Erin Bow - Plain Kate

It was a strange morning. The light was like a bruise. Cold breezes blew straight down from low clouds—clouds like a wall of boulders hanging over their heads. Above those clouds, Kate was certain, something circled. Something hungered. Something waited.

Between the curved black walls of the barrels, Kate and Drina watched the square fill. Hawkers sold pretzels and roasted nuts, tinkers peddled charms, musicians played, acrobats tumbled. But you could not buy fur or cloth, raw meat or flour, or anything that would take more than an hour to make. It was not a market: It was a carnival.

“They’re saying they’ve caught him,” reported Taggle, slinking in from the crowd. “That soon the rain will lift and life will be better. They mean to burn him at noon. Also, they are selling meat pies.”

They waited. The crowd grew larger, and soon they could see little but legs, good boots, and patten shoes holding dainty slippers above the puddles. Taggle kept mentioning the meat pies. The bells in the church told the hours: Nine. Ten. Eleven. They crept out from between the barrels. Twelve.

They could hear Linay coming. The jeering in the crowd preceded him like the tide coming up the river. People around them seemed to puff up; what had been a tight crowd was suddenly a crush. Kate was jostled. Taggle sprang up on top of a barrel. Drina pressed close. They couldn’t see anything.

Then, suddenly, almost in arm’s reach: Linay.

His hands were tied in front of him. The gray-bearded man in the red sash, the master of the guard, was yanking him up the steps like a bear on a leash. Another guard was at his back, walking backward, sword drawn, keeping the press of people clear.

The crowd gave a roar as Linay staggered on the steps, swayed on the platform. One eye was bruised—a startling blot on his too-light face—and one side of his white hair was torn bald in patches, matted with blood. The guard master jerked him sideways. He stumbled, crashed into the stake, then grunted as the master’s cudgel caught him in the ear. He stood stunned as the man cut his hands free.

No, Kate thought. Don’t make me see this.

On the stake, a few feet up, an iron ring protruded from the stonework. Swiftly, like someone who had done it many times, the guard master lashed one of Linay’s wrists to the ring.

A breathless hush settled on the crowd.

The master hefted his club again, and Kate could see it play out in her head: He would strike the throat or the back of the neck, enough to daze. He would wrench Linay around, put his back to the stake and his wrists both behind. So that the crowd could see his face, of course. While he burned. He came to kill these people, she thought, and we have no business stopping him. How can we stop him? The guard brought his club back just as Kate thought he would and swung it—

—and Linay’s arm came up like a sail snapping round. The cudgel glanced off his forearm as he whirled. He struck at the man’s face, fast as a snake. His hand closed over the mouth: white and wild over that neat gray beard. He leaned close. “All this time hunting witches,” he hissed, “and you never thought you would find one that was dangerous?” He blew a stream of breath into the man’s face.

The master reared away, clawing at his face and throat. His grand hat went flying. Kate couldn’t tell what had happened until a stray beam of sun struck a gleam from the guard’s face. It was ice. Linay had set a mask of ice across the nose and throat, cutting off the air. The man fell from the platform, turning an ugly purple. The crowd edged backward.

Linay grinned at them. There was nothing wavering or weak about him now. He towered and he laughed. “Come, now,” he called. “Don’t go! There’s going to be a burning!” And he hurled something toward the mob that set them screaming. Something small and stinging hit Kate as she huddled against the barrel: ice.

The ice had hardly pricked—it hurt less than hail—but the crowd panicked. They bolted and their force, impersonal as an axe, caught Kate. She staggered, saw Taggle go flying, saw Drina go down. She dove sideways and shoved Drina behind the barrels. They clung to each other, bruised and panting, while the crowd bucked and squealed and fled.

Kate raised her head. It had happened so fast. The square was almost empty. A few people—those who had fallen beneath too many feet—were lying heaped on the cobbles, drifted at the gates. There were piggish moans in the air, and a smell of blood.

The remaining guard, the one with the sword, had held his place. He turned on Linay, and lunged. Linay, one-handed, caught the blade in his naked hand. Kate saw blood begin to slick it, and then a rime of frost. Linay locked eyes with the guard, who froze. The sword grew black with cold, and smoked—and shattered.

“Thank you,” said Linay, stooping to pick up a jagged piece. “I needed a blade.”

The wide-eyed man backed away.

Linay stood fixed, regarding the shard in his hand. And as the guard stumbled away past the heaped bodies, Kate, Taggle, and Drina found themselves alone at the foot of the platform.

Kate drew a deep breath, and climbed the stone steps.

And then she was standing, empty-handed, at the pillar, with no idea what to do.

“Katerina,” said Linay.

eighteen

an exchange of gifts

Linay’s face had a blank, soft-mouthed look, like a man in a dream. One hand was tied to the stone pillar. The other held a jagged fragment of sword blade. Blood dripped off the blade tip and dribbled over the wood at his feet, and as each drop fell, it caught fire. The little flames made spots of smoldering in the pitch-soaked wood.

“Katerina?” said Linay again. “What happens next?”

Plain Kate was shaking. “You don’t want to burn, Linay.”

“But I do,” he insisted. “I’ve planned it. I’ve worked for it. For years.” His voice was still polite, a little distant, but he was beginning to tremble. There was pitch smeared on the white skirts of his zupan, smoke eddying around his knees. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I can do this,” he said. “I want to do this.”

Kate edged toward him. Drina was crouched on the platform steps, Taggle in her arms. “Mira,” she pleaded—and then the name she was never supposed to say again: “Linay…”

“I wish you weren’t here, though,” Linay said. “Everyone here…”

Kate could feel it, behind the clouds, the shadow and the rusalka drawing together, lowering like a slow storm. The blood, the fire: The spell was beginning. “Everyone here is going to die,” said Kate.

Linay made a noise deep in his throat, and stepped sideways, away from the fire. The tie on his wrist brought him up short. Kate reached to help him and the winged carving cut into her hip. Suddenly she knew exactly what to do. “Why?” she said.

Linay gave the heartbroken, startled laugh she’d tricked from him once or twice before. “But you know!” His eyes shifted to Drina, and he pleaded: “To save her! To save my sister!”

Kate held the carving out to him. “This is her. Your sister’s face.”

Linay looked thunderstruck, staring at the carving. “Lenore…” he said. And the thing behind the clouds seemed to answer: yes.

Kate set the carving on the smoking wood at Linay’s knee.

“What are you doing?” said Linay. “Don’t burn it!” Hot smoke made his zupan skirts swirl. The fire ticked and fluttered.

“Would she want to be saved, like this?”

“She was a witch. She understood—the exchange of gifts. The sacrifice.” His eyes darted sideways to the carved face of his sister. “Pick that up.”

“If you’ll answer me. Would Lenore have wanted this?” Fire was raising around the carved face, pushing up from under it and arching above it with fast-beating wings.