Authors: Suzette Haden Elgin
“
You’ll
do no such thing!” said Granny Hazelbide, dropping her silverware with a clatter onto her plate. “Waste not, want not, young woman—you think money grows on trees? You’ll take that truck off and give it in to the staff for cleaning and storing away proper; and then next time you take a notion to play the fool you’ll already have your fool outfit to hand. But spare us your spurs, please—they clank, and furthermore, they’ll scratch the floorboards. And take off your gloves; they’ll be all over Mule.”
Emmalyn of Clark told me what a pretty outfit it was, and how much she admired it, and how she had thought of that as I left but hadn’t had a chance to express her admiration, and I thanked her politely.
“I think, personally,” said Thom of Guthrie, “that it is a tad Too Much.”
“A
tad!
” exclaimed Granny Hazelbide. “Why, she looks like a circus, or a—”
I interrupted with considerable haste, remembering how I’d reacted the last time I’d heard the word I was reasonably sure she was just about to use.
“Dear Granny Hazelbide,” I said, sitting down and reaching for the hot cornbread and the butter; “you weren’t here to advise me when I left, you see, you were ailing. I left in something of a hurry, and I did the best I could.”
“Hmmmph,” said Granny, “your ‘best’ is pretty puny, Responsible. And I am scandalized that either your mother
or
your grandmother let you leave this Castle looking like a—” Well, there was clearly no hope for it.
“Granny Leeward of Castle Traveller said I looked like a whore,” I said blandly. If the word had to be used I might as well do it myself and spare my sensibilities as best I could.
“Shows what
she
knows,” muttered Granny Hazelbide instantly, just as if she hadn’t had the exact same word on the tip of her fibbing tongue. “Had
her
way, you’d have gone on Quest in a black nightgown and a bonnet, I reckon.”
“I expect I would,” I said. “I expect.”
The same crew was there that had been at the meeting in February; except that Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater the llth sat beside Ruth of Motley, and the Granny was present. My mother looked a vision, as always, in a gown the exact color of the forsythia bushes; and she brought up the subject at hand without preliminary, as always.
“Well,” she said, “did you find out who we owe for our sour milk? And all the rest of it? And did you find out who put that baby up in the cedar tree? I am of the opinion, myself, that the McDaniels are growing somewhat more than just tired of camping under that tree and watching their baby through a life- support bubble, and I rather imagine that if you could see your way clear to do something about that they’d be properly grateful. Not that I’d want to hurry your breakfast, of course.”
Prick, prick, prick ... that was Thom of Guthrie. Prick you here and when you jumped, stick you somewhere else. ‘ “Mother,” I said, “I learned everything I went to find out, and a good deal more I never suspected, and we can take care of the baby matter in just a minute. I do intend to finish my breakfast.”
“Well?” she demanded. “Who was it?”
“Can’t tell,” I said, shaking my head with what was intended to look like sincere regret. “I
am
sorry about that.”
“You can’t tell?” Jubal Brooks and Donald Patrick did that in chorus, both outraged, and my grandparents looked at each other significantly and said nothing.
“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 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.