Talmanes and the other two were right where he had left them, of course. When Mat told them what lay ahead, and that burial parties had to be told off, they nodded grimly, Daerid muttering a disbelieving, “Tinkers?”

“We will camp here,” Mat added.

He expected some comment—there was light left for a few more miles, and these three had gotten caught up in how far the Band could move in a day to the point of laying wagers—but Nalesean just said, “I’ll send a man down to signal the ships before they get too far ahead.”

Maybe they felt the way he did. Unless they swung all the way over to the river, there would be no avoiding at least the sight of vultures scattering into the sky from the burial parties. Just because a man had seen death did not mean he had to enjoy it. For Mat’s part, he thought another look at those birds would empty his stomach. In the morning there would only be graves, safely out of eyeshot.

The memory would not go out of his head, though, even after his tent was raised on that very hilltop where it might catch a breeze off the river if one ever decided to rise. Bodies hacked by killers, ravaged by vultures. Worse than the battle around Cairhien against the Shaido. Maidens had died there, but he had not seen any, and there had been no children. A Tinker would not fight even to defend his life. Nobody killed the Traveling People. He picked at his beef and beans, and retired to his tent as soon as he could. Even Nalesean did not want to talk, and Talmanes looked tighter than ever.

Word of the killing had spread. There was a quiet over the camp Mat had heard before. Usually the darkness would be broken by at least a little raucous laughter and sometimes songs off-key and off-color until the bannermen drove the handful who would not admit they were tired to their blankets. Tonight was like the times they had found a village with the dead unburied or a group of refugees who had tried to keep their little from bandits. Few could laugh or sing after that, and those who could were usually silenced by the rest.

Mat lay smoking his pipe while darkness fell, but the tent was close, and sleep would not come for memories of Tinker dead, older memories of older dead. Too many battles, and too many dead. He fingered his spear, traced the inscription in the Old Tongue along the black shaft.

Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made.
Thought is the arrow of time; memory never, fades.
What was asked is given; the price is paid.

He had gotten the worst of that deal.