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Reading The Wheel of Time: Two Captains, One Traveling Show in Crossroads of Twilight (Part 4)
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The Wheel of Time
Reading The Wheel of Time: Two Captains, One Traveling Show in Crossroads of Twilight (Part 4)
Chapters one and two finally reunite us with Mat…
By Sylas K Barrett
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Published on August 6, 2024
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Welcome back to Reading The Wheel of Time! This week we finally get out of the prologue and into the actual body of the book. We’re covering chapters one and two today, and while I’d thought that we might have to wait longer to find out how things went for Mat and his Merry Band of Misfits in their escape from Ebou Dar (I mean, how long have we been waiting to find out how Perrin and Faile are doing?), I’m not sorry to get right back to him. Mat has always been a fun character, but his arc has gotten a lot more interesting lately; I’m really enjoying how he’s developing and changing. Things have just gotten really serious for him, and he’s responsible for a lot more than just being a general and leading an army. I can’t wait to see where he’ll go next.
But first, we need to do the recap—starting with that lovely, windy opening.
In the Rhannon Hills, a wind rises and flows down over Ebou Dar towards the harbor, past local farmers preparing their equipment for the spring planting and wagons of Seanchan settlers heading east. Down by the river, Mat sits on a boulder looking out over the harbor, trying to count the ships that are still at anchor, and to make sense of the charred remains of the ships that have been burned and sunk. The shape of the land hides the city from his sight, and vice versa, but he feels exposed and vulnerable out here in the open, even in his plain clothes. Noal is with him, doing some fishing while he waits for Mat to finish his study.
It’s been six days since the conflict in Ebou Dar that Mat started by freeing the Windfinders, and bodies are still being pulled out of the water. Mat feels responsible for all of them.
The innocent died along with the guilty. And if you did nothing, then only the innocent died. Or as bad as died. Maybe worse than, depending on how you looked at it.
Mat can’t seem to get away from the future that appears destined for him—being ta’veren doesn’t do anything about that, apparently—but he is still alive and unchained. Under the circumstance, that counts as his luck holding. Still, it’s difficult not to let his thoughts wander to the Sea Folk who were recaptured, their corpses hanging in gibbets across the harbor with placards declaring their crimes. He is trying to figure out how many ships are missing from the harbor so he can estimate how many of the Atha’an Miere actually escaped. Suddenly, he feels one of his old memories tugging at his mind, a memory of leading ships into battle. He realizes that the Seanchan no longer have enough ships to return to their home and voices the thought aloud.
“We don’t have to go home,” a woman drawled behind him. “We’ve come home.”
Mat almost jumps when he hears the Seanchan accent, but it is only Egeanin. She is wearing a wig and a scarf, having had to shave her head after the escape. Mat understands that impersonating a member of the Imperial family is punishable by death, but he didn’t understand why Egeanin was almost hysterical until she was able to cover her head with the wig. After all, what’s one more death penalty on top of the rest?
Mat questions Egeanin about the fate of those Windfinders who were recaptured. He has heard stories from Renna about damane having their hands or feet cut off, but Egeanin assures him such things are mostly just stories to frighten disobedient damane and are hardly ever done anymore. When Mat insists that Suroth might, Egeanin explains that those damane don’t belong to Suroth but to the Empress herself, and Suroth would never dare do such a thing to Imperial property.
“That’s even if she would; I’ve never heard of her mistreating her own. I’ll try to put this in terms you can understand. If your dog runs away, you don’t maim it. You switch the dog so it knows not to do that again, and you put it back in the kennel. Besides, damane are just too—”“Too valuable,” Mat finished for her dryly. He had heard that till he was sick of it.
Egeanin ignores his sarcasm, and assures him that the damane he is so worried about probably don’t even have marks left from the punishment they received. She muses about her own damane, Serrisa, and regrets she had to leave her behind. Noal tells Egeanin that he’s sure Serrisa misses her, too, and Mat can’t decide if the man is being sarcastic or sincere.
Egeanin changes the subject, reminding them that she gave orders saying no one was to leave the wagons. Mat is insolent in his reply, though he agrees it’s time to get back. As they walk, he and Egeanin put their arms around each other, maintaining the illusion of their cover story, that Egeanin is a Seanchan noblewoman who has run away from an abusive husband to be with Mat. He uses Egeanin to steady himself as he walks, and she complains that if he did as he was told, she wouldn’t have to carry him. As they walk, Mat remembers their flight from the city, six nights ago.
