As if he were suddenly impatient with the slow pace of Illian, the Warder led them quickly through the streets to an inn, two stories of rough, green-veined stone topped with pale green tiles. Evening was coming on, the light growing softer as the sun settled. It gave a little relief from the heat, but not much. Boys seated on mounting blocks in front of the inn hopped up to take their horses. One black-haired lad about ten asked Loial if he were an Ogier, and when Loial said he was, the boy said, “I did think you did be,” with a self-satisfied nod. He led Loial’s big horse away, tossing the copper Loial had given him into the air and catching it.

Perrin frowned up at the inn sign for a moment before following the others in. A white-striped badger danced on its hind legs with a man carrying what seemed to be a silver shovel. Easing the Badger, it read. It must be some story I never heard.

The common room had sawdust on the floor, and tabac smoke filled the air. It also smelled of wine, and fish cooking in the kitchen, and a heavy, flowered perfume. The exposed beams of the high ceiling were rough-hewn and age-dark. This early in the evening, no more than a quarter of the stools and benches were filled, by men in workmen’s plain coats and vests, some with the bare feet of sailors. All of them sat clustered as close as they could manage around one table where a pretty, dark-eyed girl, the wearer of the perfume, sang to the strumming of a twelve-string bittern and danced on the tabletop with swirls of her skirt. Her loose, white blouse had an extremely low neck. Perrin recognized the tune—“The Dancing Lass”—but the words the girl sang were different from what he knew.

A Lugard girl, she came to town, to see what she could see.

With a wink of her eye, and a smile on her lip,

she snagged a boy or three, or three.

With an ankle slim, and skin so pale,

she caught the owner of a ship, a ship.

With a soft little sigh, and a gay little laugh,

she made her way so free. So free.

She launched into another verse, and when Perrin realized what she was singing, his face grew hot. He had thought nothing could shock him after seeing Tinker girls dance, but that had only hinted at things. This girl was singing them right out.

Zarine was nodding in time to the music and grinning. Her grin widened when she looked at him. “Why, farmboy, I do not think I ever knew a man your age who could still blush.”