Nothing is fair, except that we try to make it so. That’s the point of humans, maybe, to fix things the gods haven’t managed.
The front door opened. The brown hen squawked.
“We know how to get in,” said Fenris.
Chapter 17
“There’s always a haunted quarry,” the dust-wife explained. “People moving giant blocks of stone around like they do there, someone’s bound to get crushed sooner or later.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t know how long it’s been abandoned, but there’s definitely an opening to the catacombs there. There are a couple of curses and some bars on the entrance. The ghost who told me said that the bars have been there as long as he could remember, and he’s been dead longer than he was ever alive.” She sniffed. “Nice fellow. Chief stonemason once upon a time, one of those people who has to keep checking up on everything. That sort never lets death stop them.”
“What sort of curses?” asked Marra.
“Oh, they’re all ostentatious ones. Very impressive looking but nothing that will stick.” She scowled. “Once we’re inside, there may be real ones.”
“Do you think we can get to the old king’s tomb from there? The one who bound the godmother?”
“It’s as good a chance as any.”
“We have to go soon,” said Agnes. “Tomorrow night at the latest. They’ll be holding the christening in a few days, as soon as they’re sure the child will live. Three days is usual. She has to be unbound before that. Then I can go and … well, I have an idea.”
Marra barely heard her. A christening. A few days. It was happening. It was happening right now. All the talking and fretting and standing around and everything was suddenly falling together.
“How will we get into the palace itself?” asked Fenris. “The christening will be full of nobles and nobles come with guards. Are they just going to let us walk in, because we’ve got the queen’s sister with us?”
“Maybe,” said Marra. She looked over the other three, wondering if a princess, even a princess who was sister to the queen, would be able to sweep inside with a large dog and a woman with a chicken on her staff. After they treated us as poor relations the last time … No, it might not be that easy.
Agnes cleared her throat.
“I can get in,” she said.
“What?”
“How?”
“I’m a godmother,” said Agnes.
All three of them looked at her blankly.
“I know I wasn’t invited,” said Agnes. “That’s the point.”
“Eh?”
She smiled gently, that tiny, frazzled woman. “There’s only one story about godmothers that’s always true. Bad things happen if you don’t invite us to the christening.”
* * *
“Try to sleep,” said the dust-wife. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I suspect we’ll be glad to be well rested for it. We’ll go tomorrow night.”
“What about Miss Margaret?” asked Marra. “Don’t we have to…？” She trailed off, gesturing at her throat.
“Oh, that. Yes. We’ll offer before we go.”
Marra tried to sleep that night and couldn’t. She tossed and turned, her mind roiling. Agnes thought that she could do … something … at the christening. The dust-wife seemed to agree. Marra would have been much happier if she knew what, but Agnes had waved her hands and said that if it didn’t work, it would be better if nobody worried, and the dust-wife just folded her arms and said that Marra had come to her for help, not an education in magic. “Free the godmother and the protections go away,” she said. “That’s all you need to know. And once the protections are gone, there are a thousand magics that can … rectify … the situation.”
“You can’t tell me more?”
“The less you know, the less you can spill when you talk to your sister about getting us into the palace. You’re a terrible liar, Marra. You look as if you’re afraid the universe is ashamed of you.”
Marra didn’t want to accept this, but the dust-wife locked the door to the bedroom and left her to toss in bed and fail to sleep. Her sister had given birth. They were going to the palace of the dead. Her sister had given birth to a boy. Kania’s life was in terrible danger and if she died, she would be buried in one of the tombs underground, next to Vorling’s tomb, and she would have to stand next to him for eternity. Could ghosts torment one another? Would Vorling’s bones creep from his sarcophagus and hammer on the lid of Kania’s coffin?