They rode through the storm until they reached the relative shelter of the long passageway through the city arch, and were met on the far side by over a dozen gate guards, half of them Seanchan. Mat was grateful for the rain that hid his nervous sweating as the guards inspected Egeanin’s papers and a sul’dam/damane pair patrolled along the length of their company. Egeanin being of the Blood meant that she wasn’t questioned about her doings, despite the strangeness of traveling so late and in such weather; the sul’dam was looking for marath’damane, not leashed women. But Mat was still convinced that something was about to go wrong, and he could feel the dice rolling in his head.
He had Tuon wrapped in a wall hanging and thrown over his saddle in front of him, a knife pressed surreptitiously against her back. He assumed the threat of the knife was keeping her and Selucia from giving the alarm, but he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t change their minds at any moment.
Then came the sound of trumpets back in the city, followed by the ringing of alarm bells. The night was illuminated with more lightning than any storm ever produced, followed by the sounds of explosions and screaming. For a moment Mat was upset at the Windfinders for starting the fight earlier than was promised, but then he noticed that the dice had stopped in his head. The guards hurried Egeanin on her way and then rushed off towards the chaos, leaving Mat and his company—including three Aes Sedai and the kidnapped heir to the Seanchan throne—to ride off, leaving behind the battle over Ebou Dar.
Pulling himself back to the present, Mat fervently hopes that the worst is over, and that no one will even connect him to Egeanin’s flight or the escaped damane. Tylin will have leveled her own charges against him, of course, but Mat hopes no one will connect her “pet” with the disappearance of Tuon, a far more pressing problem for the Seanchan than Tylin’s dignity.
Egeanin has explained that the search for Tuon will be carried out in utter secrecy, with even most Seanchan not knowing that she’s missing, but Mat can’t believe even the Seanchan would behave that strangely. They are passed by some wagons, and then some Seanchan soldiers. Mat has to control both Egeanin’s panicked glaring and Noal’s sudden desire to ask one of the soldiers where he’s from.
Few people are visiting Luca’s show anymore, and there are no crowds near the tent. However, they do see the strongman, Petra Anhill, and his wife Clarine hovering oddly by one of the tents at the entrance. Petra warns them that there are about twenty Seanchan soldiers talking to Luca, though they aren’t searching the wagons and don’t seem to be looking for Egeanin. Petra reassures her that no one will give her away, but Mat knows that they are all a little worried about the risk of sheltering a runaway Seanchan noblewoman.
He thanks Petra for the warning, and decides to wander over to Luca’s tent and see what he can see, while sending Noal and “Leilwin” to stay with Olver. But Egeanin insists on going with him, although she agrees to keep her head down and let Mat do the talking.They head to Luca’s wagon, passing Aludra at her work, and find Bayle hovering outside, along with Blaeric, though the Warder is doing a much better job of appearing casual than the former so’jhin. Luca comes out, giving a flourishing bow to the Seanchan officer with him, and the soldiers depart. Mat is beyond relieved to learn that the Seanchan were just looking for horses, but Luca is upset, not sure how much longer his exemption will be honored, given how desperate the Seanchan are for horses. He accuses Mat of putting his horses and his show in danger, claiming he should have left the day he saw the lightning over Ebou Dar, but Mat assures him that fleeing on that night would have attracted far too much attention and tells Luca that they can leave just as soon as Thom returns from the city.
Egeanin upbraids Mat for trying to give the orders again, but Luca—who knows the true story of who they are and why they are fleeing Ebou Dar—respectfully tells her that while he’s eager to obey her, Mat is the one with gold. As Luca starts to get everyone ready to depart, Egeanin and Domon try to corner Mat. She tells Mat that two captains on one ship ensures disaster. Mat is a farmer, she says, and though he’s good in a tight spot, this situation needs judgment and experience, and he has no knowledge of command.
Mat answers that she might be surprised, and suggests that she and Domon get ready to leave.
He finds Juilin outside his tent playing Snakes and Foxes with Olver, and Thera hiding in their makeshift tent nearby. During their escape, Mat wasn’t aware that Thera was really Amathera, Panarch of Tarabon, though Thom and Juilin were. Mat supposes that helping her escape isn’t as dangerous as everything else they’ve done. Noal appears suddenly, breathing as if he’s been running. Mat wonders what the man was doing when he was supposed to go straight to Olver, but it doesn’t seem as important as everything else.
