CHAPTER 1

 

I SHOULD HAVB known that something was very wrong when

the Mules started flying erratically. I was misled a bit, I

suppose, because there were no actual crashes, just upset

stomachs. The ordinary person on the street blamed it on

turbulence; and considering what they understood of the way

me system worked, that was as reasonable a conclusion as any

other However, I had full access to classified material, and I

knew perfectly well that it was magic, not aerodynamics, that

kept the Mules flying. And magic at the level of skill necessary

to fly a bulky creature like a Mule was not likely to suffer any

because of a little disturbance in the air You take a look at a

Mule sometime; it surely isn't built for flight.

 

Even someone who's gone no farther in magic than Common

Sense Level knows that the harmony of the universe is a

mighty frail and delicately balanced equilibrium, and that you

can't go tampering with any part of it without affecting

everything else. A child knows that. So that when whatever-it-

was started, with its first symptoms being Mules that made

their riders throw up, I should of known that something sturdy

was tugging hard at the Universal Web.

 

2              SUZETIE HADEN ELGIN

 

I was busy, let's grant me that. I was occupied with the

upcoming Grand Jubilee of the Confederation of Continents.

Any meeting that it doesn't happen but once every five hundred

years—you tend to pay it considerable attention. One of our

freighters had had engine trouble off the coast of Oklahomah,

and that was interfering with our supply deliveries, I was trying

to run a sizable Castle with a staff that bordered, that spring, on

the mediocre, and trying to find fit replacements before the big

to-do. And there were three Grannys taken to their beds in my

kingdom, afflicted with what they claimed was epizootics and

what I knew was congenital cantankerousness, and that was

disrupting the regular conduct of everyday affairs more than

was convenient.

 

So ... faced with a lot of little crises and one on the way

to being a big one, what did I do?

 

Well, I went to some meetings. I went to half a dozen. I

fussed at the Castle staff, and I managed to get me in an

Economist who showed some promise of being able to make

the rest of them shape up. I hired a new Fiddler, and I bought a

whole team of speckledy Mules that I'd had my eye on for a

while. I visited the "ailing" Grannys, with a box of hard candy

for each, and paid them elaborate compliments that they saw

right through but enjoyed just the same. And I went to church.

 

I was in church the morning that Terrence Merryweather

McDaniels the 6th, firstborn son of Vine of Motley and

Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th, was kidnapped, right in

broad daylight . . . when the man came through me cnur-

chdoor on a scruffy rented Mule, right in the middle of a

Solemn Service—right in the middle, mind you, of aprayer!—

and rode that Mule straight down the aisle. He snatched

Terrence Menyweather in his sleeping basket from between his

parents, and be flew right up over the Reverend's head and out

through the only stained glass window he could count on to

iris—Mule, basket, blankets, baby, and all, before any of us

could do more than gape. February the 21st, that was; I was

there, and it was that humiliating, I'm not likely to forget it.

The McDaniels were guests of Castle Brightwalei; and under

our protection, and for sure should of been safe in our church.

And now here was their baby kidnapped!

 

Although it is possible that kidnapping may not be precisely

the word in this particular instance. You have a kidnapping,

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms               3

 

generally there's somebody missing, and a ransom note, and

whatoot. In this case, the Reverend shouted an AAAAmen!

and we all rushed out the churchdoor; and there, hanging from

the highest of the three cedar trees in the churchyard in a life-

support bubble, was Terrence Menyweather McDaniels the

6th, sucking on his toe to show how undisturbed he was by it

all. And the Rent-a-Mule chewing on the crossclover against

me church wall, under the overhang. There was no sign of its

rider, who could make a claim to speed if to nothing else.

 

We could see the baby just fine, though we couldn't hear

him. And we knew he was safe in the bubble, and all his needs

attended to indefinitely. But he might as well of been in the

Wilderness Lands ofTinaseeh for all the good that did us—we

didn't dare touch him.

 

Oh, we had Magicians there skilled enough to put an end to

that bubble and float the baby down to his daddy's arms

without ruffling one bright red hair on his little head. If we

hadn't had them, we could of gotten them in a hurry. It wasn't

mat; it was a matter of diagnosis.

 

We had no way, you see, of knowing just what kind of magic

was on the forcefield holding mat bubble up in the tree and

keeping it active. Might of been no problem at all, just a bit of

Granny Magic. Ought to of been, if the man doing it couldn't

afford but a Rent-a-Mule. And then it might of been that the

mangy thing was meant to make us think that, and it might of

been that if we so much as jiggled that baby we'd blow the

whole churchyard—AND the baby—across the county line.

We're not much for taking chances with babies, I'm proud to

say, and we weren't about to be hasty. The way to do it was to

find the Magician that'd set the Spell, or whatever it was, and

make it clear that we intended to know, come hell or high

water, and keep on making it clear till we got told. Until then,

that baby would just have to stay in the cedar tree with the

squirrels and the chitterbirds and the yellowjays.

 

Vine of Motley carried on a good deal, doing her family no

credit at all, but she was only thirteen and it her first baby, and

allowances were made. Besides, I wasn't all that proud of my

own self and my own family at that moment.

 

Five suspicious continental delegations I had coming to

Castle Brightwater in less than three months, to celebrate the

Grand Jubilee of a confederation they didn't trust much more

 

4              SUZETTE HAPEN ELGIN

 

now than they had two hundred years ago. Every one of them

suspecting a plot behind every door and under every bedstead

and seeing Spells in die coffee cups and underneath their

saddles and, for all I knew, in their armpits. And I was

proposing that they'd all be safe here—when I couldn't keep

one little innocent pointy-headed baby safe in my own church

on a Solemn Day?

 

It strained the limits of me imagination somewhat more than

somewhat, and there was no way of keeping it quiet. They'd be

having picnics under the tree where that baby hung in his pretty

bubble and beaming the festivities out on the comsets before

suppertime, or my name wasn't Responsible of Brightwater

 

In the excitement we left the Solemn Service unfinished, and

it took three Spells and a Charm to clear that up later on, not to

mention the poor Reverend going through the service again to

an empty church reeking mightily of garlic and asafetida. But

the clear imperative right men was a family meeting; and we

moved in as orderly a fashion as was possible (given the

behavior of Vine of Motley) back to die Castle, where I turned

all the out-family over to the staff to feed and cosset and called

everyone else at once to the Meetingroom.

 

The table in the Meetingroom was dusty, and I distinctly saw

a spiderweb in a far window, giving me yet another clue to the

competency of my staff and strongly tempting me to waste a

Housekeeping Spell or two—which would of been most

unbecoming, but I never could abide dirt, eveh loose dirt—and

I waved everybody to their chairs. Which they took after

brushing more dust with great ostentation off the chair seats,

drat them all for their eagerness to dot every "i" and cross

every *'t" when it was my competence in question, and I called

the roll,

 

My mother was there, Thom of Guthrie, forty-four years old

and not looking more than thirty of those, which wasn't even

decent; I do not approve of my mother I said "Thom of

Guthrie" and she said "Here" and we left it at that. My uncles,

Donald Patrick Brightwater the 133rd—time we dropped that

name awhile, we'd wear it out—and Jubal Brooks Brightwater

the 31st. Jubal's wife, Emmalyn of Clark, poor puny thing, she

was there; and Donald's wife. Patience of dark, Emmalyn's

sistec And my grandmother, Ruth of Motley, not yet a Granny,

since Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater the 12th showed no signs

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms               5

 

of leaving this worid for all he was 109 years old . . . and it

was said that he still troubled Ruth of Motley in the nights and

scandalized the servingmaids in the chamber next to theirs.

And I could believe it. We could of used him that day, since his

head was as clear as his body was said to be hearty, but he was

off somewhere trying to trade a set of Charms he'd worked out

for a single Spell he'd been wanting to get hold of at least the

last five years . . . and the lady that Spell belonged to not

about to pass it on to him, if he spent five more.

 

As it was, that meant only seven of us in Meeting, not nearly

enough for proper discussion or voting, and you would of

thought that on a Solemn Day, and with guests in the Castle,

tbere'd of been more of us in our proper places. I was put out

about the whole thing, and my mother did not scruple to point

that out.

 

"Mighty nervy of you. Responsible," she said, in that voice

of hers, "being cross with everybody else for what is plainly

your own fault." I could of said Yes-Motnei; since she despises

that, but I had more pressing matters to think of than annoying

my motheE She'd never make a Granny; she was too quick

with mat tongue and not able to put it under rein when the

circumstances called for it, and at her age she had no excuse.

She'd be a flippant wench at eighty-five, still stuck in her

magic at Common Sense Level, like a child. Lucky she was

that she was beautiful, since men have no more sense than to

be distracted by such things, and Thorn was that. She had the

Guthrie hah; masses of it, exactly the color of bittersweet

chocolate and so alive it clung to your fingers (and to

everything else, so that you spent half your life picking Guthrie

hair off of any surface you cared to examine, but we'll let that

pass). And she had the Guthrie bones ... a face shaped like

a heart, and great green eyes in it over cheekbones high arched

like the curve of a bird's wing flying, and the long throat that

melted into perfect shoulders. . . . And oh, those breasts of

hers! Three children she'd suckled till they walked, and those

breasts looked as maiden as mine. She was well named, was

Thorn of Guthrie, and many of us had felt the sharp point of

her since she stepped under the doorbeam of Castle Brightwa-

ter thirty-one years ago. I have always suspected that those

Guthrie bones made her womb an uncomfortable place to lie,

giving her a way to poke at you even before you first breathed

 

6              SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

the air of the world, but that's a speculation I've kept to myself.

I hope.

 

"Well, now that we're thoroughly disgraced in front of the

whole world," sighed my grandmother, "what do we propose

to do about it?"

 

"This is not the first manifestation of something cockeyed,"

said Jubal Brooks. "You know that. Responsible."

 

"There was the milk," my grandmother agreed. "Four

Mundy's in a row now it's been sour straight from the goat. I

assume you don't find that normal, granddaughter"

 

"And there was the thing with the mirrors," said Emmalyn.

"It frightened me, my mirror shattering in my hand like that."

 

I expect it did frighten her, too; everything else did. I was

hoping she wouldn't notice the spiderweb. She was a sorry

excuse for a woman; on the other hand, we couldn't of gotten

Patience of dark without taking the sistci; too, and all in all it

had been a bargain worth making.

 

Patience was sitting with her left little finger tapping her

bottom lip, a gesture she made when she was waiting for a hole

to come by in the conversation, and I turned to her and made

the hole.

 

"Patience, you wanted to say something?"

 

"I was thinking of the streetsigns," she said.

 

"The streetsigns?"

 

"Echo in here," said my mother, always useful.

 

"I'm sorry. Patience," I said. "I hadn't heard that there was

anything happening with streetsigns."

 

"All over the city," said my uncle Donald Patrick. "Don't

you pay any attention to anything?"

 

"Well? What's been happening to them? Floating in the air?

Whirling around? Exploding? What?"

 

Patience laughed softly, and the sun shone in through the

windows and made the spattering of freckles over the bridge of

her nose look like sprinkled brown sugar I was very fond of

Patience of dark.

 

"They read backwards," she said. "The sign that should say

'River Street' . . . it says'Teerts Revir'" She spelled it out

for me to make that deal; though the tongue does not bend too

badly to "Teerts Revir"

 

"Well, that." I said, "is downright silly."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms               7

 

"It's all silly," said Patience, "and that is why I was

laughing. It's all ridiculous."

 

Emmalyn, whose freckles just ran together and looked like

she hadn't bothered to wash, allowed as how she might very

well have been cut when her mirror shattered, and that was not

silly.

 

I looked at them all, and I waited. My uncles, pulling at their

short black beards the way men always do in meetings. My

mothel; trying to keep her mind—such as it was—on the

discussion. My grandmothel; just biding her time till she could

get back to her embroidery. And the sisters—Emmalyn

watching Patience, and Patience watching some inner source

of we-know-not-what that had served us very well in many a

crisis-

 

Not a one of them mentioned me Mules, though I gave them

two full minutes. And that meant one of three things: they had

not noticed the phenomenon, or they did not realize that it was

of any importance, or they had some reason for behaving as if

one of the first two were the case. I wondered, but I didn't have

time for finding out in any roundabout fashion.

 

"I agree," I said at once the two minutes were up, "it's all

silly. Even the minors. Not a soul was harmed by any one of

the mirrors that broke—including you, Emmalyn. Anybody

can smell soured milk quick enough not to drink it, and the

other six days of the week it's been fine. And as for the

streetsigns, which I'm embarrassed I didn't know about them

but there it is—I didn't—that's silliest of all."

 

"Just mischief," said Jubal, putting on the period. "Until

today."

 

My mother flared her perfect nostrils, like a high-bred Mule

but a lot more attractive. "What makes you think, Jubal

Brooks," she demanded, "that today's kidnapping—which is a

matter of major importance—is connected in any way with all

these baby tricks of milk and mirrors?"

 

"And streetsigns," said Emmalyn of Clark. Naturally.

 

"Jubal's quite right," I said, before Thorn of Guthrie could

mm on Emmalyn. "And I call for Council."

 

There was a silence that told me I'd reached them, and

Emmalyn looked thoroughly put out- Council meant there'd be

no jokes, and no family bickering, and no pause in deliberation

 

8              SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

for coffee or cakes or ak or anything else till a conclusion was

come to and a course agreed upon.

 

"Do you think that's really called for, Responsible?" asked

my grandmother. She was doing a large panel at that time,

mounungdoves in a field of violets, as I recall. Not that she'd

ever seen a moumingdove. "As Jubal said, it's been mischief

only so fax. and pretty piddling mischief at that. And there's no

evidence / see of a connection between what happened in

church today and all that other foolishness."

 

"Responsible sees a connection," said Patience, "or she

would not have called Council. And the calling is her privilege

by rule; I suggest we get on with it."

 

I told them about the Mules then, and both the uncles left off

their beard-pulling and gave me their attention. Tampering

with goats was one thing, tampering with Mules was quite

another: Not that they knew what it meant in terms of magic, of

course—that would not of been suitable, since neither had ever

shown the slightest talent for the profession, and I suppose they

took flying Mules for granted as they did flying birds. But they

had the male fondness for Mules, and they had anyone's dislike

for the idea of suddenly falling out of the air like a stone, which

is where they could see it might well lead.

 

"It has to do, I believe," said Patience slowly, "with the

Jubilee. That's coming up fast now, and anybody with the idea

of putting it in bad odor would have to get at it fairly soon and

move with some dispatch. I do believe that's what this is all

about."

 

She was right, but they'd listen better if she was doing the

talking, so I left it to hec

 

"Go on," I said. "Please."

 

"I'm telling you nothing you don't know already," she said.

"The Confederation of Continents is not popular, nor likely to

be, especially with the Kingdoms of Purdy, Guthrie, and

Farson. And Tinaseeh is in worse state. The Travellers hate any

kind of government; they are still so busy just hacking back the

Wilderness that they don't feel they can spare time for anything

else, and they for sure don't want the Jubilee. A Jubilee would

give a kind of endorsement to the Confederation, and they are

dead set against that. And then there're all the wishy-washy

ones waiting around to see which way the wind blows."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              9

 

" 'A thing celebrated is a thing vindicated,'" quoted Ruth of

Motley. "They all know that as well as anybody."

 

"The idea," Patience went on, "would be to make it appear

that there's so much trouble on the continent of Maiktwain

... so much trouble in the Kingdom of Brighlwater specifi-

cally . . . that it would not really be safe for the other

Families to send their delegations to the Jubilee."

 

My conscience jabbed me, for she was right; and it had been

niggling at the back of my mind for some time. though I'd

managed to ignore it up to now by worrying about dust on the

banisters and coffee for deliveries for Mizzurah.

 

Donald Patrick scooted his chair back and stared at me, and

then scooted it up again, and said damnation to boot, and my

grandmother went "Ttch," with the tip of her tongue.

 

"Five years of work it's cost us," he said, glaring around the

table. "Five years to convince them even to let us schedule the

Jubilee! Surely all that work can't be set aside by some spoiled

milk and a few smashed mirrors!"

 

"Precisely," I said, flat as pondwater "And that is just the

point. You see, youall, how it will look? First, parlor tricks.

Then, a kind of tinkering—nothing serious, just tinkering—

with the Mules. And then, to show that what goes four steps

can go twelve, the baby-snatching. Again, you notice, without

any harm done."

 

"Aw," said Jubal, "it's just showing off. A display of power

Like throwing a dead goat into your well."

 

"That it is," I said. " 'See what we can do?' it says.

. . . 'And think what we might do, if we cared to.' That's the

message being spread here. Think the Wommacks will fly here

from the coast knowing their Mules may drop out from under

them any moment, to come to the support of our so-called

Confederation?"

 

"Disfederation," murmured Patience of dark. "A more

accurate term at this point."

 

"Patience," I said, "you hurt me."

 

"Howsomever and nevertheless," she said, "it's true. And

anything but a sure hand now will wreck it all."

 

We sat there silent, though Emmalyn fidgeted some, because

it wasn't anything to be serene about. Marktwain, Oklahomah,

and probably Mizzurah, agreed on the need for the Confedera-

tion of Continents; and their Kingdoms were willing to back it

 

19 SUZEITE HADEN ELGIN

 

as best they could. But the whole bulk of Aricansaw lay

between Marktwain and Mizzurah, and the Ocean of Storms

between all of us and either Kintucky or Tinaseeh; and the

three loyal continents all put together were not the size of

Tinaseeh. Since the day the Twelve Families first landed on this

planet in 2021, since the moment foot was set on this land and

it was named Ozark in the hope it would prove a homeworld to

our people, those of us who preferred not to remain trapped

forever in the twenty-first century had been in the minority.

 

The Twelve Families had seen, on Old Earth, what the

centralization of a government could mean. They had seen war

and waste and wickedness beyond-description, though the

descriptions handed down to us were enough to this day to

keep children in Granny Schools awake in the long nights of

winter, shivering more with nightmare than with the cold,

Twelve Kingdoms, we had. And at least four of them ready to

leap up every time a dirty puddle appeared on a street comer

and shout that this was but the first sign, the first step, toward

the wallowing in degradation that came when the individual

allowed theirselves to be swallowed up (they always said

"swallowed up," playing on the hatred every Ozarker had for

being closed in on any side, much less all of them) by a central

government. . . . And several more were in honesty uncom-

mitted, ready to move either way.

 

I ran them by in my mind, one by one. Castle Purdy, Castle

Guthrie, Castle Parson, Castle Traveller—dead set against the

Confederation and anxious to grab any opportunity to tear the

poor frail thing apart and go to isolation for everything but

trade and marriage. Castles Smith, Airy, dark, and

McDaniels, and Castles Lewis and Motley of Mizzurah, all

with us—but perhaps only Castle Airy really ready, or able, to

put any strength behind us. It was hard to know. When the

Confederation met at Castle Brightwater, one month now in

every four—to the bitter complaints of Purdy, Guthrie, Parson,

and Traveller about the expense and tile waste and the

frivolousness of it all—those six voted very carefully indeed.

That is, when we could manage to bring anything to a vote.

Only Castles Airy and Lewis had ever made a move that went

three points past neutrality, and that rarely. As for Castle

Wommack, who knew where they stood? One delegate they

sent to the meetings, grudgingly, against the other Castles'

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              11

 

delegations of four each and full staff; and the Wommack

delegate came without so much as a secretary or Attendant,

and spent most of his time abstaining. We were seven to five

for the Confederation—maybe. Maybe we were but two

against ten, with six of the ten playing lip service but ready to

bolt at me first sign of anything that smelled like real conflict.

 

My mother made a rare concession: she addressed me by

term of kinship.

 

"Daughter," she said, making me raise my eyebrows at the

unexpected mode of address, "what do you think we ought to

do?"

 

"Ask Jubal," said foolish Emmalyn, and I suppose Patience

kicked her, under the table. Patience always sat next to

Emmalyn for that specific purpose. Ask Jubal, indeed.

 

"Think now before you speak," said Ruth of Motley. "It

won't do to answer this carelessly and get caught out,

Responsible. You give it careful thought." She had finally

forgotten about her embroidery and joined us, and I was glad

of it.

 

"I think," I said slowly, "that things are not so far out of

hand that they cannot be stopped. Vine of Motley is crying

herself into hiccups up in the guestchambers at this very

moment, and no doubt feels herself mighty abused, but that

baby is safer where he is than in her arms. Signs and mirrors

and milk make no national catastrophe, and Mules that behave

like they'd been drinking bad whiskey are not yet a disaster

The point is to stop it now, before it goes one step further. The

next step might not be mischief."

 

"What is called foi," said'my grandmother; nodding her

head, "is a show of competence; that would serve the purpose.

Something that would demonstrate that the Brightwaters are

capable of keeping the delegations, and all their km, and all

their staffs, safe here for the Jubilee."

 

"I sometimes wonder if it's worth it," sighed Donald

Patrick. "I sometimes think it might be best to let them go on

and dissolve the Confederation and all be boones if that's their

determined mind! The energy we put into all this, the time. the

money. ... Do you know what Brightwater spent in food

and drink alone at the last quarterly meeting?"

 

"Donald Patrick Brightwalei," said Ruth of Motley in a

voice like the back of a hand, "you sound like a Purdy."

 

12

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"I beg your pardon, Mother," said my uncle. "I hadn't any

intention of doing so."

 

Strictly speaking, it was not fair for him to be rebuked. As

tile ordinary citizen was ignorant of what kept the Mules flying

in the absence even of wings, so was Donald Patrick ignorant

of the peril every Ozarker faced if we could not establish once

and for all a central government that could respond, and

respond with speed, in an emergency. The decision to maintain

that ignorance had been made deliberately, and for excellent

reasons, hundreds of years ago, when first the menace of the

Out-Cabal had been discovered by our Magicians. And that

decision would stand, for so long as it was possible, and for so

long as disputations in political science, and intercontinental

philosophy, and planetary ecology, and the formidable theory

of magic, could be substituted for a truth it had been sworn our

people would never have to learn.

 

"First," I said quickly, "there's finding out where this attack

is coming from. That's the easy part."

 

My mother crossed her long white hands over her breasts to

indicate her shock and informed us that/iw we had to get that

baby down out of that tree.

 

"Mother, dear Mothei," I said, "you know that's not so—

mat baby is all right. Unlike the rest of us, that baby is

protected from every known danger this planet can muster up.

Not so much as a bacterium can get through that bubble to

harm Terrence Merryweather McDaniels, and he will be tended

more carefully there than a king's son."

 

It was only a figure of speech; there were no kings in our

kingdoms and never had been, and therefore no king's sons.

When First Granny had stood on Ozark for the first time, her

feet to solid ground after all those weary years on The Ship,

she had looked around hei; drawn a long breath, and said,

"Well, the Kingdom's come at last, praise be!" and we'd had

"kingdoms" ever since for that reason alone. But it had the

necessary effect. Thom of Guthrie made a pretense of thinking

it over, but she knew I was right, and she nodded her lovely

head and agreed with me that the baby probably represented

the least of our problems. Except insofar as it stood for an

insult to our Family and our faith, of course (and it was at that

point that I realized the Solemn Service had been left

unfinished).

