“The answer is to send the Dragonsworn away,” Sheriam said, not so patiently as before. “I regret letting Mat out of our hands again, but I fear there’s no answer for it. You’ve told him the offer is refused; tell him to go.”
“I wish it were that simple. I don’t think he will for asking, Sheriam. He implied he was to wait right where he is until something happens. He could be expecting orders from Rand, or even Rand himself. There was a rumor in Cairhien that he’s taken to sometimes Traveling with some of those men he’s gathered. The ones he’s teaching to channel? I do not know what we will do if that happens.”
Sheriam stared at her, breathing quite heavily for someone with such calm features.
A scratching at the door was followed by Tabiya with a beaten silver tray. Not catching the mood, she fussed about setting the green porcelain teapot and cups just so, the silver honeypot and small pitcher of cream and lace-edged linen napkins, until Sheriam finally snapped at her so fiercely to be about her work that Tabiya squeaked and dropped a wide-eyed curtsy that nearly put her head on the floor and ran.
For a moment Sheriam busied herself smoothing her skirts while she regained her composure. “Perhaps,” she said finally, reluctantly, “it might be necessary for us to leave Salidar after all. Sooner than I could wish.”
“But the only way left is north.” Egwene widened her eyes. Light, but she hated this! “It will seem we’re moving toward Tar Valon.”
“I know that,” Sheriam almost snapped. Drawing breath, she moderated her tone. “Forgive me, Mother. I feel a little. . . . I do not like being forced into things, and I fear Rand al’Thor has forced our hand before we are ready.”
“I will speak quite severely when I see him,” Egwene said. “I can hardly think what I would do without your advice.” Perhaps she could find a way to send Sheriam to study with the Wise Ones as an apprentice. The thought of Sheriam after, say, half a year with Sorilea made her smile so that Sheriam actually smiled back. “Honey or bitter?” Egwene said, lifting the teapot.
CHAPTER
40
Unexpected Laughter
“You have to help me talk some sense into them,” Mat said around his pipestem. “Thom, are you listening?”
They were seated on upended kegs in the scant shade of a two-story house, smoking their pipes, and the lanky old gleeman seemed more interested in staring at the letter Rand had sent on to him. Now he stuffed it into his coat pocket with the blue-wax seal yet unbroken. The buzz of voices and squeak of axles from the street at the end of the alley seemed distant. Sweat dripped from both their faces. At least one thing was taken care of for the moment. Mat had come out of the Little Tower to find that a group of Aes Sedai had hauled Aviendha away somewhere; she would not be sticking a knife in anybody any time soon.
Thom took his pipe from his mouth. It was a long-stemmed thing, carved all over with oak leaves and acorns. “I once tried to rescue a woman, Mat. Laritha was a rose in bud, and married to a glowering brute of a bootmaker in a village where I broke my journey for a few days. A brute. He shouted at her if dinner wasn’t ready when he wanted to sit down, and took a switch to her if he saw her say more than two words to another man.”
“Thom, what in the Pit of Doom does this have to do with making those fool women see sense?”
“Just listen, boy. How he treated her was common knowledge in the village, but Laritha told me herself, all the while moaning over how she wished someone would rescue her. I had gold in my purse and a fine coach, a driver and a manservant. I was young and good-looking.” Thom knuckled his white mustaches and sighed; it was hard to believe that leathery face had ever been good-looking. Mat blinked. A coach? When had a gleeman ever had a coach? “Mat, the woman’s plight wrung my heart. And I won’t deny her face tugged at it, too. As I said, I was young; I thought I was in love, a hero out of the stories. So one day, sitting beneath a flowering apple tree—well away from the bootmaker’s house—I offered to take her away. I’d give her a maid and a house of her own, and court her with songs and verse. When she finally understood, she kicked me in the knee so hard I limped for a month, and hit me with the bench besides.”
“They all seem to like kicking,” Mat muttered, shifting his weight on the keg. “I suppose she didn’t believe you, and who can blame her?”
“Oh, she believed. And was outraged that I thought she would ever leave her beloved husband. Her word; beloved. She ran back to the man as fast as her feet would go, and I had the choice of killing him or leaping into my coach. I had to leave behind almost every stitch I owned. I expect she’s still living with him much as before. Holding the purse strings tight in her fist and cracking his head open with whatever lies to hand every time he stops into the inn for an ale. As she always had, so I learned later from a few discreet inquiries.” He stuck the pipe back between his teeth as if he had made a point.
Mat scratched his head. “I don’t see what that has to do with this.”
“Just that you shouldn’t think you know the whole story when you’ve heard part. For instance, do you know Elayne and Nynaeve will be leaving for Ebou Dar in a day or so? Juilin and I are to go along.”
“Ebou . . . !” Mat barely caught his pipe before it fell into the dead weeds that carpeted the alley. Nalesean had told some stories about a visit to Ebou Dar, and even counting in the way he exaggerated when it came to women he had known and fights he had been in, the place sounded rough. So they thought they could slip Elayne away from him, did they? “Thom, you have to help me—”
“What?” Thom broke in. “Steal them away from the bootmaker?” He blew up a streamer of blue smoke. “I won’t do that, boy. You still don’t know the whole story. How do you feel about Egwene and Nynaeve? On second thought, make that just Egwene.”
Mat frowned, wondering whether the man thought he could fuddle everything up by going around in circles long enough. “I like Egwene. I. . . . Burn me, Thom, she’s Egwene; that’s saying enough right there. That’s why I am trying to save her fool neck for her.”
“Save her from her bootmaker, you mean,” Thom murmured, but Mat went right on.
“Her neck and Elayne’s as well; even Nynaeve’s, if I can stop from throttling her myself. Light! I only want to help them. Besides, Rand will break my neck if I let anythin