Ozark Fantasy - Twelve Fair Kingdoms Part 6

"Responsible of Bright.w.a.ter, open your eyes," he said, in a voice all

silk and deep water, "and swoon me no fabricated swoons. You had a nasty knock on your head, you broke a collarbone and three ribs, and you were bruised, scratched, abraded, and generally grubby from head to foot-but you, and I might add, your fancy Mule, are in certified perfect condition at this moment. Every smallest part of you, I give you my word. That was the point of calling me, my girl, instead of a Granny."

"Confident, aren't you?" I said as coldly as possible, repossessing myself of my arm, and Myrrh of Guthrie remarked as how I reminded her very much of my sister, Troublesome.

"Neither one of you ever had any manners whatsoever," she said, "and my daughter deserves every bit of trouble the two of you have given her... bringing you up half wild and about one-third baked."

I took the bait, it being a good deal safer to look at her than at him, and I opened my eyes as ordered."h.e.l.lo, Grandmother," I said. "How nice to see you.""On the contrary!" she said. "Nothing nice about it. It's a disaster, and I'm pretty sure you know that. The young man on your left, the one you're avoiding because you can't resist him-and don't concern yourself about it, n.o.body can, and very useful he is, too- is your own kin, Michael Stepforth Guthrie the 11th. You be decent enough to greet him, instead of wasting it on me, and I'll guarantee you safe conduct past his wicked eyes and sorrier ways."

There was only one way to handle this kind of scene; some others might of been more enjoyable, but they wouldn't have been suitable. I sat up in the Guthrie bed, propped on my pillows, put a hand on each of my hips right through the bedclothes, gritted my teeth against the inevitable effect, and I looked Michael Stepforth Guthrie up and down... slowly... and then down and up, and then I looked him over once more in both directions.

"Twelve roses," I said, "twelve sugarpies, and twelve turtles! You are for sure the comeliest man ever my eyes have had the pleasure to behold, Mr. Guthrie. Your b.u.t.tocks, just for starters, are superb... and the line of your thigh! Law, cousin, you make my mouth water, on my word... turn around once, would you, and let me see the swing of your cape!"

Not a sound behind me from Myrrh of Guthrie; and I didn't glance at her, though I would of loved to see her face. Michael Stepforth's eyes lost their mocking laughter and became the iced green I was more accustomed to see in Guthrie eyes. I faced the ice, smiling, and there was a sudden soft snapping sound in the nervous silence. One rib, low on my right side.

"Petty," I said, and found the pain a useful distraction, since not breathing was out of the question. "Cousin, that was petty."

The next two ribs sounded just like an elderly uncle I'd once visited that had a habit of cracking his knuckles, and breathing became even more unhandy.

"See where bad manners will get you?" observed Myrrh of Guthrie. "And as for b.u.t.tocks-at fourteen a woman does not mention them, though I must agree with your estimate of Michael's. Who will now leave us alone, thank you kindly."

I didn't watch him sweep out of the room. His mischief had immunized me temporarily against his charm; you don't feel the pangs of desire through the pangs of broken ribs.

"Uncomfortable, are you?" said my grandmother, but she had the decency to move to the end of the bed where I wouldn't have to move around much to look at her while we talked.

"I wouldn't have him on my staff," I said crossly, hugging my ribs.

"He's an excellent Magician of Rank," she said. "Such quality doesn't grow on every bush, and I've need of him.""And if he takes to breaking your ribs, Grandmother?"She chuckled. "The man has principles," she said. "Infants and old ladies... and anyone he considers genuinely stupid, I believe... are safe from his tantrums. And do not ask me which of the three categories I have my immunity under, or I'll call him back."

I sniffed, and gasped at the result; the breaks would be neat, and simple, but they were a three-p.r.o.nged fire in my side. And what can't be cured for the moment must be endured for the moment.

"Grandmother," I said, "while we're on the subject of manners, would you care to explain why my visit has to be called a 'disaster'?

That strikes me as mighty sorry hospitality. Castle Guthrie wealthy as sin from the shipping revenues, and the peachapple orchards, andyour share of the mines in the Wilderness. You telling me you can't afford to put up one girlchild for twenty-four hours?"

'It's the twenty-four hours that we can't afford," she said, and she sounded like she meant it. "This is not one of your la-di-da city Castles, we're busy here. Right now we're so busy- I want you gone within the hour, young lady. With your ribs set right, of course."

