“The Lord Dragon wished to see us?” Sunamon managed.
Could Egwene and Elayne have worked it up between them? Of course not. Women did not do things like that any more than men. Did they? It had to be coincidence. Elayne heard that he was free and decided to speak. That was it. “Taxes,” he barked. The Tairens did not move, but they gave the impression of stepping back. How he hated dealing with these men; he wanted to dive back into the books.
“It is a bad precedent, my Lord Dragon, lowering taxes,” a lean, grayhaired man said in an oily voice. Meilan was tall for a Tairen, only a hand shorter than Rand, and hard as any Defender. He held himself in a stoop in Rand's presence; his dark eyes showed how he hated it. But he had hated it when Rand told them to stop crouching around him, too. None of them straightened, but Meilan especially had not liked being reminded of what he did. “The peasants have always paid easily, but if we lower their taxes, when the day comes that we raise them back to where they now are, the fools will complain as bitterly as if we had doubled the present levy. There might well be riots when that day comes, my Lord Dragon.”
Rand strode across the room to stand before Callandor; the crystal sword glittered, outshining the gilt and gemstones surrounding it. A reminder of who he was, of the power he could wield. Egwene. It was foolish to feel hurt because she said she no longer loved him. Why should he expect her to have feelings for him that he did not have for her? Yet it did hurt. A relief, but not a pleasant one. “You will have riots if you drive men off their farms.” Three books stood in a stack almost by Meilan's feet. The Treasures of the Stone of Tear, Travels in the Waste, and Dealings with the Territory of Mayene. The keys lay in those, and in the various translations of The Karaethon Cycle, if he could only find them and fit them to the proper locks. He pushed his mind back to the High Lords. “Do you think they will watch their families starve and do nothing?”
“The Defenders of the Stone have put down riots before, my Lord Dragon,” Sunamon said soothingly. “Our own guards can keep peace in the countryside. The peasants will not disturb you, I give you my assurance.”
“There are too many farmers as it is.” Carleon flinched at Rand's glare. “It is the civil war in Cairhien, my Lord Dragon,” he explained hurriedly. “The Cairhienin can buy no grain, and the granaries are bursting. This year's harvest will go to waste as it is. And next year... ? Burn my soul, my Lord Dragon, but what we need is for some of those peasants to stop their eternal digging and planting.” He seemed to realize he had said too much, though he clearly did not understand why. Rand wondered whether he had any idea how food got to his table. Did he see anything but gold, and power?
“What will you do when Cairhien is buying grain again?” Rand said coolly. “For that matter, is Cairhien the only land that needs grain?” Why had Elayne spoken up like that? What did she expect of him? Fond, she said. Women could play games with words like Aes Sedai. Did she mean she loved him? No, that was plain foolishness. Overproud to a degree.
“My Lord Dragon,” Meilan said, half subservient, half as if explaining something to a child, “if the civil wars stopped today, Cairhien still could not buy more than a few bargeloads for two, even three years. We have always sold our grain to Cairhien.”
Always — for the twenty years since the Aiel War. They were so bound up in what they had always done that they could not see what was so simple. Or would not see it. When the cabbages sprouted like weeds around Emond's Field, it was a near certainty that bad rain or whiteworm had struck Deven Ride or Watch Hill. When Watch Hill had too many turnips, Emond's Field would have a shortage, or Deven Ride.
“Offer it in Illian,” he told them. What did Elayne expect? “Or Altara.” He did like her, but he liked Min as much. Or thought he did. It was impossible to sort out his feelings for either of them. “You have ships for the sea as well as riverboats and barges, and if you don't have enough, hire them from Mayene.” He liked both women, but beyond that... He had spent very nearly his whole life mooning after Egwene; he was not about to dive into that again until he was sure. Sure of something. Sure. If Dealings with the Territory of Mayene was to be believed.... Stop this, he told himself. Keep your mind on these weasels, or they'll find cracks to slip through, and bite you on the way. “Pay with grain; I'm sure the First will be amenable, for a good price. And maybe a signed agreement, a treaty....” That was a good word; the sort they used. “... pledging to leave Mayene alone in return for ships.” He owed her that.
“We trade little with Illian, my Lord Dragon. They are vultures, and scum.” Tedosian sounded scandalized, and so did Meilan when he said, “We have always dealt with Mayene from strength, my Lord Dragon. Never with bent knee.”
