'It's...look there, do you see the red hand lit up with little sparklights inside?' Again Cuthbert pointed across the street. 'That means you stand here and don't step into the roadway or a car might hit you. If you wait, though, those lights will go out, and the other, the sigul-picture of a white man, that'll light up and that tells you it's safe to walk over the road.' Sure enough, no sooner had Cuthbert finished explaining than the expected change occurred, and the cars stopped just as he had predicted they would. He led Valen across, staying by him, and then turned so they might both see the cars move again, at the sigul of the red hand.
'This city,' he said then, 'isn't much like those in your Navronne, I'd wager, but we'll go about this afternoon and I'll show you the essentials. You've a choice of places of shelter: you might go to the dinh and his councilmen and they'll give you a set of rooms, but there's obligation in that, before long they'll want to take of your very blood, so they will. Or else you might come with me to the church, which is a less grand way to live, to be sure, but there's more freedom in it. That choice is yours and you don't have to make it right away. Think on it. At the least I'll take you to the church afore you decide and we'll have a hot meal and mayhap if you've no great opposition to it I'll call in a medic - a physician, as it were, to see to the wounds you've suffered.'
He wasn't going to enquire as to how they came about, not unless Valen volunteered the information. It couldn't have been in his war, he said he'd worked for a tanner and in a quarry since then. It didn't make a difference, in any case. Even if he'd gotten them in a drunken brawl they still looked in need of treating.
He walked alongside Valen a few moments longer before directing him into one of the stores. 'We'll try here,' he said, 'and you're not to be alarmed by it, it's much like a great warehouse that folk come to and purchase from directly. There are lots of different types of goods and many people inside. When we go in, we'll look to the section where they keep the clothing, and you'll show me the manner of dress you prefer. It won't be alike to what you have at home, but mayhap it'll serve well enough for now.'