?
When they were breaking the morning camp, Plain Kate went to Daj to explain that she was out of wood.
Daj looked around at the trees, the charcoal burner’s woodpile. She said nothing, eloquently.
Kate winced. “Cured wood, I mean. Green wood—living wood—shrinks when it dries. If you carve green wood your work will crack.”
So Daj rumbled and bumbled, and took Kate off to the men’s fire, where she found Stivo hunched up over tea while the other men oiled harnesses and tack. She dragged him up by the ear.
“Take this little one into the forest,” she ordered. “She needs wood.”
Stivo looked around. “She’s knee-deep in wood.”
“Different wood,” said Daj. “Show manners and mind your mother.”
So Stivo got up, hoisted the camp hatchet, and slouched off, leaving Kate trotting after him.
“You don’t need to come,” she said, once they were away from the others. “I’ve looked after myself a long time.”
“You go the Roamer way,” he answered. “We do not go alone.”
“And there are wolves,” piped Drina, appearing with a pail half full of blackberries.
“Aye, a few.” Stivo swung the hatchet idly, the way Drina swung her pail. “And so you’ll stay in the camp, cheya.”
“Plain Kate is going.”
“She needs the wood,” Stivo said. “For some reason the wood we have is not good enough.”
Plain Kate thought of explaining, but stayed silent.
“Daj said I could go,” said Drina.
“And I say you can’t, daughter. Be off.”
Drina slinked to a stop. Plain Kate hung back with her and Stivo strode on toward the woods, still swinging his axe. “Stivo is your father?” She had never had anything but gentleness from her own father, and found the idea of Stivo being a father unimaginable.
Drina shrugged. “Daj looks after me.” But of course it was true. Behjet had told her that Stivo’s wife had been burned as a witch—Stivo’s wife and Drina’s mother were the same person. And that made Stivo Drina’s father. And Daj her…grandmother? Once again Plain Kate gave up on trying to sort out who among the Roamers was related to whom. It did not seem important to them. They were all family, mira, clan.
Stivo, ahead, had turned. “Come along, gadje!”
A family she was not part of. At least not in Stivo’s eyes. Plain Kate gave Drina’s arm a quick squeeze, then hurried after Stivo and his axe.
Around the abandoned hut, the wood was thick. Blackberry brambles hid under the skirts of the trees, growing across a forgotten wall of loose stones. Stivo was sitting on a big rock, eating blackberries.
Plain Kate looked around. “It’s a bit drier, anyway,” she offered. The thick trees were keeping off some of the drizzle.”
“This rain’s a curse. The horses are all chewing their feet and stinking with the thrush. Go through the whole herd, if this wet won’t stop.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault, is it. Unless you can work the weather.” Stivo got up. “Off with you then. Find your different wood.”
It was dark beneath the big trees, and the brambles gave way fast to ferns. Plain Kate moved into them slowly. They rubbed around her waist, dripping and rustling. She heard something big moving behind her and shot a look over her shoulder. Stivo was following her, though not close. They went on without speaking.
Finally she found the right tree. A toppled walnut. Bolt struck, half-scorched, a year dead. It would be dense-grained and dry; it would take a knife. “This one,” she said. As she said it the drizzle broke again, and suddenly the fallen tree was struck by a finger of light. Plain Kate was startled for a moment, then saw that of course the tree’s fall had left a hole in the forest’s ceiling, just enough for the light to slant through. It struck her too, and for a moment she could see how what was left of her shadow spun around her like ripples of water.
She stepped back out of the light and nearly knocked into Stivo. “I’ve noticed,” he said, and her heart lurched. “I’ve noticed you spend a good deal of time with my daughter.”
Plain Kate said nothing.
“I can smell the trouble on you, Plain Kate,” he said, swinging the axe. “See that you do not bring it on my Drina. She is all I have left. Do you hear that? I will not see her lost because of some little girl they call ‘witch.’?”
She turned to face him. “I’m not a little girl. I am Plain Kate Carver. I have lived by my own wits for many years. I am better than any apprentice, and good as many a master. And I am not a witch.”
Then she stopped. She was very aware of the blue star cloth tied at the nape of her neck, and the complex braids underneath. Don’t let my father see, Drina had said. These were the eyes she’d been afraid of. “I am not a witch,” she said, trying to sound sure.
“You had best not be,” he answered. And he threw the axe, past her ear. It struck neat and deep into the split heart of the tree.