Rand took a deep breath. The High Lords tensed. It always came to this. He always tried to reason with them, and it always failed. Thom said the High Lords had heads as hard as the Stone, and he was right. What do I feel for her? Dreaming about her. She's certainly pretty. He was not sure if he meant Elayne or Min. Stop this! A kiss means no more than a kiss. Stop it! Putting women firmly out of his head, he set himself to telling these stonebrained fools what they were going to do. “First, you will cut taxes on farmers by threequarters, and on everyone else by half. Don't argue! Just do it! Second, you go to Berelain and ask — ask! — her price for hiring....”
The High Lords listened with false smiles and grinding teeth, but they listened.
Egwene was considering Joiya and Amico when Mat fell in beside her, just walking down the hallway as if he merely happened to be going the same way. He was frowning to himself, and his hair needed brushing, as if he had been scrubbing his fingers through it. Once or twice he glanced at her but did not speak. The servants they passed bowed or curtsied, and so did the occasional High Lords and Ladies, if with markedly less enthusiasm. Mat's lipcurling stares at the nobles would have brought trouble if she had not been there, friend of the Lord Dragon or not.
This silence was not like him, not like the Mat she knew. Except for his fine red coat — wrinkled as if he had slept in it — he seemed no different than the old Mat, yet they were surely all different now. His quiet was unsettling. “Is last night troubling you?” she asked at last.
He missed a step. “You know about that? Well, you would, wouldn't you. Doesn't bother me. Wasn't much to it. Over and done with now, anyway.”
She pretended to believe him. “Nynaeve and I do not see much of you.” That was a rank understatement.
“I have been busy,” he muttered with an uncomfortable shrug, looking everywhere but at her again.
“Dicing?” she asked dismissively.
“Cards.” A plump maid, curtsying with her arms full of folded towels, glanced at Egwene and, apparently thinking she was not looking, winked at Mat. He grinned at her. “I've been busy playing cards.”
Egwene's eyebrows rose sharply. That woman had to be ten years older than Nynaeve. “I see. It must use up a great deal of time. Playing cards. Too much to spare a few moments for old friends.”
“The last time I spared you a moment, you and Nynaeve tied me up with the Power like a pig for market so you could rummage through my room. Friends don't steal from friends.” He grimaced. “Besides, you're always with that Elayne, with her nose in the air. Or Moiraine. I do not like —” Clearing his throat, he shot her a sideways glance. “I don't like taking up your time. You are busy, from what I hear. Questioning Darkfriends. Doing all sorts of important things, I should imagine. You know these Tairens think you are Aes Sedai, don't you?”
She shook her head ruefully. It was Aes Sedai he did not like. However much of the world Mat saw, nothing would ever change him. “It is not stealing to take back what was supposed to be a loan,” she told him.
“I don't remember you saying anything about a loan. Aaah, what use do I have for a letter from the Amyrlin? Just get me in trouble. You could have asked, though.”
She refrained from pointing out that they had asked. She wanted neither an argument nor a sulky departure. He would not call it that, of course. This time she would let him get away with his version. “Well, I am glad you are still willing to talk to me. Was there a special reason for it today?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair and muttered to himself. What he needed was his mother to haul him off by his ear for a long talking to. Egwene counseled herself to patience. She could be patient when she wanted to. She would not say a word before he did, if she burst for it.
The corridor opened into a railed colonnade of white marble, looking down on one of the Stone's few gardens. Large white blossoms covered a few small, waxyleafed trees and gave a scent even sweeter than the banks of red and yellow roses. A sullen breeze failed to stir the hangings on the inner wall, but it did cut the morning's growing damp warmth. Mat took a seat on the wide balustrade with his back against a column and one foot up in front of him. Peering down into the garden, he finally said, “I... need some advice.”
He wanted advice from her? She goggled at him. “Whatever I can do to help,” she said faintly. He turned his head to her, and she did her best to assume something like Aes Sedai calm. “What do you want advice about?”
“I don't know.”
It was a tenpace drop to the garden. Besides, there were men down there weeding among the roses. If she pushed him over, he might land on one. A gardener, not a rosebush. “How am I supposed to advise you, then?” she asked in a thin voice.