“That is . . . that’s what he says. I . . . I think that may be going too far, myself. The High Lord Samon. . . . He speaks so that he carries a man beyond his own beliefs. If Caemlyn can make covenants with the Tower, why, so can Tear.” He shivered and did not seem to know it. “That is what I say.”
“As you say,” Mat told him, and felt mischief bubble inside. “I think your suggestion is the right one, Captain. But don’t stop with a few Accepted, though. Ask a dozen Aes Sedai to come, or two. Think what the Stone of Tear would be like with two dozen Aes Sedai in it.”
Mallia shuddered. “I will send a man for my money chest,” he said stiffly, and stalked out.
Mat frowned at the closed door. “I think I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I don’t know why you might think that,” Thom said dryly. “Next you could try telling the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks he should marry the Amyrlin Seat.” His brows drew down, like white caterpillars. “High Lord Samon. I never heard of any High Lord Samon.”
It was Mat’s turn to be dry. “Well, even you cannot know everything about all the kings and queens and nobles there are, Thom. One or two might just have escaped your notice.”
“I know the names of the kings and queens, boy, and the names of all the High Lords of Tear, too. I suppose they could have raised a Lord of the Land, but I’d think I would have heard of the old High Lord dying. If you had settled for booting some poor fellows out of their cabin instead of taking the captain’s, we’d each have a bed to ourselves, narrow and hard as it might be. Now we have to share Mallia’s. I hope you don’t snore, boy. I cannot abide snoring.”
Mat ground his teeth. As he recalled, Thom had a snore like a wood-rasp working on an oak knot. He had forgotten that.
It was one of the two large men—Sanor or Vasa; he did not give his name—who came to pull the captain’s iron-bound money chest from under the bed. He never said a word, only made sketchy bows, and frowned at them when he thought they were not looking, and left.
Mat was beginning to wonder if the luck that had been with him all night had deserted him at last. He was going to have to put up with Thom’s snoring, and truth to tell, it might not have been the best luck in the world to jump onto this particular ship waving a paper signed by the Amyrlin Seat and sealed with the Flame of Tar Valon. On impulse he pulled out one of his cylindrical leather dice cups, popped off the tight-fitting lid, and upended the dice onto the table.
They were spotted dice, and five single pips stared up at him. The Dark One’s Eyes, that was called in some games. It was a losing toss in those, a winning in other games. But what game am I playing? He scooped the dice up, tossed them again. Five pips. Another toss, and again the Dark One’s Eyes winked at him.
“If you used those dice to win all that gold,” Thom said quietly, “no wonder you had to leave by the first ship sailing.” He had stripped down to his shirt, and had that half over his head when he spoke. His knees were knobby and his legs seemed all sinew and stringy muscle, the right a little shrunken. “Boy, a twelve-year-old girl would cut your heart out if she knew you were using dice like that against her.”
“It isn’t the dice,” Mat muttered. “It’s the luck.” Aes Sedai luck? Or the Dark One’s luck? He pushed the dice back into the cup and capped it.
“I suppose,” Thom said, climbing into the bed, “you aren’t going to tell me where all that gold came from, then.”
“I won it. Tonight. With their dice.”
“Uh-huh. And I suppose you’re not going to explain that paper you were waving around—I saw the seal, boy!—or all that talk about White Tower business, or why the dockmaster had your description from an Aes Sedai, either.”
“I am carrying a letter to Morgase for Elayne, Thom,” Mat said a good deal more patiently than he felt. “Nynaeve gave me the paper. I don’t know where she got it.”
“Well, if you are not going to tell me, I am going to sleep. Blow out the lamps, will you?” Thom rolled on his side and pulled a pillow over his head.
Even after Mat had stripped off down to his smallclothes and crawled under the blankets—after blowing out the lamps—he could not sleep, though Mallia had done well by himself with a good feather mattress. He had been right about Thom’s snoring, and that pillow muffled nothing. It sounded as if Thom were cutting wood cross-grain with a rusty saw. And he could not stop thinking. How had Nynaeve and Egwene, and Elayne, gotten that paper from the Amyrlin? They had to be involved with the Amyrlin Seat herself—in some plot, one of those White Tower machinations—but now that he thought about it, they had to be holding something back from the Amyrlin, too.
“ ‘Please carry a letter to my mother, Mat,’ ” he said softly, in a high-pitched, mocking voice. “Fool! The Amyrlin would have sent a Warder with any letter from the Daughter-Heir to the Queen. Blind fool, wanting to get out of the Tower so bad I couldn’t see it.” Thom’s snore seemed to trumpet agreement.
Most of all, though, he thought about luck, and footpads.
The first bump of something against the stern barely registered on him. He paid no attention to a thump and scuffle from the deck overhead, or the tread of boots. The vessel itself made enough noises, and there had to be someone on deck for the ship to make its way downriver. But stealthy footsteps in the passageway leading to his door merged with thoughts of footpads and made his ears prick up.
He nudged Thom in the ribs with an elbow. “Wake up,” he said softly. “There’s somebody outside in the hall.” He was already easing himself off the bed, hoping the cabin floor—Deck, floor, whatever it bloody is!—would not creak under his feet. Thom grunted, smacked his lips, and resumed snoring.
There was no time to worry about Thom. The footsteps were right outside. Taking up his quarterstaff, Mat placed himself in front of the door and waited.
The door swung open slowly, and two cloaked men, one behind the other, were faintly outlined by dim moonlight through the hatch at the top of the ladder they had crept down. The moonlight was enough to glint off bare knife blades. Both men gasped; they obviously had not expected to find anyone waiting for them.
Mat thrust with the quarterstaff, catching the first man hard right under where his ribs joined together. He heard his father’s voice as he struck. It’s a killing blow, Mat. Don’t ever use it unless it’s your life. But those knives made it for his life; there was no room in the cabin for swinging a staff.
Even as the man made a choking sound and folded toward the deck, fighting vainly for breath, Mat stepped forward and drove the end of the quarterstaff over him into the second man’s throat with a loud crunch. That fellow dropped his knife to clutch at his throat, and fell on top of his companion, both of them scraping their boots across the deck, death rattles already sounding in their throats.
Mat stood there, staring down at them. Two men. No, burn me, three! I don’t think I ever hurt another human being before, and now I’ve killed three men in one night. Light!
Silence filled the dark passageway, and he heard the thump of boots on the deck overhead. The crewmen all went barefoot.
Trying not to think about what he was doing, Mat ripped the cloak from one of the dead men and settled it around his shoulders, hiding the pale linen of his smallclothes. On bare feet he padded down the passage and climbed the ladder, barely sticking his eyes above the hatch coping.