But Carlomin was staring at the deck of cards in his hand instead of buying his fourth, and Baran was puffing his pipe furiously and stacking the coins in front of him as if ready to stuff them into his pockets. Reimon wore a scowl behind his beard, and Edorion was frowning at his nails. Only Estean appeared unaffected; he grinned uncertainly around the table, perhaps already forgetting what he had said. They usually managed to put some sort of good face on the situation if the Aiel came up, but the hour was late, and the wine had flowed freely.
Mat scoured his mind for a way to keep them and their gold from walking away from his cards. One glance at their faces was enough to tell him that simply changing the subject would not be enough. But there was another way. If he made them laugh at the Aiel.... Is it worth making them laugh at me, too? Chewing his pipestem, he tried to think of something else.
Baran picked up a stack of gold in each hand and moved to stick them in his pockets.
“I might just try these Sea Folk women,” Mat said quickly, taking his pipe to gesture with. “Odd things happen when you chase Aiel girls. Very odd. Like the game they call Maidens' Kiss.” He had their attention, but Baran had not put down the coins, and Carlomin still showed no sign of buying a card.
Estean gave a drunken guffaw. “Kiss you with steel in your ribs, I suppose. Maidens of the Spear, you see. Steel. Spear in your ribs. Burn my soul.” No one else laughed. But they were listening.
“Not quite.” Mat managed a grin. Burn me, I've told this much. I might as well tell the rest. “Rhuarc said if I wanted to get along with the Maidens, I should ask them how to play Maidens' Kiss. He said that was the best way to get to know them.” It still sounded like one of the kissing games back home, like Kiss the Daisies. He had never considered the Aiel clan chief a man to play tricks. He would be warier the next time. He made an effort to improve the grin. “So I went along to Bain and...” Reimon frowned impatiently. None of them knew any Aiel's name but Rhuarc, and none of them wanted to. Mat dropped the names and hurried on “. . . went along dumb as a bullgoose fool, and asked them to show me.” He should have suspected something from the wide smiles that had bloomed on their faces. Like cats who had been asked to dance by a mouse. “Before I knew what was happening, I had a fistful of spears around my neck like a collar. I could have shaved myself with one sneeze.”
The others around the table exploded in laughter, from Reimon's wheezing to Estean's winesoaked bray.
Mat left them to it. He could almost feel the spearpoints again, pricking if he so much as twitched a finger. Bain, laughing all the while, had told him she had never heard of a man actually asking to play Maidens' Kiss.
Carlomin stroked his beard and spoke into Mat's hesitation. “You cannot stop there. Go on. When was this? Two nights ago, I'll wager. When you didn't come for the game, and no one knew where you were.”
“I was playing stones with Thom Merrilin that night,” Mat said quickly. “This was days ago.” He was glad he could lie with a straight face. “They each took a kiss. That's all. If she thought it was a good kiss, they eased up with the spears. If not, they pushed a little harder; to encourage, you might say. That was all. I'll tell you this; I got nicked less than I do shaving.”
He stuck his pipe back between his teeth. If they wanted to know more, they could go ask to play the game themselves. He almost hoped some of them were fool enough. Bloody Aiel women and their bloody spears. He had not made it to his own bed until daybreak.
“It would be more than enough for me,” Carlomin said dryly. “The Light burn my soul if it would not.” He tossed a silver crown into the center of the table and dealt himself another card. “Maidens' Kiss.” He shook with mirth, and another ripple of laughter ran around the table.
Baran bought his fifth card, and Estean fumbled a coin from the heap scattered in front of him, peering at it to see what it was. They would not stop now.
“Savages,” Baran muttered around his pipe. “Ignorant savages. That is all they are, burn my soul. Live in caves, out in the Waste. In caves! No one but a savage could live in the Waste.”
Reimon nodded. “At least they serve the Lord Dragon. I would take a hundred Defenders and clean them out of the Stone, if not for that.” Baran and Carlomin growled fierce agreement.
It was no effort for Mat to keep his face straight. He had heard much the same before. Boasting was easy when no one expected you to carry through. A hundred Defenders? Even if Rand stood aside for some reason, the few hundred Aiel holding the Stone could probably keep it against any army Tear could raise. Not that they seemed to want the Stone, really. Mat suspected they were only there because Rand was. He did not think any of these lordlings had figured that out — they tried to ignore the Aiel as much as possible — but he doubted it would make them feel any better.
“Mat.” Estean fanned his cards out in one hand, rearranging them as if he could not decide what order they were meant to go in. “Mat, you will speak to the Lord Dragon, won't you?”
“About what?” Mat asked cautiously. Too many of these Tairens knew he and Rand had grown up together to suit him, and they seemed to think he was arm in arm with Rand when ever he was out of their sight. None of them would have gone near his own brother if he could channel. He did not know why they thought him a bigger fool.
