Shadowplay

"But we'll be long gone!"

"We have to hide somewhere. Do you really want to tell the Tollys they

can stop searching the castle and all the rest of the surrounding lands and concentrate on just one place-like Marrinswalk?"

Thinking of a troop of armed men beating the countryside behind them made Briony shudder and walk faster. "But someone will have to see us eventually If we go to Oscastle or some other city, I mean. Cities are full of people, after all."

"Which is our best hope. Perhaps our only hope. We are less likely to be noticed somewhere there are many people, Highness-especially where there are people of my race. And that is enough talk for now."

They followed the track down the edge of a wide valley. When they reached the broad river that meandered at its bottom, Shaso decided that they could at least take time to drink. They also encountered a few more houses, simple things of unmortared stone and loose thatching, but still so scattered that Briony doubted any man could see his neighbor's cottage even in full daylight with a cloudless sky. A goat bleated from the paddock behind one of them, probably protesting the cold day, and she realized that it was the first homely sound she had heard for hours.

They passed by several small villages as the hours passed but entered none of them, and reached Kinemarket by late morning, crossing over at a place where the river narrowed and some work by the locals had turned a lucky assembly of stones into a bridge. Kinemarket was a good-sized, pros¬perous town, with the turnip shape of a temple dome visible above its low walls. Shaso decided he should stay hidden in the trees outside town while Briony went to buy food with a coin from the purse Turley had pro¬vided-a silver piece with the head of King Enander of Syan, a coin so small that Briony felt sure almost half of its original metal had been shaved off. She was guiltily aware of having once declared that not only should coin-clippers be beaten in the public square, but that those who helped them pass their moneys should suffer the same punishment. It seemed a lit¬tle different now, when someone else had already done the shaving and she needed the coin to buy food.

"Here-rub a little more dirt on yourself first." Shaso drew a line of grime on her face. She tried to back away. "Go, then, do it yourself. You've a head start on it, anyway, from the morning's walk."

She rubbed on a bit more, but as she made her way up the muddy track toward the town gate, hoping to lose herself in the crowd of people going to the market, she began to fear she and Shaso had given too little thought

to disguising her identity. Surely even the oft-mended homespun dress and a few smears of dirt on her cheeks would not fool many people! Her face, she realized with a strange sort of pride, must be better known than any other woman's in the north. Now, though, being recognized could be deadly.

And although she tried not to meet their eyes, the first folk she passed on her way to the gate did look her over slowly and mistrustfully, but she realized after a moment that this man and woman were doing so only be¬cause most of the other travelers were dressed and clean for market: Briony was a dirty stranger, not a typical stranger.

"The Three grant you good day," said the woman. She held her gape-mouthed child tightly, as though Briony might steal it. "And a blessed Or-phanstide to you, too."

"And you." The greeting startled her-Briony had almost forgotten the holidays, since it had been on Winter's Eve that her world had fallen com¬pletely into pieces. There certainly hadn't been any new year's feasting or gifts for her, and now it must be only a te

She did not turn to watch the man and woman after they passed, but she knew that they had turned to look at her, doubtless wondering what kind of odd thing she was.

Go ahead and whisper about me, then. You ca

Worried about attracting any kind of attention at all, she decided not to continue to the market, but passed through the gate and briefly into the bustle of the crowd on the main thoroughfare before turning down a nar¬row side street. She stopped at the first ramshackle house where she saw someone out in front-a woman wrapped in a heavy wool blanket scatter¬ing corn on the puddled ground, the chickens bustling about at her feet as though she were their mother hen.

The householder at first seemed suspicious, but when she saw the silver piece and heard Briony's invented story of a mother and younger brother out on the coast road, both ill, she bit her lip in thought, then nodded. She went into her tall house, which crowded against its neighbors on either side as if they were choristers sharing a small bench, but conspicuously did not ask Briony to follow her. After some time she reappeared with a hunk of hard cheese, a half a loaf of bread, and four eggs, not to mention several children trying to squeeze past her wide hips to get a look at Briony. It

didn't seem a lot of food, even for a shaved fingerling, but she had to admit that what she knew about money had to do with much larger quantities, and the prices with which she was familiar were more likely to be the ac¬counts for feeding an entire garrison of guards. She stared at the woman for a moment, wondering whether she was being dealt with honestly, and re¬alized this was perhaps the first person she had ever met in her life who had no idea of who she was, the first person who (as far as this woman knew) owed her nothing in the way of respect or allegiance. Briony was further shocked to realize that this drab creature draggled with children, this brood-mother with red, wind-bitten face and mistrust still lurking in her eyes, was not many years older than Briony herself. Chastened, she thanked the young woman and wished her the blessing of the Three, then headed back toward the gate and the place outside the walls where Shaso waited.

And, it suddenly came to her, not only had no one recognized her, it was unlikely anyone would, unless they were Hendon's troops and they were al¬ready looking for her: in all of Marrinswalk only a few dozen people would know her face even were she wearing full court dress-a few nobles, a mer¬chant or two who had come to Southmarch Castle to curry favor. Here in the countryside she was a ghost: since she could not be Briony, she was no one.

It was a feeling as humbling as it was reassuring.

Briony and Shaso ate enough cheese and bread to feel strengthened, then they began to walk again. As the day wore on they followed the line of the coast, which was sometimes only a stone's throw away, other times invisible and completely absent but for the rumble of the surf. The valley walls and trees protected them from the worst of the chilly wind. They slipped off the road when they heard large traveling parties coming and kept their heads down when they couldn't avoid passing others on the road. "How far to Oscastle?" she asked Shaso as they sat resting. They had just finished scrambling up a wet, slippery hillside to go around a fallen tree that blocked the road and it had tired them both.

"Three days or more," Shaso said. "But we are not going there."

"But Lawren, the old Earl of Marrinscrest, lives there, and he would…"

"Would certainly find it hard to keep a secret of your presence, yes." The

old man rubbed his weathered face. "I am glad to see you are begi

think carefully." He scowled. "By the Great Mother, I ca

so tired. Some evil spirit is riding me like a donkey."

"The evil spirit is me," liriony said."I was the one who kept you locked up for all that time-no wonder you are tired and ill."

He turned away and spat. "You did what you had to do, Briony Eddon. And, unlike your brother, you wished to believe I was i