Winter's Heart

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.

He did not know which room was hers, was the trouble. He walked to the first and opened the door long enough to peek in. An Atha'an Miere woman in a gray dress was sitting on the side of a narrow bed, hands folded in her lap. The bed and a washstand with bowl and pitcher and a tiny mirror took up most of the room. Several gray dresses hung from pegs on the wall. The segmented silver leash of an a'dam ran in an arc from the silver collar around her neck to a silver bracelet looped over a hook set in the wall. She could reach any part of the tiny room. The small holes where her earrings and nose ring had been had not yet had time to heal. They looked like wounds. When the door opened, her head came up with a fearful expression that faded into speculation. And maybe hope.

He closed the door without saying a word. I can't save all of them, he thought harshly. I can't! Light, but he hated this.

The next doors revealed identical rooms and three more Sea Folk women, one of them weeping loudly on her bed, and then a sleeping yellow-haired woman, all with their a'dam loosely stretched to hooks. He eased that door shut as though he were trying to filch one of Mistress al'Vere's pies right under her nose. Maybe the yellow-haired woman was not Seanchan, but he was not about to take the chance. A dozen doors later, he exhaled heavily in relief and slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind him.

Teslyn Baradon lay on the bed, her face pillowed on her hands. Only her dark eyes moved, stabbing at him. She said nothing, just looked at him as though trying to bore holes in his skull.

'You put a note in my coat pocket,' he said softly. The walls were thin; he could still hear the weeping woman. 'Why?'

'Elaida does want those girls as much as she ever wanted the staff and stole,' Teslyn said simply, without moving. Her voice still had a harshness to it, but less than he recalled. 'Especially Elayne. I did wish to… inconvenience… Elaida, if I could. Let her whistle for them.' She gave a soft laugh tinged with bitterness. 'I did even dose Joline with forkroot, so she could no interfere with those girls. And look what it did get me. Joline did escape, and I…' Her eyes moved again, to the silver bracelet hanging on the hook.

Sighing, Mat leaned against the wall beside the dresses hanging on pegs. She knew what had been in the note, a warning for Elayne and Nynaeve. Light, but he had hoped she would not, that someone else had put the bloody thing in his pocket. It had not done any good, anyway. They both knew Elaida was after them. The note had changed nothing! The woman had not really been trying to help them, anyway, just to… inconvenience… Elaida. He could walk away with a clean conscience. Blood and ashes! He should never actually have spoken to her. Now that he had actually exchanged words with her…

'I'll try to help you escape, if I can,' he said reluctantly.

She remained still on the bed. Neither her expression nor her tone of voice changed. She might have been explaining something simple and unimportant. 'Even if you can remove the collar, I will no get very far, perhaps no even out of the Palace. And if I do, no woman who can channel can walk through the city gates unless she does wear an a'dam. I have stood guard there myself, and I do know.'

'I'll figure out something,' he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. Figure out something? What? 'Light, you don't even sound as if you want to escape.'

'You do be serious,' she whispered, so low he nearly did not hear. 'I did think you only did come to taunt me.' Slowly she sat, swinging her feet down to the floor. Her eyes latched on to his intently, and her voice took on a low urgency. 'Do I want to escape? When I do something that does please them, the sul'dam do give me sweets. I do find myself looking forward to those rewards.' Breathy horror crept into her voice. 'Not for liking of sweets, but because I have pleased the sul'dam.' A single tear trickled from her eye. She inhaled deeply. 'If you do help me escape, I will do anything you ask of me that does not encompass treason to the White—' Her teeth snapped shut, and she sat up straight, staring right through him. Abruptly, she nodded to herself. 'Help me escape, and I will do anything you ask of me,' she said.

'I will do what I can,' he told her. 'I must think of a way.'

She nodded as though he had promised an escape by nightfall. 'There do be another sister held prisoner here in the Palace. Edesina Azzedin. She must come with us.'

'One other?' Mat said. 'I thought I'd seen three or four, counting you. Anyway, I'm not sure I can get you out, much less—'

'The others do be… changed.' Teslyn's mouth tightened. 'Guisin and Mylen—I did know her as Sheraine Caminelle, but she do answer only to Mylen, now—those two would betray us. Edesina do still be herself. I will no leave her behind, even if she do be a rebel.'

'Now, look,' Mat said with a smile, soothingly, 'I said I will try to get you out, but I can't see any way to get two of you—'

'It do be best if you go now,' she broke in again. 'Men are no allowed up here, and in any case, you will rouse suspicions if you do be found.' Frowning at him, she sniffed. 'It would help if you did not dress so flamboyantly. Ten drunken Tinkers could no attract as much attention as you do. Go, now. Quickly. Go!'

He went, muttering to himself. Just like an Aes Sedai. Offer to help her, and the next thing you knew, she had you scaling a sheer cliff in the middle of the night to break fifty people out of a dungeon by yourself. That had been another man, a long time dead, but he remembered it, and it fit. Blood and bloody ashes! He did not know to rescue one Aes Sedai, and she had him trying to rescue two!

He stalked around the innocuous corner at the foot of the stairs and almost walked into Tuon.

'Damane kennels are forbidden to men,' she said, peering up at him coldly through her veil. 'You could be punished just for entering.'

'I was looking for a Windfinder, High Lady,' he said hastily, making a leg and thinking as fast as he ever had in his life. 'She did me a favor once, and I thought she might like something from the kitchens. Some pastries, or the like. I didn't see her, though. I suppose she wasn't caught when…' He trailed off, staring. The stern judicial mask the girl always wore for a face had melted into a smile. She really was beautiful.

'That is very kind of you,' she said. 'It's good to know you are kind to damans. But you must be careful. There are men who actually take damane to their beds.' Her full mouth twisted in disgust. 'You would not want anyone to think you are perverted.' That severe expression settled on her face again. All prisoners would be executed immediately.

'Thank you for the warning, High Lady,' he said, a little unsteadily. What kind of man wanted to bed a woman who was on a leash?

He disappeared then, as far as she was concerned. She just glided away down the hall as if she saw no one. For once, though, the High Lady Tuon did not concern him at all. He had an Aes Sedai hiding in the cellar of The