Robert Jordan - A Crown of Swords

Renaile looked past him toward Tylin, but it was not to the Queen she spoke. "Nynaeve Sedai?'" she said dryly, "I believe there was no mention in your bargain of my having to listen to this young oakum picker. I —"

"I don't bloody care about your bargains with anybody else, you daughter of the sands," Mat snapped. So his irritation was not that well under control. A man could only take so much.

Gasps rose among the women behind her. Something over a thousand years ago a Sea Folk woman had called an Essenian soldier a son of the sands just before trying to plant a blade in his ribs; the memory lay tucked inside Mat Cauthon's head, now. It was not the worst insult among the Atha'an Miere, but it came close. Renaile's face gorged with blood; hissing, eyes bulging in fury, she leaped to her feet, that moonstone-studded dagger flashing in her fist.

Mat snatched it out of her hand before the blade could reach his chest and shoved her back into her chair. He did have quick hands. He could still hold on to his temper, too. No matter how many women thought they could dance him for a puppet, he could — "You listen to me, you bilge stone." All right; maybe he could not hold it. "Nynaeve and Elayne need you, or I'd leave you for the gholam to crack your bones and the Black Ajah to pick over what's left. Well, as far as you're concerned, I'm the Master of the Blades, and my blades are bare." What that meant exactly, he had no idea, except for having once heard, "When the blades are bare, even the Mistress of the Ships bows to the Master of the Blades." "This is the bargain between you and me. You go where Nynaeve and Elayne want, and in return, I won't tie the lot of you across horses like packsaddles and haul you there!"

That was no way to go on, not with the Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships. Not with a bilgeboy off a broken-backed darter, for that matter. Renaile quivered with the effort of not going for him with her bare hands, and never mind her dagger in his hand. "It is agreed, under the Light!" she growled. Her eyes nearly started out of her head. Her mouth worked, confusion and disbelief suddenly chasing one another across her face. This time, the gasps sounded as if the wind had ripped the curtains down.

"It is agreed," Mat said quickly, and touching fingers to his lips, he pressed them to hers.

After a moment, she did the same, fingers trembling against his mouth. He held out the dagger, and she stared dully at it before taking it from him. The blade went back into its jeweled sheath. It was not polite to kill someone you had sealed a bargain with. At least, not until the terms were fulfilled. Murmurs began among the women behind her chair, rising, and Renaile stirred herself to clap her hands once. That silenced Windfinders to Wavemistresses as quickly as the two deckhands in training.

"I think I have just made a bargain with a ta'veren ," she said in that cool, deep voice. The woman could teach Aes Sedai how to pull themselves together quickly. "But one day, Master Cauthon, if it pleases the Light, I think you will walk a rope for me."

He did not know what that meant, except that she made it sound unpleasant. He made his best leg. "All things are possible, if it pleases the Light," he murmured. Courtesy paid, after all. But her smile was disturbingly hopeful.

When he turned back to the rest of the room, you would have thought he had horns and wings, for the stares. "Is there any further argument?" he asked in a wry tone, and did not wait for answers. "I thought not. In that case, I suggest you pick out some spot well away from here, and we can be on our way as soon as you bundle up your belongings."

They made a show of discussion. Elayne mentioned Caemlyn, sounding at least half-serious, and Careane suggested several remote villages in the Black Hills, all easily reached by gateway. Light, anywhere was easily reached by gateway. Vandene spoke of Arafel, and Aviendha suggested Rhuidean, in the Aiel Waste, with the Sea Folk women growing glummer the farther from the sea were the places named. All a show. To Mat, at least, that was clear by Nynaeve's impatient fiddling with her braid despite the suggestions coming hot and fast.

"If I may speak, Aes Sedai?" Reanne said timidly at last. She even raised her hand. "The Kin maintain a farm on the other side of the river, a few miles north. Everyone knows it is a retreat for women who need contemplation and quiet, but no one connects it to us. The buildings are large and quite comfortable, if there's any need to stay long, and —"

"Yes," Nynaeve broke in. "Yes, I think that sounds just the thing. What do you say, Elayne?"

"I think it sounds wonderful, Nynaeve. I know Renaile will appreciate staying close to the sea." The other five sisters practically piled on top of her saying how agreeable it sounded, how superior to any other suggestion.

Mat rolled his eyes to the heavens. Tylin was a study in not seeing what lay under her nose, but Renaile snapped at it like a trout taking a lacewing. Which was the point, of course. For some reason she was not to know that Nynaeve and Elayne had had everything arranged beforehand. She led the rest of the Sea Folk women out to gather whatever belongings they had brought before Nynaeve and Elayne could change their minds.

Those two would have followed Merilille and the other Aes Sedai, but he crooked a finger at them. They exchanged glances — he would have had to talk an hour to say as much as passed in those looks — then, somewhat to his surprise, came to him. Aviendha and Birgitte watched from the door, Tylin from her chair.

"I am very sorry to have used you," Elayne said before he could get a word out. Her smile flashed that dimple at him. "We did have reasons, Mat; you must believe that."

"Which you do not need to know," Nynaeve put in firmly, flipping her braid back over her shoulder with a practiced toss of her head that made the gold ring bounce on her bosom. Lan must be insane. "I must say, I never expected you to do what you did. Whatever in the world made you think of trying to bully them? You could have ruined everything."

"What's life if you don't take a chance now and then?" he said blithely. As well by him if they thought it was planned instead of temper. But they had used him again without telling him, and he wanted a bit back for that. "Next time you have to make a bargain with the Sea Folk, let me make it for you. Maybe that way, it won't turn out as badly as the last one." Spots of color blooming in Nynaeve's cheeks told him he had hit the mark squarely. Not bad shooting blindfolded.

Elayne, though, just murmured "A most observant subject" in tones of rueful amusement. Being in her good books might turn out less comfortable than being in her bad.

They swept toward the door without letting him say more. Well, he had not really thought they would explain anything. Both were Aes Sedai to the bone. A man learned to live with what he had to.

Tylin had all but slipped from his mind, but he had not from hers. She caught him up before he took two steps. Nynaeve and Elayne paused at the door with Aviendha and Birgitte, watching. So they saw when Tylin pinched his bottom. Some things, nobody could learn to live with. Elayne put on a face of commiseration, Nynaeve of glowering disapproval. Aviendha fought laughter none too successfully, while Birgitte wore her grin openly. They all bloody knew.

"Nynaeve thinks you are a little boy needing protection," Tylin breathed up at him. "I know you are a grown man." Her smoky chuckle made that the dirtiest comment he had ever heard. The four women by the door got to watch his face turn beet red. "I will miss you, pigeon. What you did with Renaile was magnificent. I do so admire masterful men."

"I'll miss you, too," he muttered. To his shock, that was simple truth. He was leaving Ebou Dar just in time. "But if we meet again, I'll do the chasing."