A Crown of Swords

by Robert Jordan

  He had seen fishmongers in the city selling peculiar creatures called squid and octopus — Ebou Dari actually ate the things! — but they had nothing on Tylin. The woman possessed ten hands. He thrashed about, vainly trying to fend her off, and she laughed softly. Between kisses, he breathlessly protested that someone might walk in, and she just chuckled. He babbled his respect for her crown, and she chortled. He claimed betrothal to a girl back home who held his heart in her hands. She really laughed at that.

  “What she does not know cannot harm her,” she murmured, her twenty hands not slowing for an instant.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  Prying his mouth free, he shouted, “Who is it?” Well, it was a shout. A high-pitched shout. He was out of breath, after all.

  Tylin was off his lap and three paces away so fast it seemed she was just here then there. The woman had the nerve to give him a reproachful look! And then she made a kiss at him.

  That barely left her lips before the door opened, and Thom stuck his head in. “Mat? I wasn’t sure that was you. Oh! Majesty.” For a scrawny old gleeman with pretensions, Thom could flourish a bow with the best in spite of his limp. Juilin could not, but he snatched off his ridiculous red hat and did what he could. “Forgive us. We won’t disturb — ”Thom began, but Mat broke in hurriedly.

  “Come in, Thom!” Snatching his coat back all the way on, he started to stand, then realized that somehow the bloody woman had untied the waist of his breeches without him noticing. These two might miss that his shirt was undone to his belly, but they would not miss his breeches falling off. Tylin’s blue dress was not mussed at all! “Juilin, come in!”

  “I am glad you find the rooms acceptable, Master Cauthon,” Tylin said, dignity incarnate. Except for her eyes, anyway, when she stood so Thom and Juilin could not see them. Her eyes laced innocuous words with added meaning. “I look forward to having your company with pleasure; I shall find it interesting, having a ta’veren where I can reach out and touch him at will. But I must leave you to your friends, now. No, do not stand; please.” That with just the hint of a mocking smile.

  “Well, boy,” Thom said, knuckling his mustaches when she was gone, “there’s luck for you, being welcomed with open arms by the Queen herself.” Juilin became very interested in his cap.

  Mat eyed them warily, mentally daring them to say a word more — just one word! — but once he asked after Nynaeve and Elayne, he quit worrying what they suspected. The women were not back. He almost leaped up, breeches or no. They were trying to wiggle out of their agreement already; he had to explain what he meant in between their outbursts of incredulity, in between expressing his opinions of Nynaeve bloody al’Meara and Elayne bloody Daughter-Heir. Not much chance they would have gone off to the Rahad without him, but he would not put it past them to try their hand spying on Carridin. Elayne would demand a confession and expect the man to break down; Nynaeve would try to beat one out of him.

  “I doubt they are bothering Carridin,” Juilin said, scratching behind his ear. “I believe Aviendha and Birgitte are taking a look at him, from what I heard. We didn’t see them go. I do not think you need to worry about him knowing what he’s seeing even if he walks right by them.” Thom, pouring himself a golden goblet of the wine punch that Mat had found waiting, took up the explanation.

  Mat put a hand over his eyes. Disguises made with the Power; no wonder they had slipped away like snakes whenever they wanted. Those women were going to make trouble. That was what women did best. It hardly surprised him to learn that Thom and Juilin knew less about this Bowl of the Winds than he did.

  After they left to ready themselves for a trip to the Rahad, he had time to set his clothes to rights before Nynaeve and Elayne came back. He had time to check on Olver, in his room one floor down. The boy’s skinny frame had fleshed out somewhat, with Enid and the rest of the cooks at The Wandering Woman stuffing him, but he would always be short even for a Cairhienin, and if his ears shrank to half their size and his mouth to half its width, his nose would still stop him well short of handsome. No fewer than three serving women fussed over him while he sat cross-legged on his bed.

  “Mat, doesn’t Haesel have the most beautiful eyes?” Olver said, beaming at the big-eyed young woman Mat had met the last time he came to the palace. She beamed back and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Oh, but Alis and Loya are so sweet, I could never choose.” A plump woman just short of her middle years looked up from unpacking Olver’s saddlebags to give him a broad grin, and a slender girl with bee-stung lips patted the towel she had just put on his washstand, then flung herself onto the bed to tickle Olver’s ribs till he fell over laughing helplessly.

