Free Exile's Return by Raymond E. Feist Page A

Kaspar guessed they were constables or the town watch.
    He made eye contact with one; a broad-shouldered man with a scarred face and neck. The man stopped, but Kaspar didn’t avert his gaze and walked over to him. The man wore a blue tunic, but instead of displaying the high boots of a cavalryman with his trousers tucked in the tops, he wore balloon-legged pants that almost hid the boots entirely. His sword was a shorter weapon, and he wore no helm, but rather a felt hat with a broad brim.
    “Good afternoon,” said Kaspar in greeting.
    “Stranger,” said the man curtly.
    “I take it you are a constable?”
    “You take it correctly.”
    “I was wondering, where might I go to find work around here?”
    “Your trade?”
    “I’m a skilled hunter and a soldier,” Kaspar continued politely.
    “If you bring in game, you can sell it at the inns, but the Raj has no need for mercenaries.”
    Feeling as if he had already had this conversation, Kaspar didn’t debate this point. “What about laboring?”
    “There’s always need for those able to heft a bale or lift a crate at the caravanserai.” He pointed south. “Through the town and outside the gate. But you’re too late today. All the hiring is done at first light.”
    Kaspar nodded his thanks and moved through the town. All at once, he was struck by a sense of the alien and the familiar. These people dressed differently and their accents and voices sounded strange to his ear. He had thought himself comfortable with the language, but now he realized he was only used to hearing Jojanna’s and Jorgen’s two voices. This was a town, a good-sized one, on its way to becoming a city. He passed new construction work and saw men eager to be about their business, and found the pace and rhythms of the settlement familiar.
    Reaching the outer gate, Kaspar found that the caravanserai was indeed quiet. As the constable had warned him, most of the business of the day was done. Still, it was still an opportunity to ask questions. He went from caravan to caravan and after a few conversations he had the feel of the place. He discovered that a caravan making for the south would be departing in a week’s time, and the caravan owner said he should return then to seek a position as a guard, but in the meantime he had nothing to offer Kaspar.
    By the time the sun began to set, Kaspar was tired and hungry. There was nothing he could do about the latter, but he could at least find a place to sleep if he was quiet about it. This land was hot, despite it being early spring—if he could judge the seasons on the other side of the world. The nights could get chilly, but they were far from cold.
    He found some workers sitting around a fire and speaking softly, and asked permission to join them. They seemed content to let him, so he settled in and lay behind two men who spoke of things he could only imagine: villages whose names he had never heard before, rivers that coursed through alien landscapes, and other things familiar to them, but foreign to Kaspar. For the first time since coming to this continent, Kaspar wished not only to wreak destruction on Talwin Hawkins and those who had betrayed him, but simply to go home.
     
    The wagons bumped along the old highway. It was a rugged ride, but it was a ride. Kaspar was glad not to be walking. He had finished an arduous week of work, loading and unloading wagons for scant wages—scarcely enough to pay for food. He had lost even more weight; he had to buy a whipcord belt to keep his trousers from falling down. He had supplemented his income by playing knucklebones with some of the other workers, but on the last day his luck had faltered and now he was barely more than a few copper coins ahead. But at least he was ahead, and every little improvement was an advantage. He had endured. Though it had been one difficult week for him, the other men had suffered a lifetime of difficulty. For Kaspar, the most telling characteristic was their complete