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.
“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.
The dead boy swam upstream, quick as a fish, and rose to his feet. Water streamed from his mouth and his empty eye sockets. His skin had swollen and split his clothes, a pale, bloated thing with flesh puffing out between strands of waterweed.
I will not be sick, thought Marra. I will not. There is no blood. It is not as bad as that time the farmhand broke his leg and the bones stuck out. It isn’t.
Whatever the dust-wife said, Marra missed it. She was only vaguely aware of the other woman speaking at all. Then the dead boy replied, a hard gurgling as if wires were piercing his drowned throat, and Marra stopped hoping not to be sick and began hoping that she wouldn’t faint instead.
“Good,” said the dust-wife. “Which way?”
The drowned boy lifted his arm. His fingers had swollen together into a white mitten. He pointed upstream and gargled an answer.
The dust-wife nodded. “Do you wish ending?” she asked as brusquely as if she were negotiating with a farmer for a loaf of bread.
Another gargle. His face turned toward Marra and she knew that she should feel pity, not horror, but there was something strange and leering about the way he moved, as if he knew that she was frightened and delighted in it. He made a beckoning gesture with his swollen hand and then gulped with laughter when she shrank back.
“Enough of that,” said the dust-wife. “She’s not for drowning.”
More laughter. He took a step forward, the water hilling up around his legs as if it were sand, then another.
The brown hen made a low, hostile noise. The boy froze, looking up. For a long moment he stared eyelessly at the bird; then he lowered his head.
“Cock’s crow and demon’s heart,” said the dust-wife. “Don’t test me, boy.”
He gurgled sullenly but retreated.
She reached into a pocket and pulled something out. Marra couldn’t make out the shape in the dimness. She tossed it over the stream and the drowned boy caught it with his bloated white hands.