Knife of Dreams

He laughed mirthlessly. Blood and bloody ashes. The ring was a carver’s try-piece, bought only because it stuck on his finger; he would give up those memories of Hawkwing’s face along with every other old memory, if it would get the bloody snakes out of his head; and yet those things had gained him a wife. The Band of the Red Hand would never have existed without those old memories of battles.

“Seems to me being ta’veren works on me as much as it does on anybody else.” For a moment, he thought she was going to rap him again. He gave her his best smile. “One more kiss before you leave?”

“I’m not in the mood at the moment.” she said coolly. That hanging magistrate was back. All prisoners to be condemned immediately. “Perhaps later. You could return to Ebou Dar with me. You have an honored place in the Empire, now.”

He did not hesitate before shaking his head. There was no honored place waiting for Leilwin or Domon. no place at all for the Aes Sedai or the Band. “The next time I see Seanchan. I expect it will be on the field somewhere. Tuon.” Burn him, it would be. His life seemed to run that way no matter what he did. “You’re not my enemy, but your Empire is.”

“Nor are you my enemy, husband.” she said coolly, “but I live to serve the Empire.”

“Well, I suppose you’d better get your things…” He trailed off at the sound of a cantering horse approaching.

Vanin reined in a rangy gray beside Tuon, eyed Karede and the other Deathwatch Guards, then spat through a gap in his teeth and leaned on the high pommel of his saddle. “There’s ten thousand or so soldiers at a little town about five miles west of here,” the fat man told Mat. “Only one man Seanchan, near as I could learn. Rest are Altarans. Taraboners. Amadicians. All mounted. Thing is, they’re asking after fellows wearing armor like that.” He nodded toward Karede. “And rumor says the one of them that kills a girl that sounds a lot like the High Lady gets himself a hundred thousand crowns gold. Their mouths are dripping for it.”

“I can slip past them,” Karede said. His bluff face looked fatherly. His voice sounded like a drawn sword.

“And if you can’t?” Mat asked quietly. “It can’t be chance they’re this close. They’ve caught some sniff of you. One more smell might be all it takes to kill Tuon.” Karede’s face darkened.

“Do you intend to go back on your word?” A drawn blade that might be used soon. Worse, Tuon was watching, looking at Mat like that hanging magistrate in truth. Burn him, if she died, something would shrivel up inside him. And the only way to stop it, to be sure it was stopped, was to do what he hated worse than work. Once, he had thought that fighting battles, much as he hated it, was still better than work. Near enough nine hundred dead in the space of a few days had changed his mind.

“No.” he said. “She goes with you. But you leave me a dozen of your Deathwatch Guards and some of the Gardeners. If I’m going to take these people off your back, I need them to think I’m you.”

Tuon abandoned most of the clothing Matrim had bought for her. since she would need to travel light. The little cluster of red silk rosebuds he had given her she tucked away in her saddlebags, folded in a linen cloth, as carefully as if were blown glass. She had no farewells to make except for Mistress Anan-she really would miss their discussions-so she and Selucia were ready to ride quickly. Mylen smiled so broadly at the sight of her that she had to pat the little damane. It seemed that word of what had happened had spread, because as they rode through the camp with the Deathwatch Guards, men of the Band stood and bowed to her. It was very like reviewing regiments in Seandar.

“What do you make of him?” she asked Karede once they were away from the soldiers and begi

“It is not my place to make judgments, High Lady,” he said gravely. His head swivelled, keeping watch on the surrounding trees. “I serve the Empire and the Empress, may she live forever.”

“As do we all, Ba

“A good general. High Lady,” he replied without hesitation. “Brave, but not overly brave. He won’t get himself killed just to show how brave he is, I think. And he is… adaptable. A man of many layers. And if you will forgive me, High Lady, a man in love with you. I saw how he looked at you.”

In love with her? Perhaps. She thought she might be able to come to love him. Her mother had loved her father, it was said. And a man of many layers? Matrim Cauthon made an onion look like an apple! She rubbed a hand over her head. She still was not accustomed to the feel of hair on her head. “I will need a razor first thing.”

“It may be best to wait until Ebou Dar, High Lady.”

“No,” she said gently. “If I die, I will die as who I am. I have removed the veil.”

“As you say, Highness.” Smiling, he saluted, gauntleted fist striking over his heart hard enough that steel clanged on steel. “If we die, we will die as who we are.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Prince of the Ravens

Leaning on the tall pommel of his saddle, ashandarei slanted across Pips’ neck, Mat frowned at the sky. The sun was well past its noon height. If Vanin and those Deathwatch Guards did not return soon, he might find himself fighting a battle with the sun in the crossbowmen’s eyes, or worse, in twilight. Worst of all, dark clouds loomed over the mountains to the east. The gusting wind was out of the north. No help there. Rain would put the weasel in the henyard. Bowstrings fared poorly in rain. Well, any rain was a few hours off, with luck, but he had never noticed his luck saving him from getting soaked in a downpour. He had not dared wait until tomorrow. Those fellows hunting Tuon might have gotten another whiff of Karede’s men, and then he would have had to try attacking them, or laying an ambush, and carry it out before they could catch Karede. Better to have them come to him, at a place of his choosing. Finding the proper spot had not been difficult, between Master Roidelle’s collection of maps on the one hand and Vanin and the other scouts on the other.

Aludra was fussing over one of her tall, metal-bound lofting tubes, beaded braids hiding her face as she examined something at the broad wooden base. He wished she had been willing to remain with the pack animals like Thorn and Mistress Anan. Even Noal had been willing to stay, if only to help Juilin and Amathera make sure Olver did not run off to watch the battle. The boy was dead eager, which could soon lead to plain dead. Matters had been bad enough when only Harnan and the other three had been corrupting Olver. but now he had half the men teaching him how to use a sword or dagger or fight with his hands and feet, and apparently filling his head with tales of heroes from the way he had been behaving, begging to go on raids with Mat and the like. Aludra was near as bad. Anybody could have used one of those strikers to light the fuse once she had loaded that tube, but she insisted on doing it herself. She was a fierce woman, Aludra was, and none too pleased at finding herself on the same side as Seanchan, however temporary the arrangement was. It seemed wrong to her that they would see some of her handiwork without being on the receiving end. Leilwin and Domon sat their horses nearby keeping an eye on her, as much to make sure she did nothing foolish as to protect her. Mat hoped Leilwin did nothing foolish herself. Since there was apparently only one Seanchan with the people they would fight today, she had decided it was all right to be there, and the way she glared at Musenge and the other Deathwatch Guards, it seemed she might think she had something to prove to them.

The three Aes Sedai, standing together with their reins in hand, cast dark looks at the Seanchan, too, as did Blaeric and Fen. who caressed their sword hilts perhaps unconsciously. Joline and her two Warders had been the only ones aghast at Sheraine’s willing departure with Tuon-what an Aes Sedai felt on any subject was usually how her Warders felt on it. too-but the memory of being leashed had to be too fresh for Edesina or Teslyn to feel comfortable around Seanchan soldiers. Bethamin and Seta stood very meekly, hands folded at their waists, a little apart from the sisters. Bethamin’s light-colored bay nudged her shoulder with his nose, and the tall, dark woman half reached up to stroke the animal before snatching her hand back down and resuming her humble pose. They still would take no part. Joline and Edesina had made that plain, yet it seemed they wanted the two women under their eyes to make sure of it. The Seanchan women plainly were looking at anything but the Seanchan soldiers. For that matter. Bethamin, Seta and Leilwin might as well not have existed for all of Musenge and that lot. Burn him, there were so many tensions in the air he could almost feel that hanging rope around his neck again.