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himself. It was only the name of the town.
    People were thickening on and around the road, moving toward
the gate, some laden with baskets or bales, or drawing handcarts, or leading
burdened beasts. Hirel saw the haughty figure of a man in a chariot, and a
large woman on a very small pony, and a personage carried in a litter.
    Swiftly as Sarevan moved, in a little while they were in the
midst of the stream. Hirel kept close to the priest. He had seen no one at all
for so long, and then had walked so far apart, and after days of Sarevan’s black
eagle-mask these round golden faces were strange.
    Of course they stared. Children ran after Sarevan, once or
twice even dared to throw stones at him.
    The stones flew wide. The priest glanced neither right nor
left. He walked as a prince was trained to walk, as a panther was born to. He
towered over everyone who came near him.
    o0o
    The gate of the town was open wide, the guards making no
effort to stem the tide of people. It was no mere market day but the festival
of a god. Which meant a market indeed and a great deal of profit, but
processions with it, and sacrifices, and much feasting and drinking and
roistering. There were garlands of flowers everywhere within the walls, on all
the houses and the several temples, and on every neck and brow and wrist.
    Hirel clung to a dangling end of Sarevan’s loincloth and let
himself be towed through the crowds. Very soon now he was going to disgrace
himself. It was different for a prince. Where he went, the way was always
clear, the throngs held at bay. Not pressing in, breathing foul in his face,
bellowing in his ear.
    He could not see. He could not think. He could not—
    A strong arm swept him up. Hooves and horns and seneldi
bellings ramped where he had been, clove a path through the press, and
vanished.
    Hirel’s arms had locked about Sarevan’s neck. His breath
came in quick hard gasps. “Take,” he forced out. “Take me—”
    Sarevan wasted no words. He breasted the crowd, and no one
touched him; and in a blessed while the crowd was gone.
    Hirel raised his head, blinking. It was dark. Sarevan was
speaking. “A room, a bath, and wine. Silver for you if you are quick, gold if
you fly.”
    Slowly Hirel focused. They were in a wide room, surrounded
by carpets, cushions, tables, an effluvium of ale. An inn.
    Eyes glittered out of the gloom, many eyes, every patron
struck dumb it seemed by the spectacle at the door. One man stood close: a
round buttery creature with an astonishingly sour face. “Show me your silver,”
he said.
    Sarevan’s grip shifted on Hirel, and Hirel thought he saw a
glint of gold. Certainly the innkeeper saw something that satisfied him.
“Come,” he said.
    The room was tiny, no more than a crevice in the roof;
Sarevan could stand erect only in the center. But it was clean, it had a window
that opened after a blow or two of the barbarian’s fist, and its bed-cushions
were deep enough to drown in. The bath when it came was hot and capacious, the
wine cool and sweet, and cakes came with it, and dumplings filled with meat and
grain and fruit, and a dish of soft herbed cheese.
    “No,” Sarevan was saying, “it’s not catching. He’s always
been delicate, and the excitement of the festival . . . you
understand. With these thoroughbreds, one has to take such care, but the beauty
is worth much; and he serves me well, in his way.”
    Hirel fought his way back to full awareness in time to see
the innkeeper’s leer, and the closing of the door upon it. He lay in the deep
soft nest of the bed, and he was wrapped in a drying-cloth, damp still from a
bath he could hardly remember, with the taste of wine on his tongue. The
innkeeper had been ogling him. The mongrel had said—
    “How dare you call me your slave.”
    “Would you rather I called you my catamite?” Sarevan
inquired.
    “You did just that!”
    “Hush,” Sarevan said as to a fretful child.
    Hirel raised his voice in earnest. “May all the gods