Both Padan Fain and Thom Merrilin spent their lives travelling from village to village, staying at local inns, the social gathering place in any village. Their respective routes have thus crossed a few times before, as Thom pointed out. How is that odd that Merrilin would have seen Fain a couple of times in the past years since they thread the same territories and cater to the same audiences eager for news from the world - Fain must hardly be the only peddler who knows Thom, and vice versa. As it happens, they may well have seen each other last in Baerlon.