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              13

 

"I say call in the Magicians of Rank, then," said Jubal

Brooks, "and have them to find out which one of our eleven

loving groups of kindred has set itself to bring the Confedera-

tion down about our heads. Literally about our heads."

 

"No," I told him, hoping he was right that it was only one.

"No, Jubal Brooks, that's all wrong. It would maybe be

fastest, depending on the strength and number of the Magicians

ranged against ours, but it's all wrong as to form."

 

"I don't see it," he said.

 

"Asymbol," said Ruth of Motley, spelling it all out for him,

"is best answered by a symbol. Not by a . . . meat cleavec "

 

"And what symbol do we propose to offer up for this motley

collection—no ofiense meant. Mother—of shenanigans? Cross

our hearts and spit in the ocean under a full moon?"

 

"A Quest, I expect, Jubal," I said, straight out. I had been *

dunking while they were talking, and level for level, that

seemed right to me. And the women nodded all around the

table.

 

"In this day and age?" sputtered Donald Patrick, and threw

up his hands. "Do you realize the antiquated set of hidebound

conditions that go with mounting up a Quest? Responsible,

you can't be serious about this'"

 

"Well, it is fitting," said his mother saving me the trouble.

"As Responsible and Patience have pointed out, the entire

campaign against us to this- time has been a single symbol,

what would be referred to in classical terms as a Challenge.

OUR MAGIC IS BETTER THAN YOUR MAGIC, you see.

No harm has been done, where obviously it could have been,

had they been so minded. Very well, then—for an old-

fashioned Challenge we shall offer an old-fashioned Quest. It

is appropriate; it has the right ring to it."

 

"Foof." said Donald Patrick. "It's absurd."

 

"Indeed it is," I agreed, "and that's the whole point."

 

"We might should ignore the whole thing," he said. "For all

we know."

 

"We do, and there will be no Grand Jubilee of the

Confederation of Continents of Ozark, Donald Patrick Bright-

water—and yes, I do know, down to the penny, what all this

has been costing us. Nor will we have another meeting of the

Confederation, I daresay, for a very long time. Whoever is

doing this, they would be delighted to have us ignore it all, and

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

everybody snickering behind their hands at us for cowards and

weaklings . . . and it is in the hope that we will be fools

enough to do that that they've kept every move to pestering

only and not gone forward to injury. If they can bring us down

for two cents, why spend two dollars?" I was completely out

of breath.

 

"They have overplayed their hand," said Patience, "with

this matter of the McDaniels baby."

 

"I believe so," I said. "It was a mistake of judgment. They

should of kidnapped one of Jubal's Mules instead."

 

"And hung it in a cedar tree? In a life-support bubble?" Her

brown eyes dancing. Patience of dark was clearly trying not to

imagine Jubal's favorite Mule being cleaned and fed and

curried up in the cedar tree; and losing the battle.

 

"It would of been safer," I said. "/ might of been busy

enough not to take it for anything more than a prank; and they

would of had still more time to make nuisances of them-

selves—and undercut the confidence in our security staff—

before the Jubilee."

 

"Responsible, that's but eleven weeks away!" Patience

broke in, the laughter in her eyes fading. "That's mighty little

time."

 

"All the more reason to talk less and do more," I said.

"Here's what I propose."

 

I would take our best Mule, from Brightwater's champion

line, called Sterling and deserving of her name. I would make a

brief and obvious fuss around the city in the way of putting

together suitable outfitting for a journey of a special kind. I

would let the word of the Quest be "leaked" to the comset

networks. And then, I would do each Castle in turn, staying

only just long enough at each to make the point that had to be

made. Responsible of Brightwatel; touring the Castles on a

Quest after the source of magic put to mischief and to

wickedness—just the thing. Just the thing!

 

"Even Tmaseeh?" asked Jubal dubiously.

 

"Even Tinaseeh. Certainly."

 

"It's a nine-day flight by Mule from here to Tinaseeh," he

said. "At least. And you do a Quest, you do it by foot or by

Mule, Responsible, no getting out of that. Nine days, just that

one leg of the trip."

 

"As the crow flies," I acknowledged. Not that it would of

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              15

 

taken me nine days, but there was no reason to let Jubal Brooks

know more than he needed to know. "I will not head straight

for Tinaseeh across the Oceans of Remembrances and of

Storms, dear Uncle. I am touring the Twelve Kingdoms on

solemn Quest, please remember. First I will go to Castle

McDaniels. Then a short flight to Afkansaw, a mere hop across

die channel to Mizzurah, on over to Kintucky, and then—and

onty then—to Tinaseeh. Then Oklahomah, quick around it,

•^ and back home."

 

"But, my dear niece," he said—Jubal Brooks was stubborn,

grant him that—"though it's but one day from Kintucky's

southernmost coast to the coast of Tinaseeh, that one day will

set you down not at Castle Traveller but on the edge of the

largest Wilderness Lands on Ozark. Larger than the entire land

area of this continent, for example; I strongly doubt you'll do

the trip over that in less than three days. and you'd still have

two days ahead of you before you reached the Castle gates!"

 

My grandmother stepped in then; the man was getting above

himself, but tact, of course, was necessary. Men are a great

deal of trouble, I must say.

 

"Jubal Brooks," she said, firmly but courteously, "Respon-

sible was properly named. I suggest we do her the courtesy of

trusting her in this."

 

"Distances," he began—the man was ranting!—"are dis-

tances. Name or no name—"

 

We might of wasted a lot more time on that kind of thing, if

there hadn't of been a knock on the door just as he was hitting

his stride. For all that we were in Council, we could spare time

to answer the door; and we did. Nobody was there, of course,

leading Emmalyn to look puzzled and Patience to look

innocent, but it served its purpose.

 

I dismissed Council with thanks, letting Jubal run down

naturally as we all filed out, paid a visit to the guestchambers

only to be told that the baby's parents had gone with full

ceremonial tent to camp in the bed of needles beneath their son

and heu; taking along the infant daughter of a servingmaid to

see to the problem of Vine of Motley's milk—a practical

solution, if a bit hard on the servingmaid—and then I ran for

the stables.

 

So far as I was concerned, we were late already,

 

CHAPTER 2

 

So CLOSE TO HOME I didn't dare take chances, and so I let my

Mule fool about and waste hours in the air on the first stage of

my journey, to Castle McDaniels. I wore an elaborate gown of

emerald green; under it I had on flared trousers of a deeper

green, tucked into trim high boots of scarlet leather with silver

bells about the bootcuffs and silver spurs all cunningly worked.

And I had over that a tight-laced corselet of black velvet

embroidered in gold and silver, and it was all topped with a

hooded traveling cloak of six layers black velvet quilted

together with silver thread in a pattern of wild roses and star-in-

the-sky-vine and friendly ivy. My scarlet gloves matched my

boots and my riding crop matched my spurs, and around my

throat on a golden chain was a talisman almost not fit for the

sight of decent people, except that decent people could be

counted on not to know what it meant and anybody that knew

what it meant would sure not mention it. All in all it was a

purely disgusting sight. When I flew I preferred honest denims,

and over them a cloak of brown wool. And spurs and riding

crop to fly a Mule were about as sensible as four wheels and a

clutch to sail a ship—but none of that was relevant.

 

17

 

18 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

I was a symbol, and a symbol carrying out a symbol. I was,

by the Twelve Corners, a Meta-Symbol, and I intended to look

the part if it choked me. They, whoever they might turn out to

be, would have leisure to compare the style in which Castle

Brightwater did these things with their scroungy brigand on a

mangy rented Mule. I would see to that, and I intended to rub it

in and men add salt, if I got the chance.

 

I brought Sterling down smartly at the entrance to Castle

McDaniets without raising so much as a puff of dust, and I

called out to the guardmaid at the broad door to let us in.

 

"Well met. Responsible of Brightwater!" she hollered at

me; and I mused, as I had mused many and many a time

before, on the burden it gave the tongue to greet either myself

or my sister Troublesome (not that many greeted her!). A

regular welter of syllables, and I hoped the Granny that did it

got a pain in her jaw joints. When I was a child, the others

made me pay for the inconvenience, ringing changes on it all

me day long. Obstreperous of Laketumoc, they liked to call me.

Preposterous of Bogwatec Philharmonic of Underwear And

numerous variations in the same vein. On the rare occasions

when my sister and I shared the same space, they liked to call

us "Nettlesome and Cuddlesome."

 

We have a saying, an ancient one: "Don't get mad; get

even." It stayed my hand when I was young enough to mind

such nonsense, and now I would not stoop me distance

necessary to get even. But it still rankles at times. As when a

skinny guardmaid bellows out at me before all the world,

"Well met. Responsible of Brightwater!"

 

"Well met yourself," I said, "and why not good morrow

while we're at it?"

 

"Beg your pardon?" She had a slack jaw, too, and it

dropped, doing nothing to improve the general effect.

 

"As should you," I said crossly. "The year is 3012, and

*well met* went out with the chastity belt and the spindle."

 

"I have a spindle," she said to me, all sauce, but she must

not of cared for the expression on my face; she left it at that.

 

"What's your name, guardmaid?" I asked hec while I

waited for the idea to reach her brain that someone should be

notified of my arrival.

 

"Demarest, I'm called. Demarest of Wommack."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              19

 

Demarest ... it was a name that had no associations for

me, and she was far from home.

 

"Would you tell the McDaniels I'm here, Demarest of

Wommack?" I asked her, giving up. No doubt the McDaniels,

like myself, were having trouble finding Castle staff that could

even begin to meet the minimum needs of their jobs. It made

me sorry, at times, that robots were forbidden to us- True, they

were me first step toward a population that just lay around and

got fat and then died of bone laziness; I understood and

approved the prohibition. But they would of been so useful for

some things. Pacing off the boundaries of a kingdom, for

instance, which had to be done on foot, every inch of

it ... and letting people into Castles.

 

She looked at me out of the corner of blue eyes under

straight-cut coppery bangs, and she tugged at the beUpull

hanging at her right hand, and in due course me Castle

Housekeeper appeared and opened the front doors to me. She

did not, I'm happy to say, tell me I was well met; but she called

stablemaios to take away the Mule and unload my saddlebags.

and she showed me into a small waiting room where a fire

burned bright against me February chill. And she saw to it that

someone brought me a glass of wine and a mug of hearty soup.

 

I settled my complicated skirts and maddening trousers, and

drank my soup and wine, and soon enough the arched door

opened and in came Anne of Brightwater, my kinswoman and a

McDaniels by marriage, to greet me.

 

"Law!" she said from the doorway, looking me up and

down. She was blessed with a plain name and plain speech

both, and I envied her the first at least.

 

"Look like a spectacle, don't I?" I acknowledged.

 

"My, yes," said Anne.

 

"I'm supposed to," I said. "You should see my underwear"

 

She agreed to forego that experience, and came and sat

down and stared at me, shaking her head and biting her lower

Hp so as not to laugh.

 

"Well, Anne?"

 

"Oh, I'm sure you've good reasons," she said, "and I have

sense enough not to want to know what they are. But I'll wager

not a single Granny saw you leave in that getup, or more than

your boots and your gloves would be rosy red."

 

I chuckled; I expected she was right.

 

29 Suzerrc HADEN ELGIN

 

"Welcome, Responsible of Brightwatel," said Anne then,

"and how long are we to have the misery of your company?"

 

Plainer and plainer speech.

 

"Can you put me up for twenty-four hours, sweet cousin?"

 

"In the style you're decked out for?"

 

"If you mean must there be dancing in the streets, Anne, no,

I'll spare you that."

 

"What, then? You didn't Just 'drop in' on your way to buy a

spool of thread somewhere."

 

Anne pulled her chair near the fire, folded her arms across

her chest, fixed her attention on me, and waited.

 

"I, Responsible of Brightwatel," I recited, "am touring the

Twelve Castles of Ozark, Castle by Castle, in preparation for

the Grand Jubilee of the Confederation. Which is—as you'll

remember—to be convened at Castle Brightwater on the eighth

day of this May. And I begin here, dear cousin, to do you

honoc"

 

"And because Castle McDaniels is closest."

 

"And," I capped it, "because a person has to begin

somewhere. There is one advantage; if I start with you, then it

follows that you're first done with me."

 

"Ah, yes," she sighed, "there is that."

 

She leaned back in her chair and sighed again, and I tried to

keep my spurs from making holes in her upholstery.

 

"What's required?" she asked me.

 

"One party," 1 said. "A very small one. In honor of my tom;

 

you know. In honor of my Quest.**

 

"In honor of the Pickles,"

 

"The Pickles? Anne!"

 

On Earth, we are told in the Teaching Stories, there was a

food called pickles, made out of some other food called

cucumbers. On this world. Pickles are small flat squishy round

green things, and they bite. They certainly are not good to eat,

even in brine, and we grant them a capital letter to keep the

kids mindful not to step on them barefoot.

 

"Well," said Anne of Brightwater, "it's just as sensible."

 

"It would be just as well," I said, "not to mention the

Pickles in your invitations."

 

"Responsible, dear Cousin Responsible. I despise parties' I

always have despised them, and you know it. Why don't you

be too tired, instead?"

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              21

 

The fire crackled in the fireplace, and a nasty wind howled

round the Castle walls, and I knit my brows and glared at her

until she sighed one more time and went away to give the

necessary orders. My mention as she stepped into the hall that

she'd best expect a comset film crew did nothing for her

expression, but she went on; and I got myself out of my spurs

and hung them over a comer of her mantel.

 

There could be no treason here—and that was what all this

foolishness in fact amounted to, of course, plain treason—not

m Castle McDaniels. The Brightwaters and the McDaniels had

been closer than the sea and its shore ever since First Landing,

and if there was anyone in this Castle who was not kin to me by

birth or by marriage, or tied to me by favors given and

received, it was some ninny such as stood guardmaid.

Nevertheless, a Quest was a Quest, and it had to be done

according to the rules. I had had a boring flight, tooling along

through the air and waving to passing birds; and I would have a

boring supper with Anne's boring husband, and then we would

all have a boring party and be boringly exhausted in the

morning. And then before lunch I would be able to lake my

leave for Castle Purdy.

 

At which point a thought struck me, and I pulled my map

from my pocket and unfolded it. Upper right-hand comer of

die pliofilm, the small continent Marktwain, with the Outward

Deeps off its coasts to the east. To the south of Marktwain,

Oklahomah, a tad biggec To the west, and dwarfing both, the

continent of Arkansaw, with little Mizzurah almost up against

its western coast and sheltered some from the Ocean of Storms

by its overhang to the north. Then across the Ocean of Storms,

in the northwest corner of my map, was Kintucky, big as

Oklahomah but with only the Wommacks to manage the whole

of it. And last of all, filling the southwest cornei; the huge bulk

of Tinaseeh, the only one of our continents to have an inland

sea, and its Wilderness Lands alone as big as either Kintucky

or Oklahomah. And the empty Ocean of Remembrances,

filhng all the southeast comer:

 

True, the most obvious route, and the one I had described to

me arguesome Jubal, was straight over to Arkansaw. But

Arkansaw was shared by Castles Purdy and Guthrie and

Farson. And those were three of the most likely to have

 

22 SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN

 

something to hide from me and require an investment of my

time.

 

An alternative that might save me time in the iong run would

be to fly straight on south to Castle Clark on Oklahomah, and

make a quick circuit of Castles Smith and Airy, both of

which—along with Clark—were loyal to the Confederation. I

could maybe do the entire continent in eight, nine days,

counting one to a Castle for the required ceremonial stopover,

before I moved on to Arkansaw and more reasonable sources

of trouble.

 

The McDaniels children found me poring over my map and

gathered round to look over my shoulder, all nine of them. The

room shrank around me; not a one of them that was not a

typical McDaniels, big and stocky and broad-shouldered (and

if female, broad-hipped as well). It got very crowded in that

room.

 

"This is a nice map you've got," said one of the younger of

the herd, a boy called Nicholas Fail-tower McDaniels the

somethingth—I could not remember the what-th there for a

minute. The 55th? No; the 56m. I was embarrassed; if there is

one thing expected of us it is knowing people's names, and this

boy was a second cousin of mine.

 

"What are you looking for, Responsible? It's a nice map,

like Nicholas says, but there's a lot on it."

 

"She's looking for the kidnapper—" said the very littlest,

and instantly clapped both hands over his mouth. "I forgot,"

he said around his fingers.

 

Either Anne or their father then had threatened them with

dire events if they mentioned that baby; still, it was a

McDaniels baby, and it was not surprising that they'd be

interested. Manners were hard to get the hang of.

 

"I am trying to decide," I said, ruffling the boy's hair to

show I didn't intend to take notice of his lapse, "which is the

best way to go when I leave in the morning.' Like you say,

there's a lot of choices."

 

The children hadn't any hesitation at all—zip due west to

Arkansaw, as any fool could see. Except for one of them. Her

name was Silverweb, and she was fifteen years old and not yet

mairied; perhaps it was her intention to become a Granny

without the bother of waiting around to become a widow. She

was a handsome strapping young woman, with a pleasant face;

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

23

 

die bound her hair back in an intricate figure-eight of yellow

braids that I could never of managed, and she carried herself

with dignity. I made a mental note to compliment Anne on this

daughter—her only daughter—who seemed to me to show

promise.

 

She laid a well-tanned finger that showed she wasn't afraid

of a little sun to my map, and traced a different route. Castle

dark, on Oklahomah's northeast corner. Castle Airy, at the

southern tip ... Oklahomah came very near being a trian-

gle. Then to Castle Smith, in the northwest corner: My choice

exactly.

 

"Do it that way," she said. "Then over to Arkansaw; only

an easy morning's ride. And you're at Castle Guthrie."

 

"Faugh. Silverweb," said one of her brothers, "she can't do

that at all. You heard Mother—Cousin Responsible is touring

all twelve Castles on solemn Quest. The way to do it is go

straight on to Arkansaw, then Mizzurah, men Kintucky, then

Tinaseeh, then end up in Oklahomah, and back to

MaricXwain."

 

"If she ever gets out of Tinaseeh," said another "Horrible

old place, Tinaseeh is, and full of things that would as soon eat

you alive as look at you."

 

"Not as horrible as your room!"

 

I moved out of the way so as not to get my costume spoiled,

grateful that the map was indestructible, and let them shove

and cany on for a bit to get it out of their systems. Silverweb,

calm among the turmoil, held fast that it would be just as

sensible, and twice as pleasant, and break no rules that she'd

ever heard of, if I went the other way round.

 

"But then she's got all that open ocean between Tinaseeh

and Oklahomah to fly! Look at it, would you? A person could

fly over that and never be heard of again—it must be ...

three days across? Five? Six?"

 

"It's got to be done at one end or the other," scoffed his

sister "Better to do it when the worst is over and she can take

her time. She'll be plain worn out, by then."

 

"What makes you think so, Silverweb?" the boy taunted,

for all he had to stand on his tiptoes to look her in the eye.

"She's Responsible of Brightwater, Silverweb, she's not a

tourist!"

 

SUverweb's chin went up and the blue eyes almost closed.

 

24

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

She took one stop forward and the boy fell back two. Second of

nine she was; it couldn't be easy. And the other eight all

male ... it was enough to constitute a substantial burden.

 

SUverweb. I added it up in my head—she was a seven.

Withdrawal from the world . . . that went with not marrying

. . . secrets and mystery . . - that fit the hooded eyes and

me intricate figure of her braids. From what I could see, this

one was properly named, and living up to it.

 

As of course she would be. There were no incompetent

Grannys on Marictwain to cause trouble with an Improper

Naming, as had been known to happen elsewhere from time to

 

time.

 

I let them squabble, Silverweb winning easily, and relaxed

as best I could given the way I was dressed, enjoying the sight

of them all if not the sound. I had my route chosen now—as

Silverweb had had the wit to lay it out, and it was not designed

solely in terms of distances and points of the compass. I would

do quickly the friendly territory of Oklahomah; and in that way

I'd have a bit extra where it was less than friendly.

 

The party was pleasant, more a dance than a party, and a

credit to Anne. She'd invited people enough to fill the Castle's

smaller ballroom, and had managed to muster a respectable

crowd, considering me short notice and a thunderstorm that

had already been scheduled and could not of been postponed

without distorting the weather for the next three weeks. Anne

and I stood in a comer back of the bandstand where the Caller

was hollering out the dances, both of us in slight danger from a

flying fiddle bow but willing to risk it for the sake of the semi-

privacy. I despised parties as much as Anne did, probably

more. and I couldn't dance even the simplest dances, much less

the complex things they were weaving on the tiles that night in

honor of my visit.

 

"Star in the shallows, flash and swim,

Lady to her gentleman and parry to him!"

 

"Wherever do they leam to do all that?" I marveled.

 

"Circle has a border to it, touch it and run.

Muffins in the oven till their middles are done!"

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms            25

 

"You should of been taught," said Anne- "They had no

right to leave you ignorant just because you might of enjoyed

yourself."

 

"There wasn't time," I said, which was the plain truth.

Plus, I was awkward, always had been.

 

"Braid a double rosebud, smother it in snow,

Swing your partner, and dosey-do!"

 

"Step on a Pickle in the dark of night,

Grab your cross lady, and allemande right!"

 

"It's not fail," she insisted. "I hear your brother's the best

dancer in three counties, and turning all the girls to cream and

buttec And I'll wager they saw to it that your sister learned

every dance that was worth knowing."

 

I snorted. "Nobody ever 'saw to it' that Troublesome did

anything, Anne of Brightwater What she wanted to do, she

did. What she cared to know about, she learned. Anything else

was just so much kiss-your-elbow"

 

"Sashay down the center; rim around the wall,

Single-bind, double-bind, and promenade all!"

 

I couldn't even understand these calls . . . dosey-do and

promenade-the-hall went by often enough to let me know it

was dancing, but the intricacies of it were beyond me. I

couldn't decide whether I minded that, either, though on

general principles I was not supposed to fall behind on

anything that mattered to any sizable proportion of Ozarkers,

"sizable" being defined as more than three. It looked to be hot

work, and I fanned my face with my blank program in

sympathy.

 

"Young people!" I said, ducking the bow. "They do amaze

me."

 

Anne gave me a sharp look, and I looked her right back and

.waited. Whatever she had to say, she'd say it; she'd said

enough about my blue-and-silver party dress, which was even

more preposterous in the way of gewgaws and lollydaddles

man the one I'd arrived in. And my high-heeded silver slippers

with the pointed toes.

 

26 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"My daughter, Silverweb," she said to me, and I noticed

that she was talking with her teeth clenched, and spitting out

the syllables like she couldn't spare them, "Silverweb, my

dear cousin, is a 'young people.'"

 

"And a fine one," I agreed. "That's a likely young woman,

and I plan to keep my eye on her in future. I wager she'll go a

considerable distance in this worid."

 

"SiTverweb," Anne said again, "is fifteen years old. And

you, Responsible of Brightwater, you remarking on the habits

of these 'young people' like a blasted Granny, have had

precisely fourteen birthdays, and the fourteenth not more than

six weeks ago!"

