“Did he—?” Elayne swallowed. “Did he recognize you?”
“No. Fifteen years changes a man more than it does a boy. Elayne, I thought you had forgotten.”
“I remembered in Tanchico, Thom.” With a wavering smile, Elayne reached out and tugged one of his long mustaches. Thom smiled back almost as unsteadily; he looked as if he was contemplating a leap from the window.
Juilin was scratching his head, and Nynaeve wished she had some idea what they were talking about, too, but there were more important matters at hand. “We still have to leave before he brings the entire garrison down on us. With him watching, it won’t be easy. I haven’t seen another patron who looks like they have a coach.”
“Ours is the only one in the stableyard,” Juilin said. Thom and Elayne were still staring at one another, plainly not hearing a word.
Driving off with the curtains down was no protection, then. Nynaeve was willing to bet that Galad had already learned exactly how they had come to Sienda. “Is there a back way from the stableyard?”
“A gate wide enough for one of us at a time,” Juilin said dryly. “And what’s on the other side is little more than an alley, anyway. There aren’t more than two or three streets in this village wide enough for the coach.” He studied that cylindrical hat, turning it in his hands. “I could get close enough to crack his head. If you were ready, you could drive off during the confusion. I could catch you up on the road.”
Nynaeve sniffed loudly. “How? Gallop after on Skulker? Even if you didn’t fall out of the saddle inside a mile, do you think you would even reach a horse if you attacked a Whitecloak in that street?” Galad was still there across the street, and Trom had joined him, the pair apparently chatting idly. She leaned over and yanked Thom’s nearest mustache. “Do you have anything to add? Any brilliant plans? Did all your listening to gossip yield anything that might help?”
He clapped a hand to his face and gave her an offended look. “Not unless you think there’s help in Ailron laying claim to some border villages in Altara. A strip the whole length of the border, from Salidar to So Eban to Mosra. Is there any help in that, Nynaeve? Is there? Try to pull a man’s mustache out of his face. Somebody ought to box your ears, for once.”
“What would Ailron want with a strip along the border, Thom?” Elayne asked. Perhaps she was interested—she seemed interested in every fool twist and turn of politics and diplomacy—or perhaps she was just trying to stop an argument. She used to try smoothing over things all the time, before she became wrapped up in flirting with Thom.
“It isn’t the King, child.” His voice softened, for her. “It’s Pedron Niall. Ailron does what he is told usually, though he and Niall make out that it isn’t so. Most of those villages have been empty since the Whitecloak War, what the Children call the Troubles. Niall was the general in the field then, and I doubt he’s ever given up wanting Altara. If he controls both banks of the Eldar, he can squeeze the river trade to Ebou Dar, and if he can crack Ebou Dar, the rest of Altara will trickle into his hands like grain flowing from a hole in a sack.”
“That is all very well,” Nynaeve said firmly before he or the girl could speak again. There had been something in what he had said that tickled her memory, but she could not say what or why. In any case, they had no time for lectures on relations between Amadicia and Altara, not with Galad and Trom watching the front of the inn. She said as much, adding, “What about you, Juilin? You consort with low types.” The thief-catcher always sought out the cutpurses and burglars and footpads in a town; he claimed they knew more of what was really going on than any official. “Are there smugglers we can bribe to sneak us out, or . . . or . . . You know the sort of thing we need, man.”
“I heard little. Thieves keep low in Amadicia, Nynaeve. First offense is branding, second is loss of your fight hand, and third is hanging, whether it’s the King’s crown or a loaf of bread. There aren’t many thieves in a town this size, not who do it for a living”—he was contemptuous of amateur thieves—“and for the most part they only wanted to talk about two things. Whether the Prophet is really coming to Amadicia, the way rumor says he is, and whether the town fathers might relent and let that traveling menagerie put on a show. Sienda is too far from the borders for smugglers to—”
She cut him off with peremptory satisfaction. “That is it! The menagerie.” They all looked at her as if she had gone mad.
“Of course,” Thom said, much too mildly. “We can get Luca to bring the boar-horses back, and make off while they destroy some more of the town. I don’t know what you gave him, Nynaeve, but he threw a rock at us as we were driving off.”
