Nettle & Bone(31)

Teeth.

Of course it would be teeth, her mind said, while her skin tried to crawl off her body and run away screaming. It was never not going to be horrible. Teeth. Yes.

The apparent owner of the stall had brilliant yellow eyes like a lizard. He lounged against one of the poles holding up the awning, watching the crowd. Ivory clicked softly on his chest from a necklace made of teeth.

I can’t possibly need a tooth. Where is the moth?

The white moth had landed on the arm of a broad-shouldered man wearing the remains of a coat and tabard. There was a delicate silver collar around his neck, more like lace than metal. He was stacking boxes near the back of the stall, his face expressionless.

Marra didn’t know what to do. Did she just go up to the man and say, “Excuse me, I need you”? That seemed like it could be misinterpreted in a great many ways. She tried to catch his eye, but he did not look in her direction, or at anything but his work.

The dust-wife bent over the teeth, making occasional appreciative noises. Eventually the yellow-eyed man drifted over, keeping a wary eye on the chicken. “You looking to buy, mistress?”

“Maybe. Not quite seeing what I need.”

“What do you need?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll know it when I see it.” She prodded a particularly large molar, the size of a shoe. “Hmm. Maybe.”

“Cyclops. You won’t find another like it.”

“I will if I check in an elephant’s mouth.” She gave him a narrow look. “I wasn’t birthed yesterday, my lad.”

The yellow-eyed man grinned. “Ah, well, can’t blame a man for trying.”

The dust-wife’s expression indicated that she could indeed blame him. She leaned back, eyes sweeping over the stall.

“The big one back there,” she said, sounding bored. “Is he sound?”

“Sound enough. Fool enough to sleep in a fairy fort. I pulled him out before something worse got him.”

“He available?”

“Might be. Not sure you want him.” He leaned back against the pole again. “He’s a killer. Had blood on his hands when I found him.”

The man had stopped and was looking toward them. His eyes were too shadowed to make out their color.

“What do you want for him?”

Are … are they talking about buying him? No, surely not. Even here in the goblin market where all the rules were different, you shouldn’t be able to buy people. Even the awful Northern Kingdom with its awful new king didn’t let you buy people. That was barbarism.

“Ten years,” said the yellow-eyed man.

“Not a chance. He won’t last ten years.”

Marra spoke up. “Is he a hireling?”

The yellow-eyed man rolled his eyes. “Anybody who sleeps in a fairy fort is fair game. What you do with them once you’ve got them is your problem. Eat them, wed them, set them free—it’s all the same. He moves boxes for me.”

The man who had slept in a fairy fort reached a hand up to the silver collar and touched it, as if picking at a scab.

The dust-wife eyed the necklace around the man-seller’s neck and said, “Forget years. I’ll give you a nun’s tooth.”

His yellow eyes narrowed, going sharp as needles. “A nun’s tooth?”

“Pulled, not dropped,” said the dust-wife. “Eh?”

“Reeeeeally…” He glanced at Marra.

Marra had a sudden bad feeling. “Um…”

“Smell the convent on her,” suggested the dust-wife.

“But—”

“Hush,” said the dust-wife. And to the seller, “Go on.”

The seller approached Marra, nose working. Marra’s skin crawled. My tooth? What? Is he going to snatch one out of my head?

“Yessss…” said the seller, his nostrils flared so wide that Marra could see an edge of pink inside them, like seashells. “Yes, yes! I taste it. Faith and straw. A hint of vespers. Yes! I’ll take it. A tooth for him.”

“Wait a minute,” said Marra, starting to realize that this was really happening and they were talking about her actual teeth. “Wait. You can’t—”

The seller turned his head and shouted, “Eh! Toothdancer! Get over here!”

“The moth says we need him,” said the dust-wife. “And one of your teeth has been bothering you, hasn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“I thought so. You wince a little when you chew.”

“Eh! Toothdancer! Stir your stumps!”

“But you’re going to have someone pull my tooth? Right now? Because a bug landed on him?” She flailed her hand at the man who had been moving boxes. He watched her emotionlessly. She wondered if he was under some spell, or if he simply no longer cared. Then she saw the Toothdancer emerge from behind a curtain in back of the stall and stopped worrying about the other man at all.

The Toothdancer looked like a stork or a heron, with a long hard bill and a curved, mobile neck. He wore a tattered black suit, with feathers sticking out of the holes, and his hands were very human. When he turned his head, Marra saw half a man’s face below the beak, as if it were a mask, and yet his eyes were clearly a heron’s, the color of new-minted coins, and set back from the beak like a bird’s.