Nettle & Bone

First Line:

The trees were full of crows and the woods were full of madmen. The pit was full of bones and her hands were full of wires.

* * *

"He made harp pegs of her fingers fair," Marra sang softly, tunelessly, under her breath. "And strung the bones with her golden hair. . . "

The crows called to each other from the trees in solemn voices. She wondered about the harper in the song, and what he had thought when he was building the harp of a dead woman's bones. He was probably the only person in the world who would understand what she was doing.

Assuming he even existed in the first place. And if he did, what kind of life do you lead where you find yourself building a harp out of corpses?

For that matter, what kind of life do you lead where you find yourself building a dog out of bones?

* * *

She scowled. He was a good dog. He had excellent bones and even if she had used too much wire and gotten it a bit muddled around the toes and one of the bones of the tail, she'd think that a decent person would stop and admire the craftsmanship before they screamed and ran away.

"No accounting for taste," she muttered.

* * *

She went to her room and curled into a ball of misery and decided that she would die of a broken heart. Minstrels would write sad songs about how she had turned her face to the wall and died of the false-heartedness of men.

She could not quite make up her mind whether she wanted to be a ghost who would haunt the convent or not. It would be very satisfying to be a sad-eyed, beautiful ghost who drifted through the halls, gazing up at the moon and weeping silently, as a warning to other young women. On the other hand, she was still short and round-faced and sturdy, and there were very few ghost stories about short, sturdy women. Marra had not managed to be pale and willowy and consumptive at any point in eighteen years of life and did not think she could achieve it before she died. Possibly it would be better to just have songs made about her.

* * *

It had occurred to her about an hour earlier that she did not know how the minstrels would find out that she existed in order to write the sad songs in the first place, and her mind was somewhat occupied with this problem. Did you write them letters?

* * *

The flat stones made for uneven footing. She set her feet carefully. If she had to run, she would risk breaking an ankle or worse. They rattled and slid underfoot, talking to each other in stone language, saying all the words they had been saving up until the next time a human walked across them.

* * *

He didn't say anything, but his eyebrows were eloquent.

* * *

Marra jammed her elbow into his side, which was rather like elbowing a stone wall. He grunted, possibly to be polite.

* * *

The other room had two narrow beds with a small table and basin between them and a shuttered window. Marra collapsed onto one with a groan and put her head in her hands.

"Are you all right?" asked Fenris.

"Horrible puppet," she said, "demon chicken, fairy godmother." 

"And it's a fool's errand and we're all going to die," said Fenris. He patted her shoulder. "Still, I have to admit I didn't see the chicken or the puppet coming."

* * *

He looked astonished, as if this was not something he had ever considered, as if the sun had risen in the west and then fallen from the sky.