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welcome with good grace and vigorously justify to the people.
    (pg.25) The water in the most, from the inpourings from the land about, the
    drainages, dark and roiling, was almost to the foot of the bridge.
    The lantern to my right, to the side, on its post, at the right side of the
    bridge, swung wildly in the rain and wind.
    I looked up. There was a blast of lightning. This illuminated starkly, for a
    moment, the palisade at the height of the plateau.
    Lightning burst again across the sky.
    The boards of the bridge were slick with water. It was about eight feet wide.
    Two wagons could not pass on it. It led upward to a covered gate, which,
    probably, had a covered, walled hall and another gate beyond it. The two gates,
    the inner and the outer, are seldom open at the same time. in the covered way,
    like an enclosed hall between the gates, there would doubtless, both above and
    to the sides, be arrow ports. Two massive ropes, better than eight inches in
    diameter, sloped down from the gate structure to the bridge, which allowed for
    the raising and lowering of a portion of it at will. When the section was
    raised, pulled up against the gate, further protecting it, the inn would be, in
    effect, sealed off, an island in its small sea.
    Such inns can serve as keeps or strongholds, but they seldom do so. For example,
    one can simply come to them, and buy entrance and lodging. In that sense they
    are open, though it is not unusual for them to be closed at night. They can,
    however, as I have suggested, serve as keeps. More than once, such inns have
    served rural areas as a place of refuge from foragers or marauders. They have
    been seized, too, upon occasion by the remnants of defeated forces, as places,
    in which to make desperate, perhaps last, stands. Too, such places, particularly
    in remote, restless or barbarous districts, may be pacified. Within the palisade
    there would be room for several wagons. In this place I did not know how many.
    Too, though I did not think it was now lit, there might be a sheltered tarn
    beacon somewhere, usually under a high shed. This signifies not only the
    location of the inn, and its amenities, but also a safe approach, one unimpeded
    by tarn wire, for a tarnsman, or a tarnsman with tarn basket. One brings (pg.26)
    the bird in to the left of the light, of course. By custom Gorean traffic keeps
    to the left. In this fashion one’s sword arm, at least if one is right-handed,
    as are most Goreans, faces the oncoming traffic.
    There was a wagon to the left of the bridge. Its canvas cover was drawn down.
    The rain poured from it. Under the wagon there was a small, huddled figure, a
    tarpaulin clutched about its head and shoulders. Within the wagon, then, I
    supposed, there might be a fellow and his free companion. Doubtless, unless it
    had been displeasing in some way, the location of the small figure beneath the
    wagon, huddling there in misery and cold, was a consequence of the presence of
    the free companion within it. I did not doubt but what the small figure was more
    beautiful and attractive than the free companion. That was suggested by what
    must be its status. Free women hate such individuals and lose few opportunities
    to make them suffer. I wondered if the fellow in the wagon had acquired the
    individual under it merely for his interest and pleasure, or perhaps, too, as a
    way of encouraging his companion to take her own relationship with him more
    seriously. Perhaps, if his plan worked, in such a case, he might then be kind
    enough to discard the individual beneath the wagon, ridding himself of it, its
    work accomplished, in some market or other.
    I crouched down. I could then see the heavy chain passed through the ring under
    the wagon. One end of it went between the folds of the tarpaulin clutched about
    the figure’s throat, probably to be padlocked there, about its throat, or
    attached to a collar. The other end went behind the figure and downward,
    probably to fasten together its