When it was light, he waited outside Shanda's door.  It seemed like a long time until she came out, but the sun was still very low in the east.  He fidgeted, and finally said, "I have to piss, and I don't know where, and -"

She giggled.  "I told you - the room is at the far end of the hall under the stairs.  Didn't I tell you?"

He didn't remember.  Certainly he hadn't understood.  He thanked her and ran toward the stairs.

"Lock the door when you're inside," she whisper-called.

The room below the stairs had windows too high up to look out, and a door with a latch.  Inside a stream washed into a basin at his chest level, then spilled over into a trough on the floor.  It was all clean, and nothing smelled.  When he came out, there was a man waiting outside the door.  He had the round ears of a kinless, and he looked like the man who had brought Samorty's armor.  He didn't say anything to Whandall as he went inside.

They ate in the kitchen.  Serana fussed over them and didn't seem surprised to find Whandall was still there.

"We're going to play in the big park," Shanda told Serana.  "Will you tell Miss Batty for me?"

Serana made disapproving sounds.  "I'll tell Miss Bertrana you called her that."  She didn't sound like she meant it.  "You'll need a lunch.  I'll fix up something.  You be back by suppertime."

They went to the courtyard where the clothes were drying, and Whandall selected a length of rope.  He went to the tree branch and threw the rope over it and tied knots in the rope.  With the rope there, he felt safer, because he thought that once he was over the wall no one could catch him in the chaparral.  Not without magic.

The Lords did magic.  Everyone said so.  Lord Qirinty made cups dance and pulled a dagger from thin air, but it was Lord Qirinty who had wished they could do real magic.  But the stove was magic.  It all made Whandall's head hurt.  Learning things was not the same as understanding them...

He started to climb the rope.  When he got on the branch, he saw Shanda was climbing up.  She wasn't good at climbing.

"Help me up," she said.

He reached down and took her hand and pulled her up to the branch.  Then he looked around.  One of the men with shovels had seen them climb up, but he only went back to work.

"Can I get back in this way?" she asked.

"You're not going out."

"Yes, I am."

"Shanda, the chaparral is dangerous.  You'll get hurt and your stepfather will kill me."

"I won't get hurt if you show me what to do."

"No."  He crawled along the tree limb until he was over the wall.  She came right behind him.  "No," he said again, but he knew it was no use.  "Go back and pull the rope to the outside of the wall."