Veil of the Deserters

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While my trek to the heart of the Great Fair had been filled with wondrous aromas and sights, the same trip back to the Grieving Dog inn felt as if I were walking to the gallows. Which, all things considered, might not have been far off.

Walking to the bazaar, I’d noticed the rich smells of breads and meats and cook fires burning; returning, only the strong reek of urine emanating from alleyways, hot and rancid; before, I’d been so buoyed by my newfound sense of freedom, I failed to notice just how powerful and heinous the stench was. So, too, I’d felt a lightness in my step as I left the Syldoon behind to go exploring; heading back to the Dog, it was now mud, horse and dog feces, and other sucking sludge I couldn’t place, all trying to steal a shoe or spoil the hose. Odorous, odious quicksand.

Even the faces and voices took on a new cast. Where I’d seen and heard joy, mirth, and wonder on the streets on my way to the bazaar, I now saw irritation as someone felt at how light their purse had become, or disgust on a fiefholder’s face at having to rub shoulders with his lessers, or the dull blankness the whores wore like masks as they moved among the throng halfheartedly trying to lure patrons to one establishment or the other, or the shrill shout of a mother scolding her disobedient children.

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