“Hush,” said Bree. “Here we are.”
And they were. They had e to the river’s edge and the road ahead of them ran along a many-arched bridge. The water danced brightly in the early sunlight; away to the right he river’s mouth, they caught a glimp ships’masts. Several other travellers were before them on the bridge, mostly peasants driving laden donkeys and mules or carrying baskets on their heads. The children and hors joihe crowd.
“Is anything wrong?” whispered Shasta to Aravis, who had an odd look on her face.
“Oh it’s all very well for you,” whispered Aravis rather savagely. “What would you care about Tashbaan? But I ought to be riding in on a litter with soldiers before me and slaves behind, and perhaps going to a feast iisroc’s palace （may he live forever） — not sneaking in like this. It’s different for you.”
Shasta thought all this very silly.
At the far end of the bridge the walls of the city towered high above them and the brazen gates stood open ieway which was really wide but looked narrow becau it was so very high. Half a dozen soldiers, leaning on their spears, stood on each side. Aravis couldn’t help thinking, “They’d all jump to attention and salute me if they knew who daughter I am.” But the others were only thinking of how they’d get through and hoping the soldiers would not ask any questions. Fortuhey did not. But one of them picked a carrot out of a peasant’s basket and threw it at Shasta with a rough laugh, saying：
“Hey！ Hor-boy！ You’ll catch it if your master finds you’ve been using his saddle-hor for pack work.”
This frightened him badly for of cour it showed that no one who knew anything about hors would mistake Bree for anything but a charger.
“It’s my master’s orders, so there！” said Shasta. But it would have beeer if he had held his tongue for the soldier gave him a box on the side of his face that nearly knocked him down and said, “Take that, you young filth, to teach you how to talk to freemen.” But they all slunk into the city without being stopped. Shasta cried only a very little; he was ud to hard knocks.
Ihe gates Tashbaan did not at first em so splendid as it had looked from a distahe first street was narrow and there were hardly any windows in the walls on each side. It was much more crowded than Shasta had expected： crowded partly by the peasants （on their way to market） who had e in with them, but also with waterllers, sweetmeat llers, porters, soldiers, beggars, ragged children, hens, stray dogs, and barefooted slaves. What you would chiefly have noticed if you had been there was the smells, which came from unwashed people, unwashed dogs, st, garliions, and the piles of refu which lay everywhere.