Plain Kate again

_______________________

For the next three days Plain Kate sketched and carved in scrap wood, trying to learn how the bow worked. Even as she bent over the little birds of the headdress for Nicolovena she was thinking about how the bow bent with the grain of the wood. Plain Kate loved to carve, loved to use the skill in her hands that was (she thought) the only good thing she had. And she loved wood, which was beautiful and willful as a cat. Wood had its own ways, and she knew them well -- with the cat wood was (she thought) her only friend.

When it got too dark to work, she went down to the docks with her rod and wooden lures. Taggle went ahead of her with his tail curled in a happy curve. The day boats were just coming in, unloading the fish and nets and gear with great loops of talk and rope. The night boats where just going out, lighting the fires that shone down on the water. She fished as the stars came out, throwing her line into the darkening water. Taggle spent time catching the moths drawn to the fires of the night fishers. He leapt and twisted in the shadows.

Kate caught only a little bluegill in the first hour, but as the fishers came by with their wheelbarrows, things changed. Beneath her lure the river suddenly swarmed with fish. There were as thick as waves in a whirlpool. Taggle curled his claws into the end of the dock and leaned down until his nose almost touched the water. His yellow eyes were huge. He clicked his teeth with excitement.

The fishermen stopped to look. "Girly, would you look at that," said Big Hans, putting his barrow down. He loomed over her in the moonlight. "A body could stand on them."
Plain Kate shrugged: "A little body, maybe."

"Maybe," said Big Hans, and nudged Taggle's twitching rear end with his boot. The cat fell and twisted as he fell, sinking his claws deep into the dock and kicking at the water. Plain Kate pulled him up by the scruff and held him to her. He dripped and yowled and hissed at Big Hans. His bac half looked like a drowned rat. Hans laughed. "Fierce beast you've got there, Girly. Don't you want to see if he can walk on fish?"

"Leave be, Hans," said the oldest fisher, who everyone called Father. "What happens here, Plain Kate? How did you draw the fish?"

"I didn't! They've just ... come."

"Fish, then," said Father. "Don't turn your back on blessing." He eased Taggle out of her arms. Taggle bit him in the wrist and squirmed free, swiping at Hans's ankle as he bolted by. The old man watched as Kate cast the bare hook back into the swarm of fish. "You'll eat for a while," he said, "but it is an uncanny thing."

Big Hans was hopping at one foot. His ankle was bleeding. "It's a witchy thing,"

"Leave be," said Father, again. "Come, lads," he lilted. "Let's get the catch in." And he walked off and the fishermen followed, and the whispering of witchcraft went with them.

****

Plain Kate caught many fish, and traded the fixing of two cracked spars in Father's boat for a share of his space in the town's smokehouse. One fat trout she stuffed with wild dill and roasted on a hickory plank over the market square fire. She ate as much of the fish was she could was full for the first time in weeks. But still she felt uneasy.

She finished the wrens-and-roses headdress in the morning, and Niki came to collect it. There was still fish wrapped up in oilcloth on the work bench. "An uncanny thing," said Niki, poking the fish, shifting from foot to foot. "You should take care, Plain Kate. They say ...."

She rubbed her hands against her shoulders. "What do they say?"

"Take care, Kate," he said again.

In the heat of the afternoon as she worked on Linay's bow, Plain Kate felt that warning like a hand on her neck. She knew she lived mostly by the town's thin kindness. She could feel just how thin it was, between her and the whispers of the market square. A strange smell, sour and stale, seemed to come from the smokehouse. Linay's tambourine rattled like the too-bright sun to jangle in her head.

Taggle and came presented her with a half-dead bat. Plain Kate hit it with a hammer and hid it in a drawer. When she looked up half the square was looking at her. They looked down and she looked down. She pegged together the wood for the bow.

Taggle made a bleat that sounded like "want, want" and butted her hand with his bat-blooded muzzle.

"You can have some when I cook it."

The cat flopped down on top of her work.

"You're in the way," Kate said.

"Wrmmm," Taggle whirred and rolled to show d his belly, pink under his grey fur.

"Thanks for the bat, cat. But you're still in the way." She scratched him, then leaned her nose into his soft, warm fur. "Everyone's watching us, Tag," she whispered. "I--" She stopped as suddenly Taggle flipped to his feet and hissed.

Plain Kate looked up. Linay was lounging silently against the prop of her awning.

"I've heard your name in strange tales, Katie girl. They say you witched the fish." He sang: "Witch, Fish, Flinch, Kiss -- Won't you let me grant your wish?"

"No," she said.

"Hmmm," he smiled. "I wonder how much it will take to make you change your mind." And he sang:

Plain Kate, Kate the Carver,
No one's friend and no one's daughter
Little Kate will meet her fate
Whittling sticks till it's too late

Kate looked up. "Did you--" Linay's smile was long and narrow. "You drew the fish."

