艾莉亚
The road was little more than two ruts through the weeds.
与其说这是路,不如说是穿过杂草丛的两道车辙。
The good part was, with so little traffic there'd be no one to point the finger and say which way they'd gone. The human flood that had flowed down the kingsroad was only a trickle here.
好处在于,由于往来人少,就没有人能指出他们的去向。国王大道上人潮汹涌,这里只有涓滴细流。
The bad part was, the road wound back and forth like a snake, tangling with even smaller trails and sometimes seeming to vanish entirely only to reappear half a league farther on when they had all but given up hope. Arya hated it. The land was gentle enough, rolling hills and terraced fields interspersed with meadows and woodlands and little valleys where willows crowded close to slow shallow streams. Even so, the path was so narrow and crooked that their pace had dropped to a crawl.
坏处呢,这路像蛇一般前后蜿蜒,有时和荒僻小径交杂缠绕,有时则几乎完全消失,等他们快放弃希望,才在一两里外又复出现。艾莉亚讨厌这样的状况。附近地势并不崎岖,丘陵和梯田高低起伏,草地、树林和小溪谷点缀其间;溪谷中,水流缓慢,柳树夹岸。风景虽美,路径却非常狭窄,左弯右拐,使他们前进的速度几与爬行无异。
It was the wagons that slowed them, lumbering along, axles creaking under the weight of their heavy loads. A dozen times a day they had to stop to free a wheel that had stuck in a rut, or double up the teams to climb a muddy slope. Once, in the middle of a dense stand of oak, they came face-to-face with three men pulling a load of firewood in an ox cart, with no way for either to get around. There had been nothing for it but to wait while the foresters unhitched their ox, led him through the trees, spun the cart, hitched the ox up again, and started back the way they'd come. The ox was even slower than the wagons, so that day they hardly got anywhere at all.
拖慢速度的是马车,它们载重很多,车轴嘎吱作响,隆隆行进。一天里,必须停下十几次,把卡在车辙里的轮子拉出来;要么就是临时增加拉车的牲口,以助其爬上泥泞斜坡。还有一次,在一片浓密的橡树林中,他们迎面碰上一部三人合拉的牛车,上面堆满了柴薪,双方都无路可让,最后只好等那几个樵夫解开缰绳,把牛牵进林子,掉转车头,再把牛重新拴上,原路返回。那头牛比马车还慢,所以那天等于就这么浪费掉了。