She slipped a slim-bladed dagger back into a sheath at her belt. “I would have helped you, but I feared that you might mistake me for one of these great buffoons if I came near with steel in my hand. And I chose this stable because the rain is wet and so am I, and no one was watching this place.”

She was older than he had thought, at least ten or fifteen years older than he, but pretty still, with large, dark eyes and a small, full mouth that seemed on the point of a pout. Or getting ready for a kiss. He gave a small laugh and leaned on his staff. “Well, what is done is done. I suppose you were not trying to bring us trouble.”

Thom was climbing down from the loft, awkwardly because of his leg, and Aludra looked from him to Mat. The gleeman had put his cloak back on; he seldom let anyone see him without it, especially for the first time. “This is like a story,” she said. “I am rescued by a gleeman and a young hero”—she frowned at the men sprawled on the stable floor—“from these whose mothers were pigs!”

“Why did they want to kill you?” Mat asked. “He said something about secrets.”

“The secrets,” Thom said in very nearly his performing voice, “of making fireworks, unless I miss my guess. You are an Illuminator, are you not?” He made a courtly bow with an elaborate swirl of his cloak. “I am Thom Merrilin, a gleeman, as you have seen.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “And this is Mat, a young man with a knack for finding trouble.”

“I was an Illuminator,” Aludra said stiffly, “but this great pig Tammuz, he ruined a performance for the King of Cairhien, and nearly he destroyed the chapter house, too. But me, I was Mistress of the Chapter House, so it was me that the Guild held responsible.” Her voice became defensive. “I do not tell the secrets of the Guild, no matter what that Tammuz says, but I will not let myself starve while I can make fireworks. I am no more in the Guild, so the laws of the Guild, they do not apply to me now.”

“Galldrian,” Thom said, sounding almost as wooden as she had. “Well, he is a dead king now, and he’ll see no more fireworks.”