The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,169

blowing out the lamps—he could not sleep, though Mallia had done well by himself with a good feather mattress. He had been right about Thom’s snoring, and that pillow muffled nothing. It sounded as if Thom were cutting wood cross-grain with a rusty saw. And he could not stop thinking. How had Nynaeve and Egwene, and Elayne, gotten that paper from the Amyrlin? They had to be involved with the Amyrlin Seat herself—in some plot, one of those White Tower machinations—but now that he thought about it, they had to be holding something back from the Amyrlin, too.

“ ‘Please carry a letter to my mother, Mat,’ ” he said softly, in a high-pitched, mocking voice. “Fool! The Amyrlin would have sent a Warder with any letter from the Daughter-Heir to the Queen. Blind fool, wanting to get out of the Tower so bad I couldn’t see it.” Thom’s snore seemed to trumpet agreement.

Most of all, though, he thought about luck, and footpads.

The first bump of something against the stern barely registered on him. He paid no attention to a thump and scuffle from the deck overhead, or the tread of boots. The vessel itself made enough noises, and there had to be someone on deck for the ship to make its way downriver. But stealthy footsteps in the passageway leading to his door merged with thoughts of footpads and made his ears prick up.

He nudged Thom in the ribs with an elbow. “Wake up,” he said softly. “There’s somebody outside in the hall.” He was already easing himself off the bed, hoping the cabin floor—Deck, floor, whatever it bloody is!—would not creak under his feet. Thom grunted, smacked his lips, and resumed snoring.

There was no time to worry about Thom. The footsteps were right outside. Taking up his quarterstaff, Mat placed himself in front of the door and waited.

The door swung open slowly, and two cloaked men, one behind the other, were faintly outlined by dim moonlight through the hatch at the top of the ladder they had crept down. The moonlight was enough to glint off bare knife blades. Both men gasped; they obviously had not expected to find anyone waiting for them.

Mat thrust with the quarterstaff, catching the first man hard right under where his ribs joined together. He heard his father’s voice as he struck. It’s a killing blow, Mat. Don’t ever use it unless it’s your life. But those knives made it for his life; there was no room in the cabin for swinging a staff.

Even as the man made a choking sound and folded toward the deck, fighting vainly for breath, Mat stepped forward and drove the end of the quarterstaff over him into the second man’s throat with a loud crunch. That fellow dropped his knife to clutch at his throat, and fell on top of his companion, both of them scraping their boots across the deck, death rattles already sounding in their throats.

Mat stood there, staring down at them. Two men. No, burn me, three! I don’t think I ever hurt another human being before, and now I’ve killed three men in one night. Light!

Silence filled the dark passageway, and he heard the thump of boots on the deck overhead. The crewmen all went barefoot.

Trying not to think about what he was doing, Mat ripped the cloak from one of the dead men and settled it around his shoulders, hiding the pale linen of his smallclothes. On bare feet he padded down the passage and climbed the ladder, barely sticking his eyes above the hatch coping.

Pale moonlight reflected off the taut sails, but night still covered the deck with shadows, and there was no sound except the rush of water along the vessel’s sides. Only one man at the tiller, the hood of his cloak pulled up against the chill, seemed to be on deck. The man shifted, and boot leather scuffed on the deck planks.

Holding the quarterstaff low and hoping it would not be noticed, Mat climbed on up. “He’s dead,” he muttered in a low, rough whisper.

“I hope he squealed when you cut his throat.” The heavily accented voice was one Mat remembered calling from the mouth of a twisting street in Tar Valon. “This boy, he causes us too much of the trouble, Wait! Who are you?”

Mat swung the staff with all his strength. The thick wood smashed into the man’s head, the hood of his cloak only partly muffling a sound like a melon hitting the floor.

The man fell