A harsh voice said, “Neither can you go back, thief.”
She turned as well. A man stood in the trail, short and broad with a flat ugly face. A metal hat covered the top of his head and was fastened under his chin with a leather strap. His torso was covered with metal-and-leather armour. A skirt made of leather strips hung to his knees. One hand held a sword, the blade bare and shining. She had never seen anyone who looked so unattractive.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A guard. You can’t believe that men of Ettin would bathe without posting guards.”
“I’m from the north,” said Dapple. “I know nothing about Ettin, which I imagine is your lineage.”
He made a noise that indicated doubt. “The north? And this one as well?” The sword tip pointed at her companion.
“I was travelling with actors,” Dapple said. “Robbers killed my comrades and took me prisoner. This lad rescued me and was guiding me to safety.”
The guard made another noise that indicated doubt. Other men gathered. Some were guards out of the forest. The rest were bathers, their fur slick with water and their genitalia exposed. She knew what male babies and boys looked like, of course, but this was the first time she’d seen men. They weren’t as big as she’d imagined, after Cholkwa’s plays. Nonetheless, the situation was embarrassing. She glanced back at the first guard, meeting his eyes.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then look down! What kind of customs do you have in the north?”
She looked at the ground. The air smelled of wet fur. “What’s this about?” the men asked. “What have you captured?”
“Some kind of foreigner, and a fellow of unknown lineage, though local, I think. They say they’ve escaped from the robbers.”
“If done, it’s well done,” said a swimmer. “But they may be lying. Take them to our outpost, and let the captain question them. If they’re spies, he’ll uncover them.”
Who is talking about uncovering? Dapple thought. A man with water dripping off him and his penis evident to anyone who cared to look! Not that she glanced in his direction. It was like being in an animal play, though maybe less funny.
Other men made noises of agreement. The swimmers went off to dry and dress. The men in armour tied Dapple’s hands behind her back, then did the same for the boy. After that, they ran a second rope from Dapple’s neck to the boy’s neck. “You won’t run far like this!” one said when the second rope was fastened.
“Is this anyway to treat guests?” asked Dapple.
“You may be spies. If you are not, we’ll treat you well. The Ettin have always been hospitable and careful.”
Tied like animals going to market, they marched along the trail, which had grown wider and looked better-used. Half the men went with them. The rest stayed behind to guard the border.
Twilight came. They continued through darkness, though under an open sky. By this time, Dapple was dazed by lack of sleep. One of the guards took her arm, holding her upright and guiding her. “You’re a pretty lad. If you are what you say, maybe we can keep company.”
Another guard said, “Don’t listen, stranger. You can do better than Hattin! If you are what you say.”
Her male disguise was certainly causing problems, though she needed it, if she was going to learn acting. What was she learning now? Danger and fear. If she survived and made it home, she would think about specializing in hero plays.
Ahead of them gleamed firelight, shining from windows. A sword hilt knocked on a door. Voices called. Dapple could not understand what they were saying, but the door opened. Entering, she found herself in a courtyard made of stone. On one side was a stable, on the other side, a square stone tower.
She and the boy were led into the tower. The ground floor was a single room with a fireplace on one side. A man sat next to the fire in a high-backed wooden chair. His grey fur was silvered by age, and he was even uglier than his relatives.
“This is Ettin Taiin,” said the guard named Hattin. “The man who watches this border, with our help.”
The man rose and limped forward. He’d lost an eye, though not recently, and did not bother to hide the empty socket. “Poor help you are!” he said, in a voice like stone grating against stone. “Nonetheless, I manage.” He looked directly at Dapple. The one eye that remained was bright blue; the pupil expanded in the dim light, so it lay across his iris like a black iron bar across the sky. “Who are you, and what are you doing in the land I watch?”
She told her story a second time.
“That explains you,” said Ettin Taiin. “And I’m inclined towards belief. Your accent is not local, nor is your physical type, though you are certainly lovely in a foreign way. But this lad” – He glared at the boy – “looks like a robber.”
The boy whimpered, dropping to the floor and curling like a frightened tli. Because they were tied together, Dapple was pulled to her knees. She looked at the border captain. “There is more to the story. I am not male!”
“What do you mean?” asked Ettin Taiin, his voice harsher than before.
“I wanted to be an actor, and women are not allowed to act.”
“Quite rightly!” said the captain.
“I disguised myself as a young man and joined a company here in the south, where no one knows me, and where I’m not likely to meet actors I know, such as Perig and Cholkwa.”
“Cholkwa is here right now,” said the captain, “visiting my mother and her sisters. What a splendid performer he is! I nearly ruptured myself laughing the last time I saw him. If he knows you, then he can speak for you; I am certainly not going to find out whether or not you’re female. My mother raised me properly.”
“An excellent woman,” murmured the guards standing around.
“When the robbers captured me, I told them I was female, and they told this lad to impregnate me.”
“With no contract? Without the permission of your female relatives?” The stony voice was full of horror.
“Obviously,” said Dapple. “My relatives are on Helwar Island, far to the north.”
