Nettle & Bone(26)

Marra took a deep breath and schooled herself to patience. Even a princess learned patience in a convent, and what the nuns had not taught her, she had learned from knitting and weaving. Haste led to dropped threads and mangled socks. They could not afford haste with Kania’s life.

Besides, she thought bleakly, you have waited many years already. If you had noticed her bruises five years earlier, or ten, it would all be done already. The bone dog, tired of being stalked by a chicken, flopped down on his side in the yard. It was impossible to tell when he was sleeping, but there was a sense of relaxation in the slow up-and-down movement of his rib cage.

“What’s his name?” asked the dust-wife.

Marra blinked at her. “Who?”

“The dog, child! Dogs have human names. It’s what keeps them from being wolves.”

“Uh … uh … Bonedog?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“His name is Bonedog,” said Marra more firmly. In the yard, Bonedog rolled over and wiggled his backbone in the dust.

“Imagination is not your strong suit, is it?” asked the dust-wife. A smile cracked the planes of her face. “That’s not an insult, child—don’t look so surly. For this sort of work, you want feet on the ground, not castles in the air.”

The brown hen came around the side of the house, saw Bonedog, and advanced like a general leading a host. She pecked Bonedog’s tail and was rewarded with a ghostly yelp. Bonedog rolled to his feet, puzzled, and the hen ran off cackling in triumph.

The dust-wife took out a cloak made of bottles and pockets and tabs, like a walking cupboard, and spun it around her shoulders. Marra was surprised that she didn’t rattle when she walked. Then she took it off again and began filling the pockets and bottles from the jars on the wall, decanting drops of liquid and placing odd packets. Marra watched her pack up feathers and mouse skulls and bits of lint and finally said, “What is the good of all that?”

Hummingbird feathers gleamed as the dust wife slipped a tiny bird skin into her pocket. “No idea,” she said. “Most of it probably won’t do us any good at all. But I agreed to help and that means you get the best I can do.” She licked her fingers and placed three small black beads into a wax paper envelope, then paused. “Show me your hands.”

“Eh?”

“Your hands. You’re favoring them.”

Marra held out her hands. The joints were stiff and the red puffiness where she had gouged herself with wires had gotten worse.

“Saints and devils,” said the dust-wife. “Open wounds in the blistered land. Hold still.” She got down a jar from the shelf.

“Is it bad?” asked Marra.

“It would probably kill you in a week or so,” said the dust-wife, bending over her hands. “You’d get a taste for human flesh first, though, which would be exciting for everyone … Oh, don’t look so stricken.” She unstoppered the jar. Marra smelled honey, but the liquid that the dust-wife dabbed onto her wounds was red as fire.

“What is it?”

“Rust honey. Made by clockwork bees.” The dust-wife rubbed it into the joints of Marra’s fingers, muttering words that Marra couldn’t quite make out. Eventually she sat back. “That should do it. Tell me if you get the urge to take a bite out of someone, though.”

“There’s a long list of people I’d like to bite,” said Marra, a bit dryly.

The dust-wife snorted. “Fair enough. Just tell me if you get the urge to chew afterward, then.”

Marra cradled her hands together, flexing her fingers. Already her knuckles seemed less stiff. She wondered if the words that the dust-wife had said had been magic, or if it was all the work of the honey.

She drifted to sleep in the corner, still wondering, soothed by the sound of the dust-wife moving around the room, the jars rattling, as the old woman packed away bits of magic inside the folds of her coat.



* * *



The brown hen rode on top of the dust-wife’s staff, on the bone crosspiece. Her body moved as the staff moved, but her head stayed level in that peculiar way of chickens. Marra was first incredulous, then amused.

“You’re bringing the hen?”

“She’s got a demon in her,” said the dust-wife. “It’d be rude to leave her for the neighbors to deal with.”

The hen rode until midmorning, whereupon she would stretch, walk down the dust-wife’s outstretched arm, and climb into her pack. The top flap was left open for just this reason. The hen would sit there for about a quarter of an hour, give a single pleased cluck, and then saunter back down the arm and onto the staff again. The dust-wife would pause, retrieve a single large brown egg from her pack, and tuck it into a safe pocket. In the morning, she would cook the egg, divide it in exact halves, and share it with Marra.

Half an egg did not make a terribly satisfying breakfast, but it was a great deal better than nothing. Sometimes Bonedog would flush a rabbit and kill it and they would stop and roast the rabbit. Sometimes a farmer would sell them eggs or a loaf of bread, although the dust-wife had to go alone to ask, because if the farmer saw Bonedog, there would be questions.

For the same reason, they could not take coaches, or even beg rides on farm wagons. They could not ask to sleep in barns where it might be warmer. There was no way to disguise Bonedog. Their progress back to the northwest slowed to a crawl.