Corwin

A trader with a broken cart wheel, one hour of road, and the sentence that ends Alexander's search.

The scene

He is alone on an empty stretch of road with a wheel that split along an old crack. His nephew was supposed to come with him. Alexander lifts the front of the cart while Corwin swaps in the spare from the back. It takes ten minutes.

ALX: It was nothing. MAN: Wasn't nothing to me. (ch. 211)

Then he offers his hand and his name, and Alexander notices something about himself:

He had shaken hands with kings and generals and men who would try to kill him an hour later, had done it as ceremony, as formality [...] He could not immediately remember the last time someone had offered their hand simply because they wanted to know his name.

He shares bread and cheese "that's seen better days but isn't gone yet".

What he does not know

Everything. He does not know Alexander fought Vazroth, or that the funeral was a month ago, or that the man in front of him is one of five people left from it.

Corwin knew that a stranger had helped him lift a cart and had a strong name and was heading north toward nothing in particular. That was the whole of what he was, to this man. It was strange how much that unsettled him.

The line

Alexander asks him why he likes trading, expecting a reason.

CRW: Because every place is a little different and I get to see all of it. No grand reason. I just like seeing things. [...]

CRW: Don't need a bigger reason than liking it.

The narration is explicit about the size of this:

It had never once, in his entire life, occurred to him that a reason could be that small and still be sufficient.

It comes back in ch. 214, at the well with the broken toy, and again in ch. 215, at the crossroads, where it becomes the reason Alexander turns east.

His parting line:

CRW: Good luck heading toward nothing in particular, Alexander.

The chapter says he says it "without mockery, just acknowledgment".

Open questions

• Whether he appears again. Nothing after ch. 211 names him.