They were seated on upended kegs in the scant shade of a two-story house, smoking their pipes, and the lanky old gleeman seemed more interested in staring at the letter Rand had sent on to him. Now he stuffed it into his coat pocket with the blue-wax seal yet unbroken. The buzz of voices and squeak of axles from the street at the end of the alley seemed distant. Sweat dripped from both their faces. At least one thing was taken care of for the moment. Mat had come out of the Little Tower to find that a group of Aes Sedai had hauled Aviendha away somewhere; she would not be sticking a knife in anybody any time soon.

Thom took his pipe from his mouth. It was a long-stemmed thing, carved all over with oak leaves and acorns. “I once tried to rescue a woman, Mat. Laritha was a rose in bud, and married to a glowering brute of a bootmaker in a village where I broke my journey for a few days. A brute. He shouted at her if dinner wasn’t ready when he wanted to sit down, and took a switch to her if he saw her say more than two words to another man.”

“Thom, what in the Pit of Doom does this have to do with making those fool women see sense?”

“Just listen, boy. How he treated her was common knowledge in the village, but Laritha told me herself, all the while moaning over how she wished someone would rescue her. I had gold in my purse and a fine coach, a driver and a manservant. I was young and good-looking.” Thom knuckled his white mustaches and sighed; it was hard to believe that leathery face had ever been good-looking. Mat blinked. A coach? When had a gleeman ever had a coach? “Mat, the woman’s plight wrung my heart. And I won’t deny her face tugged at it, too. As I said, I was young; I thought I was in love, a hero out of the stories. So one day, sitting beneath a flowering apple tree—well away from the bootmaker’s house—I offered to take her away. I’d give her a maid and a house of her own, and court her with songs and verse. When she finally understood, she kicked me in the knee so hard I limped for a month, and hit me with the bench besides.”

“They all seem to like kicking,” Mat muttered, shifting his weight on the keg. “I suppose she didn’t believe you, and who can blame her?”