Chapter 24

Mat wakes in Tar Valon feeling markedly healthier and ravenous after his Healing. Determined to escape the White Tower, he dresses, pockets his dice cups, and slips out unchallenged, treating onlookers as if he belongs.

At the bridge guard barracks he learns Aes Sedai have circulated his description and barred him from leaving the city by any bridge. Whitecloaks hold both riverbanks, worsening travel prospects. Frustrated, he wanders the Tower gardens, encounters novice Else Grinwell—who coldly rebuffs him—and presses on.

Drawn by clattering practice swords, Mat watches Warders train students. He recognizes Gawyn and Galad, whom the Aes Sedai and Accepted admire. When Gawyn greets him and Galad remarks on Nynaeve, talk turns to weapons; stung and tempted by coin, Mat wagers he can defeat both brothers at once with a quarterstaff.

Despite protests, Warder Hammar oversees the match. Mat swiftly drops Gawyn and methodically forces back Galad, finally striking knee, wrist, ribs, and belly to end the fight. He restrains a killing thrust at the last instant. As Aes Sedai tend the princes, Hammar uses the lesson to recall Jearom’s lone defeat to a farmer with a quarterstaff.

Gawyn pays his wager and jokes about Green Ajah interest in Galad, while Hammar covers Galad’s debt. Mat, barely upright from returning weakness and gnawing hunger, accidentally utters Old Tongue and claims Manetheren before correcting himself. Alarmed by these slips and the Tower’s watch, he hobbles away, still desperate to find a way out.