"Not possible," I said firmly."Responsible," she said, "you exasperate me!""Myrrh of Guthrie," I said back, "you bewilder me. Here I lie, your own daughter's daughter, three ribs broken by your own Magician of Rank, not to mention whoever or whatever was responsible for that encounter my Mule and I had with the architecture that graces your docks-"

"That was not the work of Michael Stepforth Guthrie!""And how do you know that?"Her lips narrowed, and she turned a single golden ring round and round on her left hand. Her wedding ring, plain except for the ever-

present crest.

"I am not entirely ignorant," she said, which I knew to be true, "and though he's skilled he's like any other young man, a regular pane of gla.s.s. I know what he was doing at the time of your undignified arrival."

"If he's as skilled as you say, he's equally skilled at pretending to a

transparency that's convenient for his purposes. Who trained him?"

"His father. And a Magician whose name you'll know... Crimson of Airy." Crimson of Airy... now there was a name. It was a concoction absolutely typical of Castle Airy, and in dreadful taste, but she had lived up to it. She was a one, and she had everything that went with being a one, and of the five women to become Magicians on Ozark in the thousand years since First Landing, only Crimson of Airy had made any mark. If it hadn't been forbidden, she'd have been a Magician of Rank herself, no question; and I knew her reputation. That of the father of Michael Stepforth Guthrie I didn't know, but my never hearing of him-plus the fact that he'd allowed a woman to meddle in his son's education for the profession -told me all I needed to know.

Myrrh of Guthrie leaned toward me and I burrowed into my pillows hastily, for it looked to me as if she was going to grab my shoulders and shake me, broken ribs and all. But she caught herself.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "You're thinking that it's our Michael Stepforth that's been souring your milk and kidnapping babies and making your Mules giddy, purely because he'd be able. I'll grant you he's that good, I won't deny it-but he's been far too busy here to be involved."

"Too busy for such piddly stuff as souring milk? And sending some trash into a church after one little baby, with the Spell already set?" It's not that easy to scoff with three broken ribs, but I scoffed. "Dear Grandmother," I said, "with every word you speak you undo three others. Either the man's a b.u.mbler and an egotistical fraud-which I'll not accept, not if Crimson of Airy taught him his tricks, and very lucky we are that she's dead at last!-or he is more than clever enough to tend to whatever brews here at Castle Guthrie and carry on all that other mischief with one of his long clever fingers, just on the side! And the latter, Myrrh of Guthrie, the latter is the truth of it!"

"You say that only because you don't know what's brewing here!" she hissed at me. "It's been weeks, if not months, since he's had more than s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep... the Parsons are at our backs and at our throats, the Purdys are determined to ruin us all and have ignorance and black luck enough to do it, and you come here, now, at a time like this!"

"Grandmother!" I lay back, easy, and realized that I was a rattled young woman and that the pain was fast getting to me. "Grandmother, what are you talking about? I agree that the Purdys make bad neighbors; very well. Granted. They seem forever determined to win whatever foolishness awards are going round. But the only ruin the Purdys will bring is ruin to themselves, and the Farsons have their own Kingdom to run."

"You're ignorant," she said flatly. "Plain ignorant!" It was possible, I was beginning to realize, that I was. I had more than a strong suspicion that I had been deliberately ignorant... and I would of given a large sum for the intelligence reports that lay in my desk back at Bright.w.a.ter. I had read them, I would never have not read them, but had I perhaps been reading them with a selecting eye for what I preferred to find there, and ignoring patterns that would have required some effort?

My grandmother stood up suddenly, hurting me as she jarred the bed and well aware that she hurt me. "I want you up," she said, "since you won't leave. Up and able- bodied. If you insist on meddling in our affairs because Bright.w.a.ter can't manage its own, then I intend you to hear just what it is you're meddling in! You lie there, and I'll send Michael Stepforth -oh, hush your mouth, he'll do what needs doing on orders from me, and no nonsense out of him!-and an Attendant will be here in one hour to bring you down to the Hall. Where we'll tell you what you've gone and blundered into!"

"I know my way, Grandmother," I reminded her mildly. "I've been here before." "An Attendant will come for you," she said again. "I'll hear no more of our lack of hospitality out of you, or from anyone else. And a Reception and Dance in your honor this evening, missy, as befits a Castle rolling in its wealth!"

My grandmother was furious, that was quite clear without her slamming the door behind her and making all the crests hanging about rattle on their hooks. I hadn't expected warmth here, but this exceeded my expectations; I was amazed. And where was her husband, her own sixth cousin with the utterly prosaic name and the utterly prosaic manner? The most boring of all the Guthries? Ordinarily he would at least have been mentioned, if not present for our little altercation... where was James John Guthrie the 17th in the midst of my welcome?

