'Let's stop and buy something to eat,' he said, 'before everybody goes home.'
Wess hitched her own pack higher on her shoulders and did not stop. 'Not here,'she said. 'I'm tired of stale flatbread and raw vegetables. I want a hot mealtonight.'
She tramped on. She knew how Chan felt. She glanced back at Aerie, who walkedwrapped in her long dark cloak. Her pack weighed her down. She was taller thanWess, as tall as Chan, but very thin. Worry and their journey had deepened hereyes. Wess was not used to seeing her like this. She was used to seeing herfreer.
'Our tireless Wess,' Chan said. 'I'm tired, too!' Wess said. 'Do you want to trycamping in the street again?'
'No,' he said. Behind him. Quartz chuckled.
In the first village they had ever seen - it seemed years ago now, but was onlytwo months - they tried to set up camp in what they thought was a vacant field.It was the village common. Had the village possessed a prison, they would havebeen thrown into it. As it was they were escorted to the edge of town andinvited never to return. Another traveller explained inns to them - and prisons- and now they all could laugh, with some embarrassment at the episode.
But the smaller towns they had passed through did not even approach Sanctuary insize and noise and crowds. Wess had never imagined so many people or such highbuildings or any odour so awful. She hoped it would be better beyond themarketplace. Passing a fish stall, she held her breath and hurried. It was theend of the day, true, but the end of a cool late fall's day. Wess tried not towonder what it would smell like at the end of a long summer's day.
'We should stop at the first inn we find,' Quartz said.
'All right,' Wess said.