The city of Cairhien lay across hills against the River Alguenya, and Cassel’s first sight of it came from the hills to the north, by the light of the midday sun. Elricain Tavolin and the fifty Cairhienin soldiers still seemed like guards to him—the more since crossing the bridge at the Gaelin; they became more stiff the further south they rode—but Loial and Hurin did not appear to mind, so he tried not to. He studied the city, as large as any he had seen. Fat ships and broad barges filled the river, and tall granaries sprawled along the far bank, but Cairhien seemed to be laid out in a precise grid behind its high, gray walls. Those walls themselves made a perfect square, with one side hard along the river. In just as exact a pattern, towers rose within the walls, soaring as much as twent
