“You and your Game of Houses,” Gill muttered. “Still, it might work.” A sudden smile appeared on his face. “I even know who to tell to start it. All I need do is mention to Gilda that I dreamed it, and in three days she’ll have told serving girls in half the New City that it is a fact. She is the greatest gossip the Creator ever made.”
“Just be certain it cannot be traced back to you, Basel.”
“No fear of that, Thom. Why a week ago, a man told me one of my own bad dreams as a thing he’d heard from somebody who’d had it from someone else. Gilda must have eavesdropped on me telling it to Coline, but when I asked, he gave me a string of names that led all the way to the other side of Caemlyn and vanished. Why, I actually went over there and found the last man, just out of curiosity to see how many mouths had passed it, and he claimed it was his very own dream. No fear, Thom.”
Mat did not really care what they did with their rumors—no rumors would help Egwene or the others—but one thing puzzled him. “Thom, you seem to be taking this all very calmly. I thought Morgase was the great love of your life.”
The gleeman stared into the bowl of his pipe again. “Mat, a very wise woman once told me that time would heal my wounds, that time smoothed everything over. I didn’t believe her. Only she was right.”
“You mean you do not love Morgase anymore.”
“Boy, it has been fifteen years since I left Caemlyn a half step ahead of the headsman’s axe, with the ink of Morgase’s signature still wet on the warrant. Sitting here listening to Basel natter on”—Gill protested, and Thom raised his voice—“natter on, I say, about Morgase and Gaebril, and how they might marry, I realized the passion faded a long time gone. Oh, I suppose I am still fond of her, perhaps I even love her a little, but it is not a grand passion anymore.”
“And here I half thought you’d go running up to the Palace to warn her.” He laughed, and was surprised when Thom joined him.
“I am not so big a fool as that, boy. Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget. Morgase might kiss my cheek and give me a cup of wine and say how she has missed me. And then she might just let the Guards haul me off to prison and the headsman. No. Morgase is one of the most capable women I’ve ever known, and that is saying something. I could almost pity Gaebril once she learns what he is up to. Tear, you say? Is there any chance of you waiting until tomorrow to leave? I could use a night’s sleep.”
“I mean to be as far toward Tear as I can before nightfall.” Mat blinked. “Do you mean to come with me? I thought you meant to stay here.”
“Did you not just hear me say I had decided not to have my head cut off? Tear sounds a safer place to me than Caemlyn, and suddenly that does not seem so bad. Besides, I like those girls.” A knife appeared in his hand and was as suddenly gone again. “I’d not like anything to happen to them. But if you mean to reach Tear quickly, it’s Aringill you want. A fast boat will have us there days sooner than horses, even if we rode them to death. And I don’t say it just because my bottom has already taken on the shape of a saddle.”
“Aringill, then. As long as it’s fast.”
“Well,” Gill said, “I suppose if you are leaving, lad, I had better see about getting you that meal.” He pushed back his chair and started for the door.
“Hold this for me, Master Gill,” Mat said, and tossed him the wash-leather purse.
“What’s this, lad? Coin?”
“Stakes. Gaebril doesn’t know it, but he and I have a wager.” The cat jumped down as Mat picked up the wooden dice cup and spun the dice out on the table. Five sixes. “And I always win.”
CHAPTER
48
Following the Craft
As the Darter wallowed toward the docks of Tear, on the west bank of the River Erinin, Egwene did not see anything of the oncoming city. Slumped head down at the rail, she stared down at the waters of the Erinin rolling past the ship’s fat hull, and the frontmost sweep on her side as it swung into her vision and back again, cutting white furrows in the river. It made her queasy, but she knew raising her head would only make the sickness worse. Looking at the shore would only make the slow, corkscrew motion of the Darter more apparent.
The vessel had moved in that twisting roll ever since Jurene. She did not care how it had sailed before then; she found herself wishing the Darter had sunk before reaching Jurene. She wished they had made the captain put in at Aringill so they could find another ship. She wished they had never gone near a ship. She wished a great many things, most of them just to take her mind off where she was.
The twisting was less now, under sweeps, than it had been under sail, but it had gone on too many days now for the change to make much difference to her. Her stomach seemed to be sloshing about inside her like milk in a stone jug. She gulped and tried to forget that image.
They had not done much in the way of planning on the Darter, she and Elayne and Nynaeve. Nynaeve could seldom go ten minutes without vomiting, and seeing that always made Egwene lose whatever food she had managed to get down. The increasing warmth as they went further downriver did not help. Nynaeve was below now, no doubt with Elayne holding a basin for her again.
Oh, Light, no! Don’t think about that! Green fields. Meadows. Light, meadows do not heave like that. Hummingbirds. No, not hummingbirds! Larks. Larks singing.
“Mistress Joslyn? Mistress Joslyn!”
It took her a moment to recognize the name she had chosen to give Captain Canin, and the captain’s voice. She raised her head slowly and fixed her eyes on his long face.
“We are docking, Mistress Joslyn. You’ve kept saying how eager you were to be ashore. Well, we’re there.” His voice did not hide his eagerness to be rid of his three passengers, two of whom did little more than sick up, as he called it, and moan all night.
Barefoot, shirtless sailors were tossing lines to men on the stone dock that thrust out into the river; the dockmen seemed to be wearing long leather vests in place of shirts. The sweeps had already been drawn in, except for a pair fending the ship off from coming against the dock too hard. The flat stones of the dock were wet; the air had a feel of rain not long gone, and that was a little soothing. The twisting motion had ceased some time since, she realized, but her stomach remembered. The sun was falling toward the west. She tried not to think of supper.
“Very good, Captain Canin,” she said with all the dignity she could summon. He’d not sound like that if I were wearing my ring, not even if I were sick on his boots. She shuddered at the picture in her mind.
Her Great Serpent ring and the twisted ring of the ter’angreal hung on a leather cord about her neck, now. The stone ring felt cool against her skin—almost enough to counteract the damp warmth of the air—but aside from that, she had found that the more she used the ter’angreal, the more she wanted to touch it, without pouch or cloth between it and her.