Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 246

Aludra was fussing over one of her tall, metal-bound lofting tubes, beaded braids hiding her face as she examined something at the broad wooden base. He wished she had been willing to remain with the pack animals like Thom and Mistress Anan. Even Noal had been willing to stay, if only to help Juilin and Amathera make sure Olver did not run off to watch the battle. The boy was dead eager, which could soon lead to plain dead. Matters had been bad enough when only Harnan and the other three had been corrupting Olver, but now he had half the men teaching him how to use a sword or dagger or fight with his hands and feet, and apparently filling his head with tales of heroes from the way he had been behaving, begging to go on raids with Mat and the like. Aludra was near as bad. Anybody could have used one of those strikers to light the fuse once she had loaded that tube, but she insisted on doing it herself. She was a fierce woman, Aludra was, and none too pleased at finding herself on the same side as Seanchan, however temporary the arrangement was. It seemed wrong to her that they would see some of her handiwork without being on the receiving end. Leilwin and Domon sat their horses nearby keeping an eye on her, as much to make sure she did nothing foolish as to protect her. Mat hoped Leilwin did nothing foolish herself. Since there was apparently only one Seanchan with the people they would fight today, she had decided it was all right to be there, and the way she glared at Musenge and the other Deathwatch Guards, it seemed she might think she had something to prove to them.

The three Aes Sedai, standing together with their reins in hand, cast dark looks at the Seanchan, too, as did Blaeric and Fen, who caressed their sword hilts perhaps unconsciously. Joline and her two Warders had been the only ones aghast at Sheraine’s willing departure with Tuon—what an Aes Sedai felt on any subject was usually how her Warders felt on it, too—but the memory of being leashed had to be too fresh for Edesina or Teslyn to feel comfortable around Seanchan soldiers. Bethamin and Seta stood very meekly, hands folded at their waists, a little apart from the sisters. Bethamin’s light-colored bay nudged her shoulder with his nose, and the tall, dark woman half reached up to stroke the animal before snatching her hand back down and resuming her humble pose. They still would take no part. Joline and Edesina had made that plain, yet it seemed they wanted the two women under their eyes to make sure of it. The Seanchan women plainly were looking at anything but the Seanchan soldiers. For that matter, Bethamin, Seta and Leilwin might as well not have existed for all of Musenge and that lot. Burn him, there were so many tensions in the air he could almost feel that hanging rope around his neck again.

Pips stamped a hoof, impatient at standing in one place so long, and Mat patted his neck then scratched the scar forming on his own jaw. Tuon’s ointments had stung as badly as she had said they would, but they worked. His new collection of scars did itch yet, though. Tuon. His wife. He was married! He had known it was coming, had known for a long time, but just the same. . . . Married. He should have felt . . . different . . . somehow, but he still felt like himself. He intended to keep it that way, burn him if he did not! If Tuon expected Mat Cauthon to settle down, to give up gambling or some such, she had another think coming. He supposed he would have to give over chasing after women, much less catching them, but he would still enjoy dancing with them. And looking at them. Just not when he was with her. Burn him if he knew when that would be. He was not about to go anywhere she had the upper hand, her and her talk of cupbearers and running grooms and marrying to serve the Empire. How was marrying him supposed to serve the flaming Empire?

Musenge left the other ten men and five Ogier in red-and-black armor and trotted his black gelding up to Mat. The horse had good lines, built for speed and endurance both, as far as Mat could tell without a thorough examination. Musenge looked built for endurance, a stocky, stolid man, his face worn but hard, his eyes like polished stones. “Forgiveness, Highness,” he drawled, banging a gauntleted fist against his breastplate, “but shouldn’t the men be back to work?” He slurred his words worse than Selucia, almost to unintelligibility. “Their rest break has stretched a long time. I doubt they can complete the wall before the traitor arrives as it is.” Mat had wondered how long it would take him to mention that. He had expected it earlier.

Open-faced helmets off but breastplates strapped on, the crossbow-men were sitting on the ground behind a long curving wall, perhaps a third of a circle made of earth thrown up out of the four-foot deep trench fronting it, with a thicket of sharpened stakes driven into the ground in front of that and extending a little beyond the ends of the trench. They had finished that in short order. Infantry needed to be as handy with shovel, mattock and axe as they were with weapons. Even cavalry did, but making horsemen believe was harder. Footmen knew it was better to have something between you and the enemy if you could.

The tools lay scattered along the trench, now. Some of the men were dicing, others just taking their ease, even napping. Soldiers slept any chance they got. A few were reading books, of all things. Reading! Mandevwin moved among them, fingering his eyepatch and now and then bending to say a few words to a bannerman. The only lancer present, standing beside his horse, every line of him saying he had nothing to do with the crossbowmen, held no lance, but rather a long banner-staff cased for half its length in leather.

It was perfect terrain for what Mat had in mind. Near two miles of grassy meadow dotted with wildflowers and a few low bushes stretched from the wall to the tall trees at the western end. To the north was a blackwater swamp, full of oaks and odd, white-flowering trees that seemed half thick roots, with a lake clinging to its western edge and forest below the lake. A small river flowed south out of the swamp, half a mile behind Mat, before curving away to the west on his left. A small river, but wide enough and deep enough that horses would have to swim it. The far bank lay beyond bowshot. There was only one way for any attacker to get at the wall. Come straight for it.

“When they arrive, I don’t want them stopping to count how many men in red and black are here,” he replied. Musenge winced slightly for some reason. “I want them to see an unfinished wall and tools thrown down because we learned they were close. The promise of a hundred thousand crowns gold has to have their blood up, but I want them too excited to think straight. They’ll see us vulnerable, our defenses incomplete, and with any luck, they’ll rush in straight away. They’ll figure close to half of them will die when we loose, but that will just raise the chances for one of the others to get that gold. They’ll only expect us to manage one volley.” He slapped his hands together, and Pips shifted. “Th