and show children ran playing with balls and hoops. Mat knew where they were headed, now, but the thief-catcher ran too fast to overtake.

  Ahead, he saw his green wagon. Latelle was peering underneath, and Luca, in one of his bright red cloaks, was waving a pair of jugglers to move along. The two women, in baggy trousers and with faces painted white like a noble’s fools, took a good look under the wagon before they obeyed. As he came closer, he could see what they had they been staring at. Coatless, Domon was sitting on the ground under the edge of the wagon, cradling a limp Egeanin in his arms. Her eyes were closed, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner her mouth. Her wig hung askew. That stood out, for some reason. She always fussed so to keep that wig straight. The dice beat like thunder.

  “This could be disaster,” Luca growled, splitting his glower between Mat and Juilin. It was an angry glower, though, not frightened. “You may have brought me to disaster!” He shooed away a gaggle of wide-eyed children, and growled at a plump woman in skirts that glittering with silvery spangles. Miyora made leopards do tricks that even Latelle would not try, but she merely tossed her head before gliding off. No one took Luca as seriously as he took himself.

  The man gave a start when Tuon and Selucia hurried up, and looked on the point of telling them to go, too, before he thought better of it. In fact, he began to frown thoughtfully. And worriedly. It seemed his wife had not told him about Mat and the women leaving the show, and it was clear they had been somewhere. The blue-eyed woman had the huge bundle of cloth on her back now, with her arms doubled behind her, though she stood straight despite the bulk. You would think a lady’s maid was used to carrying things, but her face was a picture of frustrated irritation. Latelle eyed her up and down, then sneered at Mat as if he were the reason the woman was thrusting her considerable bosom out. Luca’s wife was very good at sneering, yet Tuon’s stern expression made Latelle nearly look mild. A judge peered out of her cowl, a judge ready to pass sentence.

  For the moment, Mat did not care what the women thought.

  Those bloody dice. Tossing his cloak back, he went to one knee and touched fingers to Egeanin’s throat. Her pulse beat weakly, thin and fluttering.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Have you sent for one of the sisters?” Moving Egeanin might be enough to kill her, but there might be time for Healing, if the Aes Sedai were quick. He was not about to say that name aloud, though, with people walking by, pausing for curious stares before Luca or Latelle hurried them on. Everyone moved quicker for her than for him. Latelle herself was the only one who really jumped for Luca.

  “Renna!” Domon spat the name. Despite his short cap of hair and that Illianer beard that left his upper lip bare, he did not look ridiculous, now. He looked afraid and murderous, a dangerous combination. “I did see her stab Egeanin in the back and run. If I could have reached her, I would have broken her neck, but my hand be all that’s holding Egeanin’s blood in. Where be that bloody Aes Sedai?” he snarled. So much for being careful with his tongue.

  “I be right here, Bayle Domon,” Teslyn announced coldly, rushing up with Thera, who took one horrified look at Tuon and Selucia and latched on to Juilin’s arm with a squeak, eyes on the ground. The way she began trembling, she might be there herself in a minute.

  The hard-eyed Aes Sedai made a face as if she had a mouthful of briars when she saw what lay in front of her, or maybe where it lay, but she swiftly crouched underneath the wagon beside Domon and clasped Egeanin’s head in her bony hands. “Joline do be better at this than I,” she muttered, halt under her breath, “but I may be able — ”

  The silver foxhead went cold against Mat’s chest, and Egeanin jerked so violently that her wig fell off, nearly pulling herself out of Domon’s grasp as her eyes popped open wide. The convulsion lasted only long enough for her to sit halfway up with a frozen gasp; then she slumped back against Domon’s chest, panting, and the medallion became just a piece of worked silver again. He was almost accustomed to that. He hated being accustomed to that.

  Teslyn slumped, too, on the point of falling over until Domon shifted his grip on Egeanin to steady the Aes Sedai with one hand.

