WOT Adv 237 - Maer, Maeslyn / Vaid, Eliessana

-- The Wheel Turns --
With one arm, Vaid grabbed Eliesanna. With his other arm, he wrapped his large palm around the scrawny man's face and pushed hard, sending the little man sprawling.
"The light take you!" The man cursed and tried to stand but was knocked down and lost in the crowd.
"Come on miss!" Muttering to himself for his idiocy: he knew the wretches of the street were this bad, but being around that girl made him into a fool. As best he could, he tried to push people away, and sometimes rather violently, to make them realize that he had no more coin to give them.
"Please sir... please!"
"Milord, please help us! Just one coin"
"My baby... " A woman moaned tearfully. "Where's my baby?"
"Blood and ashes, I have no coin!" Vaid shouted. He knew he was growing angry. "Come on miss!" he growled and pulled Eliesanna after him. The crowed surged after him, not letting him alone, growing more violent.
...
"Apprentice Wise One," Maer said mildly, setting down his package of rolls and watching the beggars swarming about the pair. "Could you perhaps make my voice louder?"
"I..." she paused, and then shook her head looking at from Vaid and Eliesanna to the crowd anxiously. "No Maer, I don't think so. I think I understand what strands to use. Air probably and maybe fire or spirit." But then she shook her head more firmly. "No, I cannot. And even if I could I would not. Remember, that if what Vaid fears is true, there may be sisters of the Black Ajah here in this city. If they should sense me channeling, I would be but a kitten compared to their skills. I dare not channel except only as a last resort. I... I'm sorry." Concern was written across her face.
Maer nodded and decided to give his plan a try anyway. If it didn't work, he could always go in dancing the spear among the wetlanders--with the blunt end of course. Maer climbed atop a vegetable cart half full of wrinkled scrawny potatoes.
"You want gold?" He shouted to the excitable crowd. A few heads turned towards him. "Do you want gold?" He shouted again. He began to trickle a few golden crowns from one hand to another, a golden stream that glinted in the morning sunlight. Several heads turned towards him and there low murmurs of "gold" and "coin" passed from person to person. "Do you want gold?" he shouted a third time.
"Gold! Gold!" A chant started with a smattering of beggars and then began to grow in an ever increasing feverish pitch. "Gold! Gold!"
A squad of the Civil Watch marching on patrol around the corner heard the chanting and looked at each other and to Maer worriedly.
Maer could see that more and more pressure was taken from Vaid and Eliesanna as the beggars by and large shifted their attention to this newcomer who promised them salvation from their plight.

Maer flashed a large smile as the crowd who seemed mesmerized by the coins he dripped from one hand to another. "I am offering a prize," Maer shouted again. "Five gold marks to the man, woman, or child who can beat me in a footrace to the Panarch's palace!"
"What's he saying?" A few yelled in the back.
"He has gold..." a dozen shouted back. "gold for us all!"
"No, he didn't say that you flaming louts! It's a bloody footrace! Only to one winner, not to all!"
"He has gold!" Those in the back shouted happily, excitedly and greedily. "Gold for all of us!"
Maer flipped a coin high in the air and made as if to fumble at catching it. The crowd grew silent as they watched the gleaming metal turning end of end in the sun, bounce off the wooden cart and clink several times onto the stone cobbles of the market square before coming to rest under a large stand with earthenware jugs. The owner had his mouth open looking from Maer to the valuable coin near his feet . "Oops. I dropped one...." Maer said in a loud voice.
Most of the crowd in one howling mass, eager for some release from their condition, surged forward. "A race!" "It's mine!" "Give it me!" "Gold for us all!" "Get him!".
Realizing that his message of a race had not been completely heard or interpreted correctly by the entire crowd, his plan was mostly a success. A large portion of the already excited crowd, perhaps a hundred or so, began racing towards the Panarch's palace, another group smaller than the first, but still a goodly amount, perhaps thirty or so, rushed towards Maer and the outdoor earthenware shop.
---
Vaid pulled Eliesanna out of the marketplace down into a warren of side streets, ditching the last few stragglers who had continued to follow them. Disheveled and scratched and with some of their clothing torn off, Vaid was grateful they had managed to make it out of the marketplace alive. He breathed heavily from their run, the adrenaline slowly fading, and glanced behind him to ensure the weren't being followed.
Vaid understood what Maer had tried to do, by rousing the crowd in a different direction, the Aiel warrior had enabled them to escape. But at what cost?
"Come on!" He pulled Eliesanna up two flights of outside stairs until they were standing on a flat whitewashed roof that overlooked the market place.
Eliesanna's hair was askew and she swayed from side to side, nearly out of breath. But she had a grim look of anger on her face. "What's the idea, manhandling me like that? You big oaf?"
To Vaid she seemed even more beautiful angry... if that was even possible. Below him coming out one of the side streets, Vaid heard voices growing louder. "Where'd they go!"
"They came out this way, I think."
"Wait till I get my hands on em...The woman has a very fat pouch and even if she didn't I'm sure we could sell her for a fair price!"