  Mat snorted. Harnan and that lot were bad enough, but now these women were encouraging the boy! How was he ever going to learn to behave if women did that? Olver ought to be playing in the streets like any other ten-year-old. He had had no serving women falling over him in his rooms. Tylin had seen to that, he was sure.

  He had time to check on Olver, and to look in on Harnan and the rest of the Redarms, sharing a long room lined with beds not far from the stables, and to saunter down to the kitchens for some bread and beef — he had not been able to face that porridge back at the inn. Still Nynaeve and Elayne had not returned. He finally looked over the books in his sitting room and began reading The Travels of Jain Farstrider, though he barely made out a word for worrying. Thom and Juilin came in just as the women finally bustled in exclaiming over finding him there, as if they thought he would not keep his word.

  He closed the book gently, set it gently on the table beside his chair. “Where have you been?”

  “Why, we went for a walk,” Elayne said brightly, blue eyes wider than he remembered seeing before. Thom frowned and produced a knife from his sleeve, rolling it back and forth through his fingers. He very markedly did not so much as glance at Elayne.

  “We had tea with some women your innkeeper knows,” Nynaeve said. “I won’t bore you with talk about needlework.” Juilin started to shake his head, then stopped before she noticed.

  “Please, don’t bore me,” Mat said dryly. He supposed she knew one end of a needle from the other, but he suspected she would as soon stick one through her tongue as talk about needlework. Neither woman cracked her teeth about civility, confirming his worst suspicions. “I’ve told off two fellows to walk out with each of you this afternoon, and there will be two more tomorrow and every day. If you’re not inside the palace or under my nose, you’ll have bodyguards. They know their turns already. They’ll stay with you at all times — all times — and you will let me know where you’re headed. No more making me worry till my hair falls out.”

  He expected indignation and argument. He expected weaseling over what they had or had not promised. He expected that demanding this whole loaf might get him a slice at the end; a butt slice, if his luck was in. Nynaeve looked at Elayne; Elayne looked at Nynaeve.

  “Why, bodyguards are a wonderful idea, Mat,” Elayne exclaimed, her cheek dimpling in a smile. “I suppose you were right about that. It’s very smart of you to have your men already to a schedule.”

  “It is a wonderful notion,” Nynaeve said, nodding enthusiastically, “Very smart of you, Mat.”

  Thom dropped the knife with a muffled curse and sat sucking on a nicked finger, staring at the women.

  Mat sighed. Trouble; he had known it. And that was before they told him to forget the Rahad for the time being.

  Which was how he found himself on a bench in front of a cheap tavern not far from the riverfront called The Rose of the Elbar, drinking from one of the dented tin cups chained to the bench. At least they washed the cups out for each new patron. The stink from a dyer’s shop across the way only raised the style of the Rose. Not that it was a shabby neighborhood really, though the street was too narrow for carriages. A fair number of brightly lacquered sedan chairs swayed through the crowd. If far more passersby wore wool and perhaps a guild vest than silk, the wool was as often well cut
as frayed. The houses and shops were the usual array of white plaster, and if most were small and even run-down, the tall house of a wealthy merchant stood on a corner to his right and on the left a diminutive palace — smaller than the merchant’s house, at least — with a single green-banded dome and no spire. A pair of taverns and an inn in plain sight looked cool and inviting. Unfortunately, the Rose was the only one where a man could sit outside, the only one in just the right spot. Unfortunately.

  “I doubt I’ve ever seen such splendid flies,” Nalesean grumbled, waving away several choice specimens from his cup. “What is it we’re doing again?”

