Nettle & Bone(25)

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“God’s balls,” said the dust-wife a week later, looking at the bone dog. “You did it.” She did not sound happy about it. She hadn’t sounded happy about the cloak of nettles, either, when Marra had come down with her ruined hands and her swollen lips and dropped the owlcloth garment at her feet.

“I did,” said Marra. “Where do I begin the next task? Moonlight in a jar of clay?”

The dust-wife groaned. She got up without answering and went to rummage in her pantry. Eventually she found a pile of chicken bones and tossed them to the bone dog.

Marra had a vague notion that chicken bones were bad for dogs, but she also wasn’t sure that there was anything in the bone dog to be injured. He lay down happily and began to gnaw. Bits of splintered bone rained out of his neck as he swallowed.

The dust-wife pulled out a chair at the table and slumped into it. She was tall and bony and stoop shouldered where Marra was short and round. “Do you know why you set someone an impossible task?” she asked.

Marra scowled. This was the sort of question that she hated, the kind that made her think that the other person was trying to be clever at her expense. But the dust-wife had dealt fairly with her, so she tried to think of an answer. “To see if they can do it?” She racked her brain, thinking of all the old legends: Mordecai and the worm; the white deer who loved a human and her terrible quest to save her lover; Little Mouse who killed the dragon on her wedding day. “To see if they are heroes?”

“Heroes,” said the dust-wife with an explosive snort. “The gods save us all from heroes.” She gazed at Marra, her normally expressionless face lined with sorrow. “But perhaps that’s the fate in store for you after all. No, child, you give someone an impossible task so that they won’t be able to do it.”

Marra examined this statement carefully from all directions. “But I did it,” she said. “Twice.”

“I had noticed,” said the dust-wife grimly. “And quite likely you will do the third task and then I will be obligated to help you kill your prince.”

“He isn’t my prince,” said Marra acidly.

“If you plan to kill him, he is. Your victim. Your prince. All the same. You sink a knife in someone’s guts, you’re bound to them in that moment. Watch a murderer go through the world and you’ll see all his victims trailing behind him on black cords, shades of ghosts waiting for their chance.” She drummed her nails on the table. “You sure you want that?”

“He killed Damia,” said Marra. “He’s torturing Kania. He deserves to die.”

The dust-wife said nothing. For a little time, the only sound was the crunch of bones and the patter of splinters on the floor.

“Lots of people deserve to die,” said the dust-wife finally. “Not everybody deserves to be a killer.” She sighed heavily. “I can’t change your mind, can I?”

“No.”

“Right.” The dust-wife scooted her chair back, reached up one long arm, and hooked a jar from the shelf. “Here,” she said, passing it to Marra. “Open it.”

The jar was heavy earthenware, squat, completely unremarkable. Marra opened the lid cautiously. Moonlight bathed her face, a streaming blue-white radiance.

“Close it again,” ordered the dust-wife. “There. The moon in a jar of clay. Give it back to me, please.”

Marra, by now thoroughly bewildered, closed it and passed it back to the dust-wife. Her eyes felt dazzled by the moon that had shown at midday inside the house.

“There,” said the dust-wife. “You have given me moonlight in a jar of clay. Well done. That’s the third task.”

“But…” Marra stared at her and the little clay jar with the moonlight inside. “But I didn’t earn it. I didn’t do anything.”

“It was an impossible task,” said the dust-wife. “The other two should have been impossible, but here you are with a bone dog and a cloak made of owlcloth and nettles. Catching the moon would have broken you, though. That’s not a task for mortals who want to keep their hearts.”

“But…”

“I didn’t want to do this,” said the dust-wife. “That’s why I gave you the impossible tasks, so you’d fail and go away and not ask any more. I don’t like travel and I don’t like going places and I’m going to have to find someone to watch the chickens. And also this is a fool’s errand and we’ll probably all die.”

“But…?” A hope began to bloom in Marra’s heart. She fought it down, telling herself that she must be mistaken.

The dust-wife shook her head. “You want a weapon against a prince. Well, I haven’t got a magic sword or an enchanted arrow or anything nicely portable.” She leaned back in her chair. “So. Your weapon against the prince. That’s me.”



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Setting out from the dust-wife’s home took longer than Marra liked. “Three days,” said the dust-wife. “I’ve got things to pack and things to settle.” In the yard, the brown hen stared down the bone dog, apparently unfazed by his lack of eyes.

“Kania could be dead in three days,” said Marra.

“Then she will die,” said the dust-wife implacably. “Because it will take us weeks to walk to the capital of the Northern Kingdom, particularly given the stops we must make along the way.”