Plain Kate

It was a flash of horror and blood like a moment from a dream. Plain Kate screamed even before Drina did. But screaming did not wake her.

She saw a man holding Drina by the hair. He was pulling her head back, as if to cut her throat. He had a butcher’s cleaver. He was butchering Drina’s ear, cutting it from the top downward. Blood everywhere. More blood than if he had cut her throat. A sick bright color. A slaughterhouse smell. Drina was screaming, screaming like a gut-speared horse. Kate was shouting. She had her little knife out and she charged at the man. Taggle ran up behind her, leapt up onto her basket, leapt past her, leapt straight at the man with the cleaver. He was gray and magnificent, an angel of vengeance. The butcher dropped Drina and shrank back. Kate caught her friend in one arm and spun around, pressing her against the wall. Drina folded down, ripped with sobs. Kate faced the crowd.

They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was thick with the lumps and weeping wounds of scrofula. The poorest of the market.

At Kate’s feet, Drina. Her scarf and shirt were torn open. And someone had chopped off her hair. Her turban was tangled around her throat. Her mouth was smashed full of blood. Blood from her flapping ear soaked half her head.

So much had happened, but no time had passed. The horse was still rearing, the carter struggling to hold him to the ground. Taggle stood between the girls and the crowd, huge and hissing. The attackers had wavered for a moment, but they were coming to themselves again, pressing forward.

The poorest of the market, Kate thought again. And knew what to do.

“Silver!” she shouted, her voice breaking. “Silver to anyone who would let us pass!” Plain Kate could see greed fight with the fearful bloodlust in the faces in front of her. Drina had pulled herself up and clung to Kate’s knee. Kate hoisted her up by one armpit, and with the other hand opened her belt purse. Coins glimmered in her fist. It was more money than she’d ever had in her life. The money that was to buy her a place to belong.

“Any money made by magic belongs to the church,” came the reedy voice of the priest.

“Take it, then,” shouted Kate, and threw the copper and silver over the heads of the crowd. Everyone turned and scrambled. Kate and Drina bolted the other way, squeezing past the hooves of the horse and into the darkness of the alley, with Taggle at their heels, leaving a scattering of small bundles and demon faces lying in the blowing drifts of Drina’s dark hair.

¶

Drina sobbed and stumbled and Kate tugged at her. “Run,” she panted. “Run!” Taggle flashed ahead. Voices bayed like hounds behind them.

Then someone grabbed Kate by the elbow and jerked her through a doorway. She was blinded by the drop of light. Her rescuer was a dim shape against the light of the door. Then the figure turned, with Drina in her arms. It was the basket woman. “Quietly a moment,” she whispered. They all huddled together and listened. The chasers came close, and passed, and faded away.

Kate stepped away and banged her shin against a tub where willow wands were soaking. Half-plaited baskets nudged at her elbows. There was a thick must of herbs. “There,” the woman murmured as Drina sobbed quietly. “Don’t be frightened. They won’t find you. They won’t look, really.” She gathered up Drina and pressed the corner of her turban against her disfigured, gouting ear.

Taggle was at the door suddenly. “They’re gone. I let them chase me. I led them like a sunbeam and vanished like a shadow.”

At the cat’s voice, the basket woman drew her breath in with a sound like a sword unsheathing. But she said nothing.

Plain Kate picked up Taggle. “We have to get out of the city.”

“Aye,” said the basket woman, who was tying the turban tight across Drina’s ear. “Get out and don’t come back.” She fingered the notch in her own ear. “Marked so, little one.” Drina clung to her and hid her face from Kate.

Kate stood helplessly a moment, listening to the silent street and looking at the ruin of Drina’s black hair. “I’ll go,” she offered. “To the market of the animals. I’ll get Behjet. And your father.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Drina.

So Kate took Taggle, and she went.

eight

the bog camp

Plain Kate found Behjet and Stivo in the market of the animals and stammered out enough of the story to send Stivo running. Kate started to follow him, but Behjet seized her by the shoulder to stop her. His hands trembled a little, but he kept his movement calm as he slid a saddle onto the dray colt. They mounted together, with Behjet behind and Kate squeezed between him and the horse’s pulsing neck. They rode out of Toila easily, so as to draw no eyes. But when they passed the city gates they went at a gallop.