The Spirit Gate (3 page)

“None,
I suppose.” He cocked his head to one side, reminding her of a foraging bear sizing
up a bee hive. “Though
for you, Little Mistress, I think there could be most lucrative work. Even down
by the river.” He glanced over her head, making her turn to see where his eyes
traveled. Behind her, at the booth’s
carved and painted arch, the two young men she had parted to enter still
watched her, though they pretended to study plows and handcarts. “These up-towners seem
to find you most interesting. Perhaps they’ve heard rumors of the shai and have never seen one . . .
or touched one.”

Face crimson with fury and embarrassment, Kassia whipped her
head around to face Trava again. “If
I rent a cottage from you, I will pay with money honorably earned.”

“Ah,
well, honor! Honor has no price . . . it is worthless. You are
alone in Dalibor, Mistress. You need . . . protection.” He pursed his thick lips looked her swiftly up and down. “Perhaps we could enter
a partnership of sorts. There might not be any need for you to pay rent at all,
in a manner of speaking. I’ve
no wife, as you know—”

In two breaths he had gone from suggesting she turn whore to
implying he might marry her. Kassia threw back her head and laughed, the sound
cascading out to catch the ears of everyone within hearing. She laughed till
her eyes watered and her ribs hurt.

Ursel Trava blinked at her from beneath his mahogany thatch
and tugged at his beard. “What?
What? Why do you laugh? I’m
serious. You could have a fine house then—my house. You should count yourself fortunate to
have such an offer.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Kassia covered her mouth and
squinted up at him through tear-dazzled eyes. She had no reply to him, save her
laughter. She shook her head and turned away.

“You
need a husband, Kassia Telek!” he growled at her back. “You
need a man!”

No
, she thought,
when at last she could think. But I
do need work. Because I do not have twenty rega for a cottage, even by the
river
.

oOo

It did not surprise her to find, when she left the
marketplace, that the two young men followed her. It did not surprise her, but
it angered her. They were finely dressed, both of them, and wore the bright
little felt caps and matching leggings that were rumored to be the fashion in
Tabor. Kassia was not afraid of them, for she could sense from them no ill
intent. Still, their crude interest made her uneasy, and when she was in the
lane that led from the market into the village proper, they caught her up,
splitting one to each side.

“You’re one of the White
Mothers, aren’t
you?” said the one with the red cap.

“We’ve heard stories about
you,” said the other. His cap and leggings were blue.

She didn’t
answer them, but kept walking, eyes straight ahead.

“I
heard you tell that merchant you needed a place to live. We could give you
money if you would . . . well . . .” Licking his lips, he glanced across Kassia at his companion and she
thought she would like to brain them both. “We’d
like you to divine for us.”

She stopped dead in her tracks, looking from one to the
other. “You want
me to tell your fortunes?”

Red Cap nodded vigorously. “We’re
up for our Aspirant’s
exams at Lorant, you see. And we’d
like to know . . . if we’ll
become Mateu or . . .”

“Or
only priests,” finished Blue.

“We’ve heard White Mothers
can see the future. You are a White Mother, aren’t you?” His eyes were on her crown of silvery hair.

Kassia smiled. It was an insincere smile, but it would have
to do. “Yes. I
am. And I would be happy to divine your fortunes . . . for a
small fee, of course. Let’s
say . . . one alka each.”

“Only
one?” Blue Cap seemed relieved.

Mentally kicking herself for not asking a higher price,
Kassia nodded. “One
alka, since you’re
such fine young gentlemen. But when you tell your friends about me—and you will tell your
friends about me . . .” She gave them each a certain look to emphasize the point, hoping they
would think she spelled them. “Don’t mention the price. I
give it to you so cheaply as a favor.”

“Where
do we go?” asked Blue Cap. “Do
you have a hut or a cave?”

Kassia snorted delicately. “We go to the bakery.”

Bemused, they followed her there, and she told their
fortunes (or as much as she could see of them) and let them buy her turkaffee
and a meat pocket pie. When they had gone, happily considering to what province
and town they would go when they had become full-fledged priests, Mistress
Devora, the baker, joined Kassia at one end of the trestle table.

