Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance

by Eleanor Arnason

  The boy was silent for a moment, then exhaled and stood. “I have to go. They might wake.”

  A moment later, she was alone. She lay for a while, wondering if the boy would help her or if there was another way to escape. When she went back to sleep, she dreamt of Cholkwa. He was on a stage, dressed in bright red armor. His eyes were yellow and shone like stars. Instead of acting, he stood in a relaxed pose, holding a wooden sword loosely. “All of this is illusion and lies,” he told her, gesturing at the stage. “But there’s truth behind the illusion. If you are going to act, you need to know what’s true and what’s a lie. You need to know which lies have truth in back of them.”

  Waking, she saw a beam of sunlight shining through the hole in her ceiling. For a moment, the dream’s message seemed clear and important. As she sat up, it began to fade and blur, though she kept the image of Cholkwa in his crimson armor.

  One of the bandit males came and untied her. Together they went out, and she relieved herself behind bushes.

  “I’ve never known anyone so modest,” the bandit said. “How are you going to get a woman pregnant, if you can’t bare yourself in front of a man?”

  A good question, Dapple thought. Her disguise couldn’t last much longer. Maybe she ought to end it. It didn’t seem likely that the boy would help her; people didn’t turn against their kin, even kin like these; and as long as the bandits thought she was a man, they might do anything. No rules protect a man who falls into the hands of enemies. She might be dead, or badly injured, before they realized she wasn’t male. But something, a sense of foreboding, made her reluctant to reveal her true nature.

  “We have sex in the dark,” she told the bandit.

  “That can be managed,” he replied. “Though it seems ridiculous.”

  Dapple spent the rest of the day inside, alone at first, in a corner of the cave. The other bandits did not return, and the matriarch looked increasingly grim. Her kin sent their children outside to play. The men were gone as well. Those who remained—a handful of shabby women—worked quietly, giving the matriarch anxious glances. Clearly this was someone who could control her family! A pity that the family consisted of criminals.

  At last, the old woman gestured. “Come here, man. I want to know you better.”

  Dapple settled by the fire, which still burned, even in the middle of a bright day. This wasn’t surprising. The cave was full of shadows, and the air around them was cool and damp.

  Instead of asking questions, the woman grumbled. It was hard work holding together a lineage, especially when all the neighboring families were hostile, and she got little help. Her female relatives were slovenly. “My eyes may be failing, but I can still smell. This place stinks like a midden heap!” Her male kin were selfish and stupid. “Five men! And they have brought me one, with another promised, though I’ll believe in him when he appears!”

  All alone, she labored to continue her line of descent, though only one descendant seemed really promising, the boy who’d been fathered by an actor. “A fine lad. Maybe there’s something potent about the semen of actors. I hope so.”

  Evening came. The missing bandits did not appear. Finally the old woman looked at Dapple. “It seems our hopes rest in your hands —or if not in your hands, then in another part of your body. Is there a woman you prefer?”

  Dapple glanced around. Figures lurked in the shadows, trying to avoid the matriarch’s glance. Hard to see, but she knew what was there. “No.”

  “I’ll pick one, then.”

  “There is something you ought to know,” Dapple said.

  The old woman frowned at her.

  “I can’t impregnate a woman.”

  “Many men find the idea of sex with women distasteful,” the matriarch said. “But they manage the task. Surely your life is worth some effort. I promise you, you’ll die if you don’t try.”

  “I’m a woman,” said Dapple. “This costume is a disguise.”

  “Ridiculous,” the matriarch said. “Decent women don’t wear men’s clothing or travel with actors.”

  “I didn’t say I was a decent woman. I said I was female and unable to father children. Don’t you think —since I can’t help you —you ought to let me go?”

  “No matter what you are, we can’t let you go,” said the matriarch. “You might lead people to this cave.” Then she ordered her kin to examine Dapple.

  Three shabby women moved in. Standing, Dapple pulled off her tunic and underpants.

  “No question about it,” one of the women said. “She is female.”

  “What wretched luck!” cried the matriarch. “What have I done to deserve this kind of aggravation? And what’s wrong with you, young woman, running around in a tunic and tricking people? Have you no sense of right behavior?”

  There were more insults and recriminations, mostly from the old woman, though the others muttered agreement. What inhospitable and unmannerly folk! Dapple could hardly have fallen into a worse situation, though they weren’t likely to kill her, now that they knew she was a woman.

  At last, the matriarch waved a hand. “Tie her up for the night. I need to think.”

  Once again, Dapple found herself in the little side cave, tied to an iron ring. As on the previous night, stars shone through the hole in the ceiling, and firelight came down the corridor from the main cave, along with angry voices. Her captors were arguing. At this distance she couldn’t make out words, but there was no mistaking the tone.