 

It wasn't often I stood rebuked lately, not since we'd finally

managed to pack my sister off where she couldn't do any harm

to speak of or leave me holding the bag if she was bound and

determined to live up to her name. But this was one of the

times, and I had it coming. Not that we arc given to

considering only the calendar years on Ozark, we know many

other things more worth considering. But my speech had not

been genteel. It was the sort of thing my mother would of said,

and I wished, not for me first time, that I had the skill of

blushing. That, like the ability not to fall over my own big feet,

had been left out of my equipment. And the more ashamed of

myself I was, the more I looked like I didn't care atall—I knew

that. I only wished I knew what to do about it.

 

Anne of Brightwater was not as tall as I was, and she had a

usual habit of gathering herself in that made her seem even

smaller, but she was making me feel mighty puny now, there

mid the music and the boom of thunder A trick like a cat does,

puffing herself up to be more impressive.

 

"It is hard for Silverweb," said my kinswoman, spitting

sparks now along with the syllables, "seeing you come here,

dressed like a young queen and treated like one, off on a Quest

before all the world and it taken seriously—oh, they are, don't

you worry, they are taking it very seriously! While she stands

aside and must hear herself called *one of the McDaniels

children.' Had you thought of that?"

 

I had not thought of it, obvious though it surely should have

been. I looked at the tall grave girl who was a year my senior,

moving easily through the squares in a simple dress of giay silk

sprigged with pale green rosebuds, and her only ornament a

shawl of dark gray wool in a Love-in-the-Mist knotting, with a

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

27

 

pearl fringe . . . and perhaps the single wild rose in her

yellow hak I remembered the way I had sat that afternoon,

"watching the children," with a pretty fair estimate of the

expression that must of been on my face at that time, and I felt

a fool. Had I called her "one of the children" in her hearing?

Surely not . . . but supper had been boring, as expected, and

I'd not paid a great deal of mind to curbing my tongue.

 

"The mother lion defends her young," I said lamely, and the

nearest Fiddler got me back of the ear, making me jump.

 

"And a stitch in time saves nine!"

 

I winced and stared at the floor, and Anne drew her skirts

around her with a swish like ribbon tearing and went off and

left roe standing there all alone as she headed for the ballroom

dool; managing to tangle herself up with two couples in a reel

before she sailed out into the corridor and slammed the door

behind hec

 

She would be back later to apologize. After all, I had not

chosen to be Responsible of Brightwatec It was none of my

doing. A Granny had chosen that role for me and I filled it as

best I could, and no doubt there were good reasons. Some of

mem I knew, and some I could guess, though there seemed a

kind of fuzz between them and my clear awareness; others I

would learn in time, and some I would be told. When I was

buried they would be written on a sheet of paper narrow as my

thumb, in the symbols of Formalisms & Transformations, and

tucked between my breasts and buried with me. Somewhere, if

she still lived, there was someone who knew every one of those

reasons at this very moment, and no doubt the knowledge lay

heavy on her shoulders; I hoped they were broad.

 

I was behaving like a fourteen-year-old, I realized, and I

smoothed my ruffled feathers and set my quarrel with Anne

aside, along with the futile lamenting about my lack of

elegances. Spilt milk, all of it, and I'd spill gallons more

before I saw my own Castle gates again. The only important

question I needed to concern myself with was: could there be

mischief here, if not treason, despite the fact that the

McDaniels were close to the Brightwaters as our skins?

 

I listened, then, with more than my ears—my ears were too

fall of fiddle and guitar and dulcimer to be useful in any case—

and only silence came back to me. Here I might be annoying,

 

28 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

and I might be read up and down, but here I was loved, and

here the Confederation was seen as a worthy goal to be worked

toward. I found no small thing that I could worry about, and I

worried easy; nor would I be spending this night casting Spells

to troll for echoes that I might of missed hearing through the

music.

 

Thunder boomed again, less intimidating than Anne, and I

poured myself another glass of punch and retreated further into

the protection of the tall white baskets of flowers and ferns that

surrounded the bandstand. And seeing as how the McDaniels

set as fine a party table as was to be found anywhere, I had

another plate of food. I would be off in the morning early, I

decided, and skip the breakfast. That way I wouldn't have to

face Silverweb of McDaniels again and risk putting my foot

deeper yet in the muck than I had already, from being self-

conscious over slighting her so today.

 

My pockets were deep and my skirts full enough to hide

plenty of lumps. I made sure I had both a midnight snack and a

breakfast squirreled away before Anne came back to tuck her

arm through mine and tell me what a crosspatch she'd been

over nothing.

 

"It wasn't 'nothing,'" I said resolutely, "and I had every

word you said coming to me, Anne. But I want you to know it

wasn't meant to be the way it looked, and I wish you'd tell

Silverweb that once I'm gone. And I thank you for bringing my

manner to my attention here and now, close to home; it would

not be so easy if you were the lady of Castle Traveller,"

 

"Just use your head," she said, and tears in her eyes because

she saw I was truly sorry. Anne of Brightwater had a quick

temper, but a heart that melted at blood heat, nearly. "And

watch your tongue."

 

"I'm trying," I said. "I'll get the hang of it."

 

I had for sure better get the hang of it, and that with some

speed.

 

"You'll tell Silverweb?" I asked her. "Promise?"

 

"I'll tell her; And she will understand. Silverweb is a deep

one."

 

CHAPTER?

 

THE NEXT DAY I was able to be a little more sensible. Leaving,

I still wore my spectacular traveling outfit, but the minute I was

well over the water and out of sight of the fishing boats I

brought Sterling to a full stop in midair and changed into

something that didn't make what was already misery doubly

so. Balancing on Muleback for that kind of thing takes

practice, and properly fastened straps and backups, but I was

more than up to it—I'd had lots of practice. Mostly it requires

pretending you are flat on the ground, while at the same time

not exactly forgetting that it's a good ways down.

 

I took the Ocean of Remembrances at a leisurely pace; it was

a three-day flight from Castle McDaniels to the first landfall on

Oklahomah, and since I'd done Castle to coast in about

fourteen minutes flat I had time to make up over the ocean.

 

I cut the Mule back to half her regulation speed, and I

balanced a very small dulcimer—all I'd been able to fit in my

saddlebags, but not all that bad—over her broad neck, and I

sang my way dry through a steady wind and plenty of rain by

way of a Weather Transformation that it was fully illegal for me

to know. Sterling disliked the dulcimer, and she probably

 

29

 

SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN

 

30

 

disliked my voice even more; it was a good deal like her own.

Just as I was never called upon to dance at parties, I was never

called upon to sing (anywhere), and I reveled in my opportuni-

ty. here at a height where there was nobody to clap hands over

their ears and beg me to leave off tormenting them. I do know a

lot of ballads, not to mention every hymn in the hymnal, and I

enjoyed myself tremendously.

 

There is some inconvenience, of course, to making any

lengthy ocean voyage by Mule, our oceans being almost

completely empty of islands or reefs. A person could get

through one day without too much hassle, provided you neither

ate nor drank the day before nor during the flight itself. But

once you went beyond that single day the inevitable happened,

and considerable gymnastics were required of both rider and

Mule. (This was not the least of the reasons why Ozarkers for

the most part went by boat from continent to continent, and it

made it unlikely that I would meet any other citizen on

Muleback as I went along, which was all to the good in me

interests of modesty.) Only for the sake of a symbol would

anything so unhandy be undertaken by a reasonable person,

and few had that sort of symbol to deal with.

 

I had ample time to think about the distances and times of

flight that would be expected of me, when my throat and my

fingers got tired. Brightwater to McDaniels, one very long day,

and then three more to Oklanomah. Three days roughly for

each leg of the triangle from Castle dark to Castle Smith,

Castle Smith to Castle Airy, and back again almost to dark for

the best take-off across the channel to Arkansaw—that a day's

flight only, and a short day. Three days' travel for Castles

Farson and Guthrie, a day's flight to Mizzurah; two days there

and two to Castle Puroy Four days across the Ocean of Storms

to Kintucky, provided the ocean didn't do too much living up to

its name and force me to put in an extra day for the benefit of

the population. Ten days from Kintucky to Tinaseeh. Then the

longest leg over water ... the McDaniels children had not

been too far off in their estimate of the flight time from

Tinaseeh's southeast tip back to Oklahomah; it was a good five

days, even with fair weather and a tailwind. And then four

days home. Fifteen days, even cutting it very close, I'd be

expected to spend flying over water And far more than that for

 

T\velve Fair Kingdoms

 

31

 

die land distances, with stops at the same intervals expected of

anyone else.

 

Since I was all alone I indulged myself, and turned the air

blue to match the stripe between Sterling's ears, which were

still laid back in protest against my concert. I could of done the

whole trip, the actual flying time, in about an hour total, just

die amount of realtime involved in take-offs and landings, and

there was no time to spare with the Jubilee coming in May, and

February almost over. But whereas a Magician of Rank could

have done it that way and nobody would of done more than

maybe fuss mildly about people that felt obliged to show off,

having a -woman do such a thing would cause about the same

amount of commotion as a good-sized groundquake. And the

damage would not be repairable by stone and timber: I could

shave an hour here and half an hour there and get away with it,

but not much more, not without causing more trouble than I

could conveniently put an end to. The word would be well out

by now, and people in the towns and farms—and on the water

along me coasts, too—would be expecting to look up and see

roe fly by all in emerald and black and gold and silver and

scarlet, at reasonable points of time. Aeronautically

reasonable.

 

, I could think of no cover story that would get me out of any

of that time, except that (the Twelve Comers be praised) I

would be able to do most of my make-up time in the

Wilderness instead of over the oceans. The likelihood of

anybody observing me in mid-ocean once I got away from the

coasts was too small to be worth considering; I would do a

decorous few miles in sight of land, SNAP to a suitably remote

spot in the nearest Wilderness, and camp there to wait out the

time it "should" of taken me to fly that far Enough was

enough. Muleflight was fine for formal occasions, for short-

time travel, and for racing and hunting, but it was one of the

roost boring ways ever devised for going long distances.

Sterling, like any other Mule with a sense of self-respect,

refused to go through the completely superfluous leg move-

ments in the air that travel over ground or in the water would of

required ... it was a lot like sitting on a log (a smalt log)

floating through the air, and if it hadn't been for the wind

-Mowing past you it would of been easy to believe that you

weren't moving at all. Over the water even the wind wasn't all

 

32 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

that much diversion. It wasn't tiring, and twelve full hours of it

was no great strain on either Mule or rider, but, law, it was

boring. I intended to keep it to a minimum.

 

The coast of Oklahomah is peaceful land. Pale golden sand

sloping gently down to the water on one side and gently up into

low green hills on the otnei; and the weather always easy there.

There were boats out, farther from the land than I had really

expected them to be, and I made my arm tired waving at their

passengers before I began my descent. And managed to drop

my poor dulcimer into the Ocean of Remembrances in the

process. New motto: never try to balance a dulcimer across a

Mule's neck, keep from falling off the Mule, and wave to a

boat captain below you at the same time.

 

Sterling and I settled down toward the land, and I saw that

my expectations were correct; the word had gone out.

Although Castle Clark was no more than three miles up from

the shore, where it had a view that melted both heart and mind

as it faced out toward the sea, there was a delegation of some

sort waiting to meet me. I wouldn't have to hammer on the

gates of Castle Clark as I had had to do at Castle McDaniels;

 

we were going in in a small, and I hoped a tasteful, procession.

 

The darks' Castle staff wore dark brown livery, trimmed at

cuff and hem with yellow and white. Four of the staff were

there on Muleback (all, by their insignia, Senior Attendants),

me dark crest embroidered on their right shoulders. I had

always liked that crest; two stalks of wheat, crossed, yellow on

a field of brown, and a single white star above the wheat—

nothing more. It pleasured the eye and was a credit to the

Granny that'd devised it when the Castle was built.

 

"Good morning, miss," they said, which was a great relief,

and I good-mominged them back again. And then they told me

that dinner was waiting for us at the Castle, which pleasured

me even more. I hope to outgrow my appetite one of these

years, but I was hungry again.

 

"And a message from Castle Smith waiting, miss," said

 

one.

 

"What sort of message. Attendant?"

"Don't know, miss. I was told to greet you, ask you to

dinner; and say the message was waiting. That's all."

We turned the Mules, and they followed me, four abreast

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

33

 

aad a mannerly four Mule-lengths behind, across the sand and

up the hill ahead of us. The Mules had no objection to the hard-

packed beach, but floundered once we were above the tideline;

 

I me pleased to see that none of the animals following me took

the all too common Mulish tactic of stopping dead and refusing

to move, sinking deeper all the while into the sand. They were

well trained, and they struggled through the powdery stuff

without hesitation, though I'd no doubt they'd of said a good

deal if they'd bad the chance. Not one brayed, a sure sign of

good management in the stables, and once we reached the road

their hoofs tapped smartly along the white pavement. Very

orderiy, and I Liked order. I was in a good mood, and prepared

to be in a better one, as we went through the gates and

dismounted in the courtyard, and I was led straight on to a long

balcony on the second floor that looked out over the hills to the

sea.

 

There sat the darks. Nathan Terfelix Clark the 17th, with a

beard like a white bush trimming up his burly chest, and not a

hair on his head, in compensation. His wife, Amanda of

Farson, the one with the chins. Their three daughters, Una,

Zoe, and Sharon, and the husbands of the two eldest at their

sides. Let me see - . .it was Una that had scandalized her

parents by marrying a Travellei; and gone on to scandalize the

Families nearby by loving him far beyond what was either

decent or expected, and that would be him, Gabriel Ladder-

cane Traveller the 34th, in the suit of black. The Travellers

were unwilling to give up any of their ancient trappings, and

they dressed still as they had the day they stepped off The Ship

in 2021. Zoe's husband was a kinsman, Joseph Frederick

Brightwater the 11m, and looked pleased to see me. And an

assortment of babies, all of them beautiful. I've never seen an

ugly baby—but then I've never seen a genuinely new one,

either—I'm told that might dent my convictions.

 

And there sat Granny Golightly.

 

She gave me the shivers, and it pleased me not to have her

where I had to see her oftener She stood not quite five feet tall,

she weighed about as much as a Mule colt, and she was an Airy

by birth, which had been an astonishing long time ago. If my

reckoning was right, Granny Golightly had passed her one

hundred and twenty-ninth birthday recently; next to her I was a

flyspeck on the windowpane of time. I intended to go lightly

 

34 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

near hei; for sweet prudence' sake, and as befit her name.

 

"Hello there. Responsible of Brightwatel;" they said to me,

and waved roe to an empty chair in the sunshine. Dinner was

chowder—I counted eleven kinds of fish!—and dark ale, and

combread property prepared and so hot the butter disappeared

when it touched it, and a fine pair of salads, one fruit and one

vegetables. And a berry cobbler that I knew nobody at Castle

Brightwater could of brought off, including my own self.

 

Finishing that cobbler, and thinking back on the rest of the

meal, I understood fully how the Clarks acquired their bulk,

and I forgave Amanda her chins. What I did not understand

was the trim waists of the daughters, especially Una, who

accounted for five of the children. Perhaps since they had

grown up eating this way they had developed a natural

immunity- Or perhaps this was a company meal and they

usually ate like the rest of us at noon; I had, after all, been

expected here.

 

"Responsible of Brightwater," said Nathan Terfelix,

"there's a message here for you from Castle Smith. Man

arrived with it this morning almost before we had the gates

unlocked, and what he was in such a hurry for I have no idea.

Or interest. Knew you couldn't get here before noontime."

 

"Took off as fast as he arrived, too," Amanda added. "He

wouldn't even stop for a cup of coffee."

 

She raised her head and nodded at a young Attendant

standing near the door, and he brought me an envelope and laid

it in my hand without a word. He looked to be about eleven,

and if I was any judge his livery collar itched him; this must be

his first year in service.

 

"Amanda," I said as he backed away, "the young man's

collar is badly fit. Someone should see to it."

 

Granny Golightly cackled, which was trite.

 

"Not going to miss a trick, are you. Responsible of

Brightwater?" she demanded. "Going to see that our livery fits

the servants right, are you? You plan to inspect the stables

while you're here, and run your little white fingers up and

down the banisters?"

 

"I beg your pardon. Granny Golightly," I said. "I did not

mean to criticize."

 

"Lie to me, young missy, and you'll rue it," she snapped.

"Criticism you gave, and criticism we got, and I'll see to the

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

35

 

tadung's collar myself, this afternoon1. And to the careless

seamstress that made it too tight in the first place, whoever she

may be! All we need is sloppy staff giving Responsible of

Brightwater bits to add to her long list!"

 

This was ordinary behavior for a Granny, and I paid it no

mind; it had been years since I'd made the mistake of getting

into a wrangle with a Granny bent on public performance. She

went on like that for quite some time, under her breath, while I

turned the envelope from Castle Smith over in my hands, and

oie young husbands disappeared one at a time on mumbled

errands.

 

Creamy white papa; thick as linen, and an envelope that

ought to of held something of importance—which it had to

hold, if it could not of been sent by comset in the ordinary way

but had to be carried here by human hand. Seven inches square

if it was one, and the Smith crest stamped on it both front and

back, and an official seal! And inside it, all alone in the middle

of a sheet of matched paper like lonely raisins in a pudding, the

following words:

 

We regret that Castle Smith will be unable to entertain

you at mis time, due to a family crisis. Any questions you

might have can be asked there at Castle dark, and well

answered.

 

In cordial haste,

Dorothy of Smith

 

The eldest daughter of the Castle, Dorothy of Smith

. . . carrying out a minor social duty? Or what? Dorothy was

a pincher; I remembered her as a child at playparties and

picnics, always quick with her wicked little fingers, and

running before you could get a fair chance to pinch her back.

She would be fourteen now, just about three months older than

I was. And since she'd bid me ask questions, I asked one.

 

"Begging your pardon. Granny Golightly," I said, and the

Granny stopped her nattering and looked up from her cobbler.

"Amanda, do you or Nathan either of you know of any 'crisis'

at Castle Smith?"

 

Amanda looked blank, and Nathan frowned, and Granny

Golightly forgot her pose long enough to give me a sharp look

between bites.

 

36 SUZETTEHADEN ELGIN

 

"Crisis," said Nathan.

"What kind of crisis?" asked Amanda.

I waved the note. "Doesn't say," I said. "Just disinvites

me."

 

"Now that won't do, young lady," Granny Golightly

jumped in, "for you invited your own self on this particular

traipse-about! There was no call sent out from the Twelve

Castles, demanding the drop-in of Responsible of Brightwater

at her earliest convenience, not as / know of—and I would

know."

 

"Gently, Granny," said Zoe of dark, and leaned over to

pick up a baby. For ballast peAaps. "Gently!"

 

"Flumdiddle," said the Granny.

 

"I withdraw die accusation," I said, "and you are quite

right—I had no invitation. Not here, either but you've seen fit

to be hospitable and I thank you for it. I will remember it."

 

"On your list!" said Granny. "See there?"

 

"And," I added, "I will remember the way the Smiths set

their hands to the same plow—what to do with Responsible of

Brightwater, all inconvenient and uninvited. Unless—unless

there truly is trouble at Castle Smith to back this up."

 

Silence, all around the table. Mules braying in the stables,

and seabirds crying out as they whirled above us, but no

words, nor did I really expect many. Ozarkers do not talk

behind one another's backs, excepting always the Grannys,

who do it only as part of their ritual and are careful that it leans

to harmless nonsense.

 

"Anybody sick there?" I asked finally.

 

"Might could be," said Zoe. "It's that time of the year We

have a few people here down with fevers . . . nothing

serious, but fevers all the same."

 

"I was thinking more on me order of a plague," I said flatly.

 

More silence.

 

"All right," 1 said, "is mere marrying trouble there? Or

birthing trouble? Or naming trouble?"

 

"If there is," said Granny Gotightly, "Granny Gableframe

is there and she'll see to it."

 

"Responsible," said Amanda of Farson, "you're touring the

Castles, as I understand it, because you intend to find out who

hung the McDaniels baby in your cedar tree—"

 

"Flumdiddle!" said Granny Golightly again. Emphatically.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              37

 

"Trite, Granny Gotightly," I said between my teeth, and she

wrinkled her nose at me.

 

"I say flumdiddle because no other word that's accurate sits

well in my mouth," she had back at me. "If all you wanted to

know was who did that foolish baby trick, you have Magicians

of Rank as could find that out for you without you setting out

on a Quest! Amanda, you can't see any farther than the end of

your nose."

 

"Gently, Granny," said Zoe again, and her sisters each

reached for a baby, too. They appeared to use the little ones

like a kind of armor in this Castle; any sign of tension and

everybody grabbed a baby. I wasn't sure what it signified, but it

was distinctive.

 

"What were you going to say, Amanda?" I asked, keeping

my voice as courteous as I could and hoping for a chance at this

Granny another day.

 

"I meant to say that the Smiths are easily ofiended. That's

well known."

 

"If they think you suspect them of doing that sorry piece of

business—and with you coming uninvited they'll for sure think

you do suspect them, since you've never done such a thing

before—you'll put their backs up," said Nathan Terfelix.

"They're stiffnecked and overproud. They won't bear being

spied upon."

 

"Do you see my visit as being spied upon?" I asked, taken

aback, and then regretted it; Golightly was on me quick as a

tick.

 

"Most certainly!" she said, little wrinkled cheeks red as

wild daisies. "Most certainly! And why not, seeing as that is

what it is?"

 

"Oh, my," I sighed, "this won't do."

 

"Now, my dear, that's just Granny's way of talking," said

Amanda. "You mustn't mind it."

 

Telling me, was she, about the Grannys and their way of

talking? Even Sharon looked embarrassed, and the silent Una

made a little noise in the back of her throat and stared down

into her coffee cup.

 

"Your Granny," I said quietly, "is doing what she's good at.

Stirring up trouble. Sowing dissent."

 

The old lady's brows went up, and I thought she was going

 

38

 

SUZETrt HADEN ELGIN

 

to rub her hands together with glee at finally getting to me. But

she waited, to see if I'd go on.

 

"I see no reason why youall can't know why I'm here," I

told them. "Nor why the tour of the Castles. For sure, 1 could

of found out without leaving my own bedroom—with the help

of a Magician of Rank, of course—"

 

"What are you up to with a Magician of Rank in your

bedroom?" Granny interrupted, scoring one point.

 

"—who kidnapped the McDaniels baby," I went right on.

"That's not in question. The point is that somebody, or some

one of the Families, is doing one piece of fool mischief after

another to try to make people back out of the Jubilee.

Especially people that've been against it all along and are Just

looking for an excuse to stay away. Finding out who's doing the

mischief is not really the point—though it serves as Quest

Goal, naturally, and I'll do it as I go along. The point is to show

that Castle Brightwater is not to be put down by mischief,

magical or otherwise."

 

"A symbol," said Amanda.

 

"A Quest for a Challenge," said Golightly, who knew her

business. "Quite right."