She answered faster to Thera than to Amathera, she made no demands, except on Juilin’s time, and there seemed little chance anyone would recognize her here. In any case, Mat hoped she felt more than gratitude for being rescued, because Juilin certainly felt more for her. Who was to say a dethroned panarch could not fall in love with a thief-catcher? Stranger things had happened. Though he was not sure he could name one, offhand.
Mat explains that the Seanchan just wanted to see Luca’s warrant for the horses. Juilin remarks that it’s a good thing they didn’t count the picket line, since the warrant lists the exact number of horses Luca is allowed. As everyone starts getting ready to depart, and Noal and Juilin go tell the rest of Mat’s followers to do the same, they can hear the rest of the camp bustling about. But Mat can hear something else, too—once again, the dice have started rolling in his head.
I really enjoyed these opening chapters. The prologue let me know where people were and reminded me what they were doing, but it was chapter one that really made me feel like I was back in the world. I’ve always enjoyed Jordan’s descriptions of place, but for some reason the scene at the river felt particularly immersive to me. I could see perfectly, in my mind’s eye, the rolling hills and the river, Noal with his basket, the harbor with the remnants of the burned ships.
Mat’s guilt and grief were just as palpable as the wind and landscape. This isn’t the first time he’s had to face violence and death that he feels partly responsible for, but there is a big difference between being a general leading soldiers into battle against other soldiers and what happened in Ebou Dar—a rebellion of conquered and enslaved people, fighting between channelers inside the city walls. Until now, Mat’s probably been one of the most reluctant participants in the battles he’s fought in, but this one involved civilians, and the Sea Folk trying to escape slavery. And as we’ve seen, the Seanchan are absolutely brutal to their enemies.
It’s really interesting to see how much Mat resembles Rand right now, in this moment. He has an injury that he’s pretending isn’t hampering him—granted, it’s just a normal one that he hasn’t had time to let heal properly, not a metaphysical sickness or two un-healing wounds dealt by pure Evil, but for the moment it feels symbolically similar. At the same time, he’s feeling directly responsible for what happened to the Windfinders in a way that isn’t entirely fair to himself.
We’ve seen how Rand can’t seem to acknowledge—emotionally, at least—that the members of Far Dareis Mai made a choice to be warriors, to fight and die for him the way the male societies do, that it is their choice, and therefore their own responsibility, not his, if they fall in battle. In a similar way, Mat is forgetting, in this moment, that the Windfinders would rather die than remain damane. That is what Nestelle din Sakura South Star told him when he set her free, and one can’t really doubt that any others who remained unbroken felt the same. Yes, he has some responsibility for freeing Nestelle, for creating the situation that allowed the battle to take place, but he didn’t cause the deaths of the Windfinders as much as he gave them a chance to escape the worst kind of slavery.
Of course it’s understandable that he feels guilt over the deaths, and a special worry over the fate of the Windfinders; never mind Rena’s stories about chopping bits off, imagine the agony of being freed from the a’dam only to be captured and bound again. Of course there were many others who died in the fighting, plenty of people who were neither escaping Sea Folk nor Seanchan soldiers—innocents, as Mat acknowledges in his thoughts. Mat is going on the same emotional journey that Rand and Perrin already have—a heavy burden for anyone. I think this will have a profound effect on him and his personality going forward.
He does seem to be a bit more pragmatic about the whole thing than Rand, however. Perhaps this is because the magnitude of responsibility Rand carries is so much greater than anyone else’s, or because Lews Therin’s guilt is always bleeding over into Rand’s mind (see: the death of any woman for any reason), or because of a difference in temperament between the two men. It’s probably a mix of all of these things, really, and while I have a lot of sympathy for Rand’s position, it’s also refreshing to see how Mat handles his emotions around the battle in Ebou Dar—allowing himself to be affected to a certain degree, but also realizing the reality of a situation that he did not create, only navigated as best that he could.
And then, of course, there’s the fact that his head is full of other people’s memories. Rand only has one guy in his head, but it’s the whole person, while Mat has a generous scattering of moments from many different people. He’s lucky they mostly seem to be generals and important leaders. I initially assumed these were all memories from Mat’s past lives, but that doesn’t necessarily seem the case, and I wonder if some or all of the memories he was given were memories that were taken from previous visitors to the foxy people, as payment for whatever those people asked for. Either way, those memories have been even more helpful to Mat than his luck has been, making him into a truly impressive general and even giving him knowledge about certain cultures he wouldn’t otherwise have, like the Sea Folk. Like Rand with Lews Therin, he seems to have found more of an equilibrium with his memories now: He no longer speaks in the Old Tongue without intending to and is aware that the memories aren’t his own, able to view them objectively when they come up, as we see him do in the beginning of Chapter One.