“Fortune-telling,
eh?” the baker mused, looking at Kassia’s handful of coins. “Do you think you saw the truth? Maybe they’ll be Mateu, after
all.”

Kassia laughed, wiping pie crumbs from the corners of her
mouth. “If they
had a speck of the Mateu’s
gift, they wouldn’t
have needed me to divine their fortunes. They’d have seen themselves in their vestments, clear as
stars in Mat’s
sky. They’ll be
priests. Though one of them won’t
be one for long. There’s
a scandal in that one’s
future.”

“You
didn’t tell him
that.”

“He
asked only if he’d
become a priest or a Mateu. I told him. Besides, who pays to hear ill-fortune?” She rattled the coins in her hand. “I wonder, Devora—if I go up-town, do you think many of those folk
would pay to have their fortunes told?”

The older woman gave a chuff of disdain. “No doubt they would.
But you waste your talent, Kassia. It wasn’t that long ago the voice of prophecy was silent
among the shai. I remember how it was with your mama. She was a dammed-up river
for years—unable
to do much more than prepare herbals and foretell the weather.”

While I do not even that much
. Kassia sobered. “I remember. I also
remember that the people of Dalibor blamed her for that, thinking she cheated
them.”

“Not
all.”

“Not
all. But most. Even when Itugen smiled again, and her gift for divination
returned, they refused to trust her, saying she dealt with malevolent spirits.”

Devora shrugged broad, rounded shoulders. “That was their loss.
They’d have known
of the flood if they’d
listened to Jasia; she spoke to them of water and darkness.”

“Ah,
but the Mateu didn’t.
The Mateu spoke only of blessed rain falling from the sky.”

“The
Mateu see only with their eyes—and
with half-closed eyes at that.” The baker’s
own eyes slid sideways to Kassia’s
face. “You’ve read the kites over
Lorant. They seek applicants for initiation.”

“Beyla’s too young yet.”

“Beyla?
Who said I was speaking of Beyla? What about Kassia?”

Kassia shot a startled glance at her friend’s round face. “What? You can’t be serious. I’m a widow. I have a
child.”

“And
so?”

“And
so . . . I’m
not the sort that usually—”

“And
so?”

“Devora,
I’m
shai
!” Kassia thumped her chest.

“So
much the better. That means you have exactly what the Mateu pray daily to find
in their Initiates. You should go up there.”

Kassia stood. “It’s a ridiculous idea!”

“Are
you calling me ridiculous? See if I give you any more free bread!” Devora reached out and laid a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder as she
moved to leave. “Perhaps,
Kassia Telek, you should cast your own fortune. It may lead you to Lorant.”

Head shaking in exasperation, Kassia pocketed her two alkas
and headed back to the marketplace to earn more.

Kassia spent the entire afternoon in the marketplace,
flaunting her pale, bright hair, trying to look mysterious to those who did not
know her, trying to look less than silly to those who did. From shy to brazen,
from terrified to bored, she plied her new trade with mixed results. The
strangers were easy enough to deal with once she got past the initial bout of
nerves. They purchased her divinations freely—most amused, a few eager or fretful. It was the
familiar faces that galled her; the angry, the scandalized, the disapproving,
the smug, the pitying. Underlying her anger was a buzz of unease; in the
moments when she allowed her self to think about what it meant to be in a
public market hawking her shai talent, she felt as if she would like to wriggle
out of her skin and find something else to cover her soul.

Once she looked up to find a Mateu staring at her from
beneath his finely embroidered cowl, disapprovingly, she was certain, and twice
her prospective clients insulted her by mistaking what she was offering to
sell. In either case, it made her want to go home, but there was no home, there
was only Asenka’s
house, where she and Beyla were only half welcome—where they would be even less welcome when Blaz
Kovar heard what his sister-in-law was doing in the marketplace. So she stayed,
feeling more ambivalent with every coin that crossed her palm. Every time a
client murmured, “Thank
you, White Mother,” satisfaction and discomfiture hit her in quick turns. Still, she smiled
and bid them welcome and good fortune and took their money.

