The Gathering Storm

"Call me Mat," he said.

"I received this paper, Matrim, from a Darkfriend," she said, "who told me—thinking me a servant of the Shadow—that one of the Forsaken had commanded that the men in these pictures be killed. You and Perrin are in grave danger."

"I'm not surprised," he said, hiding the chill her announcement made him feel. "Verin, Darkfriends have been trying to kill me since the day I left the Two Rivers." He paused. "Burn me. Since the day before I left the Two Rivers. What does it change?"

"This is different," Verin said, growing stern. "The level of danger you are in ... I ... Well, let us simply agree that you are in great, great danger. I suggest that you be very careful during the next few weeks."

"I'm always careful," Mat said.

"Well, be more so," she said. "Go into hiding. Don't take chances. You will be essential before this is through."

He shrugged. Go into hiding? He could do that. With Thorn's help, he could probably do himself up so that even his sisters wouldn't recognize him. "I can do that," he said. "Bloody simple cost. How long will it take you to get us to Caemlyn?"

"That wasn't my cost, Matrim," she said, amused. "That was a suggestion. One I think you should listen to with great prejudice." She slipped a small folded piece of paper out from under the picture. It was sealed with a drop of blood-red wax.

Mat took it hesitantly. "It is?"

"Instructions," Verin said. "Which you will follow on the tenth day after I leave you in Caemlyn."

He scratched his neck, frowning, then moved to break the seal.

"You aren't to open them until that day," Verin said.

"What?" Mat demanded. "But—"

"That is my cost," Verin said simply.

"Bloody woman," he said, looking back at the paper. "I'm not going to swear to something unless I know what it is."

"I doubt you will find my instructions harsh, Matrim," she noted.

Mat scowled at the seal for a moment, then stood up. "I pass on it."

She pursed her lips. "Matrim, you—"

"Call me Mat," he said, grabbing his hat off the top of a cushion. "And I said there's no deal. I'll be in Caemlyn in twenty days of marching, anyway." He pushed open the tent flaps, gesturing out. "I'm not going to have you tying strings around me, woman."

She didn't move, though she did frown. "I had forgotten how difficult you can be."

"And proud of it," Mat said.

"And if we have a compromise?" Verin asked.

"You'll tell me what is in that bloody paper?"

"No," Verin said. "Because I might not need you to go through with the contents. I hope to be able to return to you and relieve you of the letter and send you on your way. But if I cannot. ..."

"The compromise, then?" Mat said.

"You may choose not to open the letter," Verin said. "Burn it. But if you do so, you wait fifty days in Caemlyn, just in case it takes me longer to return than I had expected."

That gave him pause. Fifty days was a long time to wait. But if he could do it in Caemlyn, rather than traveling on his own. . . .

Was Elayne in the city? He'd worried about her, since her escape from Ebou Dar. If she was there, he might at least be able to get production started quickly on Aludra's dragons.

But fifty days? Waiting? Either that, or open the bloody letter and do what it said? He didn't like either option. "Twenty days," he said.

"Thirty days," she said, rising, then raised a finger to cut off his objection. "A compromise, Mat. Among Aes Sedai, I think you shall find me to be far more amenable to those than most." She held out her hand.