The Dancing Cartman

Author: Kerna Shedrian

General

The Dancing Cartman is one of four inns in Four Kings. It is a gaudy inn, with cracked yellow paint trimmed in bright red and eye-wrenching green. Saml Hake is the innkeeper and Jak and Strom are two bouncers. The common room has a small raised platform at one end of the room, near the back door, and is very dirty.

Rand and Mat perform in the common room for the price of a meal and a pallet; Rand playing the flute and Mat juggling. Howal Gode comes in after trying a couple of the other inns, despite the fact they are obviously better establishments. After the night is done, Hake and the bouncers lead the boys to a storeroom with an iron barred window. The boys know he will try to rob them but the heron-mark blade puts him off and he will wait until they are asleep. Gode visits the storeroom after he puts Hake and the strongs to sleep and tries to break in. Rand, feeling trapped, calls lightning which breaks the window and they escape.

(Reference: The Eye of the World, Chapter 32)