The Ozark trilogy (25 page)

She brayed at me twice, and slid sideways in a truly spectacular wobble that set me grabbing the straps and fighting for control of my stomach. They were still at it ... and I smacked her hard on the shoulder, and held fast, and swallowed bile, and got out of there.

I had a better understanding now of the lay of things, Castle to Castle, there was that. I had a picture of sorts, thanks to the Gentle, of the trouble brewing on Arkansaw and where that might yet lead. I’d had a first look at my own personal nemesis, foretold these nine years, and had gotten away from
him
intact but for my pride, this time. And every one of the Families, excepting the Smiths, had had a chance to deal with me directly on its own turf. I suppose that would do for a short list.

I was also tired, and ten pounds thinner; and had been mauled about pretty extensively, and had maybe ignored a Skerry sighting because I hadn’t wanted to bother with it. I had allowed myself to be trapped by a passel of Travellers, like a child, and had no way of knowing what action they might take against me at the Jubilee with the new knowledge they had, and their determination to make good use of it. And my original task, the Goal of my Quest—bringing home the
exact
name of the traitor or traitors—that still had to be done.

I’ve mentioned pride before; I have it in abundance. It was one thing to admit to myself that Granny Golightly had had the right of it and I’d just taken off because I wanted to gallivant. It was one thing to admit that my fancy triumphant symbolic Quest had been more a series of accidents and misfires than anything else, when it hadn’t been plain boring. Lying to your own self is a sure way to go to hell in a handbasket, and the time had come to ‘fess up. But that was to my
own
self. I was not about to go back to Castle Brightwater; march into me halls and say—to Jubal and Emmalyn’s great satisfaction, and my mother’s—”Well, youall were right. It was a silly thing to do in the first place, and I’m worse off than I was before I left. Begging your pardon.” Oh no! Bruised ego, bruised spirit, bruised body, all the blacks-and-blues of me notwithstanding, I would arrive home with an appearance of having won this one, come what may. Come what
may
.

And that was why I was now coming in over Castle Airy, instead of heading for home. Airy was a Castle of women, used to cosseting women and always willing to cosset one more, and I intended to take full advantage of that. I was going to let Charity of Guthrie and her daughters and nieces and cousins, and her three resident Grannys, feed me up and make over me and listen to my troubles and spoil me generally until I had accomplished what I’d set out to accomplish and could go on home in a state of sufficient dignity to at least fool Emmalyn of Clark and Thom of Guthrie.

It was possible, if you were traveling by Mule, to fly into Castle Airy through a great arch cut in its front wall over the sea for that express purpose. I slowed Sterling and we moved in through the opening and down onto the easy-arced ramp at its base, me with a wary hand on the Mule’s bridle against another of those wobbles, and straight into the sidecourt of the Castle where the stables were.

A stableman came forward to see to the Mule and greet me, and I slid gratefully down from Sterling’s back onto the flagstones of me court, and stood there a minute to brace myself.

. “You weren’t expected, Miss Responsible,” said the stableman. “and you arrived a bit sudden. I sent a servingmaid as soon as I saw you coming in over the water; to tell the ladies; somebody should be here directly to take you to the Missus.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate your courtesy.”

“You took tired, miss,” he said, and I admitted that I was tired—but not how tired.

“It’s been a long trip,” I told him. “A lot of flying and a lot of company behavior, which is worse. A day or two’ll right me. You take my Mule on, if you will, and see to her; I’ll wait right here.”

He gave me a long considering look, and stood his ground.

“Believe I’ll wait until somebody comes for you,” he said. “I don’t care that much for the look of your eyes, nor your peakedy face, and Charity of Guthrie’d put me back to peeling roots in the kitchen if I went on off and you fainted or some such trick. Your Mule’ll keep awhile.”

I didn’t argue with him—he meant well—and we stood there in silence, me not being up to polite conversation and him not seeming to mind, until a young woman came hurrying toward us from a side coridor with Charity of Guthrie herself right behind her.

Charity took one look at me, wrapped her arms round me, and rocked me like a baby.

“Poor child,” she said, “you’re worn clear out. You’re the color of spoiled goat-cheese and not much more appealing- looking. What in the world have you been
doing
to yourself?”

“I should of sent you a message I was coming,” I said, all muffled against the burgundy front of her dress. (And I would have, too, if I hadn’t known I could shave a bit off my traveling time by not letting people know precisely when I was taking off and landing.)

“Never you mind that,” she said, “I’m glad you came, and no warning needed. It’ll be a cold day in a mighty hot place when this Castle can’t put up one scrawny girlchild on short notice. You’re welcome here any time.” And she hugged me close again, bless her; and bless her some more. I can’t remember when I’ve needed hugging worse.

She sent the man off with Sterling into the usual racket the Mules made greeting one another, told the servingmaid that had come with her to take my things up to the guestchamber I’d had before, and led me straight up to her own sitting room where she settled me in a rocker, with a quilt over my feet and a mug of strong hot coffee in my hand.

The Grannys came drifting in, then, one by one, and the daughters, and we soon had a roomful. And the Grannys lost no time.

“Well, youngun, how’d it go?” said Granny Heatherknit; she was senior here, at one hundred and eleven. “Your famous Quest, I mean ... did you do enough damage to satisfy your craving?”

Charity of Guthrie’s lips tightened, but I looked at her hard over my coffee and she made no move to call them off. We both knew this had to be gotten through sooner or laid; and it might as well be sooner

“Went well enough,” I said judiciously. “Well enough— considering.”

“Considering?”

“Considering that not a one of you helped me in any way
what
soever,” I said. Bedamned if I’d count that squawker egg out in the Wilderness; Granny Golightly had owed me that one.

