Plain Kate

The cat was curled up in a nook by her feet, between a little cauldron and a lumpy bag: three round heaps. She didn’t spot him till he lifted his head and cracked an eye open. “Oh.” He yawned. “Hello.”

“How long—” She rubbed at her eyes and her fingers found patches of numbed slickness on her face. “How long—where are we?”

“A boat,” he said, getting up and leaning into a long stretch. His fur was scorched off on one side, but the bare patches were with new fuzz. “I do not care for it: There’s water. But also, fish, which is nice for me.” He sidled over and rubbed the corner of his mouth on her hand, marking her with his scent.

“How long—I don’t remember anything. How long have I been asleep?”

Taggle shrugged with his whiskers. “It is not a matter for cats, how long.” He tilted his chin up and looked at her—he seemed almost concerned. “I have eaten many times,” he offered. “Many fish, many mice, three muskrats, two rabbits, and a small bird that was sleeping. You have had broth.”

She tried to remember broth, but couldn’t. There was only the long dream about burning and drowning and a woman made of fog, hungry and terribly sad. Stivo crumpling to the ground at a single touch. Daj turning away. Drina bleeding. Behjet throwing the lamp. She shook herself. Broth. It would have been hot. But she felt cold: In her sleep, Linay had fed her, had dressed her—her skin shuddered and her hair prickled. She got up.

The ceiling was low and hung thick with trinkets and bundles of herbs. They tangled and bumped in her hair. She stooped and inched away from the bunk and into the dim and tiny space.

Her scorched smock that had been her father’s, that she had worn for years, was gone. She was wearing a linen dress, white and embroidered in white, a fine thing edged with lace. It was too big for her and the lace trailed on the floor. She hitched it up.

“I did not catch the fish,” Taggle said, continuing his tale of food as he followed her. “I could, of course, but there is the matter of getting wet. He gave them to me. Though I still do not like him.”

Daylight poured down from the hatch and fell in a square on the decking. The rest of the cabin was shadowy clutter. Bags and coils of ropes and strings of dried sausages hung on the wall. There was a smell of wet wood, river rot, human sweat, sausage, spices, and the musty smell of many herbs. Plain Kate looked around for her boots.

She found them slumped in the shadows. She bent to pick them up. Then she stopped. The boots were sitting beside a box, a crooked little chest of splintered planks. The lid, though, was carved and beautiful: a stag leaping.

She knew that stag. The box was made from pieces of her father’s stall.

And there was something wrong about it.

All of Kate’s hair stood up. The box was darker than it should have been. It looked as if it were breathing. “Taggle?” she whispered. “I’m looking for a hatchet.”

“I wouldn’t,” said a lilting voice behind her.

Plain Kate spun around. Linay was leaning at the ladder, white in the stream of sun.

“That box is not a matter for hatchets. As you love your life, leave it alone.” He smiled at her, that slow, slow smile. “Unless, of course, the hatchet is for me.”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s good to see you up. There’s no one about. Come above.”

She hesitated, squinting at his brightness.

“Don’t worry. It’s safe enough while the day lasts.” He slipped up the ladder.

Plain Kate watched him go, and threw a long look at the huddled, splintery box. Then she went to get her boots. Moving them stirred up a smell of scorched leather and smoke that made her for an instant almost sick with fear. She swallowed it and took a steadying breath. Then she pulled on the boots, checked her knife, and followed Linay through the hatch.

¶

The punt Kate remembered from Samilae was tied up in a slow curve of the river, where the current had cut a straighter channel and left a loop of still water, shielded by a sand spit and hung with willows. Plain Kate stood up out of the hatch and breathed deep.

Big willows surrounded the river, and beyond them was a strip of wheat fields. The air smelled like bread. Beside them in the water, a gray heron was standing above its own reflection. She looked at it and it looked at her and they were still for a moment, until the heron lifted heavily on its huge wings, and was gone.

“Oooo,” said Taggle, springing onto the bench at the punt’s blunt end.

“He’s too big for you, catkins,” said Linay. He sat cross-legged on the roof of the cabin. “Could kill a pike, that beauty.”

“Hmmph,” said Taggle, and closed his eyes in the dappling sun.

Plain Kate stood weak-kneed on the tiny deck and had nowhere to look but at the sky, and at Linay. She looked at Linay. He was wrapping strips of white cloth around his hands, tugging them into place with his teeth. The sleeves of his zupan were hanging down his back; his arms were bare, and the bandages went to his elbows. The insides of his forearms were spotted with fresh blood.