I would note, though, that even without the memories, I think Mat has the tendency towards being a natural leader. This fact is a little disguised by his desperation not to be involved in things, and by his constant insistence, to others and to himself, that he isn’t a hero and doesn’t care about other people’s problems—but we’ve seen how untrue that is, and now events have forced him into the position of being responsible for the safety of others.
Until he met Olver, Mat was only responsible for the Band, which was still a responsibility, but nothing like the one he has now. Now, he’s also responsible for the safety and upbringing of a young boy, as well as for the rescued Aes Sedai, at least one of whom probably has some serious trauma from being collared, not to mention the three sul’dam, who would probably just as soon betray them all, as long as they could keep their own safety (and their secret) in the process. Then there’s future wife Tuon and the loyal Selucia, with all the danger that kidnapping entails, plus Noal and whatever is going on with him, and Juilin’s new girlfriend, who is also really traumatized and struggling.
And of course there’s Bayle and Egeanin, although those two are doing their level best not to be Mat’s responsibility.
Being responsible for this diverse group, with diverse needs, many of whom are not fighters and are relying heavily on his protection (whether they want to be or not), will be a very different experience for Mat. I think he’s up for the challenge, but I can appreciate why Egeanin doesn’t think so. She doesn’t know much about Mat, after all, and what Bayle could tell her is both limited and outdated. They’re basically relying on his impression of Mat, and if I were in Egeanin’s shoes I wouldn’t want to trust my fate to this young stranger either, even if he came up with most of the escape plan. After all, the base plan was his, but Egeanin’s expertise and resources were needed to make it work; unless he was willing to leave Ebou Dar without the Aes Sedai, he needed her just as much as she needed him.
And because he wasn’t willing to leave without them, Egeanin’s own escape was made more dangerous and complicated, both by the Aes Sedai and by the encounter with Tuon. While she doesn’t seem to judge Mat in the same light she is judging Juilin, she is probably thinking about that fact, and that if Mat were to accept her leadership, Egeanin will have the ability to control or even eliminate other complications in the future.
On the other side of things, of course, is the fact that, while a very capable person, Egeanin is clearly struggling to adapt to her new circumstances. She has shown herself to be pretty flexible for a Seanchan, able to absorb the revelation about the sul’dam, work with and come to like Nynaeve and Elayne even knowing they were channelers, and even to adjust some of her ideas about what loyalty she is or isn’t willing to give to the Empire. Still, these changes can’t come overnight, and we can see that there are parts of this transition to her new life that she is struggling with more than she will admit, even to herself.
I think Jordan has done a really excellent job with her character, showing us how the societal rules and morals she was raised with are easier to let go of in some places than others. The idea of running away to avoid the Seeker for Truth is something that comes very easily, and even committing the theft of damane doesn’t seem to give her much pause. On the other hand, the idea that she might be thought to be impersonating a member of the Imperial family sends her into spirals, even though that’s not what she is doing and she knew she’d get to put the wig on immediately.
It’s possible that there’s more to the punishment for impersonating a member of the Empress’s family than just death—maybe some horrible torture or punishment that extends to one’s family or servants—but I suspect that Egeanin’s distress has less to do with fear of being caught than it does with the intense loyalty the Seanchan have for their rulers. The Seanchan don’t just obey the hierarchy their culture prescribes, they believe in it utterly; it defines their sense of self in a way that I don’t think would make sense to most people outside their culture unless those people also have a sense of self that’s bound up in a specific identity, like the importance Juilin places on being a thief-catcher, or Nynaeve thinking of herself as a healer above all else, or a Warder being defined by that role. For someone like Mat, who is easily able to fit himself into many roles without losing his idea of who he is (as opposed to, say, Perrin and Rand who both rebelled at the idea of dressing like a noble), the Seanchan way of life is so different to how he thinks that he can’t imagine people would actually be like that, even when it’s right in front of him.
But to get back to Egeanin, my point is that the narrative powerfully shows the ways in which she is able to be flexible and the places where her Seanchan cultural brainwashing doesn’t give way easily, even to the point of sometimes making her a hypocrite.
