Fenris had a sort of matter-of-fact air that made it seem like the easiest thing in the world to go along. The drunk allowed himself to be escorted to the inn door, telling Fenris very seriously about blacksmiths and horse collars, and it should have worked, except that a bystander snickered and said, “Running from a nun, eh?”
“Oh hell,” said the dust-wife.
The drunk wheeled around. Everything happened very fast and all at once and Marra had to grab for Bonedog’s collar and then the drunk man was right there and something glittered in his hands and somebody shouted and Marra yelled, “Fenris, he has a knife!” and then, almost apologetically, Fenris stepped in close and punched the drunk in the head twice.
The man shook his head as if to clear it and Fenris punched him again. This time he fell down.
“And now I believe we should be going,” said Fenris. “Quickly.”
The three of them did not quite run out of the town, but they weren’t slow. Bonedog wanted to go back and bite the man and Marra’s shoulders ached from holding him.
When, after about twenty minutes, no one appeared to be chasing them, she relaxed enough to feel some other emotion, and it felt too much like anger for her liking. “Fenris!”
“Yes?”
“You could have died!” hissed Marra. “He had a knife!”
“But you would have gotten away,” said Fenris.
“But—” Marra gaped at him, not sure if she wanted to throw herself into his arms or shake him until his teeth rattled. “But you would have been dead!”
He shrugged.
Marra took a deep breath. Why was she angry? It didn’t make any sense to be angry, except that she’d been afraid and the fear didn’t know what to do with itself. It was just a drunk. You’re fighting a prince. You’ll face worse dangers than this.
“Enough,” said the dust-wife. “No one is dead, and let us get out of here while that’s still true.”
Chapter 11
It was easy to find the godmother, once they got to Trexel. Marra had visions of the dust-wife using magic or asking the dead, but what she actually did was lean over a fence and say, to a woman with three children and a harried expression, “Is there a godmother who blesses children about?”
The woman’s face briefly turned cheerful. “Oh yes— Don’t put that in your mouth! The godmother. She’s very kind— I swear to the saints, Owen, I will take you to market and sell you for a three-legged goat!—Five miles down the road, turn where it crosses the stream and go along the bank until— Owen, I’ve had about enough!—You’ll find a little house with a garden and a signpost out front. The sign’s fallen down, but the post is still there. There’s usually trumpet flower up the post and I don’t think we’ve had a hard enough frost yet— Owen! You leave that cat alone!”
These directions proved quite good, unlike Owen. They found the garden, the house, and a post with a wooden crosspiece and two rusted iron links that had probably held a sign at some point. The trumpet flower had gone up the pole and flowered extravagantly scarlet.
“Hello?” said Marra’s fairy godmother, looking up from her work in the garden. Marra knew her at once, though she had not seen her since she was in the cradle. Something inside her snapped toward the woman, like an iron filing snapping to a magnet. Her. There. That’s the one.
The garden was just slightly out of control. It was nothing that a week or two of work couldn’t fix, but the weeds were flourishing around the base of the plants and Marra could see the dried stems of last season’s beans still twined around the poles, despite the new growth covering them. None of the preparations for winter had been made, although the first frost would hit any day now. A little too much for one person.
Her godmother had the kind but faintly anxious look of someone who was permanently in just a little over her head. She smiled at Marra, a smile with a little worry at the edges, and started to say, “How can I hel—” and then a line formed between her eyes and in midsentence, she switched to “Oh! You’re one of mine, aren’t you?”
She dropped the stake that she had been trying, without success, to slide into the already rampant tomatoes. She was round and flushed and there were sweat drops on her forehead. As Marra watched the woman push to her feet, wiping at her face and leaving a streak of dirt across her cheek, it was hard not to compare her to the ancient aquiline majesty of Prince Vorling’s godmother. It was not a kind comparison. Marra felt a pang of something like despair.