  “Thank you,” Teslyn said after a moment, the words sounding dragged from her. “But I need no help.” She used the side of the wagon to help her rise, though, her cold Aes Sedai gaze daring anyone to comment. “The blade did slide on a rib and so did miss her heart. All she does need now be rest and food.”

  She had not delayed to grab a cloak, Mat realized. In one direction along the narrow street, a clutch of women in spangled cloaks was watching from in front of a green-striped tent, their gazes intent and focused. In the other, half a dozen men and women in white-striped coats and tight breeches, acrobats who performed on horseback, darted looks toward Teslyn between putting their heads together to whisper. Too late to worry about someone recognizing an Aes Sedai’s face. Too late to worry that one of them knew Healing when he saw it done. The dice battered at the inside of Mat’s head. They had not stopped; the game was not played out, yet.

  “Who’s looking for her, Juilin?” he asked. “Juilin?”

  The thief-catcher gave over glaring at Tuon and Selucia and murmuring to Thera, though he continued to pat the trembling woman. “Vanin and the Redarms, Lopin and Nerim. Olver, too. He was away before I could catch him. But in this…” He stopped soothing Thera long enough to gesture toward the main street. The babble of voices was clearly audible even at this distance. “All she needs is to lay hands on one of those fancy cloaks, and she can slip out with the first folk to leave. If we try stopping every woman with her hood up, or even try looking inside, we’ll have a riot on our hands. These people are touchy.”

  “Disaster,” Luca moaned, wrapping his cloak around himself tightly. Latelle put an arm around him. It must have been like being comforted by a leopard, but in any case, Luca did not look much comforted.

  “Burn me, why?” Mat growled. “Renna was always ready to lick my bloody wrist! I thought if anybody went over the edge…!” He did not even glance at Thera, but Juilin still scowled at him darkly.

  Domon had stood up with Egeanin in his arms. She struggled feebly at first — Egeanin was not a woman to let herself be carried about like a doll — but eventually she seemed to realize that if she did make her own feet, she would fall over. She sagged against the Illianer’s chest with a resentful glower. Domon would learn; even when a woman needed help, if she did not want it, she made you pay for giving it. “I’m the only one who knew her secret,” she drawled in a weak voice. “The only one who might give it away, at least. She may have thought it would be safe to go home, with me dead.”

  “What secret?” Mat asked.

  The woman hesitated, for some reason, frowning at Domon’s chest. Finally she sighed. “Renna was leashed, once. So were Bethamin and Seta. They can channel. Or maybe learn to; I don’t know. But the a’dam worked on those three. Maybe it works on any sul’dam.” Mat whistled through his teeth. Now, that would be a kick in the head for the Seanchan.

  Luca and his wife exchanged puzzled glances, plainly not understanding a word. Teslyn’s mouth hung open, Aes Sedai serenity washed away in shock.
Selucia made an angry sound, though, blue eyes blazing, and dropped the bundle of cloth from her back as she took a step toward Domon. A quick flash of Tuon’s fingers stopped her in her tracks, though it was a quivering halt. Tuon’s face was a dark mask, unreadable. She did not like what she had heard, though. Come to think, she had said she trained damane. Oh, burn him, on top of everything else, he was going to marry a woman who could channel?

  The sound of horses’ hooves announced Harnan and the other three Redarms coming along the narrow way between the tents and wagons at a quick trot. Their swords were belted on under their cloaks, Metwyn with a dagger almost as long as a short-sword to boot, and Gorderan had his heavy crossbow hanging at his saddle, already drawn and latched. The crank at his belt would take a full minute to pull back the thick cord, but this way, all he need do was place a bolt. Harnan carried a double-curve horsebow, with a bristling quiver at his hip. Fergin was leading Pips.

  Harnan did not bother dismounting. Eyeing Tuon and Selucia suspiciously, and Luca and Latelle with almost as much doubt, he leaned down from his saddle, the crude hawk tattoo sharp on his cheek. “Renna stole a horse, my Lord,” he said quietly. “Rode down one of the horse handlers at the entrance getting out. Vanin’s following her. He says she could reach Coramen some time tonight. That’s the way she headed. She’s moving a lot faster than the wagons did. But she’s riding bareback; we can catch her, with luck.” He sounded as if that luck were a matter of fact. The men of the Band trusted Mat Cauthon’s luck more than he did himself.