“You see what happens when women run off to foreign places, without the protection of the men in their family?” said the captain. “Not that this excuses the robbers in any way. We’ve been lax in letting them survive. Did he do it?”
The boy, still curled on the floor, his hands over his head, made a keening noise. The guards around her exhaled, and Dapple thought she heard the sound of swords moving in their scabbards.
“No,” Dapple said. “He got me out of prison and brought me here. That’s the end of the story.”
“Nasty and shocking!” said the captain. “We will obviously have to kill the rest of the robber men, though it won’t be easy to hunt them down. The children can be adopted, starting with this lad. He looks young enough to keep. The women are a problem. I’ll let my female relatives deal with it, once we have captured the women. I only hope I’m not forced into acts that will require me to commit suicide after. I’m younger than I look and enjoy life!”
“We’d all prefer to stay alive,” said Hattin.
“Untie them,” said the captain, “and put them in separate rooms. In the morning, we’ll take them to my mother.”
The guards pulled the two of them upright and cut their ropes. The captain limped back to his chair. “And feed them,” he added as he settled and picked up a cup. “Give the woman my best halin.”
Leading them up a flight of stairs, Hattin said, “If you’re a woman, then I apologize for the suggestion I made. Though I wasn’t the only one who thought you’d make a good bedmate! Ettin Taiin is going to be hearing jokes about that for years!”
“You tease a man like him?” asked Dapple.
“I don’t, but the senior men in the family do. The only way someone like that is tolerable, is if you can embarrass him now and then.”
Her room had a lantern, but no fire. It wasn’t needed on a mild spring n
ight. Was the man downstairs cold from age or injuries? The window was barred, and the only furniture was a bed. Dapple sat down. The guards brought food and drink and a pissing pot, then left, locking the door. She ate, drank, pissed, and went to sleep.
In the morning, she woke to the sound of nails scratching on her door. A man’s voice said, “Make yourself ready.” Dapple rose and dressed. The night before, she’d unbound her breasts in order to sleep comfortably. She didn’t rebind them now. The tunic was thick enough to keep her decent; her breasts weren’t large enough to need support, and the men of Ettin were treating her like a woman. Better to leave the disguise behind, like a shell outgrown by one of the animals her male relatives pulled from the sea.
Guards escorted her and the boy downstairs. There were windows on the ground floor, which she hadn’t noticed the night before. Shutters open, they let in sunlight. The Ettin captain stood at a table covered with maps. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m trying to decide how to trap the robbers. Do you have any suggestions, lad? And what is your name?”
“Rehv,” the boy said. “I never learned to read maps. And I will not help you destroy my family!”
Ettin Taiin rolled the maps – they were paper, rather than the oiled leather her people used – and put them in a metal tube. “Loyalty is a virtue. So is directness. You’ll make a fine addition to the Ettin lineage; and I’ll decide how to destroy your lineage later. Today, as I told you before, we’ll ride to my mother.”
They went out and mounted tsina, the captain easily in spite of his lame leg, Dapple and the boy with more difficulty.
“You aren’t riders,” said Ettin Taiin. “And that tells me your families don’t have many tsina. Good to know, for when I hunt the robbers down.”
They spent the day riding, following a narrow road through forested hills. A small group of soldiers accompanied them, riding as easily as the captain and joking among themselves. Now and then they saw a cabin. “Hunters and trappers,” said Ettin Taiin. “There are logging camps as well. But no women. The robbers are too close. Time and time again we’ve tried to clean them out, but they persist, growing ever more inbred and nasty.”
Riding next to her, the boy shivered, hair rising on his arms and shoulders. Now that she was apparently safe, Dapple felt pity and respect for him. He’d been confronted by the kind of decision a hero faces in a play. Should he side with his kin or with right behaviour? A man without kin was like a tree without roots. The slightest wind would push him over. A man without morality was like – what? A tree without sunlight and rain.
In most cases, hero plays ended in death. It was the easiest resolution. Unable to make a definite choice, the hero blundered through a series of half-actions and mistakes, until he was killed by enemies or friends, and the audience exhaled in relief. May the Goddess keep them from this kind of situation!
Most likely, the boy would live to see his relatives die, while he was adopted by the Ettin. It was the right ending for the story of a child. Their duty was to live and grow and learn. Honour belonged to older people. Nonetheless, the story disturbed Dapple, as did the boy’s evident unhappiness and fear.
Late in the afternoon, they entered a wide flat valley. The land was cultivated. The buildings scattered among fields and orchards were made of planks rather than logs. Many were painted: blue-grey, green, or white.
“Barns,” said the Ettin captain. “Stables. Houses for herdsmen.”
She was back in the ordinary world of people who understood rules, though she wasn’t certain the Ettin followed the rules she had learned on Helwar Island. Still, the pastures were fenced, the fields ploughed in straight lines, and the orchard trees – covered with pale orange blossoms – were orderly.
They reached the captain’s home as the sun went down. It was a cluster of buildings made of wood and stone, next to a river crossed by a stone bridge. The lower storeys had no windows, and the doors were iron-bound. Built for defence, but no enemies were expected today. The largest door was open. Riding through it, they entered a courtyard surrounded by balconies. Children played in the early evening shadows, though Dapple couldn’t make out the game; it stopped the moment they appeared.
