Plain Kate (10 page)

“Well, it looks hard,” said Daj. “Leave off now, kit, you’ve lost the light.” She plucked down the lantern and peered into the
vardo
. “Not much room in here, I’m feared. Full as the king’s pocket. Why don’t you pitch the bender tent, have a night on your own.”

Alone.
At Daj’s words, Plain Kate did something she had never done. She let the plane slip.

The blade skipped off some knot in the wood and sliced into her forearm. She watched it cut a strip of skin like bark. Taggle howled.

Daj almost dropped the lantern.
“Mira!”
She rushed and stumbled down the steps, yanking off scarves. “Aye! I’ve jinxed you!” Plain Kate’s arm was seeping blood the way the bog seeped water. Daj tied the scarf around it, tight. The pink flowers were at once soaked through.

“Blood,” hissed Taggle, and over him, Kate said, “Oh.”

“Ah,” Daj sobbed. “I’ll never forgive myself.” She yanked Kate up—“Come
on
, kit”—and pulled her by the wrist, staggering, toward the big tent, with the cat tangling around their feet. They burst into the yellow light and sudden silence. Faces turned to them.

There was no men’s fire ceremony, no “May I pass between you?” Daj barked: “Tea!” Her husband, Wen, rose, creaking, his hands on his knees, and shuffled over with the black kettle. Daj seized it and pushed Kate onto one of the trestles. Taggle leapt up. Daj swatted him away. She ripped off the bandage-scarf. Before Plain Kate knew what was happening, hot tea was pouring over the open wound.

“Just brewed that,” said Wen.

Daj thrust the kettle lid at him. “Can’t you see the child’s hurt?” She slapped a handful of steaming tea leaves on Plain Kate’s arm.

“What happened?” Stivo was pushing through the tent doorway behind them. “Carver cut herself, did she? Little girl with a big knife?”

Plain Kate looked up at him. He was strangely colored in the yellow light, like a smoked fish. Daj looked at her looking and said, “It weren’t her fault. I jostled her. And she’s a better carver than you are a horseman, boy.” She dropped the bloody, gaudy scarf into the teapot, and tied another scarf over the tea leaves, and another over that.

“What news of your daughter, Stivo?” Rye Baro’s voice came from the other side of the fire. To Kate, it seemed as if the fire itself was speaking, as if it wanted to claim Drina.

“She’ll live,” said Stivo. “And it’s not thanks to this one.” He gestured roughly at Kate.

“What—” Plain Kate felt dull as the dark of the moon. “What did she tell you?

The voice came from the fire again. “What should she have told, Plain Kate Carver?”

That it was my fault,
Plain Kate thought.
That she was only trying to help me. That I knew it was dangerous, and I let her help me anyway. I let her go alone.

Taggle sprang back onto the trestle beside her, sniffling at the tea-soaked scarf arpund Kate’s arm, bleating wordlessly. His pink tongue flicked out like a bit of flame. Beside her, Wen suddenly spat out his tea. “Bah! Who brewed the bandages!”

“Plain Kate?” said the fire, in Rye Baro’s voice.

“I—” she croaked.

“ ’Tis not the time for questioning the kit,” said Daj firmly, lifting Kate to her feet. “Come along, Plain Kate. I’ll clear you out a patch to sleep.”

“It’s full as the king’s pocket.”

“No, you’ll see,” said Daj, leading her out into the night. “You can sleep by me,
mira
.” She put an arm around Kate’s shoulders and guided her back across the river meadow, through the echoing, thickening fog, as if to the land of the dead.

¶

“Blood!”

Plain Kate struggled to wake. She was wrapped in blankets, lying on Daj’s bunk in the hot
vardo
. Taggle was asleep. Drina was lying in the other bunk, her face turned to the wall, the roughly chopped hair sticking out and matted here and there with blood. Kate could see the heave of her ribs and hear the rasp and shudder of her breath. It was daylight, not too long past dawn: The gaps around the door curtain let in long slants of sun.

Kate shook her head, trying to remember what had wakened her. An angry voice, the word
blood
. That voice from outside came again. “And what does that tell you?”

“That my fool of a husband can’t tell a bandage from a tea leaf.” Daj’s steady rasp came from just outside the doorway; she was sitting on the
vardo
steps. “ ’Tisn’t news.”

