A figure joined him at the fire. Lanky and bony, Noal looked like a scarecrow who had dusted himself off and decided to go to town. Despite his white hair and leathery face, Noal was as spry as men half his age. When he was handling a weapon, anyway. Other times he seemed as clumsy as a mule in a dining parlor.

“You’re quite the notable man,” Noal said to Mat, holding out his palms to the fire. “When you stumbled across me in Ebou Dar, I had no idea what illustrious company I’d find myself in. Give this a few more months and you’ll be more famous than Jain Farstrider.”

Mat hunkered down farther into his chair.

“Men always think it would be grand to be known in every tavern and every city,” Noal said softly. “But burn me if it isn’t just a headache.”

“What do you know of it?”

“Jain complained about it,” Noal said softly.

Mat grunted. Thom arrived next. He was dressed as a merchant’s servant, wearing a blue outfit that was not too fine, but also not in disrepair. He was claiming to have come to Low Caemlyn to determine whether his master would be well advised to put a shopfront here.

Thom pulled off the disguise with aplomb, waxing his mustaches to points and speaking with a faint Murandian accent. Mat had offered to come up with a backstory for his act, but Thom had coughed and said that he already had one worked out. Flaming liar of a gleeman.

Thom pulled up a chair, seating himself delicately, as if he were a servant who thought highly of himself. “Ah, what a waste of my time this was! My master insists that I associate with such rabble as this! And here I find the worst of the lot.”

Noal chuckled softly.

“If only,” Thom said dramatically, “I had been instead sent to the camp of the majestic, amazing, indestructible, famous Matrim Cauthon! Then I would certainly have—”

“Burn me, Thom,” Mat said. “Let a man suffer in peace.”

Thom laughed, waving over the serving girl and buying drinks for the three of them. He gave her an extra coin and quietly asked her to keep casual ears from getting too close to the hearth.

“Are you sure you want to meet here?” Noal asked.

“It’ll do,” Mat said. He did not want to be seen back in camp, lest the gholam look there for him.

“All right, then,” Noal said. “We know where the tower is, and can get there, assuming Mat procures us a gateway.”

“I will,” Mat said.

“I haven’t been able to find anyone who has gone inside,” Noal continued.

“Some say it’s haunted,” Thom said, taking a slurp from his mug. “Others say it’s a relic from the Age of Legends. The sides are said to be of smooth steel, without an opening. I did find a captain’s widow’s younger son who once heard a story of someone who found great treasures in the tower. He didn’t say how the lad had gotten in, though.”