The Shadow Rising

"It do be less than the taxes," Domon muttered, hunching his shoulders defensively. "I do make a very healthy profit, Fortune prick me if I do no."

"It is good that you like to help people, Master Domon," Nynaeve said when Rendra and the servants had gone. Thom and Juilin both get up to see they really had gone. With a half-bow, Thom let Juilin open the door; the hall outside was empty. Nynaeve went right on. "We may need your help, too."

The Illianer's knife and fork paused in cutting a piece of lamb. "How?" he asked suspiciously.

"I do not know exactly, Master Domon. You have ships. You must have men. We may need ears and eyes. Some of the Black Ajah may very well be in Tanchico, and we must find them if they are." Nynaeve lifted a forkful of beans to her mouth as if she had said nothing out of the ordinary. She seemed to be telling everyone about the Black Ajah of late.

Domon gaped at her, then stared incredulously at Thom and Juilin as they settled back in their chairs. When they nodded, he pushed his plate aside and put his head down on his arms. He very nearly earned himself a thump from Nynaeve, if the way her mouth tightened was any indication, and Elayne would not have blamed her. Why should he need them to confirm her word?

Finally Domon roused himself. "It do be going to happen again. Falme all over. Maybe it do be time for me to pack up and go. If I do take the ships I have back to Illian, I will be a wealthy man there, too."

"I doubt you'd find Illian congenial," Nynaeve told him in a firm voice. "I understand that Sammael rules there now, if not openly. You might not enjoy your wealth under one of the Forsaken." Domon's eyes nearly came out of his head, but she went right on. "There are no safe places any longer. You can run like a rabbit, but you ca

Nynaeve was being too hard; she always had to bully people. Elayne smiled and leaned over to put a hand on Domon's arm. "We do not mean to browbeat you, Master Domon, but we truly may need your help. I know you for a brave man, else you would not have waited for us as long as you did at Falme. We will be most grateful."

"You do this very well," Domon muttered. "One with an ox driver's stick, the other with a queen's honey. Oh, very well. I will help as I can. But I will no promise to remain for another Falme."

Thom and Juilin set in to question him closely about Tanchico as they ate. At least, Juilin did in a roundabout ma

Once the two men had wrung the smuggler dry, Nynaeve summoned Rendra to bring pen and ink and paper, and wrote out a list describing each of the Black sisters. Holding the sheets gingerly in one big hand, Domon frowned at them uneasily, as though they were the women themselves, but he promised to have such of his men as were in port keep their eyes open. When Nynaeve reminded him that they all should take extreme care, he laughed the way he would had she told him not to run himself through with a sword.

Juilin left on Domon's heels, twirling his pale staff and saying night was the best time to find thieves and people who lived off thieves. Nynaeve a

She herself followed Thom down to the common room, where he had promised Rendra he would perform. For a wonder she found a bench at an empty table, and cool looks sufficed to ward off the men who suddenly seemed to want to sit there. Rendra brought her a silver cup of wine, and she sipped as she listened to Thom play his harp, singing love songs like "The First Rose of Summer" and "The Wind That Shakes the Willow," and fu

Flourishing his cloak to set the multihued patches fluttering, Thom told stories —"Mara and the Three Foolish Kings," and several tales about Anla, the Wise Counselor – and recited a long stretch of The Great Hunt of the Horn, reciting it so that horses seemed to prance and trumpets blare in the common room, and men and women fought and loved and died. On into the night he sang and recited, only pausing now and then to wet his throat with a sip of wine as the patrons eagerly clamored for more. The woman who had been playing the dulcimer sat in a corner with her instrument on her knees and a sour expression on her face. People often tossed coins to Thom – he had enlisted a small boy to gather them up – and it was unlikely they had produced as much for her music.

It all seemed to suit Thom, the harp, and especially the recital. Well, he was a gleeman, but it seemed more than that. Elayne could have sworn she had heard him recite The Great Hunt before, but in High Chant, not Plain. How could that be? He was just a simple old gleeman.

Finally, in the deep hours of the night, Thom bowed with a last sweeping flourish of his cloak and headed for the stairs amid great slapping of tables. Elayne slapped hers as vigorously as anyone.

Rising to follow, she slipped and sat back down hard, frowning at her silver winecup. It was full. Surely she had drunk a little. She felt dizzy for some reason. Yes. That sweet young man with those melting brown eyes had refilled her cup – how many times? Not that it mattered. She never drank more than one cup of wine. Never. It was being off Wavedancer and back on dry land. She was reacting like Nynaeve. That was all.

Getting carefully to her feet – and refusing the sweet young man's most solicitous offer of help – she managed to climb the stairs despite the way they swayed. Not stopping at the second floor, where her and Nynaeve's room was, she went up to the third and knocked on Thom's door. He opened it slowly, peering out suspiciously. He seemed to have a knife in his hand, and then it was gone. Strange. She seized one of his long white mustaches.

"I remember," she said. Her tongue did not seem to be working properly; the words sounded... fuzzy. "I was sitting on your knee, and I pulled your mustache..." She gave it a yank to demonstrate, and he winced. ". . . and my mother leaned over your shoulder and laughed at me."