Why did I turn right?

“Well, can you explain what happened there?”

A fair question. I sighed in relief that the knight hadn’t call me a murderer from the start. That seemed like a chance to properly explain—a luxury I wasn’t often given.

“Well, uh. They jumped me after I called them pigs—no, it all started when I hid in this alley—ah, let me start over, please.”

He nodded, but his eyebrows went up slightly.

“I just arrived in this town. My name is Alice.” I did a small curtsy (the old woman in the village had taught me that). Then I realized I was still holding the knife. “Please ignore the knife.”

“I am Turner, a knight of the town’s guard.” I didn’t ask, but that might have been that politeness the old woman had told me about. “So, you got there, and?”

“And it was all too much! I’ve never seen so many people at once!”

He chuckled. “Coming from the village, I gather.”

I nodded eagerly.

“What’s the name of your village?”

He had me stumped there. I had always lived in that village, and not even once was there a need to call it anything but the village, so even if it had a name, I didn’t know it. “It’s called the village?” Oh, I sounded way too suspicious.

His brows made another small jump. “Just the village, you say?”

“Well, maybe it has a proper name, but I don’t know it. It’s the one three days’ walk to the east, you know? The apple-growing one.” I knew that the village sold some apples, including to this town.

He shook his head. “Don’t know about that village. Well, never mind the village. I’m interested in this.” He gestured at the bodies, still unconscious.

“Well, as I was saying, I got overwhelmed on the big street and hid there; that’s when they attacked me!”

“So you’re telling me that these three thugs attacked you—”

“With that knife, yes!” I pointed at the thugs’ knife with my own. Interrupting wasn’t part of politeness, I was told, but sometimes it was hard to avoid.

“And you, a small girl, managed to defeat not one, not two, but three of the most notorious criminals in this town?”

“Eh, what?” I panicked a little. What did he mean, the most notorious? How did I do it then?

I calmed myself with the thought that maybe it was a small town, in the grand scheme of things. Or maybe they ate poorly, on account of being criminals. Or maybe—

“Alice.” Turner had to get my attention back. “What about calling them pigs?”

“Ah, I did do that!” Perhaps admitting it wasn’t the best idea. “After they threatened to take me to some special secret place. Say, sir knight, you wouldn’t know what they meant by that?”

He lowered his gaze. “I—I don’t think I do. Well, then. You haven’t told me yet how you defeated them.”

“It’s easier to show you!” I jumped back onto the barrel. “I did this, and I threw my backpack at one of them.” I threw the backpack at the wall and jumped with knife in hand, shouting, “And jumped!” before I hit the ground with my knee. Ouch, landing on a man was much nicer!

Turner was taken aback by my performance.

“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t explain it more clearly than that, but I can show you again.”

“N-no need. I get the picture. One last question, Miss Alice. It seemed like the guard at the gate went into a deep panic today; you wouldn’t know anything about it?”

“M-me? No idea what happened to him,” I lied, and then committed the usual mistake of liars: I continued talking. “When I got there, he was already like that.”

Turner smiled, and his smile seemed a little cruel to me. “I gather you didn’t pay the fee then, Miss Alice?”

“The fee?”

“There is a fee to enter this town, payable at the gate. The guard usually collects it.”

Ah, I didn’t know about that. “And how much is this fee?”

“How much money do you have? Entering the town without paying is a misdemeanor, you know. You can spend a night in jail for that.”

“So either I spend money or I spend the night?”

He nodded.

“Well then, I need to get to the gate to pay it, I guess.” I picked up my backpack and intended to leave.

He stopped me with a raised hand. “You can pay me. Rest assured, I’ll pass the coins to the gate and inform them that you did pay. You won’t have to walk through the crowd that way.”

I wasn’t sure he’d pass the coins, but I disliked the thought of going through that street again. “Well, I have three coppers. Would that be enough?”

I tried not to smile—the same old woman who had beaten politeness lessons into me had insisted that I was to split the money and hide it in various pockets of my backpack and pants. Just in case someone tried to mug you, she said; better to part with part of the money than with body parts, she added.

