“You need somebody to watch your back,” he told Mat darkly. “She cannot be trusted.” There was no need for him to name Aviendha.
Olver had no interest in playing with the children in the village, so Mat had to endure the stares and smiles as the boy trailed him around Salidar, doing his best to imitate a Warder’s flowing stride and looking nine ways at once for Aviendha. Who was still nowhere to be seen, any more than Elayne or Nynaeve. And “the Amyrlin” was still busy. Thom and Juilin were also “busy.” Vanin managed to hear a few things, but nothing that made Mat happy. If Nynaeve had really Healed Siuan and Leane, she would be worse than ever; she had always had a large opinion of herself, and after doing what could not be done, her head would be bigger than a dewmelon. Yet that was the mildest of it. Logain and the Red Ajah made Mat wince. That sounded the sort of thing no Aes Sedai would forgive. If Gareth Bryne was leading their army, it was no mob of farmers and street sweepings with a few Warders for stiffening. Add in the foodstuffs Vanin saw being wrapped or stuck in barrels for travel, and it sounded like trouble. The worst kind of trouble Mat could imagine, short of finding one of the Forsaken across the table from him and a dozen Trollocs coming in the door. None of it made them any less fools; it made them very dangerous fools. Thom and his “help them make it work.” If the gleeman ever came out of hiding, maybe he could pull a “how” out of one of his tales.
In the evening Myrelle spoke to him again about becoming a Warder, and went a little tight around the eyes when he told her hers would be the fifth offer he had refused since sunup. He was not sure she believed him; she flounced off in as much of a huff as he had ever seen from an Aes Sedai. It was true, though. The very first, while he was still trying to eat breakfast, had been the very Delana that Halima worked for, a stout pale-haired woman with watery blue eyes who came close to trying to bully him into it. That night he stayed away from the dancing and went to sleep with music and laughter in his ears; they sounded sour this time.
It was midafternoon of his second full day in Salidar when a girl in a white dress, pretty and freckled and working very hard at an icy dignity that she almost reached, found him with a summons, and it was exactly that. “You will present yourself before the Amyrlin Seat at once.” Full stop, and not another word. Mat motioned her to lead; it seemed proper, and she seemed to like doing it.
They were all there in that room in the Little Tower, Egwene and Nynaeve, Elayne and Aviendha, though he had to look twice to recognize the Aiel woman in a blue dress of fine wool with a lace collar and cuffs. At least neither Aviendha nor Elayne was trying to strangle the other, but they were both stony-faced. Which made them no different from Egwene and Nynaeve. Not a flicker of expression in the four, and all eyes on him. He managed to hold his tongue while Egwene laid out his choices as she saw them, sitting behind the table with that striped stole draped on her shoulders.
“Should you think you can do neither,” she finished, “remember that I can have you tied to your horse and returned to your Band of the Hand. There is no room in Salidar for slackers and malingerers. I will not allow it. For you, Mat, it’s either Ebou Dar with Elayne and Nynaeve, or off to see who you can impress with flags and banners.”
Which really left no choice at all, of course. When he said so, nobody’s expression changed. If anything, Nynaeve grew more wooden. And Egwene just said, “I’m glad that is done, Mat. Now, I have a thousand things to do. I will try to see you before you go.” Dismissed like a stableboy; the Amyrlin was busy. The least she could have done was toss him a copper.
That was why Mat’s third morning in Salidar found him just outside it, on the cleared ground between village and forest. “They may stay right here till I get back,” he told Talmanes, glancing over his shoulder toward the houses. They would be coming soon, and he did not want any of this getting back to Egwene. She would try to drive a spike through it if she could. “I hope so, anyway. If they move, follow wherever they go, but never close enough to frighten. And if a young woman named Egwene shows up, you ask no questions, just take her and ride to Caemlyn if you have to cut a hole through Gareth Bryne.” Of course, they might be intending to go to Caemlyn; there might be a chance. He was afraid it was Tar Valon they were aiming at, though; Tar Valon and the headsman’s axe. “And take Nerim with you.”
Talmanes shook his head. “If you are taking Nalesean, I will be offended if you do not let me send my man to care for your things.” Mat wished Talmanes would smile once in a while; it would help to know when he was serious. He certainly sounded serious.
Nerim stood a little distance off, with Pips, and his own short plump brown mare towering over him, and two packhorses with wicker panniers stuffed to the top. Nalesean’s man, a stout fellow named Lopin, only led one pack animal in addition to his hammer-nosed gelding and Nalesean’s tall black stallion.
That was not all the party. No one seemed ready to tell him more than where to be and when, but in the middle of yet another talk about becoming a Warder, Myrelle had let him know it was now all right for him to communicate with the Band so long as he did not try to bring them nearer Salidar. That had been the last thing in his mind. Vanin was there this morning because he could probably spy out the lay of the land anywhere, and a dozen cavalrymen chosen from the Band for heavy shoulders and having kept order well as Redarms back in Maerone. From what Nalesean said, quick fists and cudgels should be able to quell any inconvenience Nynaeve and Elayne got into, at least long enough to spirit them away. Last of all was Olver on the gray he had named Wind, which the leggy animal might even deserve. Olver had been no hard choice. The Band might well find trouble if they actually had to follow that lot of madwomen. Maybe not trouble with Bryne, but enough nobles would bristle at two armies crossing their lands to provide nightly attempts at the horses and arrows flying from every second thicket. Any city had to be safer than that for a boy.
Still no sign of any Aes Sedai, and the sun beginning to bake above the treetops.
Mat jerked his hat down irritably. “Nalesean knows Ebou Dar, Talmanes.” The Tairen grinned through his sweat and nodded. Talmanes’ face did not change. “Oh, all right. Nerim comes.” Talmanes inclined his head; maybe he had been serious.
At last there was a stir in the village, a group of women leading horses. Not just Elayne and Nynaeve, though he had not expected anyone else. Aviendha wore a gray riding dress, but she looked at her lean dun mare more than doubtfully. That Hunter with the golden braid showed more confidence with a heavy-haunched mouse-colored gelding and seemed to be trying to convince Aviendha of something about her mare. What was either of them doing there? There were two Aes Sedai, as well—other Aes Sedai besides Nynaeve and Elayne, he supposed he should say—slender women with white hair, which he had not seen on an Aes Sedai before. An old fellow trailed after them with a packhorse in addition to his own mount, a stringy man without much hair and that gray. It took Mat a moment to realize he was a Warder, with one of those color-shifting cloaks hanging down his back. That was what being a Warder meant; Aes Sedai worked you till your hair fell out, then probably worked your
