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CHAPTER

24

Scouting and Discoveries

Sunlight through the carved shutters, creeping across the bed, woke Mat. For a moment, he only lay there, frowning. He had not reasoned out any plan for escaping from Tar Valon before sleep had overtaken him, but neither had he given up. Too much memory still lay covered with fog, but he would not give up.

Two serving women came bustling with hot water and a tray heavy with food, laughing and telling him how much better he looked already, and how soon he would be back on his feet if he did what the Aes Sedai told him. He answered them curtly, trying not to sound bitter. Let them think I mean to go along. His stomach rumbled at the smells from the tray.

When they left, he tossed aside his blanket and hopped out of bed, pausing only to stuff half a slice of ham into his mouth before pouring out water to wash and shave. Staring into the mirror above the washstand, he paused in lathering his face. He did look better.

His cheeks were still hollow, but not quite as hollow as they had been. The dark circles had vanished from under his eyes, which no longer seemed set so deep in his head. It was as if every bite he had eaten the night before had gone into putting meat on his bones. He even felt stronger.

“At this rate,” he muttered, “I will be gone before they know it.” But he was still surprised when, after shaving, he sat down and consumed every scrap of ham, turnip, and pear on the tray.

He was sure they expected him to climb back into bed once he had eaten, but instead, he dressed. Stamping his feet to settle them in his boots, he eyed his spare clothes and decided to leave them, for now. I have to know what I’m doing, first. And if I have to leave them. . . . He tucked the dice cups into his pouch. With those, he could get all the clothes he needed.

Opening the door, he peeked out. More doors paneled in pale, golden wood lined the hall, with colorful tapestries between, and a runner of blue carpet ran down the white-tiled floor. But there was no one out there. No guard. He tossed his cloak over one shoulder and hurried out. Now to find a way outside.

It took some little wandering, down stairs and along corridors and across open courts, before he found what he wanted, a doorway to the outside, and he saw people before then: serving women and white-clad novices hurrying about their chores, the novices running even harder than the servants; a handful of roughly dressed male servants carrying large chests and other heavy loads; Accepted in their banded dresses. Even a few Aes Sedai.

The Aes Sedai did not seem to notice him as they strode along, intent on whatever purpose, or else they gave him no more than a passing glance. His were country clothes, but well made; he did not look a vagabond, and the serving men showed that men were allowed in this part of the Tower. He suspected they might take him for another servant, and that was just as well with him, so long as no one asked him to lift anything.

He did feel some regret that none of the women he saw was Egwene or Nynaeve, or even Elayne. She’s a pretty one, even if she does have her nose in the air half the time. And she could tell me how to find Egwene and the Wisdom. I cannot go without saying goodbye. Light, I don’t suppose one of them would turn me in, just because they are becoming Aes Sedai themselves? Burn me, for a fool! They’d never do that. Anyway, I will risk it.

But once out-of-doors, under a bright morning sky with only a few drifting white clouds, he put the women from his mind for the time. He was looking across a wide, flagstoned yard with a plain stone fountain in the middle and a barracks on the other side that was made of gray stone. It looked almost like a huge boulder among the few trees growing out of rimmed holes in the flagstones close by. Guardsmen in their shirtsleeves sat in front of the long, low building, tending weapons and armor and harness. Guardsmen were what he wanted, now.

He sauntered across the yard and watched the soldiers as if he had nothing better to do. As they worked they talked and laughed among themselves like men after the harvest. Now and again one of them looked curiously at Mat as he strolled among them, but none challenged his right to be there. From time to time he asked a casual question. And finally he got the answer he sought.

“Bridge guard?” said a stocky, dark-haired man no more than five years older than Mat. His words had a heavy Illianer accent. Young he might have been, but a thin white scar crossed his left cheek, and the hands oiling his sword moved with familiarity and competence. He squinted up at Mat before returning to his task. “I do be on the bridge guard, and back there again this even. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering what conditions were like on the other side of the river.” I might as well find that out, too. “Good for traveling? It can’t be muddy, unless you have had more rain than I know about.”

“Which side of the river?” the guardsman asked placidly. His eyes did not lift from the oiled rag he was running along his blade.

“Uh . . .

east. The east side.”

“No mud. Whitecloaks.” The man leaned to one side to spit, but his voice did not change. “Whitecloaks do be poking their noses into every village for ten miles. They have no hurt anyone yet, but them just being there do upset the folk. Fortune prick me if I do no think they wish to provoke us, for they do look as if they would attack if they could. No good for anyone who do want to travel.”

