They stayed that night at a thick-walled Tolnedran hostel, and for perhaps the first time in his life Garion bathed without the insistence or even the suggestion of his Aunt. Though he had not had the chance to become directly involved in the fight in the clearing the night before, he felt somehow as if he were spattered with blood or worse. He had not before realized how grotesquely men could be mutilated in close fighting. Watching a living man disembowled or brained had filled him with a kind of deep shame that the ultimate inner secrets of the human body could be so grossly exposed. He felt unclean. He removed his clothing in the chilly bathhouse and even, without thinking, the silver amulet Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol had given him, and then he entered the steaming tub where he scrubbed at his skin with a coarse brush and strong soap, much harder than even the most meticulous obsession with personal cleanliness would have required.

For the next several days they moved southward at a steady pace, stopping each night at the evenly spaced Tolnedran hostels where the presence of the hard-faced legionnaires was a continual reminder that all the might of Imperial Tolnedra guaranteed the safety of travelers who sought refuge there.

On the sixth day after the fight in the forest, however, Lelldorin's horse pulled up lame. Durnik and Hettar, under Aunt Pol's supervision, spent several hours brewing poultices over a small fire by the roadside and applying steaming compresses to the animal's leg while Wolf fumed at the delay. By the time the horse was fit to continue, they all realized that there was no chance to reach the next hostel before dark.

"Well, Old Wolf," Aunt Pol said after they had remounted, "what now? Do we ride on at night, or do we try to take shelter in the forest again?"

"I haven't decided," Wolf answered shortly.

"If I remember right, there's a village not far ahead," Lelldorin, now mounted on an Algar horse, stated. "It's a poor place, but I think it has an inn - of sorts."

"That sounds ominous," Silk said. "What exactly do you mean by 'of sorts'?"

"The Lord of this demesne is notoriously greedy," Lelldorin replied. "His taxes are crushing, and his people have little left for themselves. The inn isn't good."

"We'll have to chance it," Wolf decided, and led them off at a brisk trot. As they approached the village, the heavy clouds began to clear off, and the sun broke through wanly.

The village was even worse than Lelldorin's description had led them to believe. A half dozen ragged beggars stood in the mud on the outskirts, their hands held out imploringly and their voices shrill. The houses were nothing more than rude hovels oozing smoke from the pitiful fires within. Scrawny pigs rooted in the muddy streets, and the stench of the place was awful.