For once Nynaeve forgave him his sarcasm, feeble as it was. And his lack of wit to see what she saw. “That’s as may be, Thom Merrilin, but Master Luca wants a patron, and Elayne and I are going to be his patrons. We still have to abandon the coach and team—” That smarted; she could have built a snug house in the Two Rivers for what they had cost. “—And sneak out that back way.” Tossing open the chest with the leaf-shaped hinges, she rooted through clothes and blankets and pots and everything that she had not wanted to leave behind with the wagon full of dyes—she had made sure that the men packed everything except the harness—until she came to the gilded caskets and the purses. “Thom, you and Juilin go out by that back gate, and find a wagon and team of some sort. Buy some supplies and meet us on the road back to Luca’s camp.” Regretfully, she filled Thom’s hand with gold, not even bothering to count; there was no telling what things would cost, and she did not want him wasting time bargaining.
“That is a wonderful idea,” Elayne said, grinning. “Galad will be looking for two women, not a troupe of animals and jugglers. And he will never think we would head for Ghealdan.”
Nynaeve had not thought of that. She had intended making Luca head straight for Tear. A menagerie such as he had put together, with tumblers and jugglers in addition to animals, could earn its way almost anywhere, she was sure. But if Galad did come looking for them, or send someone, it would be to the east. And he might be smart enough to look even in a menagerie; men did show brains sometimes, usually when you least expected it. “That was the first thing I thought of, Elayne.” She ignored the sudden faint taste in her mouth, the acrid memory of boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf.
Thom and Juilin protested, of course. Not the idea as such, but they seemed to think that one of them remaining behind could protect her and Elayne against Galad and any number of Whitecloaks. They did not seem to realize that if it came to that, channeling would do more than the pair of them and ten more besides. They still seemed troubled, but she managed to push them both out with the stern injunction “And don’t you dare come back here. We will meet you on the road.”
“If it comes to channeling,” Elayne quietly said once the door was shut, “we will quickly find ourselves facing the whole Whitecloak garrison, and probably the army garrison as well. The Power doesn’t make us invincible. All it will take is two arrows.”
“We will worry about that when it comes,” Nynaeve told her. She hoped the men had not thought of that. If they had, likely one of them would lurk about, and probably rouse Galad’s suspicions if he was not careful. She was ready to accept their help when it was needed—Ronde Macura had taught her that, though having to be rescued like a kitten down a well still galled—but it would be when she thought it necessary, not they.
A quick trip downstairs found Mistress Jharen. Her lady had changed her mind; she did not think she could face the heat and dust of travel again so quickly; she intended to nap, and did not want to be disturbed until a late supper that she would send down for. Here was the coin for another night’s lodging. The innkeeper was very understanding of a noble lady’s delicacy, and how inconstant their desires. Nynaeve thought, Mistress Jharen would be understanding of anything short of murder, so long as the reckoning was paid.
Leaving the plump woman, Nynaeve cornered one of the serving girls for a moment. A few silver pennies changed hands, and the girl darted off in her apron to find two of the deep bonnets that Nynaeve said looked so shady and cool; not the sort of thing her lady would wear, of course, but they would do nicely for her.
When she got back to the room, Elayne had the gilded caskets on a blanket with the dark polished box holding the recovered ter’angreal and the washleather purse that held the seal. The fat purses of coin lay beside Nynaeve’s scrip on the other bed. Folding the blanket, Elayne tied the bundle with some stout cord from one of their chests. Nynaeve had saved everything.
She regretted leaving it all behind now. It was not just the expense. Not only that. You never knew when something was going to come in handy. Take the two
woolen dresses that Elayne had laid out on her bed. They were not fine enough for a lady, and too fine for a lady’s maid, but if they had left them in Mardeein as Elayne had wanted, they would be in a fine fix for clothing now.
Kneeling, Nynaeve rummaged in another chest. A few shifts, two more wool dresses for changes. The pair of cast-iron frying pans in a canvas bag were perfectly good, but too heavy, and the men would certainly not forget replacements for those. The sewing kit, in its neat bone-inlaid box; they would never think to buy so much as a pin. Her mind was only partly on her selections, though.
“You knew Thom before?” she asked in what she hoped was a casual tone. She watched Elayne from the corner of her eye while pretending to concentrate on rolling stockings.
The girl had begun pulling out clothes of her own, sighing over the silks before putting them aside. She froze with her hands deep in one of the chests, and she did not look at Nynaeve. “He was Court-bard in Caemlyn when I was little,” she said quietly.
“I see.” She did not see at all. How did a man go from a court-bard, entertaining royalty, the next thing to a noble, to a gleeman wandering from village to village?