Erin Bow - Plain Kate

Riding in the vardo was easier than walking, though not much faster: The wall of fog trailed them, relentless. Still, Kate recovered some strength, nodding and dozing on Drina’s shoulder as they sat together on the driver’s seat, high above Cream’s back. Neither girl was willing to ride alone beside Behjet’s helpless body.

The broad road, which Kate had walked for three days, was on the other bank of the river.

On this side of the river, the way was hardly more than a track, winding through birch groves and boggy patches of basket rush and purple aster—a strangely peaceful place.

“We wanted to take the small road,” Drina explained. “The great road was jammed—the whole country, and the people are angry. They…” She paused, looking as if she might be sick.

“I saw.” Kate thought of the hanged women, their black feet brushing her shoulders as she ducked away.

“They’re going to Lov,” said Drina. “The gadje farmers in this country always hide themselves in the stone city when there’s trouble. Since the time of the dragon boats, Daj says. They will all go to Lov.”

And they’ll die, thought Kate. Unless we can stop Linay.

But talk as they would, they had no idea of how to stop him. Finally on the third day, in the last of the light, the little track broke free of a wall of birch and joined a larger road that bridged the river. Snakes of fog eddied on top of the water, and the overcast had half swallowed the rising moon. Across the river, Lov squatted, cold as a toad.

¶

They could not go the last mile—it was nearly full dark—so they turned Cream around and nosed the vardo back into the shelter of the trees. Branches scraped the canvas sides. They found a little rise by the river and took shelter in a grove of young birch. Drina tended to Behjet. They built a little fire.

Across the river, the city muttered to itself in the damp darkness. “It’s big,” said Drina. “I forgot how big it was.”

Kate worked on her carving, smoothing life into wood with a leather pad wetted and dipped into sand. It was nearly finished, and she knew, she knew it was good, it was true, it was important. But whatever it was saying to her, she couldn’t hear.

Cream was shouldering her way into the grove, tangling her mane in the low branches. Drina got up and set her free, then got out the softest brush and started to curry the horse’s neck. Taggle climbed into Kate’s lap. “You could do that for me, you know.” So Kate put down her sanding pad and the speechless, useless carving and scratched her fingernails through his dense ruff.

Beside Kate the firelight crinkled on the water. It was going right through her. “My shadow,” she said. “He can’t make the monster without my shadow. We have to get it back.”

“You tried that,” the cat pointed out. “I had to act heroically in order to save you.” He sat up, even though she was still petting him. “Develop a better plan.”

Kate did her best to obey. The river murmured at her elbow, and the fog on it carried bursts of other voices, high laughter and thick shouts, and for a moment a snatch of eerie fiddle music. “He’s here,” said Kate. Drina came to sit beside her. They listened but the music didn’t come again.

“I don’t know how to stop him,” said Kate. “I never have.”

The words hung there a moment. Then Taggle said, “Why do we have to stop him?”

Drina began: “Because my mother—”

“Bah. She’s dead. Her wishes are of no importance.”

“Taggle.” Kate put a silencing hand between his ears—and found little ridges of muscle, alert, tense.

“Give me another reason,” Taggle said, flicking his ears. “Give me a cat’s reason. Keep in mind that we do not,” he harrumphed, “run into burning buildings going ‘bark, bark.’ ”

“It’s—” Kate struggled to explain. “It’s a city. Thousands and thousands of people.”

“Bah,” said the cat again, but very softly. He was looking at his toes.

“You saved me,” she reminded him. “On the boat. And Linay almost killed you. Did you have a cat’s reason?”

“I’m fond of you.”

“And you’re more than a cat.”

Kate smoothed her thumb along Taggle’s eyebrow whiskers, trying to soothe him, but he lifted a paw and batted her hand away. He stood up. “There is something else we could do.”

Something in his voice, the way his coat rose just slightly over his tight muscles, made Kate’s scars prickle. “Taggle,” she whispered. “What is it?”

“He gave me words, when he took your shadow. If we break the gift, we break the magic. Your shadow would no longer be his to use. The creature he made would come apart.”

“You mean,” said Drina, “you could just stop talking?”

“Oh, no,” said Kate. “No.”

Taggle shook his head, humanwise. “My mind is full of words. I think in them. It has changed who I am. That’s the magic, not the talking.”

“Then what—”

Taggle looked up at her, his amber eyes deep as the loneliness Kate had felt before he became her friend. “The traditional thing,” he said slowly, “involves the river and a sack.”

sixteen

the peace of lov

“No,” said Kate. “No.”

“It’s your wish, though,” said Taggle implacably. “To save the city. All those thousands and thousands.”

“It’s not —” Kate found tears stinging her eyes. She batted them away angrily. The three of them sat staring at one another.

“Drina: If I die, Linay will lose Katerina’s shadow. I am right, am I not?”

But even Kate knew he was. It was the first rule of magic: the exchange of gifts. Cream leaned over and tried to eat Drina’s hair. The Roamer girl nodded to Taggle and turned and flung her arms around the horse’s neck.

“There’s another way to stop him,” said Kate. Her voice had gone hard as oak root. “He can’t do his spell if he’s dead.”

Drina whipped around. “Kate!”

“Yes,” she said, standing up. “We have to kill him.”

“He’s my—” Drina began to object, and stopped. They were all standing now, facing one another, and only the horse was calm.

“I like this plan,” said Taggle, spreading his toes. “It is much better than the other plan. This is what I think we should do. We should find him and kill him in his sleep.”

Linay, who could move in a blink, who had struck Taggle down with an uplifted finger. Kate said nothing, but Taggle read her face. “It’s true he’s large prey,” said the cat, “but you are missing the genius of my plan: the sleeping part. The finding-him part should be easy because we know where he’s going.”

“I can’t,” whispered Drina. “He taught me to swim.”

“Taggle…” Kate hesitated—and decided. “How?”

“You can carve,” he said. “Do that. Skin is softer than wood.”

Kate thought of the hanged women with the hexes carved on their hands. “I am not sure I can.”

“Become sure,” said the cat, his eyes flashing green in the firelight. “Once you leap on a boar’s back, you can’t sheathe your claws.”

“Even if—” said Drina. “He’s strong, or he was.”

“He still is.” Kate’s wrist still ached when she thought of Linay’s hands.

“Listen,” said Taggle. “There’s something on the road.”

Through the swaying trunks of the birch trees, light danced and flared. In a moment they could see men coming up the forest track, a party of men with torches. They were all dressed the same, in dark clothes with a yellow patch on the chest, and on that was embroidered a red boat beneath crossed oars. One even carried a flag. Kate had never seen uniforms before, but she knew what they were.