 

"But nobody here is against the Jubilee!" said Zoe, looking

both outraged and puzzled.

 

"Of course not," I agreed, "but do think, Zoe of dark!"

 

She jogged the baby a bit, and then she nodded.

 

"You couldn't go only to the Castles you suspect," she said.

"That would tip your hand."

 

"Green roosters, the girl's stupid!" shrilled Granny Golight-

ly, and Zoe winced. I thought I might have to take this Granny

in hand; and then I reminded myself sternly that the internal

affairs of Castle dark were none of my business, as long as

they remained allies of Brightwatec

 

"And why am I stupid, Granny?" demanded Zoe, and good

for her!

 

"She means," I said gently, "that the problem is not tipping

my hand—the Families that I suspect know who they are

already. Traveller; Purdy, Guthrie, and—I'm sorry, Amanda—

Parson. The reason for all this folderol is that a Quest must be

done in a certain fashion, or it is not a symbol. A Quest is one

thing, done under rigid constraints, one step at a time—"

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              39

 

"And plenty of adventures as you go along!" said Granny.

"That's required!"

 

"One step at a time," I went on, working uphill, "flying our

finest Mule, wearing my finest gown . . . and so on. Done

any other way, it's not a Quest at all, it's just the daughter of

Brightwater gallivanting around the planet uninvited and

unexplained. That would be something quite different, Zoe.

Brightwater doing this as a Quest, and doing it to the letter of

the rule—that says we mean business, and no mistake about

it."

 

The early shadows were beginning to stripe the balcony, and

the wind was coming up cold. The older children began

shooing the younger ones inside, and the dark daughters

passed along the babies in their laps to the staff to be carried in.

High time, too, to my mind.

 

"I see," Zoe said, rubbing her arms and drawing a shawl

around her shoulders from the back of her chair "Yes, that's

clear"

 

Nathan Terfelix pulled at his beard—which I would have

enjoyed pulling myself—and poured one half-cup of coffee all

around to finish off the pot.

 

"What do you think. Responsible of Brightwater?" he

asked; and there was no banter in his voice. "I take no insult on

the part of my wife—the Parsons have never shown sign of

love for the Confederation, and your logic can't be faulted. Nor

is she responsible for her family's doings on the other side of

Arkansaw, if doings there be. But what do you think of the

chances for this Jubilee?'*

 

"Fair to middling," I said. "Provided I do this right."

 

"I don't see it," said Sharon of Clark. "The Jubilee is a

celebration, a giant party. It's a lot of trouble for Castle

Brightwatci; but if they're willing, why should anybody else

care?"

 

I looked at Granny Golightly and waited for a remark about

the girl's stupidity, but apparently she didn't think twelve was

old enough yet to demand the attentions of her tongue. She

glared at me, but she held her peace.

 

"The Travellers," I told the child, "the Purdys, the

Guthries, the Parsons ... all of them want the Confedera-

tion set back to meeting one day a year like it once did, pure

play-acting with no muscle to it. And each Castle absolutely to

 

40 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

its own self the rest of the time. Every meeting, Sharon of

dark, the Travellers move to go back to that one day a year, the

Parsons second that, it goes to a vote, and it goes down seven

to five or eight to four depending. Every meeting . . . that's

the first thing happens after the Opening Prayer The Jubilee,

now, may look like a giant party, but it means a kind of

formalizing of the Confederation that's never been done yet.

Those Families would like to see it fail, like to see the other

Families do as Castle Smith has done here—send letters around

politely regretting that due to some 'crisis' they could not after

all attend the Jubilee. You see that?"

 

Sharon of dark drew her brows together and sighed. "Well.

it makes no sense atall," she said crossly. "Don't they know

anything? Don't they know that if it wasn't for the Confedera-

tion we'd have anarchism?"

 

"Anarchy, child," said her father "The word's anarchy"

 

"Well, that, then! Don't they even care?"

 

She was positively abristle with outrage, an<f I gave the

Granny credit for that; Sharon of dark had been properly

taught. I doubt she knew anarchy from a fishkettle, but she'd

learned it for a word to shudder at, and that was all that was

likely to be required of her

 

"Perhaps they don't care, Sharon," I said carefully. "And

then perhaps they only don't understand. If we knew the truth

of it, might could be we'd be able to change their minds on the

subject."

 

Amanda of Parson said nothing, there being little she could

say, and I paid her the courtesy of not questioning her on her

own sympathies, while her child nodded solemnly. Amanda

had been a dark by marriage now over forty years; it was not

likely that she still held to her Family's prejudices. Even if she

did, certainly she would not be involved in sabotage coming

from that quarter. A woman actively disloyal to her husband's

house would go back to her own, as a matter of honor; she

would not live as his wife and work against him.

 

"Speak openly. Responsible of Brightwater" said Granny

Golightly then, "and look in my eyes when you speak. Do you

suspect treason here?"

 

1 looked her eye to beady eye, and I spoke flat out. "For sure

and for certain, Granny Golightly, I do not. Nor, till I had this

scrap of paper from Castle Smith, did I suspect it on all of

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              41

 

Oklahomah. It was my idea that I'd stop quickly at each of the

three Castles here, where I knew the loyalty to the Confedera-

tion wasn't in question, and so doing gain maybe a little extra

time to spend in other places."

 

"She speaks the truth," said the Granny, showing an amount

of overconfidence that didn't specially surprise me. "And /

will speak the truth, returning her the favor and then we can all

get inside out of this blasted wind and get comfortable."

 

She leaned forward and tapped her skinny fingers together as

she steepled them, peering at me over the steeple. "There's no

trouble at Castle Smith," she said, "but not your treason,

either No one at Smith's doing magic as shouldn't be doing it,

or for evil ends."

 

"I wonder" I said.

 

"I'm telling you," she snapped, "and I know of what I

speak. You can cease wondering. I am the Granny of this

Castle, and the senior Granny of the five that share the

housekeeping of Oklahomah among us, and I tell you,

Uppity—-fourteen, aren't you! what an age for wisdom!—I tell

you there's no need to set your stubborn foot in Castle Smith.

It's as Nathan Terfelix says; they're stiff-necked and you've

insulted them, and they haven't the sense to see what you're

doing, any more than Sharon there did, or the babies."

 

"Not going would save me time," I hazarded.

 

"Don't go, then," she said, and stood up with more

creakings and poppings than an old attic floor in cold weather

"Who's there to suspect? Granny Gableframe, her that was a

Brightwater by birth, and a McDaniels by marriage forty-seven

years? Can you see her allowing such goings-on? And there's

whatsisname . . . Delldon Mallard Smith the 2nd, and twice

is enough if you ask me, no more gumption to him than a

nursing baby for all he thinks himself a power in the land. And

his three brothers, each of them as much a bully as he is, but

scared of him, more fools them . . . and all their poor

burdened wives, doing their best to clean up after their

worthless menfolk ..."

 

"Granny Golightly," I said quickly, "I think I follow you."

 

"That one," she said, shaking her finger under my nose and

not a bit slowed down, "that Delldon Mallard, now, he is just

stupid enough to set himself up proud and claim he should have

been made an exception of, though he knows very well you

 

42 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

skip a station on a Quest and you risk the whole thing. He was

a stupid little boy, he was a stupid young man, and he's

growing stupider with every passing year I can just see him

thinking himself fit to be an exception and sitting around his

supper table bragging that he's shown Brightwater a thing or

two! But he's a pool; pitiful, pathetic, puny fool. He couldn't

sour milk any way but spitting in it."

 

Whew! She was outspoken. Too outspoken. There were still

staff near us, and what their family allegiance might be was

unknown to me. And children, who are not always good at

guarding their tongues.

 

"Want me to hush," she said, her mouth twitching, "you

pass the Smiths by. Or I'll say the rest, to convince you—and I

know a passel more, young woman."

 

I was sure she did, and it was clear that she was prepared to

lay it all before us, and the devil take the consequences.

 

"Granny Golightly," I said, "I'll make a bargain with you,

if you'll hush now."

 

"State it!"

 

"You spread the word for me," I said, "with a suitable

story . . . some good reason why I did not go to Castle

Smith. You know the conditions on a Quest—mere refusal of

admittance to a location is no excuse. I need a plague, or a

dragon, or a bomb, or whatever you like, I leave it to you. But

something that will be sufficient to make by-passing that Castle

not a spoiling of my Quest! Something clearly and wholly

beyond my control, you understand me?"

 

"I do," she said. "And I'll see to it."

 

"Your word on it? And nobody else harmed, mind!"

 

"My word, given already," she said impatiently, "and done

as it should be. I'll spread the story and it will be ample, and no

edges lopping over My promise on it. Responsible of

Brightwater!"

 

I stood up then, too, and it was like a congregation following

the choir; they all followed the Granny and me and stood along

with us, and the servingmaids moved in to clear away the

tablestuff.

 

"Then I'll stay the night here, if you'll have me for suppci;

 

too," I said, "and then go on sometime tomorrow to Castle

Airy. The matter of Castle Smith I'll leave to Granny Golightly,

with my thanks."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              43

 

"Make it good, Granny," said Una—the first time she'd

spoken all that time except to chide or cosset a child.

 

"Never you mind," said the old woman. "I've been a

Granny a very long time now, I know my doings."

 

Maybe.

 

Since she would cover my tracks for me, it made no

difference if the guilty one was at Castle Smith; as had been

plainly stated, I had not even needed to leave home to find out

who that was. But the Smiths now ... I'd seen Delldon

Mallard Smith at meetings, and for sure had always found him

a pompous bore, with an "uh ... uh ... uh ..." for

every other word out of his mouth. But I didn't know there was

dry rot in his brain, which was how the Granny made it sound,

and it was of course a credit to the Smith women that I didn't.

If the men at the Castle were as foolish as Granny Golightly

had said them to be, plain out and aloud in front of one and all,

then there might be one or more of them fool enough to be

mixed up in this somewhere, or to prove a weak link at an

inconvenient moment.

 

It didn't matter; I decided. I felt quite confident about

Granny Golightly's powers of invention. By the time I landed

Sterling at Castle Airy some truly wondrous tale would have

spread from one end of Ozark to the other to explain why I had

not favored Castle Smith with a visit, and that was all that was

of any present importance. The rest of it could wait rill a later

time.

 

I followed them into the Castle, looking forward to my room

and a rest and a proper bathroom, and as a show of solidarity I

scooped up a random baby from a low bench in the hall under a

round window.

 

When in dark . . .

 

CHAPTER 4

 

CASTLE CLARK DID very well by me; a small formal supper for

twenty-four interesting couples, and the young man provided

for me able to discuss several other subjects besides Mules and

the weather and then a truly impressive breakfast on the Castle

balcony with what appeared to be half the county invited, and

both a Taleteller and a Ballad Singer laid on. I left happy;

 

dulcimerless, but mighty well fed, and my traveling costume

fresh from the attentions of Granny Golightly herself—who I'd

wager had not bothered to wash or press it but confined her

"work" to a Housekeeping Spell—and I went over the next

step in my head as Sterling and I headed out.

 

Castle Airy sat at the southernmost tip of Oklahomah; like

Castle dark it overlooked the sea, but there was a great

difference between the tender hills of Kingdom dark's

seacoast and the hulking sheer cliffs that Castle Airy sat on.

Their lands had no beaches; you pulled a boat up into the

sucking caves that pitted the lower borders of the looming

seacliffs at your own peril. Between the borders of dark and

the lands paced off by Daniel Cantrell Airy the 9th and his five

sons in 2127 lay a broad expanse of Wilderness. Technically

 

45

 

46 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

speaking, it was at least a three-day flight from Castle to

Castle, and considering the time involved it was going to be a

piece of luck for me that I could by-pass the visit to Castle

Smith after all.

 

I had no intention wAafsoever of spending three full days—

much less four—in the air According to the maps there was an

isolated stretch of thick forest roughly mid-Wilderness; once I

got beyond the area where people were likely to be around, I

intended to SNAP straight to that spot and spend two of my

days in a pleasant contemplation of the Wilderness, some long

naps that I was badly in need of, and catching up an account

book I had dutifully brought with me having to do with trade in

supplies for magic and a good two months out of date. I could

then fly in on the third day and join the Airys for supper with

all as it ought to of been.

 

Nor need I stay at Castle Airy long; they were loyal there.

They were as romantic . . . quaint, to put it frank-

ly ... in their loyalty to the Confederation as the

Travellers were in their resistance to it. Held a Confederation

Day every blessed year on December 12, with speeches and

bands and bunting and whatnot, the only one of the Kingdoms

to have such an innovation. Stamped the Confederation Seal all

over everything, and flew its flag beside the flags of Airy and

Ozark at the Castle gate. Any day now I expected them to

begin opening souvenir stands or publishing a Confederation

Gazette.

 

Why they were like that, it was hard to say; if we knew why

any Family developed as it did rather than in some other

fashion, that would be knowledge. I'd put that a sight higher

than any of the scientific discoveries that had earned their

originators a Bestowing of land in the past ten years. Or past

one hundred, for that matter

 

I jumped suddenly as a squawker flew by me, drawing a

bray of disgust from Sterling and scaring the squawker into a

plunge that I thought for a minute might prove fatal to the ugly

thing. It was a male, its blue-and-white-speckled comb rigid

with tenor and its raucous call twice the volume a female could

muster And I supposed it had lost its eggs, along with its way,

or forgotten the difference between up and down, assuming it

ever had known it. It surely had no business being two hundred

feet up in the air interfering with me and my Mule.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              47

 

"Never mind the fool thing, Sterling," I said, and soothed

her with a sturdy smack to the shoulder "It's gone now, and if

it doesn't kill itself it's headed back to the farm where it

belongs."

 

The Mule snorted, reminding me of Granny Golightly, who I

was well pleased to have behind me this fine morning, and I

smacked her once more for good measure. What makes a Mule

think a whack on the shoulder is a caress is a mystery, but it

appears to be the way of it. Or perhaps they are sickened by

lovepats, and look on the thumping as some kind of comradely,

Afii/eworthy activity. Mules are the only creatures on Ozark

that are capable of telepathic communication with a Magician

but refuse to have anything to do with the process; then-

position appears to be that we should mind our own business

and leave them to mind theirs, and they maintain that most

effectively You try mindspeech on a Mule—say to let it know

there's a storm ahead and you'd appreciate it taking cover in a

hurry—you'll get yourself a headache that'll last you three

days. There are, among the Teaching Stories, two or three that

have to do with young Magicians looking on this situation as a

challenge and trying to force a Mute to mindspeech; they're

gory, as Teaching Stories go. Myself, I leave the mind of the

Mule strictly alone.

 

I stopped thinking about Mules and thought about landing,

which was going to be possible fairly soon. I hadn't seen any

sign of habitation now for a considerable time, and on

Oklahomah there was mighty little to block your view once

you got ten feet above the trees. I took one more look at the

map to be sure I had my coordinates straight, waited twenty

more minutes for good measure, and SNAPPED, to Sterling's

great relief. The less of this formal travel the better, so far as

she was concerned, and she didn't need to use her psibilities to

make that plain. Her braying didn't become exactly musical—

that would be overstating the case a tad—but it took on a

definite tone of musical intention.

 

The land below us as the air rippled and cleared was so

tangled that I pulled back up to give it another good look; I had

no desire to land in a bramble thicket or some such. There was

nothing down there but forest, big old trees with their branches

all twined and knotted in one among the other and their roots

humping out of the ground, and I was hard put to it to see a

 

48 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

break where we could set down. It would be dark down there,

for sure, and not a likely place to run into anybody, give it that.

Then I saw the glint of water to my right, a middle-sized creek

by the look of it from where 1 was, and I turned that way. We

could head down above the water and make a landing slow to

the bank, unless it was thickets all the way to the edge.

 

I had to try twice before we found a break in the

undergrowth—no wonder nor Clarks, nor Smiths, nor Airys

had cared to claim any of this stretch. It'd have to have

diamonds under it to make it worth fooling with. I finally

located a little bend in the creek where it eased back into a kind

of tumble of boulders, several of them big enough for a Mule

to stand on with a foot or two of space to spare, and I brought

Sterling down. Seeing as how I didn't want to slide into the

water and ruin my clothes totally, I brought her to a full stop in

the air first and then we stepped sedately onto the nearest flat

place. She was good, but she couldn't land naturally with no

room for a run-in.

 

And then I looked around me, and I was satisfied. There

could of been forty people in those woods within ten feet and

not one of us would of known the others existed, it was that

tangled. Dark! My, but it was dark. We'd come down out of

clear skies and a brisk wind and scudding little puffs of cloud,

all bright and sparkling; down here it was pure gloom. Very

satisfactory.

 

I had a microviewer with me, and six trashy novels on fiche

that I couldn't of gotten away with taking time to read at home.

I could feel my resolve to work on the account book fading

away at the very look of this place; it was designed by its

Creator for a good read if ever I saw a place that was, and the

serious stuff could wait. I would settle in here in this back-of-

nowhere and indulge myself while the chance lay there

begging to be taken.

 

I pulled the smaller saddlebag off the Mule's back and set it

down, careful it wouldn't slide, and set myself down beside it.

The first step, even before I led Sterling down to drink

(provided she waited for me to do that, which was not anything

to lay bets on), was to change my clothes. I was just pulling off

one of the last of my complicated garments when I got into

trouble I hadn't anticipated.

 

Whatever it was that had slapped me into that cold water had

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              49

 

been big, and because I'd had my head covered up in swathes

of lace and velvet I hadn't seen or heard or smelled it coming. I

hoped I'd given the dratted clothes a hard enough pitch to keep

them dry, but not hard enough to throw them into a bramble-

bush ... or I'd be spending my planned period of self-

indulgence manifesting a new set just like them, out here in the

middle of nowhere, by magic, with nothing but my emergency

kit and whatever happened to grow handy for makings.

 

On the rough principle that what had knocked me into the

water was not a water creature itself, since it had been on the

bank at the time, I dove for the bottom of the creek. It was

murk down there, naturally, no nice clear ocean all pretty with

water like a gemstone, but it seemed to be clean water, and

flowing, and mere were no deepwater weeds in my way to get

caught in. And about the time I was congratulating myself on

that, I discovered that I'd made a major mistake.

 

I'd never seen one before, but I recognized the shape of it

well enough when I got my eyes open, even through the dark

of the water and the stuff I'd stirred up going in. Only one thing

on this planet goes with six legs and is the size of the shadow

that twisted Just ahead of me (I hope), and I was in sizable

trouble. The cavecat can climb anything, and it can swim, and

it lives to kill; four of the legs are for running, and the other

two for slashing and clawing, and the clawing involves eight

three-inch razors to every paw. Not to mention its teeth, of

which it has more than it needs by a goodly number:

 

There are not supposed to be giant cavecats on Oklahomah.

Kintucky, maybe, just maybe, though I'd never heard of one

showing up there the past thirty years. But the way of things

was supposed to be that cavecats had been wiped out

everywhere except in the Tinaseeh Wilderness—where I was

convinced the Travellers not only didn't try to get rid of them

but encouraged them, just to keep everybody off. Never-

theless, this was not Tinaseeh, nor yet Kintucky, this was

placid, long-settled Oklahomah, with its Wilderness not much

more than a pocket hanky as Wildernesses go, and that was a

giant cavecat in the water ahead of me. Right smack dab ahead

of me. And I could see how, in this backwood tangle, the

Family hunts might of missed a specimen or two.

 

I didn't know how well they swam, but I knew if it got to me

it would drown me, even if it had to surface and just hold me

 

50 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

under with its middle legs while it had all the air it wanted or

needed. And I needed air badly, myself. The bottom was right

there, and praise the Twelve Comers, it was rocky—I gave

myself a hard shove off the cobbly rocks and shot toward the

light, with the cat right behind me, and I scrambled out onto

the bank and hollered for Sterling.

 

Mules. If she'd been there, where I'd left her not two

minutes before, I might have been able to SNAP out of that

particular hard place before the cat made it out of the water.

She wasn't there, though, nor anywhere in sight. Gone looking

for something edible, probably.

 

"Sterling, you damn Mule, you, damn your ears and your

tail and your bony rump besides!" I shouted, and then I made

the very close acquaintance of hundreds of pounds of soaking

wet cavecat.

 

It pulled me m with one front paw and held me to its chest,

which stank the way you'd expect wet cat to stink and then

some, and started off across the rocks on the bank. Almost

dainty, the way it picked its footing, and in no hurry atall- Uke

any cat, it intended to play with me awhile before it made its

kill, and no doubt I was an unusual play-pretty for the nasty

thing. If there'd been any people around here in a long, long

time we would have known there were still cavecats on

Oklahomah . . . and I made a note, as it carried me, that

when I got back—if I got back—word had to be sent to the

three Castles to clear them out.

 

It's amazing how much time a person has to think in a

situation like that. Time stretches itself out in front of you, and

everything goes to the slowest of all motions, and we went

positively stately over those boulders and under arches of trees

and through an assortment of bramble thickets. I was bleeding

badly, and I was pretty cross, but I didn't intend to let either

interfere with me staying alive. I relaxed, and let just enough

blood fall to keep the cavecat's nostrils contented, and sort of

cuddled back in(o its smelly wet embrace. And waited.

 

The problem was the selection of a suitable countermeasure.

Common Sense magic would only get me killed—would of

had me dead before this, considering the blood I ought to of

been losing. The cavecat obviously did not know how frail the

hides of humans were, nor that they could die from the loss of

their body fluids before it had a chance to have its fun.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              51

 

Common Sense magic was not enough, nor Granny Magic.

The question was, would Hifalutin Magic do it, or did I have to

move clear on up to Formalisms & Transformations? (And

make up your mind quick. Responsible, things may seem slow,

but this animal is covering the ground at a smart pace and its

cave cannot be much farther away!) I needed to be ready the

instant it set me down and stretched out to bat me around

between its front paws and watch my interesting attempts to get

out of its reach—that instant.

 

I decided I was not expendable, and whatever firepower I

had I'd best use it at its most potent. There was nobody around

to see and wonder at a woman using that level of magic, and if

there had been I would not have been in any mood to care.

Formalisms & Transformations it would be, and all out—now

which one? I was a mite short on equipment.

 

The cave smelled worse than the cavecat, which I wouldn't

of thought possible in advance. Not that it was fouled—no cat

does mat, whatever its size—but it had lived there a long time,

and it was a torn, and it had marked out all the limits of its

territory with great care. It slouched in under a hole in the

ground that I doubted I would of spotted as the entrance to

anything, and it was suddenly darker than the inside of your

head- Not a ray, not a mote, of light was there in that

cave . . . I had the feeling it was small; no echoes, no water

dripping. Just a hole in the ground, perhaps, and not a real

cave such as we had flushed these creatures out of long ago on

Marktwain. Real enough to die in, however had I intended to

die. Which I didn't.

