Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee (23 page)

One of the sons-in-law opened his mouth, and the Granny knew what he was about to say. At twenty-four, it wouldn’t be easy for him to accept the younger man as Master of this Castle.

“There will be
no dispute!”
she said. “He lies dead, sudden, taken in the prime of his life and by his own despairing hand; you’ll not dishonor him more by moving against him now, when he cannot compel you to obedience. You put any such ideas right out of your mind, for I won’t countenance them, nor will Granny Copperdell, nor will the Magicians of this Kingdom.”

“That’s well put,” added Granny Copperdell. “Anybody as cares to question it, they’ll rue it. Mark my words.”

The son-in-law closed his mouth and settled back with a look of resignation, if not acceptance, and the silence went on and on.

“Why?” Gilead ventured finally. “I don’t understand why.”

“He told you,” snapped Granny Copperdell.

“No! It was riddles!”

Her sister Sophia agreed, and the concord ran round the table along with the questions.

“What’s any of this got to do with the Travellers?”

“What’d he mean, he was ashamed?”

“What’d he mean, he couldn’t face what life’s going to be now? What’s going to happen?”

In the middle of the questions and the complaints, Lewis Motley Wommack silenced them all. He got up from his chair, far to the foot of the table beside Jewel’s, and he walked right to the head and took the Master’s chair.

“Law!” breathed Gilead in the sudden hush. “Law, that does look
strange!”

“Makes no nevermind how it looks,” said Granny Goodweather. “It’s as your daddy ordered it, and no doubt he had his reasons. You got a few words to say to us, Lewis Motley, before we leave this room and turn properly to mourning your brother?”

“First,” said Lewis Motley, “I’ll settle the riddles for you-those as seem fit for settling, in my own judgment.”

“You’d do that, would you?”

“Yes, Granny, I would and I will. Jacob Donahue Wommack saw that the end of the Confederation meant the beginning of chaos, and he couldn’t face that. He’s had order all his life-and there’ll be no more order. That’s one riddle answered. As for the shame, he knew it was his place to stand against that foolish ending set in motion by the Travellers and carried to its fruit and harvest by the Smiths. He was no young man to be carried away with the excitement of the moment, nor any fool like the Brightwater that was Chair and let the meeting be run away with and said not one word to stop it-he was a man in the wisdom of years, and a man that saw clear. He knew what it would be like, and he knew he should speak, and he said nary a word, just for fear of the fuss it would make. That’s the shame he writes of, and a shame I share.”

“You tried to speak up!” Jewel protested. “I saw you, from the balcony. You were hollering for them to let you speak.”

“So I was,” said Lewis Motley bitterly. “I stood there, and I hollered. The proper thing to do, once I saw nobody else was going to, would of been to snatch the crown off Delldon Mallard’s fool head, take away his scepter, and use it to beat some sense into as many idiots as I could get to-starting with the Chair. I did
not
do that, you notice; as my sister tells you, I stood there hollering for somebody to listen to me, like a nanny goat. The only person at that meeting as did anything honorable-the one and only person-was Troublesome of Brightwater. A
woman!
We deserved every word she said, we deserved to be driven from Confederation Hall and have it locked against us, and we deserved the look of her back as she rode out of town.”

“Accurate,” said the Grannys together.

And Granny Goodweather checked her pocket. She’d taken the tall glass that sat on the table by Jacob Donahue’s bed, rinsed it carefully to be sure certain every last dreg of the poison he’d used was gone, and smashed it to bits at the back of his fireplace. But she’d kept one shard for herself, a good-sized one with a trace of a berry vine etched on it, and given another like it to Granny Copperdell. It wouldn’t do to lose that shard. Such things were very useful, and not often come by; and she had a feeling they might be needed more often in the days to come than they’d been in the past. The sharp bit was still where she’d put it, lying between a shammybag of herbs and her long scissors.

“Well? Is there more?”

That was the son-in-law again, and Lewis Motley gave him a long considering look, what was called a “withering glance” in that Castle, and much feared. Sophia caught her lower lip between her teeth, and moved closer to her husband, that’d made so bold as to challenge the heir.

