The dust-wife said nothing. For a little time, the only sound was the crunch of bones and the patter of splinters on the floor.
“Lots of people deserve to die,” said the dust-wife finally. “Not everybody deserves to be a killer.” She sighed heavily. “I can’t change your mind, can I?”
“No.”
“Right.” The dust-wife scooted her chair back, reached up one long arm, and hooked a jar from the shelf. “Here,” she said, passing it to Marra. “Open it.”
The jar was heavy earthenware, squat, completely unremarkable. Marra opened the lid cautiously. Moonlight bathed her face, a streaming blue-white radiance.
“Close it again,” ordered the dust-wife. “There. The moon in a jar of clay. Give it back to me, please.”
Marra, by now thoroughly bewildered, closed it and passed it back to the dust-wife. Her eyes felt dazzled by the moon that had shown at midday inside the house.
“There,” said the dust-wife. “You have given me moonlight in a jar of clay. Well done. That’s the third task.”
“But…” Marra stared at her and the little clay jar with the moonlight inside. “But I didn’t earn it. I didn’t do anything.”
“It was an impossible task,” said the dust-wife. “The other two should have been impossible, but here you are with a bone dog and a cloak made of owlcloth and nettles. Catching the moon would have broken you, though. That’s not a task for mortals who want to keep their hearts.”
“But…”
“I didn’t want to do this,” said the dust-wife. “That’s why I gave you the impossible tasks, so you’d fail and go away and not ask any more. I don’t like travel and I don’t like going places and I’m going to have to find someone to watch the chickens. And also this is a fool’s errand and we’ll probably all die.”
“But…？” A hope began to bloom in Marra’s heart. She fought it down, telling herself that she must be mistaken.
The dust-wife shook her head. “You want a weapon against a prince. Well, I haven’t got a magic sword or an enchanted arrow or anything nicely portable.” She leaned back in her chair. “So. Your weapon against the prince. That’s me.”
* * *
Setting out from the dust-wife’s home took longer than Marra liked. “Three days,” said the dust-wife. “I’ve got things to pack and things to settle.” In the yard, the brown hen stared down the bone dog, apparently unfazed by his lack of eyes.
“Kania could be dead in three days,” said Marra.
“Then she will die,” said the dust-wife implacably. “Because it will take us weeks to walk to the capital of the Northern Kingdom, particularly given the stops we must make along the way.”
Marra took a deep breath and schooled herself to patience. Even a princess learned patience in a convent, and what the nuns had not taught her, she had learned from knitting and weaving. Haste led to dropped threads and mangled socks. They could not afford haste with Kania’s life.
Besides, she thought bleakly, you have waited many years already. If you had noticed her bruises five years earlier, or ten, it would all be done already. The bone dog, tired of being stalked by a chicken, flopped down on his side in the yard. It was impossible to tell when he was sleeping, but there was a sense of relaxation in the slow up-and-down movement of his rib cage.
“What’s his name?” asked the dust-wife.
Marra blinked at her. “Who?”
“The dog, child! Dogs have human names. It’s what keeps them from being wolves.”
“Uh … uh … Bonedog?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“His name is Bonedog,” said Marra more firmly. In the yard, Bonedog rolled over and wiggled his backbone in the dust.
“Imagination is not your strong suit, is it?” asked the dust-wife. A smile cracked the planes of her face. “That’s not an insult, child—don’t look so surly. For this sort of work, you want feet on the ground, not castles in the air.”
The brown hen came around the side of the house, saw Bonedog, and advanced like a general leading a host. She pecked Bonedog’s tail and was rewarded with a ghostly yelp. Bonedog rolled to his feet, puzzled, and the hen ran off cackling in triumph.
The dust-wife took out a cloak made of bottles and pockets and tabs, like a walking cupboard, and spun it around her shoulders. Marra was surprised that she didn’t rattle when she walked. Then she took it off again and began filling the pockets and bottles from the jars on the wall, decanting drops of liquid and placing odd packets. Marra watched her pack up feathers and mouse skulls and bits of lint and finally said, “What is the good of all that?”