“Didn't I say?” The plainfaced man squinted at his cards and scratched his head, then brightened. “Oh, yes. His proclamation, Mat. The Lord Dragon's. His last one. Where he said commoners had the right to call lords before a magistrate. Who ever heard of a lord being summoned to a magistrate? And for peasants!”
Mat's hand tightened on his purse until the coins inside grated together. “It would be a shame,” he said quietly, “if you were tried and judged just for having your way with a fisherman's daughter whatever she wanted, or for having some farmer beaten for splashing mud on your cloak.”
The others shifted uneasily, catching his mood, but Estean nodded, head bobbing so it seemed about to fall off. “Exactly. Though it wouldn't come to that, of course. A lord being tried before a magistrate? Of course not. Not really.” He laughed drunkenly at his cards. “No fishermen's daughters. Smell of fish, you see, however you have them washed. A plump farm girl is best.”
Mat told himself he was there to gamble. He told himself to ignore the fool's blather, reminded himself of how much gold he could take out of Estean's purse. His tongue did not listen, though. “Who knows what it might come to? Hangings, maybe.”
Edorion gave him a sidelong look, guarded and uneasy. “Do we have to talk about... about commoners, Estean? What about old Astoril's daughters? Have you decided which you'll marry yet?”
“What? Oh. Oh, I'll flip a coin, I suppose.” Estean frowned at his cards, shifted one, and frowned again. “Medore has two or three pretty maids. Perhaps Medore.”
Mat took a long drink from his silver wine cup to keep from hitting the man in his farmer's face. He was still on his first cup; the two servants had given up trying to add more. If he hit Estean, none of them would lift a hand to stop him. Not even Estean. Because he was the Lord Dragon's friend. He wished he was in a tavern somewhere out in the city, where some dockman might question his luck and only a quick tongue, or quick feet, or quick hands would see him leave with a whole skin. Now that was a fool thought.
Edorion glanced at Mat again, measuring his mood. “I heard a rumor today. I hear the Lord Dragon is taking us to war with Illian.”
Mat gagged on his wine. “War?” he spluttered.
“War,” Reimon agreed happily around his pipestem.
“Are you certain?” Carlomin said, and Baran added, “I've heard no rumors.”
“I heard it just today, from three or four tongues.” Edorion seemed to be absorbed in his cards. “Who can say how true it is?”
“It must be true,” Reimon said. “With the Lord Dragon to lead us, holding Callandor, we'll not even have to fight. He will scatter their armies, and we will march straight into Illian. Too bad, in a way. Burn my soul if it isn't. I would like a chance to match swords with the Illianers.”
“You'll get no chance with the Lord Dragon leading,” Baran said. “They will fall on their knees as soon as they see the Dragon banner.”
“And if they do not, Carlomin added with a laugh, ”the Lord Dragon will blast them with lightning where they stand."
“Illian first,” Reimon said. “And then... then we'll conquer the world for the Lord Dragon. You tell him I said so, Mat. The whole world.”
Mat shook his head. A month gone, they would have been horrified by even the idea of a man who could channel, a man doomed to go mad and die horribly. Now they were ready to follow Rand into battle, and trust his power to win for them. Trust the Power, though it was not likely they would put it that way. Yet he supposed they had to find something to hang on to. The invincible Stone was in the hands of the Aiel. The Dragon Reborn was in his chambers a hundred feet above their heads, and Callandor was with him. Three thousand years of Tairen belief and history lay in ruins, and the world had been turned on its head. He wondered whether he had handled it any better; his own world had gone all askew in little more than a year. He rolled a gold Tairen crown across the backs of his fingers. However well he had done, he would not go back.
“When will we march, Mat?” Baran asked.
“I don't know,” he said slowly. “I don't think Rand would start a war.” Unless he had gone mad already. That hardly bore thinking about.
The others looked as if he had assured them the sun would not come up tomorrow.
“We are all loyal to the Lord Dragon, of course.” Edorion frowned at his cards. “Out in the countryside, though.... I hear that some of the High Lords, a few, have been trying to raise an army to take back the Stone.” Suddenly no one was looking at Mat, though Estean still seemed to be trying to make out his cards. “When the Lord Dragon takes us to war, of course, it will all melt away. In any case, we are loyal, here in the Stone. The High Lords, too, I am certain. It is only the few out in the countryside.”
Their loyalty would not outlast their fear of the Dragon Reborn. For a moment Mat felt as though he were planning to abandon Rand in a pit of vipers. Then he remembered what Rand was. It was more like abandoning a weasel in a henyard. Rand had been a friend. The Dragon Reborn, though.... Who could be a friend to the Dragon Reborn? I'm not abandoning anybody. He could probably pull the Stone down on their heads, if he wanted to. On my head, too. He told himself again that it was time to be gone.
“No fishermen's daughters,” Estean mumbled. “You will speak to the Lord Dragon?”
“It is your turn, Mat,” Carlomin said anxiously. He looked half afraid, though what he feared — that Estean would anger Mat again, or that the talk might go back to loyalty — was impossible to say. “Will you buy the fi