She was in an alien world now, on this exposed plain at night, with an aging servant and a plump merchant.

Masema's guards filled the street from side to side and stretched around the corners of the next streets, bony fellows in stolen silks, beardless apprentices in torn coats, once- plump merchants in the remains of fine woolens.

Then one night she had gone too far and taken too much from a plump merchant in Bhopal, only to have him die in her embrace.

The plump merchant valiantly tried to keep up with tasting each item Sarein offered, bowl after bowl of varieties of nuts.

Sitting on his horse, waiting while the stragglers in the band crossed the trackless terrain, Uchitel smiled beneath his scarf at the memory of the plump merchant.

Next to him a plump merchant sucked at a sweetmeat with liquid enjoyment.

An Aes Sedai must be harder to break than a plump merchant or his round-cheeked daughter.

The crossroads made for odd companions; dyers with black and purple hands shared a bench with rivermen reeking of fish, an ironsmith thick with muscle squeezed in beside a wizened old septon, hard-bitten sellswords and soft plump merchants swapped news like boon companions.

The plump merchant returned the look for a moment, then waved a podgy hand in airy dismissal.

What had a plump and comfortable merchant to do with revolution?