“What news of your daughter, Stivo?” Rye Baro’s voice came from the other side of the fire. To Kate, it seemed as if the fire itself was speaking, as if it wanted to claim Drina.
“She’ll live,” said Stivo. “And it’s not thanks to this one.” He gestured roughly at Kate.
“What—” Plain Kate felt dull as the dark of the moon. “What did she tell you?
The voice came from the fire again.“What should she have told, Plain Kate Carver?”
That it was my fault, Plain Kate thought.That she was only trying to help me. That I knew it was dangerous, and I let her help me anyway. I let her go alone.
Taggle sprang back onto the trestle beside her, sniffling at the tea-soaked scarf arpund Kate’s arm, bleating wordlessly. His pink tongue flicked out like a bit of flame. Beside her, Wen suddenly spat out his tea. “Bah! Who brewed the bandages!”
“Plain Kate?” said the fire, in Rye Baro’s voice.
“I—” she croaked.
“ ’Tis not the time for questioning the kit,” said Daj firmly, lifting Kate to her feet. “Come along, Plain Kate. I’ll clear you out a patch to sleep.”
“It’s full as the king’s pocket.”
“No, you’ll see,” said Daj, leading her out into the night. “You can sleep by me,mira.” She put an arm around Kate’s shoulders and guided her back across the river meadow, through the echoing, thickening fog, as if to the land of the dead.
¶
“Blood!”
Plain Kate struggled to wake. She was wrapped in blankets, lying on Daj’s bunk in the hotvardo. Taggle was asleep. Drina was lying in the other bunk, her face turned to the wall, the roughly chopped hair sticking out and matted here and there with blood. Kate could see the heave of her ribs and hear the rasp and shudder of her breath. It was daylight, not too long past dawn: The gaps around the door curtain let in long slants of sun.
Kate shook her head, trying to remember what had wakened her. An angry voice, the wordblood. That voice from outside came again.“And what does that tell you?”
“That my fool of a husband can’t tell a bandage from a tea leaf.” Daj’s steady rasp came from just outside the doorway; she was sitting on thevardo steps.“ ’Tisn’t news.”
Plain Kate eased her arm free of Daj’s quilts and wiggled her fingers. The new wound felt tight as dry leather, but everything moved as it was supposed to be. She felt a stab of relief—and then of guilt. What kind of carver cut herself? There had been so much blood.
“He drank her blood and now he’s witched.” Plain Kate finally recognized Stivo’s voice. There was a tremble that hadn’t been there before—not just anger but fear. That was what had confused her. “Thatgadje child has a witch’s eyes.”
Taggle’s eyes cracked open. “Don’t like him.” She shushed him and rubbed a thumb between his ears.
“Well, let’s look, then.” The steps creaked as Daj lumbered down them. Plain Kate heard the voices fade away. Outside a horse whinnied, uneasy.
Kate tried to pull herself together.“What’s happening?”
Taggle opened one gold eye.“We’re napping.” He rolled over and stretched belly up in the crook of her arm. “You may scratch my throat.”
“I meant—Stivo just said—” The cat was going to be no help, clearly.My fool of a husband, Daj had said. Wen. He’d spat out his tea last night, made some crack about the bandage—the bandage with her blood on it, in the kettle. Wen had drunk her blood. Plain Kate sat up.
Taggle spilled out of his crook and onto thevardo floor. He gave her a sidelong look.“Huh!” he complained.
“It’s Wen,” she said. “Something must be wrong with him. And Stivo thinks—” She pulled herself up and thevardo 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’sgadje,” said Behjet. “She doesn’t know.”
“Sheshould,” 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 thevardo 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.”