ggered.
He showed the fellow his teeth and hoped the Shienaran would take it for a smile of thanks. Blaeric’s expression never altered. Bloody Warders! Bloody Aes Sedai! Bloody, bloody innkeepers!
“Mistress Anan,” he said carefully, “the way I mean to get away from Ebou Dar, there’s only room for so many.” He had not told her about Luca’s show, yet. There was a chance he could not convince the man, after all. And the more people he had to convince Luca to take, the harder it would be. “Come back here once we’re outside the city. If you have to leave, go on one your husband’s fishing boats. I suggest you wait a few days, though. Maybe a week or so. Once the Seanchan discover two damane missing, they’ll be all over anything trying to leave.”
“Two?” Joline put in sharply. “Teslyn and who?”
Mat winced. He had not meant to let that slip. He had Joline pegged, and petulant, willful and spoiled were the words that came most readily to mind. Anything at all that made her think this more difficult, more likely to fail, might just be enough to make her decide to try some crackbrained scheme of her own. Something that would no doubt ruin his own plans. She would be captured for sure if she tried to run on her own, and she would fight. And once the Seanchan learned there had been an Aes Sedai in the city, right under their noses, they would intensify the searches for marath’damane again, increase the street patrols more than they already had for the “mad killer,” and worst of all, they might well make it even harder to pass the gates.
“Edesina Azzedin,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t know anything more about her.”
“Edesina,” Joline said slowly. A tiny frown creased her smooth forehead. “I heard that she had—” Whatever she had heard, she snapped her teeth shut on it and fixed him a fierce stare. “Are they holding any other sisters? If Teslyn is getting free, I won’t leave any other sister to them!”
It took an effort on Mat’s part not to gape. Petulant and spoiled? He was looking at a lioness to match Blaeric and Fen. “Believe me, I won’t leave an Aes Sedai in the kennels unless she wants to stay,” he said, making his voice as wry as he could. The woman was still willful. She might insist on trying to rescue the other two like Pura. Light, he should never have let himself get tangled with Aes Sedai, and he did not need any ancient memories to warn him! His own would do very well, thank you.
Fen poked him on the back of his left shoulder with a hard finger. “Don’t be so light-tongued,” the Warder said warningly.
Blaeric poked him on the back of the other shoulder. “Remember who you are talking to!”
Joline sniffed at his tone, but she did not probe further.
Mat felt a knot loosen in the back of his neck, about where a headsman’s axe would strike. Aes Sedai twisted words with other people; they did not expect others to use their own tricks on them.
He turned to Setalle. “Mistress Anan, you can see your husband’s boats are much better—”
“It might be so,” she broke in, “except that Jasfer sailed with all ten of his boats and all of our kin three days ago. I expect the guilds will want to talk to him if he ever returns. He isn’t supposed to carry passengers. They are coasting to Illian, where they will wait for me. I don’t really intend to go as far as Tar Valon, you see.”
This time, Mat could not stop a wince. He had intended falling back on Jasfer Anan’s fishing boats if he failed to persuade Luca. A dangerous option, true, more than dangerous. Mad, maybe. The sul’dam on the docks likely would have wanted to check any order that sent damane out on fishing boats, especially in the night. But the boats had always been in the back of his mind. Well, he was just going to have twist Luca’s arm hard, just as hard as necessary.
“You let your kin go out in this season?” Disbelief and scorn mingled in Joline’s voice. “When the worst storms are brewing?”
Her back to the Aes Sedai, Mistress Anan raised her head proudly, but it was not pride in herself. “I trust Jasfer to sail into the teeth of a cemaros, if need be. I trust him as much as you do your Warders, Green. More.”
Frowning suddenly, Joline picked up the lamp by the iron base and moved it to cast light on the innkeeper’s face. “Have we met somewhere before? Sometimes, when I cannot see your face, your voice sounds familiar.”
Instead of answering, Setalle took the a’dam from Mat and fumbled at the flat segmented bracelet on one end of the round silver leash. The whole thing was made in segments, fitted together so cunningly you could not see how it had been done. “We might as well get the testing over with.”
“Testing?” he said, and those hazel eyes gave him a withering look.
“Not every woman can be a sul’dam. You should know that by now. I have hopes that I can, but better we find out before the last hour.” Scowling at the stubbornly closed bracelet, she turned it in her hands. “Do you know how to open this thing? I cannot even find where it opens.”
“Yes,” he said faintly. The only times he had talked with Seanchan about sul’dam and damane, it had been cautious questions about how they were used in battle. He had never even thought about how sul’dam were chosen. He might have to fight them—those ancient memories hardly let him stop thinking about how to fight battles—but he had certainly never meant to recruit any. “Better to test it now.” Instead of . . . Light!
The catches were a simple matter for him, the bracelet easiest. That was just a matter of squeezing the right spots, top and bottom, not quite opposite the leash. It could be done with one hand, and the bracelet popped open on one with a metallic click. The collar was a little trickier, and required both hands. Putting his fingers on the proper spots on either side of where the leash attached, he pressed, then twisted and pulled while holding the pressure. Nothing happened, that he could see, until he twisted the two sides the other way. Then they came apart right beside the leash, with a sharper click than the bracelet. Simple. Of course, figuring it out had taken him nearly an hour, back in the Palace, even with what Juilin had seen to help. Nobody here praised him, though. Nobody even looked as though he had done anything they could not!
Snapping the bracelet around her wrist, Setalle looped the leash in coils on her forearm, then held up the open collar. Joline stared it with loathing, her hands tightening into fists gripping her skirts.
“Do you want to escape?” the innkeeper asked quietly.
After a moment, Joline straightened and lifted her chin. Setalle closed the collar around the Aes Sedai’s neck with the same crisp snap it had made opening. He must have been wrong about the size; it fit her quite snugly atop the high neck of her dress. Joline’s mouth twitched, that was all, but Mat could almost feel Blaeric and Fen tensing behind him. He held his breath.
Side by side, the two women took a small step, brushing by Mat, and he began to breathe. Joline frowned uncertainly. Then they took a second step.
With a cry, the Aes Sedai fell to the floor, writhing in agony. She could not form words, only increasingly louder moans. She huddled in on herself, her arms and legs and even her fingers twitching and crooking at odd angles.
Setalle dropped to her knees as soon as Joline hit the floor, her hands going to the collar, but she was no quicker than Blaeric and Fen, though their actions did seem odd. Kneeling, Blaeric raised a wailing Joline and supported her against his chest while he began to massage her neck, of all things. Fen worked his fingers along her arms. The collar came loose, and Setalle fell back on her heels, but Joline continued to jerk and whimper, and her Warders continued to work over her as though trying to rub away cramps. They shot cold stares at Mat as though it were all his fault.
Looking down on all his fine plans lying in ruins, Mat barely saw the men. He did not know what to do next, where to begin. Tylin might be back in two more days, and he was sure he had to be gone before she returned.