 

It stretched out, long and lazy and reeking, and laid me

down between its paws. And it stretched them out, hairy

bladed bars on either side of me like a small cage of swords,

and it gave me a gentle preliminary swipe with the right one,

and batted me back the other way with the left one, to see me

roll and hear me whimper

 

The Thirty-third Formalism was suitable, and I used it fast,

doing it rather well if I do say so myself. Lacking gailherb, I

used a strip of flesh from the inside of my upper arm to

guarantee Coreference; lacking any elixir; I used my own bloofl

to mark out the Structural Description and the desired

Structural Change. Make do, my Granny Hazelbide always

said; and I made do. It smarted. On the other hand, I would of

 

52 SUZETTEHADEN ELGIN

 

been embarrassed, dying in a place like this at the whim of a

creature with five hundred pounds of brawn and maybe fom;

 

five ounces of brain. It would not have been fitting.

 

When the cavecat lay purring quietly, content with the fat

white pig it now thought was what it had caught originally

(assuming it thought at all), and which I had Substituted for my

own skinny white form, I gathered my battered self together

and crawled on my stomach back out into what passed in these

parts for daylight. I found myself regretting very much that

there was no way to do a single Formalism—let alone a

Thuisformation—while being clutched to a cavecat's bosom.

Like a Mule landing, I had needed a little space, and I'd gotten

mighty beat up before it became available. I was going to have

a good night's work ahead of me cleaning up all this mess, and

maybe longer I looked like something blown through a door

with rusty nails in it, and most assuredly my appearance was

not anything that would impress the Airys if they could see me

now. Or before tomorrow morning, I rather expected.

 

"Botheration," I said, and hollered for Sterling one more

time. She turned up at once, naturally, now that I didn't need

her to save my life, and looked at me with the most Mulish

distaste.

 

"Don't like my smell, do you?" I muttered. I didn't blame

her; I didn't like it either. "Let's get back to the water," I said,

"and I'll do something about it."

 

I didn't know the coordinates, or even the general direction,

and I was too tired and too weak to SNAP even if I had known

them. So I just followed her tail. I could count on her to take

me back to where we'd landed, since she wouldn't be enjoying

all these brambles and brush any more than I was. I wanted

watci; and the medicines in my emergency kit, and the denims

I'd been about to put on when this adventure—

 

I stopped short, right there. I stopped, battered as I was, and

the elaborateness with which I blistered the air all around me

impressed- even Sterling; her ears went flat back against her

head.

 

"And plenty of adventures as you go along' That's re-

quired!" she'd said, had dear old Granny Golightly, and I'd

ignored her and gone right on talking without so much as an

acknowledgment that I'd heard her mention the matter Nor had

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              S3

 

I thought of it since. If I hadn't been so young I'd of thought I

 

was getting old.

This changed things.

 

Sterling brayed at me, and I hushed her

"Wait a minute now," I said. "Let me think."

 

There were but two possible readings. One, this had been an

accident, no more, and my simplest course was to heal rny

wounds and settle and furbish myself to appear at Castle Airy

as if I'd had no hair disturbed on my head since I flew out from

Castle dark. Two—this was Granny Golightly's doing—and

she had an amazing confidence in my abilities if it was, or an

outright dislike for me—and I should somehow or other

contrive to have myself rescued by somebody else ... or

whatever Clear things up just enough to stand it, maybe, throw

myself over the Mule's back at the proper time, and straggle

into Castle Airy a victim just short of death.

 

Foof. I didn't know what to do. From Granny Golightly's

perspective I'd been getting off easy; two Castles stopped at

already, and not one adventure to show for my trouble yet—

hardly the way that things were supposed to be laid out. Under

the terms of the Constraints set on a Quest, its success was

directly proportional to the number and the severity of the

adventures encountered along the way, and Golightly might

well have felt she had a duty to support me more than I might

of cared to be supported. And if Granny's story explaining my

by-passing Castle Smith was a cavecat mauling, and I showed

up unmarked and spoiled it—there'd be trouble. But how was I

to know?

 

Until Sterling and I made it out onto the bank of the creek

again, me fretting all the way and her whuffling, and there, in

the absolute middle of nowhere, naked and alone out on a bare

gray boulder, sat a pale blue squawker egg. No nest, no

squawkeL no coop. No farmer. Just the egg. Granny Golightly

was mean, but she wasn't careless; the question was neatly

settled, and a few more points to hec I wondered just how far

that one's range extended?

 

Well, it was dramatic, I'll say that for it. There I was at the

gates of Airy before the eyes of their greeting party, clinging to

Sterling's mane with one poor little gloved hand, my gorgeous

 

54 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

velvets sodden with blood and my hair hanging loose below

my waist in a tangle of brambles and weeds and dirt. I chose a

spot that looked reasonably soft, pulled up the Mule weakly,

moaned about a twenty-twe-caliber moan, and slid off grace-

fully onto the ground at their feet in a bedraggled heap. If I'd

been watching, I'm sure my heart would of ached for me.

 

They carried me into the Castle at full speed, shouting for

the Grannys (the Twelve Comers help this poor Family, they

had three of the five Grannys of Oklahomah under their roof),

and I allowed a faint "a cavecat ... a huge one . . . back

there . . ."to escape my lips before I surrendered con-

sciousness completely. (Under no circumstances did I intend to

undergo the ministrations of three Grannys in any other

condition but unconsciousness.)

 

I woke in a high bed in a high room, surrounded by

burgundy curtains and hangings and draperies and quilts. The

Travellers were addicted to black; with the Airys it was

burgundy. And crimson for relief of the eye. There was a

plaster on my chest, and another on my right thigh; a bowl of

bitter herbs smoked on the wooden chest at the foot of my bed,

and the taste in my mouth told me I'd been potioned as well.

 

I ran my tongue around my teeth, and sighed. Bitter-root and

wild adderweed and sawgrass. And wine, of course. Dark red

burgundy wine. And something I couldn't identify and didn't

know that I wanted to. Either none of the Grannys here held

with modem notions, or the dominant one didn't. Phew.

 

"She's awake. Mother" a voice said softly, and I let my

eyelids flutter wide and said the obligatory opening lines.

 

"Where am I? What—what happened to me?"

 

"You're in Castle Airy, child," said a voice—not the same

one—"and you're lucky you're alive. We would of taken our

oaths there were no cavecats left on this continent, but you

managed to find one, coming through the Wilderness. What-

ever possessed you to land in the Wilderness, Responsible of

Brightwater? Oklahomah's got open land in every direction if

you needed to stop for a while . . . why the Wilderness?"

 

I had expected that one, and I was ready for it. "My Mule

got taken sick all of a sudden," I said. "I hadn't any choice."

 

Time then for some more obligatories.

 

I struggled to a sitting position, against the hands of the three

Grannys who rushed forward in their burgundy shawls to hold

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              55

 

me back, and demanded news on the condition of my beloved

steed.

 

"The creature is just fine, child," said the strongest one,

pushing me back into the pillows with no quarter given. "Not a

mark on hec the cat was only interested in you. And I'll thank

you not to flop around like a fish on a hook and undo all the

work we've done repairing the effects of its interest!"

 

I sighed, but I knew my manners. I said a lengthy piece

about my gratitude and my appreciation, and swallowed

another potion which differed from the earlier one only in

being even nastiel; and at last I found myself alone with only

the three Grannys and the lady of the Castle and my obligations

settled for the time being.

 

The lady was a widow, her husband killed in a boating

accident years ago, which was the only reason the Castle had

three Grannys. It was in fact a Castle almost entirely of

women; every stray aunt or girlcousin on Oklahomah with poor

prospects and not enough gumption to go out as a servant came

here to shelter under the broad wings of Grannys Forthright,

Flyswift, and Heatherknit. And over them all, the beautiful

woman who sat at my side now, smiling down at me, Charity

ofGuthrie. A three she was, and she lived up to the number; in

everything that Charity of Guthrie did, she succeeded, with a

kind of careless ease, as if there was nothing to it at all. Her

hair fell in two dark brown braids, shot with white, over her

shoulders, and her sixty-odd years sat lightly on her as the

braids. The Guthrie women wore remarkably well.

 

"Sweet Responsible," she said to me, "we are so happy

you're here . . . and so sony that your visit has to be like

this! We had a dance planned in your honor tonight, and a hunt

breakfast tomorrow morning, and a thing or two more besides;

 

but obviously you must stay right here in this bed, and no

commotions. I've already sent the word out that you'll be

seeing nobody but us, and that only from where you lie. Poor

child!"

 

The poor child was all worn out, and could see that even

with an excessive pride in the skill of her Grannys this woman

was not likely to believe her recovered from the attack of that

cavecat overnight. Loss of blood. Loss of skin. Shock. Blow

on the head. Being dragged along. Whatnot.

 

Since there was no help for it, I gave up and closed my eyes.

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

56

 

I was going to see to it, one of these days, that Granny

Golightly paid dearly for this delay, not to mention all the

arithmetic she'd put me through working this out so that all

pans of it came out right aerodynamically. Aerody-

namicadamnably. Not to mention in addition the potions,

which were beyond anything in my personal experience to

date.

 

I slid down into sleep like a snake down a well, surrender-

ing. Tomorrow would be soon enough to try to convince them

that someone as young and strong as I was could not be kept

down by a cavecat, or even by three Grannys . . .

 

CHAPTER 5

 

THE WOMEN AT Castle Airy were anything but docile, and I

was no match for them. Under ordinary circumstances I might

of had at least a fighting chance, but I was not operating under

ordinary circumstances; I was being the badly mauled victim of

a cavecat attack, and I lost almost two precious days to that

role- I would dearly of loved to make up the lost time on the

crossing from Oklahomah to Arkansaw, but it would not do.

The sea below me was not an open expanse with a rare bird and

a rare rocktip to break it; it was the narrow shipping channel

between the two continents, and about as deserted as your

average small-town street. All up the Oklahomah coast and all

the way across the channel I flew, at the regulation sixty-mile-

an-hour airspeed for a Mule of Sterling's quality. It was proper,

it was sedate, and it was maddening; it was a number well

chosen, being five times a multiple of twelve, and the members

of the Twelve Families found it reassuring and appropriate, but

it was not convenient.

 

Below me there were at all times not only the ponderous

supply freighters, but a crowd of fishing boats, tourboats,

private recreation vehicles, and government vessels from a

 

57

 

58 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

dozen different agencies. Near Arkansaw's southernmost coast

I even saw a small golden ship with three sails of silver a craft

permitted only to a Magician of Rank.

 

It didn't surprise me. it warmed my heart, for all it made me

have to dawdle through the air We Ozarkers, from u»e

beginning of our history, even before we left Earth, had always

had a kind of lust for getting places by water. If an Ozark child

could not afford a boat, that child would set anything afloat that

it was strong enough to launch—an old log was a particular

favorite, and half a dozen planks nailed together into an

unreliable raft marked the traditional first step up from log-

piloting.

 

What was in some way surprising was that we had bothered

with the Mules; it hadn't been a simple process. When the

Twelve Families landed they found the Mules living wild on

Marktwain in abundance, but much complicated breeding and

fine-tuning had been required before they were brought to a

size where a grown man would be willing to straddle one on

solid ground, much less fty one. And the twelve-passenger

tinlizzies we built in the central factory on the edge of

Marktwain's desert were more than adequate for getting people

over land distances as needed, as well as solving the problem

of what to do with the most plentiful natural substance

produced by our goats and pigs.

 

But the memories of Earth, Old Earth, were still strong, and

we were a loyal, home-loving people. We hadn't been such

fools as to take with us on The Ship the mules of Earth, seeing

as how using that limited space for a sterile animal would of

been stupid; but every Ozarker had always fancied the elegance

of a team of well-trained mules . . . and the Mules were a

good deal like them. Especially in the ears, which mattered,

and in the brains, which mattered even more.

 

We had brought with us cattle and goats and pigs and

chickens and a few high-class hounds, but of all that carefully

chosen lot only the pigs and goats had survived. Most of the

other animals had died during the trip, and the few that made it

to landing or were born on Ozark soon sickened, for no reason

that anyone could understand, since we humans breathed the

air of Ozark and ate its food and drank its water with no ill

effects. And then to find the Mules! For all that they stood only

four feet tall and had tails that dragged the ground, they looked

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              59

 

like something of home, and we had set to breeding them for

size, and we braided and looped their tails. And "discovered"

that they could fly sixty miles an houc In the one most essential

way of all they differed from their Earth counterparts—they

were not sterile.

 

The people on the boats below me waved, and I waved back,

as I wound my way carefully above them, doing my best not to

fly directly over any vessel. Sterling was well trained, but there

were limits to her tolerance for the niceties, and I wanted no

unsavory accidents to spoil the image I was trying so hard to

establish.

 

It was well into afternoon when I began to head down

toward the docks that crowded Arkansaw's southeastern

coastline, and there was a chill in the air that made me

appreciate my layers of clothing. The docks were crowded,

almost jammed with people, some carrying on their ordinary

daily business, and some no doubt there to gawk at me, and I

decided that a landing would only mean another delay that I

could not afford. I chose the largest group of people I could see

that appeared to have no obvious reason for being on the

docks, and dipped low over them, gripping Sterling hard to

impress her with the importance of good behavior: My

intention was to fly low enough—but not too low—exchange

cheerful greetings in passing as I flew by, and then get on with

it. It was a simple enough maneuver something that could be

brought off by a middling quality Rent-a-Mule with a seven-

year-old child on its back. 1 didn't want the people down there

to think me uppity and standoffish, nor did I want to waste

time, so I chose my moment and sailed gracefully down the air

toward the waiting Arkansawyers—

 

And crashed.

 

Three Castles I'd visited now, without me slightest hint of

that disturbance of flight that had made me suspicious in the

first place. And now—not over a Wilderness where nothing

could suffer but my stomach, not over a stretch of open ocean

with the occasional freighter, but twenty feet up from a dockful

of sight-seeing women and children—my Mule suddenly

wobbled in the air like a squawker chick and smashed into the

side of a storage shed on the edge of the dock. The last thought

I had as / flew, quite independently, off her back, was that at

 

69 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

least we hadn't hurt anybody, though from the screams you'd

of thought them all seriously damaged. And then my head and

a roof beam made sudden contact, and I stopped thinking about

anything atall.

 

When I woke up, I knew where I was. No mistake about it.

The Guthrie crest was carved into the foot of the bed I lay on, it

hung on the wall of the room beyond the bed, little ones

dangled from the curving brackets that held the lamps, and it

was set in^every one of the tiles that bordered the three big

windows. Furthermore, the woman sitting bolt upright in a

hard wooden chair at my right hand, where turning my head to

look at her would put me nose-to-shoulder with an em-

broidered Guthrie crest, not to mention more clouds of Guthrie

hail, was no Granny. It was my maternal grandmother, Myrrh

of Guthrie, and I was assuredly under her roof and in her

Castle.

 

They had taken off my boots and spurs, but my clothing

showed no sign whatsoever of a trip through the air into the

side of a dock shed, nor did my body. I wasn't likely to forget

the thwack I'd hit that shed with, but I hadn't so much as a

headache, nor a scratch on my lily white hand. Being as this

was somewhat unlikely, I looked around for the Magician of

Rank that had to be at the bottom of it.

 

"Greetings, Responsible ofBrightwatci," he said, and I was

filled with a sudden new respect for those who found my

mother's physical configurations distracting. He had chocolate

curls, and the flawless Guthrie skin and green eyes, and the

curve of his lips made me think improper thoughts I hadn't

known lurked in me. He was tall, and broad of shoulder slim

of waist and hips . . . and then there was the usual garb of

his profession to be put in some kind of perspective. A

Magician of Rank wears a pair of tight-fitting trousers over

bare feet and sandals, and a square-cut tunic with full sleeves

caught tight at the wrists, and a high-collared cape that flows in

a sweep from his throat to one inch of the flool; thrown back in

elegant folds over one shoulder to leave an arm free for ritual

gestures. There'd never been a man that getup wasn't becom-

ing to, and the fact that it was all in the Guthrie tricolor—deep

blue, gold, and forest green—was certainly no disadvantage.

 

I shut my eyes hastily, as a measure of simple prudence; and

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              61

 

he immediately checked my pulse, combining this medicinal

gesture with a thoroughly nonmedical tracking of one strong

finger along the most sensitive nerves of my wrist and inner

arm. It was my intention not to shiver, but I lacked the

necessary experience; and I was glad I could not see the

satisfied curl of those lips as he got precisely the response that

he was after

 

"Responsible of Brightwatci; 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.

 

"Hello, 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, nobody can, and

very useful he is, too—is your own kin, Michael Stepforth

Guthrie the llth. 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

 

62 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

. . . and then down and up, and then I looked him over once

more in both directions.

 

"Twelve roses," I said, "twelve sugaipies, and twelve

turtles! You are for sure the comeliest man ever my eyes have

had the pleasure to behold. Me Guthrie. Your buttocks, 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 hec, though I would of loved to see her face. Michael

Stepforth's eyes lost their mocking laughter and became the

iced green 1 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 buttocks—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 grandmotnei; 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

undei, or I'll call him back."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              63

 

I sniffed, and gasped at the result; the breaks would be neat,

and simple, but they were a three-pronged fire in my side. And

what can't be cured for the moment must be endured for the

moment.

 

"Grandmotnei;" 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, and your 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 how, young lady. With your ribs set

right, of course."

 

"Not possible," I said firmly.

 

"Responsible," she said, "you exasperate me!"

 

"Mynh 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

me 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 glass. 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

 

64 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

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 Grandmornei;" I said, "with every

word you speak you undo three others. Either the man's a

humbler 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 tatter is the truth

of if"

 

"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 snatches of sleep ... the Farsons 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.

"Grandmornei; 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

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              65

 

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 Brightwatec 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 efforts?

 

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

ablebodied. If you insist on meddling in our affairs because

Brightwater 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

 

66 SUZEITE HADEN ELGIN

 

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 chiiiiiuiiiiild!" 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 repetitions 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 sass; 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

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              67

 

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 ail; 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

assessments 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

breasts.

 

"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

 

68 SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN

 

remembeE 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 toe

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

mat 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 Parson, 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 Parson. However it seemed that although the

mine was in Wilderness Lands and therefore technically

common property, the Parsons 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

harassing 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 assumed before it was found.) And this getting killed

had happened in the Parson Castle Hall, while the Guthries

were there protesting the latest iniquity perpetrated by the

Parsons, and a Parson 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

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              69

 

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 Parsons were

stealing them all blind by working another gem mine on the

Purdy's southern bordei; tunneling from its Wilderness en-

trance 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 under-

brush 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 assaulted

by a fanner 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 ak 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

 

70 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

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 Brightwater?" he asked roe

innocently. "Famine on Marktwain, is there? Starving popula-

tions on Oklahomah?"

 

He knew very well that the law said we all shared. If the

Guthrie Geologist 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 pass.

 

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

hoohah about you Outlines and Parsons and Purdys."

 

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

mean."

 

"And no reason why you should remembel," 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. IS you'II

just stay home."

 

"The wickedness of those Parsons," bellowed James John

Guthrie, "and the ineptitude, I might say the stupidity, of those

Purdys, defies belief, and brings a decent man to—"

 

"Talk too much," pronounced 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.

 

"Granny Stillmeadow," he said doggedly, "you have not

heard what those people did today. I am here to tell you—"

 

Granny Stillmeadow, and Myrrh of Guthrie, and I myself

fixed him with chilly stares, and Michael Stepforth cleared his

throat ominously, and both the sons looked down at their

plates, and the man gave it up, his voice trailing off while the

servingmaids came forward and took away all evidence of the

stibble roast, and the two vegetables, and the bread and butter

and gravy and salt and coffee.

 

"No dessert," said Myrrh of Guthrie, "because of the

Reception and the Dance."

 

One of the young women looked up at that and offered that

 

Twelve Far Kingdoms             71

 

there was a bread pudding ready in the Castle kitchen if her

lady wanted it, and no trouble atall, but Myrrh waved her

away.

 

"You do see," she said to me, "why I told you we hadn't

time right now to play games with you?"

 

No, as a matter of actual fact, I did not see. I'd never heard

such a tangle of nonsensical tales in all my life, and I couldn't

imagine how any group of supposedly competent grown-up

people had allowed things to reach such a pass. However I

now had a certain feeling of conviction about one thing—

whatever was going on here on Arkansaw, it was keeping the

Guthries so busy they had little time to even think about the

Jubilee, much less plot against it. That didn't mean I didn't

have my guard up, not with that canny Magician of Rank

sitting there to remind me. The Guthries could of put all this

together as one gigantic distraction, in the hope that I'd feel

obliged to stay on and try to settle it, for instance; that would of

been perfectly plausible. I didn't think so. It all had the ring of

truth, however ridiculous; but I wasn't putting it entirely out of

my mind. But I was reassured a good deal by the number of

lies I'd been told in the space of one brief hour . . . well, call

them distortions, lies may be too strong a word . . . and the

lack of craft behind them. The Parsons were feuding with the

Guthries; and the Guthries were feuding with the Parsons; and

the Purdys were caught in the middle trying to play both sides.

That much was obvious. The rest of it I wouldn't give two

cents foe

 

It might be I'd have to do some serious digging before I left

Arkansaw, and for sure I'd have to keep a wary eye and ear

from here on out on Michael Stepforth Guthrie, but I needn't

waste time at Castle Guthrie. Reception. Dance. A little

breakfast. And on to Parson.

 

It wasn't going to be a pleasant night, of course; the

Magician of Rank would see to that, hoping to provoke me to

some indiscretion he could use later on, and wanting his own

back for my shaming him before the Missus of the Castle that

afternoon. I could count on lizards in my bed, and sheets that

felt like bread pudding, and bangs and thumps and clanks, and

mysterious names dancing in the corners, and probably—no,

for sure—the whole room rocking and swaying all night like a

 

72

 

SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN

 

small boat in a high wind. I might sleep through some of it, and

then I might not. Depending on how ingenious he was. And

 

how spiteful.

 

I looked at him, and he looked back at me slow and steady,

that beautiful mouth curling and the lashes half-lowered over

the seagreen eyes. I felt my own traitor lips part, and I firmed

them tight, and I saw the devil dance behind those lashes.

 

I was learning; my sympathy for my mother's victims

increased.

 

CHAPTER 6

 

"RESPONSIBLE OF BRIGHTWATER," said the Attendant, in that

dead voice that seemed to have been droning on for hours and

hours. I gripped my glass, leaned on the table, and shook this

.latest hand; it belonged, said the Attendant, to one Marychar-

lotte of Wommack, wife of Jordan Sanderleigh Farson the

23rd. I didn't even bother to add up the letters and see what

number "marychariotte" came to, which was some index of

my exhaustion; she could be any number she chose, including

the horrible fom; she could be a one like Crimson of Airy and a

threat to my life and the Kingdom of Brightwater . . . I no

longer cared.

 

I stood in the line with the Attendant at my side, and the

people filed past and were introduced by couples, or one at a

time, and I had begun to suspect that they were recirculating

that line; it trailed out the Hall door and dissolved into a milling

crowd of faces and names I'd long since losfall track of. If a

single face had come around twice, or three times for that

matlei; I doubt I'd have been able to spot it—by now they all

looked just alike to me.

