A snarl it was, as tangled as a pit full of snakes. The High Lady Tuon, readily at hand, presented an opportunity no Aes Sedai could have resisted. Teslyn was every bit as bad as Joline and Edesina. The three of them visited Tuon in her wagon daily, and descended on her when she went out for a walk. They talked of truces and treaties and negotiations, tried to learn what connection she had to the leaders of the invasion, attempted to convince her to help arrange talks to end the fighting. They even offered to help her leave the show and return home!
Unfortunately for them. Tuon did not see three Aes Sedai. representatives of the White Tower, perhaps the greatest power on earth, not even after the seamstresses began delivering their riding dresses and they could change out of the ragbag leavings Mat had been able to find for them. She saw two escaped damane and a mantttidamam. and she had no use for either until they were decently collared. Her phrase, that. When they came to her wagon, she latched the door, and if they managed to get inside before she could, she left. When they cornered her. or tried to, she walked around them the same as walking around a stump. They all but talked themselves hoarse. And she refused to listen.
Any Aes Sedai could teach a stone patience if she had reason, yet they were unaccustomed to flat being ignored. Mat could see the frustration growing, the tight eyes and tighter mouths that took longer and longer to relax, the hands gripping skirts in fists to keep them from grabbing Tuon and shaking her. It all came to a head sooner than he expected, and not at all in the way he had imagined.
The night after he gave Tuon the mare, he ate his supper with her and Selucia. And with Noal and Olver. of course. That pair managed as much time with Tuon as he did. Lopin and Nerim, as formal as if they were in a palace instead of squeezed for room to move, served a typical early-spring meal, stringy mutton with peas that had been dried and turnips that had sat too long in somebody’s cellar. It was too early yet for anything to be near harvesting. Still. Lopin had made a pepper sauce for the mutton, Nerim had found pine nuts for the peas, there was plenty to go around, and nothing tasted off, so it was as fine a meal as could be managed. Olver left once supper was done, having already had his games with Tuon, and Mat changed places with Selucia to play stones. Noal remained too, despite any number of telling looks, rambling on about the Seven Towers in dead Malkier, which apparently had overtopped anything in Cairhien. and Shol Arbela. the City of Ten Thousand Bells, in Arafel, and all manner of Borderland wonders, strange spires made of crystal harder than steel and a metal bowl a hundred paces across set into a hillside and the like. Sometimes he interjected comments on Mat’s play, that he was exposing himself on the left, that he was setting a fine trap on the right, and just when Tuon looked ready to fall into it. That sort of thing. Mat kept his mouth shut except for chatting with Tuon, though it took gritting his teeth more than once to accomplish. Tuon found Noal’s natter entertaining.
He was studying the board, wondering whether he might have a small chance of gaining a draw, when Joline led Teslyn and Edesina into the wagon like haughty on a pedestal, smooth-faced Aes Sedai to their toenails. Joline was wearing her Great Serpent ring. Squeezing by Selucia, giving her very cold looks when she was slow to move aside, they arrayed themselves at the foot of the narrow table. Noal went very still, eyeing the sisters sideways, one hand beneath his coat as if the fool thought his knives would do any good here.
“There must be an end to this. High Lady,” Joline said, very pointedly ignoring Mat. She was telling, not pleading, announcing what would be because it had to be. “Your people have brought a war to these lands such as we have not seen since the War of the Hundred Years, perhaps not since the Trolloc Wars. Tarmon Gai’don is approaching, and this war must end before it comes lest it bring disaster to the whole world. It threatens no less than that. So there will be an end to your petulance. You will carry our offer to whoever commands among you. There can be peace until you return to your own lands across the sea. or you can face the full might of the White Tower followed by every throne from the Borderlands to the Sea of Storms. The Amyrlin Seat has likely summoned them against you already. I have heard of vast Borderland armies already in the south, and other armies moving. Better to end this without more bloodshed, though. So avert your people’s destruction and help bring peace.”
Mat could not see Edesina’s reaction, but Teslyn simply blinked. For an Aes Sedai, that was as good as a gasp. Maybe this was not exactly what she had expected Joline to say. For his part, he groaned under his breath. Joline was no Gray, as deft as a skilled juggler in negotiations, that was for sure, but neither was he. and he still figured she had found a short path to putting Tuon’s back up.