“I’m still on the riddles,” he said coldly. “When I’ve finished, I’ll say so. That suit you?”

“It suits me.”

“Consider our situation, then: say you don’t worry, as my brother did, about lack of political order. I’m willing to grant that’s not an issue likely to grip everybody’s mind as it did his, and does mine. But we are the
Wommacks,
I remind you. We are alone, fourteen thousand-odd of us, in the middle of a wilderness barely cut back from its original state, surrounded by a great ocean known for its storms. And to comfort us? We have the Wommack Curse.”

“Lewis Motley--”

“No more comsets to provide us easy company, tie us tight to the other eleven Families at a push of a button. No more freighters pulling in to our dock with the latest gewgaws from the cities. Not likely we’ll have visitors flying in my Mule, anxious to see the beauties of our wilderness and our inhospitable coasts. We are going to be
alone
now, in a way that no Ozarker has ever been alone before. That, now, I reckon you can understand, whether you’re interested in politics or not. And it’s that that’s got to be dealt with.”

He looked at them all, long and hard, and rubbed at his beard with both hands, fiercely, like it tormented him.

“As for me being Master of this Castle,” he went on, “that’s a piece of foolishness, and brings me to the end of the riddles and the beginning of business. I told you I’d let you know-what I am about to say is the urgent business of this day.”

“Now, Lewis Motley?” demanded Granny Goodweather. “You think that’s fitting?”

“Now,” said the young man. “Right now.”

“Then I’ll have the tadlings sent out of here, and the staff told to feed them and cosset them and put them to bed. This is no place for children.”

“Fair enough, Granny Goodweather,” he told her, “fair enough. I’ve no special desire to bore them, and nothing to say that would interest them. But anybody that’s reached the age of twelve stays-that’s no child. Not any longer, if ever they were. Jewel of Wommack, you’ll stay. And you, Thomas Lincoln. And while you’re sending the rest out, Granny, I’ll say my say.

“I understand,” he said, “all the fire and brimstone you Grannys are putting out about not crossing Jacob Donahue, and it strikes me very odd, seeing as how you never scrupled to cross him ten times a day and twice that on Sundys while he lived. But I’m not afraid of either one of you-let us have that straight and no question in your minds about it-and I’ll
not
be Master of Castle Wommack. Master! The very thought turns me sick.” He saw the Grannys’ mouths open and he shouted at them, “Hear me out!”

“Very well,” said Granny Copperdell, and Granny Goodweather nodded. “But what you say had best be carefully thought out aforehand, young man. Custom is, the Master of the Castle names the heir; you plan to go against that, you lay your reasons out mighty plain.”

“This is no time,” said Lewis Motley grimly, “for the people of Kintucky to be asked to accept me as Castle Master. Nineteen
years old, known-as my brother pointed out-to be wild; and far less willing than he thinks to be any less so. That may be romantic, but it’s not good sense. I’ll have no part of it. But I’ll compromise, for the sake of your sacred damned customs, and not to scandalize the countryside further, and because I care for the Wommack name. I’ll not be Master; but I’ll be Guardian.”

“Explain yourself!”

“Granny, if you’d leave oft interrupting me, I might be able to do that.”

“Get on with it, then.”

“The proper heir, and proper Master, sits there beside youThomas Lincoln Wommack the Ninth, my brother’s elder son. He’s his daddy all over again, and he’ll make a fine Master; he just needs a little time. I propose to give him that time. I’ll be Guardian for this Castle, and him at my side to learn what there is to do -precious little that is, by the way, in case you females think I haven’t noticed. I’ll do the tasks left to the Master, and do them with my whole heart and my whole strength-until the day Thomas Lincoln reaches an age and skill suitable to let him take it on, and
that
day, ah, that day, I shall be free of this particular set of fetters my dear brother saw fit to leave me.”

“Shame on you,” said Gilead. “Him not cold yet, and you speaking of him that way! You’re a hardhearted man, Lewis Motley Wommack, and not a natural one. He was your brother, and he stood as father to you, as best as ever he could!”