 

I was very nearly out on my feet, and the wine the Castle

 

73

 

74 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

staff kept pouring into my glass was no great help. White wine

I might have replaced with water and gotten away with, but not

red; nothing else liquid on Ozaric is that color, except blood,

and a glass of blood in my hand would of made a mighty poor

impression.

 

Michael Stepforth Guthrie had had some innovations to offer

on magical harassment in the guestchamber that had outdis-

tanced even my broadest expectations, and before long I'd

settled down to taking notes on his effects, since it was clear I

wasn't going to get any sleep. I'd been grateful for my virginity

before it was all over, since that had limited his legal span of

effects some, but nonetheless—when I'd given up all hope at

dawn and staggered out of my bed I'd been in sorry shape. And

then there'd been the requisite eighteen hours of night to Castle

Farson, which I'd had to do every one of its minutes in

plainstyle—no SNAPPING. So far as I'd been able to tell, the

whole continent of Arkansaw was innocent of empty areas,

even in the Wilderness Lands; Sterling and I had looked down

on a constant scurry of activity beneath us the whole time, and

had been promptly greeted by Arkansawyers of one kind or

another each time we landed for a brief rest stop.

 

And the Parsons themselves were terrifyingly efficient. Met

me at the door, fed me and wined me, saw me to a room to

change my bib and my tucker, saw me back down to the Hall

for this party, which was clearly intended to fill all the

remainder of this evening, and no discussion. Not a word.

"Welcome, Responsible of Brightwater, pleasant to see you."

"Beg your pardon, Responsible, but you've caught us at a

right busy time, we'll just have to make do." "Step this way,

please, miss." "Notice the view from that window, child, it's

much admired." "Fine evening, isn't it?" And on and on.

 

I could tell from the clustered packs of guests around the

Hall and the scraps of their talk that floated my way that it was

much the same stuff the Guthries had been talking. Perfidy,

wickedness, and ineptitude; the ghastly Guthries and the pitiful

Purdys. But no one brought any of it to my ears—we remarked

on my costume, and how pretty it was; and on my Mule, and

how handsome she was; and on the weather, and how fine it

was; and the party, and how pleasant that was. No more.

 

I'd made a few early stabs at talking of the Jubilee, and had

learned immediately that the Parsons were either far more

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              75

 

subtle than the Guthries, or else under some sort of orders

regarding the topics of their converse. "You'll be at the Jubilee

in May, no doubt?" (That was me, all charm.) "May is a fine

month, we always enjoy May!" (That was whoever, moving on

down the line toward the punchbowl, smiling.) I got flustered,

and then I got mad, and then I got grim; and as the evening

went on I reached a cold plateau of determination that floated

on my second wind and a very good head for wine. I stopped

asking, which got me no information, but at least deprived

mem of the satisfaction of ignoring my questions.

 

More hands. Something something of Smith, wife of

something something the 46th. Accompanied by himself, the

something somethingth. My teeth ached from smiling, my

behind ached from riding, and my spirit ached from boredom,

and it went on and on.

 

"There," said the Attendant. A variation.

 

"There?"

 

"That's the last of them. Miss Responsible."

 

"You're sure?"

 

"I am," he said. "That's all, and I can't say I'm sorry."

 

I looked, and it did appear that there were no more people

lined up to my right with their hands all ready to be shaken by

me guest of honor, Responsible of Brightwatec And a good

thing, too; the Farson Ballroom was huge, but it was straining

at the seams. I'd have said there were four hundred people

there; surely I had not shaken four hundred hands?

 

I set down my glass on the table, careful not to snap its stem

for spite, and gathered up my elaborate blue-and-silver skirts.

 

"Give my compliments to your Missus and my host," I told

him, "and tell them I'll be down to breakfast in the morning.

Early."

 

He raised his eyebrows, but it was not his place to question

my behavior, and I surely didn't give a thirteen what he thought

of it. If he thought I was going to fight my way through this

roomful of sweating phony smilers to find the Farsons. if he

thought I was going to thank them for their bold as brass

campaign to wear me right down to a nub, he could think twice

more. Manners be damned, I was going to my bed.

 

I showed him my back and went out the closest door, into the

corridor that led to the stairs toward my room. But I was being

watched; another Attendant appeared at my side the instant I

 

76 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

reached the door, carrying a bowl of fruit, a tray of bread and

butter, and a tall decanter of that accursed Parson wine.

 

"This way, miss," he said, and he led on politely, looking

back now and then as we wound up stairs and down corridors,

down stairs and through tunnels, round turrets with more stairs

and across echoing rooms lined with the family portraits of

generations of Parsons, until we came at last to a door I had

seen before and knew full well could have been reached by a

direct route taking maybe six minutes flat.

 

"Your room, miss," he said, opening the door to let me

pass.

 

"Thank you for the grand torn; Attendant," I said through

my teeth, and he bobbed his head a fraction.

 

"No trouble atall, miss. No trouble atall; I had to come this

way anyhow."

 

And then he set the food and drink down on a table and left

me, blessedly, alone.

 

I was so angry that I was shaking, and so tired that I was

long past being sleepy. The second was a point in my favor, as I

had work to do, but the first wouldn't serve. You can't do

magic, at whatever level, when you're in a state of blind rage.

(Well, you can, but you risk some effects you aren't counting

on and that may not exactly fit into your plans.)

 

I threw myself out flat on the narrow elegant guest bed,

kicking off only my shoes, and whistled twenty-four verses of

"Again, Amazing Grace." No way to tell which was which,

since I was only whistling; but I kept count by picking one

berry from the fruit bowl for every verse I finished, and setting

them out on my lap in sixes till I had four sets. By that time I

was a tad hyperventilated, but I was no longer furious; I had in

fact reached a stage of grudging admiration.

 

After all, the Parsons had given me nothing tangible to

complain of. I'd been properly met, a full complement of

Attendants in red and gold and silver livery at my beck and

call. I'd been dined and wined to a fare-thee-well. I'd had a

servant at my elbow every instant, and often half a dozen. I'd

been guest of honor at the biggest party I ever remembered

seeing, and formally introduced to who knew how many scores

of distinguished citizens of Kingdom Parson, and all their kith

and kin. And now here I lay in state in one of their best

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              77

 

guestchambers, and it had been my choice that I'd not stayed

below in the Ballroom to receive whatever honor had been next

on their list for me.

 

Thinking about it, staring up at the vaulted ceiling high

above my head, I chuckled; it had been done slick as satin, and

I had not one piece of information to show for all those hours—

nor one legitimate complaint. Well done, well done for sure.

 

I got up then and went into the bathroom, where I was

pleased to see that the facilities were not marred by any

nostalgic antiquation, and made myself ready for the night.

 

Three baths, first. One with hot watci; and one with cold,

and one with the proper crushed herbs from my pack. Then my

fine white gown of softest lawn, sewn by my own hands; I

pulled it nine times through a golden finger ring, and examined

it carefully—not a wrinkle, it was ready to put on. My feet

bare, and a black velvet ribbon round my neck; my hair in a

single braid, and I thought that would do. I had nothing really

fancy planned for this night, just a kind of easy casting about

for wickedness, if wickedness was to be found here. I didn't

expect any; for all their sophistication in handling one lone

inquisitive female, this Family was just as taken up with the

continental feud as the Guthries had been. I was Just checking.

 

I set wards, Ozark garlic, and well-preserved Old Earth

lilac, at every door and window, laying the wreaths so anyone

passing would be certain I slept no matter what went on. I

didn't bother warding against Magicians, just ordinary folk and

a possible inquisitive Granny; if the Parsons cared to send a

Magician, or better yet a Magician of Rank, to check on xne, I

wanted that person to come right on in. I'd be saved hours of

Spells and Charms that way, and I had nothing in mind for the

night that was forbidden to a woman.

 

I set two Spells, Granny Magic both of them, and the leaves

in the bottom of my little teacup formed unexciting figures both

times. I didn't need the bird to tell me there was travel in my

future, not with all of Kintucky and Tinaseeh still ahead of me;

 

and I didn't need the fine hat that formed high on the right side

near the rim to let me know diplomacy was indicated.

 

And then I moved up a tiny notch, with the idea of making

assurance doubly sure, and ran a few Syllables.

 

I said;

 

78             SU2ETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

ALE-

BALSAM.

CHERRYSTONE.

 

DEVIL IN DUNG.

EMBLEM IN AN EGG.

FOGFALL IN THE FOREST.

EGGSHELL IN AN EEL.

DUNG ON DEWDROPS.

COBBLESTONE.

BOWER.

ALE.

 

Now that's a simple bit, you'll agree. Your average Granny

might not be quite so free with dung, but I saw no flaw in it all;

 

and I cast my gold chain on the bed where I was kneeling at my

work, fully expecting to see it fall in yet one more reassuring

shape, after which I would call it a night and get some well-

deserved sleep.

 

Then I took a look at what I'd got, and backed off to give it

room, and backed off some more, and remembered Granny

Golightly. What was that old woman's range, anyway? Her and

her plenty of adventures required . . .

 

It loved me, that was clear It licked my face, and it licked

the velvet ribbon round my neck, and it slobbered down both

the front and the back of my gown with pure affectionate

delight, and rolled over on the Parsons' good counterpane to

have its stomach scratched, and even flat on its back it kept on

licking every part of me it could reach-

 

This the wards would never hold for, especially if it began to

hum to me, which was likely if it got any happier I scrambled

off the bed, with it after me anxiously, licking and snuffling and

falling over things at my heels, and I doubled the garlic and

hung a ring of it on the doorknob. For good measure I took my

shammybag of white sand and laid out a pentacle at the door,

with the door itself serving as one of the five sides. Only then

did I pause, doing it in the middle of the pentacle just to be

extra safe, whereupon it knocked me over and devoted its tiny

mind and heart and its enormous tongue to licking me

absolutely clean.

 

It was called a Yallerhound, though it was nearer brown than

yellow, and only by the most strained, courtesy a hound. Like

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              79

 

the giant cavecats, it had six legs; tike the Mules, its tail

dragged the ground; unlike the Mules, so did its ears and its

body hair It was seven feet long, not counting the tail, and

about five feet high, and its aim in life was to love people and

keep them clean. It had a purple tongue the size of a hand

towel, from the eager attentions of which I was already soaking

wet from head to foot. And it now had decided that my hair

wasn't clean enough, and would probably drown me before it

was satisfied about that.

 

I couldn't help myself, this was too much, and made twice

as awful because it would of won me no sympathy from

anybody—some part of me, somewhere inside, could still see

that it was funny. But most of me was at the end of all its ropes.

I lay down in the middle of the pentacte, making sure no part of

me lopped over any borders, curled up in a ball to protect as

much of me as possible from the damned Yallerhound, and I

bawled and cried and carried on till I was limp. The poor stupid

creature cried with me, keening high and thin.

 

When I woke up it was a quarter after two, and I was

ashamed of myself. Women, after all, are expected to cope.

There I lay, decked out all ladylike and delicate for magic, as

was proper; and there it lay, curled round me and humming a

tune in that thin little voice that went so badly with its size and

made it obvious that the creature was mostly hair And both of

us soggy in a puddle of Yallerhound lick—and the sticky tears

of two species. It was enough to rouse the last word I

remembered being spanked for using—it was enough to make

a person say "puke." Ugh.

 

I felt better for the sleep, however and whatever I felt was

all the Yallerhound cared about, especially if what I felt was

something positive. Now that I'd had my conniption fit, I had

to think.

 

To begin with, there was the source of this animal. No

Granny on Ozark (and so far as I know we have all the Grannys

there are) could teleport anything as big as either a giant

cavecat or a Yallerhound. I knew Granny Golightly had had

her signature on that cavecat back on Oklahomah, but it might

of been she'd only had to encourage one that was already there.

But I'd bet my velvet neckband it was on this Yallerhound as

well, and that was a different matter altogether Yallerhounds

 

80 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

don't just happen to turn up in bedrooms, popping out of empty

ail; and that had to mean she'd had some help. From a

Magician of Rank, who, other than me, would be the only

individual with enough skill and strength to bring this off. And

I had a pretty good idea I knew which Magician of Rank.

 

Not Michael Stepforth Guthrie; I thought he'd had fun

enough for a while. The one I had in mind was called Lincoln

Parradyne Smith the 39th, resident of that same Castle Smith

that had so coolly disinvited me to visit. Magician of Rank to

the continent of Oklahomah, and surely handy to good Granny

Golightly.

 

He'd have been delighted to help her; I rather expected that

almost any one of the Magicians of Rank on this planet would

of been. I'd been twelve years old the first time a sign from the

Out-Cabal had obliged me to convene a Colloquium of the

Magicians of Rank (and what a difference two years

makes ... I hadn't even noticed the attractions of Michael

Stepforth Guthrie). And I'd been warned to be prepared for

their hostility, but it hadn't been warning enough. It was like

sitting too close to a wall of fire to be shut in a room with them;

 

I flamed inside with the waves of hatred beating against me

from that crew of arcane males, and I'd been sick for days

afterward.

 

A strange sickness. I lay in my bed, so weak I could not lift

my head from my pillow even to drink, and perpetually thirsty,

and the skin of my body cold as mountain river water while I

burned and burned within. I had not known that so much pain

could be.

 

"They consumed your energies, child," our Granny Hazel-

bide had said, sitting beside me and holding my icy hands in

her warm ones, and every now and then letting a spoonful of

water trickle one drop at a time down my throat. "Sucked 'em

right up like a pack of babies at the teat; and they'll do it every

time."

 

I'd asked her with my eyes, because I couldn't talk—how

long? And she'd shaken her head.

 

"This first time, sweet Responsible, sweet child? No way of

telling, just no way atall. What you're doing, lying there on a

cross of ice and fire mingled . . . oh yes, child. I know! I've

 

Twelve Fear Kingdoms              81

 

never been through what you're bearing, praise the Twelve

Corners, but 1 do know! . . , what you're doing there is

renewing yourself. It may take days and it may take weeks and

there's not a blessed thing anyone can do to help you. But

there's one good thing—each time it will be shorter As you get

older, and stronger, and more experienced at this yourself

. . . why, you'll get to where you don't mind them any more

man a pack of babes!"

 

A spasm had racked me, all my muscles nickering under my

skin, and she'd sat there calm as a bouldei; it not being one of

roe times when she felt expected to cluck and fuss and dithec

She'd sat there eleven days, and when it was over she told me

I'd done well.

 

"A short time, for your first time," Granny had said, "That

speaks well for the future, child."

 

They hated me, one and all, did the Magicians of Rank—

though they no more understood why than the Yallerhound

would have. Nor why they should have felt compelled to come

at my call, me no more than a little pigtailed girl; nor why they

couldn't get up and go home, but had to sit and listen to my

pronouncements, as if I had a rank and they had none; nor why

their voices left them if they tried to speak upon the subject,

ever It was a mystery, and one that they weren't privy to, and

there weren't supposed to be any mysteries they weren't privy

to- They were, after all, the Magicians of Rank.

 

So, if one of them could do me a little hurt . . . just a

small hurt, you understand, just a plaster for their aching

egos ... I was in fact surprised that they'd chanced the

cavecat, it might have really hurt me; and I could be sure I'd

been watched every minute in the crystal that Lincoln

Panadyne Smith kept in his magic-chest. He must of been very

confident he could reach me in time if I couldn't manage by

myself, or he never would of risked it. The Yallerhound, on the

other hand, was just funny. It couldn't hurt me even if it wanted

to. which it didn't, short of falling on me by accident off a

Castle roof, or something of the kind.

 

"The Yallerhound,'* I said aloud, which delighted it and set

it humming up and down a nineteen-tone scale that was awful

beyond all imagining, "is a harmless creature. However, it

weighs almost one hundred pounds and a bit, and it eats more

 

82 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

than a half-grown Mule, and it will never, never stop licking

you."

 

We would of made a pretty sight. Sterling and me and my

saddlebags, and the Yallerhound riding behind me licking my

neck and my hair as we flew by. Not to mention the fact that,

given the magic I was supposed to be able to perform, we

would of had to drop like a stone. A Mule couldn't carry that

much weight, even if it was precious cargo instead of stupid

beast. I had to make up my mind what to do with the thing.

 

I could simply leave it here, a "gift" to the Castle, and claim

I had no idea where it had come from—which was, in a sense,

true. They'd never forgive me, and they'd probably shut it up

in the stables to die of heartbreak and the conviction that it had

done something wrong—but I could do that.

 

I could claim that their Magicians had sicced the silly thing

on me, and gain a few points that way, since they wouldn't be

able to prove that they hadn't. But the results for the innocent

Yallerhound would be the same, if I left it behind.

 

I could buy another Mule to cany it and take it with me—

thus guaranteeing that I'd took like a fool and be greeted like

one at every Castle left on my itinerary.

 

Or I could try to do something with more flair to it, and

maybe some justice. Like send it back to its Granny, O! True, I

shouldn't be able to do that. true, she'd know that I had. But

she couldn't tell on me without telling what she'd done, and

what she'd done was a pure disgrace. Therefore!

 

"My pretty Yallerhound,'* I said, frantically ducking the

purple tongue and encountering it all the same, "do you know

what I think? I think you should go right back to where you

came from! Poor Granny Golightly has got no Yallerhound to

love her, and I'll bet she's dirty as seven little boys dividing up

syrup in August. She undoubtedly, indubitably needs a Yal-

lerhound to look after her, don't you think?"

 

Its eyes got wide and its tongue paused long enough for me

to wipe my face off once. It had just enough brain to know I

was talking about it, as well as to it. I tapped it on its nose,

gently, and I scratched it on its hairy stomach, gently, and I set

to work.

 

Crystals were not my style, but I didn't need one- I had no

trouble finding my lady Golightly in my mirror; She slept

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              83

 

curled like a scrawny baby in a high bed on the third floor of

Castle dark, under a thick red comforter stuffed with

squawker feathers, and a smile of innocent bliss upon her face.

I dumped the Yallerhound right on top of the smile.

 

CHAPTER 7

 

I SAT IN THE LIBRARY at Castfe Motley, drinking coffee so

strong you could of stood a spoon up in it easy, still weak-

kneed from the recent shenanigans but pleased that I'd arrived

here without any unbecoming incidents. Sterling had flown

across the narrow channel to Mizzurah with nary a wobble, no

more creatures of any size or description had joined me as I

flew, and if there was an adventure headed at me for this station

on the Quest it had yet to arrive. And I was willing to wait.

 

We were even having a pleasant conversation—something

I'd been missing for quite a while now. Me and my host,

Halbreth Nicholas Smith the 12th, and the lady of his Castle,

Diamond of Motley. Just the three of us. There was a small

informal supper planned for the evening, I'd been told, and a

hunt breakfast the next morning, but no great to-do's. That

suited me; I had another slice of fresh hot bread with

blazonbeiry jam, braced myself against the coffee, and

relaxed.

 

Diamond of Motley was a placid woman, gone stout and not

the least bothered by it, with her red hair wound around her

head in a coronet of thick braids that was about as becoming as

 

85

 

86 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

measles but otherwise perfectly suitable. She had eleven

children and an unshakable serenity; just looking at her rested

me. Hearing her say that she and hers were looking forward to

the Jubilee delighted me.

 

"Diamond of Motley," I said, "that does me good! It's a

great occasion for Ozark, and it should be looked forward to.

I've not heard much talk along that line since I left

Brightwater"

 

"You've been where now, Responsible?" her husband asked

me.

 

"McDaniels, dark, Airy, Guthrie, and Farson."

 

"A shame you had to miss Castle Smith," said Diamond.

"Who'd of thought there was still a cavecat left on

Oklahomah?"

 

"/ wouldn't," I told hec "But I learned."

 

"Well, Smith's gain is our loss," said Halbreth Nicholas,

gallant as you please, "you're here the sooner Think you

missed anything in particular there?"

 

I looked at him, not sure what he meant, and he was tamping

down his pipe and staring into it like he was looking for omens.

 

"According to a rumor as came this way," he said carefully,

still eyeing the tobacco, "Smith wasn't expecting you any-

how . . . it's going round that there was a note sent asking

you not to come."

 

Ah, the close-mouthed Smiths; this would be their doing.

Gabble, gabble, gabble, all the time.

 

"As it happened, that's true," I said. "They sent me a

letter."

 

"Signed by?"

 

"Dorothy of Smith—the oldest."

 

Halbreth Nicholas lit his pipe and took a long draught. He

was a Smith himself, and head of this Castle only because

there'd been no Motley sons in the last generation. If my

memory served me right, he'd be the second cousin of the

blusterer that filled the same role at Castle Smith.

 

"She say why?" he asked me.

 

"They claimed a family crisis.'*

 

"Hmmph." He blew a fine smoke ring, and he watched it

rise, and he said no more. Which was only to be expected. I

wanted to say something comforting about everybody having

relatives they'd as soon they didn't have to own up to, but that

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              S7

 

load of thing was the proper remark for a Granny, not a Castle

daughter and I held my peace.

 

Diamond of Motley was not so inhibited—after all, it wasn't

her relatives. She asked me straight out, leaning over to pour

me more coffee and push the jam dish closer to my plate:

 

"Does it make you suspicious of them, child?"

"You know what's been going on at Castle Brightwalei;" I

said.

 

"Been on all the comsets. Soured milk, smashed mirrors,

kidnapped babies, and such truck. Everybody's heard all about

it by now."

 

"Well," I said. "it's one of those which comes first the

squawker or the egg things, to my mind. If Castle Smith is

guilty of all this mischief, then telling me not to stop by their

door makes them look guiltier On the other hand, if you're

guilty, doing something like that tips your hand so plain and

easy that you can't imagine anyone with half a brain doing it;

 

that makes them look as innocent as the babe kidnapped. On

the other hand, if you were guilty and wanted to look innocent,

doing something so outrageous as that would be a canny move.

It goes round and round."

 

"So it does," she said, "and what's your own opinion?"

The question put me in a very awkward position. There sat

her husband, him a Smith by birth and close kin to those at

Castle Smith this minute, and she asked me such a thing? She

was a typical six, and properly named, and her husband

stepped into the breach and saved me neatly.

 

"Shame on you, darlin'," he told her "putting the young

woman on the spot like that. How can she say right in front of

me and under my own roof that she suspects my close kin of

treason against the Confederation? At least let her finish with

her food before you throw her into a bog like that!"

"Oh," she said, "you know, I didn't think?"

"I'm sure you didn't," he observed, and he touched her

cheek gently. It was clear he doted on hei; and that was nice.

"But you must try, now and again."

Then he surprised me.

 

"Would you like to know what / think?" he asked abruptly.

"Indeed I would. If you're willing to say."

"I am," he said. "Delldon Mallard the 2nd, for all he's my

cousin, and his three brothers with him, never have had sense

 

S8 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

enough to pound sand in a rat hole. They're ornery enough to

do the kind of foolishness that's been coming down, that's a

point against them; and they're silly enough not to see that

they're surrounded on all sides by Families loyal to the

Confederation, and would be well advised to run with the pack

at least until the Jubilee gives us all a chance to see how the

land lies. But. and nevertheless,! don't think they could of

carried it off this long without making some fool mistake that

would of given them away—that's a point for them. And

furthermore, Granny Gableft-ame's at Castle Smith, and I don't

believe she'd put up with it for a minute, nor do I believe they

could put it past her, Now that, my dear, is what / think."