  This time she made a serious effort to untie the rope that held her. But her hands had been fastened together, and her fingers couldn’t reach the knot. Gnawing proved useless. The rope was too thick and strong. Exhausted, she began to doze. She woke to a touch, as on the night before.

  “Is it you again?” she asked in a whisper.

  “My grandmother has chosen me to impregnate you,” said the boy, sounding miserable.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you can’t father children on our women, then we’ll father children on you and adopt the children, as you were adopted by your father’s family. That plan will do as well as the first one, Grandmother says. The others say she’s favoring me, but I don’t want to do this.”

  “Breed without a contract? What man would? What are you going to do?”

  “Have sex with you, though I’ve never had sex with anyone. But Grandmother has explained how it’s done.”

  “You have reached a moment of decision,” said Dapple. “If you make the wrong choice now, your life will lead to ruin, like the life of a protagonist in a hero play.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you have sex with me against my will, and without a contract arranged by my female relatives, you will be a criminal forever. But if you set me free, I will lead you to your father.”

  “I have a knife,” said the boy uncertainly. “I could cut you free, but there’s no way out except through the main cave.”

  Dapple lifted her head, indicating the hole in the ceiling.

  The boy gazed up at the stars. “Do you think you could get through?”

  “I’d be willing to try, if there’s no other way. But how do we reach it?”

  “Standing on my shoulders won’t do. It’s too far up. But I could go outside and lower a rope. Can you climb one?”

  “I’ve worked as a sailor,” said Dapple. “Of course I can.”

  “I could tell them I need to urinate. I know where there’s a rope. It could be done. But if they catch us — “

  “If you stay here and do this thing, you will be a thief. Your children will be thieves. You’ll never see the cities beyond these hills or the ships as big as caves.”

  The boy hesitated, then pulled his knife and cut Dapple free. “Wait here,” he said fiercely, and left.

  She rubbed her hands and wrists, then stood and stretched. Hah! How stiff she was!

  Voices rose in the main cave, mocking the boy, then dropped back to a murmur. She began to watch the hole.

  Af
ter a while, a dark shape hid the stars. A rope dropped toward her. Dapple grasped it and tugged. It held. She took off her tunic and tied it to the bottom of the rope, then began her climb, going hand over hand up the rope. Cold air blew past her, ruffling the fur on her arms and shoulders. It smelled of damp soil and forest. Freedom, thought Dapple. A moment or two later, she reached the hole. Hah! It was narrow! As bad as she had feared!

  “Can you make it?” the boy whispered.

  “I have to,” Dapple said and continued to climb.

  Her head was no problem, but her shoulders were too wide. Rough stone scraped against them. She kept on, trying to force her body through the opening. All at once, she realized that she was stuck, like a piece of wax used to seal the narrow neck of a jar. Dapple groaned with frustration.

  “Be quiet,” whispered the boy and began to pull, leaning far back, all his weight on the rope. For a moment, she remained wedged in the hole. Then her shoulders were through, though some of her fur remained behind. Her elbows dug into dirt. She pushed up. The boy continued to pull, and Dapple popped into freedom. She stretched out on the damp ground, face down, smelling dirt, the forest, and the night wind.

  “You have no clothing on!” the boy exclaimed.

  “I took my tunic off,” said Dapple. “I knew the fit would be tight.”

  “You can’t travel like this!”

  She pulled the rope out of the hole, retrieving her tunic and putting it on.

  “Better,” said the boy, though he still sounded embarrassed.

  He had wrapped his end of the rope to a tree. She undid the knots and coiled the rope. “A knife, a rope, and four sound feet. I’d like more, but this will have to do. Let’s go.”

  They set off through the forest, the boy leading, since he had good night vision, and this was his country.

  “When will they discover that we are missing?” Dapple asked after a while.

  “In the morning. Tonight they’ll drink and tell each other rude stories about sex. Grandmother gave permission. It’s lucky to do this, when people breed.”

  It was never lucky to breed without a contract, Dapple thought, but said nothing. How was this boy going to survive in the outside world, knowing so little about how to behave? She’d worry about that problem when both of them were safe.

  They traveled all night. In spite of the boy’s keen eyes, the two travelers stumbled often and hit themselves against branches, sometimes thorny. No one living in a town can imagine the darkness of a forest, even when the sky above the trees is full of stars. Certainly Dapple had not known, living in a harbor town. How she longed for an ocean vista, open and empty, with starlight glinting off the waves!

  At dawn, they stopped and hid in a ravine. Water trickled at the bottom. Birds cried in the leaves, growing gradually quiet as the day grew warmer. Exhausted, the two young people dozed. Midway through the morning, voices woke them: men, talking loudly and confidently as they followed a nearby trail. The boy peered out. “It’s my relatives,” he said.