I had more than three coppers, but was afraid that the “fee” would be exactly—

“You’re in luck: the fee is exactly three coppers.”

I sighed and took the coins out of one of the pockets. The hidden coin pockets were made snug: that way the coins wouldn’t make a sound, even if I was jumping. Because of that, taking them out required a bit of effort and finger finesse.

Turner smiled, almost kindly this time, accepting the coins. “I’ll pass it along, young Alice. And seeing as the guard wasn’t able to say it, welcome to Sheidy.”

He turned to leave, but this time I stopped him. “Sir Turner, would you be so kind as to tell me how to get to the guild without going back to that large street?”

Something in my words seemed to jolt him, but he quickly assumed his smile again. “You mean the guild of heroes? Well, judging by the ease with which you dealt with those bandits, I’m not surprised you’d be interested in that.”

Turner stroked his chin. “Avoiding large streets… yes, you can do that. Go farther down this alley, then turn right and go forward for three streets straight, then right again, and then turn left, and you should get there.”

“Thanks a lot!” I almost remembered those directions and decided to leave with all my other coins intact. “Can I entrust those thugs to you?”

“Ha, sure! That is my job, after all.”

I smiled at him, probably a bit unnaturally because I was trying to bury thoughts like “then aren’t you slacking on your job, seeing that I was almost killed in the first few minutes in this town,” and turned to leave for good. He knelt before one of the bodies, likely checking its pulse, but I didn’t stick around to watch that.

Instead, I walked through the alley, gathering my thoughts. The fight’s emotional weight, which I had half-expected to crush me, wasn’t present at all—I was more disgruntled about losing three coppers than frightened or remorseful about kicking three men unconscious. Maybe I wasn’t hero material after all—and that thought did scare me. The scare itself reassured me that I was hero material; otherwise, why would I be scared of that?

I was also curious about that dual-wielding thing the disembodied voice had talked about—but first things first, I needed to get to the guild.

I made a right turn onto the street that was less people-packed, which meant that I could manage it. I looked around with excitement—a few stalls with fruits and vegetables; a shop or two, judging by the signage; passersby quietly chattering about something. Truly, everything is good in moderation!

I walked three streets and turned right again; this street was not perpendicular to the alley. In other words, I didn’t make a full turn, but that was the right street of the two.

That led me to the next intersection. Which way to turn? Was it right again, or maybe left? I should have written down the directions…

Well, I obviously needed to go right—because I was hero material, and heroes always do the right thing, don’t they?

I turned right and walked on, searching for the guild. The street got narrower and narrower. My attention got stolen by the sounds from one of the shops: the rhythmic pounding of a hammer on metal.

I peeked inside the weapons shop. A dwarf was working the anvil and didn’t notice me at all. The room was cramped, filled with axes and maces and swords. “Sword, I do need one,” I thought, and took a step inside.

If those bandits ever thought about getting revenge, I’d better be prepared. Not to mention that the next thing I was planning, after registering with the guild, was buying a sword anyway. A proper hero’s outfit would definitely feature a sword or two. And a little reshuffle of the plan wouldn’t hurt.

The dwarf didn’t even acknowledge my entering his shop, which made me believe that he was a master of his craft.

“Excuse me, sir craftsman. I wish to buy a sword.” I thought about making a curtsy, but he wouldn’t be able to see it with his back turned anyway.

“Go away,” he replied.

That wasn’t town politeness; more of the village talk I was accustomed to.

I decided to answer in kind. “Hey, smith! I won’t go away unless you sell me your finest sword!”

He finally turned to me, looked at me from head to toe, then shook his head. “Your brother’s birthday coming up or what?”

I stared at him blankly. “What do you mean? I need a sword.”

“I don’t think a sword would do a young girl any good, I don’t. Not only will I not sell you my finest, but I won’t sell you anything, so go away, please.”

My nose itched. Now, perhaps a more rational course of action would have been to find a better shop, but I dug my heels in and decided to buy a sword from that dwarf, to convince him to sell it to me, no matter what.

Of course, looking back, I made quite an expensive decision.