 

"And so thought the Clarks," I said, nodding my head.

"Including Granny Golightly."

 

"Wicked old lady, that one!" put in Diamond of Motley.

"Downright wicked!"

 

"Grannys aren't wicked. Diamond," said her husband

firmly. "They're just contrary, and it's expected of them. She's

a tad worse than some of the others, might could be ... but

she has an image to live up to."

 

"And," I concluded, "so think I. I don't believe Castle

Smith is in this."

 

"And the others?" They asked me together, right in chorus.

 

"The McDaniels and the Clarks, not a chance of it," I said.

"As for the Airys, you know how they are, I don't know where

they get it from. The Guthries and the Parsons, from what I can

tell and the tales they're spinning, are bent on carving up one

another and the poor Purdys along with them. If they've

thought of the Confederation in the last two months, I'll be

surprised, and the Jubilee? If they don't want to go, they just

won't. And everything you said of the Smiths applies to the

Purdys ... if they were playing these tricks they'd of

betrayed themselves early, early on."

 

"And us, my dear?"

 

I smiled at him, and had some more coffee. "I just got

here," I said. "Suppose you tell me how you feel about these

things."

 

"It won't take long."

 

"All the better"

 

"Mizzurah is a mighty small continent, and it's right off the

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              89

 

port bow, if you'll allow the figure, of Arkansaw and all that

feuding and carrying on. We've got the Wommacks and the

Travellers on our flanks, and a hell of a lot of ocean—beg your

pardon, ladies—all around, and nobody but Castle Lewis to

rely on should all of the others decide to move in on us.

Guthries, Parsons, Purdys, Wommacks, and Travellers, that is.

They have us cut off completely from Marktwain and

Oklahomah."

 

"Which means?"

 

"Which means we're in an interesting position, if you like

interesting, but a chancy one. You'll find the Lewises as strong

for the Confederation as the Airys, though a mite less drivelly

about it, and they'd stand firm in any crisis; but they're even

smaller than we are, they couldn't hold out a week. And we

couldn't defend them. Therefore, I tell you quite frankly,

Responsible of Brightwater, that Castle Motley stands for the

Confederation of Continents, and does so openly—but you

can't count on us for anything dramatic."

 

He was right, if unromantic. Mizzurah was the smallest of

the six continents, and it sat all alone in the middle of the

oceans with its three great neighbors hemming it on all sides.

Castle Motley was in no position to make rash promises.

 

"But you'll be at the Jubilee?" I asked him, hoping.

 

"We'll be there," he assured me. "You heard my wife; her

and the children, they're looking forward to it, and a lot of our

staff. It's a rare chance when we can get away and see

something besides our own Castle yard. We plan to leave very

shortly, as a matter of fact, because we're going by water

everywhere we can—no Mules for my household, thank you,

except flat on the solid ground, and no more of 'em then man's

absolutely required. But we can't offer you anything else but

our presence, and no daring political moves—you might as

well know that."

 

I wondered if he knew anything that I didn't, and couldn't

see what I'd lose by asking.

 

"Halbreth Nicholas, do you expect some daring moves from

somebody else?"

 

He knocked out his pipe and set it down, and then he

counted out his propositions with the side of one palm on the

flat of the other

 

90 SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN

 

"First," he said, "there's already those trying to scuttle the

Jubilee outright. Correct?"

 

"Correct."

 

"I think you'll be able to stop that . . . this Quest of yours

is an exaggeration, but it's caught people's fancy, and I believe

they'll come to see what happens next, if for no other reason.

Dragons and a tourney in the courtyard at Castle Brightwalei;

 

maybe?"

 

I grinned at him.

 

"Second," he went on, "assuming, as I do think we can

assume, that there will be a Jubilee, even if one or two of the

Families boycott it—and frankly, I doubt that strongly; like I

said before, every one of them is curious, and if anything's

going to happen they don't want to miss it—i/the Jubilee does

come off as scheduled, I look for a formal move to dissolve the

Confederation."

 

"Happens every time we meet," I said. "That would be no

surprise."

 

"Not exactly," said Halbreth Nicholas, "not exactly. No-

body's proposed that seriously within anybody's memory. No,

what always happens is the move to cut it back to one day a

yeai; and then that's voted down ... by how much depend-

ing on how the Wommacks are wobbling that month."

 

"My dear," said Diamond of Motley, "I'm afraid I really

don't see much difference. In effect, that is."

 

"Oh, there's a difference," he said, "yes, there is. True, that

ritual meeting would make the Confederation an empty

pretense, a regular little bug of a planetary government and not

worth spitting at. But so long as it met even that long, they'd

only have one meeting's worth of satisfaction. Brightwater'd

move to return to meeting four times a year, Castle Lewis'd

second, and the vote would go as usual—seven to five or eight

to four Dissolving the thing, meaning no meetings atall, would

be quite a different thing altogether."

 

I felt a chill between my shoulders ... not that I hadn't

had the same idea cross my mind, but if it came this easy to

him there might be many others sharing it.

 

"You think they could do it, Halbreth Nicholas?"

 

"I think they'll for damned sure try."

 

"But do you think they can bring it off? The vote has always

gone against them, even on the meeting cutback ..."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              91

 

"But weak votes, young woman, weak votes," he said

solemnly. "You can't count on the Wommacks, them and their

curse. It may well be you can't count on the Smiths,

considering this latest development. If all our neighbors pulled

out, I'm not prepared to say you could count on the Motleys or

the Lewises, either"

 

"Halbreth Nicholas Smith'" said Diamond of Motley, so

shocked her spoon rattled in her cup.

 

"My dear." he said, "we must face facts- Castle Motley is

not self-sufficient, nor Castle Lewis either If Alkansaw,

Kintucky, and Tmaseeh decided to blockade us so that no

supplies could be shipped in from Oklahomah or Maiktwain,

just where do you think we'd be? We can grow vegetables and

fruit here, and raise a goat or two, but that's about it. No sugar.

no salt, no coffee, no tea, no metals, no supplies for the

Grannys or the Magicians, no manufactured goods to speak of.

And where do you think our power comes from. Diamond of

Motley? It conies from the Parsons and the Guthnes, who can

equally well cut it off. No law says they have to sell to us."

 

"Our windmills," she said. "Our solar collectors—and our

tides."

 

I tried to imagine the population of Mizzurah managing with

its windmills and its solar technology and its tides, with all the

huge hulking bulk of three continents cutting off both wind and

water on three sides, and it raining or cloudy three quarters of

me year or mare, and I admired Halbreth Nicholas for not

smiling. She was a good woman, was Diamond, but she hadn't

much grasp of logistics.

 

"No," he said, but he said it respectfully, "I'm afraid they

wouldn't suffice. Diamond. The Lewises, now, they are just

pig-beaded enough that they might go the rest of us one

better!"

 

"Withdraw from the withdrawal, you mean."

 

"Exactly. And live on greens and goatmeat, and

bum . . . oh, candles, for all I know. They might. But not

us. Responsible, and I want that understood. I've many

families here depending on me and they're not expecting to go

back to Old Earth standards and the year 2000. And I don't

intend to ask it of them."

 

"You'd vote for dissolving, then."

 

"If it was clear that that was the way it was going—yes.

 

92 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

Regardless of how the Lewises might decide. It's not my

druthers, young woman, but it's the facts of life. We are

dependent on Arkansaw, Kintucky, and Tinaseeh, and there's

no way to change that short of moving the continent of

Mizzurah to a new location just off your coast. Are your

Magicians of Rank up to a project like that?"

 

Moving Mules was one thing; moving continents was quite

another; I didn't try to answer

 

"Law, but you've made a gloomy day of it, Mr Motley!"

said his wife. "I hope you're proud of yourself!"

 

I was quite sure he wasn't; in fact, I was quite sure he was

ashamed. He would of liked to hear himself saying that if the

vote came to end the Confederation his delegates would be

right there at the front telling the rotters to do their damndest

and to hell with them. Begging the pardon of any ladies

present, of course. That went with the image he'd of liked to

have of himself. But he was a practical man, and an honest

one, and he knew he'd do what went with that. Diamond of

Motley was right; he'd made it a gloomy day.

 

I went off to my room to rest for a while before supper, and

found a servingmaid waiting there, pretending—not very

skillfully—to still be unpacking my saddlebags and clearing

up. She looked eleven, but had the frail look of a Purdy to her,

too, which meant she was probably my own age or a bit more,

and her hair was falling down from the twist she'd put it in and

hanging down around her face. My fingers itched to set it

right—I can't abide a sloppy woman—but I didn't know her

and t couldn't take liberties.

 

"Hello, young woman," I said. friendly as I could manage

in my dreary mood, "are you having a problem with some of

those things? What is it, a fastening you can't get loose?"

 

"No, miss," she said, "I'm managing." And dropped my

hand mirror on the floor, smashing it to smithereens- No magic,

just plain fumblefingers-

 

"Oh, Miss Responsible, I'm sorry!" she said, and bit one

finger She'd be chewing on her hair next. "I'll get you another

one, miss, there's a hundred of 'em down in the comer of the

linen room! What do you fancy, something plain? Or a special

color? The Missus has a weakness for a nice pale blue, and

flowers on the back ..."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              93

 

Her hands were trembling, and her voice was a squeak, and I

stared at her long and hard while she dithered about the variety

of mirrors the Motleys had to offer for as long as I could stand

it, and then I told her to sit down.

 

"Miss?"

 

"Do sit down," I said, too cross to be gentle, "and tell me

what is the matter with you. And your name."

 

"My name? Is there something the matter with my name?"

 

She had to be a Purdy; her eyes were wild like a squawker

got by the neck.

 

"I did not mean to imply that there was anything wrong with

your name, young woman," I said, "I just asked you what it

might be."

 

"Oh!" she said. "Well, I hoped ... I mean, only the

Wommacks have women as aren't properly named, and—"

 

"That's not true," I interrupted, wondering if she'd had any

education atall. "I daresay there's no Family on Ozark that

hasn't had a girl or two Improperly Named over the years; the

Grannys aren't infallible. The Wommacks just did it more

spectacularly than anybody else ever has and got famous for it,

that's all."

 

As they surely had. It hadn't been a matter of naming a

Caroline that should have been an Elizabeth; they'd named a

girlbaby Responsible of Wommack, and it had been a mistake.

That's a sure way to get famous.

 

One more time, I thought, and asked her: "Will you tell me

your name, then, and what the trouble is?" And if she wouldn't

I fully intended to put her over my knee for her sass.

 

"Yes, miss," she said. "Ivy of Wommack's my name."

 

A two. She was properly named. And I was right glad I had

not let it slip that I'd taken her for a Purdy.

 

"And your problem?"

 

She stared down at the bed she was sitting on and gripped

the counterpane with both hands, silly thing, as if it wouldn't

of slid right off with her if she'd done any sliding herself.

 

"Oh, Miss Responsible," she said in a tiny, tiny voice, "I

have all the bad luck I ever need, 1 have more than anybody'd

ever need, and I don't need any more, and I'm afraid—oh, law,

miss, they say there's been a Skerry appeared!"

 

Well. That did take me aback a bit, and I sat down myself.

 

"Who told you so. Ivy of Wommack?" I demanded.

 

94 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"Eveiybody!"

 

"Nonsense. You haven't talked to everybody."

 

"Everybody I've talked to, then,*' she said stubbornly.

"They're all talking about it, and they're all worried."

 

"And what are they saying? Besides just, 'There's been a

Skeny appeared.'"

 

"There's an old well, down in the garden behind the Castle

church, miss—the water's no good any more, but oh. it's

pretty, with vines growing all over it and the old bucket

hanging there, so it's been left- And they say that last night—

there were full moons last night, miss—they say there was a

Skerry sitting on the edge-rim of that old well. Just sitting

there."

 

"At midnight, I suppose."

 

"Oh yes ... just at midnight, and under the full moons.

Oh, Miss Responsible, I'm glad I didn't see it!"

 

She hadn't much gumption, or much taste. I would dearly

have loved to see it, if it was true. A Skerry stands eight feet

tall on the average, sometimes even tallei; and there's never

been one that wasn't willow slender: They have skin the color

of well-cared-for copper, their hair is silver and falls without

wave or curl to below their waists, male or female. And their

eyes are the color of the purest, deepest turquoise. The idea of

the full moons shining down on all that, not to mention an old

well covered with wild ivy and night-blooming

vines ... ah, that would of been something to see and to

marvel on.

 

Except there were a few things wrong with the whole

picture.

 

"Who told you they saw the Skeny?" I insisted. "Who?"

 

And I added, "And don't you tell me 'everybody,' either"

 

"Everybody in the Castle is talking about it," she said. Drat

the girl!

 

"Not the Master nor the Missus," I said. "I've been with

them these past two hours, and I've heard not one word about a

Skeny."

 

"Everybody on the staff. I meant, miss. It was one of the

Senior Attendants . - - he'll go far. they say he knows more

Spells and Charms than the Granny, and he's a comely, comely

man ... he was down there by the well last night with a

friend of mine"—she looked at me out of the comer of her eye

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms              95

 

to see if I was going to make any moral pronouncements

about that, but I ignored hei; and she went on—"and they saw

it, sitting there in the full moonlight, all splendid with the light

fair blinding on its long silver hair, they said."

 

"And then they told everybody."

 

"Well, wouldn't you?" she asked me, and I had to admit

mat I might have. You didn't see a Skerry every night, much

less under full moons at midnight in a Castle garden.

 

"But you notice they didn't tell the Family," I said. "That's

mighty odd, seems to me- Seems to me that would of been the

first thing to do."

 

The girl rubbed her nose and stared down at the floor,

scuffing one shoe back and forth. Not only sloppy, but

wasteful, too.

 

"The Housekeeper told us not to," she said sullenly. "She

carried on about it till we were all sick of listening—what she'd

do if we bothered the Master and the Missus with it

. . . bothered them, that's how she put it!"

 

"Well?" I asked hec "Do you have any inkling in your head

why she might of taken it that way?"

 

She sniffled. "I don't know," she said. "I just know I'm

scared. And it's not/air—I already had my share of bad luck."

 

"Ivy of Wommack," I said patiently, "have you given this

tale any thought atall? Other than to fret yourself about it, I

mean?"

 

"What way should I be thinking about it?"

 

"Well, for starters, where do the Skerrys live?"

 

"In the desert on Marktwain," she said promptly.

 

"Quite right. In the desert on Marktwain. The only patch of

desert on this planet, girl, and left desert only out of courtesy to

fee Skerrys. They were here first, you know, and it was desert

then."

 

"Yes, miss."

 

"And since that's true, and Skerrys can't live outside the

desert, why in the name of the Twelve Gates and the Twelve

Corners would one turn. up on Mizzurah, many and many a

long mile from its desert, and of all unlikely places, sitting on a

well brim? Skerrys hate water, can't abide water, that's why

they live in the desert!"

 

Her mouth took a pout, which was no surprise.

 

"Really," she said, "I'm sure I'm no expert on Skenys. and

 

96 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

it wouldn't be proper if I was, and as to how it got here,

my friend says it would have to be by magic, and she got that

from the Senior Attendant, and he's on his way up in the

world—he's no fool!"

 

"Tell me again," I said. "Exactly. What did they say?"

 

"Kyle Fairweather McDaniels the 17th, that's the Senior,

and my friend—never mind her name, because she wasn't

supposed to be out of her bed at midnight, much less with Kyle

Fairweather—they say that they were down by the well and

they saw the Skerry as plain as I see you."

 

"Walked right up and touched it, did they? Said

howdeedo?"

 

"Miss!"

 

"Then how did they know it was a Skerry?"

 

"Well, miss, what else is eight feet tall and has copper skin,

and silver hair as hangs down to its knees? I ask you'"

 

"It was sitting on the well. Ivy of Wommack, not standing.

You said so yourself. How could they see that it was eight feet

tall? And as for the copper skin, a bit of Hallow Even paint will

do that—I've done it myself, and I'll wager you have, too—

and a silver wig's easily come by."

 

"They were sure."

 

"Were they?"

 

"They were."

 

"They were out where they should not of been, doing what

they should not of done—"

 

"I didn't say that."

 

"Well, I say it, missy," I snapped at her, "and I say it plain,

and between their guilty consciences and the moonlight, it was

easy for anybody atall to play a trick on them. And more shame

to them for scaring the rest of you with such nonsense

. . . what trashy doings!"

 

"You don't believe it, then, miss?"

 

"Certainly not. Nor should you, nor anybody else."

 

She sat there beside me, quieter now, though she'd switched

from wrinkling up the counterpane to wringing those skinny

little hands that looked like you could snap them the way

Michael Stepforth Guthrie'd snapped my ribs. Only with no

need for magic, nor much strength, either,

 

"Feel better now. Ivy of Wommack?" I asked her finally,

and I hoped she did, because I wanted a rest and a read before

 

Twelve Pair Kingdoms              97

 

my supper I was willing to finish unpacking for myself, if I

could just get rid of this skittish creature.

 

"You know what's said, miss," she hazarded. I wished she

would stop wringing her hands before she wore them out.

 

"What?" Though I knew quite well.

 

"That if a Skerry's seen," she breathed, and I could hear in

her voice the echo of a Granny busy laying out the fines, "that

there has to be a whole day of celebration in its honor. A whole

day of no work and all celebration . . . or it's bad luck for all

the people that know of it. And I've worked this livelong day,

and so has all the staff!"

 

"That, I suppose, is why your 'friends' spread the news

around," I said. "Sharing out the bad luck."

 

"Maybe," she said. "Might could be that's why."

 

"Covering their bets," I said tartly. "If they didn't really see

a Skerry, no harm done. If they did, the bad luck that comes

from not following the rules gets spread out thin over the whole

staff, instead of just falling on the two of them. You think that

over, Ivy of Wommack.'*

 

She sighed, and allowed as how I might be right, but she

didn't know, and I occupied myself with sending her on her

way. She'd forgotten all about finishing my unpacking,

fortunately, and it took me three minutes to do what she'd left

and fix what she'd messed up, and then I stretched out on the

bed bone-naked under the covers and took up my most trashy

novel.

 

There was a certain very small, you might say tiny, bit of

risk here. For a Skerry to show up on Mizzurah, at midnight,

or at any other time, might fit right into some Magician of

Rank's idea of an adventure for this particular stage of my

Quest. And if so, I was asking for powerful trouble—maybe

not right now, maybe not for a long time, but someday it would

come—if I didn't speak up and demand the day of festival to

honor its appearance.

 

Furthermore, if a Magician of Rank had teleported a Skerry

out of its desert and onto the edge of the Motleys' well, the

Skerrys were not going to be pleased about that. Not at all

pleased. They'd asked precious little of us, when The Ship

landed; just to be let alone. And whizzing one around the

 

98 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

planet in the middle of the night was distinctly not leaving it

alone as promised.

 

I tried to remember when a Skerry had last been seen,

putting my microviewer down for a minute . . . not in my

lifetime, I didn't think. In my mother's, perhaps; it was dim in

my memory. But that Skerry had come walking out of the

desert on Marktwain of its own free will, and had walked right

down the street of a town on the desert's edge in broad

daylight. It had been an honor, and I believe Thorn of Gutnrie

said there'd been festival for two whole days. . . .

 

No. I made up my mind. It had to be a trick, played on the

Senior Attendant and his foolish lady friend, and no more. For

my benefit, perhaps, meant to distract me and delay me if I

believed it, but only a trick all the same. No Skeny would

cross all the water between Marktwain and Mizzurah and sit on

a well in the middle of the night for two young Castle staff to

gawk at. And no Magician of Rank would dare tamper with a

real Skerry in that way.

 

I was not going to take any such obvious bait, and that was

all there was to that.

 

I went back to my book.

 

CHAPTERS

 

I LEFT FOR Castle Lewis after the hunt breakfast, not staying

for the hunt itself on the grounds that I had to hurry, and since

that was obviously true no one made more than the objections

politeness demanded. Mizzurah was so small, and so heavily

populated, that anything but ordinary Muleflight was out of the

question, and I flew through a blustery spring day, sedate and

proper, and reached Castle Lewis only just before the sun

began to go down behind the low hills. Sterling was bored, and

so was I, and we did nothing fancy; just came down slow and

easy over the broad lawn that spread round the Castle, and

waited for developments. The wind was brisk enough that the

Mule was shivering, and I got down and took an extra blanket

from my pack and began rubbing her down.

 

Castle Lewis was small against the darkening sky, small and

tidy, with a central gate and two towers to each side, and a

tower at each of its corners. No frills, no fancy battlements and

balconies, just a plain small sturdy Castle, and I liked the look

of it.

 

The front gates opened as the sun slipped out of sight

completely, and three men came running out with solar

 

99

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

100

 

lanterns—economy here, I noted, and I approved. They'd been

well exposed and threw a fine bright light across the grass, as

they should do. One of the men put a shawl around me, very

respectfully; one took over the task of rubbing Sterling down,

making protesting sounds because I'd started the process

myself; and the other stood stiff as a pole, waiting for

something.

 

"Where is that woman?" demanded one of them, and called

over his shoulder: "Tambrey! Tambrey of Motley! What's

keeping you, woman? Responsible of Brightwater at your gate

half-frozen, and dropping with hunger and entirely tuckered

out, and what are you doing in there, counting your fingers to

see if you've lost one? Will you get out here?"

 

"I'm not that tired, Attendant," I said sharply, "and not that

cold, and not that hungry. I'll last the night."

 

"That doesn't excuse her, miss,'* he said firmly. "She knows

her duty, and she's expected to do it." And he turned his head

again and shouted "Tambrey!" and then made a remarkably

expressive noise of disgust.

 

"It's all right," I said, "never mind the woman. One of you

to take my Mule to the stables, and two to see me to my host

and hostess—I can surely make do with that?"

 

But they wouldn't have it that way, and we stood there in the

wind while a soft rain began to fall in the deepening darkness,

and I knew that I was up against it. The famous Lewis

propriety, man which only the Travellers' could be said to be

more extreme. I could stand there and drown, for all they

cared, I'd not enter their Castle attended by other than a

female, and I envied my Mule. At least she was going to be

warm and fed and dry, any minute now.

 

When Tambrey did appear, which to give her credit was not

many minutes later, she didn't come from the gates but out of

the cedars that bordered the Castle lawn. She was a pretty

thing, too, and I couldn't see her being a servingmaid long; her

hair was hidden by the hood of her cloak, but her face was

perfection, and I was willing to place my bets on the rest of her

 

The men grumbled at her, but she paid them no mind at all,

and from the way they dropped their complaining I was

reasonably certain they were used to that, too-

 

"Welcome to Castle Lewis, Responsible of Brightwater,"

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             101

 

she said, "and let's get you in out of this damp this minute and

a mug of hot cider in your hand!"

