Ozark Fantasy - Twelve Fair Kingdoms Part 22

"Told you she wouldn't," said Granny Hazelbide smugly. "She's

ornery; always was, always will be. You'll get nothing out of her."

"Not true, Granny," I answered, "you'll get a good deal out of me. I will be calling Full Council later... after supper, Mother, you needn't think about it now... to tell you about a lot of things that need discussing badly."

"Your 'adventures,' I suppose," said my grandmother Ruth."They were not of my choosing, Grandmother," I reminded her, "they went with the choice of measure to be taken, all duly voted on by you and everybody there at the time. I'll take my fair share of blame, but I warn you I'll not take what's not coming to me... and I learned a lot that will need tending to before the Jubilee."Patience of Clark looked at me like I'd said a broad word."Responsible," she said, "do not say that to me. Do not even suggest that. We're going under for the third time already in 'what has to be done before the Jubilee'... don't you make it worse." And I knew then whose shoulders had taken on the load for me in that part of the field while I'd been gone.

However, Patience meant food to prepare and rooms to clean and suchlike, and training new staff. I was thinking of a promise made to a Gentle in a Purdy guestchamber, and settling the question of whether we should-or could-try for a delayed celebration of the claimed appearance of a Skerry, just in case. And there was the matter of the feuding on Arkansaw to be laid out for them, and just how the rest of the Families might fit in to that, and how that would tend to complicate both the security arrangements and the seating ones.

I would not be taking up with them the matter of what I'd done at Castle Traveller, nor what might be done in advance of the Jubilee to forestall their putting my blunder to use; that I'd have to deal with myself, in private, and I had a feeling in my heart that I knew the answer already. Nothing to be done but wait, and deal with it when it came, I'd wager, though I'd search the timelines as far as my wit and skill would take me, on the off chance. But that would not be on the Council agenda.

Nor would the name of Una of Clark. Much good seven years of silence was going to do us if I didn't observe it myself. "I found out who was back of all the mischief," I said calmly, "and that we had the thing hindside to, and I put a stop to it. There'll be no more wobbly Mules, I promise you. But for the sake of the Families involved, there'll be no pa.s.sing on of names, either, from my lips or any others."

"Families involved..." That was Jubal Brooks. "Then there were more than one."

"In a manner of speaking, Jubal Brooks," I said. In a manner of speaking. The Travellers for sure-I'd not been wrong in thinking them guilty; without the strokings and whisperings of Gabriel Laddercane Traveller the 34th there'd of been no shenanigans from Una of Clark. She'd of bounced her babies on her knee, and doted on her husband, and died a good woman. And no way of knowing who'd put Gabriel up to that, nor how many long years it might well have been planned. And the Clarks for sure, by reason of Una's direct hand. But only those two, I thought, only those two. I'd not repeated the Insertion Transformation that night at Castle Airy, to see if any other faces would turn up in my bowl of springwater. I'd been rushed, and I'd been disgusted, and there'd not been either the time or the proper mood. And to make certain sure, I'd be doing that now I was home. I didn't expect, however, to trap anyone else. If there'd been any other name to babble, Una of Clark would of let it fall, in sheer terror. "You're mean not to tell, Responsible," said Thorn of Guthrie. "But then you were always mean." I smiled at my plate, and listened to Granny Hazelbide put her in her place, which she did more than adequately. My mother could not abide being left out of anything, even when it was for her own good and clearly for the general welfare. Granny dressed her both up and down, and she subsided. And when that was over, we all walked down to the churchyard.

Vine of Motley and Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th did cheer as they saw us coming, and I could see their point. Eight weeks camped under that tree must have been wearisome, even in the sort of luxury accommodations they'd provided for themselves. And I could well believe that Vine of Motley's arms itched to hold her own baby, instead of the servingmaid's she'd nursed these past two months. In her place I'd of been impatient, too, and I was glad I hadn't waited to change my clothes after all.

"Hurry up," I told the Magician of Rank that had joined us in some haste at the Castle back doors. He was called Veritas Truebreed Motley the 4th, a name some found overly fancy- which accounted for its only coming round four times in all these years- but there was no quarrel with his skill. Once I'd a.s.sured him that whatever held that baby couldn't be anything much more complicated or dangerous than Granny Magic, and clumsily done at that, he didn't waste either time or energy. At fifty-three going on fifty-four he was a sure and experienced man with his Formalisms & Transformations, and he made no fuss whatever over bringing Terrence Merryweather McDaniels the 6th down to his parents. He didn't even bother with herbs; he just scuffed a few cedar needles into suitable patterns, flicked his fingers with the supple ease of long practice, and the baby floated right down to his daddy, gurgling and cooing and obviously without so much as a heat rash to mar his perfection.

