I am a hard-working innkeeper. It has taken many years to gain my stature in this community. So often, just as success was close, some unforseen event would snatch it from me. The great sickness that took our savings and first-born, and forced our selling everything. The journey to the healing waters. Then came the winds, cursedly cutting apart the town, tearing down everything as it blew for days out of the desert. Then the Roman legions forged a march through our town, and in their superior ways stole and looted and raped and then went on.

But now I have gained my place - an inn on the very edge of the highway, causing even great caravans to stop for refreshment - and to see the wares that come from all parts of this world. Mine is the central inn - at the crossroads. It is a meeting pl…