The old woman rose and came forward. Her body was solid, and she moved firmly, though with a cane. Bending close, she peered at Dapple, then felt an arm. “Good muscle. How old is he?”

“Tell her,” the man said.

“Eighteen.”

“Men are active at that age, no question, but I prefer someone older. Who knows anything about a lad of eighteen? He hasn’t shown the world his nature. His traits may be good or bad.”

“This is true, mother,” said the man with the rope. “But we have to take what we get. This one is alive and healthy. Most likely, he can do what we need done.”

Dapple thought of mentioning that she could not impregnate a female, but decided to wait.

“Come over to the fire,” the old woman said. “Sit down and talk with me. I like to know who’s fathering the children in our family.”

Dapple obeyed. The man went with them. Soon she was on the stone floor, a bowl of beer next to her. In her hand was a piece of greasy meat, a gift from the old woman. Around her sat the rest of the family: thin women with badly combed fur. Most likely they had bugs. One held a baby. The rest of the children were older, ranging from a girl of four or five to a boy at the edge of adulthood. The boy was remarkably clean for a member of this family, and he had a slim gracefulness that seemed completely out of place. The other children continued to run and scream, but he sat quietly among his female relatives, watching Dapple with eyes as yellow as resin.

The man, Dapple’s captor, sat in back of her, out of sight, though when she moved her bound hands, she could feel him holding the rope.

There had been five families in these hills, the old woman said. None of them large or rich, but they survived, doing one thing or another.

Five lineages of robbers, thought Dapple.

“We all interbred, till we were close kin, but we remained separate families, so we could continue to interbreed and find lovers. The rest of the families in this region never liked us and would have nothing to do with us. We had no one except each other.”

Definitely robbers.

In the end, the large and powerful families in the region combined against the five. One by one, they were destroyed. It was done in the usual way: the men were killed, the women and children adopted.

“But our neighbors, the powerful ones, never allowed any of the people they adopted to breed. They would not let women and children starve, but neither would they let traits like ours continue. We were poisoned and poisonous, they said.

“Imagine what it was like for those women and children! It’s one thing for a woman to lose her family name and all her male relatives. That can be endured. But to know that nothing will continue, that her children will die without children! Some of the women fled into the hills and died alone. Some were found by us. We took them in, of course, and bred them when we could. But where could we find fathers? The men who should have impregnated our daughters — and the women we adopted —were dead.

“We are the last of the five families: more women than men, all of us poor and thin, with no one to father the next generation, except travelers like you.

“But we refuse to give up! We won’t let rich and arrogant folk make us vanish from the world!”

Dapple thought while drinking her beer. “Why did your men kill the rest of our acting company? There were five more —all male, of course, and older than I am.”

The bandit matriarch peered past Dapple. “Six men? And you brought only  one?”

“They fought,” said the man behind Dapple, his voice reluctant. “We became angry.”

The matriarch hissed, a noise full of rage.

“One other is still alive,” the man added. “My brothers will bring him along later.”

“You wanted to rape him,” said the matriarch. “What good do you think he’ll be, after you finish? Selfish, selfish boys! Your greed will destroy us!”

Obviously, she had miscounted, when she climbed into the actors’ grave. Who was still alive? Not Manif. She’d seen him clearly. Maybe his lover, who was young and handsome.

“Don’t blame  me,” said the man sullenly. “I’m not raping anyone. I’m here with this lad, and I haven’t touched him. As for the other man, he’ll still be usable. No one wants to make you angry.”

The matriarch scratched her nose. “I’ll deal with that problem when your brothers and male cousins return. In the meantime, tie up this man. I need to decide who should mate with him.”

“Why should I do this?” asked Dapple. “There is no breeding contract between your family and mine. No decent man has sex with a woman, unless it’s been arranged by his relatives and hers.”

“We will kill you, if you don’t!” said the man behind Dapple.

“What will you do if I agree to do this very improper thing?”

The people around the fire looked uneasy.

“One thing at a time,” said the matriarch. “First, you have to make one of our women pregnant. Later, we’ll decide what to do with you.”

Dapple was led into another cave, this one small and empty except for a pallet on the floor and an iron ring set in the wall. Her captor tied her rope to the ring and left her. She sat down. Firelight came from the main cave, enough to light her prison. She tried to loosen the knots that held her. No luck. A cold draft blew down on her. At first, she thought it was fear. Glancing up, she saw a hole that led to starlight. Too far for her to reach, even if she could manage to free herself, and most likely too small to climb through. Only a few stars were visible. One was yellow and very bright: the Eye of Uson. It made her think of Manif s one eye. How was she going to escape this situation? The hole seemed unreachable, and the only other route was past the main cavern, full of bandits; and she was tired, far too tired to think. Dapple lay down and went to sleep.

She woke to feel a hand shaking her. Another hand was over her mouth.

“Don’t make any noise,” a voice whispered.

She moved her head in a gesture of agreement. The hand over her mouth lifted. Cautiously, she sat up.

The fire in the main cave still burned, though more dimly. Blinking, she made out a slim figure. She touched an arm. The fur felt smooth and clean. “You are the boy.”

“A man now. Fifteen this spring. Are you really an actor?”

“Yes.”

“My father was one. They told me about him: a handsome man, who told jokes and juggled anything: fruit, stones, knives, though they never let him have sharp knives. After he made my mother pregnant, they kept him to impregnate another woman and because they enjoyed his company. But instead of doing as they planned, he escaped. They say, they’ll never trust another foreigner—or keep a man alive so long that he knows his way through the caves. His name was Cholkwa. Have you ever heard of him?”