As to that, she soon found that not all were willing to be
so generous as the two would-be priests. Even the most regally appointed of her
customers refused to pay more than a half rega for her service. Most balked at
that, haggling with her over every rez and pitar. Still, the day passed in a
blur of faces, leaving Kassia with the impression that she had divined every
fortune in Dalibor.

The Sun was kissing the tops of the charred hills west of
town when she finally remembered that her family’s washing yet hung on the drying lines by the
river. Grimacing, because after all, Blaz would be sure to take her tardiness
as a sign of irresponsibility, she pocketed the last of her earnings, hiked up
her skirts and headed for the riverside drying plaza.

It was all but dark when she got down the last of the
washing; it was absolutely dark and quite cold when she got back to Asenka’s and trundled the
handcart up onto the porch. Entering the house, she found the family seated
around the kitchen table beginning the evening meal. Warmth from the hearth
molded itself to her cheeks, making her skin tingle. Blaz, in the midst of
saying the blessing over the food, shot her a quelling glance. She froze where
she stood, the laundry basket an inadequate shield, and waited until he’d finished to continue
to the circular hearth.

“Where
have you been?” Blaz asked her back.

She set the basket down and composed herself by wiping her
hands carefully on her overskirt. “At
market.”

“I
see no goods, though I can’t
imagine you’d
have the money to buy any.”

She turned. “I
wasn’t shopping.
I was . . . doing what I could about finding a place to live.”

Beyla glanced up at that, his dark eyes wide. “Are we leaving, mama?
Are we going to live somewhere else?”

Kassia smiled, falsely, and moved to sit beside her son at
the crowded table. “Your
aunt Asenka is going to have a baby. We need to find our own place to live so
there’ll be room
here for it.”

“Where
will we live, then? Will I have my own room?”

Kassia glanced at Blaz. “I don’t
know where we’ll
live just yet, Beyla. But I talked to Mister Trava about a little cottage by
the river.”

“That
took you all afternoon?” asked Blaz. “Asenka
could have used your help here. You left your boy for her to watch and no fresh
bedding to set up.”

Asenka joined in at this point, defending her younger
sister. “Bey’s no trouble, Blaz. In
fact, he’s a
great help to me; he watches Lenci so I can get things done about the house.
The bedding can be done after dinner.”

“Shouldn’t have to be. What
sort of woman leaves her child unattended and gads off to the marketplace like
a footloose maiden?”

“The
sort of woman,” said Kassia, “who’s just been told she
must find her own place to live. The sort of woman who must now figure out how
to pay the price of rent when she has no family business to fall back on.”

Blaz’s
smile was not in the least conciliatory. “Did you? Figure out how to pay your rent?”

“I
did, thank you, brother-in-law. I found a very satisfying way to pay my rent.
Using the talent Itugen gave me.” She reached into her pocket, grabbed a handful of coins and dumped them
onto the table. The children jumped at the sound of metal and stone on wood,
then stared round-eyed.

“Oh,
Aunt Kiska!” breathed Etouard, the youngest boy. “What a lot of money! I’ve never seen a rega piece before. May I hold it?”

She nodded curtly, her eyes still on Blaz’s, waiting for his
censure.

He surprised her, leaving the issue of how she’d earned the money
completely alone. “You’d not have shown us
this, I’ll bet,
if I hadn’t
goaded you. You’d
have hidden it somewhere and never let us know it was.”

She and Asenka were both scowling at him. “Why should it matter
that I show it to you,” Kassia asked, “as
long as I have it?”

Blaz laughed unpleasantly. “You’d
let your sister believe you a poor unfortunate when you had money to contribute
to this household—”

“Blaz
Kovar!” Asenka was on her feet. “You’ve made me toss my own
sister out of our house and now you want to attach the money she needs to start
her own home? Whatever are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking of what
this family needs to—”

“We
need no more than what we have. It’s
what you
want
that’s driving
you, husband. The blacksmith’s
house must be the grandest on the row. It must have red tiles and silk carpets
and clear glass windows. Would you have Kassia pay for those things? Well, fine
then. Let her stay here.”

“There’s no room.”

“Make
room. Build a new room for Kassia and Beyla.”

“We
can’t afford—”