Plain Kate eased her arm free of Daj’s quilts and wiggled her fingers. The new wound felt tight as dry leather, but everything moved as it was supposed to be. She felt a stab of relief—and then of guilt. What kind of carver cut herself? There had been so much blood.

“He drank her blood and now he’s witched.” Plain Kate finally recognized Stivo’s voice. There was a tremble that hadn’t been there before—not just anger but fear. That was what had confused her. “That
gadje
child has a witch’s eyes.”

Taggle’s eyes cracked open. “Don’t like him.” She shushed him and rubbed a thumb between his ears.

“Well, let’s look, then.” The steps creaked as Daj lumbered down them. Plain Kate heard the voices fade away. Outside a horse whinnied, uneasy.

Kate tried to pull herself together. “What’s happening?”

Taggle opened one gold eye. “We’re napping.” He rolled over and stretched belly up in the crook of her arm. “You may scratch my throat.”

“I meant—Stivo just said—” The cat was going to be no help, clearly.
My fool of a husband,
Daj had said. Wen. He’d spat out his tea last night, made some crack about the bandage—the bandage with her blood on it, in the kettle. Wen had drunk her blood. Plain Kate sat up.

Taggle spilled out of his crook and onto the
vardo
floor. He gave her a sidelong look. “Huh!” he complained.

“It’s Wen,” she said. “Something must be wrong with him. And Stivo thinks—” She pulled herself up and the
vardo
sloshed around her. Her arm stung. “We have to go see.”

“Oh, all right.” Taggle stretched and spread the fur feathers between his toes. “Afterward you may find some food for us. I smell sausages.”

¶

Plain Kate to the wood’s edge as she crept across the meadow. She was carrying the bloodied smock she had worn the day before, and trying to look as if she wanted no more than to go to the second bucket, where the washing was done. Taggle scoffed at the quality of her sneaking, and vanished into the tussocks and reeds. Plain Kate said a little prayer for some unlucky mouse or frog.

At the stream, she bent over the smock, scrubbing at the stained arm, and watching. The Roamers, men and women alike, were huddled outside the open flaps of the council tent. Up from the riverside where the horses were picketed, a small procession was coming: four men holding the corners of a sleeping roll, and on it, Wen sprawled limp. Stivo and Behjet at the head of the blanket were like a matched pair of stallions.

In the trampled grass, they put the blanket down. Kate lifted her head, feeling danger like a deer. She could see only Wen’s white hair, one gold-pierced ear, one hand lifeless as a glove. Daj crouched beside him. She leaned her ear and cheek close over his mouth and waited. The crowd held its breath.

Daj rocked back on her heels. “He’s breathing, any rate. Is it drink?”

“Not a drop, Mother,” said Stivo. “On my life.”

“It’s true there’s no smell of it.” Daj picked up the white hand. “He’s cursed cold.”

“They’re talking in that market,” said Behjet. “Talking about a sleep—” He left the thought hanging. For Kate, who knew what he was going to say, the wait for him to say it was awful. “They’re talking about a sleeping death. Come down the river from Samilae.”

Someone said, “Death!” but Stivo said, “Samilae?” Kate ducked her head.

The knot of people stirred and Rye Baro edged through them, inching on his two canes. He spoke to Daj in the Roamer language. She answered in the same, and after a moment stood up. Behjet and Stivo both started talking. And still Wen did not move.

Then Rye Baro spoke again, and Plain Kate heard him say her name. It dropped from the foreign language like a stone from the sky. She sank low over her washing and held still, pinned by its weight.

“But she’s only a child,” whispered Daj.

Plain Kate never heard the footsteps, but suddenly Stivo was looming over her, yanking her up by her arm. She yelped and jerked: Her wound cracked open. “Here she is,” called Stivo. He dragged her toward the turning faces, to where Wen lay as if ready for the grave. She twisted, terrified, and saw her smock lift and drift downstream.

“Bloodying the water,” said Stivo.

“She’s
gadje
,” said Behjet. “She doesn’t know.”

“She
should
,” snapped Stivo, still clenching her arm.

“Bring her here,” said Rye Baro quietly, and Stivo did. Rye Baro stood with his legs wide, leaning forward onto his canes. “Plain Kate Carver,” he said, looking down at her. His leathery face was solemn and kind, like a horse’s. “In the city it is different. But you are now among the Roamers. You must learn that your blood is unclean. You must wash it at the fourth bucket. The farthest downstream.”

