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 toward 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 night. 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.