Chapter 188: Hell, Part 5
He rowed until he reached the river, then continued on until he finally reached a town. People saw him, began shouting and clamoring, and by the time Telmé reached the nearest dock, at least twenty men had gathered. "Highness, are you well? Highness, what can we do? Why are you here? Is something wrong?"
Telmé let them help him out of the boat. Off in the distance, he could smell smoke and roasting fish, hear voices singing, laughing, calling to each other. Children shrieking and running about, playing as long as they could possibly get away with before their parents ordered them inside. What was it like to live in a place that did not have walls? Telmé had always lived behind the triple curtains of Guldbrandsen. The cities and towns had walls, but the outlying villages could not afford, in money or people or time, to build or maintain them. They had other protections, wards and seals, but those were not the same as high, thick walls.