Nettle & Bone(47)

“It was awful,” said Agnes. “She had six litters and every kitten was a tom. The barn was overrun. Nothing but fighting and pissing everywhere, and yowling when they weren’t pissing.”

“Just like the barracks,” said Fenris nostalgically.

“Interesting,” said the dust-wife slowly. “So you are rather more versatile than you claim, but health is the only gift that you’re willing to give.”

“Health can’t go wrong,” said Agnes. “Most of the rest can. If you bless a mouse that they’ll always be happy, they run right out in front of a cat and get happily eaten. But health always works. No one regrets being healthy.”

“What did the prince’s godmother say?” asked the dust-wife, turning to Marra. “Her exact words?”

Marra wracked her brain, drawing up the image of the ancient godmother, the stained-glass skin stretched over bone. “‘I shall serve her as I have served all her line, my life bound to theirs. No foreign magic shall harm them. No enemy shall topple their throne. As it has been for all the children of the royal house, so shall it be for her, as long as I draw breath.’”

Agnes sighed. “That’s a good one,” she said. “A big one. I couldn’t do that.”

“That’s what we’re up against,” said Marra. “Vorling can’t be harmed by foreign magic. Supposedly the Northern Kingdom’s enemies are always throwing spells at them, but they don’t take.” She remembered the king, aged and infirm before he had turned fifty. “But it burns them out. I wish it would burn Vorling out faster.”

“Can his guards be harmed by magic?” asked Fenris.

“Eh?”

“Well, if Lady Fox here can arrange to put his guards to sleep, I can just stab him.”

The dust-wife snorted. Agnes’s eyes were very round.

“What?” said Fenris. “Simple plans are best.”

“You’re not wrong, but I doubt I can put an entire palace to sleep,” said the dust-wife. “Particularly since I’ve never put even one person to sleep. I have a great many talents, including raising the dead, but if you want lullabies, that’s someone else.”

“Can you distract them somehow? At least long enough for me to stab him?”

“Probably not long enough for you to get away again, no.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “That’s not really a requirement, is it?”

“Yes,” said Marra, annoyed. “It is.”

“Fine, fine.” He lifted his hands. “No death-and-glory final stands unless we have no other options. Hmm. Can you raise up an army of the dead to fight the guards?”

The dust-wife rolled her eyes. “Armies of the dead seem like a good idea,” she said. “Until you’re standing in front of a thousand blind, withered husks who only know how to kill and kill and keep on killing. We might as well just drop plague corpses in the town well at that point.”

“I would have to object to that,” admitted Fenris. “All right. No armies of the dead, then.”

“Could you do that?” asked Marra tentatively.

The dust-wife shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s never really come up.”

“Yes, but if it did, would you know how?”

Feathers and movement announced the brown hen’s emergence from the pack. The chicken walked up the dust-wife’s arm and settled back on the staff, her comb at a decidedly jaunty angle.

“I know how I’d start,” said the dust-wife finally. “Some things I expect you don’t know until you’re doing them. But it’s been done before.” She leveled a glare at Marra. “But don’t get any ideas. We’re here for a straightforward regicide, not to level the city.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Marra meekly, and dropped her head.



* * *



They stayed that night in a barn, courtesy of Fenris’s firewood-splitting skills. The farmer even threw in a meal of salted potatoes and gave them apples for the road.

“I promise I did not bring you along to make you split firewood,” said Marra.

Fenris laughed. The two older women had gone inside to sleep, and it was only the two of them and a very small fire, well away from the barn.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve done many things that were terribly important, lives hanging in the balance and so on and so forth. There is something pleasant about chopping wood. If I miss a stroke, nothing awful happens. If a piece of wood is not quite right, it will still burn. If I stack it and it isn’t perfect, clans will not fall.”

“It sounds very difficult.”

“Mm. Sometimes.” He fixed her with a thoughtful look, and it occurred to her that his eyes were the color of sun-warmed earth, and she did not quite know what to do about it. “But you know, don’t you? You are the daughter and the sister of queens, so there must have been many times in your life when things hung on your actions.”

Marra inhaled sharply. Fenris poked at the fire with a stick. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to distress you.”

“No. No, it’s not your fault. I … yes. I have too much power for who I am. My mother sent me away, finally, and I know it was partly because I was not … not good at these things. But none of it is my power. It is only other people, moving me on a game board. It was a relief when I went to the convent. When I have to come out, for the christenings or the funerals…” She wrapped the nettle cloak more tightly around herself. “It’s why I like needlework,” she added.