By the Light, he had a book to finish before he went!
Mat stood in the Seanchan command building, surrounded by skeptical generals. Min had only just returned, after being taken away and dressed in Seanchan finery. Tuon had gone as well, to see to some empressly duty.
Looking back at the maps, Mat felt like cursing again. Maps, maps and more maps. Pieces of paper. Most of them had been sketched by Tuon’s clerks in the fading light of the previous evening. How could he know they were accurate? Mat had once seen a street artist drawing a pretty woman at night in Caemlyn, and the resulting picture could have been sold for gold as a dead-on representation of Cenn Buie in a dress.
More and more, he was thinking that battle maps were about as useful as a heavy coat in Tear. He needed to be able to see the battle, not how someone else thought the battle looked. The map was too simple.
"I’m going out to look at the battlefield", Mat declared.
"You’re what?" Courtani asked. The Seanchan Banner-General was about as pretty as a bundle of sticks with armor bolted to it. Mat figured she must have eaten something very sour once and—upon finding the resulting grimace useful for frightening away birds—had decided to adopt it permanently.
"I'm going to go look at the battlefield", Mat said again. He set aside his hat, then reached up over his head and grabbed the back of his rich, bulky Seanchan robes. He pulled the clothing, awkward shoulder pieces and all, over his head with a rustle of silk and lace, then tossed it aside.
That left him clad in only his neck scarf, his medallion and the strange breeches the Seanchan had given him, black and somewhat stiff. Min raised an eyebrow at his bare chest, which made him blush. But what did it matter? She was with Rand, so that made her practically his sister. There was Courtani, too, but Mat was not convinced that she was female. He was not convinced she was human, either.
Mat dug under the table for a moment, and pulled out a bundle he had stashed there earlier, then straightened up. Min folded her arms. Her new clothing looked very nice on her, a dress nearly as rich as the ones worn by Tuon. Min’s was a dark green shiny silk with black embroidery and wide, open sleeves that were at least long enough to stick your head into. They had done up her hair, too, sticking bits of metal into it, silver with inset firedrops. There were hundreds of them. If this whole Doomseer title did not work out for her, perhaps she could find work as a chandelier.
She was quite fetching in the outfit, actually. Odd. Mat had always considered Min on the boyish side, but now he found her appealing. Not that he looked.
The Seanchan in the room seemed stunned that Mat had suddenly stripped to the waist. He did not see why. They had servants that wore much less. Light, but they did.
"I’m tempted to do the same as you", Min muttered, grabbing the front of her dress.
Mat froze, then sputtered. He must have swallowed a fly or something. "Burn me", he said, throwing on the shirt he dug out of the bundle. "I'll give you a hundred Tar Valon marks if you do it, just so I can tell the story".
That earned him a glare, though he did not know why. She was the one talking about striding about like a bloody Aiel Maiden on her way to the sweat tent.
Min did not do it, and he was almost sad. Almost. He had to be careful around Min. He was certain that a smile in the wrong place would earn him a knifing not only from her, but from Tuon, and Mat was much happier with only one knife stuck in him at a time.
The foxhead medallion rested comfortably against his skin—thank the Light, Tuon had understood that he did need it—as he tossed on his coat, also retrieved from the bundle.
"How did you retain those?" Captain-General Galgan asked. "I was under the impression that your clothing had been burned, Raven Prince".
Galgan looked very silly with that one strip of white hair on his head, but Mat did not mention this. It was the Seanchan way. Folk could be funny, but he didn’t doubt Galgan could handle himself in a battle, however he looked.
"These?" Mat said, gesturing to his coat and shirt. "I really have no idea. They were just down there. I’m completely baffled". He had been very pleased to learn that Seanchan guards—for all their stoic expressions and too-straight backs—responded to bribes like other people.
All but those Deathwatch Guards. Mat had learned not to try it with them; the glare they’d given him made him think that if he tried it again, he’d end up with his face in the mud. Perhaps it would be better not to even talk to a Deathwatch Guard again, as it was quite obvious that each and every one one of them had traded his sense of humor for an oversized chin.
In a pinch, though, he knew exactly who he would trust with Tuon’s safety.
Mat strode out, grabbing his ashandarei from against the wall as he passed. Courtani and Min followed him out. It was too bad Tylee was so good at what she did. Mat would rather have kept her behind for company and sent the scarecrow instead. Maybe he should have. Some of the Trollocs might have mistaken her for one of them.
He had to wait as a groom ran for Pips, unfortunately, and that gave someone time to alert Tuon. He saw her approaching. Well, she had said she would return shortly anyway, so he had not really expected to avoid a confrontation.
Min shuffled, cursing softly at her skirts.
"Still trying to decide if you should run?" Mat asked Min under his breath as Tuon approached.
"Yes", Min said sourly.
"The beds are nice here, you know. And they know how to treat a fellow, so long as they don’t end up beheading him. I still haven’t figured out what keeps that from happening".
"Wonderful".
Mat turned to her. "You realize that if Rand were here, he’d probably ask you to stay".
