The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,162

fingers burned.”

“Why wouldn’t you expect Rand to be all right?” Mat asked carefully. “Do you know of something that could harm him?”

“Know? I don’t know anything, boy. I suspect more than is healthy for me, but I know nothing.”

Mat abandoned that line of talk. No use firming his suspicions. No use letting him know I know more than’s healthy myself.

The older woman—Thom called her Mada—came back with three chickens with crisp, brown skins, giving the white-haired man a worried look, and Mat a warning one, before she left. Mat ripped off a leg and set to as he talked. Thom frowned into his cup and never looked at the birds.

“Why are you here in Tar Valon, Thom? It’s the last place I’d have expected to see you, the way you feel about Aes Sedai. I heard you were coining money in Cairhien.”

“Cairhien,” the old gleeman muttered, the sharpness fading from his eyes again. “Such trouble it causes killing a man, even when he deserves killing.” He made a flourish with one hand and was holding a knife. Thom always had knives secreted about him. Drunk he might have been, but he held the blade steady enough. “Kill a man who needs killing, and sometimes others pay for it. The question is, was it worth doing anyway? There’s always a balance, you know. Good and evil. Light and Shadow. We would not be human if there wasn’t a balance.”

“Put that away,” Mat growled around a mouthful. “I don’t want to talk about killing.” Light, that fellow is still lying right out there in the street. Burn me, I ought to be on a ship by now. “I just asked why you’re in Tar Valon. If you had to leave Cairhien because you killed someone, I do not want to know about it. Blood and ashes, if you can’t pull your wits out of the wine enough to talk straight, I’ll leave now.”

With a sour look, Thom made the knife disappear. “Why am I in Tar Valon? I’m here because it is the worst place I could be, except maybe Caemlyn. It’s what I deserve, boy. Some of the Red Ajah still remember me. I saw Elaida in the street the other day. If she knew I was here, she would peel my hide off in strips, and then she would stop being pleasant.”

“I never knew you to feel sorry for yourself,” Mat said disgustedly. “Do you mean to drown yourself in wine?”

“What do you know of it, boy?” Thom snarled. “Put a few years on you, see something of life, maybe love a woman or two, and then you’ll know. Perhaps you will, if you have the brains to learn. Aaaah! You want to know why I’m in Tar Valon? Why are you in Tar Valon? I remember you shivering when you found out Moiraine was Aes Sedai. You nearly soiled yourself every time anybody even mentioned the Power. What are you doing in Tar Valon, with Aes Sedai on every side?”

“I am leaving Tar Valon. That’s what I am doing here. Leaving!” Mat grimaced. The gleeman had saved his life, and maybe more. A Fade had been involved. That was why Thom’s right leg did not work as well as it should. There could not be enough wine on a ship to keep him this drunk. “I am going to Caemlyn, Thom. If you need to risk your fool life for some reason, why not come with me?”

“Caemlyn?” Thom said musingly.

“Caemlyn, Thom. Elaida will likely be going back there sooner or later, so you’d have her to worry about. And from what I remember, if Morgase puts her hands on you, you will wish Elaida had you.”

“Caemlyn. Yes. Caemlyn would fit my mood like a glove.” The gleeman glanced at the chicken platter and gave a start. “What did you do, boy? Stuff them up your sleeve?” There was nothing left of the three birds but bones and carcasses with only a few strips of flesh remaining.

“Sometimes I get hungry,” Mat muttered. It was an effort not to lick his fingers. “Are you coming with me, or not?”

“Oh, I will come, boy.” As Thom pushed himself to his feet, he did not seem as unsteady as he had been. “You wait here—and try not to eat the table—while I get my things and say some goodbyes.” He limped away, not staggering once.

Mat drank a little of his wine and stripped off a few shreds that were left on the chicken