It was in one of those squares that Vandene drew rein to confer with Adeleas while Nynaeve frowned at them and Elayne stared as if icicles should have been hanging from her nose and chin. At Elayne’s urging, Aviendha had climbed onto her lanky dun for the entry to the city, but now she scrambled down again as awkwardly as she had climbed on. She looked about almost as curiously as Olver, who had been wide-eyed since the city first came into view. Birgitte seemed to be trying to heel Elayne in imitation of Jaem with Vandene.

Mat took the opportunity to fan himself with his hat and look around.

The largest palace he had seen yet filled one entire side of the square, all domes and spires and colonnades three and four stories above the ground. The other three sides mixed great houses with inns and shops, each as white as the next. A statue of a woman in flowing robes, taller than an Ogier, stood on an even taller pedestal in the middle of the square, one arm raised to point south toward the sea. There were only a handful of people walking across the pale paving stones, and no wonder in that heat. A few were eating their midday meal on the lowest step of the pedestal, and pigeons and seagulls flocked about fighting for scraps. It was a picture of tranquility. Mat did not understand why he suddenly felt the dice rolling in his head.

He knew that sensation well. Sometimes he felt it when his luck was running strong in the gambling. It was always there when a battle was in the offing. And it seemed to come when there was a vital decision to make, the sort where the wrong choice might well get his throat cut.

“We will go in now, by one of the lesser gates,” Vandene announced. Adeleas was nodding. “Merilille will see that we are given rooms to freshen.”