“He would have thumped you, too, if I hadn’t been here,” Mat told him when he caught up. Thom was limping noticeably. He must have been tired for it to show that much. “He almost did anyway. And what did you learn that was worth risking that?”
“I wouldn’t have asked without you, in that coat,” Thom chuckled as they walked deeper into the town. “The first lesson is what questions to ask. The second, and just as important, is when and how to ask. I learned there aren’t any brigands, which is always good to know, though I’ve heard of very few bands big enough to attack something as large as the show. I learned Nathin is under the Seanchan thumb. Either he’s obeying a command with those extra guards, or he takes their suggestions as commands. And most important, I learned that Nathin’s armsmen don’t resent the Seanchan.” Mat quirked an eyebrow at him.
“They didn’t spit when they said the name, Mat. They didn’t grimace or growl. They won’t fight the Seanchan, not unless Nathin tells them to, and he won’t.” Thom exhaled heavily. “It’s very strange. I’ve found the same everywhere from Ebou Dar to here. These outlanders come, take charge, impose their laws, snatch up women who can channel, and if the nobles resent them, very few among the common people seem to. Unless they’ve had wife or relation collared, anyway. Very strange, and it bodes ill for getting them out again. But then, Altara is Altara. I’ll wager they’re finding a colder reception in Amadicia and Tarabon.” He shook his head. “We had best hope they are, else. . . .” He did not say what else, but it was easy to imagine.
Mat glanced at Tuon. How did she feel hearing Thom talk about her people so? She said nothing, only walked at his side peering curiously at everything from the shelter of her cowl.
Tile-roofed buildings three and four stories tall, most of brick, lined the wide, stone-paved main street of Maderin; shops and inns with signs that swung in the stiff breeze crowded in beside stables and rich people’s homes with large lamps above the arched doorways and humbler structures that housed poorer folk, by the laundry hanging from nearly every window. Horse carts and hand-barrows laden with bales or crates or barrels slowly made their way through a moderately thick throng, men and women with brisk strides, full of that storied southern industry, children dashing about in games of catch. Tuon studied it all with equal interest. A fellow pushing a wheeled grindstone and crying that he sharpened scissors or knives till they could cut wishes caught her attention as much as a lean, hard-faced woman in leather trousers with two swords strapped to her back. Doubtless a merchant’s guard or perhaps a Hunter for the Horn, but a rarity either way. A buxom Domani in a clinging red dress that fell just short of transparent with a pair of bulky bodyguards in scale-armor jerkins at her back got neither more nor less study than a lanky one-eyed fellow in frayed wool hawking pins, needles and ribbons from a tray. He had not noticed this sort of curiosity from her in Jurador, but she had been intent on finding silk in Jurador. Here, she seemed to be trying to memorize all she saw.
Thorn soon led them off into a maze of twisting streets, most of which deserved the name only because they were paved with rough stone blocks the size of a man’s two fists. Buildings as big as those on the main street, some housing shops on the ground floor, loomed over them, almost shutting out the sky. Many of those ways were too narrow for horse carts—in some Mat would not have had to extend his arms fully to touch the walls on either side—and more than once he had to press Tuon against the front of a building to let a heavy-loaded hand-barrow rumble past over the uneven paving stones, the barrow-man calling apologies for the inconvenience without slowing. Porters trudged through that cramped warren, too, men walking bent nearly parallel to the ground, each with a bale or crate on his back held level by a padded leather roll strapped to his hips. Just the sight of them made Mat’s own back ache. They reminded him how much he hated work.
He was on the point of asking Thom how far they had to go— Maderin was not that big a town—when they reached The White Ring, on one of those winding streets where his arms could more than compass the width of the pavement, a brick building of three floors across from a cutler’s shop. The painted sign hanging over the inn’s red door, a frilly white circle of lace, made the knots return to his shoulders. Ring, it might be called, but that was a woman’s garter if ever he had seen one. It might not be a hell, but inns with signs like that usually were rowdy enough in their own right. He eased the knives up his coatsleeves, and those in his boot tops, as well, felt the blades under his coat, shrugged just to get the feel of the one hanging behind his neck. Though if it went that far. . . . Tuon nodded approvingly. The bloody woman was dying to see him get into a knife fight! Selucia had the sense to frown.
“Ah, yes,” Thom said. “A wise precaution.” And he checked his own knives, tightening those knots in Mat’s shoulders a little more. Thom carried almost as many blades as he did, up his sleeves, beneath his coat.
Selucia writhed her fingers at Tuon, and suddenly they were in a silent argument, fingers flashing. Of course, it could not be that— Tuon bloody well owned Selucia the same as owning a dog, and you did not argue with your dog—but an argument it seemed, both women with their jaws set stubbornly. Finally, Selucia folded her hands and bowed her head in acquiescence. A reluctant submission.
“It will be well.” Tuon told her in a jollying tone. “You will see. It will be well.”
Mat wished he was sure of that. Taking a deep breath, he extended his wrist for her hand again and followed Thom.
The spacious, wood-paneled common room of The White Ring held better than two dozen men and women, nearly half obvious outlanders, at square tables beneath a thick-beamed ceiling. All neatly dressed in finely woven wool with little by way of ornamentation, most were talking quietly over their wine in pairs, cloaks draped over their low-backed chairs, though three men and a woman with long beaded braids were tossing bright red dice from a winecup at one table. Pleasant smells drifted from the kitchen, including meat roasting. Goat, most likely. Beside the wide stone fireplace, where a parsimonious fire burned and a polished brass barrel-clock sat on the mantel, a saucy-eyed young woman who rivaled Selucia—and with her blouse unlaced nearly to her waist to prove it—swayed her hips and sang, accompanied by a hammered dulcimer and a flute, a song about a woman juggling all of her lovers. She sang in a suitably bawdy voice. None of the patrons appeared to be listening. “As I walked out one fine spring day, I met young Jac who was pitching hay, his hair so fair, and his eyes were, too. Well, I gave him a kiss; oh, what could I do? We snuggled and we tickled while the sun rose high, and I won’t say how oft