"A man's name is chosen for euphony," I said aloud, "and James John Guthrie is not euphonious. It sounds like three rocks landing on a pavement, and the third one bouncing."

Whereupon something replied, after a fashion. Considering what I had said, "Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiiild!" did not really follow.

I topped it.

"Three times six is eighteen," I told the thing, and then there were

eighteen of them, and I was glad I hadn't decided to say nine times nine.

"Really!"

"Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiiiiiiild!" they all said in

chorus. Eighteen giant seagulls, four feet tall and a wingspread to match, standing round my bed flopping those wings and ordering me in perfect harmony to be ashamed of my wickedness.

If they'd been real I'd have turned all eighteen into fleas and deposited them neatly in the high collar of Michael Stepforth's cape, perhaps, but I was far too miserable to waste my time working Transformations on fakes. I closed my eyes instead and let the pseudobirds do their chant while I tried hard not to breathe, and after ten, eleven repet.i.tions their creator finally appeared in my doorway-not bothering to knock-and came striding in, walking through one of his birds to reach my side.

"Look up, please," he said crisply.

"Why? To view your little flock? No, thank you. I don't care for squawkers."

"Seagulls."

"They look like squawkers to me," I said. "Might could be your Spells are faulty." (I wished! I tried to imagine a faulty Spell worked up by Crimson of Airy, and found the thought ridiculous.) "You look up here or I'll put all the gulls in bed with you," he said placidly. "And you wouldn't like that; they're awfully dirty." It was a pain as bad as the pain in my ribs to have to put up with his sa.s.s; on the other hand, I wasn't about to give in to the temptation to do magic beyond my permitted level under this one's nose. Much as some old-fashioned staple along the lines of turning him into a reptile would have done me good, much as I longed for the tiny satisfaction of maybe just snapping one of his perfect fingerbones, I was not that foolish. Even if I could have managed something like that with all my supplies packed away in a wardrobe and three of my ribs broken, there was no sense to giving him any further smallest advantage. I lay still, and I looked up.

Hmmmmm. Structural Description... Structural Change... Coreferential Indexes. All properly formal and not a fingertip out of place. The double-barred arrow appeared in the air, glowing gold, quivering slightly, and the pain faded away as the arrow did. Perhaps ninety seconds total time. I was impressed. It always takes longer to undo things than to do them, and more formal operations are required. He was as good as my grandmother said he was. I grinned at him.

"Ask me no fool questions," he said grimly, "and don't offer me any more of your uncalled-for and unappreciated a.s.sessments of my person. Just thank me, please, and show you have some breeding." "Thank you kindly, Magician of Rank Michael Stepforth Guthrie the 11th," I said promptly. "You are certainly handy at your work, and I intend to mention it everywhere I go." And I batted my lashes at him, and crossed my hands over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Your Attendant will be along soon," he said, looking clear over my head and out the window, "and you are now in perfect condition. And leave off your spurs, you'll mark up the stairs. We're waiting for you-patiently-down in the small Hall."

"And your bill? For services rendered, Michael Stepforth?" "Courtesy of the house," he said. "No charge." He raised both his hands in the mock-magic gesture of the stage magician, fanning his fingers open and shut and open again. And then he turned on his heel and swept out of the room, the cape swirling about him. And the gulls made a soft little noise and disappeared.

I thanked the Attendant and walked into the Hall, where I had spent a number of reasonably pleasant Hallow Evens and Midsummer Days over the years. There had been children then, and costumes and candy, and cakes and beer and an atmosphere of frolic. There was none of that today.

They sat in high-backed chairs about a table at the far end of the room, filling a windowed corner through which I could see the sun going down. Myrrh of Guthrie. The previously absent James John, looking rumpled. Michael Stepforth Guthrie. Two unmarried sons in their late teens, whose names I did not remember. And one Granny, whose name I did know. Whatever else I might neglect, I did not neglect the Grannys; I had a file on every one of them, and I knew it by heart, and they didn't gather an Ozark weed that I didn't know it. This one was a harmless old soul, name of Granny Stillmeadow, that specialized in liniments and party Charms, and I chose the chair next to hers and let her pat my knee.

