Winter's Heart

shoulder of each, as though seeking their protection. Her blue eyes never ceased flitting about the room. 'Whatever the omens, this can still be rectified if you will only consent to draw back.'

'Be easy, Selucia,' Mat said in a soothing. She was not looking at him, but he made calming gestures anyway. In none of his memories could he find a way to deal with a hysterical woman. Except to hide. 'No one is going to be hurt. No one! I promise you. You can be easy, now.'

For some reason, consternation flashed across her face, but she settled to her knees and folded her hands in her lap. Suddenly, all her fear vanished, and she was as regal as ever she had been. 'I will obey you, so long as you do not harm my mistress. If you do, I will kill you.'

From Egeanin, that would have given him pause. Coming from this plump cream-cheeked woman, short even if she was taller than her mistress, he put it out of his mind. The Light knew women were dangerous, but he thought he could handle a lady's maid. At least she was no longer hysterical. Odd, how that came and went in women.

'I suppose you mean to leave them both in the hayloft?' Noal said.

'No,' Mat replied, looking at Tuon. She stared right back, still with no expression he could read. A boy-slim little woman, when he liked women with flesh on their bones. Heir to the Seanchan throne, when noblewomen gave him goose bumps. A woman who had wanted to buy him, and now likely wanted to put a knife in his ribs. And she would be his wife. The Aelfinn always gave true answers. 'We are taking them with us,' he said.

At last, Tuon showed expression. She smiled, as if she suddenly knew a secret. She smiled, and he shivered. Oh, Light, how he shivered.

Chapter 32: A Portion of Wisdom

The Golden Wheel was a large inn, just off the Avharin Market, with a long, beam-ceilinged common room crowded with small square tables. Even at midday no more than one table in five had anyone sitting at it, though, usually an outland merchant facing a woman in sober colors with her hair worn on top of her head or gathered up at the nape other neck. The women were merchants, too, or bankers; in Far Madding, banking and trade were forbidden to men. All the foreigners in the common room were male, since the women among them could be taken into the Women's Room. The smells of fish and mutton cooking in the kitchens filled the air, and occasionally a shout from one of the tables summoned one of the serving men who waited in a line at the back of the room. Otherwise, the merchants and bankers kept their voices low. The sound of the rain outside was louder.

'Are you certain?' Rand asked, taking the creased drawings back from a lantern-jawed serving man he had drawn off to one side of the room.

'I think it's him,' the fellow said uncertainly, wiping his hands on a long apron embroidered with a yellow wagon wheel. 'It looks like him. He should be back soon.' His eyes darted beyond Rand, and he sighed. 'You better buy a drink or go. Mistress Gallger doesn't like us talking when we should be working. And she wouldn't like me talking about her patrons any time.'

Rand glanced over his shoulder. A lean woman with a tall ivory comb stuck in the dark bun on the back of her head was standing in the yellow-painted arch that led to the Women's Room. The way she looked over the common room—half queen surveying her domain, half farmer surveying her fields, and either way displeased with the sparsity of trade she saw—named her the innkeeper. When her gaze fell on Rand and the lantern-jawed fellow, she frowned.

'Mulled wine,' Rand said, handing the man some coins, coppers for the wine and a silver mark for his information, uncertain as it was. More than a week had passed since he had killed Rochaid and Kisman had gotten away, and in all those days this was the first time he had gotten more than a shrug or a shake of the head when he showed the drawings.

There were a dozen empty tables right at hand, but he wanted to be in a corner at the front of the room, where he could see who came in without being seen himself, and as he edged his way between the tables, snatches of conversation caught his ear.

A tall pale woman in dark green silk shook her head at a stocky man in a tight-fitting black Tairen coat. An iron-gray bun made her look a little like Cadsuane from the side. He appeared to be made of stone blocks, but his dark square face was worried. 'You can put your mind at ease about Andor, Master Admira,' she said soothingly. 'Believe me, the Andorans will shout and shake swords at one another, but they'll never let it come to actual fighting. It is in your best interests to stay with the present route for your goods. Cairhien would tax you a fifth more than Far Madding. Think of the added expense.' The Tairen grimaced as if he were thinking of it. Or wondering whether his best interests really coincided with hers.

'I hear the body did be all black and swollen,' a lean, white-bearded Illianer in a dark blue coat said at another table. 'I hear the Counsels did order it burned.' He raised his eyebrows significantly and tapped the side of a pointed nose that gave him the appearance of a weasel.

'If there was plague in the city, Master Azereos, the Counsels would have announced it,' the slim woman sitting across from him said calmly. With two elaborate ivory combs in her rolled hair, she was pretty, in a fox-faced way, and cool as an Aes Sedai, though with faint lines at the corners other brown eyes. 'I really do suggest against moving any of your trade to Lugard. Murandy is most unsettled. The nobles will never stand for Roedran building an army. And there are Aes Sedai involved, as I'm sure you have heard. The Light alone knows what they will do.' The Illianer shrugged uncomfortably. These days, no one was very certain what Aes Sedai would do, if they ever had been.

A Kandori with gray streaks in his forked beard and a large pearl in his left ear was leaning toward a stout woman in dark gray silk who wore her black hair in a tight roll along the top of her head. 'I hear the Dragon Reborn has been crowned King of Illian, Mistress Shimel.' A frown put more wrinkles in his forehead. 'Given the White Tower's proclamation, I am considering sending my spring wagons to travel along the Erinin to Tear. The River Road may be a harder route, but Illian is not such a market for furs that I want to take too many risks.'

The stout woman smiled, a very thin smile for such a round face. 'I'm told the man has hardly been seen in Illian since he took the crown, Master Posavina. In any case, the Tower will deal with him, if it hasn't already, and this morning, I received word that the Stone of Tear is under siege. That is hardly a situation where you will find much market for furs, now it? No, Tear is not a place to avoid risks.' The wrinkles in Master Posavina's forehead deepened.

Reaching a small table in the corner, Rand tossed his cloak over the back of the chair and sat with his back to the wall, turning up his collar. The lantern-jawed fellow brought a steaming pewter cup of spiced wine, murmured a hurried thanks for the silver, and scurried off at a shout from another table. Two large fireplaces on either side of the room took the chill off the air, but if anyone noticed that Rand kept his gloves on, no one glanced at him twice. He pretended to stare into the winecup between his hands on the table while keeping an eye on the door to the street.

Most of what he had overheard did not interest him greatly. He had heard as much before, and sometimes knew more than the people he eavesdropped on. Elayne agreed with the pale woman, for example, and she had to know Andor better than any Far Madding merchant. The Stone under siege was new, though. Still, he need not trouble himself with it yet. The Stone had never fallen, except to him, and he knew Alanna was somewhere in Tear. He had felt her leap from just north of Far Madding to somewhere much farther north, then, a day later, to somewhere far to the south and east. She was distant enough that he could not say whether she was in Haddon Mirk or the city of Tear itself, yet he was confident she was one place or the other, with four other sisters he could trust. If Merana and Rafela could get what he wanted from the Sea Folk, they could from the Tairens, too. Rafela was Tairen, and that should help. No, the world could get along without him a little longer. It had to.

A tall man swathed in a long, damp cloak with the hood hiding his face came in from the street, and Rand's eyes followed him to the stairs at the back of the room. Starting up, the fellow threw back his cowl, revealing a fringe of gray hair and a pale pinched face. He could not be the one the serving man meant. No one with eyes would confuse him with Peral Torval.

Rand went back to studying the surface of his wine, his thoughts turning sour. Min and Nynaeve had refused