Was that all?
Plain Kate, wide-eyed, nodded.

“See where Wen lies, witched.”

“I see.”

“What can you say about this?”

Kate drew herself straight. “That it is not my doing.”

Rye Baro looked at her, long and careful. “Child,” he said, “you have no shadow.”

Rye Baro’s words produced first a stun of silence, and then a chorus of shouting. Stivo wrenched Plain Kate around. She could see how his shadow spun like a cape around him, how everyone’s shadow stretched in the early slant of light. “No shadow!” Stivo cried, and someone screamed.

On top of one of the
vardo
was the iron cage that had once held a dancing bear. They hauled it down and shoved Kate into it. She lurched up, banged her head on the bars, and fell sprawling. “I didn’t!” she was shouting. “I didn’t do anything.”

Stivo was locking the cage door. He was in such a rush to back away from her that he dropped the key. Kate reached for it. Stivo put his boot over it and kicked at her hand.

Plain Kate rolled over and looked up at the gathered Roamers. The cage bars cast shadow bars all around her. She crouched up and heard the gasp: Behind her the lines of shadow stretched straight, uninterrupted by the shadow she should have had, across the dirty straw and the white droppings of the chickens. She could almost feel them, going right through her like cold spears. The faces that looked down on her were marked with awe and fear.

“No shadow,” whispered Daj. Even she looked afraid. Plain Kate crouched there, breathing hard.

“They were right.” Stivo’s voice was flat with wonder. “In Samilae, where they wanted to burn you. They were right. You are a witch.”

“I’m not,” she sobbed. “I’m not.”

“It’s the
gadje
burn their witches,” said Rye Baro. “That’s nothing to do with us.”

“But it’s us they burn!” Stivo exploded.

“I’m not a witch! Stivo, please.” Plain Kate reached through the bars and touched his boot. “Ask Drina. Ask Drina, she knows—”

“Drina!” Stivo jumped back from her hand as if she were a snake striking, scrabbling the key up from the mud as he staggered away. “Drina! I told you not to bring your trouble on my Drina. My God, what she has already seen, without falling in with—” he sputtered. “With demons!”

Horror closed Kate’s throat. She could only whisper, “I’m not.”

“We are taught,” said Rye Baro, his voice still thoughtful, kind, “that only the dead have no shadows. But Stivo has told us of his wife’s brother, who gave up pieces of his shadow to give power to the dead. We do not know which is the case here.” He cut off the rumble of voices with one raised hand.“Plain Kate Carver. What can you say about this?”

She swallowed, and sat up as straight as she could. “A witch.” Her voice cracked. The crowd held its breath like one great creature. “A witch took my shadow.”

“And what can you say about Wen?”

She tossed her head like a nervous horse. “I—It’s not me. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“And Drina?”

Kate’s throat tightened. “She…” It came out as a whisper, and even in her own ears, she could hear the guilt in it. A mutter rose from the gathered Roamers. “She was only trying to help me. I—I’m sorry.” Stivo crowed with bitter triumph, and the crowd was suddenly loud. Kate wanted to say more, but was afraid to.

Again, Rye Baro lifted a hand for silence. “We do not know enough, here.” He pulled at the tip of his long nose. “We must have talk about this. We will take counsel. We will see if Wen dies.”

Plain Kate heard Daj breathe in hard at that. “Daj, I didn’t,” she pleaded. “Wen—I didn’t. Ask Drina. Daj!
Mira!
Mother Daj! Ask—”

“That’s enough, child,” said Daj, and she turned away.

¶

Sun. Sun after endless weeks of drizzle and mist. It felt unreal, and it made Kate feel unreal, numbed, and queasy. The bear cage grew hot. It smelled high and sour of the chicken baskets, but beneath that it still smelled like the bear: rank; and it still had some of the bear’s fleas. Plain Kate scratched and pushed the stale straw to the cage edge.

Then through the straw heap came Taggle, ambling, slipping through the bars, a half-dead muskrat in his teeth. “Wrph,” said Taggle, around his catch. He spat the creature out and put a paw down on its back like a young prince putting one boot on a footstool. “Did you find the sausages?”

Plain Kate snatched the cat up and whipped her head around, panicked that someone might have heard him. The muskrat tried to stagger away. “It’s escaping!” the cat shouted.

“Taggle!” Kate shouted back. Then she made herself whisper, though it came out as a hiss. “Taggle, they’re going to kill me.”

