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way?”
    She darted me a quick glance. I thought for a moment she guessed who I was, but then she said, “I thinked for a moment here you were having your little fun. Don’t ye know not two mile of here starts the forest of Ku Kuei?”
    That close. I pretended ignorance. “And what does that mean?”
    She shook her head. “They tells it that no man or woman goes into that forest and comes out again alive.”
    “And I suppose just as few come out dead.”
    “They don’t come out at all, lady. Have a splash of soup, smells like sheep dung, but it’s true mutton, killed a ewe a week gone and this be simmering ever yet.”
    It was good and strong. It did, however, smell like sheep dung. After a few swallows I felt ready enough for sleep and slid from the table, went to the cot she pointed out in the corner.
    I woke in darkness. A dim fire crackled in a hearth, and I saw the woman’s shape moving back and forth in the room. She was humming a low tune with a melody as monotonous and beautiful as the sea.
    “Has it words?” I asked. She didn’t hear me, and I fell back asleep. When I woke again there was a candle in my face, and the old woman was gazing intently at me. I opened my eyes wide, and she moved back, a little embarrassed. The cold night air made me realize my tunic was open, my breasts bare, and I covered myself.
    “Sorry, wee lady,” the woman said. “But a soldier came, he did, looking for a young man of sixteen years named Lanik. I told him none such had been this way, and that only here was me and my daughter. And because your hair is so close-cropped, lady, I had to show him proof ye were a girl, didn’t I? So I let your tunic to fall open.”
    I nodded slowly.
    “I thought ye might not want to be known by the soldier, lady. And another bit of news. I had to turn your horses loose.”
    I sat up quickly. “My horses? Where are they?”
    “Soldier found them down the road, a long way, all empty. I hid your things under my own bed.”
    “Why, woman? How can I travel now?” I felt betrayed, though even then I suspected the woman had saved my life.
    “Have ye no feet? And I think ye’ll not be wanting to go far now where horses can go.”
    “And where do you think I’m going?”
    She smiled. “Ach, ye’ve a lovely face, lady. Pretty enough to be a boy or girl, and young, and fair, like a king’s child. Happy the woman to have you for a daughter, or the man to have you for a son.”
    I said nothing then.
    “I think,” she said, “that there be no place for you now but the forest of Ku Kuei.”
    I laughed. “So I can go in and never come out?”
    “That,” she said with a smile, “be what we tell outlanders and lowlanders. But we be knowing right enow that a man can go in a good few leagues and gather roots and berries and other fruit and come out safe. Though odd things do happen there, and a wise man skirts the edge.”
    I was wide awake now. “How did you know about me?”
    “Ye’ve got royalty in every move ye make, every word ye say, boy. Or girl. Which be ye? I care little. I only know I have little love for the godlike men of the plain who think they rule all Muellerfolk. If ye be running from the king, ye have my blessing and my arm of help.”
    I had never suspected that any citizens of Mueller would feel that way about my father. Now it was helpful, though I wondered how I’d feel about her attitude if I were still heir.
    “I’ve packed ye a bundle easy enough to heft,” she said. “And fooded and watered it, hoping ye like cold mutton.”
    I liked it better than starving.
    “Don’t eat the white berries on oaky-looking bushes in the forest, they’ll drop ye dead in a minute. And the fruit with wrinkly bulges, don’t even touch that, and be careful not to step on a smoky-yellow fungus, or it’ll plague you for years.”
    “I still don’t even know if I’m going into the forest.”
    “And where else, then, if not there?”
    I got up and walked to the door. Dissent