Plain Kate

On the evening of the fourth day, the road swung away from the river and they found themselves walking in a tunnel of willows. And through them, across the river, Kate glimpsed something white. Big. Moving. It was just a glimpse but Plain Kate stopped short, squinting. On her shoulder, Taggle stirred awake. Kate put a hand up to touch him and edged forward. Her throat was tight, as if it had seen and recognized something her eyes had not.

The river bent, the tunnel ended, and Kate looked back along the bank.

On the other side of the river, something looked back at her. Just a horse, a big white cart horse. It was picketed outside a single Roamer vardo, red. “It’s Cream,” said Kate.

“Cream?” Taggle sprang down. “Cream?” He tangled himself with her feet, purring. “Cream, yes, please, how kind, what a thoughtful human…”

“No, the horse. It’s Drina’s horse, it’s Cream.”

“Oh.” Taggle sniffed and flicked his ears. “I knew that.”

Kate kept walking with Taggle beside her prancing grandly in his embarrassment. The horse Cream whinnied to them from her circle of mud, but no one stirred from the vardo and Kate didn’t stop. The sun came down under the clouds and red light ran over the river like fire. Kate glanced back again, watching as the vardo got smaller. Her hands were clenched. Her pulse beat at the underside of her scars.

One vardo, one horse. A horse left at picket so long she’d eaten the grass down to dirt. Cream stomped and screamed to them again.

Kate stopped, turned around. “Something’s wrong.”

“Even if it is Cream, it might not be Drina,” said Taggle. Kate tried to remember when the cat had become the voice of caution and reason. “It could be anyone.”

“Stivo,” she murmured.

“He said Stivo was dead.”

And Kate remembered that it was Behjet—soft-voiced, softhearted Behjet—who, wearing Stivo’s face, had set her on fire.

“I might also point out,” said Taggle, “that these are the people who tried to kill us. And also that we already have a daunting quest.”

“But it’s not the Roamer way,” said Kate, “to go alone.”

And she bundled up Taggle and waded into the river.

¶

The horse was Cream, with her familiar constellation of dun patches, and the vardo was the little red one in which Plain Kate had slept for months. In the twilight she could see the carving of the horses braided into ropes, the place on the edge of the top step where the paint had worn away. Kate’s heart lurched, and she wasn’t sure if it was recognition, loss, or fear. Hungry and desperate at the center of her muddy picket circle, the horse squealed and jerked her head sideways against her bridle rope. Kate edged around her, hoping for silence. The horse bellowed. But no one came out of the vardo. Kate crept up the steps and lifted the door flap.

A girl in a dark turban was kneeling in front of the back bunk, on which was a tumbled hump of blankets. Kate let the flap drop. It rustled. The girl turned. It was Drina. Kate had known it would be.

Drina looked at Kate with large black eyes, blank as a frightened rabbit.

Kate lifted her hand and touched the slick, bubbled scar on her own face. She said nothing.

“Oh,” said Drina. She took a step forward. And then Kate could see that the heap of blankets wasn’t a heap of blankets, but a man lying asleep. Drina took another step and Kate saw it was Behjet.

“Oh, it’s these two,” said Taggle. “I hope they have sausages.”

But Kate stepped back so fast she felt her heels wobble on the edge of the step—she spun and leapt. She stood there, knee-deep in the grass, silent. Cream came over, jerking her head against the picket rope. She heard the step creak behind her.

Kate took a step forward—away from Drina—and stroked Cream’s freckled nose. “You just left her tied up here?” The horse whuffled and started sniffing her hand for food. “She’s been here too long. She’s trapped. She, she—” Her breath snagged, surprising her, and as clearly as if she were there, she smelled the rankness of the bear cage, the smoldering straw.

Drina lowered herself slowly down to stand with her—side by side but not touching, not looking.

“I—” said Drina, and stopped. Kate edged away so that Drina could undo Cream’s lead. The horse tossed her mane and shouldered Drina aside on her way to fresh grass. “I’m sorry,” Drina whispered, and patted Cream’s neck. Cream stamped but didn’t pause from her browsing.

“Mira—” Drina’s voice broke as Kate’s had.

“Is he dead?” she asked without turning. “Is Behjet dead?”

Drina shook her head. “Are you really a witch, Plain Kate? Can you save him?”

“Why would I?” snapped Kate.

They both stood a while, watching the horse and listening to the night rising: bullfrogs, crickets, the birds of evening. Finally Kate turned. She saw that Drina looked thinner and smaller, and that her mouth closed crookedly, like a mis-made box. “I’m just a carver,” she said. “But you have power. I saw it.”

Drina swallowed as if trying to get down a stone. “I don’t know how to use it.”