Could it all have been true, then-all Lisiya's words, her strange tales?

Briony had a sudden, horrifying thought: if the charm was real, then Lisiya had brought her to the edge of the forest for a reason-but Briony was no longer there.

Slipping, stumbling in the growing dark, she hurried back over the wet and uneven, leaf-slicked ground, through the skeletal trees.

She burst out of the forest into the misty emptiness of early evening on the featureless meadows, and for a moment saw nothing. Then, just before she was about to throw herself down to the damp, grassy ground to gasp some breath back into her chest, she saw a single bobbing light moving away from her into the murk to her left, a lantern on a wagon going south toward Syan and faraway Hierosol. The witch, the goddess, whatever or whoever she was, had brought Briony here for a reason after all. She hob¬bled after the receding light, praying that these strangers were not bandits and wondering how she would explain why she was walking alone on the empty grasslands beside the Whitewood.

•**

The two wagons on either side of the largeTirc made a soil of coun-terfeit town: for a few moments Briony could almost feel herself back in the midst of civilization. The man talking to her was certainly civilized enough, his speech as round and precise as his appearance..She knew him slightly, although she had not realized it until he gave his name, Finn Teodoros, and she was desperately grateful that they had never met in person. He was a poet and playwright who in years past had done some work for Brone and others at court, and had once or twice written pretty speeches for Orphanstide or Perinsday ceremonies. The rest of his traveling companions were players (as far as she could tell from the things they said to each other) taking their wagons on a winter tour of the provinces and beyond. As Teodoros questioned her, some of the oth¬ers at the fire listened with interest, but most seemed far more involved with eating, or drinking as much wine as possible. Among the latter was another Briony thought she had heard of, Nevin or Hewney by name, another poet and-as her ladies Rose and Moina had informed her in tones mixing horror with a possibly indecent fascination-a very bad man indeed.

"So you say your name is Timoid, young man?" Finn Teodoros nodded at her sagely. "It smacks somewhat of a straw-covered bumpkin just off the channel boat from Connord. Perhaps we should call you Tim."

Briony, who had picked the name oЈ the Eddon family priest, could only nod.

"Strange, though, since the channel boat does not, as far as I know, make landfall in the midst of the Whitewood. Nor do you sound Connord-fresh. You say you have been wandering here how long?"

"Days, maybe weeks, my lord." She tried to keep her voice boyishly gruff and her words what she imagined would be peasant-simple. "I do not know for certain." This at least was true, but she was glad her dirty face would hide the flush of her fear. "And I am not from Connord but Southmarch." She had hoped to pass herself off as a wandering prentice, but she had ex¬pected to encounter some tradesman or merchant, not this shrewd-faced familiar of her own court.

"Do not task him so," said the tall one named Dowan-a giant of a fel¬low, so big that Briony did not reach near to his shoulder, and Olin Eddon's daughter was not a small girl. "The lad is weary and hungry, and cold."

"And looking to ease those deficits at our expense," said a woman the others had called Estir. Her dark hair was shot with gray and although her

face mighl be called pretty, she had the soured look of someone who re¬membered every slight ever done to her.

"We could use another hand on the ropes," offered a handsome, brown-skinned youth, one of the few who seemed near Briony's own age. He spoke lazily, as one accustomed to getting his way, and she wondered if he was related to the owner of the troop. Finn Teodoros had introduced the company as Makewell's Men, which was the usual sort of name for a troop of traveling players-perhaps the young man was Makewell's son, or even Makewell himself.

"Well, that is at first easy enough to accomplish without loss, Estir," said Teodoros. "He shall have my share tonight, since my stomach pains me a bit. And he shall sleep with me in the wagon-unless that is not mine to grant?"

The woman named Estir scowled, but waved her hand as though it was of little import to her.

"Come, then, wandering Tim," said Teodoros, rising heavily from his seat on the wagon's narrow steps. He was no older than her father and what hair he had showed little gray, but he moved like an aged man. "You can have my meal and we can speak more, and perhaps I shall sniff out what use you might be, since no one travels with us who cannot earn his way."

"That's not all you'll sniff out, I'll wager," said one of the drinkers. His words were mumbled in a way that suggested he had started his drinking long before sunset. He was handsome in a thick-jawed way, with a shock of dark hair.

"Thank you, Pedder," said Teodoros with a hint of irritation. "Estir, per¬haps you could see that your brother puts a little food in his stomach to off¬set the drink. If he is ill again this tennight I fear we will have anqther disaster with Xarpedon, because Hewney does not know it."

"I wrote it, curse you!" bellowed Hewney, a bearded, balding man with the look of an aging courtier who still clung to the memory of his hand¬some youth.

"Writing it and remembering it are two different things, Nevin," said Teodoros reasonably."Come along, young Tim-we will talk while you eat."

Once inside the tiny wagon the scrivener lowered himself onto the small plank bed and gestured at a covered bowl sitting on the folding shelf that seemed, judging by the quills, pens, and ink bottles hanging in a pocketed leather pouch, to double as a writing table. "I did not bring a spoon. There is a basin of water you can use to wash your hands."

While Briony began to consume the lukcwarm stew, leodoros watched her with a small, pleasant smile on his face. "You might do lor some of the girl's roles, you know. We lost our second boy in Silverside-he fell in love with a local, which is the curse of traveling companies. Feival cannot play all the women, Pilney is too ugly to play any but the nurses and dowagers, and we will not have money to hire another actor until we are installed in our next theater."

Briony swallowed. "A player-me? No. No, my lord, I cannot. I have no training."

Teodoros raised an eyebrow. "No training in imposture? That is a strange argument coming from a girl pretending to be a boy, don't you think? What matter it if we add one more twist to the deception and have you pretend to be a boy pretending to be a girl?"

Briony almost choked. "A girl…"

Teodoros laughed. "Oh, come, child. Surely you did not think to pass yourself off as a true manchild? Not among players-or at least not around me. I have been brushing rouge on principal boys and tightening their corsets since before you were born. But it is up to you-I cannot imagine forcing someone onto the stage against her will. You will sleep in the wagon with me and we will find you other employ."

Suddenly the stew seemed to become something like paste in her mouth, sticky and tasteless. She had never spent much time around writers, but she had heard stories of their vicious habits. "Sleep with you…?"

Teodoros reached out and patted her knee. She flinched and almost dropped the bowl into her lap. "Foolish child," he said. "If you were a real boy, handsome as you are, you might have some cause to fear me. But I want nothing from you, and if Pedder Makewell thinks you are mine, then he will leave you alone, too. He likes a charming lad, but dares not offend me because even with his name on the company, it is my contacts in Tes-sis that will keep us alive and plying our craft."