surge of relief. Way in the back, behind his tinderbox and ball of twine for snares and the like, were his two leather dice cups.
They rattled as he pulled them out, but he still popped off the tight fitting round caps. Everything was as it should be. Five dice carved with symbols, for crowns, and five marked with spots. The spotted dice would do for a number of games, but more men seemed to play crowns than anything else. With these, his two marks would become enough to take him far away from Tar Valon. Away from Aes Sedai and Selene, both.
A peremptory knock was followed immediately by the door opening. He whirled around. The Amyrlin Seat and the Keeper of the Chronicles were entering. He would have recognized them even without the Amyrlin's broad, striped stole, and the Keeper's narrower blue stole. He had seen them once and only once, a long way from Tar Valon, but he could not forget the two most powerful women among the Aes Sedai.
The Amyrlin's eyebrows rose at the sight of him standing there with the blanket hanging from his shoulders and his purse and dice cups in his hands. “I don't think you will need those for a while yet, my son,” she said dryly. “Put them up and get back to bed before you fall on your face.”
He hesitated, his back stiffening, but his knees chose that moment to wobble, and the two Aes Sedai were looking at him, dark eyes and blue alike appearing to read his every rebellious thought. He did as he was told, holding the blanket around him with both hands. He lay down straight as a board, not sure what else he could do.
“How are you feeling?” the Amyrlin asked briskly as she put a hand on his head. Goose bumps covered his skin. Had she done something with the One Power, or was it being touched by an Aes Sedai that made him feel a chill?
“I'm fine,” he told her. “Why, I am ready to be on my way. Just let me say goodbye to Egwene and Nynaeve, and I'll be out of your hair. I mean, I will go... uh, Mother.” Moiraine and Verin had not seemed to care much how he talked, but this was the Amyrlin Seat, after all.
“Nonsense,” the Amyrlin said. She pulled the highbacked chair around, closer to the bed, and sat, addressing Leane. “Men always seem to refuse to admit they are sick until they're sick enough to make twice as much work for women. Then they claim they're well too soon, with the same result.”
The Keeper glanced at Mat and nodded. “Yes, Mother, yet this one cannot claim he is well when he can barely stand up. At least he has eaten everything on his tray.”
“I'd be surprised if he had left enough crumbs to interest a finch. And still hungry, unless I miss my guess.” '
“I could have someone bring him a pie, Mother. Or some cakes.”
“No, I think he has had as much as he can hold for now. If he brings it all back up, it won't do him any good.”
Mat scowled. It seemed to him that when you got sick, you became invisible to women unless they were actually talking to you. And then they took at least ten years off your age. Nynaeve, his mother, his sisters, the Amyrlin Seat, they all did it.
“I'm not hungry at all,” he announced. “I am fine. If you will let me put my clothes on, I'll show you how well I am. I will be out of here before you know it.” They were both looking at him, now. He cleared his throat. “Uh... Mother.”
The Amyrlin snorted. “You've eaten a meal for five, and you will eat three or four like it every day for days yet, or else you will starve to death. You've just been Healed from a link to the evil that killed every man, woman, and child in Aridhol, and no less strong for near two thousand years waiting for you to pick it up. It was killing you just as surely as it killed them. That is not like having a fish spine stuck in your thumb, boy. We very nearly killed you ourselves trying to save you.”
“I am not hungry,” he maintained. His stomach growled loudly to give him the lie.
“I read you aright the first time I saw you,” the Amyrlin said. “I knew right then you'd bolt like