  “Is anyone with them?” asked Dapple fearfully. What would they do, if one of the actors had survived and was a prisoner? It would be unbearable to leave the man with savages, but if she and the boy tried to free the man, they would be killed or taken prisoner like him.

  “No,” said the boy after a while. “They must have killed him, after they finished raping him. My grandmother will be so angry!”

  These people were both monsters and fools. Was there anything she could learn from the situation? Maybe the nature of monsters, if she ever had to portray a monster in a play. The nature of monsters, Dapple thought as she crouched in the ravine, was folly. That was the thing she had to concentrate on, not her own sense of fear and horror.

  After a while, the boy said, “They’re gone. I didn’t expect them to come this direction. But now that they’ve passed us, we’d better put as much distance as possible between us and them.”

  They rose and went on. Shortly thereafter, they found the robbers’ camp: a forest clearing with the remains of a fire and Dapple’s last companion, Manif s lover. He must have endured as much as he could, then fought back. There were various wounds, which Dapple did not look at closely, and a lot of blood, which had attracted bugs.

  “Dead,” said the boy. “They should have buried him, but we can’t take the time.”

  Dapple went to the edge of the clearing and threw up, then covered her vomit with forest debris. Maybe the robbers wouldn’t find it, if they came back this way. Though the moist ground should tell the bandits who’d been here.

  The boy must have thought the same thing. After that, they traveled through streams and over rocks. It was a hard journey.

  Late in the afternoon, they descended into a valley. At the bottom was a larger-than-usual stream. The forest canopy was less thick than before. Sunlight speckled the ground. “We are close to the border of our country,” the boy said. “From this point on, it will be best to follow trails.”

  One ran along the stream, narrow, and used more by animals than people, Dapple thought. The travelers took it. After a while, a second stream joined the first. Together, they formed a river where small rapids alternated with pools. At sunset, turning a corner, they discovered a group of men swimming. Clothes and weapons lay on the riverbank.

  The boy stopped suddenly. “Ettin.”

  “What?” asked Dapple.

  “Our enemies,” he answered, sounding fearful, then added, “The people I am bringing you to. Go forward. I cannot.” He turned to go back the way they had come. Behind him the sky was sunset red; the boy’s face was in shadow. Nonetheless, Dapple saw his mouth open and eyes widen.

  A harsh voice said, “Neither can you go back, thief.”

  She turned as well. A man stood in the trail, short and broad with a flat ugly face. A metal hat covered the top of his head and was fastened under his chin with a leather strap. His torso was covered with metal-and-leather armor. A skirt made of leather strips hung to his knees. One hand held a sword, the blade bare and shining. She had never seen anyone who looked so unattractive.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “A guard. You can’t believe that men of Ettin would bathe without posting guards.”

  “I’m from the north,” said Dapple. “I know nothing about Ettin, which I imagine is your lineage.”

  He made a noise that indicated doubt. “The north? And this one as well?” The sword tip pointed at her companion.

  “I was traveling with actors,” Dapple said. “Robbers killed my comrades and took me prisoner. This lad rescued me and was guiding me to safety.”

  The guard made another noise that indicated doubt. Other men gathered. Some were guards out of the forest. The rest were bathers, their fur slick with water and their genitalia exposed. She knew what male babies and boys looked like, of course, but this was the first time she’d seen men. They weren’t as big as she’d imagined, after Cholkwa’s plays. Nonetheless, the situation was embarrassing. She glanced back at the first guard, meeting his eyes.

  “Are you threatening me?” he asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then look down! What kind of customs do you have in the north?”

  She looked at the ground. The air smelled of wet fur. “What’s this about?” the men asked. “What have you captured?”

  “Some kind of foreigner, and a fellow of unknown lineage, though local, I think. They say they’ve escaped from the robbers.”

  “If done, it’s well done,” said a swimmer. “But they may be lying. Take them to our outpost, and let the captain question them. If they’re spies, he’ll uncover them.”

  Who is talking about uncovering? Dapple thought. A man with water dripping off him and his penis evident to anyone who cared to look! Not that she glanced in his direction. It was like being in an animal play, though maybe less funny.

  Other men made noises of agreement. The swimmers went off to dry and dress. The men in armor tied Dapple’s hands behind h
er back, then did the same for the boy. After that, they ran a second rope from Dapple’s neck to the boy’s neck. “You won’t run far like this!” one said when the second rope was fastened.

  “Is this any way to treat guests?” asked Dapple.

  “You may be spies. If you are not, we’ll treat you well. The ettin have always been hospitable and careful.”

  Tied like animals going to market, they marched along the trail, which had grown wider and looked better-used. Half the men went with them. The rest stayed behind to guard the border.