"Oh, Halliday Joseph McDaniels, do give him to me!" cried Vine of Motley. "Please let me have him!" "Certainly, darlin'," said Halliday Joseph, grinning so I feared he'd crack his face. And he pa.s.sed the child over to Vine of Motley and took the servingmaid's baby in exchange. She popped up instantly and relieved him of that burden, and I made a mental note that she was to be rewarded handsomely for her part in all of this. Discreetly, but handsomely. Her name was Flag of Airy, for the Ozark iris that looked quite a lot like the pictures we had from Earth; and she was, as I recalled, just on fifteen, and wife of an Attendant that was a Clark by birth. I thought that a small Bestowing of an acre or two of farmland would not be out of place, and I'd have it seen to. Two months was a long time to watch your own child suckled at another woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and to know that your first task when you had it back-if you had it back, because she would not of been human if she hadn't worried that something might go wrong-would be weaning that babe to a cup. No, a couple of acres to put a small house on would not strain Bright.w.a.ter, though the land we still had to give away was almost gone-this was a time that justified parting with it, even beyond the Family proper. And Flag of Airy would be pleased to be the lady of a house instead of a servant in Castle Bright.w.a.ter. It wouldn't make it up to her completely for what she'd sacrificed, I didn't suppose; having no baby myself I was a poor judge. But it seemed to me it ought to lessen the ache a little. Happy! We were for sure happy that day. The McDaniels insisted on packing up and heading for home at once (they didn't say "before something else happens" but no doubt they were thinking it), and n.o.body there that wouldn't of done the same in their place, though we protested politely. But the rest of us were in no mood for any kind of labor. The air was golden, the cedar sighed over us, and the churchyard was a credit to its Maker with white and yellow and purple violets, and young daisies, and all the spring flowers of Earth that had, praise be, taken to the soil of Ozark without so much as a dapple to their leaves to show strain. There'd be plenty of work to do later, after supper; it would be a long Council, and we'd all come out of it sobered, even with me keeping back the worst of it.

For the moment, though, we weren't worrying about that or anything else. I set aside my corselet and cape, my boots and gloves - carefully, under the sharp eyes of Granny Hazelbide-and rolled up my puffed and beornamented sleeves to feel the warm sun on my arms. We sent for a picnic from the Castle. And we lay all through that day under the cedars (I had to send the Lewises a note thanking them, I thought, while I was tying up loose ends... I had not known how much I loved those three cedars they'd nurtured in our churchyard until I lay there lazy under them and saw them with fresh eyes); and we talked of minor things. The children ran wild and wore themselves into stupors before it was time to head home for supper, playing circle games and tag and hide-and-seek and Little Sally Waters all over the churchyard, and wading in the creek while their mothers scolded halfheartedly and turned a blind eye and deaf ear most of the time.

I managed to tie down tight again in that corner of my mind reserved for the awful my encounter with the young uncle at Castle Wommack. That I would look at when the Jubilee was over; unless, the Skies help us all, he came to the Jubilee. Stuff that away, Responsible, I told myself hastily; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and if it happened I'd have to deal with it then. I wasn't going to let it spoil my homecoming day, not that nor any of the rest

of it. Not this one day.

"Glad to see you appreciate your homeplace, missy," said my Granny, giving me a wicked dig in the ribs to be sure I was paying attention. "Gra.s.s wasn't quite as green as you thought it'd be elsewhere, eh?"

"Don't torment me, Granny Hazelbide," I pleaded with her. "I'm so comfortable... and so glad to be here! Leave me in peace.""Leave you in peace?""Please, Granny Hazelbide. Pretty please."

"Think you deserve peace, young lady?" she demanded."No, Granny, I doubt I deserve it atall," I said frankly. "I just askedfor it-I didn't say I had it coming to me."

She chuckled. And patted my knee.

"All right, then," she said. "Long as you're staying honest with your poor old Granny."

She didn't believe I was honest for a minute, nor did I, but it

appeared she was willing to call temporary truce. I closed my eyes, so full of my undeserved bliss that I couldn't hold any more, and took a nap. That at least, considering the way I'd been having to spend my nights, I had earned.

END OF BOOK ONE.

Appendix

WHY WE ARE HERE.

(A TEACHING STORY).

A very long time ago, and much farther away than you might think, there were Twelve Families, all living on a world Earth- and they were purely disgusted.

Earth, it's said, had been green and gold and beautiful- a gardenplace and a homeplace. But the people that lived there had neglected it and abused it, year after weary year, till it was entirely spoiled, till it was a ruin and a wreck and a pitiful, pitiful sight.

