Behind them came Beslan, who gave a sad sigh at the sight of Nalesean and a sadder for the women, and then Harnan and three of the Redarms, Fergin and Gorderan and Metwyn. Three who had been at the front of the building. Harnan and two of the others had bloody gashes in their coats, but Nynaeve must have Healed them below. They did not move as if they still had injuries. They looked very subdued, though.

"What happened at the back?" Mat asked quietly.

"Burn me if I know," Harnan replied. "We walked right into a knot of shoulder thumpers with knives in the dark. There was one, moved like a snake... " He shrugged, touching the bloodstained hole in his coat absentmindedly. "One of them got a knife into me, and the next I remember is opening my eyes with Nynaeve Sedai bending over me and Mendair and the others dead as yesterday’s mutton."

Mat nodded. One who moved like a snake. And got out of rooms like one, too. He looked around the hallway. Reanne and Tamarla were on their feet — straightening their dresses, of course — and Vanin, peering into the room where Elayne was apparently trying out some more curses, seemingly with no more success than earlier. It was hard to tell because of the coughing. Nynaeve stood, helping up Sibella, a scrawny yellow-haired woman, and Sumeko was still working on Famelle, with her pale-honey hair and big brown eyes. But he was never going to admire Melore’s bosom again; Reanne knelt to straighten her limbs and close her eyes, while Tamarla performed the same service for Janira. Two Wise Women dead, and six of his Redarms. Killed by a... man... the Power would not touch.

"I’ve found it!" Elayne shouted excitedly. She strode back out into the hall holding a wide round bundle of rotted cloth she would not let Vanin take from her. Coated in gray from head to toe, she looked as if she had lain down and rolled in the dust. "We have the Bowl of the Winds, Nynaeve!"

"In that case," Mat announced, "we are bloody well getting out of here now." Nobody argued. Oh, Nynaeve and Elayne insisted on all the men making sacks out of their jackets for things they rooted out of the room — they even loaded the Wise Women down, and themselves — and Reanne had to go down and recruit men to carry their dead down the boat landing, but nobody argued. He doubted if the Rahad had ever seen as odd a procession as made its way to the river, or one that moved more quickly.

"We are bloody well getting out of here now," Mat said again later, and this time there was argument. There had been argument for the past half-hour, near enough. Outside, the sun was past its noon peak. The trade winds cut the heat a little; stiff yellow curtains fastened over the tall windows bulged and snapped at gusts. Three hours back in the Tarasin Palace, the dice still bouncing in his head, and he wanted to kick something. Or somebody. He tugged at the scarf tied around his neck; it felt as though the rope that had given him the scar under that scarf was back and tightening slowly. "Love of the Light, are you all blind? Or just deaf?"

The room Tylin had provided was large, with green walls and high blue ceiling, and no furnishings but gilded chairs and small tables set with pearlshell, yet it was crowded even so. It seemed so, anyway. Tylin herself sat before one of the three marble fireplaces with her knees crossed, watching him with those dark eagle’s eyes and a small smile, idly kicking her layered blue and yellow petticoats, idly toying with the jeweled hilt of her curved knife. He suspected Elayne or Nynaeve had spoken to her. They were there, too, seated to either side of the Queen, somehow in clean dresses and apparently even bathed, though they had only been out of his sight for minutes at a stretch since returning to the palace. They almost matched Tylin for regal dignity in their bright silks; he was not sure who they wanted to impress, with all that lace and elaborate embroidery. They looked ready for a royal ball, not a journey. He himself was still in his muck, with his dusty green coat hanging open and the silver foxhead caught in the neck of his half undone shirt. Knotting the leather cord had shortened it, but he wanted the medallion touching his skin. He was around women who could channel, after all.

Truth, those three women could probably have crowded the room by themselves. Tylin could have done it by herself, so far as he was concerned; if Nynaeve or Elayne hadspoken to her, it was a very good thing that he was going. They three could have done it alone, but...

"This is preposterous," Merilille announced. "I’ve never heard of any Shadowspawn called a gholam. Have any of you?" That was directed to Adeleas and Vandene, Sareitha and Careane. Facing Tylin, the cool-eyed Aes Sedai serenity of all five made a fair job of turning their high-backed armchairs into thrones. He could not understand why Nynaeve and Elayne just sat like lumps, coolly serene too, but absolutely silent. They knew, they understood, and for some reason, Merilille and that lot slathered their tongues with meekness for them, now. Mat Cauthon, on the other hand, was a hairy-eared lout who needed to be kicked, and from Merilille on down, they were all ready to do the kicking.

"I saw the thing," he snapped, "Elayne saw the thing, Reanne and the Wise Women saw it. Ask any of them!"

Gathered at one end of the room, Reanne and the five surviving Wise Women shrank back like huddling hens, afraid of actual questions. All but Sumeko, anyway; thumbs tucked behind her long red belt, the round woman kept frowning at the Aes Sedai, then shaking her head, frowning, then shaking her head. Nynaeve had had a considerable talk with her in the privacy of the cabin on the boat coming back, and Mat thought that had something to do with her newfound attitude. He had caught mention of Aes Sedai more than once; not that he had been trying to eavesdrop. The rest seemed to be wondering whether they should offer to fetch tea. Only Sumeko had even appeared to consider the offer of a chair. Sibella, flapping bony arms in shock, had nearly fainted.

"No one denies the word of Elayne Aes Sedai, Master Cauthon," said Renaile din Calon Blue Star in a cool deep voice. Even had the dignified woman in silks to match the red-and-yellow floor tiles not been named to him earlier, the old memories meshed into his own would have identified her as Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships by the ten fat gold rings in her earlobes, those in each ear connected by a golden chain and half-hidden by the narrow wings of white in her straight black hair. The medallions clustered along the finer chain that ran to her nose ring would tell him what clan she came from among other things. So would the tattoos on her slim dark hands. "What we question is the danger," she continued. "We do not like leaving the water without good cause."

Nearly twenty Sea Folk women stood gathered behind her chair, a riot of colorful silks and earrings and medallions on chains for the most part. The first odd thing he had noticed about them was their attitude toward the Aes Sedai. They were perfectly respectful, on the surface at any rate, but he had never before seen anyone look at Aes Sedai smugly. The second odd thing came from those other men’s memories; he did not know a great deal about the Sea Folk from them, but enough. Every Atha’an Miere, man or woman, began as the lowest deckhand whether they were destined one day to become the Master of the Blades or the Mistress of the Ships herself, and every step of the way between, the Sea Folk were sticklers for rank to make any king or Aes Sedai look a sloven. The women behind Renaile were a peculiar lot by any measure — Windfinders to Wavemistresses rubbing shoulders with Windfinders from soarers, by their medallions — but two wore bright blouses of plain wool above the dark oily breeches of deckhands, each with a single thin ring in her left ear. A second and third ring in the right indicated they were being trained as Windfinders, but with two more to earn, not to mention the nose ring, it would be a long while yet that either would find herself called to haul sail whenever the deckmaster needed her, and find the deckmaster’s flail across her rump if she did not move quickly enough. Those two did not belong in this gathering by any memory he had; normally, the Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships would not even have spoken to one of them.