"Now what would I do with two dozen trout, lass? And what will you do --" Taggle had slunk around the upright, popped out, swarmed up Linay's shirt and clawed him in the ear. Linay shouted. Taggle jumped and dashed. Plain Kate laughed.

"Until tomorrow," Linay gave her an elegant bow, and sauntered off with a hand clamped to his bloody ear.

***

The next day when they opened the smoke house, most of the fish were bones and ashes. They fell to dust at the slightest touch. Only Plain Kate's trout were still plump, smoke-yellow and pink, perfect.

The master of the smokehouse summoned her, and she had to go stand before him with her strong hands curled into silent fists. He was a grand man, plump and ringed, though yellowed a bit with smoke and smelling of fish. "I have decided," he said, and leaned back in his carved chair, "that your catch will be split among all the crews whose fish were in the batch. Since, after all, only luck has spared your fish alone."

Plain Kate stood for a moment and looked at the leaping fish carved on the arms of the chair. She thought it might be her father's work. "That is fair," she said. "But I didn't do anything to burn up the fish."

"As I say, lass," he said, frowning at her. "Only luck."

She could tell he didn't mean it. "It's not luck," she said, "it's
magic. But it's not mine."

"The fish will be split," he said. "And that's enough from you, Kate Carver."

So she went back to work. She wanted to smash the bow, but it was very beautiful. It was quiet and strong. She kept her head down and kept working.

Linay snuck up on her again, though this time she was watching for him. "Fair maid of the wood," he said. "How goes the bow?"

Plain Kate shrugged.

He tapped her nose. "They call you witch-child already, Katie Girl.�

�If they do, it�s because of you.�

"If they do it�s because of you," he sang back to her.

What they see is because of me.
That may be, that may be.
I see what I say and I say what I see.

He smiled. "Do you know what happens to witches, Plain Kate? Have you ever seen the fires?"

All of a sudden she smelled the sourness from the smokehouse again. She tried a laugh. "Over a few fish?"

"Well," he said, with a modest bow. "There might be more."

"Go away. Or I'll sic my cat on you."

Linay went away.

Through the long summer evening, through the fireflies and into darkness, Plain Kate watched him. By now she knew he sold a few trinkets during the day, and used his music to beg an odd copper. But at night all sorts came by: from the ragged charcol man to the wife of the lord justice, men and women, old and young. They came in ones and twos, shying from others, looking around. Linay sold them glass vials that gleamed in the moonlight, sold them herbs and feathers knotted in string.

Past midnight, when all the lanterns where covered, Plain Kate saw Vervain, the mayor's daughter, come rustling in dark silk and shining like a starling. Linay stood up for her, his paleness and his white clothes making him ghostly. Vervain's face, too, floated over her dark dress, beneath her piled dark hair. Linay dipped a finger in a jar, and drew something in glistening oil on her forehead and down her pale throat.

The watch called from somewhere near the river, and Vervain started, looking around. She saw Plain Kate watching. Vervain grew even paler and furious. She made a sign against evil, as if she thought Plain Kate was cursing her -- then she threw the sign as if she herself could throw a curse. Plain Kate ducked her head. Linay laughed softly, like an owl chuckling. Plain Kate pulled open the drawer that was her bed and her home, and lay down to think.

Long into the night, Plain Kate lay awake. A witch, she thought. He is a witch, and he sells his magic. The drawer was hot and thick with smells of sawdust and sour smoke and cats -- but she didn't dare sleep in the open with the town's eyes on her. Linay was a witch, but those that knew would never accuse him. They were the ones who bought his potions and charms. Because they were guilty, they would stand by him and keep him from harm.

If she accused him, she would lose. How much she would lose, she didn't want to think. No one would stand by her.

She lay awake and thought and planned, and planned and thought, until Taggle came and flopped on face. Plain Kate cuddled him up under her chin like a fiddle, and they both went to sleep.

***

The next day there was no catch -- or no catch of fish. Father's nets brought up three boots. Big Hans caught a dead tree. And on the next day even less. Plain Kate saw Hans swat Taggle from his nest on top of a coil of rope. The cat was kicked and cursed from every market stall. Kate kept to herself, working. No one brought her old rolls or odd carrots. Summer thunder cleared the market square. Soaked and cold, Plain Kate worked alone to finish the bow, her hair dripping into her face.

When the bow at last was finished, it was as beautiful as anything she'd ever made. It had no ornaments, no decorations, but it was beautiful like one bird against the sky. She dried it on her shirttail and carried it into the inn where Linay -- and half the other merchants of the square -- were waiting out the storm.

Everyone except Linay fell silent as Plain Kate come in. Linay was sitting in one corner, like a patch of light in his pale clothes, singing about dragons. Plain Kate ignored the looks that beat on her like rain. Big Hans grabbed her whole arm in one hand. "You're not welcome here."