“Uncle Taiin!” cried several voices.
The captain swung down stiffly and was surrounded by small bodies.
“An excellent man,” said one of the guards to Dapple. “Affectionate with children, respectful towards women, and violent toward other men.”
“Even men of your family?” Dapple asked.
“We win, and most of us come home; we don’t expect kindness from a leader on campaign.”
A woman came into the courtyard, tall and broad, wearing a sleeveless robe. Age had whitened her face and upper arms. She carried a staff and leaned on it, but her head was erect, her blue eyes as bright as a polished blade.
The children fell silent and moved away from their uncle. He lifted his head, looked straight at the old woman, and gave her a broad, boyish grin. Beyond question, this was his mother. Could actors replicate this moment? No. Children were not used in plays, and everything here was small and quiet: the man’s grin, the woman’s brief returning smile.
“Taiin,” she said in greeting. Nothing more, but the voice rang – it seemed to Dapple – with joy. Her steel blue eyes flashed toward Dapple and the boy. “Tell me the names of our guests.”
He did, adding, “The girl, if this is a girl, says that Cholkwa the actor will speak for her. The boy is almost old enough to be killed, but if he saved her, then he’s worth saving.”
“I will form my own judgment,” said the matriarch. “But she’s clearly a girl.”
“Are you certain?”
“Use your eye, Taiin!”
He obeyed with a slow sideways look. “She does seem more feminine than she did yesterday. But I’d be happier if she had on female clothing. Then, maybe, I could see her as a woman entirely. Right now, she seems to shift back and forth. It’s very disturbing!”
“I’ll give her a bath and new clothes,” said the matriarch with decision. “You take care of the boy.”
Dapple dismounted. The old woman led her through shadowy halls to a courtyard with two pools built of stone. Steps led down into each. One seemed ordinary enough, the water in it colourless and still; but the other was full of bright green water. Steam rose from its surface; the air around it had an unfamiliar, slightly unpleasant odour.
“It comes from the ground like this,” said the matriarch. “We bring it here through pipes. The heat is good for old bones, stiff muscles, and the kind of injuries my son Taiin has endured. Undress! Climb in!”
Dapple obeyed, pulling off her tunic. The matriarch exhaled. “A fine-looking young woman, indeed! A pity that you won’t be bred!”
Because she had bad traits. Well, she didn’t mind. She had never wanted to be a mother, only an actor. Dapple entered the steaming water, sinking until she was covered. Hah! It was pleasant, in spite of the aroma! She stretched out and looked up. Though shadows filled the courtyard, the sky above was full of light. A cloud like a feather floated there. Last night, she’d slept in a guard house. The night before, she’d scrambled through a dark forest; and before that, she’d been in a cave full of robbers. Now she was back in a proper house – not entirely like her home, but close enough.
Women appeared, bringing a chair for the matriarch, and a clothing rack, on which they hung new clothes for Dapple. Then they left. The matriarch sat down, laying her staff on the court’s stone floor. “Why did you disguise yourself as a man?”
Dapple told her story, floating in the steaming pool. The old woman listened with obvious attention. When the story was done, she said, “We’ve been negligent. We should have cleared those people out years ago. But I – and my sisters and our female cousins – didn’t want to adopt the robber women. They’ll be nothing but trouble!”
This was true, thought Dapple, remembering the women in the cave, especially the robber matriarch. That was not a person
who’d fit herself quietly into a new household. Hah! She would struggle and plot!
“But something will have to be done. We can’t let these folk rob and murder and force men to breed. No child should come into existence without the agreement of two families. No man should become a father without a proper contract. We are not animals! I’m surprised at Cholkwa. Surely it would be better to die, than to reproduce in this fashion.”
She might have agreed before her recent experiences; but now, life seemed precious, as did Cholkwa and every person she knew and liked. If he had refused to co-operate with the robbers, she would have lost him when she barely knew him; and the boy who saved her would never have come into existence. The thought of her fate without the boy was frightening.
Maybe none of this would have happened, if Cholkwa had died before she saw him act. Without him, she might have been content to stay in Helwar. Hardly likely! She would have seen Perig, and he was the one she wanted to imitate. Comedy was fine. Cholkwa did it beautifully. But she didn’t want to spend her life making rude jokes.
Nor did she want to do exactly what Perig did. His heroes were splendid. When they died, she felt grief combined with joy. They were so honourable! Perig had so much skill! But her recent experiences suggested that real death was nothing like a play. Manif and his comrades would not rise to shouts of praise. Their endings had been horrible and final and solved nothing. Death was the problem here, rather than the problem’s solution. Why had they died? Why was she alive? Were tragedy and comedy the only alternatives? Did one either die with honour or survive in an embarrassing costume?
These were difficult questions, and Dapple was too young to have answers, maybe too young to ask the questions clearly. But something like these ideas, though possibly more fragmentary, floated in her mind as she floated in the steaming pool.
“That’s enough heat,” the matriarch said finally. “It will make you dizzy, if you stay too long. Go to the second pool and cool down!”
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