“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.
Fenris lifted an eyebrow.
“Like splitting wood. Like you said. Embroidery doesn’t do anything. It isn’t anything but what it is, and I don’t have to worry that I’m doing something terribly wrong and my tutors will get sent away or that I slighted someone important and they’ll want to close down trade with my kingdom. I can just make pictures and patterns, and if I make a mistake, I can tear it out again and no one dies.” She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a princess. The thread doesn’t care.”
She was looking at the fire and did not expect the hand that came out of the dark and took hers and squeezed.
“And yet here we are,” he said. His thumb lay like a warm bar across her palm. His hands were very large compared to hers, and the calluses from the sword and the axe were much thicker than the ones she had developed from shoveling stables. “Freed of all our duties, we charge headlong to take on another responsibility.”
“I have to save my sister,” said Marra. “I lost one already.” She laughed and heard the bitterness in it. “Kania doesn’t even like me very much, I don’t think. But I still have to do it.”
“And very likely we will not survive.” He rubbed her palm absently. She wouldn’t swear that he even knew he was doing it.
“We will,” she said. She caught his hand in both of hers, gripping hard enough to hurt. “Fenris, we will survive.”
He gave a half smile and a small nod. She could tell that he was humoring her, and she recalled the look in his eyes when she had yelled at him that he might die when that drunk had pulled a knife. He doesn’t want to die, I don’t believe he does, but … it’s like he expects to. Like it’s inevitable.
Like he doesn’t mind.
“Suppose we do survive. What happens then?”
“I don’t know.” Marra looked at the fire. “I suppose I go back to my convent and work on my embroidery.”
“Mm.” He squeezed her hand again, then released her and began to put out the fire. “Well, if you find that your convent needs someone to split firewood, it happens that I know a fellow…”
* * *
Two days later, they reached the capital of the Northern Kingdom.
She had been keeping her head down, hoping not to be recognized, and mostly watching the dust-wife’s feet. When they topped a small rise and the dust-wife stopped, Marra looked up for the first time in what felt like hours.
The prince’s city shone savagely before her, high walls leading in an endless spiral to the Northern palace. People streamed through the gates, vanishing into the maw of the city, and all she could think was that there were so many people, hundreds, thousands, all of them living in the prince’s city and loyal to him and what was she? What were five against so many? What could they do?
It is too much, she thought bleakly. We have grand plans, but in reality? Most likely we’ll get into the city, and look up at the palace, and talk and plan and talk some more, and eventually realize there’s nothing we can actually do, and leave again. That’s the way it happens outside of the stories.
The weight of this thought was suddenly very real, more than a feeling, a physical burden, heavy in her stomach and tight in her chest, and before she realized, she staggered unsteadily to the side of the road and went to her knees, out of the way of the crowd of traders and pilgrims. None of them looked at her. A dusty, weeping woman meant nothing, not with the sight of the city so bright and cold and hard before them.
It was Bonedog who noticed first. He put his paws on her shoulders and licked her face frantically. There was enough of the glamour for his tongue to feel wet, but he could not actually touch her tears.
“Good boy,” Marra whispered. “Good dog.” He was a good dog. Even if his master failed to save her sister or her kingdom, she had done one good thing—giving Bonedog a second chance.
Then Fenris was beside her, putting his arm around her as he had in the goblin market. He half lifted her, his great strength no longer shocking, and moved her farther out of the way of the crowd.
Fenris. Yes. There are good men in the world, and I have met one. And he is my friend, whatever else happens.
“Easy,” said Fenris. “Easy. Are you hurt?”
It was such a decent, obvious, ridiculous question that she found herself laughing, the quiet, gulping laughter that comes with tears. “No,” she said. “No, I just…” She waved her hand toward the city. “We’ll never do this, will we? This is all completely absurd. We can’t do this. It’s impossible.”
“You wove a cloak with nettle thread,” said the dust-wife, standing over her, “and built your own dog out of bones, and now you are concerned about what is impossible?” She shook herself and all the jars and bottles in her pockets rattled like a porcupine’s quills.
Marra began to feel embarrassed, not just for having dragged the others with her on this absurd mission, but also for having had the poor taste to have a breakdown in the middle of the road. “I’m sorry,” she said. Fenris helped her to her feet. His hand against her back was warm and strong. Bonedog lashed her shins with his tail.
“Oh, my dear,” said Agnes, sliding her arm through Marra’s. “It’s all right. It’s all just a little overwhelming, isn’t it?” She found a slightly crumpled handkerchief and passed it over to Marra. “You’ve done so much and here we are and now it feels like there’s so much left to do, doesn’t it?”
Marra accepted the handkerchief. If she’d had more energy, she’d be alarmed at how well the woman had read her. Yes. It did feel exactly like that. She had done so much and was so tired and how could it only be the beginning?
She wiped at her eyes and, arm in arm with her godmother, she passed through the gates that guarded the city of the prince they had come to kill.
Chapter 13
“Well,” said the dust-wife. “Now what?”