“Not a one of who?” said Forthright. “Not a one of
what?
”

“Not a one of you Grannys,” I retorted. “Near thirty of you there are here on this planet—”

“Twenty-nine, child, twenty-nine!” said Granny Heatherknit.

“Nearly thirty,” I insisted, “and you did not one thing to help me the whole time I was gone.”

“
For
which,” said Granny Flyswift, jabbing the air in front of her with her knitting needles, “
for
which there are three good and sufficient reasons!
One
—this was your own tomfool idea, and none of ours, and none of our advice asked before you set out on it, hot out of here like a Mule with a burr under its tail!
Two
—you know the conditions on a Quest ... adventures aplenty required and supposed to be unpleasant, or it doesn’t count—and Granny Golightly herself reminded you of that in case it’d slipped your mind? And
three
—the best way for any child to learn that a flame’ll burn him is to let him stick his finger in it; that makes for remembrance.”

“Yes, ma’am, Granny Flyswift,” I said. I had it all coming.

“Now what did you learn that’s useful to anybody but your stubborn self, missy?” demanded Granny Heatherknit again.

Charity’s daughter Caroline-Ann, sitting on a windowseat with her skirts drawn up and her legs tucked under, asked if that couldn’t wait till I’d had some supper. She was twelve years old, and a lot like her mother

“
No
-sir,” said Granny Heatherknit. “She’s still able to sing for that supper, and I’m right interested in her tune.”

“Well,” I said, “I learned that a girl of sixteen as can put her hair up in a figure-eight and knows all the modem dances should not be called a child or treated like one.”

The Grannys peered at each other and snickered; and I wondered what foul task they had poor Silverweb of McDaniels doing that very minute.

“And, I learned that a giant cavecat stinks, in more ways than one. I learned that broken ribs are as inconvenient the second time as the first, and that where everybody’s trying to keep the corks in their homebrew nobody has much time for the export trade.”

“So far, so accurate,” said Granny Heatherknit. “Go on.”

“I learned that being licked to death is nasty.”

“No argument with that.”

“I learned that just about anything propped up in the moonlight and painted the right color is sufficient to turn a guilty head. I learned that one continent can hold two very small birds, and only one of them have gumption enough to fly. I learned that just because a Granny isn’t using the old formspeech doesn’t mean her garlic won’t work.”

“She’s only fifty-nine,” snorted Granny Flyswift. “Give her time, she’ll outgrow her notions.”

“She did very well,” I told the old woman. “Very well indeed.”

And I went on. “I learned that a Family truly
set
on a curse can bring one down on them. And, last of all, I learned that a person can’t knit with both hands tied together.”

“Think not?” said Flyswift.

“Well,
I
surely couldn’t.”

Granny Heatherknit scrunched up her eyebrows over her glasses—which she didn’t need and doubtful she ever would— and I could see her counting.

“You left out Castle Purdy,” she said. “What happened there?”

“There’s what I will tell,” I answered, “and there’s what I won’t.” (And about the Gentle coming to see me—I wouldn’t).

“Hmmmph,” said Granny Heatherknit. “That might be the most important piece of all.”

“None of it,” said Caroline-Ann of Airy sadly, “meant anything to
me
. As usual.”

To my surprise, Granny Heatherknit turned to her and spoke almost gently; that girl must have a way with her.

“Caroline-Ann.” said the Granny, “if you keep in mind that what Responsible of Brightwater’s doing is trying to see how much she can
not
tell—despite being asked most politely— you’ll understand why you found her remarks on the murky side. She’s riddling, can’t you hear that?”

“It didn’t rhyme,” said Caroline-Ann. “I never recognize riddles when they don’t rhyme.”

“Well, take the list she gave you and rhyme it, then,” said Granny Heatherknit. “Set it to a tune for us, Caroline- Ann ... good exercise for you, and we’ll have something new for tale-telling makings.”

“Granny Heatherknit, that would be
hard!
” objected Caroline-Ami, and that seemed to me accurate. “You don’t mean I have to?”

“Think you should,” said the Granny, and the other two nodded their agreement.

“Pheew!” said one of the huddle of girls on the floor below the sill where Caroline-Ann was. “Glad it’s you and not me, Caroline-Ann!”

“Easy rhymes,” said Granny Flyswift calmly. “Cat. Rib. Bird. Knit. Suchlike. You can manage that, Caroline-Ann; we give you three days, and then we’ll hear it.”

“Oh,
blast!
”

Caroline-Ann sat up straight and dropped her legs over the sill, careful not to kick anybody. “Naturally I had to open my mouth with three Grannys in the room!
Botheration!
”

I felt sorry for her; but I needn’t have; it took her only half an hour to do the task set, and we had the song from her right after supper that night. It went like this:

CAROLINE-ANN’S SONG

A girl of sixteen as can put up her hair

in a figure-eight knot, and can do it alone,
 
and can dance through the figure-eights smartly as well—
 
that girl is no child, but a woman full grown!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater:

That’s what I learned.

The smell of a cavecat is ranker than bile,
 
and a cavecat’s attentions are close to its chest,
 
and a cavecat that moves a mysterious mile

has a second rank odor that’s risky at best!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater;

That’s what I learned.

A rib as is broken will ravage your breath,
 
and the second time round it will ravage your pride,
 
and it’s cold comfort knowing while choking to death
 
that none of the damage shows on the outside!

That’s what I learned, said the daughter of Brightwater.

That’s what I learned.

A cellar of homebrew with corks to be set
 
and a hot spell ahead as makes setting them hard

keeps a family home from the market and road,

keeps a family corked to its Hall and its yard!