![]() The demands for him to speak grew louder, but Fain waited, fiddling with small tasks about the driver’s seat, for the crowd and the anticipation to reach the size he wanted. He smiled without speaking, and waved absently to people with whom he was particularly friendly, though his friendliness had always been of a peculiarly distant kind, backslapping without ever getting close. He nodded casually at no one in particular. The peddler gave the Council and villagers alike exactly the same attention as he fussed with tying his reins off just so, which was to say hardly any attention at all. ![]() It occurred to Rand that Fain might not be best pleased to find a real gleeman in Emond’s Field. He enjoyed being the center of attention, strutting around like an under-sized rooster, with every eye on him. Fain, however, spoke freely if often teasingly, and spun out the telling, making a show to rival a gleeman. Others had to have every word dragged out of them, speaking grudgingly, with a bad grace. Some peddlers simply told what they knew, throwing it out in a heap, a pile of rubbish with which they could not be bothered. Every bit as important was word of outside, news of the world beyond the Two Rivers. In the eyes of the villagers, needles and tea and the like were no more than half the freight in a peddler’s wagon. Most of all, the villagers called for news. Reluctantly the crowd parted to let them to the fore, everyone closing in quickly behind and never stopping their calling to the peddler. They marched out deliberately, even Cenn Buie, amid all the excited shouting of the others for pins or lace or books or a dozen other things. The door of the inn flew open even as the team halted in a jangle of harness, and the Village Council appeared, led by Master al’Vere and Tam. Fain, always smiling and laughing as if he knew a joke that no one else knew, had driven his wagon and team into Emond’s Field every spring for as long as Rand could remember. The man on the wagon was Padan Fain, a pale, skinny fellow with gangly arms and a massive beak of a nose. From every direction people streamed to swell the numbers around the great wagon, its wheels taller than any of the people with their eyes fastened to the peddler above them on the wagon seat. Still surrounded by a cloud of villagers and farmers come for Festival, the peddler reined his horses to a stop in front of the inn. Start with the prologue and chapters 1 & 2 here.Ĭlusters of pots clattered and banged as the peddler’s wagon rumbled over the heavy timbers of the Wagon Bridge. ![]() This week we’re discussing chapters 3 & 4 of Book 1, The Eye of the World and you can read those chapters below for free. Welcome back to the #WOTonPrime Book Club read along! We are teaming up with the folks at Wheel of Time on Prime so you can either relive the glory or get started on the Wheel of Time series for the first time with the first few chapters of The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. ![]()
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