Outside Ebou Dar [a week since Homecoming, midafternoon]
Valan Luca's Grand Traveling Show of Wonders and Far too Many Other Bloody Adjectives traveled at a pace that would make a snail wonder what was taking so bloody long, Mat reflected as he stared across the river at the wreckage still filling the harbor of Ebou Dar. Ripples in the land hid Ebou Dar, just over a mile to the south, but there wasn't a tree or even a bit of brush in sight.
Mat felt exposed, shrugging his shoulders and wishing for a cloak, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the dozens and dozens of still smoldering wrecks of ships: Seanchan or Sea Folk, he couldn't tell from this distance. He kept losing track of the boats as he tried to count them.
On the far side of the Eldar, a rowboat stopped and one of the crew stood up and fished in the reeds with a long boathook, pulling in what looked like a large sack. Mat winced and shifted his eyes downriver. They were still finding bodies, and he was responsible. The innocent died along with the guilty. And if you did nothing, only the innocent died. Or as bad as died. Maybe worse than, depending on how you looked at it.
Mat snorted, irritated at himself. He sounded like a gray-haired old greatfather who should be stuck in a rocking chair and ignored. The Sea Folk who had been recaptured weighed heavily upon his mind. He'd heard the gibbets in the Rahad, across the harbor, displayed more than a hundred corpses, with placards listing "murder" and "rebellion" as their crimes. Burn me, I did what I could, he thought. There was no use feeling guilty that that was all he could do. Not a bit of use. He had to concentrate on the people who'd escaped.
Valan Luca--for a hefty percentage of the gold in Mat's trunk--had agreed to keep the circus in one place for a few days following their escape from the city after Mat had argued that a circus leaving in the dead of the night after damane--not to mention the Daughter of the Bloody Nine Moons--had gone missing was a sure way to end up caught and executed.
But no one had come looking. And that fact had the hair at the back of his neck standing up. It made no sense. Tuon had said they wouldn't--going on about omens and signs and how her disappearance would dishearten the entire Return--and said that there were probably no more than a dozen, perhaps two people in the entire Empire who knew she was gone. She didn't seem that concerned, and that also made Mat jumpy. With as rigid as the Seanchan were about everything else, he couldn't see them letting one of their royals just swan off whenever she chose.
"You can't avoid her forever," Thom's voice said as he came over the ridge from Ebou Dar. Mat didn't jump in the air. He didn't. And Thom could stop bloody grinning like he had.
"I'm not," Mat insisted. "I'm just working on my strategy. She threatened me with making me a cupbearer, and I have no idea what that means. What did you learn in town?"
"The streets are full of rumors about her," Thom said, sitting down on a patch of dry ground and letting his gleeman's cloak flutter in the icy breeze, "but they all believe she's on an inspection trip or snug in the palace. They honestly don't know. There's more, though. Tylin's dead. They're keeping it quiet for fear of disturbances, but they are planning her funeral and Beslan's coronation for the same day."
"How?" Mat demanded. She was older than he, but not that much older!
Thom hesitated, stroking his mustaches. "She was found in her bedchamber the morning after we left, Mat, still bound hand and foot. Her head...her head had been torn off."
Mat rested his head between his knees, suddenly dizzy. The gholam. "Right," he said hollowly. "Let's get back to camp and see how much of my gold it will take Valan Bloody Luca to move more than half a league in a day."
He took one last look across the harbor before pulling himself to his feet, twinging at the pull from his hip.
"Let's get out of bloody Altara."
[OOC: Warnings for discussions of NPC death. Modified from Crossroads of Suck Twilight by Robert Jordan.]
Mat felt exposed, shrugging his shoulders and wishing for a cloak, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the dozens and dozens of still smoldering wrecks of ships: Seanchan or Sea Folk, he couldn't tell from this distance. He kept losing track of the boats as he tried to count them.
On the far side of the Eldar, a rowboat stopped and one of the crew stood up and fished in the reeds with a long boathook, pulling in what looked like a large sack. Mat winced and shifted his eyes downriver. They were still finding bodies, and he was responsible. The innocent died along with the guilty. And if you did nothing, only the innocent died. Or as bad as died. Maybe worse than, depending on how you looked at it.
Mat snorted, irritated at himself. He sounded like a gray-haired old greatfather who should be stuck in a rocking chair and ignored. The Sea Folk who had been recaptured weighed heavily upon his mind. He'd heard the gibbets in the Rahad, across the harbor, displayed more than a hundred corpses, with placards listing "murder" and "rebellion" as their crimes. Burn me, I did what I could, he thought. There was no use feeling guilty that that was all he could do. Not a bit of use. He had to concentrate on the people who'd escaped.
Valan Luca--for a hefty percentage of the gold in Mat's trunk--had agreed to keep the circus in one place for a few days following their escape from the city after Mat had argued that a circus leaving in the dead of the night after damane--not to mention the Daughter of the Bloody Nine Moons--had gone missing was a sure way to end up caught and executed.
But no one had come looking. And that fact had the hair at the back of his neck standing up. It made no sense. Tuon had said they wouldn't--going on about omens and signs and how her disappearance would dishearten the entire Return--and said that there were probably no more than a dozen, perhaps two people in the entire Empire who knew she was gone. She didn't seem that concerned, and that also made Mat jumpy. With as rigid as the Seanchan were about everything else, he couldn't see them letting one of their royals just swan off whenever she chose.
"You can't avoid her forever," Thom's voice said as he came over the ridge from Ebou Dar. Mat didn't jump in the air. He didn't. And Thom could stop bloody grinning like he had.
"I'm not," Mat insisted. "I'm just working on my strategy. She threatened me with making me a cupbearer, and I have no idea what that means. What did you learn in town?"
"The streets are full of rumors about her," Thom said, sitting down on a patch of dry ground and letting his gleeman's cloak flutter in the icy breeze, "but they all believe she's on an inspection trip or snug in the palace. They honestly don't know. There's more, though. Tylin's dead. They're keeping it quiet for fear of disturbances, but they are planning her funeral and Beslan's coronation for the same day."
"How?" Mat demanded. She was older than he, but not that much older!
Thom hesitated, stroking his mustaches. "She was found in her bedchamber the morning after we left, Mat, still bound hand and foot. Her head...her head had been torn off."
Mat rested his head between his knees, suddenly dizzy. The gholam. "Right," he said hollowly. "Let's get back to camp and see how much of my gold it will take Valan Bloody Luca to move more than half a league in a day."
He took one last look across the harbor before pulling himself to his feet, twinging at the pull from his hip.
"Let's get out of bloody Altara."
[OOC: Warnings for discussions of NPC death. Modified from Crossroads of Suck Twilight by Robert Jordan.]