In the kitchen, two undercooks and three scullions were darting between stoves and roasting spits under the direction of a round woman with her hair in a bun and a long wooden spoon that she used to point out what she wanted done. Mat was sure he remembered the round woman. Coline, and what a name for a woman that wide, but everybody called her Cook.

“Well, Cook,” he announced, “I am back, and not a year since I left.”

She peered at him a moment, then nodded. “I remember you.” He began to grin. “You were with that young prince, weren’t you?” she went on. “The one who looked so like Tigraine, the Light illumine her memory. You’re his serving man, aren’t you? Is he coming back, then, the young prince?”

“No,” he said curtly. A prince! Light! “I do not think he will be anytime soon, and I don’t think you would like it if he did.” She protested, saying what a fine, handsome young man the prince was—Burn me, is there a woman anywhere who doesn’t moon over Rand and make calf-eyes if you mention his bloody name? She’d bloody scream if she knew what he is doing now—but he refused to let her get it out. “Is Master Gill about? And Thom Merrilin?”

“In the library,” she said with a tight sniff. “You tell Basel Gill when you see him that I said those drains need cleaning. Today, mind.” She caught sight of something one of the undercooks was doing to a beef roast and waddled over to her. “Not so much, child. You will make the meat too sweet if you put so much arrath on it.” She seemed to have forgotten Mat already.

He shook his head as he went in search of this library he could not remember. He could not remember that Coline was married to Master Gill, either, but if he had ever heard a goodwife send instructions to her husband, that had been it. A pretty serving girl with big eyes giggled and directed him down a hall beside the common room.

When he stepped into the library, he stopped and stared. There had to be more than three hundred books on the shelves built on the walls, and more lying on the tables; he had never seen so many books in one place in his life. He noticed a leather-bound copy of The Travels of Jain Farstrider on a table near the door. He had always meant to read that—Rand and Perrin had always been telling him things out of it—but he never did seem to get around to reading the books he meant to read.