  “You are swilling that foul excuse for wine and sweating like a goat,” Mat muttered, tugging his hat to shade his eyes better. “I’m being ta’veren.” He glared at the dilapidated house, between the dyer’s and a noisy weaver’s establishment, that he had been told to watch. Not asked — told — that was what it came to, however they phrased it, squirming around their pledges. Oh, they made it sound like asking, made it sound like pleading at the end, which he would believe when dogs danced, but he knew when he had been bullied. “Just be ta’veren, Mat,” he mimicked. “I know you’ll just know what to do. Bah!” Maybe Elayne bloody Daughter-Heir and her bloody dimple knew, or Nynaeve with her bloody hands twitching to yank her bloody braid, but he would be burned if he did. “If the pig-kissing Bowl is in the Rahad, how am I supposed to find it on this flaming side of the river?”

  “I do not remember them saying,” Juilin said wryly, and took a long swallow of some drink made from a yellow fruit grown in the countryside. “You’ve asked that fifty times, at least.” He claimed the pale drink was refreshing in the heat, but Mat had taken a bite of one of those lemons, and he was not about to swallow anything made from them. With his head still throbbing faintly, he himself drank tea. It tasted as if the tavern-keeper, a scrawny fellow with beady suspicious eyes, had been dumping new leaves and water in yesterday’s leavings since the founding of the city. The taste suited his mood.

  “What interests me,” Thom murmured over steepled fingers, “is why they asked so many questions about your innkeeper.” He did not seem very upset at the women still keeping secrets; sometimes, he was decidedly odd. “What do Setalle Anan and these women have to do with the Bowl?”

  Women did pass in and out of the dilapidated house. A steady stream of women, just about, some well dressed if none in silks, and not one man. Three or four wore the red belt of a Wise Woman. Mat had considered following some of them when they left, but it felt too planned. He did not know how ta’veren worked — he had never really seen any sign of it in himself — but his luck was always best when everything was random. Like with dice. Most of those little iron tavern puzzles eluded him, however lucky he felt.

  He ignored Thom’s question; Thom had asked it at least as often as Mat had asked how he was to find the Bowl here. Nynaeve had told him to his face she had not promised to tell him every last thing she knew; she said she would tell him whatever he needed to know; she said . . . Watching her nearly choke from not calling him names was not nearly enough vengeance.

  “I suppose I should take a walk down the alley,” Nalesean sighed. “In case one of those women decides to climb over the garden wall.” The narrow gap between the house and the dyer lay in full view for its whole length, but another alleyway ran along behind the shops and houses. “Mat, tell me again why we’re doing this instead of playing cards.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mat said. Maybe he would find out how ta’veren worked behind the garden wall. He went, and found out nothing.

  By the time twilight began creeping over the street and Harnan came with a bald-headed, narrow-eyed Andoran named Wat, the only possible effect of being ta’veren he had seen was that the tavern-keeper brewed a fresh pot of tea. It tasted almost as bad as the old.

  Back in his rooms in the palace, he found a note, an invitation of sorts, elegantly lettered on thick white paper that smelled like a garden of flowers.

  My little rabbit, I expect to have you for dinner tonight in my apartments.

  No signature, but he hardly needed one. Light! The woman had no shame at all! There was a red-painted iron lock on the door to the corridor; he found the key and locked it. Then, for good measure, he jammed a chair under the latch on the door to Nerim’s room. He could do well enough without dinner. Just as he was about to climb into bed, the lock rattled; out in the hall, a woman laughed at finding the door secured.

  He should have been able to sleep soundly then, but for some reason he lay there listening to his belly grumble. Why was she doing this? Well, he knew why, but why him? Surely she had not decided to toss all decency over the barn just to bed a ta’veren. He was safe now, anyway. Tylin would not batter down the door, after all. Would she? Not even most birds could get in through the wrought-iron arabesques screening the balconies. Besides, she would need a long ladder to reach that high. And men to carry it. Unless she climbed down from the roof on a rope. Or she could . . . The night passed, his stomach rumbled, the sun rose, and he never closed his eyes or had a decent thought. Except that he did make a decision. He thought of a use for the sulking room. He certainly never sulked.

  At first light, he sneaked out of his rooms and found another of the palace servants he remembered, a balding fellow named Madic, with a smug, self-satisfied air and a shy twist to his mouth that said he was not satisfied at all. A man who could be bought. Though the startled look that flashed across his square face, and the smirk he barely bothered to hide, said he knew exactly why Mat was slipping gold into his hand. Blood and ashes! How many people knew what Tylin was up to?

