How it opens
Two days you had ridden through a country of starved fields and sullen villages.
Then the road bent under a shoulder of the mountain, and a valley opened below you like a mistake.
Where does a stranger sleep in a village with no inn, my lad?
AdrienMother said villages like this have a doctor instead of an inn.
Choose
Ask at the brightest house, where the shutters are painted.
Ask the first man carrying a tool, since working men know everything.
Ride to the whitewashed house at the head of the street, and trust the poor on its porch.