But Tuon folded her hands in her lap beneath the table and sat very straight, looking right through the Aes Sedai. Her face was as stern as it had ever been for him. “Selucia,” she said quietly.
Moving up behind Teslyn, the yellow-haired woman bent long enough to take something from beneath the blanket Mat was sitting on. As she straightened, everything seem to happen all at once. There was a click, and Teslyn screamed, clapping her hands to her throat. The foxhead turned to ice against Mat’s chest, and Joline’s head whipped around with an incredulous stare for the Red. Edesina turned and ran for the door, which swung half open, then slammed shut. Slammed against Blaeric or Fen, by the sound of men falling down the wagon’s steps. Edesina jerked to a halt and stood very stiffly, arms at her sides and divided skirts pressed against her legs by invisible cords. All that in moments, and Selucia had not stayed still. She bent briefly to the bed Noal was sitting on, then snapped the silver collar of another adam around Joline’s neck. Mat could see that was what Teslyn was gripping with both hands. She was not trying to take it off, just holding on to it, but her knuckles were white. The Red’s narrow face was an image of despair, her eyes staring and haunted. Joline had regained the utter calm of an Aes Sedai, but she did touch the segmented collar encircling her neck.
“If you think that you can,” she began, then cut off abruptly, her mouth going tight. An angry light shone in her eyes.
“You see, the a’dam can be used to punish, though that is seldom done.” Tuon stood, and she had the bracelet of an a’dam on each wrist. the gleaming leashes snaking away under the blankets on the beds. How in the Light had she managed to get her hands on those?
“No,” Mat said. “Your promised not to harm my followers. Precious.” Maybe not the wisest thing to use that name now. but it was too late to call it back. “You’ve kept your promises so far. Don’t go back on one now.”
“I promised not to cause dissension among your followers. Toy,” she said snippily, “and in any case, it is very clear that these three are not your followers.” The small sliding door used to talk to whoever was driving or pass out food slid open with a loud bang. She glanced over her shoulder, and it slid shut with a louder. A man cursed outside and began beating at the door.
“The a’dam can also be used to give pleasure, as a great reward,” Tuon told Joline, ignoring the hammering fist behind her.
Joline’s lips parted, and her eyes grew very wide. She swayed, and the rope-suspended table swung as she caught herself with both hands to keep from falling. If she was impressed, though, she hid it well. She did smooth her dark gray skirts once after she was upright again, but that might have meant nothing. Her face was all Aes Sedai composure. Edesina. looking over her shoulder, matched that calm gaze, although she now wore the third a’dam around her neck-and come to it, her face was paler than usual-but Teslyn had begun weeping silently, shoulders shaking, tears leaking down her cheeks.
Noal was tensed, a man ready to do something stupid. Mat kicked him under the table and, when the man glared at him. shook his head. Noal’s scowl deepened, but he took his hand out of his coat and leaned back against the wall. Still glaring. Well, let him. Knives were no use here, but maybe words could be. Much better if this could be ended with words.
“Listen,” Mat said to Tuon. “If you think, you’ll see a hu
ndred reasons this won’t work. Light, you can learn to channel yourself. Doesn’t knowing that change anything? You’re not far different from them.” He might as well have turned to smoke and blown away for all the attention she paid.
“Try to embrace saiclar,” she drawled, stern eyes steady on Joline. Her voice was quite mild in comparison to her gaze, yet plainly she expected obedience. Obedience? She looked a bloody leopard staring at three tethered goats. And strangely, more beautiful than ever. A beautiful leopard who might rake him with her claws as soon as the goats. Well, he had faced a leopard a few times before this, and those were his own memories. There was an odd sort of exhilaration that came with confronting a leopard. “Go ahead,” she went on. “You know the shield is gone.” Joline gave a small grunt of surprise, and Tuon nodded. “Good. You’ve obeyed for the first time. And learned that you cannot touch the Power while you wear the adam unless I wish it. But now, I wish you to hold the Power, and you do. though you didn’t try to embrace it.” Joline’s eyes widened slightly, a small crack in her calm. “And now,” Tuon went on, “I wish you not to be holding the Power, and it is gone from you. Your first lessons.” Joline drew a deep breath. She was beginning to look… not afraid, but uneasy.
