“I train horses and damane,” she said, peering into a cage that held a sleeping lion. The animal was only a large shadow lying on the straw behind the thick bars. “Does he really have a black mane? There are no lions with black manes in all of Seanchan.”

She trained damane? For fun? Light! “Horses? What kind of horses?” It might be warhorses, if she trained bloody damane. For fun.

“Mistress Anan tells me you’re a scoundrel, Toy.” Her voice was cool, not cold. Composed. She turned toward him, face hidden in the shadows of her cowl. “How many women have you kissed?” The lion woke up and coughed, a deep sound guaranteed to raise the hair on anyone’s head. Tuon did not even flinch.

“Looks like rain’s coming again,” he said weakly. “Selucia will have my hide if I get you back soaked.” He heard her laugh softly. What had he said that was funny?

There was a price to pay, of course. Maybe things were going his way and maybe not, but when you thought they were, there was always a price.

“Bunch of chattering magpies,” he complained to Egeanin. The afternoon sat on the horizon, a red-gold ball half hidden by clouds, casting the show in long shadows. There was no rain, for once, and in spite of the cold they were sitting hunched beneath the green wagon they shared, playing stones in plain sight of anyone who walked by. A good many did, men hurrying about some last-minute chore, children snatching the final chance to roll hoops through the mud puddles and toss balls before night fell. Women holding their skirts up glanced at the wagon in passing, and even when they were hooded, Mat knew what their expressions were. Hardly a woman in the show would speak to Mat Cauthon. Irritably, he rattled the black stones he held gathered in his left hand. “They’ll get their gold when we reach Lugard. That’s all they ought to care about. They shouldn’t be poking their noses into my business.”

“You can hardly blame them,” Egeanin drawled, studying the board. “You and I are supposed to be fleeing lovers, but you spend more time with … her … than with me.” She still had trouble not calling Tuon High Lady. “You behave like a man courting.” She reached to place her stone, then stopped with her hand above the board. “You can’t think she’ll complete the ceremony, can you? You can’t be that big a fool.”

“What ceremony? What are you talking about?”