The Dragon Reborn - Chapters 31 & 32 [#100Days, Day 98]

Putting The 'I' Back In 'Team'

    Fresh from a fall off a bridge with a now dead Gray Man, Mat stumbles into another inn.  This time, he runs across Thom Merrilin and invites Thom to join in his escape from Tar Valon.  Thom agrees and the two literally jump onto the first ship heading in the direction of Andor.  Scrabbling onboard Mat and Thom negotiate the price of passage; which due to the state of world affairs has increased dramatically.

    "As you may have noticed, Captain, I am a gleeman."  Even in the open air, his voice suddenly seemed to echo.  "For the price of our passages, I would be more than glad to entertain your passengers and your crew - "

Thom Merrilin, The Dragon Reborn, p. 298

    Thom's opening attempt at free passage gets completely overrun by Mat's haste to use money to solve the problem.  Mat completely forgot the capabilities of his traveling companion.  Had he paused for a moment and recalled the previous river trip with Thom in The Eye of the World, he would have recalled that gleemen generally travel for free, with a little time taken for negotiation up front.  The step forward in maturity from the last chapter is almost completely undone by Mat's hasty, albeit very direct and effective, problem solving.  His haste is rewarded with the captain's cabin, prime accommodations that require sharing a bed with a heavy snoring Thom. 

    "If you had settled for booting some poor fellows out of their cabin instead of taking the captain's, we'd each have a bed to ourselves, narrow and hard as it might be.  Now we have to share Mallia's.  I hope you don't snore, boy.  I cannot abide snoring."

    Mat ground his teeth.  As he recalled, Thom had a snore like a woodrasp working on an oak knot.  He had forgotten that.

Thom and Mat, The Dragon Reborn, p. 302