Crossroads of Twilight (97 page)

“Toy doesn’t mean to be rude,” Tuon murmured in that slow honey drawl. “He just has never been trained in manners. But it is late, Master Charin; time for Olver to be in bed. Perhaps you will escort him to his tent? We’ll play again another time, Olver. Would you like me to teach you to play stones?”

Olver most emphatically would. He almost wriggled, saying so. The boy liked anything that gave him a chance to smile at a woman, not to mention a chance to say things that should have gotten him slapped till his ears swelled up bigger than they already were. If Mat ever found out which of his “uncles” was teaching him that . . . But the lad gathered the pieces of his game and carefully rolled up the line-marked cloth without a second urging. He even made a very good leg, thanking the High Lady, before letting Noal lead him from the wagon. Mat nodded approvingly. He had taught the boy how to make a leg, but the boy usually added a leer for a pretty woman. If he ever found out who . . .

“You have a reason for interrupting me, Toy?” Tuon said in cool tones. “It
is
late, and I was thinking of going to sleep.”

He made a leg and gave her his best smile. He could be polite even if she was not. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. These wagons are uncomfortable, on the road. And I know you aren’t happy with the clothes I could find you. I thought this might make you feel a little better.” Fishing the leather bag from his pocket, he presented it with a flourish. Women always liked that little extra flourish.

Selucia tensed, blue eyes sharpening, but Tuon waggled her slim fingers
and the bosomy maid subsided. A little. Mat liked feisty women, by and large, but if she ruined this, he was going to paddle her bottom. He hung on to his smile with an effort, and even managed to ratchet it up a notch.

Tuon turned the bag over her hands several times before untying the drawstrings and spilling what it contained into her lap, a heavy necklace of gold and carved amber. An expensive piece, and Seanchan work to boot. He was proud of finding the thing. It had been the property of an acrobat, who had it from a Seanchan officer whose fancy she caught, but she had been willing to sell now that her officer was left behind. It did not suit her skin, whatever that meant. He smiled and waited. Jewels always softened a woman’s heart.

No one’s reaction was quite what he expected, though. Tuon lifted the necklace in front of her face with both hands, studying it as if she had never seen such a thing before. Selucia’s lip curled in a sneer. Setalle set her embroidery down on her knees and looked at him, the large golden hoops in her ears swaying as she shook her head.

Abruptly, Tuon thrust the necklace back over her shoulder toward Selucia. “It does not suit me,” she said. “Would you like it, Selucia?” Mat’s smile slipped a little.

The cream-skinned woman took the necklace between thumb and forefinger, as if holding a dead rat by the tail. “A piece for a shea dancer to wear with her veil,” she said wryly. With a twist of her wrist, she hurled the necklace at Egeanin, snapping, “Put it on!” Egeanin caught the thing just before it hit her face. Mat’s smile slid the rest of the way off his.

He expected an explosion, but Egeanin immediately fumbled open the clasp and pushed her heavy wig back to fasten it behind her neck. Her face might have been molded from snow for all the expression on it.

“Turn,” Selucia commanded, and it was a command, without any doubt. “Let me see.”

Egeanin turned. Stiff as a fence post, but she turned.

Setalle looked at her intently, with a puzzled shake of her head, then gave Mat a different head shake before returning to her embroidery. Women had as many ways of shaking their heads as they had looks. This one said he was a fool, and if he did not catch the finer nuances, he was just as glad. He did not think he would have liked them. Burn him, he bought a necklace for Tuon, who gave it to Selucia right in front of him, and now it was
Egeanin’
s?

“She came for a new name,” Tuon said musingly. “What does she call herself?”

“Leilwin,” Selucia replied. “A fitting name for a shea dancer. Leilwin Shipless, perhaps?”

Tuon nodded. “Leilwin Shipless.”

Egeanin jerked as though every word was a slap. “May I withdraw?” she asked stiffly, bending in sharp bow.

“If you want to go, then go,” Mat growled. Bringing her in the first place had not been the best notion he ever had, but maybe he could recover a little without her.

Eyes locked on the floorboards, Egeanin sank to her knees. “Please, may I withdraw?”

