Nettle & Bone(27)

“This won’t do,” said the dust-wife, the third or fourth day. “Your sister will have died of old age before we reach her, and I’ll be so bent over from sleeping on the ground that I’ll be cursing your prince’s kneecaps.”

“What do we do?” asked Marra. They had put a collar on Bonedog, although it was more like a knot with a loop tied around his neck bones. She slid a hand through the loop protectively. She could not leave him. She’d brought him back to life and that felt like a bargain to her, even stronger than the bargain that humans made with living dogs who loved them.

But I cannot let Kania down, either.

“No need to look so downcast,” said the dust-wife. “The moon is full and the goblin market’s still in season.”

“Eh?”

“The goblin market,” repeated the dust-wife. “Lords of Earth! What do they teach you in a convent, anyway?”

“Not much about goblins,” said Marra. “I could tell you a great deal about knitting bandages and drying herbs and the feast days of lesser saints.”

“Well,” muttered the dust-wife, in the tone of one determined to be fair. “That’s not completely useless, anyway. Whose feast is it today, then?”

Marra had to stop and work out the date. “Saint Ebbe,” she said finally. “Patron of boar hunters.”

“Hmm. Well, boar are cunning and fierce and hard to kill, much like your prince, though I respect the boars rather more. We could do worse than to offer prayers to such.”

Marra bowed her head dutifully and offered a prayer. So little was known of Saint Ebbe that there was no specific form, so she used the standard invocation that could be applied to any saint—“Saint Ebbe, watch over us. Saint Ebbe, protect us and keep us from harm. Saint Ebbe, intercede for us…”

She was surprised when the dust-wife joined in on the final “May it be so.” The old woman had not struck her as religious.

But I could easily imagine someone making a saint out of her, a hundred years hence. Maybe some of the saints were like that, too—cranky, old women with strange gifts. She remembered the one icon she had seen of Saint Ebbe, a gray-haired woman with her foot on a boar’s snout, holding it pinned. Both she and the boar had been grinning. She’d thought at the time that perhaps the icon painter hadn’t been very good. But if I were going to paint the dust-wife as a saint, she’d have a brown hen with her, and that hen grins—I am nearly certain of it.

She realized that she had gotten distracted. “The goblin market?”

“What it sounds like,” said the dust-wife. “The marketplace of the goblins and the fair folk, and whatever humans go wiggling and wandering in. Curses and treasures in equal measure. And ordinary things as well, of course.”

“The fair folk?” Marra licked her lips. “Is it dangerous?”

“Deeply,” said the dust-wife. “But everywhere’s dangerous if you’re foolish about it. The goblin market has rules, and if you obey the rules, it’s no worse than anywhere else.” She considered for a moment. “At least if you’re there outside the dark of the moon. The rules change in the dark, and sometimes they change minute to minute. Full and waxing are more forgiving. We’ll go tonight.”

“Where is it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” The dust-wife’s mouth crooked up at the corner. “If we can find a stream, it’s easier to get there. If not, we’ll go by fire.”

Marra had to be content with that, because no further information was forthcoming. She added the goblin market to things that she had to worry about, and felt anxiety gnawing inside her rib cage.

In the end, it was frightening but not difficult. There was a broad, shallow stream washing across the stones a few miles away. They walked along it in the growing dusk and eventually came to a shallow ford, full of round gray pebbles that glinted black where the water rushed over them.

“Hmm,” said the dust-wife, sounding distracted. “Hmm…” She held out a hand to stop Marra moving. “Yes. There’s one here. There usually is at a ford.”

Bonedog, bored, sat down and began trying to lick his nether regions. Since he had neither tongue nor anything to lick, this accomplished nothing but seemed to please him.

The dust-wife drew a line in the pebbles with the tip of her staff, while her hen, half-asleep, muttered in annoyance. “Don’t talk to it,” she said.

“Talk to what?” said Marra, and then the dust-wife called up the dead.





Chapter 8


Marra’s first indication was that the crickets fell silent. In the distance, a bird sang oh-die-will, oh-die-will, and as the crickets stopped, it sang more loudly. The river’s hiss and roil seemed to slow, and then, very distantly, Marra heard splashing as something approached.

“There’s something coming,” she said. Bonedog quivered with alertness.

“Hush,” said the dust-wife. “The drowned ones are tricky.”

Marra closed her mouth on whatever she was about to say, but something else answered the dust-wife, a burbling liquid sound that might have been a laugh or a sob.

A shape was coming upstream. The moon was just high enough to throw cold, glittery light over it. At first Marra thought of beavers, otters, swimming creatures, but no otter had ever been so large, nor had a face like that.