The sun stood little more than halfway to its peak, but already celebrants filled the streets and squares and bridges. Tumblers and jugglers and musicians with feathers sewn about their clothes performed at every street corner, the music often drowned in laughter and shouting. For the poorer folk a few feathers laced into their hair sufficed, pigeon feathers gathered from the pavement for the street children dodging about and the beggars, but masks and costumes grew more elaborate as purses grew heavier. More elaborate, and frequently more scandalous. Men and women alike were often decked in feathers that revealed more skin than Riselle orthat woman back in the Mol Hara. No commerce moved in the streets or canals today, though a number of shops seemed to be open — along with every tavern and inn, of course — but here and there a wagon made its way through the throng or a barge was poled along supporting a platform where young men and women posed in bright bird masks that covered their entire-heads, with spreading crests sometimes rising a full pace, moving long colorful wings in such a way that the rest of their costumes were exposed only in flashes. Which was just as well, considering.

According to Beslan, these settings, as they were called, were usually presented in guild halls and private palaces and houses. The entire festival normally took place indoors for the most part. It did not snow properly in Ebou Dar even when the weather was as it should be — Beslan said he would like to see this snow, one day — but apparently ordinary winter was cold enough to keep people from running around outdoors all but unclothed. With the heat, everything was spilling into the streets. Wait until night fell, Beslan said; then Mat would really see something. As sunlight faded, so did inhibitions.

Staring at a tall slender woman gliding along through the crowd in mask and feathered cloak and beyond that, six or seven feathers, Mat wondered what inhibitions some of these folk had left to shed. He almost shouted at her to cover herself with that cloak. She was pretty, but out in the street, before the Light and everybody?

Those wagons carrying the settings attracted followers, of course, thick knots of men and women who shouted and laughed as they tossed coins, and sometimes folded notes, onto the wagons and squeezed everyone else in the street aside. He became used to fleeing ahead until they could duck down a crossing street, or waiting until the setting went by to cross an intersection or bridge. While waiting, Birgitte and Nalesean tossed coins to filthy urchins and dirtier beggars. Well, Nalesean tossed; Birgitte concentrated on the children, and pressed each coin into a grubby hand like a gift,

In one of those waits, Beslan suddenly put a hand on Nalesean’s arm, raising his voice above the crowd and a cacophony of music coming from at least six different places. "Forgive me, Tairen, but not him." A ragged man edged back into the throng, warily; gaunt-cheeked and bony, he seemed to have lost whatever pitiful feathers he might have found for his hair.

"Why not?" Nalesean demanded.

"No brass ring on his little finger," Beslan replied. "He’s not in the guild."

"Light," Mat said, "a man can’t even beg in this city without belonging to a guild?" Maybe it was his tone. The beggar leaped for his throat, a knife appearing in his grimy fist.

Without thinking, Mat grabbed the man’s arm and spun, slinging him away into the crowd; some people cursed at Mat, some at the sprawling beggar. Some tossed the fellow a coin.

From the corner of his eye, Mat saw a second skinny man in rags try to push Birgitte out of the way to reach him with a long knife. It was a foolish mistake to underestimate the woman because of her costume; from somewhere among those feathers she produced a knife and stabbed him beneath the arm.

"Look out!" Mat shouted at her, but there was no time for warnings; even as he shouted, he drew from his coatsleeve and threw side-armed. The blade streaked past her face to sink into the throat of yet another beggar flaunting steel before he could plant it in her ribs.

Suddenly there were beggars everywhere with knives, and clubs studded with spikes; screams and shouts rose as people in masks and costumes scrambled to get out of the way. Nalesean slashed a man in rags across the face, sending him reeling; Beslan ran another through the middle, while his costumed cronies fought still others.

Mat had no time to see more; he found himself back-to-back with Birgitte and facing his own adversaries. He could feel her shifting against him, hear her mutter curses, but he was barely conscious of it; Birgitte could take care of herself, and watching the two men in front of him, he was not sure he could do the same. The hulking fellow with the toothless sneer had only one arm and a puckered socket where his left eye had been, but his fist held a club two feet long, encircled by iron bands that sprouted spikes like steel thorns. His rat-faced little companion still had both eyes and several teeth, and despite sunken cheeks and arms that seemed all bone and sinew, he moved like a snake, licking his lips and flicking a rusty dagger from hand to hand. Mat aimed the shorter knife in his own hand first at one, then the other. It was still long enough to reach a man’s vitals, and they danced and shuffled, each waiting for the other to leap at him first

"Old Cully won’t like this, Spar," the bigger man growled, and rat-face darted forward, rusty blade flashing from hand to hand.

He did not count on the knife that suddenly appeared in Mat’s left hand and sliced across his wrist. The dagger clattered to the paving stones, but the fellow flung himself at Mat anyway. As Mat’s other blade stabbed into his chest, he squealed, eyes going wide, arms wrapping around Mat convulsively. The bald fellow’s sneer widened, his club rising as he stepped in.

The grin vanished as two beggars swarmed over him, snarling and stabbing.

Staring incredulously, Mat shoved rat-face’s corpse away. The street was clear for fifty paces except for combatants, and everywhere beggars rolled on the pavement, two or three or sometimes four stabbing at one, beating him with clubs or rocks.

Beslan caught Mat’s arm. There was blood on his face, but he was grinning. "Let’s get out of here and let the Fellowship of Alms finish its business. There’s no honor in fighting beggars, and besides, the guild won’t leave any of these interlopers alive. Follow me." Nalesean was scowling — doubtless he saw no honor in fighting beggars either — and Beslan’s friends, several with their costumes awry and one with his mask off so another could dab at a cut across his forehead. The man with the cut was grinning, too. Birgitte bore not a scratch that Mat could see, and her costume looked as neat as it had back in the palace. She made her knife disappear; there was no way she could hide a blade under those feathers, but she did.

Mat made no protest at being drawn away, but he did growl, "Do beggars always go around attacking people in this... this city?" Beslan might not appreciate hearing it called a bloody city.

The man laughed. "You are ta’veren, Mat. There’s always excitement around ta’veren."

Mat smiled back with gritted teeth. Bloody fool, bloody city, and bloody ta’veren. Well, if a beggar slit his throat, he would not have to go back to the palace and let Tylin peel him like a ripe pear. Come to think of it, she had called him her little pear. Bloody everything!

The street between the dyer’s shop and The Rose of the Elbar had its share of revelers, though not many scantily clad. Apparently you had to have coin to go near naked. Though the acrobats in front of the merchant’s house on the corner came close, the men barefoot and bare-chested in tight, brightly colored breeches, the women in even tighter breeches and thin blouses. They all had a few feathers in their hair, as did the capering musicians playing in front of the small palace at the far corner, a woman with a flute, another blowing on a tall, twisted black tube covered with levers, and a fellow beating a tambour for all he was worth. The house they had come to watch looked shut up tight.