The other reason for caution was Setalle Anan herself. Mat had never before let himself be turned off a girl because of her mother, even if that mother owned the inn where he was staying, but Mistress Anan had a way about her. Large gold hoops in her ears swung as she surveyed the dead men without a flinch. She was pretty despite a touch of gray in her hair, and her marriage knife nestled in roundness that normally would have drawn his eyes like moths to a candle, yet looking at her that way would have been like looking at... Not his mother. At an Aes Sedai, maybe — though he had done that, of course, just to look — or at Queen Tylin, the Light help him there. Putting a finger on why was not easy. She simply had a way about her. It was just difficult to think of doing anything that would offend Setalle Anan.

"One of them jumped me in the hall." Mat kicked the chest lightly; it made a hollow sound despite the dead man slumped inside with his arms and legs dangling out. "This is empty except for him. I think they meant to fill it with whatever they could steal." The gold, perhaps? Not likely they could have heard of that, won only hours ago, but he would ask Mistress Anan about a safer place to keep it.

She nodded calmly, hazel eyes serene. Men knifed in her inn did not ruffle her feathers. "They insisted on carrying it up themselves. Their stock, so they claimed. They took the room just before you came in. For a few hours, they said, to sleep before traveling on toward Nor Chasen." That was a small village on the coast to the east, but it was unlikely they would have told the truth. Her tone implied as much. She frowned at the dead men as though wishing she could shake them alive to answer questions. "They were picky about the room, though. The pale-haired man was in charge. He turned down the first three he was offered, then accepted this, that was meant for a single servant. I thought he was being stingy with a coin."

"Even a thief can be tightfisted," Mat said absently. This could have qualified to start those dice rolling in his head — a head that would have been cracked open for sure without the luck of that fellow stepping on the one board in the whole inn that would squeak — but the bloody things were still tumbling. He did not like it.

"You think it was chance then, my Lord?"

"What else?"

She had no answer, but she frowned at the corpses again. Maybe she was not so sanguine as he had thought. She was not native to Ebou Dar, after all.

"Too many roughs in the city of late." Jasfer had a deep voice, and speaking normally he seemed to be barking commands on a fishing boat. "Maybe you ought to think on hiring guards." All Mistress Anan did was lift an eyebrow at her husband, but his hands rose defensively. "Peace be on you, wife. I spoke without thinking." Ebou Dari women were known to express displeasure with a husband in a sharp fashion. It was not beyond possibility that a few of his scars came from her. The marriage knife had several uses.

Thanking the Light he was not married to an Ebou Dari, Mat replaced his own knife in its sheath alongside the others. Thank the Light he was not married at all. His fingers brushed paper.

Mistress Anan was not letting her husband off easily. "You frequently do, husband," she said, fingering the hilt between her breasts. "Many women would not let it pass. Elynde always tells me I am not firm enough when you speak out of line. I need to provide a good example for my daughters." Acerbity melted into a smile, if a small one. "Consider yourself chastised. I will refrain from telling you who should haul which net on which boat."

"You are too kind to me, wife," he replied dryly. There was no guild for innkeepers in Ebou Dar, but every inn in the city was in the hands of a woman; to Ebou Dari, bad luck of the worst sort would dog any inn owned by a man or any vessel owned by a woman. There were no women in the fishermen’s guild.

Mat pulled out the paper. It was snowy white, expensive and stiff, and folded small. The few lines on it were printed in square letters like those Olver might use. Or an adult who did not want the hand recognized.

ELAYNE AND NYNAEVE ARE PUSHING TOO FAR. REMIND THEM THEY ARE STILL IN DANGER FROM THE TOWER. WARN THEM TO BE CAREFUL, OR THEY WILL BE KNEELING TO ASK ELAIDA’S PARDON YET.

That was all; no signature. Stillin danger? That suggested it was nothing new, and somehow it did not fit with them being snared up by the rebels. No, that was the wrong question. Who had slipped him this note? Obviously somebody who thought they could not simply hand it to him. Who had had the opportunity since he put the coat on this morning? It had not been there then, for sure. Somebody who had gotten close. Somebody... Unbidden, he found himself humming a snatch of "She Dazzles My Eyes and Clouds My Mind." Around here the tune had different words; they called it "Upside Down and ’Round and ’Round." Only Teslyn or Joline fit, and that was impossible.

"Bad news, my Lord?" Mistress Anan asked.

Mat stuffed the note into his pocket. "Does any man ever get to understand women? I don’t mean just Aes Sedai. Any women."

Jasfer roared, and when his wife directed a meaning gaze his way, he only laughed harder. The look she gave Mat would have shamed an Aes Sedai for its perfect serenity. "Men have it quite easy, my Lord, if they only looked or listened. Women have the difficult task. We must try to understand men." Jasfer took hold of the doorframe, tears rolling down his dark face. She eyed him sideways, tilting her head, then turned, all cool calmness — and punched him under the ribs with her fist so hard that his knees buckled. His laughter took on a wheeze without stopping. "There is a saying in Ebou Dar, my Lord," she said to Mat over her shoulder. " �A man is a maze of brambles in darkness, and even he does not know the way.’ "

Mat snorted. Fat lot of help she was. Well, Teslyn or Joline or somebody else — it must have been somebody else, if he could only think who — the White Tower was a long way away. Jaichim Carridin was right here. He frowned at the two corpses. And so were a hundred other scoundrels. Somehow he would see those two women safely out of Ebou Dar. The trouble was, he did not have a clue how. He wished those bloody dice would stop, and be done with it.

The apartments Joline shared with Teslyn were quite spacious, including a bedchamber for each of them, plus one apiece for their maids and another that would have done quite well for Blaeric and Fen, if Teslyn could have stood to have her Warders with them. The woman saw every man as a potentially rabid wolf, and there was no gainsaying her when she truly wanted something. As inexorable as Elaida, she ground down whatever lay in her path. They stood as equals in every real way, certainly, but not many managed to prevail over Teslyn without a clear advantage. She was at the writing table in the sitting room when Joline entered, her pen making an awful scritch-scritch. She was always parsimonious with the ink.

Without a word, Joline swept by her and out onto the balcony, a long cage of white-painted iron. The scrollwork was so tight that the men working in the garden three stories below would have a difficult time seeing that there was anyone within. Flowers in this region ordinarily thrived in heat, wild colors to outshine the interior of the palace, but nothing bloomed down there. Gardeners moved along the gravel walks with buckets of water, yet nearly every leaf was yellow or brown. She would not have admitted it under torture, but the heat made her afraid. The Dark One was touching the world, and their only hope a boy who was running wild.

"Bread and water?" Teslyn said suddenly. "Send the Cauthon boy off to the Tower? If there do be changes in what we did plan, you will please inform me before telling others."