Cadha (#wattys2016)

Stirling

We arrived at the township of Stirling before noon. It amazed me how far we had walked in such a short amount of time, but we had already reached the halfway point to Airdiere, the palace city. Stirling was one of the bigger townships in Strathclyde, and it would be difficult to get through it quickly in one day without getting distracted. "Let's hurry," I called to Reid, who was standing a few feet behind me; he was already caught up in some display for pocket watched being sold by a street peddler. "I don't want to lose a whole day in here." Reid just nodded at me and picked up his pace to catch up with me.

We walked down the main road for the most part, asking directions along the way so that we could find our way through the maze of a city we were in. "Reid, do you have any idea where we are?" I asked after we had wandered aimlessly for the past while.

"Of course I do. That lady we asked for directions last said that after walking down this street for a little longer we would find an inn called 'The Ambling Horse.' Then we'd turn right... or maybe it was left. Do you see any inns?"

"No, I don't. I don't believe this street will have any inns; all I can see on this street is vendors and shops. Just admit it. We're lost!"

"So maybe we are lost," he said dejectedly. "What do you suggest we do?"

"How about we find the main street that we came in on. I'm pretty sure that it goes all the way through the city, but you thought we should try some of the smaller roads instead. I wonder how we ever got lost," I said sarcastically.

"Gosh, I guess we'll just have to find the main street then. How do you suggest that we do that?"

"It's just through here," I said confidently. I had seen glimpses of a busy road through the narrow alley the several times we had gone down this road already, and hoped that my suspicions were correct.

"Right," he said skeptically, but followed me anyways through a narrow back alley. When we reached the end of the narrow alley it broadened out into a bustling road. I had guessed right and we were back at the main street. "I can't believe you found it so easy. You're amazing," he said as we walked through the crowds of people in the street.

"It was just a lucky guess," I said casually. "Anyone could have done it."

"Mmhm... I could have done it, but instead I let us get lost in the town."

"Yup, that's exactly what you did."

"Hey! It's not my fault. Every time I asked for directions they took us somewhere other than the main road," he defended himself.

"Yes, but you never had to listen to them. You could've just asked me, because I obviously knew exactly how to get us back here."

"Right, let's just get through the town as fast as we can. Then we can figure out what to do next."

"I like that idea. I want to be at least close to the edge of the town by tonight." We had wasted 3 or 4 hours wandering lost through the streets and the sun was almost ready to set. We pushed our way through the slow moving crowd until they started thinning out. The streets became much less crowded as we neared the edge of the town and the shops lining the streets became more and more dispersed while inns and taverns grew more frequent.

The sun had just begun to set when we found a smaller inn on the skirts of the town. We went inside and the innkeeper greeted us from behind a tall desk. "Hello you two, and welcome to the Ambling Stag."

"Oh! This is where that lady was telling us to go earlier," Reid muttered under his breath.

"How can I help you two?" the man asked.