She has admitted to herself that maybe not all channelers should be made damane; she was willing to set Bethamin free when she caught her back in Tanchico, and seems to have little or no moral quandary blackmailing Bethamin, Seta, and Rena into helping free captured Aes Sedai. On the other hand, she still thinks of damane more or less the way the rest of the Seanchan do. Even if she was only speaking about the Seanchan perspective in general when she compared the Windfinders to escaped dogs, the way she speaks of her own damane shows how she still thinks of them.
I did love Noal’s possible dig at her, and I do think he meant it sarcastically. The timing was too perfect. I’m sure the slave woman you think of as a tamed animal misses you so much. After all, she never got the sulks, even if she was a glutton for sweet nuts. You know, like a puppy or a baby.
Egeanin is also hypocritical when it comes to Juilin and Amathera. Amathera’s position as da’covale, which she was put in after she refused to accept the Seanchan conquest and swear allegiance to the Empress, is no different than the Aes Sedai being made captive; having participated in the freeing of damane herself, it’s pretty silly of her to deem Juilin more of a thief than she is, or Mat is, or anyone else in the party is. I mean, she might not like him for it, but she’s not shunning Mat for taking Tuon, which is a way worse offense than what Juilin has done. But of course, she can’t shun Mat. She needs him. And his money.
I imagine that Egeanin will continue to change and grow, now that she’s been forced to leave her culture behind. It will be really interesting to see where she ends up and how she handles all the changes she’s committed herself to. In the short term, however, I really feel for Mat having to deal with her. She might not trust in his ability to lead, but she really does need to let him take charge. Even outside of his experiences from other men’s memories, he has also been a general for a little while now, and he has much more knowledge of this world than Egeanin does. If having two captains is going to cause problems, it’s really in her best interest to let him lead.
But these things are never that simple. It’s easy for me, someone who knows Mat, to say, and much harder for someone who doesn’t know him and whose very life hangs in the balance. Mat is keeping everything he can from her, as well, not wanting to make himself more vulnerable. That, too, makes sense: She’s a Seanchan woman he barely knows, and Bayle may vouch for her, but she also, you know, owned the guy for a while. It makes sense that Mat is keeping his cards close to his chest. Still, I can also imagine that a little bit more information—like the fact that he’s a respected general with many loyal soldiers who follow him—might help calm Egeanin down a little. Anything he can do to get her to cede control to him would probably be a useful thing.
I am very proud of myself for guessing that Thera was Amathera! That poor woman has been through so much. This was not the lesson in understanding the common people that Elayne hoped she would learn. I can’t really fault Amathera for being kind of a mess after her treatment by the Seanchan, especially when she was already softened up by all the torture she received at the hands of Temaile and the rest of Liandrin’s cronies. Hopefully Juilin can help her recover some of her equilibrium over time, because it would be interesting to get to know her more and to see what it is that has drawn the two of them together.
Speaking of getting to know people, I am desperately curious to know what Noal’s deal is. He clearly has some kind of memory loss, which is especially interesting seeing that he’s ended up with Mr. Matrim Fancy-Memory-Loss Cauthon himself. On their first meeting, Noal was trying to remember some task that he was supposed to perform, which will probably come up at some important point in the future. Also, he was already pretty important in saving’s Mat life, and then in capturing Tuon, an act which is certainly going to have a very important impact on Mat’s life.
Speaking of Tuon, where is she? It’s mentioned that the Aes Sedai and sul’dam are sharing a wagon together on Mat’s orders (and that the Aes Sedai are tired of being confined out of sight) but there’s no mention of where Tuon and Selucia are. They must either be under lock and key or under guard near Mat’s surviving men, presumably.
I really really want more from Tuon. I want to know how she and Mat get on when they’re actually on equal footing. I want to know why she decided to let herself get kidnapped—presumably to avoid having her future husband executed, but I wonder also if she hopes to learn more of the world this way, to see the land her people hope to conquer—or re-conquer, as they see it. Despite her strict adherence to Seanchan traditions, her belief in omens and in her own position, she seems to think a little differently than many of the Blood we’ve seen so far, and I think that could be really interesting.
Stranger things have happened, Mat thinks when he considers an ex-Panarch and a thief-catcher falling in love. Perhaps he’s thinking of his own future wife, and the very strange start the two of them have gotten off to.
I’m taking next week off while I’m on vacation, so we will reconvene on the 2oth with chapters three and four, in which I’ll get my wish to see more of Tuon. See you all then![end-mark]
The post Reading The Wheel of Time: Two Captains, One Traveling Show in <i>Crossroads of Twilight</i> (Part 4) appeared first on Reactor.
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