Fenris’s lips twitched. He inclined his head to the dust-wife. “As you say.”
“Well?” The dust-wife plunked herself down. The brown hen regarded Fenris with a baleful eye. “Which was it?”
“Both,” said Fenris. He rubbed his forehead. “I am … was … a knight. In Hardack, as you say. I served the Fathers, not any particular clan. The Fathers rule the clans, but their rule is not absolute. Those who serve them work as diplomats as much as enforcers.”
“And?” said the dust-wife, merciless.
“And I was a fool.” He said it with no particular intonation, less flagellation than fact. “I did not recognize what was under my nose, and the day came that I had to kill a man because of it. A clan lord.”
Marra pricked up her ears, suddenly intent. Was a clan lord as well protected as a prince?
“There was nothing I could do, within the law,” Fenris said. “A lord’s word is law in the clan’s keep. The Fathers could censure him, but they could do no more. So I could let him walk free with blood on his hands, or deal justice with blood on mine.” He shrugged. “I murdered three men who had committed no crime except defending their liege, and killed the lord, and left my sword atop him so that they would know who did the deed. And then I walked away and spent the night in a fairy fort.”
“Deliberately,” said the dust-wife thoughtfully. “You wanted to die, but not by human hands.”
Fenris gave her a quick, wry glance. “For all that we say that we are servants of the Fathers, everyone knows what clan we hail from originally. I am a criminal, but whoever killed me would make an enemy of my clan. But if I was not killed, then the clan of the lord I had killed would lose face as long as I walked free.” He tossed a pebble into the water. “It was not their fault that their lord was a monster. They suffered under his hands more than any of the rest of us.”
“And Hardishmen consider suicide shameful,” said the dust-wife.
Fenris shrugged. “I do not much care for my honor, but to fall on my sword would be to say that I believed what I had done was wrong.” He sighed, and a little emotion crept at last into his voice. It sounded like weariness. “So here I am. I was in the goblin market for a long time and I am very tired.”
* * *
Marra looked toward the pond. Fenris had requested a little privacy to bathe. She wondered if he was really doing so, or if he was running off into the woods to put as much distance between them as he could.
I did not tie the bone dog, and he came back. She rubbed Bonedog’s skull, feeling the ghost of fur under her fingers as they pushed through the glamour.
“That was a sad story,” she said aloud. “Poor man.”
“If it’s true, yes,” said the dust-wife.
“You don’t believe him?”
“Mm.” The dust-wife shrugged. “He doesn’t feel like a liar, but that only means he believes himself. I imagine most of it’s true, more or less. But there’s men that would kill a rival and convince themselves they’d done it for noble reasons.” She laced her fingers behind her head, lying back on her bedroll. “Everybody makes up a story about their sins. Sometimes to make them less, sometimes to make them the worst thing a mortal’s ever done. Really depends on the person. I’d wager this one’s more martyr than apologist, but you never can tell.”
“Do you think he’ll try to leave?”
The dust-wife shrugged again. “If he comes back tonight, I doubt it. But if he has any sense, he’ll take his freedom and go and we’ll never see him again.”
Marra bit her lip. “The moth said we needed him.”
“We needed him then, yes.” The dust-wife tilted her head. “It is possible that he has already done what he needed to do.”
“What?” Marra frowned. “That was an hour ago!”
“Yes. And perhaps we would have been attacked in the goblin market if we had not had a large bodyguard walking with us, and his purpose is over and done.”
Marra blinked. “Do you … do you think that’s likely?”
The dust-wife shrugged yet again.
“But if it isn’t, we still need him!”
“Indeed. But just because you need someone doesn’t mean that they are under any obligation to provide. He may leave to take his chances elsewhere.”
“I have not left,” said Fenris from the shadows. Marra jumped. How could a man walk so silently? And how much had he heard?