Winter's Heart

columns. In the darkness, her face was just a shadow, but the coldness of her voice was sufficient to tell him what he would see before she stepped into the anteroom, forcing him to move back. Her brows were drawn down sharply, and her blue eyes were icy augers. A grim-faced Domon followed her, shaking rain from his cloak, and then a pair of sul'dam, one pale and yellow-haired, the other with long brown hair. He could not see much more since they stood with their heads down, studying the floor tiles in front of their feet. 'You didn't tell me she had two men with her,' Egeanin went on, peeling her gloves off. Odd, how she could make that drawl sound brisk. She did not give a man room to squeeze in a word.

'Or that Mistress Anan was corning. Luckily, I know how to adapt. Plans always need adapting, once the anchor is dry. Speaking of dry, have you been running around outside already? I trust you haven't gotten yourself noticed.'

'What do you mean, you adapted the plan?' Mat demanded, raking his hands through his hair. Light, it was wet! 'I had everything laid out!' Why were those two sul'dam standing so still? If he had ever seen statues of reluctance, it was that pair. 'Who are those others out there?'

'The people from the inn,' Egeanin said impatiently. 'For one thing, I need a proper entourage to look right for any street patrols. Those two—Warders?—are muscular fellows; they make excellent lantern-bearers. For another, I didn't want to risk missing them in this blow. Better that we are all together from the start.' Her head turned, following his glances at the sul'dam. 'These are Seta Zarbey and Renna Emain. I suspect they hope you'll forget those names after tonight.'

The pale woman flinched at the name Seta, which made the other Renna. Neither raised her head. What hold did Egeanin have on them, anyway? Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that they were here and ready to do what was necessary.

'No point standing here,' Mat said. 'Let's get on with it.' He let her changes in the plan go without further comment. After all, lying on that bed in Tylin's apartments, he had decided to risk a change or two himself.

Chapter 31: What the Aelfinn Said

The Seanchan noblewoman expressed surprise, and no little irritation, when Mat accompanied her toward the kennels. Seta and Renna knew the way, of course, and he was supposed to be getting his cloak and whatever else he meant to carry. The two sul'dam followed them through the poorly lit halls, cloaks hanging down their backs and eyes on the floor. Domon brought up the rear as though shepherding the pair. The braid hanging down the side of his head swayed as his eyes darted down every crossing corridor, and sometimes he felt at his waist as though expecting to find a sword or a cudgel. Except for them, the tapestry-lined hallways were silent and still.

'I have a small errand up there,' Mat told Egeanin, as casually as he knew how, and smiled for her. 'No need to bother yourself. Won't take a minute.' His very best smile seemed to make no more impression than it had yesterday in her room at the inn.

'If you wreck me now—' she growled in a threatening tone. 'Just remember who planned this,' he muttered, and she grunted. Light, women always seemed to think they could just step in and take over, and do a better job than the man whose job it was!

At least she made no further complaint. They climbed quickly to the top floor of the Palace, then up the dark narrow stairs to the sprawling attic. Only a few of the lamps were lit, not even as many as in the hallways below, and the maze of narrow corridors between the tiny wooden rooms was a mass of pale shadows. Nothing moved, and Mat breathed a little more easily. He would have breathed easier still if Renna had not sighed with obvious relief.

She and Seta knew where the various damane were kenneled, and if they did not exactly hurry, they made no delay in heading deeper in the attic, perhaps because Domon still walked at their heels. It was not an image to inspire confidence. Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. A man made do with what he had. Especially when he had no choice.

Egeanin gave him a last hard look and growled again, wordlessly this time, then strode off after the others, her cloak flaring behind her. He grimaced at her back. The way the woman walked, you could take her for a man if she was not wearing a dress.

He did have an errand, and maybe not so small. It was not something he wanted to do. Light, he had tried to talk himself out of it! It was something he bloody well had to do, though. As soon as Egeanin vanished around a corner after Domon and the others, he darted for the nearest room that he remembered containing one of the Sea Folk.

Easing open the plain wooden door soundlessly, he slipped into the pitch-black interior. The sleeping woman inside snored with a rasping sound. Slowly he felt his way forward until his knee bumped into the bed, then felt along the mound beneath the blankets more quickly, finding her head just in time to clamp his hand over her mouth as she jerked awake.

'I want you to answer a question,' he whispered. Blood and ashes, what if he had mistaken the room? What if this was not a Windfinder at all, but one of the bloody Seanchan women?

'What would you do if I took that collar off your neck?' Lifting his hand, he held his breath.

'I would free my sisters, if it pleases the Light that should happen.' The Sea Folk accents in the darkness made him breathe again. 'The Light be willing, we would cross the harbor, somehow, to where our people are held, and free as many as we were able.' The unseen woman's voice remained low, but grew fiercer by the word. 'The Light be willing, we would take back our ships, and fight our way to sea. Now! If this is a trick, punish me for it and be done, or kill me for it. I was on the brink of yielding, of giving up myself, and the shame of that will burn me forever, but you have reminded me who I am, and now I will never yield. Do you hear me? Never!'

'And if I asked you to wait for three hours?' he asked, still crouching over her. 'I remember the Atha'an Miere judging the passage of an hour within minutes.' That fellow had not been him, but the memory was his now, passage on an Atha'an Miere vessel from Allorallen to Barashta, and a bright-eyed Sea Folk woman who wept when she refused to follow him ashore.

'Who are you?' she whispered.

'I'm called Mat Cauthon, if it makes a difference.'

'I am Nestelle din Sakura South Star, Mat Cauthon.' He heard her spit, and knew what she was doing. He spat on his own palm, and their two hands found each other in the darkness. Hers was as callused as his, her grip strong. 'I will wait,' she said. 'And I will remember you. You are a great and good man.'

'I'm just a gambler,' he told her. Her hand guided his to the segmented collar around her neck, and it came open for him with a metallic snick. She drew a very long breath.

He only had to put her fingers in the proper places and show her the trick once before she got it, but he made her close and open the collar three times before he was satisfied. If he was going to do this, he might as well make sure it was done right. 'Three hours, as near as you can,' he reminded her.

'As near as I can,' she whispered.

She could ruin everything, but if he could not take a chance, then who could? He was the man with the luck, after all. Maybe it had not been all that much in evidence lately, but he had found Egeanin just when he needed her. Mat Cauthon still had the luck.

Slipping out of the room as quietly as he had entered, he closed the door. And almost choked on his tongue. He was staring at the back of a wide, gray-haired woman in a red-paneled dress. Beyond her stood Egeanin drawn up to her full height, and Teslyn, connected to Renna by the silver length of an a'dam. There was no sign of Domon or Seta or this Edesina he still had not seen to know her. Egeanin looked fierce as a lioness over her kill, but Teslyn was wide-eyed and trembling, terrified half out other wits, and Renna's mouth had a twist that said she might sick up any moment now.

Not daring to breathe, he took a cautious step toward the gray-haired woman, stretching out his hands. If he overpowered her before she could cry out, they could hide her… Where? Seta and Renna would want to kill her. No matter what hold Egeanin had on them, the woman could name them.

Egeanin's stern blue eyes caught his over the gray-haired sul'dam shoulder for a