“In a moment, Thom. In a moment. I want to set it right.” Gill clamped his teeth around his pipestem and frowned at the board, puffing up smoke.
“So the Queen has an advisor who doesn't like Tar Valon,” Mat said. “Well, that explains the way the Guards acted when I said I came from there.”
“If you told them that,” Gill said, “you might be lucky you escaped without any broken bones. If it was any of the new men, at least. Gaebril has replaced half the Guards in Caemlyn with men of his choosing, and that is no mean feat considering how short a time he has been here. Some say Morgase may marry him.”
He started to put a stone on the board, then took it back with a shake of his head. “Times change. People change. Too much change for me. I suppose I am growing old.”
“You seem to mean us both to grow old before you place a stone,” Thom muttered. The cat stretched and slinked across the table for him to stroke her back. “Talking all day will not let you find a good move. Why don't you just admit defeat, Basel?”
“I never admit defeat,” Gill said stoutly. “I'll beat you yet, Thom.” He set a white stone on the intersection of two lines. “You will see.” Thom snorted.
From what Mat could see of the board, he did not think Gill had much chance. “I will just have to avoid the Guards and put Elayne's letter right into Morgase's hands.” Especially if they're all like that fat fool. Light, I wonder if he's told them all I'm a Darkfriend?
“You did not deliver it?” Thom barked. “I thought you were anxious to be rid of the thing.”
“You have a letter from the DaughterHeir?” Gill exclaimed. “Thom, why did you not tell me?”
“I am sorry, Basel,” the gleeman muttered. He glared at Mat from under those bushy eyebrows and blew out his mustaches. “The boy thinks someone is out to kill him over it, so I thought I'd let him say what he wanted and no more. Seems he does not care any longer.”
“What kind of letter?” Gill asked. “Is she coming home? And Lord Gawyn? I hope they are. I've actually heard talk of war with Tar Valon, as if anyone could be fool enough to go to war with Aes Sedai. If you ask me, it is all one with those mad rumors we've heard about Aes Sedai supporting a false Dragon somewhere in the, west, and using the Power as a weapon. Not that I can see why that would make anyone want to go to war with them; just the opposite.”
“Are you married to Coline?” Mat asked, and Master Gill gave a start.
“The Light preserve me from that! You would think the inn was hers now. If she was my wife...! What does that have to do with the DaughterHeir's letter?”
“Nothing,” Mat said, “but you went on so long, I thought you must have forgotten your own questions.” Gill made a choking sound, and Thom barked a laugh. Mat hurried on before the innkeeper could speak. “The letter is sealed; Elayne did not tell me what it says.” Thom was eyeing him sideways and stroking his mustaches. Does he think I'll admit we opened the thing? “But I don't think she is coming home. She means to be Aes Sedai, if you ask me.” He told them about his attempt to deliver the letter, smoothing over a few edges they had no need to know about.
“The new men,” Gill said. “That officer sounds it, at least. I'll wager on it. No better than brigands, most of them, except the ones with a sly eye. You wait until this afternoon, lad, when the Guards on the gate will have changed. Say the DaughterHeir's name right out, and just in case the new fellow is one of Gaebril's men, too, duck your head a little. A knuckle to your forehead, and you'll have no trouble.”
“Burn me if I will. I pull wool and scratch gravel for nobody. Not to Morgase herself. This time, I'll not go near the Guards at all.” I would just as soon not know what word that fat fellow has spread. They stared at him as if he were mad.
“How under the Light,” Gill said, “do you mean to enter the Royal Palace without passing the Guards?” His eyes widened as if he were remembering something. “Light, you don't mean to... Lad, you'd need the Dark One's own luck to escape with your life!”
“What are you going on about now, Basel? Mat, what fool thing do you intend to try?”
“I am lucky, Master Gill,” Mat said. “You just have a good meal waiting when I come back.” As he stood, he picked up the dice cup and spun the dice out beside the stones board for luck. The calico cat leaped down, hissing at him with her back arched. The five spotted dice came to rest, each showing a single pip. The Dark One's Eyes.
“That's the best toss or the worst,” Gill said. “It depends on the game you are playing, doesn't it. Lad, I think you mean to play a dangerous game. Why don't you take that cup out into the common room and lose a few coppers? You look to me like a fellow who might like a little gamble. I will see the letter gets to the Palace safely.”
“Coline wants you to clean the drains,” Mat told him, and turned to Thom while the innkeeper was still blinking and muttering to himself. “It doesn't seem to make any odds whether I get an arrow in me trying to deliver that letter or a knife in my back waiting. It's six up, and a half dozen down. Just you have that meal waiting, Thom.” He tossed a gold mark on the table in front of Gill. “Have my things put in a room, innkeeper. If it takes more coin, you will have it. Be careful of the big roll; it frightens Thom something awful.”
As he stalked out, he heard Gill say to Thom, “I always thought that lad was a rascal. How does he come by gold?”
I always win, that's how, he thought grimly. I just have to win once more, and I'm done with Elayne, and that's the last of the White Tower for me. Just once more.
Chapter 46
(Lion Rampant)
A Message Out of the Shadow
Even as he returned to the Inner City on foot, Mat was far from certain that what he intended would actually work. It would, if what he had been told was true, but it was the truth of that he was not sure of. He avoided the oval plaza in front of the Palace, but wandered around the sides of the huge structure and its grounds, along streets that curved with the contours of the hills. The golden domes of the Palace glittered, mockingly out of reach. He had made his way almost all the way around, nearly back to the plaza, when he saw it. A steep slope thick with low flowers, rising from the street to a white wall of rough stone. Several leafy tree limbs stuck over the top of the wall, and he could see the tops of others beyond, in a garden of the Royal Palace.
A wall made to look like a cliff, he thought, and a garden on the other ride. Maybe Rand was telling the truth.
A casual look both ways showed him he had the curving street to himself for the moment. He would have to hurry; the curves did not allow him to see very far; someone could come along any moment. He scrambled up the slope on all fours, careless of how his boots ripped holes in the banks of red and white blossoms. The rough stone of the wall gave plenty of fingerholds, and ridges and knobs provided toeholds even for a man in boots.
Careless of them to make it so easy, he thought as he climbed. For a moment the climbing took him back home with Rand and Perrin, to a journey they had made beyond the Sand Hills, into the edge of the Mountains of Mist. When they returned to Emond's Field, they had all caught the fury from everyone who could lay hands on them — him worst of all; everyone assumed it had been his idea — but for three days they had climbed the cliffs, and slept under the sky, and eaten eggs filched from redcrests' nests, and plump, graywinged grouse fetched with an arrow, or a stone from a sling, and rabbits caught with snares, all the while laughing about how they were not afraid of the mountains' bad luck and how they might find a treasure. He had brought home an odd rock from that expedition, with the skull of a goodsized fish somehow pressed into it, and a long, white tail feather dropped by a snow eagle, and a piece of white stone as big as his hand that looked almost as if it had been carved into a man's ear. He thought it looked like an ear, even if Rand and Perrin did not, and Tam al'Thor had said it might be.