The fire burning inside the council tent cast the men’s shadows on yellow canvas—shadows so crisp and solid they looked like people made of shadow. Smoke billowed, dragonish, from the vent in the roof. In the women’s circle, the cooking fire smoldered and sputtered, smoking in the damp. The woods pressed close and the river muttered.
Plain Kate worked and listened to Stivo sing. Drina’s voice didn’t come. The night closed in.
One of the women came around with a splint and lit the lanterns that hung from the back doors of the fivevardo, which Kate had always thought made the wagons look sweet as fireflies. But tonight—the lantern washed down over her as she struggled with planing a stave for the broken bucket. And after a moment she saw the way the shadow of the step made a fluttering line on the damp grass. Nothing broke that line. Of her own shadow there was no trace.
Kate stopped. Her hands went numb, her stomach seized, her breathing snatched. Gone. It was finally gone. Into the gathering dark, she hissed:“Taggle? Taggle?”
From the shifting dark shapes of the horses a smaller gray shape sauntered. The cat leapt onto the steps beside her. His shadow fell—alone—across the grass. “I found the horse,” he announced. “The one that gave us such a horrible ride. I scratched his ankle.”
“Ah,” she said automatically. She couldn’t even gather the courage to tell him, to speak the horrible thing aloud.My shadow.“Taggle—”
He had heard something, anyway.“Katerina?” He pricked his ears at her. His tail twitched and he sniffed at her, as if looking for the wound. “Are you hurt?”
“Taggle, my shadow—” But suddenly, inside thevardo, someone was shifting. The steps wobbled; the frame creaked. Daj pushed the curtain aside, and her shadow fell across Kate.My shadow, she thought again. But neither of them spoke. Taggle leaned his comforting warmth into Kate’s side.
Feeling Daj’s eyes on her, Plain Kate bent her head and tried to work. The curved length of the wood was clamped between her knees. She drew the plane over the wood toward her. Pale shavings curled up like carrot peelings. “Deadly work for such little hands,” said Daj at last.
“It’s not hard.” Though it was hard. Mending a bucket was a cooper’s work, and Kate had never done it. She had to guess how the wood might swell or shrink, bend or straighten, and the stave had to be perfect. If the bucket leaked, she thought, the Roamers would surely cast her out. Still, she said again: “It’s not hard.”
“Well, it looks hard,” said Daj. “Leave off now, kit, you’ve lost the light.” She plucked down the lantern and peered into thevardo.“Not much room in here, I’m feared. Full as the king’s pocket. Why don’t you pitch the bender tent, have a night on your own.”
Alone. At Daj’s words, Plain Kate did something she had never done. She let the plane slip.
The blade skipped off some knot in the wood and sliced into her forearm. She watched it cut a strip of skin like bark. Taggle howled.
Daj almost dropped the lantern.“Mira!” She rushed and stumbled down the steps, yanking off scarves.“Aye! I’ve jinxed you!” Plain Kate’s arm was seeping blood the way the bog seeped water. Daj tied the scarf around it, tight. The pink flowers were at once soaked through.
“Blood,” hissed Taggle, and over him, Kate said, “Oh.”
“Ah,” Daj sobbed. “I’ll never forgive myself.” She yanked Kate up—“Comeon, kit”—and pulled her by the wrist, staggering, toward the big tent, with the cat tangling around their feet. They burst into the yellow light and sudden silence. Faces turned to them.
There was no men’s fire ceremony, no “May I pass between you?” Daj barked: “Tea!” Her husband, Wen, rose, creaking, his hands on his knees, and shuffled over with the black kettle. Daj seized it and pushed Kate onto one of the trestles. Taggle leapt up. Daj swatted him away. She ripped off the bandage-scarf. Before Plain Kate knew what was happening, hot tea was pouring over the open wound.
“Just brewed that,” said Wen.
Daj thrust the kettle lid at him.“Can’t you see the child’s hurt?” She slapped a handful of steaming tea leaves on Plain Kate’s arm.
“What happened?” Stivo was pushing through the tent doorway behind them. “Carver cut herself, did she? Little girl with a big knife?”
Plain Kate looked up at him. He was strangely colored in the yellow light, like a smoked fish. Daj looked at her looking and said,“It weren’t her fault. I jostled her. And she’s a better carver than you are a horseman, boy.” She dropped the bloody, gaudy scarf into the teapot, and tied another scarf over the tea leaves, and another over that.
“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.”