Plain Kate

“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.”

nine

the bear cage

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.”