The water was dirty and the air was foul; the creatures all were sorry and warped and twisted. They say the fish that swam the creeks and rivers had become so strange that a person couldn't even look at them, let alone eat them.

And then the people, they say, began to grow twisted, too. Not in their bodies- though living where they did that was no doubt ahead of them- but in their minds and in their hearts. No person could be trusted in those times. Hurting, they say, was done for the pleasure of hurting. And the things that were done in those days, we are told, one human hand against another, do not bear repeating.

The Twelve Families, they were a patient people. They had lived a long time on Earth, keeping themselves to themselves, cherishing their homes and their land, and they waited as long as they could. But the day came, the day came, when First Granny said, "Enough's enough, and this is too much!" And everyone looked around at the patheticness of it all, and they agreed with her.

And so, in the year Two Thousand and Twelve- as was fitting- the Twelve Families took The Ship and left Earth together, and went in search of a new homeworld. It had to be a place enough like Earth so that they could fit there; and it had to be hidden away enough so that they could keep themselves to themselves forever and ever more. And they took with them just as little as they possibly could from Earth, with First Granny and the Captain standing right in the door of The Ship, they say, throwing things out as fast as people carried them in.

"The less of that trash goes with us," said First Granny, paying no mind to the complaints and the caterwauling, "the less likely we are to have to do this every time we turn around." (By which she meant every two thousand years or so.) And it would appear that she was right, because a thousand years have gone by, and here we are still, and mightily satisfied with our lot.

And what may have become of Earth we do not know; and the less thought about that the better for us all.

HOW WE CAME TO LOSE THE BIBLE.

(A TEACHING STORY).

A very long time ago, and a good deal closer by than you might think, the Twelve Families and the Captain and First Granny turned their attention to bringing The Ship down for landfall nice and easy. Just nice and easy!

Made no nevermind that the fuel was almost all gone in The Ship's engines. Made no nevermind that through near nine years under solar sails spread round The Ship like petals of a great lily to gather the solar winds, that fuel somehow had changed. They still had to get down.

"Fool stuffs clabbered," said First Granny with total contempt, tapping the toe of her high-topped high-heeled pointy-toed black patent leather shoes.

"Fuel can't clabber," the Captain told her politely. "It's not even liquid to start with, ma'am-begging your pardon." "Same thing," said First Granny, sticking out her chin. "Put it into any frame of circ.u.mstance that suits you, Captain Aaron Dunn McDaniels, I don't mind! It's spoilt-as fuel-and that's the same thing as clabbered."

"Yes, ma'am," said the Captain, as was proper. But they still had to get down. They had never thought it would take them nine years to find a new homeworld enough like Earth to live on, and lonely enough to make neighbors an unlikely occurrence, and having no other thinking creatures unwilling and unable to let them share the land.

All the food was gone, and all the stuff for making more, and nothing was left but the food seeds packed away dormant in their sterile tubes waiting for new dirt. All of the clothes they'd brought with them were worn out and raggedy and getting too thin even for the needs of modesty.

And the animals, the live ones, they were getting what First Granny somberly referred to as That Look. What might be happening to the stores of embryos sleeping in their tubes, no one could say till they were decanted; but it was worrisome.

Going on was out of the question, and had been the last seven days.

They had to get down.

First Granny took all the Magicians to the Ship's Chapel, and they did what they could do. And Captain Aaron Dunn McDaniels took all the crew to the bridge and the engine room, and they did what they could do.

And n.o.body stinted.But the fuel failed them just as they saw a green land rush up beneath them-just as they saw it!-and The Ship went crippled into what we now call the Outward Deeps.

Well, what's meant to be will be, they say, and that appears to be true. For even as the water closed over the dying Ship and First Granny told the children to stop their caterwauling and prepare to meet their Maker with their mouths shut and their eyes open, a wonderful thing happened. Just a wonderful thing!

Forty of them there were, shaped like the great whales of Earth, but that their tails split three ways instead of two. And their color was the royal purple, the purple of majestic sovereignty.

They met The Ship as it fell, rising up in a circle as it sank toward the bottom. And they bore it up on their backs as easy as a man packs a baby, and laid it out in the shallows, where the Captain and

the crew could get The Ship's door open, and everybody could wade right out of there to safety.