“What about west, then?”

“The same.” The guardsman raised his eyes to Mat’s. “But you will no be crossing, lad, east or west. Your name do be Matrim Cauthon, or Fortune abandon me. Last night a sister, herself in person, did come to the bridge where I did stand guard. She did drill your features at us till each could speak them back to her. A guest, she did say, and no to be harmed. But no to be allowed out of the city, either, if you must be tied hand and foot to keep you from it.” His eyes narrowed. “Is it that you did steal something from them?” he asked doubtfully. “You do no have the look of those the sisters do guest.”

“I didn’t steal anything!” Mat said indignantly. Burn me, I didn’t even get a chance to work around to it easy. They must all know me. “I’m no thief!”

“No, it is no that I do see in your face. No thievery. But you do have the look of the fellow who did try to sell me the Horn of Valere three days gone. So he did claim it did be, all bent and battered as it did be. Do you have a Horn of Valere to sell? Or mayhap it do be the Dragon’s sword?”

Mat gave a jump at the mention of the Horn, but he managed to keep his voice level. “I was sick.” Others of the guardsmen were looking at him now. Light, they’ll all know I am not supposed to leave, now. He forced a laugh. “The sisters Healed me.” Some of the guardsmen frowned at him. Perhaps they thought other men should show more respect than to call the Aes Sedai sisters. “I guess the Aes Sedai don’t want me to go before I have all my strength back.” He tried willing the men, all of those watching him now, to accept that. Just a man who was Healed. Nothing more. No reason to trouble yourself about him any further.

The Illianer nodded. “You do have the look of sickness in your face, too. Perhaps that do be the reason. But never did I hear of so much effort to keep one sick man in the city.”

“That’s the reason,” Mat said firmly. They were all still looking at him. “Well, I need to be going. They said I have to take walks. Lots of long walks. To build up strength, you know.”

He felt their eyes following him as he left, and he scowled. He had simply meant to find out how well his description had been passed around. If only the officers among the bridge guards had had it, he might have been able to slip by. He had always been good at slipping into places unseen. And out. It was a talent you developed when your mother always suspected you were up to some mischief and you had two sisters to tell on you. And now I’ve made sure half a barracks full of guardsmen will know me. Blood and bloody ashes!

Much of the Tower grounds were gardens full of trees, leatherleaf and paperbark and elms, and he soon found himself walking along a wide, twisting graveled path. It could have led through countryside, if not for the towers visible over the treetops. And the white bulk of the Tower itself, behind him but pressing on him as if he carried it on his shoulders. If there were ways out of the Tower grounds that were not watched, this seemed the place to find them. If they existed.

A girl in novice white appeared ahead on the path, striding purposefully toward him. Wrapped in her own thoughts, she did not see him at first. When she came close enough for him to make out her big, dark eyes and the way her hair was braided, he grinned suddenly. He knew this girl—memory drifting up from shrouded depths—though he would never have expected to find her here. He had never expected to see her again at all. He grinned to himself. Good luck to balance bad. As he remembered, she had quite an eye for the boys.

“Else,” he called to her. “Else Grinwell. You remember me, don’t you? Mat Cauthon. A friend and I visited your father’s farm. Remember? Have you decided to become Aes Sedai, then?”

She stopped short, staring at him. “What are you doing up and out?” she said coldly.

“You know about that, do you?” He moved closer to her, but she stepped back, keeping her distance. He stopped. “It’s not catching. I was Healed, Else.” Those large, dark eyes seemed more knowing than he remembered, and not nearly so warm, but he supposed studying to be an Aes Sedai could do that. “What is the matter, Else? You look like you don’t know me.”

“I know you,” she said. Her manner was not as he remembered, either; he thought she could give Elayne lessons now. “I have . . . work to be about. Let me by.”

He grimaced. The path was broad enough for six to walk abreast without crowding. “I told you it isn’t catching.”

“Let me by!”

Muttering to himself, he stepped to one edge of the gravel. She went past him along the other side, watching to make sure he did not come closer. Once by, she quickened her steps, glancing over her shoulder at him until she was out of sight around a bend.

Wanted to make sure I didn’t follow her, he thought sourly. First the guardsmen, and now Else. My luck is not in, today.