“Blood and bloody ashes, woman,” Mat growled, “do you think you can parade them around on those leashes without anyone noticing?” A heavy thump came from the door. A second produced the sound of cracking wood. Whoever was beating at the wooden window was still at it, too. Somehow, that caused no sense of urgency. If the Warders got in, what could they do?
“I will house them in the wagon they are using and exercise them at night.” she snapped irritably. “I am nothing like these women, Toy. Nothing like them. Perhaps I could learn, but I choose not to, just as I choose not to steal or commit murder. That makes all the difference.”
Recovering herself with visible effort, she sat down with her hands on the table, focused on the Aes Sedai once again. “I’ve had considerable success with one woman like you.’’ Edesina gasped, murmured a name too low to be caught. “Yes.” Tuon said. “You must have met my Mylen in the kennels or at exercise. I will train you all as well as she is. You have been cursed with a dark taint, but I will reach you to have pride in the service you give the Empire.”
“I didn’t bring these three out of Ebou Dar so you could take them back.” Mat said firmly, sliding himself along the bed. The foxhead grew colder still, and Tuon made a startled sound.
“How did you… do that, Toy? The weave… melted… when it touched you.”
“It’s a gift, Precious.”
As he stood up, Selucia started toward him, crouching, her hands outstretched in pleading. Fear painted her face. “You must not.” she began.
“No!” Tuon said sharply.
Selucia straightened and backed away, though she kept her eyes on him. Strangely, the fear vanished from her expression. He shook his head in wonder. He knew the bosomy woman obeyed Tuon instantly- she was so’jhiv, after all, as much owned as Tuon’s horse, and she actually thought that right and good-but how obedient did you need to be to lose your fear at an order?
“They have annoyed me, Toy,” Tuon said as he put his hands on Teslyn’s collar. Still trembling, tears still streaming down her cheeks. the Red looked as though she could not believe he would actually remove the thing.
“They annoy me. too.” Placing his fingers just so. he pressed, and the collar clicked open.
Teslyn seized his hands and began kissing them. “Thank you,” she wept over and over. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Mat cleared his throat. “You’re welcome, but there’s’ no need for… Would you stop that? Teslyn?” Reclaiming his hands took some effort.
“I want them to stop annoying me. Toy,” Tuon said as he turned to Joline. From anyone else, that might have been petulant. The dark little woman made it a demand.
“I think they’ll agree to that after this,” he said dryly. But Joline was looking up at him with a stubborn set to her jaw. “You will agree, won’t you?” The Green said nothing.
“I do agree,” Teslyn said quickly. “We do all agree.”
“Yes. we all agree,” Edesina added.
Joline stared at him silently, stubbornly, and Mat sighed.
“I could let Precious keep you for a few days, until you change your mind.” Joline’s collar clicked open in his hands. “But I won’t.”
Still staring into his eyes, she touched her throat as though to confirm the collar was gone. “Would you like to be one of my Warders?” she asked, then laughed softly. “No need to look like that. Even if I would bond you against your will, I couldn’t so long as you have that ter’angreal. I agree. Master Cauthon. It may cost our best chance to stop the Seanchan, but I will no longer bother… Precious.”
Tuon hissed like a doused cat, and he sighed again. What you gained on the swings, you lost on the roundabouts.
He spent part of that night doing what he liked least in the world. Working. Digging a deep hole to bury the three adam. He did the job himself because, surprisingly, Joline wanted them. They were ter’angreal, after all, and the White Tower needed to study them. That might well have been so, but the Tower would just have to find their a’dam elsewhere. He was fairly certain that none of the Redarms would have handed them over if he told them to bury the things, yet he was taking no chances that they would reappear to cause more trouble. It started raining before the hole was knee-deep, a cold driving rain, and by the time he was done, he was soaked to the skin and mud to his waist. A fine end to a fine night, with the dice bouncing around his skull.