Supper appeared the minute I took my place, and by the time I'd been introduced to the two boys it had been served and we were well into it. And if Myrrh of Guthrie was serious about the Reception and Dance scheduled for that same evening there was surely no time to fool about. I didn't recognize the beast that I was eating, but I recognized it for a beast, and I knew both the vegetables. And I was sure they wouldn't poison me in front of the servants, so I fell to. And I listened.

Castle Farson, it appeared, had been sending bands of traders across the Wilderness to the Guthrie docks, and offering higher bids for supplies than those authorized to the Guthrie personnel. The Guthries were willing to allow that that might have been due to an unfortunate incident in which a charge set by a Guthrie mining crew had caved in a gem mine on the very edge of Kingdom Farson. However, it seemed that although the mine was in Wilderness Lands and therefore technically common property, the Farsons felt that the Guthries were demanding more than their share of the profits from the mine, which meant their miners might just conceivably have been hara.s.sing the Guthrie miners who set the charge. (What the Purdys had been doing through all this, and whether they'd been getting any of their legitimate share of the profits, was not mentioned.) But it did come up that a Purdy had managed to get himself killed-according to both the Guthries and the Parsons, it was deliberate, which I found it hard to believe, even for the Purdys-in a spectacularly disgusting way. (Granny Stillmeadow was of the opinion that only a Magician of Rank could of arranged it, considering the curious shape the body had a.s.sumed before it was found.) And this getting killed had happened in the Farson Castle Hall, while the Guthries were there protesting the latest iniquity perpetrated by the Farsons, and a Farson Granny had cried "Privilege!" and they'd had to call a three-Kingdom hearing, which by law had to be held on common ground in the Wilderness, and was still going on, and that was costing an arm and a leg and another arm. And a Purdy spy had hacked her ridiculous way through the Wilderness to tell the Guthries that the Farsons were stealing them all blind by working another gem mine on the Purdy's southern border, tunneling from its Wilderness entrance clear under the Guthrie lands-which was something the Guthries already knew -but, since the poor thing had ruined herself for life scrabbling around on foot through the underbrush and whatnot and getting lost over and over to bring information that she had thought would prove the Purdy loyalty to the Guthries, and since she claimed to have been a.s.saulted by a farmer in a ditch along the way (which the farmer denied, but the Granny was of the opinion he was at least bending the truth, if not breaking it), it made it a debt of honor for Castle Guthrie to avenge when the fool woman fell into a well and drowned herself- That did it. That did it! To think that these were three of the Kingdoms staunchly claiming that they should be left to manage their own affairs! It beat all, and some left over!

"Wait!" I shouted. "Just stop!"They all put down their silverware and stared at me, and the Granny clucked her tongue.

"You interrupted, child," she said. "Ill-bred of you. Ill-bred!"I whistled long and low, and pushed my plate away from me."What was that?" I asked. "The roast, I mean.""Stibble," said James John Guthrie, whose absence was now well explained. He would be very busy indeed with all this going on."Stibble?""Something like a pig and something like an Old Earth rabbit.""I don't believe it.""Nevertheless. Granny there named it for us.""How big?"He made a measure in the air. Two feet, roughly, and about so high."Did you like it?" he asked."Yes, I did," I said. "I just wanted a name for it.""It's new," said James John. "Our Ecologist developed it... oh, about a year and a half ago. A little bit of this, a little bit of that."

"And made no mention of it?"

He raised his eyebrows and speared another bite of stibble roast "You folks going hungry on Bright.w.a.ter?" he asked me innocently.

"Famine on Marktwain, is there? Starving populations on

Oklahomah?"

He knew very well that the law said we all shared. If the Guthrie Ecologist had found a reliable new foodsource, the announcement -

and all details-was supposed to go out to all the Twelve Castles, share and share alike. But I let it pa.s.s.

"There is no way," I said, "that I can remember all of this hoohah

about you Guthries and Parsons and Purdys."

"Poor things," said Granny Stillmeadow. "The Purdys, I mean."

"And no reason why you should remember," said Myrrh of Guthrie

like a scythe falling. "I don't recall asking you for help. I don't recall sending any dispatches demanding rescue, and we can handle it ourselves, thank you very much. If you'll just stay home."

"The wickedness of those Parsons," bellowed James John Guthrie, "and the inept.i.tude, I might say the stupidity, of those Purdys, defies belief, and brings a decent man to-"

"Talk too much," p.r.o.nounced Granny Stillmeadow. "Shut your face, James John Guthrie, the young woman's been told it's not her concern."

Well! So she could granny when it was needful after all! I patted her

knee.