Min glared at him.
"It’s just the truth, Min. The bloody truth. I was there when Rand brought them to his side, and I can tell you, he was worried. The Seanchan and Aes Sedai don’t get along too well, if you hadn’t noticed".
"That’s about as obvious as your pride is, Mat".
"Ouch. Here I’m trying to help. I tell you, Min. How much relief do you think it would bring Rand if he knew that someone he trusted had Tuon’s ear, someone who could nudge her to play nicely with the Aes Sedai by giving the right omens’ at the right time? Of course, you could be back at the camp hauling water and running messages. I’m sure that would be just as helpful as you would be keeping an eye on a foreign monarch and encouraging her to trust and respect the Dragon Reborn, building a bridge of friendship between her and the rest of the nations".
Min stood silently for a moment. "I hate you, bloody Mat Cauthon".
"That’s the spirit", Mat said, raising a hand to greet Tuon. "Now, let’s see which of my limbs she cuts off for throwing away her fancy clothing". Too bad about that. Nice embroidery on that robe. A man needed a little embroidery to keep him refined. Still, he was not about to wear that heap of cloth into battle. He would have better luck trying to fight while carrying Pips on his back.
The others did their usual bowing and scraping when Tuon walked up, though she had been gone only a few minutes. Mat gave her a nod. She took in his clothing with a long glance, up and down. Why was everyone so sour on a good shirt and jacket? He had not chosen the ratty one he had worn to visit Elayne. He had burned that.
"Greatest One", Courtani said. She was of the High Blood, and could address Tuon directly. "May you always draw breath. The Raven Prince has determined that he himself must visit the battlefield, as he has judged our messengers and generals to be lacking skill".
Mat hooked his thumbs into his belt, regarding Tuon, as a groom finally arrived with Pips. About bloody time. Had the boy stopped for lunch along the way, perhaps taken in a gleeman performance or two?
"Well, why are we waiting?" Tuon asked. "If the Prince of the Ravens wishes to see the battlefield, I would think that loyal servants of the Empire would have tripped over themselves in their haste to carry him there".
Courtani looked as if she had been slapped. Mat grinned at Tuon, and she favored him with a smile. Light, but he liked those smiles.
"So, you’re coming along, then?" he asked Tuon.
"Of course. You see a reason why I should not?"
"Not a one", Mat said, groaning inside. "Not a single bloody one".
CHAPTER 29
The Loss of a Hill
"Focus attention on the Fades!" Egwene said, releasing a burst of Air toward the Trollocs climbing up the hillside. The Trollocs had made a gaping hole in the ranks of pikemen defending the hill and were pouring through. Now accustomed to assaulting channelers, they squatted and braced themselves. That gave Egwene a good view of the fist and the Myrddraal hiding at the very center. It wore a brown coat over its usual clothing and held a Trolloc catchpole.
No wonder I had trouble spotting him, Egwene thought, destroying the creature with a weave of Fire. The Halfman writhed, shaking and screeching in the fire, its eyeless face turned toward the heavens. The fist of Trollocs dropped as well.
Egwene smiled in satisfaction, but her pleasure was short lived. Her archers were getting low on arrows, the pike ranks were tattered and some of the Aes Sedai were clearly fatigued. Another wave of Trollocs replaced those that Egwene had dropped. Will we be able to stand another day of this? she thought.
A banner of lancers suddenly broke from the left flank of Bryne's army fighting at the river. They flew the Flame of Tar Valon—that would be the unit of heavy cavalry that Bryne was proud of. He had cobbled them together under Captain Joni Shagrin out of a mix of seasoned veterans from the cavalries of other countries and those soldiers from the Tower Guard who wanted to join this elite fighting force.
The lancers skirted the Sharans opposite them and rode furiously toward Egwene’s hills, directly at the rear of the Trolloc army that was assaulting her position. Right behind them, a second cavalry unit followed in the dust of the first, this one displaying the dark green banner of Illian. It looked like the general was finally going to send her some relief.
But . . . Wait. Egwene frowned. From her vantage, she could see that the main army’s left flank was completely unprotected now. What is he doing? Some . . . some sort of trap for the Sharans?
If there had been a trap planned, the jaws did not snap shut. Instead, a Sharan cavalry unit charged into Bryne’s exposed left flank and began to inflict heavy casualties on the foot soldiers defending that position at the river. And then Egwene saw another movement on the field below that really horrified her—an even larger Sharan cavalry banner had broken off the enemy’s right flank and was bearing down on the lancer unit that had come to help Egwene.
"Gawyn, get word to those lancers—it’s a trap!"
But there was no time to do anything. Within moments, the Sharan cavalry had begun slaying the White Tower lancers from behind. At the same time, the back ranks of Trollocs had turned around to face the lancer charge. Egwene could see that these Trollocs all carried long polearms that ripped through the flesh of man and horse. The front ranks of lancers went down in a bloody heap, and the Trollocs waded between the bodies to pull down and thrust their weapons through the cavalrymen behind.