Mat’s smile slipped. Game? He was just trying to regain a little balance. But she saw a game, and that meant he could lose. Was likely to, since he had no idea what the game was. Why did women always make things so… complicated?

Selucia resumed her place and slid a chipped cup in front of him, and a blue-glazed plate that held half a loaf of crusty bread, six varieties of pickled olives mounded up. and three sorts of cheese. That perked his spirits again. He had hoped for this, if not expected it. Once you got a woman feeding you, she had a hard time finding it in herself to stop you from putting your feet under her table again.

“The thing of it is,” Noal said, resuming his tale, “in those Ayyad villages, you can see woman of any age. but no men much above twenty if that. Not a one.” Olver’s eyes grew even wider. The boy practically inhaled Noal’s tales, about the countries he had seen, even the lands beyond the Aiel Waste, swallowed them whole without butter.

“Are you any relation to Jain Charin. Noal?” Mat chewed an olive and discreetly spat the pit into his palm. The thing tasted not far from spoiling. So did the next one. But he was hungry, so he gobbled them down and followed with some crumbly white goat cheese while ignoring the frowns Tuon directed at him.

The old man’s face went still as stone, and Mat had torn off a piece of bread and eaten that as well before Noal answered. “A cousin,” he said at last, grudgingly. “He was my cousin.”

“You’re related to Jain Farstrider?” Olver said excitedly. His favorite book was The Travels of Jain Farstrider, which he would have sat up reading by lamplight long past his bedtime had Juilin and Thera allowed. He said he intended to see everything Farstrider had. when he grew up, all that and more.

“Who is this man with two names?” Tuon asked. ‘Only great men are spoken of so, and you speak as if everyone should know him.”

“He was a fool,” Noal said grimly before Mat could open his mouth, though Olver did get his open, and left it gaping while the old man continued. “He went gallivanting about the world and left a good and loving wife to die of a fever without him there to hold her hand while she died. He let himself be made into a tool by-” Abruptly Noal’s face went blank. Staring through Mat, he rubbed at his forehead as though attempting to recall something.

“Jain Farstrider was a great man,” Olver said fiercely. His hands curled into small fists, as though he was ready to fight for his hero. “He fought Trollocs and Myrddraal, and he had more adventures than anyone else in the whole world! Even Mat! He captured Cowin Gemallan after Gemallan betrayed Malkier to the Shadow!”

Noal came to himself with a start and patted Olver’s shoulder. “He did that, boy. That much is to his credit. But what adventure is worth leaving your wife to die alone?” He sounded sad enough to die on the spot himself.

Olver had no answer to that, and his face fell. If Noal had put the boy off his favorite book, Mat was going to have words with the old man. Reading was important-he read himself; sometimes, he did- and he had made sure Olver had books he enjoyed.

Standing, Tuon leaned across the table to rest a hand on Noal’s arm. The stern look had vanished from her face, replaced by tenderness. A wide belt of dark yellow tooled leather cinched her waist, emphasizing her slim curves. More of his coin spent. Well, coin was always easy to come by for him, and if she did not spend it, likely he would throw it away on some other woman. “You have a good heart, Master Charin.” She gave everybody their bloody names except for Mat Cauthon!

“Do I, my Lady?” Noal said, sounding as though he really wanted to hear an answer. “Sometimes I think-” Whatever he thought sometimes, they were not to learn it now.

The door swung open and Juilin put his head into the wagon. The Tairen thief-catcher’s conical red cap was at its usual jaunty angle, but his dark face was worried. “Seanchan soldiers are setting up across the road. I’m going to Thera. She’ll take a fright if she hears it from anybody else.” And as quickly as that he was gone again, leaving the door swinging.

Seanchan soldiers. Blood and bloody ashes! That was all Mat needed, with the dice spinning his head. “Noal, find Egeanin and warn her. Olver. you warn the Aes Sedai. and Bethamin and Seta.” Those five would all be together or at least close by one another. The two former sul’dam shadowed the sisters whenever they left the wagon they all shared. Light, he hoped none of them had gone into the town again. That could put a weasel in the chicken yard for sure! “I’ll go down to the entrance and try to see whether we’re in any trouble.”

“She won’t answer to that name.” Noal muttered, sliding out from the table. He moved spryly for a fellow who looked to have had half the bones in his body broken one time or another. “You know she won’t.”

“You know who I mean.” Mat told him sharply, frowning at Tuon and Selucia. This name foolishness was their fault. Selucia had told Egeanin that her name was now Leilwin Shipless, and that was the name Egeanin was using. Well, he was not about to put up with that sort of thing, not for himself and not for her. She had to come to her senses, soon or late.

“I’m just saying,” Noal said. “Come on, Olver.”

Mat slid out after them, but before he reached the door, Tuon spoke.

“No warnings for us to remain inside, Toy? No one left to guard us?”

The dice said he should find Hainan or one of the other Redarms and plant him outside just to guard against accidents, but he did not hesitate. “You gave your word.” he said, settling his hat on his head. The smile he got in reply was worth the risk. Burn him, but it lit up her face. Women were always a gamble, but sometimes a smile could be win enough.

He saw from the entrance that Jurador’s days without a Seanchan presence had come to an end. Directly across the road from the show, several hundred men were taking off armor, unloading wagons, setting up tents in ordered rows, establishing horselines. All very efficiently done. He saw Taraboners with mail veils hanging from their helmets and bars of blue, yellow and green painted across their breastplates, and men who were clearly infantry, stacking long pikes and racking bows much shorter than a Two Rivers bow. in armor painted the same. He thought those must be Amadicians. Neither Tarabon nor Altara ran much to foot, and Altarans in service to the Seanchan had their armor marked differently for some reason. There were actual Seanchan, of course, perhaps twenty or thirty that he could see. There was no mistaking that painted armor of over-lapping plates or those strange, in-sectile helmets.

Three of the soldiers came ambling across the road. lean, hardbitten men. Their blue coats, with the collars striped green-and-yellow. were plain enough despite the colors and showed the wear of armor use, but no signs of rank. Not officers, then, but still maybe as dangerous as red adders. Two of the fellows could have been from An-dor or Murandy or even the Two Rivers, but the third had eyes tilted like a Saldaean’s, and his skin was the color of honey. Without slowing, they started into the show.

One of the horse handlers at the entrance gave a shrill three-note whistle that began to echo through the show while the other, a squint-eyed fellow named Bollin, pushed the glass pitcher in front of the three. “Price is a silver penny each, Captain,” he said with deceptive mildness. Mat had heard the big man speak in the same tone a heartbeat before he thumped another horse handler over the head with a stool. “Children is five coppers if they’s more than waist-high on me, and three if they’s shorter, but only children as has to be carried gets in free.”