So they both get one of those, and a small glass bottle of sparkling mineral water* each, and they can sit on the benches in the big train station and have lunch.  Zapiekanki** are a great invention.

There's a lot of people to watch, and Marek will quietly do that for a while unless Agnieszka starts a conversation.

*tap water isn't drinkable, so if you want drinkable water in public you have to buy the bottled sort, which is inevitably sparkling mineral water for some reason, maybe to make it clearer that it's not just bottled tap water?

**a specific sort of open-faced baguette-based toasted sandwich that's one of the most common cheap street foods in Poland.  Nom.

Oh wow, the melty cheese is really tasty!

...The water is NOT tasty. The forest water was not this bad so it can't just be that it tastes better if it's from a priest!

What does she notice about the people here?

They're mostly all taller than she's used to, and healthier-looking. All of them are wearing variously strange and surprisingly colorful local clothes, and often a lot less of them than she's used to, men and women showing their knees and shoulders. 

Nobody's carrying recognizable weapons, except some of the guards with short little sticks that barely seem like they count.  She doesn't see anyone casting a spell, although some people do have things that must be magic items, by how they're talking into them.

People yell at each other sometimes, but she doesn't see anyone getting hit, except one noisy small child eventually.  ...The children generally misbehave and disobey their parents as if they haven't had the inclination whipped out of them. And it seems like they haven't - none of the children, or the adults for that matter, have visible bruises, scars are weirdly rare, nearly nobody walks funny or winces in pain when jostled.  These people just don't look like they're getting punished at all.

It's obvious that some of them are richer and some poorer - there are even some beggars, mostly women with children - but it... doesn't seem like it matters as much?  People get glared at pretty equitably.  Nobody's acting like a slave, as far as she can tell (and everyone's human, no halflings or orcs or anything) - and nobody's acting like a priest or wizard or lord, either, nobody the crowd parts respectfully or fearfully for.  Maybe a little, for the people in various guard uniforms, and similarly a little but in a more friendly way for the people in long black robes, whoever they are.  People aren't mostly friendly at each other, but it still happens much more often than in Cheliax. Women smile at other women's babies or stop to chat about them.

People complain a lot - about their health, their families, their work. About their government, completely out in the open.

For a few moments she feels her chest pulling tight, and it's hard to breathe. You can't just talk treason in public — it's stupid to do it in private, but at least in private you can get lucky, if you guess that someone won't turn you in and get lucky. But in public — in public you'd be punished for it even if every single person who heard you agreed, because no one would want to risk seeming disloyal by not turning you in. Her first reflex is to shout at them, or something, only that wouldn't even help, everyone's already heard it.

Agnieszka has never seen how her lord would have responded to someone saying those sorts of things about him, because no one would have dared. (Well, the people saying things that sound like compliments in tones that make it clear they really aren't might have, but in Cheliax they would have meant it as a compliment to call him callous.) Probably most of the people here would have gotten by with just a whipping, with the kinds of whip that get used for real punishments, unless the Crown really felt like making an example out of someone, or the lord or the priest or someone important really wanted an excuse. 

The people talking about... some kind of war, it sounds like it's between two countries she's never heard of... would have died.

They aren't going to die here. Or, technically she doesn't know that, but they're treating it like it's just a normal conversation, no one is giving them nervous looks, no one even seems to think it's any more notable than the pair of young women (dressed halfway like whores, but so did most women in Egorian, if Egorian is real) complaining about the taller one's boyfriend. The guards are close enough to hear, and they aren't moving closer, aren't surrounding them, aren't even trying to listen closer, at least not that she can tell.

They're just... allowed to complain.

(Her chest doesn't feel tight anymore, which is sort of weird, it's not like she knows them.)

Yes - they complain for a while, then move on to how one of the men can't get the bugs to leave his tomatoes alone, as if both topics were equally commonplace.  Nothing at all happens.

Marek notices the change in her breathing and gives her a concerned look, but he has no idea what she's reacting to.

She hadn't meant to be that obvious about it, now he's probably going to think she's pathetic. She attempts to force it to be a bit more regular and look around the rest of the station like there's nothing special about that pair in particular.

That's enough to make him stop looking worried, since it doesn't seem like there's an actual problem, but they could still do something else instead of sitting here for another hour and a half.

"This has to be pretty different from what you're used to.  We could walk around and see more of the city, there's time, but I figured with your leg you'd rather be sitting down?  We could at least go sit somewhere different if you want."

"What are, uh, the other places to go in the city?"

"Hmm. The old city center is pretty close to here, it has a lot of interesting old buildings and little shops and one of the biggest churches."  He somehow makes it sound like that last one is a nice thing.  "The royal palace, not that we'll have time to go inside, but it's still interesting to see.  There's a fire-breathing dragon in front of it.  ...Uh, not a real one."  Just in case she was unclear on that.  "Wisła - the biggest river in the country - is impressive-looking, there's a nice walk along it." 

...It turns out he doesn't have a lot of ideas for places to go.  He likes the city, but he tends to just walk around and enjoy the atmosphere rather than aiming for anywhere specific.

A lot of those options seem pretty bad! She definitely doesn't want to go anywhere near the palace (although she must have misunderstood something there, there's no way someone important enough to just walk in and get an audience if only he had more time would be wasting their time helping random teenage girls. (It might be interesting to see the... statue? magical construct for killing the Crown's enemies?... but absolutely not worth getting close.) The church is — well, it might not be just as bad, if the gods here are Good, but she doesn't know if they are, and either way there's the risk of the priests having magic that'll force her to tell the whole truth. The shops could be fine, except the guards took all her money, and in any case the shops are apparently right near a church, so if she asks to visit them it's possible that he'll try to bring her to the church as well. The river is... probably fine, probably not that interesting, and apparently would involve a lot of walking — she's not a little kid, she'll do it if she has to, but she'd rather not.

...Also, it sounds really boring to just look at a river for an hour. They've been doing a lot of leaving her with nothing to do for hours, it's not like it's a big deal or anything, but still.

She... probably still needs to pick one.

"...Could we go see the shops, but not the church?" If he says that's alright, but then he tries to take her to the church anyway, that's good to know.