The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,101

the room, but he leaned back, away from her hand, as if she were right on top of him with a dagger. He did not know why, really, except that there was a threat in her eyes, and he was sure it was real. His skin began to tingle, and his headache returned.

Suddenly tingle and pain vanished together, and Selene’s head whipped around as if listening to something beyond the walls. A tiny frown appeared on her face, and she lowered her hand. The frown vanished. “We will talk again, Mat. I have much to say to you. Remember your choices. Remember that there are many hands that would kill you. I alone guarantee you life, and all you seek, if you do as I say.” She slipped out of the door as silently and gracefully as she had entered.

Mat let out a long breath. Sweat ran down his face. Who in the Light is she? A Darkfriend, perhaps. Except that she had sounded as contemptuous of Ba’alzamon as she was of Aes Sedai. Darkfriends spoke of Ba’alzamon the way anyone else might speak of the Creator. And she had not asked him to conceal her visit from the Aes Sedai.

Right, he thought sourly. Pardon me, Aes Sedai, but this woman came to see me. She wasn’t Aes Sedai, but I think maybe she started to use the One Power on me, and she said she wasn’t a Darkfriend, but she did say you mean to use me, and the Black Ajah’s in your Tower. Oh, and she said I’m important. I don’t know how. You don’t mind if I leave now, do you?

Going was beginning to be a better idea by the minute. He slid awkwardly off the bed and made his way unsteadily to the wardrobe, still clutching his blanket around him. His boots were on the floor inside, and his cloak hung from a peg, under his belt, with pouch and sheathed belt knife. It was just a country knife, with a stout blade, but it could do as much as any fine dagger. The rest of his clothes—two sturdy wool coats, three pairs of breeches, half a dozen linen shirts and smallclothes—had been brushed or washed as required, and neatly folded on the shelves that took up one side of the wardrobe. He felt the pouch hanging from the belt, but it was empty. Its contents lay jumbled on a shelf with what had been emptied from his pockets.

He brushed aside a redhawk’s feather, a smooth, striped rock he had liked the colors of, his razor, and his bone-handled pocketknife, and freed his wash-leather purse from some coils of spare bowstring. When he tugged it open, he found his memory had been all too good in this instance.

“Two silver marks and a handful of copper,” he muttered. “I won’t get far on that.” Once it would have seemed a small fortune to him, but that had been before he left Emond’s Field.

He stooped to peer back into the shelf. Where are they? He began to be afraid the Aes Sedai might have thrown them out, the way his mother would if she had ever found them. Where . . . ? He felt a 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.