“Fine.” Agnes sounded defeated. “A small curse. Only a small one.”
“Not so small. The only reason the magic took was because you cursed the chick, wasn’t it?”
“All right, yes. I’ve never been much good at blessing people, not really. But I didn’t hurt the chick. It was fine.”
“What was the curse portion? There had to be something.”
Agnes mumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, if the chick didn’t find us a safe place, it would die.”
Marra’s eyes widened in the dark.
“But it found it,” Agnes continued, “so it worked out all right.” She sounded worried, even through the muffling plaster, and Marra could picture her fretful expression.
“You’re skilled at cursing. Genuinely skilled. More than that, you’ve got a talent for it. I saw the way the world slipped sideways in the alley. It wasn’t just the one mouse that time, was it? You’ve done it before.”
Another mumble.
“Who was your mother, really? Or what? Not just a random maiden with hooved feet, was she?”
Marra glanced across the room. Could Fenris hear this? No, he was asleep, hands folded neatly next to his head, breathing slow and even.
“You’re a poor liar, Agnes. Tell me the truth.”
Marra had been feeling a slight pang of guilt over eavesdropping, which immediately vanished. She wedged her ear against the wall, just in time to hear Agnes say, “What good is it? I’m not going to go around punishing children for being born. That’s a terrible thing to do. People really don’t like that.”
“So you are giving up your power in order to be liked,” said the dust-wife heavily.
“No.” That was loud enough that Marra winced. “I am giving up my power in order to be decent. If warriors are allowed to stop killing people and bang their swords into plowshares, I ought to be allowed to keep chickens and give children good health and not curse them.”
The dust-wife said something else, too low to hear.
“The world can go hang,” said Agnes, sounding perilously close to tears, and as long as Marra listened, she heard no more from the next room.
Chapter 15
“I was thinking,” said Agnes the next morning. “Maybe I should go talk to this godmother.”
“Eh?” said Marra.
“Eh?” said the dust-wife.
“Is that wise?” said Fenris.
Peep, said the chick.
They were all sitting around a table in a little whitewashed room. The surface of the table was scarred from years of use, but everything was very clean. Miss Margaret’s breakfasts were very plain—coarse bread, cooked eggs, and little fish dried whole—but she was not stingy on the portions, which was good because Fenris ate as much as the other three humans put together.
“Well, we don’t know exactly what the blessing is, do we?” said Agnes. “We know what the words are. But maybe there’s a loophole. It’s not always words. You figure that she had to make a good speech to the court, but she might have said something simpler to the baby.”
“And you think she’ll tell you?” asked Marra.
“She might. Professional courtesy, you know.”
Marra nodded, though she had trouble picturing that grim figure with the stained-glass skull extending any professional courtesy to anyone.
Surprisingly, Fenris agreed. “She might,” he said. “Very unlikely people, you know, will share confidences with each other if they think the other person understands. A prisoner who won’t tell a guard anything will thaw immediately if he’s put in a cell with another man in for the same crime. And doctors who would bite off their tongues before showing indecision to a patient will tell another doctor about how little they know and how frightened they are. I’ve seen it happen many times. It’s how spies work.”
“There is something to what you say,” said the dust-wife. “But if the prince turns up dead, then I would assume that this godmother would be suspicious.”
“Why?” asked Agnes. “I’m a godmother. I can’t do anything to an adult. And I’ve got a perfectly good reason to be here. The queen’s about to bear another child. As the godmother for the royal family, I’ve got an interest.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Marra. She could just imagine sweet, cheerful Agnes running into the prince’s godmother, in much the same way that Bonedog might run headlong into an unexpected wall. I wouldn’t go see her by myself, either. Maybe the dust-wife could hold her own, but the rest of us mortals …
“She’s seen you before,” said the dust-wife.
“Not really.” Marra shrugged. “I was a long way off and there was a king and a queen and a prince in the room. I wasn’t on the dais. I don’t think she even glanced in my direction.”
“So that’s settled,” said Agnes. “Will you look after Finder?”
“Finder,” said the dust-wife in a tone that did not invite further comment.
“The chick. I named him Finder.”
The dust-wife looked at her, then at the little black chick, then back at Agnes. “Finder,” she said again.
“Because that was the blessing. That he’d help us find somewhere safe.”
“You named the chicken.”
“Well, of course! Doesn’t your chicken have a name?”
The dust-wife looked at the brown hen, who glared back. “First of all, no, and second of all, she’s got a demon in her, so I would be naming the demon, which already has a true name. I am not going to go around naming demons. It gives them ideas.”
“I name all my chickens,” said Agnes. “Specky and Buff and Milady and Jonquil and Shadow. Don’t you name any of your chickens?”
“No. They’re chickens. They don’t come when they’re called.”
“Well, no, but it’s easier if you’re going to talk about them to other people. You can’t always be saying ‘the big tan one with the feathered feet’ and whatnot.”
“I do not talk about my chickens to other people,” said the dust-wife with an air of finality.
“I’ve heard you talk about other people to your chicken, though,” put in Fenris. Agnes giggled.
“For the first time,” said the dust-wife, mostly to the ceiling, “I am beginning to question the sense of this entire enterprise.”
“I’ve been questioning it since day one,” said Marra.
“I have not,” said Fenris. “I have faith in all of you.”
“You would,” muttered the dust-wife. “Fine. I’ll watch … Finder.”
Agnes beamed at her. “Be a good chick,” she instructed Finder, and handed him over to the dust-wife. Finder peeped. The brown hen made a low, reptilian noise of disdain.
Agnes dusted off her hands. “Let’s go,” she said. “I can’t wait to meet another godmother.”
* * *
Finding where the prince’s godmother lived was easier than it should have been. Agnes simply asked the landlady.
“I don’t know,” she rasped, while the puppet glared at them and tapped his wooden nails together. “But someone like that will live rich, and the houses get richer as you climb the spiral. Go up the spiral road and ask again.”
“Right, then!” said Agnes happily, and off they went, Marra in her drabbest robes with no medal, a servant or a poor relation.
“Won’t she live in the palace?” asked Marra.
“Would she?” asked Agnes. “I don’t.”
“Yes, but…” Marra identified a conversational pit trap and carefully stepped around it. Yes, but you’re you. Yes, but in the Northern Kingdom, the godmother is terrifying and respected, not a poor relation. Yes, but …
And an hour later, Yes, but you were right.
The godmother did not live in the palace. She lived in the temple district, among the tall, narrow houses of the gods and saints, as if she were a priest.
“Near the top of the city, of course,” said Agnes. While the city was arranged in a spiral of roads, steps had been cut as short cuts. They worked. They were also extremely steep. “Why do gods always want you to walk to them? You’d think they’d do more good if they were near where most of the people live.”