"Yes, my lord. There must be at least one person inside who would be sitting there just to recognize you. And we don't know who they will give this information to. That's why we need to go to a different place."
"That's a good idea. But do you even know this locality? How will we even find a place in this darkness?" Kivamus glanced at his surroundings, but couldn't discern one house from another in the darkness. "It doesn't seem like a good idea to stay outside for long."
"Indeed, my lord. Even though it's been a few years since my last visit to Cinran, something about the route the carriage driver had taken sparked a memory. Thankfully, I do recognize this locality, and there is another inn nearby where we can stay. I know the owner there from a previous visit. It is smaller and gets fewer visitors, so there shouldn't be anyone there who can recognize you, I believe." He continued, "Also, try to speak as little as possible when there are others around, my lord, since it would not be difficult for a person to surmise that you are a noble by your accent."
"As you say, Gorsazo. I am counting on you to keep us both alive in this place."
Gorsazo looked at him for a second, seemingly thinking of something, but didn't say anything out loud. He gestured again to follow him and started walking in a particular direction.
Despite his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, Kivamus was completely lost in this town. He had no choice but to follow Gorsazo blindly, unsure of where they were headed. Soon, Gorsazo beckoned him to enter a smaller alley and pointed at a similar lamp lit in front of another wooden building, located not too far inside the alley. They entered the small street and walked towards the inn. While walking, his boots seemed to squelch something but preferring not to think about what it could be, he kept moving.
They reached the building and he followed Gorsazo inside. There were only a few small earthen lamps kept inside, keeping the room in semi-darkness. A few wooden tables with empty chairs around them were kept on his right, while on the left side, a single person was standing behind a wooden bar. The perpetual stench of the town was less noticeable inside the inn, but it was still present in small amounts, making him grimace about the hygienic standards of the place. But having no other option, he could only keep enduring the smells.
He noticed that Gorsazo had started talking with the innkeeper in hushed voices. While he wanted to listen to what they were saying, the consistent threat of someone recognizing him and reporting to his brother's agents in the town made him stay close to the shadows.
Soon, Gorsazo passed a few coins to the man he was talking to and gestured to Kivamus to follow him. They climbed the stairs near the bar in the light of an earthen lamp the innkeeper had given to Gorsazo and went to the upper floor. It was quiet enough that it seemed the place was empty. Or nearly empty, anyway, since they passed another man walking down the stairs, dressed in a tunic.
Gorsazo looked around the short corridor and soon unlocked a room with a key he had and they entered inside.
It was a simple room, with only a single bedding, perhaps made of straw and covered with a semi-dirty sheet. Kivamus thought there would at least be a bed, but perhaps it wasn't common in this place. It didn't look sanitary at all to him, but he didn't have any other options. Apart from the small earthen lamp that Gorsazo had kept near an empty corner, there was no other source of light. The room did have a closed window but it was made of wood with no glass pane on it, and it didn't offer any extra light in the night. There was also a wooden chest kept near a wall. It made him think of a medieval movie set at first before he sat down on the straw bedding and realized modern mattresses weren't nearly as uncomfortable.
"Can we talk here?"
"Of course, my lord, but try to keep your voice low." Gorsazo sat down nearby with his back to a wall. "Sound carries far through these walls and we don't know who might be listening."
"That's true. Is this typical of beds in these kinds of inns?"
"I'm sorry about that, my lord. The inn that the carriage driver brought us to would have had much better rooms which would be fit for a noble, or at least a rich merchant, but this place is far safer for you. I know this is not up to the standards of a noble, but that's the reason your brother's people in Cinran would never expect you to stay here. It doesn't hurt that the rooms are much cheaper as well."
"That's true. But where will you sleep?"
"Don't worry about me, my lord. I will just rest a little like this. Someone has to keep watch anyway."
"Are you sure? Can't we ask the innkeeper for another such bedding?"
"I told him that I was escorting the son of a merchant, my lord, and that I was your servant. And no merchant will pay to get his servant a similar bedding as him."
"You are not my servant, Gorsazo!" Kivamus exclaimed. "And I don't mind that at all. We are in this together and spending a few more coins won't affect our money much."
"Thank you, my lord, and I know that. But while you don't mind that, it would still be very rare and the innkeeper or one of his servants will remember that. And we aren't in a position to be noticed in this town, my lord." He continued, "I have stayed in this inn before, but I don't know the innkeeper well enough to trust him."
"I didn't think of that," Kivamus said.
After a while, someone knocked on the door. Gorsazo got up and after checking who it was, brought back two wooden bowls with him.
"Food, my lord," he said while offering one of the bowls to Kivamus. "I told them to deliver it to our room, so you wouldn't have to sit in the open, where someone might still recognize you."
"Thank you." Kivamus took the bowl and saw in the little light available that it was a soup of some kind with small lumps of meat and vegetables floating in it. It didn't look very appetizing to him, but after eating dried rations for the past few days, it was at least a warm meal for a change. He tried it and decided that, while a little bland, it wasn't too bad. It didn't take long for them to finish it.
"You should sleep now, my lord. We have a long journey tomorrow."
"You mean longer than usual?" Kivamus asked. "Why?"
"Earlier I had thought that the journey to Tiranat would be three days long by carriage, my lord. But our previous carriage driver told me we could make it in two days if we left early tomorrow and didn't let up the pace. That way, we could make it to Helga's inn before it gets too dark. The inn is around the halfway point to Tiranat, my lord, and it's the only inn on the route. So it would be much better to stay there overnight instead of sleeping next to the forests on the road. Then it's another day's hard journey to Tiranat."
"It would certainly feel much safer inside the inn, compared to sleeping in the open on the road," Kivamus said. "As you told me earlier, there are no patrols by knights on the road to Tiranat, right?"
"Indeed, my lord. So, we would need to leave early enough tomorrow. If we can't reach Helga's inn by nightfall tomorrow, then getting there around noon the next day would be a wasted stop, since there would be no point in stopping there during the daytime. It would add an extra day to our journey as well, and we'd have to sleep in the open on both of the nights."
"That's true. Well, have a good night, Gorsazo."
"You too, my lord."
Kivamus lay down on the bedding, which felt just as uncomfortable as before. He kept thinking about those slaves he had seen earlier and thought it could easily have been him if he had woken up in this world as one of them instead of finding himself as the third son of the duke. It still anguished him to be unable to do anything to help them.
Weariness from the long journey finally caught up to Kivamus, and it didn't take long for him to drift off to sleep.