Linay stopped singing and stood up. "Her business is with me." Even though Linay was spindly as driftwood, Hans let Plain Kate go. Linay swept by and caught her up in his wake. They went outside. The rain had stopped. The light was storm-green and the trees were stirring. The smell of the river and the summer forest was heavy in the air.

Plain Kate held out the bow without a word. Linay took it as if it were a sword, and bowed over it. He looked at her silently. She said nothing.

At last Linay grinned and pulled coins out of her ear, like a common jester. "Your two silver. Does that finish our business?"

"For my shadow," she said. She had no shadow; the light was like a mist around them.

"Not here," he said. He stepped around the corner, into the drizzle.

"I want oilcloth," she said, following him. "And a sleep roll, a pack. A packet of fishhooks, a camp hatchet. Ten yards of rope."

"Do you think you can live on the road?" he said. "In the woods? "

"I'll get by."

"You'll get by, you'll get by. I'd almost like to see you try." He smiled at her -- a
flash like sheet lightning. "Done."

"And you leave me alone."

"Done." Far away thunder clacked. It sounded like a latch closing.

"Done," she said.

Linay wiped his dripping hair off his face. "You know you cannot stay, not even for another day?"

"Don't be stupid. I know."

"The beacon fire, on the docks. Meet me there at the third bell past midnight." He turned to go back into the inn. He looked back, tossing a grin to her. "And do bring that charming cat."

Plain Kate walked back to her father's stall. She thought about what she could carry and what she must leave. Behind her she heard a new music start: Linay's fiddle rang wild and powerful as the storm across the rainy town.

She took the silver coin and bought a bag from the tanner, who took her money but spat on his doorstep when she left. She packed the smallest of her tools in their felt pouches, she packed her one pan, she packed her two striped smocks and extra socks. She coiled up her fishing line and twine. She packed all she could and all she could carry, but she left much, because she though she was strong she was small.

***

At three bells she found Linay on the docks. He was sitting with his back against the stone tower of the beacon, shining like a moth, and eating a meatpie. He held another at he held out to Kate. She ignored it. He laid it on the wet wood at her feet.

Taggle's nose started twitching.

Plain Kate sat down on the dock. Taggle started twisting in her hands like a snake -- a snake who wants meatpie. She clamped her hands around his middle. "Now what?"

"Blood," said Linay. Fire flared across his face. She drew back and he laughed. "Oh, mine, deary-o, don't worry. I suppose the feline gentleman might be persuaded to draw it?"

"What?"

"Hold him fast." Linay leaned forward and chuckled the cat under the chin. Taggle flicked his ears back and let his teeth glitter in the firelight.

"Oh, I know you don't like it," Linay said to the cat. "Bite, now, go on." He stroked Taggle's belly. Tag twisted in Plain Kate's arms, and sank teeth and all four sets of claws into Linay's wrist.

"There now," said Linay, lifting his dripping hand. "That's not so hard." And he flicked his wrist. Blood flew and fell over Kate like a net. She leapt up shouting, and Taggle spilled from her arms and howled. "Enough!" barked Linay, and flung a silence at them. Kate felt as if the air had turned to glass. Her lungs were stiff as bellows. Taggle panted at her feet.

Linay stood up and stretched. He smiled at her, then reached as if he were going to twirl her into a dance. Thin hands plucked the net and glass and silence away from her shoulders. Plain Kate gasped. She felt heavier and lighter at once. She felt as if she had a fever. She felt as if he had emptied her bones. She coughed. Taggle shook his head, then started sniffing around the meatpie.

"Well," said Linay. "That's that."

"What--" said Kate.

"I have left your goods at the third big stone round the bend of the road."

"But--" said Kate.

"You can trust me. A mage never lies." He cocked his head and looked at her, as a bird looks at another bird. Even in the little yellow fire, his eyes were silver and strange. "I added matches and some odds and ends, a lovely coat of rabbit skin . It will be winter soon enough."

Go fast Plain Kate, and travel light
Learn to walk the shadowy night
Without a shadow, flee from light
Become a shadow, truly.

He lifted the new bow, tucked the fiddle under his chin, and played a tune that matched his song. It was so lovely and so sad that tears came to Plain Kate's eyes. She wondered what she had done. Linay lowered the fiddle. "Will you come with me, to the king's city?"

"No."

"No," he echoed. "But I will see you again, I think." He looked down at Taggle. "Both of you."
He turned to go, still humming the sad tune, and tossing something like a scarf around his neck. Kate could only see it because it bent and thickened the light. The scarf was her shadow.

Taggle hissed at his back. Kate turned. "Taggle? Can you -- ?"

"Musssssssicians," Taggle spat. "Do you know what fiddle strings are made
of? Pah! I'm glad he's gone. Let's eat."