The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

It was obvious the two men were strangers despite standing almost side by side; they held themselves with stiff reticence. Their attentions were directed the same way, though, split between following the Sailmistress’s progress toward the stern-deck and peering at Elayne and Nynaeve, plainly uncertain and masking it behind a brisk show of confidence. Thom grinned and stroked his long white mustaches and nodded every time he looked up at the two of them; Sandar made solemn, self-assured bows.

“He is not damaged,” Coine said, climbing the ladder. “I can sail within the hour, if it pleases you. Well within, if a Tairen pilot can be found. I will sail without him, if not, though it means never returning to Tear.” She followed their gaze to the two men. “They ask passage, the gleeman to Tanchico, and the thief-catcher to wherever you travel. I cannot refuse them, and yet … .” Her dark eyes came back to Elayne and Nynaeve. “I will do so, if you ask it.” Reluctance to break custom battled in her voice with … . Desire to help them? To serve the Coramoor? “The thief-catcher is a good man, even considering that he is shorebound. No offense to you, under the Light. The gleeman I do not know, yet a gleeman can enliven a voyage and lighten tired hours.”

“You know Master Sandar?” Nynaeve said.

“Twice he has found those who pilfered from us, and found them quickly. Another shoreman would have taken longer so he might ask more for the work. It is obvious that you know him, as well. Do you wish me to refuse passage?” Her reluctance was still there.

“Let us see why they are here first,” Nynaeve said in a flat voice that did not bode well for either man.

“Perhaps I should do the talking,” Elayne suggested, gently but firmly. “That way, you can watch to see if they are hiding anything.” She did not say that that way Nynaeve’s temper would not get the better of her, but the wry smile the other woman gave her said she had heard it anyway.

“Very well, Elayne. I will watch them. Perhaps you might study how I keep calm. You know how you are when you become overwrought.”

Elayne had to laugh.

The two men straightened as she and Nynaeve approached. Around them the crew bustled, swarming into the rigging, hauling ropes, lashing some things down and unlashing others, to orders relayed from the Sailmistress. They moved around the four shorepeople with barely a glance.

Elayne frowned at Thom Merrilin thoughtfully. She was sure she had never seen the gleeman before his appearance in the Stone, yet even then she had been struck by something familiar about him. Not that that was likely. Gleemen were village performers, in the main; her mother had certainly never had one at the palace in Caemlyn. The only gleemen Elayne could remember seeing had been in the villages near her mother’s country estates, and this white-haired hawk of a man had surely never been there.

She decided to speak to the thief-catcher first. He insisted on that, she remembered; what was a thief-taker elsewhere was a thief-catcher in Tear, and the distinction seemed important to him.

“Master Sandar,” she said gravely. “You may not remember us. I am Elayne Trakand, and this is my friend, Nynaeve al’Meara. I understand that you wish to travel to the same destination as we. Might I ask why? The last time we saw you, you had not served us very well.”

The man did not blink at the suggestion he might not remember them. His eyes flickered across their hands, noting the absence of rings. Those dark eyes noted everything, and recorded it indelibly. “I do remember, Mistress Trakand, and well. But, if you will forgive me, the last time I served you was in the company of Mat Cauthon, when we pulled you both out of the water before the silverpike could get you.”

Nynaeve harrumphed, but not loudly. It had been a cell, not the water, and the Black Ajah, not silverpike. Nynaeve in particular did not like being reminded that they had needed help that time. Of course, they would not have been in that cell without Juilin Sandar. No, that was not entirely fair. True, but not completely fair.

“That is all very well,” Elayne said briskly, “but you still haven’t said why you want to go to Tanchico.”

He drew a deep breath and eyed Nynaeve warily. Elayne was not sure that she liked him being more careful of the other woman than of her. “I was rousted out of my house no more than half an hour gone,” he said carefully, “by a man you know, I think. A tall, stone-faced man calling himself Lan.” Nynaeve’s eyebrows rose slightly. “He came on behalf of another man you know. A … shepherd, I was told. I was given a great quantity of gold and told to accompany you. Both of you. I was told that if you do not return safely from this journey … . Shall we just say it would be better to drown myself than come back? Lan was emphatic, and the … shepherd no less so in his message. The Sailmistress tells me I cannot have passage unless you agree. I am not without certain skills that can be useful.” The staff whirled in his hands, a whistling blur, and was still. His fingers touched the sword-breaker on his hip, like a short sword but unsharpened, its slots meant to catch a blade.

“Men will find ways to get ’round what you tell them to do,” Nynaeve murmured, sounding not unpleased.

Elayne only frowned vexedly. Rand had sent him? He must not have read the second letter before he did. Burn him! Why does he leap about so? No time to send another letter, and it would probably only confuse him more if I did. And make me look a bigger fool. Burn him!

“And you, Master Merrilin?” Nynaeve said. “Did the shepherd send a gleeman after us, too? Or the other man? To keep us amused with your juggling and fire-eating, perhaps.”

Thom had been scrutinizing Sandar closely, but he shifted his attentions smoothly and made an elegant bow, only spoiling it with a too-elaborate flourish of that patch-covered cloak. “Not the shepherd, Mistress al’Meara. A lady of our mutual acquaintance asked—asked—me to accompany you. The lady who found you and the shepherd in Emond’s Field.”

“Why?” Nynaeve said suspiciously.

“I, too, have useful skills,” Thom told her with a glance at the thief-catcher. “Other than juggling, that is. And I have been to Tanchico several times. I know the city well. I can tell you where to find a good inn, and what districts are dangerous in daylight as well as after dark, and who must be bribed so the Civil Watch does not take too close an interest in your doings. They are keen on watching outlanders. I can help you with a good many things.”

That familiarity tickled at Elayne’s mind again. Before she realized what she was doing, she reached up and tugged at one of his long white mustaches. He gave a start, and she clapped both hands to her mouth, flushing crimson. “Forgive me. I … I seemed to remember doing that before. I mean … . I am sorry.” Light, why did I do that? He must think me an imbecile.

“I … would remember,” he said, very stiffly.

She hoped he was not affronted. It was hard to tell from his expression. Men could be offended when they should be amused, and amused when they should be offended. If they were going to be traveling together … . That was the first time she realized that she had decided they could come. “Nynaeve?” she said.

The other woman understood the unspoken question, of course. She studied the two men thoroughly, then nodded. “They may come. As long as they agree to do as they are told. I’ll not have some wool-brained man going his own way and endangering us.”

“As you command, Mistress al’Meara,” Sandar said immediately, with a bow, but Thom said, “A gleeman is a free soul, Nynaeve, but I can promise I will not endanger you. Far from it.”

“As you are told,” Nynaeve said pointedly. “Your word on it, or you will watch this ship sail from the dock.”

“The Atha’an Miere do not refuse passage to anyone, Nynaeve.”

“Do you think not? Was the thief-taker”—Sandar winced—“the only one told he needed our permission? As you are told, Master Merrilin.”