They were the Wise Ones, so named by First Granny; and it may be

that they live there still in the Outward Deeps. n.o.body knows, and

n.o.body needs to know.And it was during that glad wading to sh.o.r.e just before First Granny set her foot on the land and cried, "Well, the Kingdom's come at last, praise be!" that the ancient holy book-its name was BIBLE-was lost to the Twelve Families. First Granny, she thought the Captain had it, it seems. And the Captain, he thought First Grannyhad it. Naturally. And there was a child of three that claimed he'd seen a Wise One swallow it-waterproof, radiationproof, fireproof, crashproof box and all. And for all we know that may be true. For sure it's never washed up on any coast of Ozark, all these many hundred years.

"Botheration," First Granny said when they realized it was gone.

And the Captain allowed as how he was deeply sorry.

"Well," said First Granny, "I suppose we'll just have to Make Do."

And so we have, ever since.

THE FLYING DULCIMER.

(A TEACHING STORY).

A very long time ago, and much further away than you might think, when the Twelve Families were preparing to leave Earth, there was a young woman named Rozasharn. Now Rozasharn was a Purdy by birth, and it happened that the Purdys had a fine and famous dulcimer. It was of the sweetest fruitwood, and it was cut slim-waisted and curled, and it had inlays of mother-of-pearl in the shapes of hearts and roses and twining vines and little mourning doves. It was purely beautiful, and when they told Rozasharn it had to be left behind, she was outraged. Just outraged!

"Rozasharn," said First Granny, "we have on The Ship two guitars, two banjos, two dulcimers, two autoharps, two fiddles-which is one too many, if you ask me-two mouth-harps, two mandolins, and a dobro. Each was chosen because the man or woman that played it was the finest player we knew, and it will serve to while away the time, and to be a model for building more such when we land. But that's enough." And then she gave Rozasharn a curled-lip look and said, "You can't even carry a tune, Rozasharn, let alone play that dulcimer!"

Rozasharn yes-ma'amed, but she went away bitter and she wasn't about to give in. The Purdy dulcimer was the prettiest she'd ever seen, and she intended it to go on The Ship no matter what First Granny said.

So Rozasharn began to plan her magic. There was a Spell of Invisibility, of course, but that took a lot of work to get going and even more to maintain, and Rozasharn wasn't sure she was up to it. A Spell of Distraction, on the other hand, was a simpler matter, and she decided to set one of those on the dulcimer, to make it appear it was only her shawl. Rozasharn went through her motions and cast the Spell, and found herself a bit embarra.s.sed; she had in her hands a truly splendid shawl, covered with hearts and roses and twining vines and little mourning doves, and that was never going to get past First Granny. "Back up a bit, Rozasharn," Rozasharn told herself, "or you'll come out of this blistered."

What she settled on at last was three Spells. The first was to turn the dulcimer itself plain, and that one worked all right. The second was to make the plain dulcimer appear to be a shawl, and that one seemed to be in good shape to the eye, although it was uncomfortable to her shoulders, since she could still feel the pegs and the strings and the edges of the wood; but she considered it her family duty to put up with it. And the third was to take off the other two, and she tried that out, and it worked. Nothing was left but to calculate the weight she had to leave behind so no one would suspect, and that meant leaving buried in her back yard two pairs of shoes and a half-slip she'd never liked anyway, and she made it onto The Ship right under First Granny's nose, the dulcimer draped round her shoulders and looking for all the world like a plain old shawl. Just like it!

Well, she would of been all right, would Rozasharn-if she'd had a little self-control. But when landing time came she just could not resist letting everyone know the trick she'd played, and as she stepped onto the land of Ozark she cast the third Spell and stood there before everybody, holding the famous Purdy dulcimer and looking like b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

First Granny looked her up and she looked her down, and then she looked her up once more to be certain her eyes didn't deceive her, but she said nary a word. The Captain looked sorrowful, but he didn't speak either. And as the days pa.s.sed, and the Purdys settled in and built themselves a homeplace, Rozasharn began to feel comfortable.

And then came the morning when the last stick was in place, and the last curtain hung, and the last dish on the shelf, and Rozasharn looked out her front door and there stood First Granny with Macon Desirard Guthrie the 3rd at her right hand; and young Rozasharn's heart very nearly stopped. Macon Desirard Guthrie was no common person, but a man skilled in Formalisms & Transformations. If there was a more handy Magician on Ozark, Rozasharn didn't know who it might be.

"Stand aside, Rozasharn," said First Granny, "and let us come in."

And Rozasharn did that, most promptly, and there she stood while Macon Desirard Guthrie went through his Structural Descriptions and his Structural Indexes and his Rigorous Specifications of Coreference and his Global Constraints and a lot of other things of

that kind and caliber; and when he got through there were just three things that a person could do with, the Purdys' fancy dulcimer.

You could hang it on a peg on the back wall of a dark closet.