  Nynaeve and Elayne did not seem to, thank the Light. Though that did mean they chided him about missing dinner with the Queen, which they had learned about when Tylin inquired whether he was ill. And worse . . .

  “Please,” Elayne said, smiling almost as if the word did not pain her, “you must put your best foot forward with the Queen. Don’t be nervous. You’ll enjoy an evening with her.”

  “Just don’t do anything to offend her,” Nynaeve muttered. There was no doubt with her that being civil hurt; her brows drew down in concentration, her jaw tightened, and her hands trembled to pull her braid. “Be accommodating for once in your — I mean to say, remember she’s a decent woman, and don’t try any of your — Light, you know what I mean.”

  Nervous. Ha! Decent woman. Ha!

  Neither seemed the least concerned that he had wasted a whole afternoon. Elayne patted his shoulder sympathetically and asked him please to try another day or two; it certainly was better than tramping through the Rahad in this heat. Nynaeve said the exact same thing, the way women did, but without the shoulder pat. They admitted right out that they intended to spend the day trying to spy on Carridin with Aviendha, though they evaded his question of who it was they thought they might recognize. Nynaeve let that slip, and Elayne gave her such a look he thought he might see Nynaeve’s ears boxed for once.

  They meekly accepted his stricture not to lose sight of their bodyguards, and meekly let him see the disguises they intended to wear. Even after Thom’s description, seeing the pair suddenly turn into Ebou Dari women in front of his eyes was almost as big a shock as their meekness. Well, Nynaeve made a sickly stab at meekness, growling when she realized he had meant what he said about the Aiel woman needing no bodyguard, but she came close. Either one of these women folding her hands and answering submissively made him nervous. Both of them together — with Aviendha nodding approvingly! — and he was happy to send them on their way. Just to be sure, though, he ignored their suddenly flat mouths and made them demonstrate their disguises for the men he was sending along first. Vanin leaped at the chance to be one of Elayne’s guards, knuckling his forehead right and left like a fool.

  The fat man had not learned much watching on his own. Just as on the day before, a surprising number of people had come to call on Carridin, including some in silk, but that was not proof they were all Darkfriends. All
said and done, the man was the Whitecloak ambassador; more folk who wanted to trade into Amadicia probably went to him than to the Amadician ambassador, whoever he or she was. Vanin did say two women had definitely been watching Carridin’s palace, too — the look on his face when Aviendha suddenly turned into a third Ebou Dari woman was a wonder — and also an old man, he thought, though the fellow proved surprisingly spry. Vanin had not managed to get a good look at him despite spotting him three times. Once Vanin and the women left, Mat sent off Thom and Juilin to see what they could uncover concerning Jaichim Carridin and a bent, white-haired old man with an interest in Darkfriends. If the thief-catcher could not discover a way to trip Carridin on his face, it did not exist, and Thom seemed to have a way of putting together all the gossip and rumor in a place and filtering out the truth. All that was the easy part, of course.

  For two days he sweated on that bench, with an occasional stroll down the alley beside the dyer’s, and the only thing that changed was that the tea got worse again. The wine was so bad, Nalesean began drinking ale. The first day, the tavern-keeper offered fish for a midday meal, but by the smell they had been caught last week. The second day, he offered a stew of oysters; Mat ate five bowls of that despite the bits of shell. Birgitte declined both.

  He had been surprised when she caught up to him and Nalesean hurrying across the Mol Hara that first morning. The sun barely made a rim above the rooftops, but already people and carts dotted the square. “I must have blinked,” she laughed. “I was waiting the way I thought you’d come out. If you don’t mind company.”

  “We move fast sometimes,” he said evasively. Nalesean looked at him sideways; of course, he had no idea why they had crept out through a tiny side door near the stables. It was not that Mat thought Tylin would actually leap on him in the halls in broad daylight, but then again, it never hurt to be careful. “Your company is welcome any time. Uh. Thanks.” She just shrugged and murmured something he did not catch and fell in on the other side of him.