Welcome back to my re-read, recap, and reaction to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. This post will only have spoilers through the current chapter.
You can find my previous chapter recaps HERE.
Chapter 14: White Plumes
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Matrim Cauthon
Mat is at the Silver Circuit to watch the horse races. Mat has Nalesean Aldiaya put all his money on Wind, which is ridden by Olver. Nalesean hands the booker several bags of gold. Juilin Sandar arrives and tells Mat that the girls hired a boat and Thom hired another to see where they go. Mat scans the crowd and one woman catches his attention, but he’s not sure why. Finally he remembers her as a woman who tried to kill him when he and Rand were making their way to Caemlyn. Wind wins the race, which allows Nalesean to collect a large chest of gold while Mat heads out to follow the woman. She stops at a goldsmith’s shop so Mat turns in to a ring seller. Mat is encouraged to try on a ring and when the woman starts moving again, the ring won’t come off. Mat has to pay and shoves a bunch of coins at the merchant. As he leaves, the ring slips off his finger. She finally enters a small palace and when Mat mutters about who lives there, a scrawny white-haired fellow nearby says, “Chelsaine Palace is let to Carridin“. As Mat ponders the information he now has, the dice start tumbling in his head again.
REACTION:
Mat makes an enormous bet and obviously he wins, because he’s Mat.. so in one race he becomes one of the wealthiest people in Ebou Dar. It’s absurd that Nynaeve and Elayne are not spending any time with him. Not that Mat would have liked that and not that they wouldn’t have tried as hard as possible to prevent him from doing things like winning a giant fortune.
One thing I can’t quite ever decide if I like about the story is the backwater technological / skill superiority of the Two Rivers. The Two Rivers longbow is a call back to the real life invention of the longbow by the English against the French in the 100 Years War. Though to tell the truth, the English didn’t really invent the longbow there. It’s been around since the beginning of civilization. They might have perfected its use at the time, though.
If you remember Shakespeare’s Henry V, for example, then you might remember the longbow’s use at the Battle of Agincourt (not to mention an epic speech about St. Crispin’s Day.) Here’s a rundown of that battle and the bow’s use therein.
So… I can kind of swallow the idea that maybe somehow the Two Rivers maintained the use of the longbow when a lot of the neighboring nations forgot it. Maybe only in The Two Rivers is the right tree wood farmed to make the bows. FINE. I accept that. But how does it make any sense that the Cauthon family is better at judging horse flesh than people who deal professionally (military, racing, etc.) with horses. In short, it doesn’t. If Mat had some knowledge stored away in his acquired memories, then fine, but his horse expertise comes from growing up with his da’ in the Two Rivers. I can’t come up with an explanation about why this expertise exists in his homeland.
I’ll forgive all of that though because of this observation Mat makes about himself, regarding women:
“He could judge women as well as he could horses… wrong-headedness was the key. They were the sort who berated a man for meddling, and chased him away, then berated him again for not being there when he was needed. Not that they would admit he was needed, even then. Not them.”
Mat is allowed to compare Elayne and Nynaeve to horses when he follows it up by spitting facts like this. He has the measure of them, I think.
At the race, Mat recognizes the Darkfriend woman who tried to kill him and Rand on the Caemlyn Road back in Book 1. I am a fan of the law of conservation of characters in this instance. It’s been plenty long enough since we saw her last. And it makes sense that the Darkfriends have a somewhat limited list of high level assassins. The fact she will remember Mat will add to their eventual paths-crossing.
He follows her to a palace where the Whitecloak Inquisitor Bors / Jaichim Carridin is staying in the city. We know he’s also a Darkfriend but Mat does not. We should assume that the Darkfriends now know they were followed, thanks to the old man who interacted with Mat in the street. He was with thet Darkfriend woman at the race.
Sometime later:
“You were followed.”
“By who?”
“Young guy. Wide brimmed hat. Scarf around his neck.”
“Mat Cauthon. Please tell me you killed him.”
“…”
Note: While following her, Mat ends up accidentally buying a signet ring in a moment where he was trying to wait in place while being discreet. It feels like a safe bet that this was a consequential purchase.
Things in Ebou Dar are getting Ebou Dark. Mat is going to have to pull a lot of people’s bacon out of the fire, I reckon.
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