“What? Who? And would you please stop that muskrat!”

Kate released him, and he bounded once and killed the creature with a single strike to the back of the neck. Then he turned back to her and tried to recover his nonchalance. “You were saying?”

“The Roamers. They found out about my shadow. They think I’m a witch. They—we can’t let them find you here.”

“Oh, nonsense. They adore me. Everyone does.”

“We’ve both got to get away from here, Taggle.”

Taggle stuck his head through the bars. The tight squeeze slicked his whiskers back. “You won’t fit,” he said, popping his head back in.

“I know that. We need the key.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s simple enough. I will go and steal it.”

Kate’s heart dropped at the thought. “If they catch you—”

“Bah.” Taggle flicked his ears. “They won’t even glimpse me. I am the king of catspaws, the lord of lurking. If the key is what you need, then I will obtain it for you. Where is it?”

“Stivo,” she stuttered. “Stivo hung it from his belt. Taggle, if they catch you, they’ll kill you.”

“They shan’t catch me,” he said lightly, and slipped out into the grasses.

He’d left her the muskrat, like a lover’s token, like a promise of return.

¶

Plain Kate dropped her head back against the bars. They were hard against her hair, and comfortless. The barred roof broke the sun into stripes of shade, but no shade touched her. It was like not being able to blink, like not being able to scream in a dream. She pushed up the sleeves of her smock to scratch at her flea bites and watch the long scab seep blood.

The ground beneath her seeped water, and her leggings were wet, the wool sticking to her and smelling. In the front of the cage, where the frightened Roamers had milled, the sun drew curls of steam from the churned mud. She watched it, looking at the scuffed footprints, the. twin pits of Rye Baro’s twin canes, which were like eyes, and the big marks of Stivo’s boots. Just in front of the door she could see where he’d stepped on the key.

The shape of the key was pressed into the mud.

Plain Kate stared at it. A shape of hope.

She had, as she always did, the whittling knife her father had given her when she was three. It was tucked into a sheath stitched into her boot. If she had wood—and her mind was already choosing, something hard, ash, oak, for hard edges, strength in the lock—if she had wood, she might carve a key.

Plain Kate fingered the objarka cat on its thong around her neck—but it was too small. She started to rummage through the straw and mud, keeping her head up, watching the council tent. Voices came hard and soft, rising and falling. Outside the tent, Wen lay ashy and still on his mat, and Daj hunched beside him, her hands on her face, singing something. No one was watching the cage.

But there was no wood. Kate searched through every bit of straw. She dug her fingers into the mud in hope of roots but the only ones she found were fine as tangled hair.

Suddenly from the tent came a burst of shouting. Taggle streaked out of the front flap, running low and fast as a fox, the cage key in his mouth. Some of the Roamer men came crashing out after him. She saw Stivo with an axe in his hand.

Taggle was fast, faster than the men. He was bolting straight for her. He would make it, but then what—

Stivo threw an axe.

The flat butt of the axe head hit Taggle behind the ears. The cat tumbled tail over head and lay limp as a pelt. The axe head flew free of its handle. Stivo lifted Taggle by the back legs like a dead rabbit. He picked up the axe handle in the other hand. He strode over toward her with Taggle’s head swinging.

Plain Kate was sobbing. She didn’t want to cry in front of Stivo, but she couldn’t stop. He dropped Taggle’s body in the churned mud before the cage. “Is this your creature, witch-child?”

Taggle cracked open a yellow eye. “Her name,” he drawled, thickly, “is Katerina, Star of My Heart.”

Stivo leapt backward, dropping the axe handle and warding his face with crooked fingers.

“Taggle!” sobbed Kate. She reached through the bars for him. Stivo was still backing away. “Taggle!”

She fumbled and turned the cat’s warm body. He was squirming a little. “Hold still,” she whispered, and took him under the arms and cradled his head and eased him through the bars. She kept one hand on his heaving ribs as she pulled down the driest straw and built a bed for him. Stivo was gone. “Oh, Taggle,” she said. “Taggle, I’m sorry.”

He tried to look at her. His eyes crossed and he didn’t move his head. “I dropped the key.”

“Don’t worry. Little catspaw, little lord of lurking…” She stroked his side and watched him get limper and longer as he drifted off to sleep.

Suddenly he opened his eyes again. “Did you save any muskrat?”

“All of it.” She set it beside him.

