“I shouldn’t have,” whispered Agnes. “It was on a mouse. I … I said it would die before its seventeenth birthday. I’d read a story with a princess who was cursed and … well, I shouldn’t have, but I did. And it took. I felt it. It was like a black stain on that poor little thing’s future.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I tried to tell myself that mice hardly ever live past two anyway. Most of them don’t live anywhere near that long. But what if it would have been a particularly long-lived mouse and I cursed it?”
Sweet Lady of Grackles, thought Marra. She’s genuinely upset that she might have stopped a mouse from becoming ancient. Because of course she is.
“You said before that health was the only gift you could give that anyone would want,” said the dust-wife. “Were there other gifts? Ones that you think no one would want?”
Agnes, wilting beneath the inquisition, hung her head. “Yes. Keen whiskers. I’m good at keen whiskers. It isn’t much good for anything but kittens and mice, though. You can’t give a human baby keen whiskers. It wouldn’t work—or what if it did?”
Marra pictured a child in the cradle suddenly growing a full set of cat whiskers and put her hand over her mouth.
“Now, that would be an interesting experiment,” said the dust-wife.
“No,” said Agnes, with surprising firmness. “No, I wouldn’t do it. It’s not fair to the child. It’s not decent.”
“I suppose.” The dust-wife didn’t sound entirely convinced. “Any others you managed?”
“Well, I blessed a whole litter of mice that cats wouldn’t eat them. But I don’t think that’s very useful for a child, either. And then once I said a kitten would have many fine sons.”
All three of them looked at her sharply. Bonedog, sensing something, whined.
“I’d just been reading a book, you see, and it had a king and a queen and she bore him … I was twelve! I didn’t think!”
“What happened?” asked Marra. In her head, her mother’s words echoed around and around, like a coin in a begging bowl. We shall hope the next child is a son. Kania is riding a dragon, and all of us in the kingdom are riding along with her … hope the next child is a son, hope the next child is a son …
“It was awful,” said Agnes. “She had six litters and every kitten was a tom. The barn was overrun. Nothing but fighting and pissing everywhere, and yowling when they weren’t pissing.”
“Just like the barracks,” said Fenris nostalgically.
“Interesting,” said the dust-wife slowly. “So you are rather more versatile than you claim, but health is the only gift that you’re willing to give.”
“Health can’t go wrong,” said Agnes. “Most of the rest can. If you bless a mouse that they’ll always be happy, they run right out in front of a cat and get happily eaten. But health always works. No one regrets being healthy.”
“What did the prince’s godmother say?” asked the dust-wife, turning to Marra. “Her exact words?”
Marra wracked her brain, drawing up the image of the ancient godmother, the stained-glass skin stretched over bone. “‘I shall serve her as I have served all her line, my life bound to theirs. No foreign magic shall harm them. No enemy shall topple their throne. As it has been for all the children of the royal house, so shall it be for her, as long as I draw breath.’”
Agnes sighed. “That’s a good one,” she said. “A big one. I couldn’t do that.”
“That’s what we’re up against,” said Marra. “Vorling can’t be harmed by foreign magic. Supposedly the Northern Kingdom’s enemies are always throwing spells at them, but they don’t take.” She remembered the king, aged and infirm before he had turned fifty. “But it burns them out. I wish it would burn Vorling out faster.”
“Can his guards be harmed by magic?” asked Fenris.
“Eh?”
“Well, if Lady Fox here can arrange to put his guards to sleep, I can just stab him.”
The dust-wife snorted. Agnes’s eyes were very round.
“What?” said Fenris. “Simple plans are best.”
“You’re not wrong, but I doubt I can put an entire palace to sleep,” said the dust-wife. “Particularly since I’ve never put even one person to sleep. I have a great many talents, including raising the dead, but if you want lullabies, that’s someone else.”