Naturally, after leaving us with a huge cliffhanger like that, we cut to Rand and Mat in what is essentially a written version of a travel montage. Throughout the chapter, we see them walking down the Caemlyn Road, and putting the gleeman skills they learned from Thom to use. Since this is just after Thom's death, the chapter starts off on a rather low note, and manages to keep an uncomfortable, almost claustrophobic mood throughout.
Actually, in my case, I think it worked a bit too well, and I kept dreading another tragedy to kick the boys when they're down. They spent the first leg of their journey to Caemlyn looking for dust trails and avoiding everyone on the road, just in case they're Fades looking for them. Combine that with Rand furtively staring behind them in the vain hopes that Thom will show up again, as well as Rand's homesick musings whenever he saw a village on the side of the road, and it made me feel somber and share in the sensation that something else was going to go wrong for them.
Another interesting moment comes when Rand suggests to Mat that he sell that dagger with the ruby pommel to help them pay for food, lodging, and transportation. At first, Mat gets defensive and snaps at Rand for even thinking of separating him from his precious, but then he listens to Rand's retort, calms down, and points out actual flaws in this plan:
- They stood like that in the middle of the road until Mat suddenly gave an uncomfortably shrug, and dropped his eyes to the road. "Who would I sell it to, Rand? A farmer would have to pay in chickens; we couldn't buy a carriage with chickens. And if I even showed it in any village we've been through, they'd probably think we stole it. The Light knows what would happen then."
I'm always happy when characters display signs of intelligence like this, and it kind of makes my joking that Mat's turned into Gollum kind of silly now. The dagger may not be a supernatural treasure that inspires greed after all. Maybe Mat's just the sort of person who'd let the prospect of owning something that's worth more than half of Emond's Field go to his head like this. Then again, if this is just a normal piece of treasure, then why was it featured in Min's prophecy (which I'll come back to soon)?
We've never gotten a look into Mat's thoughts like we have with Rand and Perrin, so I'm not sure what's going through his head right now. At one point I thought that he was being more ambitious than his friends, wanting to see the world and make a bigger life for himself than Emond's Field would allow. Then I remembered that ever since Shadar Logoth, he's been on edge and considerably more dour than he used to be, when he was letting loose badgers on young women and pushing barrels onto Whitecloaks just for kicks. Maybe that made him wish he never left? Right now it's still pretty inconclusive for me.
But Rand and Mat apologizing doesn't do anything to solve the duo's money troubles. They still have to figure out how they're going to eat, and at first they try and see if they can steal anything. But of course they soon find out that the risk isn't worth the reward, and looking back I'm surprised that the chapter kind of glosses over this. They didn't get hurt or killed or caught or anything like that. They just get chased off one farm and call off other prospective thievery attempts when they spend hours waiting for an opening in the farmhounds' patrols that never comes. China Mieville would have screwed them over hard and fast, but I suppose Robert Jordan figured they've suffered enough for now.
So instead they offer their services doing odd jobs in the nameless villages on the Caemlyn Road, despite Mat's constant suspicion of the people they stay with. Even with the tension I was feeling in this chapter (which probably should have worn off by then), I didn't buy Mat's assertions for a second. Most of the various jobs they do are glossed over by the montage-like writing in the chapter, but then things slow down again when they get to the Grinwell farmstead.
The first thing I noticed is that the farmer's daughter, Else, started blatantly flirting with Rand and Mat. Here it comes, I thought. One of them is going to sleep with her and they're going to be nearly lynched. I was still expecting things to get worse, and so I latched onto the old farmer's daughter cliche, not thinking about how little sense it would make for the boys to jump her bones with the Dark One's hunt for them in the back of their minds. So Else doesn't get lucky, but she does get forced to let the boys use her room for the night. I did kind of chuckle when Else grimaced at that, no doubt because she wouldn't be joining them.
But the main reason the chapter doesn't gloss over the boys' visit with the Grinwells is because that's when they start using their apprentice-level showmanship abilities to earn money. It's what convinces the Grinwells to give them a room for the night, and the narrative flat-out admits that while they're a poor substitute for a real gleeman, these rural folk don't know enough about entertainment to tell the difference, much like most casual moviegoers in the real world. It's another nice moment that finally managed to relieve tension. The boys are honoring Thom's memory by using his old stuff to carry on his tradition to their limited abilities, and that made me smile.
Then I read this:
- Rand began to think their problems were over till they reached Caemlyn. But then they came to Four Kings.
Thanks for that, Jordan. I almost got sucked into the story there. Thanks for breaking the illusion. I always, always hate it when authors just spoil their own story like that, whether it be just telling the readers to expect bad things as opposed to implying it, or through ham-fisted and obvious foreshadowing.
I'm a huge Stephen King fan, and I consider The Stand to be one of his best works, but King ended up doing that same thing (by ending chapters with "Little did Character X know that he/she'd never see Characer Y again) a few times in the latter half of the book, which almost ruined the experience for me. I never understand why authors would ever do this!
Contrast that with the way Min's mystical omen-vision happened back in Baerlon. I'm not entirely enthusiastic about that happening - mainly because it makes Min seem more like a plot device than an actual character - but it gave hints to these characters' futures in an acceptable way, by depriving them of context and making the audience wonder what they mean, instead of just ruining the surprise, like Stephenie Meyer constantly did for Mark with her foreshadowing.
But whatever. The horrible thing I expected to happen in this chapter will instead happen in the next one. Bring it on.
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