The devil’s bundles, thought Kate. Drina’s charms. But she could see nothing but the tracks of the crowd.
Suddenly Taggle came scrambling over the heads and shoulders of gathered men. He left a trail of blood and cursing. “Katerina!” he yowled—though in the din only she knew it was him. The cat leapt onto her pack-basket, spitting, his hair stiff as a brush. “Katerina! It’s—”
“Shut up!” she snapped. Drina’s witchcraft charms. Her secret questions. “It’s Drina. Is she alive?”
“When I left.”
“What’s this, then?” said the little priest, but the men were packed so tightly that they didn’t—couldn’t—turn.
Kate looked at them desperately. “We have to get through.”
She could feel Taggle’s hot breath on her neck as the cat shifted on her basket, muscles bunching. “Follow me,” he said.
And before she could even think of stopping him, Taggle threw himself at the crowd.
His front claws bit into her shoulder as he leapt; his back claws grazed her ear. And then he was scrambling across the heads and shoulders of the packed people. His claws were out and his teeth were gnashing. He was huge with his hair on end, and screaming like a panther. The men—men he had already bloodied—shouted and squealed and hit and pushed against their fellows to get away from him. The wall of bodies cracked open. Plain Kate followed her cat like a soldier following his spear.
Elbows struck her. Feet tangled her. She stumbled and shoved through the hot press and the human stink. Something hard hit her temple. Another blow to her ribs. A stabbing weight on her instep. And then suddenly she was through. Panting, battered, terrified. But through. Into a little space bordered by the crowd, the walls of the alley, and a cart with a hysterical, rearing horse which blocked the way forward.
What she saw—
It was a flash of horror and blood like a moment from a dream. Plain Kate screamed even before Drina did. But screaming did not wake her.
She saw a man holding Drina by the hair. He was pulling her head back, as if to cut her throat. He had a butcher’s cleaver. He was butchering Drina’s ear, cutting it from the top downward. Blood everywhere. More blood than if he had cut her throat. A sick bright color. A slaughterhouse smell. Drina was screaming, screaming like a gut-speared horse. Kate was shouting. She had her little knife out and she charged at the man. Taggle ran up behind her, leapt up onto her basket, leapt past her, leapt straight at the man with the cleaver. He was gray and magnificent, an angel of vengeance. The butcher dropped Drina and shrank back. Kate caught her friend in one arm and spun around, pressing her against the wall. Drina folded down, ripped with sobs. Kate faced the crowd.
They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was thick with the lumps and weeping wounds of scrofula. The poorest of the market.
At Kate’s feet, Drina. Her scarf and shirt were torn open. And someone had chopped off her hair. Her turban was tangled around her throat. Her mouth was smashed full of blood. Blood from her flapping ear soaked half her head.
So much had happened, but no time had passed. The horse was still rearing, the carter struggling to hold him to the ground. Taggle stood between the girls and the crowd, huge and hissing. The attackers had wavered for a moment, but they were coming to themselves again, pressing forward.
The poorest of the market, Kate thought again. And knew what to do.
“Silver!” she shouted, her voice breaking. “Silver to anyone who would let us pass!” Plain Kate could see greed fight with the fearful bloodlust in the faces in front of her. Drina had pulled herself up and clung to Kate’s knee. Kate hoisted her up by one armpit, and with the other hand opened her belt purse. Coins glimmered in her fist. It was more money than she’d ever had in her life. The money that was to buy her a place to belong.
“Any money made by magic belongs to the church,” came the reedy voice of the priest.
“Take it, then,” shouted Kate, and threw the copper and silver over the heads of the crowd. Everyone turned and scrambled. Kate and Drina bolted the other way, squeezing past the hooves of the horse and into the darkness of the alley, with Taggle at their heels, leaving a scattering of small bundles and demon faces lying in the blowing drifts of Drina’s dark hair.
?
Drina sobbed and stumbled and Kate tugged at her. “Run,” she panted. “Run!” Taggle flashed ahead. Voices bayed like hounds behind them.