He started off again, and soon heard a ferocious clatter from one side ahead, like dozens of sticks being beat together. Curious, he turned off toward it, into the trees.

A little way brought him to a large expanse of bare ground, the earth beaten hard, at least fifty paces across and nearly twice as long. At intervals around it under the trees stood wooden stands holding quarterstaffs, and practice swords made of strips of wood bound loosely together, and a few real swords and axes and spears.

Spaced across the open ground, pairs of men, most stripped to the waist, flailed at each other with more practice swords. Some moved so smoothly it almost seemed they danced with one another, flowing from stance to stance, stroke to counterstroke in continuous motion. There was nothing quickly apparent aside from skill to mark them from the others, but Mat was sure he was watching Warders.

Those who did not move so smoothly were all younger, each pair under the watchful eyes of an older man who seemed to radiate a dangerous grace even standing still. Warders and students, Mat decided.

He was not the only audience. Not ten paces from him, half a dozen women with ageless Aes Sedai faces and as many more in the banded white dresses of the Accepted stood watching one pair of students, bare to the waist and slick with sweat, under the guidance of a Warder shaped much like a block of stone. The Warder used a short-stemmed pipe in one hand, trailing tabac smoke, to direct his pupils.

Sitting down cross-legged under a leatherleaf, Mat rooted three large pebbles out of the ground and began to juggle them idly. He did not feel weak, exactly, but it was good to sit. If there was a way out of the Tower grounds, it would not go away while he took a short rest.

Before he had been there five minutes he knew who it was the Aes Sedai and Accepted were watching. One of the blocky Warder’s pupils was a tall, lithe young man who moved like a cat. And almost as pretty as a girl, Mat thought wryly. Every woman was staring at the tall fellow with sparkling eyes, even the Aes Sedai.

The tall man handled his practice sword almost as deftly as the Warders, now and then earning an approving gravelly comment from his teacher. It was not that his opponent, a youth more Mat’s age, with red-gold hair, was unskilled. Far from it, as much as Mat could see, though he had never claimed to know anything about swords. The golden-haired man met every lightning attack, turning it away before the bound strips could strike him, and even launched an occasional attack of his own. But the handsome fellow countered those attacks and flowed back into his own in the space of a heartbeat.

Mat shifted the pebbles to one hand, but kept them spinning in the air. He did not think he would care to face either of them. Certainly not with a sword.

“Break!” The Warder’s voice sounded like rocks emptying out of a bucket. Chests heaving, the two men let their practice swords fall to their sides. Sweat matte

d their hair. “You can rest till I finish my pipe. But rest fast; I am almost in the dottle.”

Now that they had stopped dancing about, Mat got a good look at the youth with the red-gold hair and let the pebbles drop. Burn me, I’ll bet my whole purse that’s Elayne’s brother. And the other one’s Galad, or I’ll eat my boots. On the journey from Toman Head it had seemed half of Elayne’s conversation had been of Gawyn’s virtues and Galad’s vices. Oh, Gawyn had some vices according to Elayne, but they were small; to Mat they sounded like the sort of things no one but a sister would consider vices at all. As for Galad, once Elayne was pinned down, he sounded like what every mother said she wanted her son to be. Mat did not think he wanted to spend much time in Galad’s company. Egwene blushed whenever Galad was mentioned, though she seemed to think no one noticed.

A ripple seemed to pass through the watching women when Gawyn and Galad stopped, and they appeared on the point of stepping forward almost as one. But Gawyn caught sight of Mat, said something quietly to Galad, and the two of them walked by the women. The Aes Sedai and Accepted turned to follow with their eyes. Mat scrambled to his feet as the pair approached.

“You are Mat Cauthon, are you not?” Gawyn said with a grin. “I was sure I recognized you from Egwene’s description. And Elayne’s. I understand you were sick. Are you better now?”

“I’m fine,” Mat said. He wondered if he was supposed to call Gawyn “my Lord” or something of the sort. He had refused to call Elayne “my Lady”—not that she had demanded it, actually—and he decided he would not do her brother better.

“Did you come to the practice yard to learn the sword?” Galad asked.

Mat shook his head. “I was only out walking. I don’t know much about swords. I think I’ll put my trust in a good bow, or a good quarterstaff. I know how to use those.”

“If you spend much time around Nynaeve,” Galad said, “you’ll need bow, quarterstaff, and sword to protect yourself. And I don’t know whether that would be enough.”