CHAPTER
22
Birdcalls by Night
Lying facedown on his blankets with his eyes closed, Mat luxuriated in the feel of Melindhra’s thumbs kneading their way down his spine. There was nothing quite as good as a massage after a long day in the saddle. Well, some things were, but right then, he was willing to settle for her thumbs.
“You are well muscled for such a short man, Matrim Cauthon.”
He opened one eye and glanced back at her, kneeling astride his hips. She had built the fire up twice as high as needed, and sweat trickled down her body. Her fine golden hair, close-cut except for that Aiel tail at the nape of her neck, clung to her scalp. “If I’m too short, you can always find somebody else.”
“You are not too short for my taste,” she laughed, ruffling his hair. It was longer than hers. “And you are cute. Relax. This does no good if you tense.”
Grunting, he closed his eyes again. Cute? Light! And short. Only Aiel could call him short. In every other land he had been in, he was taller than most men, if not always by much. He could remember being tall. Taller than Rand, when he rode against Artur Hawkwing. And a hand shorter than he was now when he fought beside Maecine against the Aelgari. He had spoken to Lan, claiming he had overheard some names; the Warder said Maecine had been a king of Eharon, one of the Ten Nations—that much Mat already knew—some four or five hundred years before the Trolloc Wars. Lan doubted that even the Brown Ajah knew more; much had been lost in the Trolloc Wars, and more in the War of the Hundred Years. Those were the earliest and latest of the memories that had been planted in his skull. Nothing after Artur Paendrag Tanreall, and nothing before Maecine of Eharon.
“Are you cold?” Melindhra said incredulously. “You shivered.” She scrambled off him, and he heard her add wood to the fire; there was enough scrub here for burning. She slapped his bottom hard as she climbed back on, murmuring, “Good muscle.”
“If you keep on like that,” he muttered, “I’ll think you mean to spit me for supper, like a Trolloc.” It was not that he did not enjoy Melindhra—as long as she refrained from pointing out that she was taller, anyway—but the situation made him uncomfortable.
“No spits for you, Matrim Cauthon.” Her thumbs dug hard into his shoulder. “That is it. Relax.”
He supposed that he would marry someday, settle down. That was what you did. A woman, a house, a family. Shackled to one spot for the rest of his life. I never heard of a wife yet that liked her husband having a drink or a gamble. And there was what those folk on the other side of the doorframe ter’angreal had said. That he was fated “to marry the Daughter of the Nine Moons.” A man has to marry sooner or later, I suppose. But he certainly did not mean to take an Aiel wife. He wanted to dance with as many women as he could, while he could.
“You are not made for spits, but for great honor, I think,” Melindhra said softly.
“Sounds fine to me.” Only now he could not get another woman to look at him, not the Maidens or the others. It was as if Melindhra had hung a sign on him saying OWNED BY MELINDHRA OF THE JUMAI SHAIDO. Well, she would not have put that last bit on, not here. Then again, who knew what an Aiel would do, especially a Maiden of the Spear? Women did not think the same as men, and Aielwomen did not think like anybody else in the world.
“It is strange that you efface yourself so.”
“Efface myself?” he mumbled. Her hands did feel good; knots were coming out that he had not known were there. “How?” He wondered if it had something to do with that necklace. Melindhra seemed to set great store by it, or by receiving it, anyway. She never wore the thing, of course. Maidens did not. But she carried it in her pouch, and showed it to every woman who asked. A lot of them seemed to.
“You put yourself in the shadow of Rand al’Thor.”
“I’m not in anybody’s shadow,” he said absently. It could not be the necklace. He had given jewelry to other women, Maidens and others; he liked giving things to pretty women, even if all he got in return was a smile. He never expected more. If a woman did not enjoy a kiss and a cuddle as much as he did, what was the point?
“Of course, there is honor of a sort in being in the shadow of the Car’a’carn. To be near the mighty, you must stand in their shade.”
“Shade,” Mat agreed, not really hearing. Sometimes the women accepted and sometimes not, but none had decided they owned him. That was what rankled, really. He was not about to be owned by any woman, however pretty she was. And no matter how good her hands were at loosening knotted muscles.
“Your scars should be scars of honor, earned in your own name, as a chief, not this.” One finger traced along the hanging scar on his neck. “Did you earn this serving the Car’a’carn?”
Shrugging her hand away, he pushed up on his elbows and twisted to look at her. “Are you sure ‘Daughter of the Nine Moons’ doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“I have told you it does not. Lie down.”
“If you are lying to me, I swear I’ll welt your rump.”
Hands on hips, she looked down at him dangerously. “Do you think that you can . . . welt my rump, Mat Cauthon?”
“I’ll give it my best try.” She would probably put a spear through his ribs. “Do you swear you’ve never heard of the Daughter of the Nine Moons?”
“I never have,” she said slowly. “Who is she? Or what? Lie down, and let me—”
A blackbird called, seemingly everywhere in the tent and outside as well, and a moment later, a redwing. Good Two Rivers birds. Rand had chosen his warnings from what he knew, birds not found in the Waste.
Melindhra was off him in an instant, wrapping her shoufa around her head, veiling herself as she snatched up spears and bucklers. She darted from the tent like that.
“Blood and bloody ashes!” Mat muttered as he struggled into his breeches. A redwing meant the south. He and Melindhra had put up their tent to the south, with the Chareen, as far from Rand as they could get and stay in the encampment. But he was not going outside in