  There did not seem to be any choices, really. The dice were still pounding in his head. There was still a chance they might fall his way. A small chance. Mat Cauthon’s luck. “Get your people on the road as fast as they can pack up, Luca,” he said, stepping up onto Pips. “Leave the wall and anything else you can’t get onto the wagons fast. Just go.”

  “Are you crazy?” Luca spluttered. “If I try to chase those people out, I will have a riot! And they’ll want their coin back!” Light, the man would think of money with his neck stretched on the headsman’s block.

  “Think what you’ll have if a thousand Seanchan find you here tomorrow.” Mat’s voice was as cold as he could make it. If he failed, the Seanchan would run Luca’s show down in short order however fast they flogged their horses. Luca knew it, too, from the twist of his mouth, as if he had just bitten a rotting plum. Mat made himself ignore the man. The dice were drumming hard, but they had not stopped yet. “Juilin, leave all the gold for Luca except one good purse.” Maybe the man could bribe his way clear, once the Seanchan saw he did not have their Daughter of the Nine bloody Moons. “Gather everybody and ride out as soon as you can. Once you’re out of sight of the town, take to the forest. I’ll find you.”

  “Everybody?” Sheltering Thera with his body, Juilin jerked his head toward Tuon and Selucia. “Leave those two in Jurador, and the Seanchan might stop with getting them back. It might slow them down, at least. You keep saying you’re going to turn them loose sooner or later.”

  Mat met Tuon’s eyes. Big dark liquid eyes, in a smooth expressionless face. She had pushed her hood back a little, so he could see her face clearly. If he left her behind, then she could not say the words, or if she did, he would be too far way for the words to matter. If he left her behind, he would never learn why she smiled those mysterious smiles, or what lay behind the mystery. Light, he was a fool! Pips danced a few impatient steps.

  “Everybody,” he said. Did Tuon nod slightly, as if to herself? Why would she nod? “Let’s ride,” he told Harnan.

  They had to walk their horses through the crowds to get out of the show, but as soon as they reached the road, Mat put Pips to a gallop, cloak streaming behind and head down to keep his hat from blowing off. It was not a pace you could keep a horse at for long. The road wound around hills and crossed ridges, occasionally cutting through where the rise was not too high. They splashed across ankle-deep streams and thundered over low wooden bridges crossing deeper water. Trees began to appear on the slopes again, pine and leatherleaf showing green among the winter-bare branches of the others. Farms clung to some of the hills, low tile-roofed stone houses and taller barns, and now and then a hamlet of eight or ten houses.

  A few miles from the show, Mat spotted a wide man ahead of them, sitting his saddle like a sack of suet. The horse was a leggy dun, eating ground at a steady trot. It figured that a horse thief had an eye for a good animal. Catching the sound of their hooves, Vanin looked back, but he only slowed to a walk. That was bad.

  When Mat slowed Pips beside the dun, Vanin spat. “Best wager we got is we find her horse run to death, so I can track her afoot from there,” he muttered. “She’s pushing harder than I figured, with her bareback. If we push, we can maybe catch her by sunset. If her horse don’t founder or die, that’s about the time she’ll make Coramen.”

  Mat tipped back his head to glance at the sun, almost straight overhead. It was a long way to cover in less than half a day. If he turned back, he could be a good distance the other side of Jurador by sunset, in company with Thom and Juilin and the others. With Tuon. With the Seanchan knowing to hunt Mat Cauthon. The man who had kidnapped the Daughter of the Nine Moons could not own enough luck to get off with being made da’covale. And sometime tomorrow or the next day, they would plant Luca on an impaling stake. Luca and Latelle, Petra and Clarine and the rest. A thicket of impaling stakes. The dice rattled and bounced in his head.

  “We can make it,” he said. There was no other choice.