“That does not oblige me to be grateful, Gilead, when he hands on to me a task he tells us he couldn’t face his own self, and not only am I not grateful, I resent it. You hear me? I resent being
used,
and I resent years of my life being taken from me, and nothing but my loyalty to this Family keeps me from handing this over to Chandler over there, that’s just chafing at the bit to have the job! Or Jareth Andrew Lewis, hiding behind Sophia, that’s already challenged me twice!”

Granny Goodweather raised her finger beside her temple for silence, and waited till she had it, and then she spoke straight to Thomas Lincoln.

“You understand, boy, what your uncle is saying?” she asked him. “You agree to it? It’s your right to object, and your right to
insist
on Lewis Motley following your daddy’s wishes right to the smallest letter. And though he claims he’s not afraid of a Granny or two, I give you my word on it we have ways of making him take
that
back in a hurry! What’s your feeling on this, Thomas Lincoln?”

The boy threw his head up and gave her a casual look that was so like Jacob Donahue it made Gilead catch her breath.

“I think it shows good sense,” said Thomas Lincoln, “and I stand behind it. And if it’ll make Lewis Motley feel any better, there won’t be many years taken from him, as he puts it-the sooner the better, to my mind.”

The Granny sighed, satisfied. “That’s settled, then” And she pushed her chair back, and smoothed her skirts, ready to leave the room and be about her business.

“Please sit yourself down, Granny Goodweather,” said Lewis Motley, “I’m not through yet. There’s just one more thing. We have ahead of us a long time of hardship and lack and terrible loneliness. And through that time, our people will need something to rally round, something to look to as a stable center. The Travellers have their faith to carry
them;
we have nothing but our Curse, and it makes a poor companion. Delldon Mallard Smith’s an idiot, and the day will come he’ll wish he’d never heard the word `King,’ but he has one thing worth copying. What we need, all alone out here, is magnificence. Pomp and circumstance. Ritual and pageantry. And lots of it. And as it happens, we have a perfect excuse for it.”

“Whatever in the world?” demanded Granny Copperdell. “Whatever in this wide world?”

“We have the problem, now there’s no comset, of educating the children on this continent. No more sitting them down every morning to learn what the computers served up from Brightwater; and the Grannys and the Tutors can’t be expected to take them on more than a year or two past the seven years old they are when they finish with them now. They don’t have the time, nor the training. And we have Jewel of Wommack.”

He rubbed his hands together, and nodded politely at his sister, who was staring at him, feeling a chill in her bones. Whatever it was he had in mind, she could be sure certain it meant another burden for her.

“We’ll have a Teaching Order,” said Lewis Motley with satisfaction. “And Jewel will head it-whether she fancies it or not! She knows chemistry, she knows physics, she knows biology, she knows music theory, she knows painting, she knows history, she knows linguistics-what don’t you know, my much-indulged little sister? Always at the comsets, and Jacob Donahue so proud of your learning, saying you were to be let alone and somebody else could peel the vegetables . . . The day’s come to redeem that favor, Jewel! We’ll need a suitable
habit
for you, something splendid and yet dignified, something that will draw attention and inspire respect; and we’ll send you with two Senior Attendants and a servingmaid for escort, all round the towns, to find and bring back here other young females with qualifications like yours. We’ll house all of you in the north wing of this Castle-not a room of it’s in use, except for one library, and that fits neatly-and you will be Senior Teacher. Teacher Jewel, we’ll call you, and we’ll send the other Teachers you train out over this scratched patch of living for people to be in awe of. One in every town, to be their own bit of pomp and majesty. Gilead, you’re clever with the needle-you’ll help me gown her properly.”

“Not today!” Gilead cried. “Not today, nor tomorrow!”

“No-but the day after. And you, Jewel, close your mouth. You have the skill, you have the knowledge, you have the beauty, you’ll have the elegance once we’ve garbed you; and most important of all, you have the will. You can command, and you’re not afraid to. You’ll do it beautifully, sister mine! You hear me?”