Winter's Heart (58 page)

“What a surprise,” Joline Maza said, tossing her hood back. Her dark
woolen dress, with a deep neckline in the local style, fit loosely and looked worn and frayed. You would never have thought it from her carefree attitude, though. “When Mistress Anan told me she knew a man who might take me with him when he left Ebou Dar, I never guessed it was you.” Pretty and brown-eyed, she had a smile almost as warm as Caira’s. And an ageless face that screamed Aes Sedai. With dozens of Seanchan just the other side of a door guarded by a cook with a spoon.

Removing her cloak, Joline turned to hang it on one of the pegs, and Mistress Anan made an irritated sound in her throat. “That isn’t safe yet, Joline,” she said, sounding more as if talking to one of her daughters than to an Aes Sedai. “Until I have you safely—”

Suddenly a commotion rose at the door to the common room, Enid protesting in a shout that no one could enter, and a voice almost as loud, in Seanchan accents, demanding that she move aside.

Ignoring the protests of his leg, Mat moved faster than he thought he ever had in his life, grabbing Joline by the waist and plunking himself down on the bench by the door to the stableyard with the Aes Sedai on his lap. Hugging her close, he pretended to be kissing her. It was a fool way to try hiding her face, but all he could think of short of throwing her cloak over her head. She gasped indignantly, but fear widened her eyes when she finally heard the Seanchan voice, and she snaked her arms around him in a flash. Praying for his luck to hold, he watched the door open.

Still protesting loudly, Enid backed into the kitchen thumping away with her spoon at the
so’jhin
with a wet cloak hanging down his back who was pushing her ahead of him. A heavyset scowling man with a stub of a braid that did not even come close to reaching his shoulder, he fended off most of her blows with his free hand and seemed to ignore the few he could not. He was the first
so’jhin
Mat had seen with a beard, and it gave him a lopsided look, running down the right side of his chin and up the left to stop dead at the middle of his ear. A tall woman with sharp blue eyes in a pale stern face followed him, flinging back an elaborately embroidered blue cloak, held at her throat by a large silver pin shaped like a sword, to reveal a pleated dress of a paler blue. Her short dark hair was cut in the bowl, the rest shaved off all the way around above her ears. Still, she was better than a
sul’dam
with a
damane
. A little better. Realizing the battle was lost, Enid backed away from the man, but by the way she gripped her spoon and glared, she was ready to leap on him again in a heartbeat if Mistress Anan gave the word.

“A fellow out front did say he did see the innkeeper going round the
back,” the
so’jhin
announced. He was looking at Setalle, but eyeing Enid warily. “If you be Setalle Anan, then know this do be Captain of the Green Lady Egeanin Tamarath, and she do have an order for rooms signed by the High Lady Suroth Sabelle Meldarath herself.” His tone altered, becoming less a pronouncement and more the voice of a man wanting accommodations. “Your best rooms, mind, with a good bed, a view of the square out there, and a fireplace that no does smoke.”

Mat gave a start when the man spoke, and Joline, perhaps thinking someone was coming toward them, moaned against his mouth in fear. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she trembled in his arms. The Lady Egeanin Tamarath glanced at the bench when Joline moaned, then grimaced in disgust and turned so she could avoid seeing the pair. It was the man who intrigued Mat, though. How in the Light did an Illianer come to be
so’jhin?
And the fellow looked familiar, somehow. Likely another of those thousands of long-dead faces he could not help recalling.

“I am Setalle Anan, and my best rooms are occupied by Captain of the Air Lord Abaldar Yulan,” Mistress Anan said calmly, unintimidated by
so’jhin
or Blood. She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “My second-best rooms are occupied by Banner-General Furyk Karede. Of the Deathwatch Guards. I don’t know whether a Captain of the Green outranks them, but either way, you will have to sort out for yourselves who stays and who has to go elsewhere. I have a firm policy of not expelling any Seanchan guest. So long as he pays his rent.”

Mat tensed, waiting for the explosion—Suroth would have her flogged for half that!—but Egeanin smiled. “It’s a pleasure to deal with someone who has a little nerve,” she drawled. “I think we’ll get on just fine, Mistress Anan. So long as you don’t take nerve too far. Captain gives the orders, and crew obeys, but I never made anyone crawl on my deck.” Mat frowned. Deck. A ship’s deck. Why did that tug at something in his head? Those old memories were a nuisance, sometimes.