Tuon sat there straight-backed on the floor staring through the taller woman, clearly not seeing her at all. Selucia eyed Egeanin up and down, pursing her lips. Setalle pushed her needle through the cloth stretched on her hoop. No one so much as glanced at Mat.

Egeanin dropped to her face, and Mat bit back a startled oath when she kissed the floor. “Please,” she said hoarsely, “I beg leave to withdraw.”

“You will go, Leilwin,” Selucia said, cold as a queen speaking to a chickenthief, “and you will not let me see your face again unless it is covered by a shea dancer’s veil.”

Egeanin scrambled backward on hands and knees and all but tumbled out the door, so fast that Mat was left gaping.

With an effort, he managed to regain his smile. There seemed little point in staying, but a man could make a graceful exit. “Well, I suppose—”

Tuon wriggled her fingers again, still not looking at him, and Selucia cut him short. “The High Lady is weary, Toy. You have her permission to go.”

“Look, my name is Mat,” he said. “An easy name. A simple name. Mat.” Tuon might as well have been a porcelain doll in truth for all the response she made.

Setalle set down her embroidery, though, and rose with one hand resting lightly on the hilt of the curved dagger stuck behind her belt. “Young man, if you think you’re going to lounge about till you get to see us readying for bed, you’re sadly mistaken.” She smiled saying it, but she did have her hand on her knife, and she was Ebou Dari enough to stick a man on a whim. Tuon remained an unmoving doll, a queen on her throne somehow mistakenly dressed in ill-fitting clothes. Mat left.

Egeanin was leaning on one hand against the side of the wagon, her head hanging. Her other hand was gripping the necklace around her throat. Harnan moved, a little way off in the darkness, just to show he was still
there. A wise man, to keep clear of Egeanin just then. Mat was too irritated for wisdom.

“What was that about?” he demanded. “You don’t have to go on your knees to Tuon anymore. And Selucia? She’s a bloody lady’s maid! I don’t know anybody who’d jump for his queen the way you jumped for her.”

Egeanin’s hard face was shadowed, but her voice was haggard. “The High Lady is . . . who she is. Selucia is her
so’jhin
. No one of the low Blood would dare meet her
so’jhin’
s eyes, and maybe not the High Blood, either.” The clasp broke with a metallic snap as she jerked the necklace free. “But then, I’m not of any Blood, now.” Rearing back, she put her whole body into throwing the necklace as far into the night as she could.

Mat opened his mouth. He could have bought a dozen prime horses with what he paid for that thing and had coin left. He closed it again without saying a word. He might not always be wise, but he was wise enough to know when a woman really might try to stick a knife in him. He knew another thing, as well. If Egeanin behaved this way around Tuon and Selucia, then he had better make sure the
sul’dam
were kept clear. The Light only knew what
they
would do if Tuon started wiggling her fingers.

That left him with a job of work to do. Well, he hated work, but those old memories had his head stuffed full of battles. He hated battle, too—a man could get killed dead!—but it was better than work. Strategy and tactics. Learn the ground, learn your enemy, and if you could not win one way, you found another.

The next night he returned to the purple wagon, alone, and once Olver had finished his lesson in stones from Tuon, Mat inveigled his way into a game. At first, sitting on the floor across the board from the dark little woman, he was not sure whether to win or lose. Some women liked to win every time, but the man had to make her work for it. Some liked the man to win, or at least more often than he lost. Neither made any sense to him—he liked to win, and the easier, the better—but that was how it was. While he was dithering, Tuon took matters out of his hands. Halfway through the game, he realized she had him in a trap he could not get out of. Her white stones were cutting off his black everywhere. It was a clean and resounding win for her.

“You don’t play very well, Toy,” she said mockingly. Despite the tone, her big, liquid eyes considered him coolly, weighing and measuring. A man could drown in eyes like that.

He smiled and made his goodbyes before there could be any thought of kicking him out. Strategy. Think to the future. Do the unexpected. The
next night, he brought a small red paper flower made by one of the show’s seamstresses. And presented it to a startled Selucia. Setalle’s eyebrows rose, and even Tuon seemed taken aback. Tactics. Put your opponent off balance. Come to think, women and battles were not that different. Both wrapped a man in fog and could him kill him without trying. If he was careless.

