A Memory of Light (The Wheel of Time 14)

From behind, Kathana snorted, bustling past. “The ‘truth’ is something men debate in bars when they’re too drunk to remember their names. That means it’s not in good company. I wouldn’t put too much stock in it, traveler.”

“The name’s Mandevwin,” Mat said.

“I’m sure it is,” Kathana said. She looked him over then. “Has anyone ever told you that you should wear a hat? It would fit the missing eye quite well.”

“Is that so,” Mat said dryly. “You give fashion advice as well as force-feeding men?”

She swatted him on the back of the head with her cleaning rag. “Eat your food.”

“Look, friend,” Jame said, turning toward him. “I know what you are and why you are here. The fake eye bandage is not fooling me. You have throwing knives tucked into your sleeves and six more on your belt that I can count. I’ve never met a man with one eye who could throw worth a dried bean. She’s not as easy a target as you foreigners think. You’ll never make it into the palace, let alone through her bodyguards. Go find some honest work instead.”

Mat gaped at the man. He thought Mat was an assassin? Mat reached up and took off the bandage, exposing the hole where his eye had been.

Jame started at that.

“There are assassins,” Mat said calmly, “after Tuon?”

“Don’t use her name like that,” Kathana said, beginning to snap her cleaning rag at him again.

Mat reached up beside his head without looking, catching the tip of the rag. He held Jame’s eyes with his single one, not flinching.

“There are assassins,” Mat repeated calmly, “after Tuon?”

Jame nodded. “Mostly foreigners who don’t know the right way of things. Several have moved through the inn. Only one admitted the reason he was here. I saw that his blood fed the dusty earth of the dueling grounds.”

“Then I count you a friend,” Mat said, standing. He reached into his bundle and took out his hat and put it upon his head. “Who is behind it? Who has brought them in, put the bounty on her head?”

Nearby, Kathana inspected his hat and nodded in satisfaction. Then she hesitated and squinted at his face.

“This isn’t what you think,” Jame said. “He isn’t hiring the best assassins. They’re foreigners, so they aren’t meant to succeed.”

“I don’t care how bloody likely their chances are,” Mat said. “Who is hiring them?”

“He’s too important for you to—”

“Who?” Mat said softly.

“General Lunal Galgan,” Jame said. “Head of the Seanchan armies. I can’t make you out, friend. Are you an assassin, or are you here hunting assassins?”

“I’m no bloody assassin,” Mat said, pulling the brim of his hat down and picking up his bundle. “I never kill a man unless he demands it—demands it with screams and thunder so loudly, I figure it would be impolite not to agree to the request. If I stab you, friend, you’ll know that it is coming, and you will know why. I promise you that.”

“Jame,” Kathana hissed. “It’s him.”

“What now?” Jame asked as Mat brushed past, raising his covered ashandarei to his shoulder.

“The one the guards have been looking for!” Kathana said. She looked to Mat. “Light! Every soldier in Ebou Dar has been told to watch for your face. How did you make it through the city gates?”

“By luck,” Mat said, then stepped out into the alleyway.

* * *

“What are you waiting for?” Moiraine asked.

Rand turned toward her. They stood in Lan’s command tent in Shienar. He could smell the smoke of burning fields, set aflame by Lan and Lord Agelmar’s troops as they withdrew from the Gap.

They were burning the lands they would rather defend. A desperate tactic, but a good one. It was the sort of all-in tactic that Lews Therin and his people in the Age of Legends had been hesitant to try, at least at first

. It had cost them dearly then.