(Dice)
To Race the Shadow
From the small courtyard with its pool of fish, Tallanvor led Mat swiftly to the great court at the front of the Palace, behind the tall, gilded gates gleaming in the sun. It would be midday, soon. Mat felt an urge to be gone, a need to hurry. It was hard keeping his pace to the young officer's. Someone might wonder, if he started running, and maybe — just maybe — things had really been the way they seemed back there. Maybe Gaebril really did not suspect that he knew. Maybe. He remembered those nearly black eyes, seizing and holding like a pair of pitchfork tines through his head. Light, maybe. He forced himself to walk as if he had all the time in the world — Just a haybrain country lout staring at the rugs and the gold. Just a mudfoot who'd never think anyone might put a knife in his back — until Tallanvor let him through a sallyport in one of the gates, and followed him out.
The fat officer with the rat's eyes was still there with the Guards, and when he saw Mat his face went red again. Before he could open his mouth, though, Tallanvor spoke. “He has delivered a letter to the Queen from the DaughterHeir. Be glad, Elber, that neither Morgase nor Gaebril knows you tried to keep it from them. Lord Gaebril was most interested in the Lady Elayne's missive.”
Elber's face went from red to as white as his collar. He glared once at Mat, and scuttled back along the line of guardsmen, his beady eyes peering through the bars of their faceguards as if to determine whether any of them had seen his fear.
“Thank you,” Mat told Tallanvor, and meant it. He had forgotten all about the fat man until he was staring him in the face again. “Fare you well, Tallanvor.”
He started across the oval plaza, trying not to walk too fast, and was surprised when Tallanvor walked along. Light, is he Gaebril's man, or Morgase's? He was just beginning to feel an itch between his shoulder blades, as if a knife might be about to go in — He doesn't know, burn me! Gaebril doesn't suspect I know! — when the young officer finally spoke.
“Did you spend long in Tar Valon? In the White Tower? Long enough to learn anything of it?”
“I was only there three days,” Mat said cautiously. He would have made the time less — if he could have delivered the letter without admitting ever being in Tar Valon, he would have — but he did not think the man would believe he had gone all that way to see his sister and left the same day. What under the Light is he after? “I learned what I saw in that time. Nothing of any importance. They did not guide me around and tell me things. I was only there to see Else.”
“You must have heard something, man. Who is Sheriam? Does talking to her in her study mean anything?”
Mat shook his head vigorously to keep relief from showing on his face. “I don't know who she is,” he said truthfully. Perhaps he had heard Egwene, or perhaps Nynaeve, mention the name. An Aes Sedai, maybe? “Why should it mean anything?”
“I do not know,” Tallanvor said softly. “There is too much I do not know. Sometimes I think she is trying to say something...” He gave Mat a sharp look. “Are you a loyal Andorman, Thom Grinwell?”
“Of course I am.” Light, if I say that much more often, I may start believing it. “What about you? Do you serve Morgase and Gaebril loyally?”
Tallanvor gave him a look as hard as the dice's mercy. “I serve Morgase, Thom Grinwell. Her, I serve to the death. Fare you well!” He turned and strode back toward the Palace with a hand gripping his sword hilt.
Watching him go, Mat muttered to himself. “I will wager this” — he gave Gaebril's washleather purse a toss — “that Gaebril says the same.” Whatever games they played in the Palace, he wanted no place in any of them. And he meant to make sure Egwene and the others were out of them, too. Fool women! Now I have to keep their bacon from burning instead of looking after my own! He did not start to run until the streets hid him from the Palace.
When he came dashing into The Queen's Blessing, nothing very much had changed in the library. Thom and the innkeeper still sat over the stones board — a different game, he saw from the positions of the stones, but no better for Gill — and the calico cat was back on the table, washing herself. A tray holding their unlit pipes and the remains of a meal for two sat near the cat, and his belongings were gone from the armchair. Each man had a wine cup at his elbow.
“I will be leaving, Master Gill,” he said. “You can keep the coin and take a meal out of it. I'll stay long enough to eat, but then I am on the road to Tear.”
“What is your hurry, boy?” Thom seemed to be watching the cat more than the board. “We only just arrived here.”
“You delivered the Lady Elayne's letter, then?” the innkeeper said eagerly. “And kept your skin whole, it seems. Did you really climb over that wall like the other young man? No, that does not matter. Did the letter soothe Morgase? Do we still have to keep tiptoeing on eggs, man?”
“I suppose it soothed her,” Mat said. “I think it did.” He hesitated a moment, bouncing Gaebril's purse on his hand. It made a clinking sound. He had not looked to see if it really held ten gold marks; the weight was about right. “Master Gill, what can you tell me of Gaebril? Aside from the fact that he does not like Aes Sedai. You said he had not been in Caemlyn long?”
“Why do you want to know about him?” Thom asked. “Basel, are you going to place a stone or not?” The innkeeper sighed and stuck a black stone on the board, and the gleeman shook his head.
“Well, lad,” Gill said, “there is not much to tell. He came out of the west during the winter. Somewhere out your way, I think. Maybe it was the Two Rivers. I've heard the mountains mentioned.”
“We have no lords in the Two Rivers,” Mat said. “Maybe there are some up around Baerlon. I do not know.”
“That could be it, lad. I had never even heard of him before, but I do not keep up with the country lords. Came while Morgase was still in Tar Valon, he did, and half the city was afraid the Tower was going to make her disappear, too. The other half did not want her back. The riots started up again, the way they did last year at the tail of winter.”
Mat shook his head. “I do not care about politics, Master Gill. It's Gaebril I want to know about.” Thom frowned at him, and began cleaning the dottle from his longstemmed pipe with a straw.
“It is Gaebril I am telling you about, lad,” Gill said. “During the riots, he made himself leader of the faction supporting Morgase — got himself wounded in the fighting, I hear — and by the time she returned, he had it all suppressed. Gareth Bryne didn't like Gaebril's methods — he can be a very hard man — but Morgase was so pleased to find order restored that she named him to the post Elaida used to hold.”
The innkeeper stopped. Mat waited for him to go on, but he did not. Thom thumbed his pipe full of tabac and walked over to light a spill at a small lamp kept for the purpose on the mantel above the fireplace.
“What else?” Mat asked. “The man has to have a reason for what he does. If he marries Morgase, would he be king when she dies? If Elayne were dead, too, I mean?”
Thom choked lighting his pipe, and Gill laughed. “Andor has a queen, lad. Always a queen. If Morgase and Elayne both died — the Light send it not so! — then Morgase's nearest female relative would take the throne. At least there is no question of who that is this time — a cousin, the Lady Dyelin — not like the Succession, after Tigraine vanished. It took a year before Morgase sat on the Lion Throne, then. Dyelin could keep Gaebril as her advisor, or marry him to cement the line — though she would not likely do that unless Morgase had had a child by him — but he would be the Prince Consort even then. No more than that. Thank the Light, Morgase is a young woman, yet. And Elayne is healthy. Light! The letter did not say she is ill, did it?”
“She is well.” For now, at least. “Isn't there anything else you can tell me about him? You do not seem to like him. Why?”