  Vanin spat.

  There was only one way to cover a great deal of ground quickly, on a horse, if you meant to be on a live horse at the end. They walked the animals for half a mile, then trotted half a mile. The same at a canter, then a run, and it was back to a walk. The sun began to slide downward, and the dice spun. Around sparsely forested hills and over tree-topped ridges. Streams that could be crossed in three strides, barely wetting the horses' hooves, and streams thirty paces across with flat bridges of wood or sometimes stone. The sun sank lower and lower, and the dice spun faster and faster. Almost back to the Elbar, and no sign of Renna except scuffs on the hard dirt of the road that Vanin pointed to as if they were painted signs.

  "Getting close, now," the fat man muttered. He did not sound happy, though.

  Then they rounded a hill, and there was another low bridge ahead. Beyond, the road twisted north to cross the next ridge through a saddle. The sun, sitting atop the ridge, blazed in their eyes. Coramen lay on the other side of that ridge. Pulling his hat low for shade, Mat searched the road for a woman, for anyone, mounted or afoot, and his heart sank.

  Vanin cursed and pointed.

  A lathered bay was laboring its way up the slope on the other side of the river, a woman frantically kicking its flanks, urging it to climb. Renna had been too anxious to reach the Seanchan to stick with the road. She was maybe two hundred paces from them, and she might as well have been miles. Her mount was on the point of collapsing, but she could get down and run within sight of the garrisons before they could reach her. All she had to do was reach the crest, another fifty feet.

  "My Lord?" Harnan said. He had an arrow nocked and his bow half raised. Gorderan held the heavy crossbow to his shoulder, a thick pointed bolt in place.

  Mat felt something flicker and die inside him. He did not know what. Something. The dice rolled like thunder. "Shoot," he said.

  He wanted to close his eyes. The crossbow snapped; the bolt made a black streak through the air. Renna slammed forward when it hit her back. She had almost managed to push herself erect against the bay's neck when Harnan's arrow took her.

  Slowly, she toppled from the horse, sliding down the slope, rolling, bouncing off saplings, tumbling faster and faster until she splashed into the stream. For a moment, she floated facedown against the bank, and then the current caught her and pulled her away, skirts billowing up on the water. Slowly she drifted toward the Elbar. Maybe, eventually, she would reach the sea. And that made three.
It hardly seemed to matter that the dice had stopped. That made three. Never again, he thought as Renna floated out of sight around a bend. If I die for it, never again.

  They did not press, riding back eastward. There was no point, and Mat felt too bone-weary. They did not stop, though, except to breathe and water the horses. No one wanted to talk.

  It was the small hours of the night when they reached Jurador, the town a dark mass with the gates shut tight. Clouds covered the moon. Surprisingly, the canvas walls of Luca’s show were still in place just beyond the town. With a pair of bulky men wrapped in blankets snoring aware beneath the big banner as they guarded the entrance. Even from the road, in the dark, it was plain that wagons and tents filled the space behind the wall.

  “At least I can tell Luca he doesn’t have to run after all,” Mat said wearily, turning Pips toward the banner. “Maybe he’ll give us a place to sleep a few hours.” For all the gold he had left, Luca should give them his own wagon, but knowing the man, Mat had hopes for clean straw somewhere. Tomorrow, he would set out to find Thom and the others. And Tuon. Tomorrow, when he had rested.

  A greater shock waited inside Luca’s huge wagon. It truly was roomy inside, at least for a wagon, with a narrow table sitting in the middle and space to walk around it. Table, cupboards and shelves all were polished till they glowed. Tuon was sitting in a gilded chair — Luca would have a chair, and gilded, when everybody else made do with stools! — with Selucia standing at her back. A beaming Luca was watching Latelle offer Tuon a plate of steaming pastries, which the dark little woman was examining as if she would actually eat something that Luca’s wife had cooked.

  Tuon showed no surprise at all at Mat walking into the wagon. “Is she captured, or dead?” she said, picking up a pastry with her fingers curved in that curiously graceful way.