Mistress Anan nodded, never taking her dark eyes from the Seanchan’s blue. “As you say, my Lady. But I hope you will remember that The Wandering Woman is my ship.” Luckily for her, the Seanchan woman had a sense of humor. She laughed.

“Then you be captain of your ship,” she chuckled, “and I will be Captain of the Gold.” Whatever that meant. With a sigh, Egeanin shook her head. “Light’s truth, I don’t outrank many here, I suspect, but Suroth wants me close at hand, so some move down, and somebody moves out unless they want to double up.” Suddenly she frowned, half glancing toward Mat
and Joline, and her lip curled in distaste. “I trust you don’t let that sort of thing go on everywhere, Mistress Anan?”

“I assure you, you will never see the like again under my roof,” the innkeeper replied smoothly.

The
so’jhin
was frowning at Mat and the woman on his lap, too, and Egeanin had to tug at his coatsleeve before he gave a start and followed her back into the common room. Mat grunted contemptuously. The fellow could pretend to be outraged like his mistress all he wanted; Mat had heard about festivals in Illian, though, and they were almost as bad as festivals in Ebou Dar when it came to people running around half-clothed or less. No better than
da’covale,
or those shea dancers the soldiers went on about.

He tried to ease Joline from his lap when the door swung shut behind the pair, but she clung to him and buried her face on his shoulder, weeping softly. Enid heaved a great sigh and sagged against the worktable as though her bones had softened. Even Mistress Anan appeared shaken. She dropped onto the stool Mat had vacated and put her head in her hands. Only for a moment, though, and then she was back on her feet.

“Count to fifty and then get everyone in out of the rain, Enid,” she said briskly. No one would have known that she had been trembling a moment earlier. Gathering Joline’s cloak from its peg, she took a long splinter from a box on the mantelpiece and bent to light it in the fire beneath the spits. “I will be in the cellar if you need me, but if anyone asks, you don’t know where I am. Until I say otherwise, no one but you or I goes down there.” Enid nodded as though this was nothing out of the ordinary. “Bring her,” the innkeeper told Mat, “and don’t dawdle. Carry her if you must.”

He did have to carry her. Still weeping almost soundlessly, Joline would not loosen her hold on him or even lift her head from his shoulder. She was not heavy, thank the Light, yet even so, a dull ache began in his leg as he followed Mistress Anan to the cellar door with his burden. He might have enjoyed it in spite of the throbbing, if Mistress Anan had not taken her time about everything.

As though there were no Seanchan within a hundred miles she lit a lamp on a shelf beside the heavy door and carefully blew out the splinter before replacing the tall glass mantle, then laid the smoking splinter on a small tin tray. Unhurriedly producing a long key from her belt pouch, she undid the iron lock and, finally, motioned him to go through. The stairs beyond were wide enough to bring up a barrel, yet steep, vanishing into darkness. He obeyed, but waited on the second step while she drew the
door shut and re-locked it, waited for her to take the lead with the lamp held high. The last thing he needed was a tumble.

“Do you do this often?” he asked, shifting Joline. She had stopped her crying, but she still held tight to him, trembling. “I mean, hiding Aes Sedai?”

“I heard whispers there was a sister still in the city,” Mistress Anan replied, “and I managed to find her before the Seanchan did. I couldn’t leave a sister to them.” She glared back over her shoulder, daring him to say different. He wanted to, but he could not make the words come. He supposed he would have helped anyone get away from the Seanchan, if he could, and he owed a debt to Joline Maza.

The Wandering Woman was a well-stocked inn, and the dark cellar was large. Aisles stretched between barrels of wine and ale stacked on their sides, high, slatted bins of potatoes and turnips that stood up off the stone floor, rows of tall shelves holding sacks of dried beans and peas and peppers, mounds of wooden crates holding the Light alone knew what. There appeared to be little dust, but the air had the dry smell common to sound storerooms.

He spotted his clothes, neatly folded on a cleared shelf—unless someone else was storing garments down there—but he had no chance to look at them. Mistress Anan led the way to the far end of the cellar, where he set Joline down on an upturned keg. He had to pry her arms free in order to leave her huddled there. Sniveling, she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at red-rimmed eyes. With her face blotchy, she was hardly the image of an Aes Sedai, never mind her worn dress.

