Nettle & Bone(38)

Fenris nodded, as if what she had said was perfectly comprehensible, even though she could barely comprehend it herself. If the fact that a nun was kin to a prince’s wife surprised him, he gave no sign. “I understand. Men like that never stop. If they can be isolated or thrown at the enemy, it is for the best, and then the clan gets some good of them in the end. But often they cannot be, and then we must find other solutions.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” said Marra. “Other solutions. Whatever that may be.”

“It’s a fool’s errand and we’ll probably all die,” said the dust-wife.

“Oh, well then,” said Fenris. “I always enjoy those.”

“What now?” Marra asked the dust-wife. “You had the ideas before. Or do we simply walk north until we get there?”

The dust-wife scratched her hen’s keel bone thoughtfully. The bird looked annoyed, but then, it always did. “I can almost see my way forward,” she said. “If it were only mortals we faced, then you and I and your large friend there might be enough. But the godmother is where everything falls down.”

“The prince’s fairy godmother?”

The dust-wife nodded. “They’ve had the same one for a long time. Bound to the royal family and kept alive long past when a sensible person would die. Her protection will lie over the prince.” She gnawed on her lower lip. “The dead I may command, but that is a different power.”

“Stronger?” asked Marra.

“Different.” The dust-wife paused, then smiled ruefully. “Probably stronger. I speak with the dead and for the dead. Our two powers have nothing to say to one another. We might pass each other in the street without speaking or she might blast me into nothingness.”

“I suppose you can’t blast her into nothingness first?” asked Fenris.

“I’ve never tried,” admitted the dust-wife, “but it doesn’t seem very likely.”

Marra sighed. “So what do we need to fight a power like that? My fairy godmother was nearly useless.”

The dust-wife raised an eyebrow. “You had a fairy godmother?”

“Yes, of course. Princesses, you know…”

“Not all of them,” said the dust-wife, “not even most of them, come to that. And the ones who do tend to be in much larger kingdoms, not little nations poised between dangerous neighbors. Power calls to power.”

Marra snorted. “Well, she wasn’t worth much, so you’re not far wrong.”

“Oh?” said the dust-wife.

“She blessed us all with good health,” said Marra grimly. “And Damia she said would marry a prince. Which wasn’t much of a blessing, given he killed her.”

“Health’s not so little a thing,” said the dust-wife. “Compared to the alternative, anyway.”

Marra’s lip curled. “She might have wished us safe,” she growled. “Or at least that we wouldn’t marry someone who’d murder us.”

“She might have,” said the dust-wife. “But parents object to people making pronouncements like that at christenings, for some odd reason.”

“You’d think they’d be grateful.”

“No accounting for human nature.”

Marra did not know Fenris well enough to read his expressions, but she would have sworn that he wanted to say something. He kept glancing at the dust-wife. A line formed between his eyes with each glance, growing deeper, until finally he apparently gave up and said, “Lady Fox?”

The dust-wife snorted. “Yes?”

“You claim to speak with the dead?”

“I don’t claim it,” said the dust-wife calmly. “I do it. Although most days it’s less speaking and more listening. People who won’t shut up in life rarely shut up in death.”

Fenris shook his head. After a moment he said, picking his words carefully, “I do not know that I believe in ghosts.”

“Yet you believe in fairies,” said the dust-wife, sounding amused rather than offended. “Enough that you offered yourself to a fairy fort.”

“And now I suppose that I should say that is different,” said Fenris. “But the truth is that I did not believe in fairies, either. No one I know does.” He rubbed a hand through his hair, and Marra saw threads of white salted through the dark length.

“You did not believe in fairies, but you were afraid of a fairy fort?” said Marra, puzzled.

“Well … yes.” Fenris gave her another of his bemused how-am-I-here smiles. “We do not believe, but you still wouldn’t cut trees from a fairy mound or spend the night in one. Just in case there is something there, whether you believe in it or not.”

“There you are, then,” said the dust-wife. “The dead are there, whether you believe in them or not.”

“Mm.”

Marra felt an urge to jump in and try to smooth the conversation over, but she did not know how she would manage that. She had never liked disagreements, but they both seemed amused, anyway, rather than heated. She studied Fenris under her lashes, trying not to be too obvious.

In daylight, he was even larger than she had thought in the goblin market. Broad shoulders, barrel chest. Even if he was older than the prince and had thickened around the middle with age, no one would mistake him for anything but a warrior. His hands were covered in dozens of small, healed scars and his forearms were corded with muscle. You did not get muscle like that simply from lifting boxes. If he wanted to, he could probably throttle me one-handed. Marra licked suddenly dry lips. The spell said we needed him. Surely we couldn’t need someone who was going to try to kill us. Unless the world is very strange indeed, and maybe I should be dead and the dust-wife should raise me up and send me after Vorling as a vengeful shade.