Ozark Trilogy 1: Twelve Fair Kingdoms (28 page)

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 dark. 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 passing 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 34
^th
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 tenor

“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 14
^th
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 4
^th
, 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 assured 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 6
^th
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 passed 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 Ozarit iris that looked quite a lot like me 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 breasts, 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 Brightwater, 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 Brightwater. 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 nobody 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, sod young daisies, and all the spring Sowers of Earth that had, praise be, taken to the soil of Ozaric 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—
care
fully, under the sharp eyes of Granny Hazelbide—and rolled up my puffed and beomamented 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 comer 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 me 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. “Grass 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
asked
for 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.

(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 called 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 kind, 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.

(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 stuff’s 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 circumstance 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
nobody
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.