“Her nerve is broken,” Mistress Anan said, putting the lamp on a barrel that also stood on end, the bung in its end gone. Several other empty barrels stood about the floor where others had been removed, awaiting return to the brewer. It was as close to a clear space as he had seen in the cellar. “She’s been hiding ever since the Seanchan came. The last few days, her Warders have had to move her several times when Seanchan decided to search a building instead of just the streets. Enough to break anyone’s nerve, I suppose. I doubt they will try to search here, though.”

Thinking of all those officers upstairs, Mat had to concede she was probably right. Still, he was glad it was not him taking the risk. Squatting in front of Joline, he grunted at a stab of pain up his leg. “I will help you if I can,” he said. How, he could not have said, but there was that debt. “Just be glad you were lucky enough to dodge them all this time. Teslyn wasn’t so lucky.”

Snatching the handkerchief from her eyes, Joline glared at him. “Luck?” she spat angrily. It she had been other than Aes Sedai, he would have said
she was sullen, sticking her lower lip out that way. “I could have escaped! It was all confusion the first day, as I understand. But I was unconscious. Fen and Blaeric barely managed to carry me out of the Palace before the Seanchan swarmed over it, and two men carrying a limp woman attracted too much attention for them to get anywhere near the city gates before they were secured. I am glad Teslyn was caught! Glad! She gave me something; I am sure she did! That is why Fen and Blaeric couldn’t wake me, why I have been sleeping in stables and hiding in alleys, afraid those monsters would find me. It serves her right!”

Mat blinked at the tirade. He doubted he had ever heard so much pure venom in a voice before, even in those old memories. Mistress Anan frowned at Joline, and her hand twitched.

“Anyway, I’ll help you as much as I can,” he said hurriedly, rising so he could move between the two women. He would not put it past Mistress Anan to slap Joline, Aes Sedai or no Aes Sedai, and Joline looked in no mood to consider the possibility of a
damane
being upstairs to feel whatever she did in retaliation. It was a simple truth; the Creator made women so men would not find life too easy. How in the Light was he to get an Aes Sedai out of Ebou Dar? “I’m in debt to you.”

A tiny frown wrinkled Joline’s brow. “In debt?”

“The note asking me to warn Nynaeve and Elayne,” he said slowly. He licked his lips and added, “The one you left on my pillow.”

She flicked a hand dismissively, but her eyes, focused on his face, never blinked. “All debts between us are settled the day you help me get outside the city walls, Master Cauthon,” she said, in tones as regal as a queen on her throne.

Mat swallowed hard. The note had been stuck into his coat pocket somehow, not left on his pillow. And that meant he was mistaken about who he owed the debt to.

He made his leave without calling Joline on her lie—a lie even if only by letting his mistake pass—and he left without telling Mistress Anan, either. It was his problem. It made him feel sick. He wished he had never found out.

Back in the Tarasin Palace, he went straight to Tylin’s apartments and spread his cloak over a chair to dry. A pounding rain beat against the windows. Putting his hat atop one of the carved and gilded wardrobes, he toweled his face and hands dry and considered changing his coat. The rain had soaked through his cloak in a few places. His coat was damp here and there. Damp. Light!

Growling in disgust, he wadded up the striped towel and threw it on the bed. He was delaying, even hoping—a little—that Tylin might walk in and stab the bedpost, so he could put off what he had to do. What he had to do. Joline had left him with no choice.

The Palace was laid out simply, if you cared to look at it that way. Servants lived on the lowest level, where the kitchens were, and some in the cellars. The next floor up contained the spacious public rooms and the cramped studies of the clerks, and the third apartments for less favored guests, most occupied now by Seanchan Blood. The highest floor held Tylin’s apartments, and rooms for more favored guests, like Suroth and Tuon and a few others. Except, even palaces had attics, of a sort.

Pausing at the foot of a flight of stairs hidden around an innocuous corner where they would not be noticed, Mat drew a deep breath before going up slowly. The huge windowless room at the top of the stairs, low-ceiling and floored with rough planks, had been cleared of whatever it held before the Seanchan, and the space filled with a grid of tiny wooden rooms, each with its own closed door. Plain iron stand-lamps lit the narrow halls between. The rain beating down on the roof tiles was loud here, just overhead. He paused again on the top step, and only breathed again when he realized that he could hear no footsteps. A woman was crying in one of the tiny rooms, but no
sul’dam
was going to appear and demand to know what he was doing there. Likely they would learn he had been, but not until after he found out what he needed, if he was quick.