The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,217

since leaving Emond’s Field,” Mat told him, “and under enough bushes, too. I want a bed.”

But at the next four inns he found, the innkeeper gave him the same answer as the first; the last two almost threw him out bodily when he offered to dice for a bed. And when the owner of the fifth told him he could not give a pallet to the Queen herself—this at a place called The Good Queen—he sighed and asked, “What about your stable, then? Surely we can bed down in the hayloft for a price.”

“My stable is for horses,” the round-faced man said, “not that many are left in the city.” He had been polishing a silver cup; now he opened one door of a shallow cupboard standing on top of a deep, drawered chest and placed it inside with others; none of them matched. A tooled-leather dice cup sat atop the chest, just beyond the arc of the cupboard’s doors. “I do not put people in there to frighten the horses, and perhaps make off with them. Those who pay me for stabling their animals want them well tended, and I’ve two of my own in there, besides. There are no beds in my stable for you.”

Mat eyed the dice cup thoughtfully. He pulled a gold Andoran crown out of his pocket and set it atop the chest. The next coin was a silver Tar Valon mark, then a gold one, and a gold Tairen crown. The innkeeper looked at the coins and licked his plump lips. Mat added two silver Illianer marks and another gold Andoran crown, and looked at the round-faced man. The innkeeper hesitated. Mat reached for the coins. The innkeeper’s hand reached them first.

“Perhaps just the two of you would not disturb the horses too greatly.”

Mat smiled at him. “Speaking of horses, what price for those two of yours? With saddles and bridles, of course.”

“I will not sell my horses,” the man said, clutching the coins to his chest.

Mat picked up the dice cup and rattled it. “Twice as much again against the horses, saddles, and bridles.” He shook his coat pocket to make the loose coins rattle, too, to show he had more to cover the wager. “My one toss against the best of your two.” He almost laughed as greed lit the innkeeper’s entire face.

When Mat walked into the stable, the first thing he did was check along the half-dozen stalls with horses in them for a pair of brown geldings. They were nondescript animals, but they were his. They needed currying badly, but otherwise they seemed in good condition, especially considering that all the stablemen but one had run off. The innkeeper had been extremely disparaging of their complaints that they could no longer live on what he paid them, and he seemed to think it a crime that the one man who remained had actually had the audacity to say he was going home to bed just because he was tired from doing three men’s work.

“Five sixes,” Thom muttered behind him. The looks he cast around the stable did not seem as enthralled as they might, seeing that he had suggested it in the first place. Dust motes shone in the last light of the setting sun coming through the big doors, and the ropes used to hoist hay bales hung like vines from pulleys in the roof beams. The hayloft was dim in the gloom above. “When he threw four sixes and a five on his second toss, he thought you’d lost for sure, and so did I. You have not been winning every toss of late.”

“I win enough.” Mat was just as relieved not to be winning every throw. Luck was one thing, but remembering that night still sent shivers down his back. Still, for one moment as he shook that dice cup, he had all but known what the pips would be. As he tossed the quarterstaff up into the loft, thunder crashed in the sky. He scrambled up the ladder, calling back to Thom. “This was a good idea. I’d think you would be happy to be in out of the rain tonight.”

Most of the hay was in bales stacked against the outer walls, but there was more than enough loose for him to make a bed with his cloak over it. Thom appeared at the top of the ladder as he was pulling two loaves of bread and a wedge of green-veined cheese from his leather scrip.