“Mmmmm.” He blinked slowly and softened again. “When I rise from my nap…” And then he was really asleep. She watched him breathe. She watched the council tent, where voices were louder now and she heard Stivo sounding shrill with anger or fear. No one was coming—not yet.

Plain Kate looked at Taggle sprawled out hurt and limp. Then she leaned her shoulder and arms between the bars and reached for the axe handle. Her fingers brushed it and she inched it across the mud until she could pick it up.

The axe handle was split, it turned out, and the split was tied closed with a scrap of fraying gingham. It was sloppy work and it made her angry. She could easily have fixed it for Stivo, if only he had asked. Then he might not have hated her. She wedged the handle under her foot and pulled up the split wood until it snapped. She closed her fist around the scrap of wood and took her knife from her boot.

¶

Plain Kate carved and no one came to kill her. The men stayed in the tent. The women stayed away. Swallows swooped through the afternoon sky. Daj sang her drone over Wen, who did not even twitch. Taggle slept on, cuddling his muskrat like a child with a doll. All the while the hard wood curled away from her small blade, and no one saw.

She was so hot and flea-bitten that she was almost glad when evening came, though she could feel her time running out, the way the bread had in the
skara rok
. The key was now almost the same shape as the impression in the mud, but it would not go into the lock. She made it thinner, sliver by sliver.

With the day went the heat. Mist rose from the stream, from the river, from the wet ground itself. Kate huddled in the damp, dank straw. A fire was lit in the council tent, and the canvas glowed. Marsh light bobbed near the river, like a boat lantern. Another light came up to her through the fog and the shape of a man came behind it. It was Behjet with a tallow lamp. He was holding a blanket. He passed it through the bars. It reeked of horse. She wrapped it around herself.

“Is your cat all right?”

Kate tucked a corner of the blanket over Taggle, covering him from sight.

“He’s a fine little beast,” said Behjet. “But it is strange thing, don’t you see, a cat who steals keys. It makes a man think.”

Kate said nothing.

“My brother says he spoke.”

Still Kate said nothing.

“Stivo—” Behjet pulled at his chin. “Understand, Plain Kate. He lost his wife because she was a witch. He has nearly lost his daughter. His love has turned to anger. And his suspicion—just see. The stories from your city. The sleeping death that follows you. Your shadow. And now your cat, stealing a—”

Just then Taggle’s head slid out from under the blanket. “There’s bats out,” he slurred, stumbling up. “Listen, they sing to me!” He fell over.

“So it’s true,” said Behjet.

Plain Kate looked up at him, squinting through the fog. It was almost full dark, and she could not read his face, except that the moon was round in his eyes. “Behjet, I am not a witch. And I didn’t hurt Wen.”

And now Behjet said nothing.

“Behjet, what will they do with me?”

He looked over his shoulder at the ghostly light of the tent. “I must return to the council.”

“Please tell me,” she said, but he turned and walked away.

¶

The key was nearly done. It went into the lock and Kate could feel it catch and turn, almost turn. She had to widen her eyes to owl eyes to compare the pale wood key and the black ghost of the key in the mud.

The moon was bright but the mist blurred it. Daj chanted over her husband. The drone of it went on and on. It had become something unstoppable, like the noise of a river. Kate carved on and on and wished for something to stop her ears.

Finally she put the key next to the key hollow and could see no differences. She set the key in the key hollow and it went in like hand to glove. Maybe this time. She lifted the key. She crouched up on her toes and looked around. She would only get one dash.

Plain Kate fingered her key.

There was someone moving in the fog.

Kate froze.

She could not see who it was, or even what. It came up from the river, and at first Kate thought it was a woman dressed in twists of hair and cloud. But as she moved one limb grew long and another short; when she turned, her torso twisted like linen being wrung out. Sometimes Kate could see through her, and sometimes she couldn’t. Music came with her. She was beautiful and Kate wanted to—

Taggle staggered up and gave a horrible hissing howl. “Thing!’ he spat. “Thing!” And then Kate wanted to scream.

We called into the darkness,
Drina had said.
We don’t know what answered.
This is what had answered. The sick shadow on the wall of the bender tent, the approaching horror. The woman-thing was drifting toward the
vardo
and the council tent. Plain Kate tried to shout for help, but couldn’t. The foggy music wrapped her up like a spiderweb and she couldn’t even move. She watched the creature slide closer.