He turned from the railing and suddenly became aware of a man sharing the bridge with him. A man with a dagger in his hand.
Mat grabbed at the hand as the knife darted toward his throat. He barely caught the fellow's wrist with his fingers, and then the quarterstaff between them tangled itself in his legs, tripping him to fall back against the railing, to fall half over it pulling the other man on top of him. Balanced there on the small of his back, teetering with his assailant's bared teeth in his face, he was as aware of the long drop under his head as he was of the blade catching faint moonlight as it edged toward his throat. His finger grip on the man's wrist was slipping, and his other hand was caught with the quarterstaff between their bodies. Only seconds had passed since he first saw the man, and in seconds more, he was going die with a knife in his throat.
“Time to toss the dice,” he said. He thought the other man looked confused for an instant, but an instant was all he had. With a heave of his legs, Mat flipped them both off into the empty air.
For a stretchedout moment he seemed to have no weight. Air whistled past his ears and ruffled his hair. He thought he heard the other man scream, or start to. The impact knocked all the air out of his lungs and made silverblack flecks dance across his blurring vision.
When he could breathe again — and see — he realized he was lying on top of the man who had attacked him, his fall cushioned by the other's body. “Luck,” he whispered. Slowly he climbed to his feet, cursing the bruise the quarterstaff had put across his ribs.
He expected the other man to be dead — not many could survive a thirtyfoot fall to cobblestones with another's weight on top of him — but what he had not expected was to see the fellow's dagger driven to the hilt into his own heart. Such an ordinarylooking man to have tried to kill him. Mat did not think he would even have noticed him in a crowded room.
“You had bad luck, fellow,” he told the corpse shakily.
Suddenly, everything that had happened rushed back in on him. The footpads in the twisting street. The scramble over the rooftops. This fellow. The fall. His eyes rose to the bridge overhead, and a fit of trembling hit him. I must have been crazy. A little adventure is one thing, but Rogosh Eagleeye wouldn't ask for this.
He realized he was standing over a dead man with a dagger in his chest, just waiting for someone to come along and run shouting for city guards with the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests. The Amyrlin's paper might get him away from them, but maybe not before she found out. He could still end up back in the White Tower, without that paper, and possibly not even allowed outside the Tower grounds.
He knew he should be on his way to the docks right then, and on the first vessel sailing if it was a rotten tub full of old fish, but his knees were shaking hard enough in reaction that he could hardly walk. What he wanted was to sit down for just a minute. Just a minute to steady his knees, and then he was headed for the docks.
The taverns were closer, but he started toward the inn. The common room of an inn was a friendly place, where a man could rest a minute and not worry about who might be sneaking up behind him. Enough light came out through the windows for him to make out the sign. A woman with her hair in braids, holding what he thought was an olive branch, and the words “The Woman of Tanchico.”
Chapter 31
(Harp)
The Woman of Tanchico
The common room of the inn was brightly lit, the tables not near a quarter full so late. A few whiteaproned serving women with mugs of ale or wine passed among the men, and a low murmur of talk ran under the sound of a harp being strummed and plucked. The patrons, some with pipes clenched in their teeth and one pair hunched over a stones board, had the look of ship's officers and minor merchants from the smaller houses, their coats well cut and of fine wool, but with none of the gold or silver or embroidery that richer men might have had. And for once there was no clack and rattle of dice to be heard. Fires blazed on the long hearths at the ends of the room, but even without those there would have been a warm feeling about the place.
The harper stood on a tabletop, reciting “Mara and the Three Foolish Kings,” to the music of his harp. His instrument, all worked in gold and silver, was fit for a palace. Mat knew him. He had saved Mat's life, once.
The harper was a lean man who would have been tall except for a stoop, and he moved with a limp when he shifted his footing on the tabletop. Even here inside, he wore his cloak, all covered with fluttering patches in a hundred colors. He always wanted everyone to know he was a gleeman. His long mustaches and bushy eyebrows were as snowwhite as the thick hair on his head, and his blue eyes held a look of sorrow as he recited. The look was as unexpected as the man. Mat had never known Thom Merrilin to be a sorrowful man.
He took a table, setting his things on the floor by his stool, and ordered two mugs. The pretty young serving girl's big brown eyes twinkled at him.
“Two, young master? You do not look such a harddrinking man as that.” Her voice held a mischievous edge of laughter.
After rummaging a bit, he brought out two silver pennies from his pocket. One more than paid for the wine, but he slipped her another for her eyes. “My friend will be joining me.”
He knew Thom had seen him. The old gleeman had nearly stopped the story dead when Mat came in. That was new, too. Few things startled Thom enough for him to let it show, and nothing short of Trollocs had ever made him stop a story in the middle that Mat knew. When the girl brought the wine and his coppers in change, he let the pewter mugs sit and listened to the end of the story.
“'It was as we have said it should be,' said King Madel, trying to untangle a fish from his long beard.” Thom's voice seemed almost to echo inside a great hall, not an ordinary common room. His plucked harp sounded the three kings' final foolishness. “'It was as we said it would be,' announced Orander. And, feet slipping in the mud, he sat down with a great splash. 'It was as we said it must be,' proclaimed Kadar as he searched, up to his elbows in the river, for his crown. 'The woman knows not whereof she speaks. She is the fool!' Madel and Orander agreed with him loudly. And with that, Mara had had enough. 'I've given them all the chances they deserve and more,' she murmured to herself. Slipping Kadar's crown into her bag with the first two, she climbed back onto her cart, clucked to her mare, and drove straight back to her village. And when Mara had told them all that happened, the people of Heape would have no king at all.” He strummed the major theme of the kings' foolishness once more, this time sliding to a crescendo that sounded even more like laughter, made a sweeping bow, and nearly fell off the table.
Men laughed and stamped their feet, though likely every one of them had heard the story many times before, and called for more. The story of Mara was always well received, except perhaps by kings.
Thom nearly fell again climbing down from the table, and he was more unsteady in his walk than a somewhat stiff leg could account for as he came to where Mat was sitting. Casually putting his harp on the table, he dropped onto a stool in front of the second mug and gave Mat a flat stare. His eyes had always been sharp as awls, but they seemed to be having trouble focusing.
“Common,” he muttered. His voice was still deep, but it no longer seemed to reverberate. “The tale is a hundred times better in Plain Chant, and a thousand in High, but they want Common.” Without another word, he buried his face in his wine.
Mat could not recall ever seeing Thom finish playing that harp without immediately putting it away in its hard leather case. He had never seen him the worse for drink. It was a relief to hear the gleeman complaining about his listeners; Thom never thought their standards were as high as his. At least something of him had not changed.
The serving girl was back, with no twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, Thom,” she said softly, then rounded on Mat. “If I'd known he was the friend you awaited, I'd not have brought you wine for him if you gave a hundred silver pence.”
“I did not know he was drunk,” Mat protested.
But her attention was back on Thom, her voice gentle again. “Thom, you need some rest. They'll keep you telling stories all night and all day, if you let them.”
Another woman appeared on Thom's other side, lifting her apron off over her head. She was older than the first, but no less pretty. The two might have been sisters. “A beautiful story, I've always thought, Thom, and you tell it beautifully. Come, I've slipped a warming pan into your bed, and you can tell me all about the court in Caemlyn.”