Chapter 31: Play for Your Supper

Rand and Mat make their way east along the Caemlyn Road from Whitebridge, hiding in roadside hedges whenever horsemen pass. Rand keeps watching the road behind for Thom, but the gleeman never appears.

The journey grinds them down. They sleep under bushes in the cold, drink from streams, and ration what coin they have. Mat grows steadily more suspicious of strangers and clutches the ruby-hilted dagger from Shadar Logoth at every alarm. He wants to keep it; Rand argues it would buy them carriages and inns all the way to Caemlyn, but neither can find a buyer who would not assume it was stolen. Farm work earns them meals less and less often as Mat's glares put farmers on edge.

At the Grinwell farm they fare better, until Else sets her eye on Rand and her mother starts watching him closely. After supper Mat juggles for the children and Rand plays Thom's flute. Mistress Grinwell sees them off early the next morning with a suggestion: try the inn at Arien.

It works. They earn a bed and hot food for an evening's playing and juggling, and the pattern carries them village to village until they reach Four Kings.