She pulled something out of a pocket—Marra got a glimpse of orange red, like cinnabar—and dusted it over her hands, then knocked on the coffin lid as if it were a door.
Marra expected it to take a few minutes, as the drowned boy had, a slow swelling of horror as the ghost manifested itself, but she barely had time to brace herself before the room erupted.
Dust exploded up from the coffin. Broken tiles flew around the room. Fenris flung himself over Agnes and Marra, while Bonedog yapped silently, trying to catch one in his mouth. Only the dust-wife was unmoved, standing in the center of the chaos, with the light of the moon and her familiar’s shadow falling over her like a shield.
“Calm yourself,” she said. “Or I’ll lay you back down and find another spirit to work with. Your rage does not impress me.”
The entire sarcophagus twisted as it came alive, bouncing on the slab, and then it rolled to one side so that the death mask faced them. The beautiful face was still and calm but the eyes were alive and smoldering with fury.
you wake me!
The voice was made of echoes, of small green tiles falling from the badly mortared sarcophagus, of golden ornaments rattling together like metal cobwebs.
you dare to wake me!
peasant! commoner! you come into the tomb of the great … the great … the consort of kings, the great …
“Forgotten your name, have you?” asked the dust-wife. “Well, it happens, kings and commoners alike.” She thumped her staff on the floor of the tomb. “So what kept you furious all this time?”
replaced replaced replaced! The wind went around the room again. set aside! how dare they, how dare they. do they not know who I am? the great … the great … Again the stirring wind, the sense of a shriek somewhere beyond human hearing, like bats hunting overhead.
“Poor thing,” murmured Agnes, having freed herself from Fenris’s attempt to protect her. “Set aside, were you? Were you the king’s mistress?”
mistress! I was his wife of seven years! but I bore him no child so he took another and when her brats were murdered with a scarlet cord, they put the blame on me! me!
“Did you murder them?” asked the dust-wife, sounding interested rather than horrified.
no.
I wish I had.
if they would blame me and send me home to my parents to die, at least I might have done the crime.
I did not love them.
but no.
Marra was starting to think that Vorling had come by his wickedness honestly, at least.
“It seems we’ve stumbled on an ancient scandal,” said Agnes. “A daughter of the king sent home in disgrace.”
disgrace.
oh yes.
they could not kill me, you know, so they locked me up in here.
I was buried alive to hide their shame.
Fenris inhaled sharply.
does that shock you, peasant?
it shocked me down here in the dark.
I screamed and no one came and eventually I died and still no one came.
“So they buried you alive…” The dust-wife frowned. “Do you know the layout of the catacombs?”
no.
why would I?
I am a queen, not a crawler of tombs.
The dust-wife narrowed her eyes. “What did you see when they brought you here to bury you? They must have already begun your father’s tomb, but what did your grandfather’s tomb look like?”
The death mask rolled its painted eyes.
I don’t care.
he is long dead and he was dull.
I am a queen and the consort of kings. I am the great …
The dust-wife slapped her red-tinted palm against the sarcophagus and the spirit yelped as if it had been struck.
aah!
how dare you, peasant.
do you not know who I am?
“No, and at the moment, neither do you.”
The spirit went raging around the room, tiles flying. The dust-wife lifted her hand again and it quieted. When it spoke next, the voice was sullen, the distant keening of resentful birds.
he was buried with his boat.
he always talked of it until I wanted to scream.
the raids up the rivers when he was young.
dull dull dull.
“Thank you,” said the dust-wife gravely. “That is very helpful.”
I do not care about helping you.
you are also dull.
the thief-wheel will catch you soon enough and you will go wailing through the dark forever.
do not think that I will acknowledge you, peasant.
“Thief-wheel?” said the dust-wife, but the ghost only laughed. One last, weak sweep around the crypt, stirring the broken jade fragments to knee height, and then the death mask closed its eyes and the sarcophagus was only a coffin knocked off its plinth, and the gold ornaments fell silent.