At first glance, the common room bore out the inn’s prosperity, with polished round tables and proper chairs instead of benches, standing beneath a high, stout-beamed ceiling. The walls were painted with fields of barley and oats and millet, ripening under a bright sun, and a colorfully painted clock stood on the carved mantel above a wide fireplace of white stone. The fireplace was cold, though, the air nearly as icy as outside. The clock had run down and the polish dulled. Dust lay on everything. The only people in the room were six men and five women huddling over their drinks around an oval table, larger than the rest, that stood in the middle of the floor.

One of the men leaped to his feet with an oath, face paling underneath the dirt, when Perrin and the others entered. A plump woman with lank greasy hair shoved her pewter cup to her mouth and tried to gulp so fast that wine spilled over her chin. Maybe it was his eyes. Maybe.

“What happened in this town?” Annoura said firmly, tossing back her cloak as though a fire blazed on the hearth. The calm gaze she ran across the people at the table froze every one of them. Abruptly Perrin realized that neither Masuri nor Seonid had followed him inside. He doubted very much that they were waiting in the street with the horses. What they and their Warders were doing was any man’s guess.

The man who had jumped up tugged at his coat collar with a finger. The coat had been fine blue wool once, with a row of gilded buttons to his neck, but he appeared to have been spilling food down the front of it for some time. Maybe more than had gone into him. He was another whose skin hung slack. “H-happened, Aes Sedai?” he stammered.

“Be quiet, Mycal!” a haggard woman said quickly. Her dark dress was embroidered on the high neck and along the sleeves, but dirt made the colors uncertain. Her eyes were sunken pits. “What makes you think something happened, Aes Sedai?”

Annoura would have continued, but Berelain stepped in as the Aes Sedai opened her mouth again. “We are looking for the grain merchants.” Annoura’s expression never changed, but her mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

Long looks passed between the people around the table. The haggard woman studied Annoura for a moment, quickly passing on to Berelain and obviously taking in the silks and firedrops. And the diadem. She spread her skirts in a curtsy. “We are the merchant’s guild of So Habor, my Lady. What’s left of—” Breaking off, she took a deep, shuddering breath. “I am Rahema Arnon, my Lady. How may we serve you?”