Chapter Ten
A Village in Shiota
The following day brought a respite, or so it seemed. Tuon, in a blue silk riding dress and her wide tooled-leather belt, not only rode beside him as the show rolled slowly north, she waggled her fingers at Selucia when the woman tried to put her dun between them. Selucia had acquired her own mount, somehow, a compact gelding that could not match Pips or Akein but still surpassed the dapple by a fair margin. The blue-eyed woman, with a green head scarf beneath her cowl today, fell in on Tuon’s other side, and her face would have done an Aes Sedai proud when it came to giving notüing away. Mat could not help grinning. Let her hide frustration for a change. Lacking horses, the real Aes Sedai were confined to their wagon; Metwyn was too far away, on the driver’s seat of the purple wagon, to overhear what he said to Tuon: only a few thin clouds remained in the sky from the night’s rain: and all seemed right in the world. Even the dice bouncing in his head could steal nothing from that. Well, there were bad moments, but only moments.
Early on, a flight of ravens winged overhead, a dozen or more big black birds. They flew swiftly, never deviating from their line, but he eyed them anyway until they dwindled to specks and vanished. Nothing to spoil the day there. Not for him, at least. Maybe for someone farther north.
“Did you see some omen in them, Toy?” Tuon asked. She was as graceful in the saddle as she was in everything else she did. He could not recall seeing her be awkward about anything. “Most omens I know concerning ravens specifically have to do with them perching on someone’s rooftop or cawing at dawn or dusk.”
“They can be spies for the Dark One,” he told her. “Sometimes. Crows, too. And rats. But they didn’t stop to look at us. so we don’t need to worry.”
Running a green-gloved hand across the top of her head, she sighed. “Toy, Toy,” she murmured, resettling the cowl of her cloak. “How many children’s tales do you believe? Do you believe that if you sleep on Old Hob’s Hill under a full moon, the snakes will give you true answers to three questions, or that foxes steal people’s skins and take the nourishment from food so you can starve to death while eating your fill?”
Putting on a smile took effort. “I don’t think I ever heard either one of those.” Making his voice amused required effort, too. What were the odds of her mentioning snakes giving true answers, which the Aelfinn did after a fashion, in the sam
e breath with foxes stealing skins? He was pretty sure that the Eelfinn did. and made leather from it. But it was Old Hob that nearly made him flinch. The other was likely just ta’veren twisting at the world. She certainly knew nothing about him and the snakes or the foxes. In Shandalle, the land where Artur Hawkwing had been born, though, Old Hob. Caisen Hob, had been another name for the Dark One. The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn both surely deserved to be connected to the Dark One, yet that was hardly anything he wanted to think on when he had his own connection to the bloody foxes. And to the snakes, too? That possibility was enough to sour his stomach.
Still, it was a pleasant ride, with the day warming as the sun rose, though it never could be called warm. He juggled six colored wooden balls, and Tuon laughed and clapped her hands, as well she should. That feat had impressed the juggler he bought the balls from, and it was harder while riding. He told several jokes that made her laugh, and one that made her roll her eyes and exchange finger-twitchings with Selucia. Maybe she did not like jokes about common room serving maids. It had not been the least off-color. He was no fool. He did wish she had laughed, though. She had a marvelous laugh, rich and warm and free. They talked of horses and argued over training methods with stubborn animals. That pretty head held a few odd notions, such as that you could calm a fractious horse by biting its ear! That sounded more likely to send it up like a haystack fire. And she had never heard of humming under your breath to soothe a horse, and would not believe his father had taught him such a skill shy of demonstration.
“Well, I can hardly do that without a horse that needs soothing, can I?” he said. She rolled her eyes again. Selucia rolled hers, too.
There was no heat in the argument, though, no anger, just spirit. Tuon had so much spirit it seemed impossible it could fit into such a tiny woman. It was her silences that put a small damper on the day, more so than snakes or foxes. They were far away, and there was nothing to be done. She was right there beside him. and he had a great deal to do concerning her. She never alluded to what had happened with the three Aes Sedai. or to the sisters themselves either. She never mentioned his ter’angreaL or the fact that whatever she had made Teslyn or Joline weave against him had failed. The night before might as well have been a dream.
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