Every night he visited the purple wagon for a game of stones under Setalle and Selucia’s watchful eyes, and he concentrated on the crosshatched board. Tuon was very good, and it was all too easy to find himself watching the way she placed her stones, with her fingers bent back in a curiously graceful way. She was used to having fingernails an inch long and taking care not to break them. Her eyes were a danger, too. You needed a clear head in stones or battle, and her gaze seemed to reach inside his skull. He buckled down to the game, though, and managed to win four of the next seven, with one draw. Tuon was satisfied when she won and determined when she lost, with none of the temper tantrums he had feared, no scathing comments aside from insisting on calling him Toy, not very much of that icy regal hauteur, as long as they were playing anyway. She purely enjoyed the game, laughing exultantly when she pulled him into a trap, laughing in delight when he managed a clever placement to escape. She seemed a different woman once she lost herself in the stones board.

A flower sewn from blue linen followed the paper blossom, and two days later, a pink silk bloom that spread out as wide as a woman’s palm. Both handed to Selucia. Her blue eyes increasingly set in a suspicious frown when they rested on him, but Tuon told her she could keep the flowers, and she stored them away carefully, folded in a linen cloth. He let three days pass without a present, then brought a little cluster of red silk rosebuds, complete with short stems and glistening leaves that looked as real as nature, only more perfect. He had asked the seamstress to make it on the day he bought that first paper flower.

Selucia took a step, reaching to accept the rosebuds with a curl to her lip, but he sat down and put the flowers beside the board, a little toward Tuon. He said nothing, just left it lying there. She never so much as glanced at it. Dipping into the small leather bags that held the stones, he plucked one from each and shuffled them between his hands till even he was unsure which was where, then offered his closed fists. Tuon hesitated a moment, studying his face with no expression, then tapped his left hand. He opened it to display the glistening white stone.

“I’ve changed my mind, Toy,” she murmured, placing the white stone
carefully on the intersection of two lines near the center of the board. “You play very well.”

Mat blinked. Could she know what he was up to? Selucia was standing at Tuon’s back, seemingly absorbed in the almost empty board. Setalle turned a page in her book and shifted a little to get a better light. Of course not. She was talking about stones. If she even suspected his real game, she would toss him out on his ear. Any woman would. It had to be the stones.

That was the night they played to a draw, with each of them controlling half the board in irregular pools and patches. In truth, she won a victory.

“I have kept my word, Toy,” she drawled as he was replacing the stones in the bags. “No attempts to escape, no attempts at betrayal. This is confining.” She gestured around at the interior of the wagon. “I wish to take walks. After dark will do. You may accompany me.” Her eyes touched the cluster of rosebuds, then rose to his face. “To make sure I don’t run away.”

Setalle marked her place with a slim finger and looked at him. Selucia stood behind Tuon and looked at him. The woman
had
kept her word, mad as that seemed. Walks after dark, with most of the showfolk already in their beds, would do no harm, not with him there to make sure. So why did he feel that he was losing control of the situation?

Tuon agreed to go cloaked and hooded, which was something of a relief. The black hair was growing back in on her shaved scalp, but so far it was little more than long fuzz, and unlike Selucia, who very likely slept in her head scarf, Tuon had shown no inclination to cover her head. A child-sized woman with hair shorter than any man not going bald would have been remarked even in the night. Setalle and Selucia always followed at a little distance in the darkness, the lady’s maid to keep a protective eye on her mistress and Setalle to keep an eye on the maid. At least, he thought that was how it was. Sometimes it seemed they were both watching him. The two of them were awfully friendly for guard and prisoner. He had overheard Setalle cautioning Selucia that he was a rogue with women, a fine thing for her to be saying! And Selucia had calmly replied that her lady would break his arms if he showed any disrespect, just as if they were not prisoners at all.

He thought to use these walks to learn a little more about Tuon—she did not talk much over a stones board—but she had a way of ignoring what he asked or deflecting the subject, usually to him.

“The Two Rivers is all forests and farms,” he said as they strolled along
the main street of the show. Clouds hid the moon, and the colorful wagons were indistinguishable dark shapes, the performers’ platforms lining the street merely shadows. “Everybody grows tabac and raises sheep. My father breeds cows, too, and trades horses, but mostly, it’s tabac and sheep from one end to the other.”