Plain Kate

The anger that Drina had shown a moment ago had slid from her completely and easily, like water off of oiled wood. That sort of generosity was a new thing to Plain Kate; she didn’t know how to take it. But she said, “There’s sand just alee of this fall.” She pointed past the snarl of bleached wood. “That’s what I use.”

“I guess even a town girl has to scrub pots,” said Drina, swinging up over the timbers, staining her legs with moss.

Plain Kate climbed carefully up behind her.“I’ve only got one pot. I use the sand to smooth wood. For carving. That’s who I am, a carver.”

The drizzle had broken into patches as they walked. As Drina scooped up the pale sand, Kate found herself standing in the smudge of shadow cast by the deadfall. She had never before noticed the way shadows gave things weight, made them look heavy and real and connected to the ground. Without hers…

She edged into the light.

Her shadow looked strange and thinned. It seemed not cast against the ground, but floating above it, like a fog. What Linay had said was true: No one would notice this, at first. It was just an uneasy little change, like the half-felt movement of a boat that slowly induces a great sickness.

“Got it!” Drina’s voice came from her elbow, suddenly. She scrambled up the bank toward the field, and Kate followed. At the meadow wall, Drina stopped. “If we go back now, we’ll have to pluck chickens.” She snuck Kate a sly, friendly look. “Let’s go see if Behjet needs help.”

“I asked him already,” said Plain Kate, then regretted it as Drina’s face fell.

Drina rubbed a bare foot against the other leg, smearing mud.“Well. Let’s go see the horses, anyway. Just for a moment.” She swung up onto the wall and walked along the loose, wobbly stones, easy and graceful. “Come on!” Plain Kate walked beside her, though Drina’s feet were level with Kate’s shoulders. Even if she could have walked the wall—and it looked like an acrobat’s trick—Kate would not have dared. It could attract attention.

The horses were picketed on the far side of the camp. There were about two dozen drays: big, powerful animals, the engines of farms and towns. Scattered among them were a handful of draft ponies, and some of the smaller, faster, feistier horses meant for riding.

Drina flipped off the wall, heels over head, landed neat-footed, and ran over to them. Kate came cautiously with her. Drina was stroking a cart horse’s pink, freckled nose. The horse was nearly white, but dappled with dun patches, like butter floating in buttermilk. “This is Cream,” said Drina. She stooped and pulled a handful of grass and held it out. The horse wrapped her tongue around Drina’s hand. “She’s mine.” Drina glanced sideways at Plain Kate, then twitched a smile and amended: “I mean, she’s my favorite. I helped her be born.” Cream worked her jaw and whickered. Drina leaned her cheek into the hollow between Cream’s huge collarbones. Her face looked like stained walnut against the horse’s coat of pale newpine.

Drina looked at Plain Kate, eyes shining.“Do you want to ride her?”

Plain Kate looked up at the horse: way up.“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you. It’s not hard, you just have to hold on.”

“I… Shouldn’t we get back?”

“We should.” Drina wrapped her arms up toward Cream’s shoulders and kissed her chin. The horse whuffled and lipped Drina’s hair. “But I’ll teach you to ride soon. You can’t go the Roamer way without riding.”

***

There were a hundred things to tend to, a thousand things to do, in the breaking of a camp, and Plain Kate didn’t know how to do any of them.

She didn’t know how to unhook a cooking tripod and bind the three legs together into a single iron staff, or where to tuck the tripod under the cart. She didn’t know how to fold a wet rug so that it wouldn’t mold. She didn’t know how to oil horse tack or fix a harness.

There were eggs to gather and chickens to catch and stuff into wicker baskets, which were in turn piled into a rough iron cage.“A bear cage,” said Drina, her arms full of squawking feathers. “We had a dancing bear for the markets. She died.” Plain Kate didn’t know how to catch chickens.

“I’ll show you,” offered Taggle, who was still drowsing on her coat.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered, and hoped she could keep him quiet that long.

The Roamers hoisted the iron cage onto the top of one of the wagons with a block and tackle. Kate didn’t know how to use a block and tackle. She didn’t know why the one wagon was like a little house on wheels, built of solid wood, while the others were like tents. She couldn’t even keep the three women straight: one was Daj’s daughter, and the other two some sort of complicated cousins. Shewasn’t sure where the men were or whether she was allowed to talk to them, since the other women did not.