Mat POV#

Mat walks back to Ebou Dar with Thom, Beslan and Olver. Outside the gates on poles are the heads of the Mistress of the Ships and her Master of the Blades, executed for rebellion.[1] Inside the gates, the streets are packed with Seanchan immigrants.[2] Mat warns Beslan against doing anything rash that would get him and Tylin executed. Thom and Beslan take Olver back to his lessons with Riselle while Mat takes a walk to the docks. There was rumor of a battle between the Seanchan and Asha'man a week ago.[3] He heads back to the Tarasin Palace and recalls that High Lady Suroth is living there.

As he walks down an alley the gholam attacks him. Mat uses the foxhead medallion again burning the gholam on both hands and the face. A man shouts from the end of the alley and the gholam flees, flowing through a small hole in the wall. The old man walks up. Mat says he saw something like that in Shadar Logoth.[4] They make introductions. The old man is Noal. The Seanchan kicked him out of his room in The Golden Ducks. Mat offers to find room for him in the Tarasin Palace and they head back.

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