The Fires of Heaven (125 page)

“The peddler’s wagons are still there. I do not know about . . . ships.” She pronounced the unfamiliar word awkwardly. “Why do you wish to know?”

“I’m going away for a while. For Rand,” he added hastily. Her face was too still. “I’d take you with me if I could, but you wouldn’t want to leave the Maidens.” A ship, or his own horse? And to where? That was the question. He could reach Tear quicker on a fast rivership than on Pips. If he was fool enough to make that choice. If he had any choice.

Melindhra’s mouth tightened briefly. To his surprise, it was not over his leaving her. “So you slip back into Rand al’Thor’s shadow. You have gained much honor of your own, among the Aiel as well as the wetlanders. Your honor, not honor reflected from the
Car’a’carn.
”

“He can keep his honor and take it to Caemlyn or the Pit of Doom for
all I care. Don’t you worry. I’ll find plenty of honor. I will write you about it. From Tear.” Tear? He would never escape Rand, or Aes Sedai, if he made that choice.

“He is going to Caemlyn?”

Mat suppressed a wince. He was not supposed to say anything about that. Whatever he decided about the rest, he could do that much. “Just a name pulled from my pocket. Because of the Andorans down south, I suppose. I wouldn’t know where he’s—”

He had no warning. One instant she was just standing there, the next her foot was in his middle, driving out breath, doubling him over. Eyes bulging, he fought to keep his feet, to straighten, to think. Why? She spun like a dancer, backwards, and her other foot against the side of his head drove him staggering. Without a pause she leaped straight up, kicking out, her soft bootsole taking him hard flush in the face.

When his eyes cleared enough to see, he was on his back, halfway across the room from her. He could feel blood on his face. His head seemed stuffed with wool, and the room seemed to rock. That was when he saw her take a knife from her pouch, slim blade not much longer than her hand, gleaming in the lamplight. Winding the
shoufa
around her head in a quick motion, she raised the black veil across her face.

Groggily, he moved by instinct, without thinking. The blade came out of his sleeve, left his hand as if floating through jelly. Only then did he realize what he had done and stretch out desperately, trying to snatch it back.

The hilt bloomed between her breasts. She sagged to her knees, fell back.

Mat pushed himself up, wavering on hands and knees. He could not have stood if his life hung on it, but he crawled to her, muttering wildly. “Why? Why?”

He jerked her veil aside, and those clear blue eyes focused on him. She even smiled. He did not look at the knife-hilt. His knife-hilt. He knew where the heart was in a body. “Why, Melindhra?”

“I always liked your pretty eyes,” she breathed, so faint he had to strain to hear.

“Why?”

“Some oaths are more important than others, Mat Cauthon.” The slim-bladed knife came up swiftly, all her remaining strength behind it, the point driving the dangling foxhead against his chest. The silver medallion should not have stopped a blade, but the angle was just that much wrong,
and some hidden flaw in the steel snapped the blade off right at the hilt just as he caught her hand. “You have the Great Lord’s own luck.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Burn you, why?” He knew there would be no answer. Her mouth remained open, as though she might say something more, but her eyes were already beginning to glaze.

He started to pull the veil back up, to cover her face and staring eyes, then let his hand fall. He had killed men, and Trollocs, but never a woman. Never a woman until now. Women were glad when he came into their lives. It was not boasting. Women smiled for him; even when he left them, they smiled as if they would welcome him back. That was all he ever really wanted from women; a smile, a dance, a kiss, and to be remembered fondly.

He realized his thoughts were babbling. Jerking the bladeless hilt from Melindhra’s hand—it was gold-mounted jade, inlaid with golden bees—he hurled it into the marble fireplace, hoping it shattered. He wanted to cry, to howl.
I don’t kill women! I kiss them, I don’t . . . !

He had to think clearly. Why? Not because he was leaving, surely. She had hardly reacted to that. Besides, she thought he was chasing off after honor; she had always approved of that. Something she had said tugged at him, and then came back, with a chill. The Great Lord’s own luck. He had heard it differently, many times. The Dark One’s own luck. “A Darkfriend.” A question, or certainty? He wished the thought made what he had done easier in his mind. He was going to carry her face to his grave.

Tear. He had as much as told her he was going to Tear. The dagger. Golden bees in jade. He would wager there were nine without looking. Nine golden bees on a field of green. The sign of Illian. Where Sammael ruled. Could Sammael be afraid of him? How could Sammael even know? It was only a few hours since Rand had asked Mat—told him—and he was not sure himself what he was going to do. Maybe Sammael would not take the chance? Right. One of the Forsaken, afraid of a gambler, however stuffed with other men’s battle knowledge his head might be. That was ridiculous.

It all came down to this. He could believe that Melindhra had not been a Darkfriend, that she had decided to kill him on a whim, that there was no connection between a jade hilt inlaid with golden bees and his maybe going to Tear to lead an army against Illian. He could if he was a bullgoose fool. Better to err toward caution, he always said. One of the Forsaken had noticed him. He certainly was not standing in Rand’s shadow now.

Sliding across the floor, he sat with his chin on his knees and his back against the door, staring at Melindhra’s face, trying to decide what to do. When a servant knocked with his supper, he shouted for her to go away. Food was the last thing he wanted. What was he going to do? He wished he did not feel the dice spinning in his head.

