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deliberately, turning his attention back to an over-studious tamping of his pipe with a thick thumb.
    Curious, Rand slowed, then barely bit back a yelp as Mat kicked his ankle. His friend nodded insistently toward the doorway at the back of the common room and hurried on without waiting. Limping slightly, Rand followed less quickly.
    “What was that about?” he demanded as soon as he was in the hall that led to the kitchen. “You almost broke my—”
    “It’s old Luhhan,” Mat said, peering past Rand’s shoulder into the common room. “I think he suspects I was the one who—” He cut off abruptly as Mistress al’Vere bustled out of the kitchen, the aroma of fresh-baked bread wafting ahead of her.
    The tray in her hands carried some of the crusty loaves for which she was famous around Emond’s Field, as well as plates of pickles and cheese. The food reminded Rand abruptly that he had eaten only an end of bread before leaving the farm that morning. His stomach gave an embarrassing rumble.
    A slender woman, with her thick braid of graying hair pulled over one shoulder, Mistress al’Vere smiled in a motherly fashion that took in both of them. “There is more of this in the kitchen, if you two are hungry, and I never knew boys your age who weren’t. Or any other age, for that matter. If you prefer, I’m baking honeycakes this morning.”
    She was one of the few married women in the area who never tried to play matchmaker with Tam. Toward Rand her motherliness extended to warm smiles and a quick snack whenever he came by the inn, but she did as much for every young man in the area. If she occasionally looked at him as if she wanted to do more, at least she took it no further than looks, for which he was deeply grateful.
    Without waiting for a reply she swept on into the common room. Immediately there was the sound of chairs scraping on the floor as the men got to their feet, and exclaimings over the smell of the bread. She was easilythe best cook in Emond’s Field, and not a man for miles around but eagerly leaped at a chance to put his feet under her table.
    “Honeycakes,” Mat said, smacking his lips.
    “After,” Rand told him firmly, “or we’ll never get done.”
    A lamp hung over the cellar stairs, just beside the kitchen door, and another made a bright pool in the stone-walled room beneath the inn, banishing all but a little dimness in the furthest corners. Wooden racks along the walls and across the floor held casks of brandy and cider, and larger barrels of ale and wine, some with taps driven in. Many of the wine barrels were marked with chalk in Bran al’Vere’s hand, giving the year they had been bought, what peddler had brought them, and in which city they had been made, but all of the ale and brandy was the make of Two Rivers farmers or of Bran himself. Peddlers, and even merchants, sometimes brought brandy or ale from outside, but it was never as good and cost the earth, besides, and nobody ever drank it more than once.
    “Now,” Rand said, as they set their casks in the racks, “what did you do that you have to avoid Master Luhhan?”
    Mat shrugged. “Nothing, really. I told Adan al’Caar and some of his snot-nosed friends—Ewin Finngar and Dag Coplin—that some farmers had seen ghost hounds, breathing fire and running through the woods. They ate it up like clotted cream.”
    “And Master Luhhan is mad at you for that?” Rand said doubtfully.
    “Not exactly.” Mat paused, then shook his head. “You see, I covered two of his dogs with flour, so they were all white. Then I let them loose near Dag’s house. How was I to know they’d run straight home? It really isn’t my fault. If Mistress Luhhan hadn’t left the door open they couldn’t have gotten inside. It isn’t like I intended to get flour all over her house.” He gave a bark of laughter. “I hear she chased old Luhhan and the dogs, all three, out of the house with a broom.”
    Rand winced and laughed at the same time.