"Now are we going to see the great man in the city?"
"Yes," I said. And so when our things had dried out we set off.
Our journey to Mesun was easy enough, as indeed all our journey had been, but wonderfully freed from the dread that had dogged and darkened my way between the rivers. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to Mesun, how we were to live; but to ask too many questions seemed ungrateful to Lord Luck and Lady Ennu. They'd been with us so far, they wouldn't leave us now. I sang Caspro's hymn to them under my breath as we walked.
"You don't sing quite as well as some people," my companion remarked, with some diplomacy.
"I know I don't. You sing, then."
She lifted up a sweet, unsteady little voice in a love song she'd heard in Barna's house. I thought of her beautiful sister, and wondered if Melle too would be beautiful. I found myself thinking, "Let her be spared that!" But surely that was a slave's thought. I must learn to think with a free mind.
Urdile was a pleasant country of apple orchards and poplar-bordered roads, rising up slowly from the river to the blue hills I'd seen from far away. We walked, and sometimes got a lift on a cart, and bought food at village markets, or were offered milk by a farm woman who saw us pass and pitied the dusty child. I got scolded for dragging my little brother out to tramp the roads, but when my little brother clung to me and glared loyal defiance, the scolder would melt and offer us food or a hayloft to sleep in. So after five days, returning towards the river, which had curved away from our road, we came to the city of Mesun.
Built on steep hills right above the river, with roofs of slate and red tile, and towers, and several ornate bridges, Mesun was a city of stone, but it was not walled. That seemed strange to me. There were no gates, no guard towers, no guards. I saw no soldiers anywhere. We walked into a great city as into a village.
The houses towered up three and four stories over streets full of people, carts, wagons, horses. The din and commotion and crowding seemed tremendous to us. Melle was holding my hand tightly, and I was glad of it. We passed a marketplace near the river that made Etra's market seem a very small affair. I thought the best thing to do was find some modest inn where we could put down our packs and clean ourselves up a bit, for we were a frowzy, filthy pair by now. As we went on past the market, looking for inn signs, I saw two young men come swinging down a steep street, wearing long, light, grey-brown cloaks and velvet caps that squashed out over the ears. They were exactly like a picture in a book in Everra's library: Two Scholars of the University of Mesun. They saw me staring at them, and one of them gave me a slight wink. I stepped forward and said, "Excuse me, would you tell us how to get to the University?"
"Right up the hill, friend," the one who'd winked said. He looked at us curiously. I didn't know what to ask him. I finally said, "Are there lodging houses up there?" and he nodded: "The Quail's the cheapest." His friend said, "No, the Barking Dog," and the first one said, "All depends on your taste in insects: fleas at the Quail, bugs at the Dog." And they went on down the street laughing.
We climbed up the way they had come down. Before long the cobblestone way became steps. I saw that we were climbing around a great wall of stones. Mesun had been a fortified city, long ago, and this was the wall of the citadel. Over the wall loomed palaces of silver-grey stone with steep-pitched roofs and tall windows. The steps brought us up at last onto a little curving street lined with smaller houses, and Melle whispered, "There they are." They stood side by side, two inns, with their signs of the quail and the savagely barking dog. "Fleas or bedbugs?" I asked Melle, and she said, "Fleas." So we took lodgings at the Quail.
We had a most welcome bath and gave what spare clothing we had