"Are we leaving already?" Leweli asked in a worried tone.

"Of course not. He has to train you. I'll mind the baby."

That was that. Ahl rode home on her animal, which was a crossbreed, larger and swifter than a true marsh tsin and less careful about where it put its feet: a good animal for ordinary use and warfare on solid ground.

That evening she sat with her mother and two aunts in a porch with gauze curtains. Hanging lanterns filled the room with light. Ahl's senior relatives sewed, while Ahl sharpened a favorite knife. Long and narrow, it was the best tool she had for cleaning fish.

"We're getting tired of waiting for you to settle down," an aunt said.

"We don't usually produce flighty women in this house," the second aunt added.

Ahl's mother kept at her cross-stitch, saying nothing, though she glanced at her daughter.

"Give me a few more days," Ahl said. "It's disturbing to live in a foreign place."

"We'll remember this in the future," her mother said.

The aunts tilted their heads in agreement.

"If we send any of our family off a second time, it will be men."

"Or women who are not promising."

"Though your kin haven't come back restless, as you have," Ahl's mother added.

Ahl ran her whetstone along the knife's blade. "What can I say?"

"There is nothing to say," her mother replied. "Remember who you are. And do!"

Ahl excused herself soon after that and went to her bed, not through the house's winding corridors, but outside though the garden. The air was cool and full of the scent of herbs. The sky was clear and starry. A meteor blazed in the north. Watching it, she swore two things. By the Goddess, she would find her way back to the Helwar and Ki. By the Goddess, she would not turn out like her mother!

She made the morning rendezvous on time. The men stood on the road, sun rising behind them. They'd brought their one healthy tsin, which grazed nearby. As Ah] dismounted, Leweli arrived on the witch's tsin.

"We went to the harbor yesterday," the older man said. "The Taig ship was planning to leave tomorrow, but will wait one extra day. Everything must be ready by tomorrow night. A challenge, let me tell you! But actors are used to rapid changes of plan and fortune."

"This is true," said the younger man with a glinting smile.

The men pulled clothing out of their animal's bags: male tunics, belts, swords and strips of fabric. "Put these on," the older man said. "Use the strips of fabric to bind your breasts till they're as flat as you can make them. We'll take a walk down the road while you dress. Be rapid! We have one day to teach you how to behave like men."

They worked till noon, the women walking and turning, bending, hefting tools and weapons, speaking. The men watched and made comments or demonstrated the right way to stride and pull a sword. At midday they rested in the shade of an atchul, a sapling with no secondary roots, . which had apparently popped up out of nowhere. The mother tree was nowhere in view.

The older man, whose name was Perig, said, "I think you'd best pretend to be actors who specialize in female parts. They are usually tall; and they often have feminine mannerisms." He paused and gave the women a quick sideways glance.

"I really can't imagine you as the kind of actors who play warriors or romantic leads."

"Well enough," said Ahl. "I've never wanted to be a soldier, even in pretense."

"They have the best roles," said the older man in a comfortable tone.

"I prefer lovers," said the younger man, whose name was Cholkwa.

"Well that you should," said Perig. "You have the beauty and grace required of such roles."

"But not the passion and darkness required of heroes," added the younger man.

This sounded like an old argument, possibly a teasing one, though Ahl couldn't tell for sure.

"That will come. Youth is not a time for passion."

"It isn't?" asked Ahl, surprised.

"The young experience lust, which is a fine and useful feeling. How else can a young man move away from his mother? How else can he form friendships? And the best friendships are those formed when young. But real passion, the kind that can be acted, comes later. You'll see this, when you see me act."

When noon was past they got up and practiced more. At last, when the sun was low in the west, the actors called a halt.

"I've done what I can," Perig said. "Meet us here tomorrow at midafternoon, and bring the money for our passage. The Taig will want to be paid the moment we're on board."

Leweli tilted her head. The two kinswomen rode off together. When they were safely away from the men, Leweli said, "Merhit has a message for you. Bring what money you can find."

"She wants me to rob my mother," Ahl said.

"Yes." Leweli reined the witch's tsin, though it wasn't easy, since the animal knew it was going home. At last it came to a halt. Ahl stopped her more-obliging animal.

"We both know your mother has a cache under the floor in her counting porch.

Most likely you know the exact stone and how to raise it."

"This is horrible," Ahl said.

"It was horrible for me when I realized they were going to kill my child, not because it was sick or deformed, but to escape an agreement they never intended to keep. Obviously it is shameful to rob one's mother. But haven't we been shamed already? What have our relatives left us in the way of honesty and honor?"

Ahl groaned and tilted her head in agreement.

That night she went to her mother's counting porch and pried up the right stone. Gold shone in the light of the tiny lamp she carried: coins, bracelets, chains, ingots and works of art that were too badly damaged to be shown: a mounted warrior with a missing head, a luat with two missing flippers, a statue of the

Goddess in her guise of creator. The statue was hollow and had gotten crushed. Ahl could still recognize the Great One, her tools in her hands, the hammer that beat out the heavens, the axe that chopped out the earth; but it wasn't easy.

Coins would be the safest. They were least likely to be missed. She gathered two handfuls, then replaced the stone and hurried away, feeling self-disgust.

It was impossible to sleep now. Instead she went to the stable and saddled her animal. In the first light of dawn she rode to the marsh. The day was hot already; Ahl felt queasy; it wasn't a real sickness, she decided, but rather fear and shame. When she reached the witch's cabin, she found Merhit outside, crouched next to a fire, brewing a potion. "It will keep the child sleepy and quiet. I have a wicker chest to put her in. She'll be able to breathe. Did you bring the money?"

Ahl pulled it out. Merhit examined the coins, putting several off to the side.

"These are distinctive. Better to take only coins in common use. The ship will be in harbor tonight. Board after dark. By sunrise you'll be on the open ocean.

I'll hide your animal. When you are missed, your relatives will think you've run away or died in the marsh like Leweli. No one will connect you with a band of actors going south by sea."