The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3)

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3) Page 168

“I thought you wanted to be in where it's dry, Thom.”

The gleeman patted the flute case he still had under his cloak. The rest of his things were up in his room. “People talk to a gleeman, boy. I may learn something you would not. I'd not like to see those girls harmed any more than you.”

There was another inn a hundred paces down the rainfilled street on the other side, and another two hundred beyond that, and then more. Mat took them as he came to them, ducking in long enough for Thom to flourish his cloak and tell a story, then let someone buy him a cup of wine afterwards while Mat asked around after a tall man with a white streak in his closecut black beard and three women. He won a few coins at dice, but he learned nothing, and neither did Thom. He was just glad the gleeman seemed to be taking only a few sips of wine at each inn; Thom had been close to abstemious on the boat, but Mat had not been certain he would not dive back into the wine once they reached Tear. By the time they had visited two dozen common rooms, Mat felt as if his eyelids had weights. The rain had lessened a bit, but it still fell steadily in big drops, and as the rain fell off the wind had freshened. The sky had the dark gray look of coming dawn.

“Boy,” Thom muttered, “if we don't go back to The White Crescent, I am going to go to sleep here in the rain.” He stopped to cough. “Do you realize you've marched right past three inns? Light, I am so tired I can't think. Do you have a scheme of where to go that you have not told me?”

Mat stared blearily up the street at a tall man in a cloak hurrying around a corner. Light, I am tired. Rand is five hundred leagues from here, playing at being the bloody Dragon. “What? Three inns?” They were standing almost in front of another, The Golden Cup according to the sign creaking in the wind. It looked nothing like a dice cup, but he decided to give it a try anyway. “One more, Thom. If we don't find them here, we'll go back and go to bed.” Bed sounded better than a dice game with a hundred gold marks riding on the toss, but he made himself go in.

Two steps into the common room Mat saw him. The big man wore a green coat with blue stripes down puffy sleeves, but it was Comar, closecut black beard with a white streak over his chin and all. He sat in one of the strangely lowbacked chairs, at a table on the far side of the room, rattling a leather dice cup and smiling at the man across from him. That fellow wore a long coat and baggy breeches, and he was not smiling. He stared at the coins on the table as if wishing he had them back in his purse. Another dice cup sat at Comar's elbow.

Comar upended the leather cup in his hand, and began laughing almost before the dice stopped spinning. “Who is next?” he called loudly, pulling the wager to his side of the table. There was already a considerable pile of silver in front of him. He scooped the dice into the cup and rattled them. “Surely someone else wants to try his luck?” It seemed that no one did, but he kept rattling the cup and laughing.

The innkeeper was easy to pick out, though they did not seem to wear aprons in Tear. His coat was the same shade of deep blue as that of every other innkeeper Mat had spoken to. A plump man, though little more than half the size of Lopar and with half that fellow's number of chins, he was sitting at a table by himself, polishing a pewter mug furiously and glaring across the room toward Comar, though not when Comar was looking. Some of the other men gave the bearded man sidelong frowns, too. But not when he was looking.

Mat suppressed his first urge, which was to rush over to Comar, drub him over the head with his quarterstaff, and demand to know where Egwene and the others were. Something was wrong here. Comar was the first man he had seen wearing a sword, but the way the men looked at him was more than fear of a swordsman. Even the serving woman who brought Comar a fresh cup of wine — and was pinched for her trouble — had a nervous laugh for him.

Look at it from every side, Mat thought wearily. Half the trouble I get into is from not doing that. I have to think. Tiredness seemed to have stuffed his head with wool. He motioned to Thom, and they strolled over to the innkeeper's table, who eyed them suspiciously when they sat down. “Who is the man with the stripe in his beard?” Mat asked.

“Not from the city, are you?” the innkeeper said. “He is a foreigner, too. I've never seen him before tonight, but I know what he is. Some outlander who has come here and made his fortune in trade. A merchant rich enough to wear a sword. That is no reason for him to treat us like this.”

“If you have never seen him before,” Mat said, “how do you know he is a merchant?”

The innkeeper looked at him as if he were stupid. “His coat, man, and his sword. He cannot be a lord or a soldier if he's from off, so he has to be a rich merchant.” He shook his head for the stupidity of foreigners. “They come to our places, to look down their noses at us, and fondle the girls under our very eyes, but he has no call to do this. If I go to the Maule, I don't gamble for some fisherman's coins. If I go to the Tavar, I do not dice with the farmers come to sell their crops.” His polishing gained in ferocity. “Such luck, the man has. It must be how he made his fortune.”

“He wins, does he?” Yawning, Mat wondered how he would do dicing with another man who had luck.

“Sometimes he loses,” the innkeeper muttered, “when the stake is a few silver pennies. Sometimes. But let it reach a silver mark... No less than a dozen times tonight, I have seen him win at Crowns with three crowns and two roses. And half again as often, at Top, it has been three sixes and two fives. He tosses nothing but sixes at Threes, and three sixes and a five every throw at Compass. If he has such luck, I say the Light shine on him, and well to him, but let him use it with other merchants, as is proper. How can a man have such luck?”

“Weighted dice,” Thom said, then coughed. “When he wants to be sure of winning, he uses dice that always show the same face. He is smart enough not to have made it the highest toss — folk become suspicious if you always throw the king” — he raised an eyebrow at Mat — “just one that's all but impossible to beat, but he cannot change that they always show the same face.”

“I have heard of such,” the innkeeper said slowly. “Illianers use them, I hear.” Then he shook his head. “But both men use the same cup and dice. It cannot be.”

“Bring me two dice cups,” Thom said, “and two sets of dice. Crowns or spots, it makes no difference, so long as