L
aying down his razor, Rand wiped the last flecks of lather from his face and began doing up his shirtlaces. Early morning sunlight streamed through the square arches leading to his bedchamber balcony; the heavy winter curtains had been hung, but tied back to let in a breath of air. He would be presentable when he killed Rahvin. The thought loosed a bubble of rage, floating up out of his belly. He forced it back down. He would be presentable, and calm. Cold. No mistakes.

When he turned from the gilt-framed mirror, Aviendha was sitting on her rolled-up pallet against the wall, beneath a hanging portraying impossibly high gold towers. He had offered to have another bed put in the room, but she claimed mattresses were too soft for sleeping. She was watching him intently, her shift forgotten in one hand. He had been careful about not looking around from his shaving to give her time to dress, but aside from her white stockings, she wore not a stitch.

“I would not shame you in front of other men,” she said abruptly.

“Shame me? What do you mean?”

She stood in one smooth motion, surprisingly pale where the sun had not touched her, slender and hard-muscled, yet with roundnesses and softnesses that haunted his dreams. This was the first time he had allowed himself to look at her openly when she flaunted herself, but she did not seem aware of it. Those big blue-green eyes were fixed on his. “I did not ask
Sulin to include Enaila or Somara or Lamelle that first day. Nor did I ask them to watch you, or to do anything if you faltered. That was only their own concern.”

“You just let me think they would try to carry me off like a babe if I wavered. A fine distinction.”

His wry tone flew right past her. “It made you take care when you needed to.”

“I see,” he said dryly. “Well, I thank you for the promise not to shame me, in any case.”

She smiled. “I did not say that, Rand al’Thor. I said not in front of other men. If you require it, for your own good. . . .” Her smile deepened.

“Do you mean to come like that?” He gestured irritably, taking her in from head to toe.

She had never shown the slightest embarrassment at being naked in front of him—far from it—but she glanced down at herself, then at him looking at her, and her face reddened. Suddenly she was surrounded by a flurry of dark brown wool and white
algode,
flying into her clothes so quickly that he could have thought she was channeling them on. “Have you arranged everything?” came from the middle of it. “Have you spoken to the Wise Ones? You were gone late last night. Who else comes with us? How many can you take? No wetlanders, I hope. You cannot trust them. Especially not treekillers. Can you truly carry us to Caemlyn in one hour? Is it like what I did the night . . . ? I mean to say, how will you do it? I cannot like trusting myself to things I do not know and cannot understand.”

“Everything is arranged, Aviendha.” Why was she babbling? And refusing to meet his eye? He had met with Rhuarc and the other chiefs still near the city; they had not truly liked his plan, but they saw it in terms of
ji’e’toh,
and none thought he had any other choice. They discussed it quickly, agreed, and then turned the talk to other things. Nothing to do with Forsaken or Illian or battle at all. Women, hunting, whether Cairhienin brandy could compare with
oosquai,
or wetlander tabac with what was grown in the Waste. For an hour he had almost forgotten what lay ahead. He hoped that the Prophecy of Rhuidean was somehow wrong, that he would not destroy those men. The Wise Ones had come to him, a delegation of more than fifty, alerted by Aviendha herself and led by Amys and Melaine and Bair; or maybe by Sorilea. With Wise Ones often it was difficult to tell who was in charge. They had not come to talk him out of anything—
ji’e’toh
again—but to make sure he understood that his obligation to Elayne did not outweigh that to the Aiel, and they had kept him in the meeting room until
they were satisfied. It was that or lift them bodily out of his way to reach the door. When they wanted to be, those women were as good at ignoring shouts as Egwene had become. “We’ll find out how many I can take when I try. Only Aiel.” With luck, Meilan and Maringil and the rest would not know he was gone until after he went. If the Tower had spies in Cairhien, maybe the Forsaken did as well, and how could he trust people to keep secrets who could not see the sun rise without trying to use the fact in
Daes Dae’mar
?

By the time he had shrugged into a red coat embroidered in gold, a fine wool eminently suitable for a Royal Palace, in Caemlyn or Cairhien—the thought amused him, in a bleak sort of way—by that time, Aviendha was almost dressed. It was a wonder to him how she could scramble into her clothes so quickly and yet have nothing out of place. “A woman came last night while you were away.”

Light!
He had forgotten Colavaere. “What did you do?”

She paused in tying the laces of her blouse, eyes trying to bore a hole in his head, but her tone was offhand. “I took her back to her own chambers, where we talked for a time. There will be no more treekiller flipskirts scratching at your tent flap, Rand al’Thor.”

“The very end I aimed at, Aviendha. Light! Did you hurt her badly? You can’t go around beating ladies. These people cause me enough trouble without you bringing more.”

She sniffed loudly and went back to her laces. “Ladies! A woman is a woman, Rand al’Thor. Unless she is a Wise One,” she added judiciously. “That one sits lightly this morning, but her bruises can be hidden, and with a day’s rest she will be able to leave her chambers. And she knows the right of matters, now. I told her if she caused you any bother again—
any
bother—I would come talk to her once more. A much longer talk. She will do as you say, when you say it. Her example will teach others. The treekillers understand nothing else.”

Rand sighed. Not a method he would or could have chosen, but it might actually work. Or it might only make Colavaere and the others more sly from now on. Aviendha might not be worried about repercussions against herself—in fact, he would be surprised if she had even considered the possibility—but a woman who was High Seat of a powerful House was not the same as a young noblewoman of lesser rank. Whatever the effect for him, Aviendha could find herself set upon in some dark hallway and given ten times what she had given Colavaere, if not worse. “Next time, let me handle matters my way. I am the
Car’a’carn,
remember.”