 

Oh yes. I had forgotten. I'd get nothing stronger than cider

from the Lewises unless it came from a Granny's own hand and

was vouched for as being the difference between my total

collapse and my blooming health. And not hard cider, either; it

would be the pure juice of the Ozark peachapple, mulled with

spices, and hot as blazes, and innocent enough for the baby

mat sdll hung safe outside the Brightwater church. The

Lewises kept to the old ways with a vengeance.

 

We went through the gates into a small square courtyard,

planted with low flowers in neat square beds, and raked paths

between them, and on to where the Castle door shone wide and

welcoming. In the door stood two I'd heard a great deal of, but

knew hardly at all: Salem Sheridan Lewis the 43rd, and his

wife, Rozasham of McDaniels.

 

"Here she is." said Tambrey, handing me through the door

like a package, so that the Lewises both had to step back a pace

to avoid me running them down, "Responsible of Brightwatel;

 

safe and sound! Miss, Salem Sheridan Lewis the 43rd; and the

Missus of this Castle, Rozasham of McDaniels."

 

"Thank you kindly, Tambrey," said the woman Rozasham,

and the beauty of her voice caught my ear I hoped she would

sing for us, later, if the quality of her speech was any sign of

her ability.

 

Salem Sheridan was another matter: His wife gathered me

into her arms as if we'd known each other all our lives; but he

snapped his fingers and ran everybody through their drill. Had

my Mule been seen to and stabled? Good. And had my bags

been brought in and taken up to my room? Good. And was the

mulled cider ready in the east parlor? Good. And would

Tambrey see to my unpacking? Good—and I was to have extra

blankets, mind, it was going to be cold. And would supper be

on the table mprecisely one hour? Good! And it was all "Yes,

sir!" coming the other way. It said something for Tambrey of

Motley's ingenuity that she'd been able to find her way past

this one and into the cedars—there'd be no sloppy staff here.

 

I had time only to wash a bit, tidy my hair, and change from

my traveling costume into something less elaborate, before

suppertime, the cider still burning my throat. I was traveling

light, as was necessary; there was the splendid traveling outfit,

 

102 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

the blue-and-silver party dress, the gown of lawn for magic,

some underclothes and a nightgown, a sturdy black shawl, and

one plainer dress that I'd not yet had an opportunity to wear

And that was all.

 

I held up the last dress and looked it over dubiously; it had

alternating narrow stripes of the Brightwater green and scarlet,

with a neck cut low in front and rimmed in back by a high ruff

of ivory lace that would require me to put my hair up. It had

long sleeves caught at the wrists with lace-trimmed wide cuffs

as well, and the stripes themselves were shot with silver-and-

gold threads.

 

I'd seen nothing like it here; only modest high-necked

round-collared gowns without ornament even to their cut. The

Lewis crest was a green cedar tree on an azure field, with a

narrow border of cedar-trunks russet round, and except for a

button or two that bore that device I'd seen only the plain and

the spare. Even Rozasham, presumably dressed for company,

had been wearing a dress of a heather blue with a skirt scarcely

full enough to swing with her hips as she walked, and plain

little round white buttons down its high front.

 

True, I was a guest. And true, the conditions on a Quest

demanded a certain amount of spectacle, and I had to abide by

them. But I could see nothing in the garments that Tambrey had

hung for me that would not of looked foolish at the Lewis

supper table.

 

Well, there was my nightgown ... it was moss green

flannel and had the proper cut and simplicity, and I couldn't see

that the Lewises would recognize it for what it was if I could

keep my own face straight. I belted it with a narrow braid of

gold cord, since it had no proper waist, and added a single

silver pendant—a small flower meant, I believe, to represent a

violet, but innocuous enough for any occasion—on a narrow

green velvet ribbon. Then I used a matching ribbon to tie my

hair back simply at the nape of my neck and looked at the effect

in the long glass mirror in my guestchambec

 

My grandmother would of been scandalized, my mother

would of fainted, but I was of the opinion mat I could get away

with it. I only bad to remember not to let a servingmaid see me

in it tomorrow morning when she brought up my pot of tea.

That would have meant the word going out mat I'd either been

too lazy to change into my nightgown and had slept in my

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             103

 

dress, or that I'd been so addled I'd worn my nightgown to

supper, neither of which would do.

 

Kingdom Lewis had just one product for sale—cedai; cut

from the progeny of the three seedlings the family had

somehow managed to nurse through the whole trip to this

planet, and which now they alone seemed to have the skill to

grow. Under any other touch the trees turned brown and died,

like grass not watered, but the Lewises had the green thumb,

one and all of them, and the rows of cedars grew stately in

every spare field of the small Kingdom and all along its narrow

roads. Even in the great Hall inside Castle Lewis, a giant cedar

grew out of earth left open for its roots in the time of building,

dropping its needles everywhere for the staff to sweep up but

smelling like heaven, and every windowsill had a small

seedling growing in a low bowl.

 

Nor^ad they stinted themselves in the use of the timber; The

Castle gleamed with it, and the table at which I sat down to

supper was a single massive slab of russet cut from me heart of

an ancient monster of a tree and rubbed till it glowed like coals

burned low in a hearth. They had had sense enough not to

cover it up with some frippery cloth, either, and had set chairs

round it of the same glowing wood.

 

Me in my nightgown, I drew one up and sat down, spreading

my napkin in my lap, and I said, "This table is beautiful,

Rozasharn of McDaniels. I've never seen anything to match

it." Nor had I.

 

"My husband's great-great-grandfather made it with his own

hands," she answered, "and I do its polishing with mine."

 

"It was a single plank?"

 

"That it was; they waited a very long time for a cedar to

grow the proper size for this, and while they waited the

Lewises ate off plain boards laid across trestles. Then the one

bee made this table and all the chairs . . . and no polish or

oil has ever been set to it except by a Missus of this Castle, all

these years."

 

"I've seen a few housethings made from cedar," I said.

"Chests, usually." And I stroked the satiny wood. "But

nothing like this."

 

"Magic-chests'" breathed a child at my right hand, and 1

aimed my head to see him better He was young, and his chair

not tall enough to bring him much above the edge of the

 

104 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

tabletop, but not young enough to be willing to submit to the

indignity of sitting on a stack of pillows; he made do by

craning his neck.

 

"My son, Salem Sheridan Lewis the 44th, called Boy

Salem," said his fattier from the head of the table, and he

introduced the other five children that had joined us for the

meal. And the Granny, the youngest on Ozark and one of the

sternest—fifty-nine-year-old Granny Twinsonel. I bid them all

a good evening, and helped myself to the soup.

 

Salem was a patient child; when the introductions had gone

all the way around and the grownups were eating, he said it

again, but this time he was asking.

 

"Magic-chests?" he asked me. "All of cedar?"

 

"Usually," I told him. "Because it keeps everything so

safe."

 

His dark blue eyes shone, and I found him a handsome child

despite the lack of three front teeth and the presence of a crazy-

quilt assortment of scrapes and scabs and scratches. I expect he

had fallen out of one or more of the cedar trees recently.

 

"What's in a magic-chest. Responsible of Brightwater?" he

asked me then, and he held very still, waiting for me to answer

Which meant he'd asked it before, and it had done him no

good. It would do him no good this time, either.

 

"Herbs and simples and gewgaws," I said casually. "And

garlic."

 

"In a cedar chest?" The child was shocked, and I chuckled.

 

As it happened, the Magicians did keep their garlic in their

magic-chests, but they saw to it that the smell of the stuff was

on hold while it was in there.

 

"That's right," I said. "Gariic."

 

"When I am a Magician of Rank," said the boy with utter

solemnity, like a Reverend pronouncing a benediction, "I

won't do that. Or 1*11 make a Spell to take the smell off so it

doesn't spoil the wood."

 

Smart little dickens, that one. I could tell by the twitch at the

comer of his stem father's lips that this was a favorite child—

the name told me that in any case—and that his promise was

noticed. But the Master of the Castle spoke to him in no

uncertain terms.

 

"When you are a Magician of Rank!" he said. "Many a

long, long year of study lies between you and that day. Boy

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             105

 

Salem, if it ever comes—which 1 doubt. And many a difficult

examination. You had best get your mind off garlic and

concentrate on learning the Teaching Story you were set this

week—you didn't have it right yet last night, as I recall."

 

"Or," added a sister who looked to be about thirteen, with

the same pansy blue eyes but considerably less scuffed up and

battered as to the rest of her, "you'll end up like your cousin

Silverweb."

 

"I'd not be such a ninny as that," scoffed the boy, "not

ever! You know that. Charlotte."

 

"Silverweb of McDanieIs?" I set my soup spoon down and

used my napkin hastily. "Has something happened to her?"

 

"Nothing serious. Responsible,*' said Rozasham of

McDanieIs, "and nothing that can't be mended. She's been left

too long unmarried, and this is where that sort of thing leads

to."

 

"I hadn't heard," I said. "What's happened?"

 

"Well," said Rozasham, "as I understand it Silverweb

decided you needed somebody to be guardmaid—or compan-

ion, who knows? to be company at any rate—on your Quest.

And that young one packed a pair of saddlebags, stole a Mule

from the McDanieIs stables, and started off after you."

 

"She didn't get far," observed her husband, handing the

meat platter down the table. "Her daddy caught up with her

before noon the following day and took her straight back to

Castle McDanieIs."

 

"For a licking," said the one they called Boy Salem.

 

"Not for a licking," corrected Granny Twinsorrel. "Boy

Salem, you'll never make a Magician if you don't leam to turn

on your brain before you begin rattling off at the mouth. Young

women of fifteen don't get lickings, it wouldn't be proper"

 

The boy snorted, and wrinkled up his nose.

 

"Not fail," he said. "Not fair atall."

 

"What did they do to her?" I asked reluctantly, not really

sure I wanted to know. I had high hopes for Silverweb, and I

bore a certain guilt for having ranked her when I was at Castle

McDanieIs.

 

"Packed her off to Castle Airy in disgrace," said Salem

Sheridan. "And to the tender care of all three of the Grannys

mere. Seven weeks and a day, she's to be servingmaid to those

"^nnys. I do expect mat will have some effect on her"

 

106 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

FOOT wretched Silverweb ... I knew what that would

mean. She'd hem miles and miles of burgundy draperies, and

then be made to take the hems out and do them over till her

fingers bled. She'd boil vats of herbs half as tall as she was,

stirring them for hours at a time with a wooden staff. And she'd

pick nutmeats—they'd have her doing that with bushels of

nuts, staining her fingers black where they weren't bleeding.

And scrubbing the Castle corridor floors with gritty sand. And

worse.

 

"Oh, what ever made her take such a notion?" I asked,

cross in spite of feeling sorry for hec

 

"Like I said," said Rozasharn, "she's been left too long

unmarried. Silverweb's going on sixteen, and that's far too old.

It's a wonder she's not done worse."

 

"And she may have," put in one of the older children. "Our

daddy says Silverweb of McDaniels could very well of dressed

like a man and kidnapped that baby out of your church,

Responsible of Brightwater! He says she's plenty big enough

and strong enough—and bold enough, too."

 

"I was there," I protested, "and I can't believe that, not

atall! I'm sure it was a man . . . and I'm sure it wasn't

Silverweb of McDaniels. She's a fine young woman. I give you

my word on that; she's just maybe a bit strong-minded."

 

"She ought to have a husband and two babies to occupy her

energy by now," said Salem Sheridan, "and I fault her parents

for that. Though I agree she's got to be punished for running

off, and for taking the Mule without permission, and me rest of

it. That's fitting, and expected."

 

"She'll live through it," said Granny Twinsorrel. "And

maybe she'll learn a thing or two about pride."

 

"Now, Granny—" Rozasharn began, but the woman cut her

off sharp.

 

"Pride is all that's keeping that one spinster," said Granny

Twinsorrel, "simple pride. Her father's offered her three

marriages, each one fully suitable, each of me men with land

and a homeplace and a good future ahead of him. And Miss

Yellow-Haired High-and-Mighty wouldn't accept any one of

the three. Two fine men from Kingdom Guthrie, and one of our

own—and none of them good enough for hec Pride, mat is,

and it'll lead her to no good end."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             107

 

"They say." said Rozasharn, "that she has ambitions. And

if mat's true, she'll make no marriage. Granny Twinsorrel."

 

She has ambitions. In front of the children, that would mean

mat Silverweb intended to become a Granny the hard way, and

go virgin to her grave; and there was no reason for a woman to

do mat unless she had her eyes out for a chance to become a

Magician as well as a Granny. Which was "having ambitions."

 

I frowned into my soup, but went back to eating it.

Silverweb was none of my business, and no reason for her to

come between me and my supper

 

The rock that whistled past my ear went into the bowl of

mashed sweet potatoes, which weren't enough to slow it down

any, and on beyond to hit the far wall with a resounding smack.

Whoever had thrown it had put considerable muscle behind it,

and I couldn't say it made my stomach calm. But not a one of

me Lewises moved, or paused in their eating, or turned a hair,

so far as I could tell. An Attendant stepped forward from the

door and picked up the rock, and went off with it somewhere,

while the Lewises went right on with their meal.

 

"Rozasharn of McDaniels," I said, my voice more a quiver

than I'd intended it to be, "how many more of those are we

likely to be favored with this evening?"

 

"Half a dozen, maybe," she said. "Maybe a few more,

maybe a few less."

 

"Well, don't you mind having rocks thrown at you like

mat?"

 

"Gracious, child," said Granny Twinsorrel, "those rocks

aren't being thrown at us. It's a bit of fuss in your honor—

started about the time you crossed the border of Kingdom

Lewis, I calculate, which is why we were a mite disorganized

when you arrived, and will stop when you move on. We don't

plan to pay the fool thing any attention, it will only make it

worse,"

 

"Nobody's been either hurt or bothered," said Rozasharn

soothingly. "You'll notice there's not even dust in the potato

dish."

 

"We can put up with it," said Boy Salem, backing her up.

"Besides, I like to see what it does."

 

What it did next may have amused Boy Salem, but it didn't

amuse me in the slightest. Nobody wants a live lizard in her

soup, and since Rozasharn of McDaniels was so calm about all

 

108 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

this I strongly wished it had been in her bowl instead of mine.

 

"Teh." said Granny Twinsorrel. "Now that was rude."

 

"Can I fish it out?" asked Boy Salem. "Is it real? Can I get

it out for you?" He was fairly hopping up and down in bis

chair

 

It was real enough, about four inches long, and a bright

poisonous green. It put back its narrow head and hissed at me,

and I fancied it was a little warmer there among the potatoes

and the jebroots than it cared to be.

 

"Never mind, Boy Salem," I said disgustedly "I'd best do

it myself, I believe."

 

Granny Twinsorrel's voice came sharp and sudden. "Don't

you put silver to it, young woman!" she told me. "It's not the

creature's fault. Use your fingers."

 

I knew that much, but I didn't sass the Granny; I reached

into my soup with two careful fingertips, caught the little

animal by the tip of its tail, and lifted it out into the air still

spitting.

 

"Can I have it?" demanded Boy Salem. The child was

outrageous, and his brothers and sisters stared at him in

amazement. Eben Nathaniel Lewis the 17th, twelve years old

and already with a rigid look to him like his lathee, turned that

look on Boy Salem in a way that would of frozen the child stiff

if it'd had any power behind it.

 

"A Spelled creature like that. Boy Salem?" said Eben

Nathaniel. "Your head's addled!"

 

The Granny stepped over to my chair and took the lizard

from me, which was a good deal more appropriate than letting

Boy Salem have it for a pet, and a servmgmaid slipped the

bowl of soup away and replaced it with a fresh one, and handed

me a new spoon.

 

Whereupon a small frog, same shade of green, croaked up at

me from among the vegetables. And I set the silverware down

again.

 

If this was the beginning of an adventure, I didn't fancy it;

 

there were quite a few nasty and downright dangerous things

that would fit into a soup bowl.

 

"Keep changing the bowls," ordered Granny Twinsorrel,

without a tremble to her voice, and we sat there while the

process went on.

 

Bowl three, a much larger frog, darker green.

 

Twelve Four Kingdoms             109

 

Bowl four, a skinny watersnake, banded in green and scarlet

and gold, and about as long as my forearm.

 

Bowl five had a squawker in it, which was at least a change

from me reptiles.

 

"Granny?"

 

"Hush, Rozasham," said the woman; she was made of ice

and steel, that one was, and she hadn't yet even bothered to

behave like a Granny . . . certainly she'd yet to speak like

one.

 

"You, young woman," she said, "just keep changing the

bowls; and you. Responsible, you keep taking the creatures

out. We'll see how this goes."

 

She stood at my left hand and I passed her whatever I got

with each bowl. I must say the children were fascinated,

especially when, after the tenth move, the bowl itself suddenly

grew larger

 

The Granny made a small soft noise—not alarm, but it

showed she'd taken notice—and Salem Sheridan Lewis set

down his own spoon and spoke up.

 

"I don't like that," he said. "I don't like that atall."

 

I didn't like it either and I didn't know that I was going to

like what came next in my alleged soup. There were several

possibilities ... it could go from harmless creatures to

poisonous ones, and I moved back from the table enough to

dodge if a snake that killed was to appear coiled up before me

next. It could go to nasty creatures, along the line of the

squawkei. but dirtier—say, a carrion bird. Or it could go to

things, and that left a wide latitude of choices.

 

"Responsible of Brightwatei." said Salem Sheridan, "put

your spoon in that bowl—this has gone too far"

 

But Granny Twinsorrel raised her hand, her index finger up

like a needle, and shook her head firmly.

 

"No, Salem Sheridan," she said, "we'll see it out awhile

yet."

 

"Responsible of Brightwater is our guest!" Rozasham of

McDaniels protested.

 

"As were Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th and his wife

and son, at Castle Brightwater not too many days past," said

the Granny.

 

"I am sorry about that," I said, keeping my eye on the soup

bowl as I talked, "but I was truly not expecting mischief right

 

110 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

in the middle of a Solemn Service. And I am sony that

yourall's supper is being spoiled on my account, I assure you."

 

"This is more fun than supper" said Boy Salem.

 

"This is more fun than a picnic," said Charlotte, and there

was general agreement among the young ones. And I had to

admit that from their point of view it was all very entertaining;

 

no doubt they'd be pleased to have me back any time, even if it

meant they all went hungry while I was there.

 

The entity responsible for all this fooled us, next go-round.

It was neither a coiled poison-snake, nor a carrion bird, nor yet

a loathsome mess of stuff mixed and coiled—another possibili-

ty—that gazed up at me. It made the children clap their hands,

all but Eben Nathaniel, who was old enough to know better

And I felt Granny Twinsorrel's hand come down hard and grip

my shouldec

 

"Is it real, too?" breathed one of the little girls, before Boy

Salem could put in his two cents' worth.

 

"Certainly not," said their big brother Eben Nathaniel with

contempt. "There's no such thing."

 

And the boy had it right. There was no such thing as a

unicorn, not on Old Earth, not on Ozark, and what sat before

me was only an illusion. But it was beautifully formed. About

eleven inches high, not counting the gleaming single horn all

fluted and spiraled, as pure white as new snow, with its flawless

tiny hoofs delicately poised in the soup broth and its beautiful

eyes perfectly serene, soup or no soup. It even had about its

neck a tiny bridle of gold, with a rosette of silver

 

"That now," said Granny Twinsorrel, "you'll not touch!

That's torn it. Just put your silver spoon in the bowl,

Responsible of Brightwatec"

 

The children were crying out that that would kill it, and

Rozashara of McDaniels was reassuring them that you can't

kill what doesn't exist, and Salem Sheridan looked grimmer

than a lot of large rocks I'd seen in my time.

 

Like a soapbubble, the instant my silver spoon touched the

soup, the creature disappeared with an almost soundless pop. I

sat there thinking, while Boy Salem—who had mightily

wanted to keep the little unicorn, and I didn't blame him, I

would of liked to have it my own self—was comforted. The

Granny picked up the offending bowl and handed it to the

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             til

 

servingmaid, who looked scared to death but managed to ask,

"Shall I try again, then?"

 

"One minute," said the Granny. "Just keep your places and

hold on. I intend to have my supper this night, and have it in

peace."

 

She plunged her hand deep into her skirt pocket—which

showed me she'd either been prepared for at least some of this

or always went prepared, just in case—and pulled out wards

enough to seal off a good-sized mansion. The noses of the

children quivered some at the reek of the garlic, and I.didn't

blame them. I was sorry I dared not take off the smell

. . . but we'd had scandal enough, I judged, for one evening.

Garlic that didn't smell and worked nonetheless would have

been an offense to decency, and we'd just have to put up with

the current odoriferous situation for the sake of the little ones.

 

When every door and window was properly warded the

Granny went back to her chair and sat down.

 

"Now," she said, "let us begin again, before we all starve

and none of the food left's fit to eat. Let the soup be served, and

give Responsible of Brightwater a different bowl again, and

put fresh hot broth in everybody else's."

 

"The Granny's put out," said the servingmaid in my ear, as

if I couldn't of seen that for myself, and she set down a fresh

bowl of soup at my place. Where it stayed soup, though I took

my first bite gingerly, I had no interest in something like a

mouthful of live worms and straight pins.

 

"Responsible of Brightwater," said Salem Sheridan Lewis

tfien, all of us sedately eating our soup, "because I approve of

the Confederation of Continents, and because I despise

mischief—not to mention treason—I approve of this Quest of

yours. Our Granny has explained clear enough the manner in

which it must be done and the reasoning behind it—and as I

say, I approve. But I'll be right pleased when you are safely

home again and we Families can go back to a normal way of

tife. Unlike Boy Salem there, I don't care for this sort of

thing ... it stinks of evil as well as the garlic."

 

Another apology seemed in order, and I made it, but he

waved it aside.

 

"You're doing what's necessary," he said, "and frqmwhat

, we've heard—and seen!—it hasn't been pleasant for you so far

No need for you to be sorry for doing your plain duty."

 

112 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

Rozasham of McDanieIs paused between two bites and

looked at Granny Twinsorrel.

 

"Granny," she asked, "is Responsible in any danger? Any

real danger I mean, not just folderols like this exhibition at my

table?"

 

"Don't ask, Rozasham," said Granny, "you'll only rattle

cages. Just eat your supper"

 

"There's berry pie," somebody said, and I was glad to hear

it. It would take more than a few creepy-crawlies in broth to

spoil my pleasure in berry pie.

 

"What I won't do," Salem Sheridan Lewis went on, as if

nothing had been said in between, "is have any celebration of

all this. It does not strike me as seemly in any way, and I won't

have it.'*

 

"But, my dear—" Rozasham began, or tried to begin; he

went right on without so much as pausing.

 

"I know the conditions," he said. "I know there must be

some mark of your visit, and 1*11 not interfere with the course

of things by denying you that. But it will not be a playparty, or

a festivity, or a hunt—nothing that implies I enjoy or condone

such devilment as we've just watched. Tomorrow morning,

after an ordinary breakfast—properly warded, if you please,

Granny Twinsorrel, and no frogs in the gravy for my breakfast

biscuits, thank you!—after ^perfectly ordinary breakfast, we

will have a parade. A solemn, I might say a dignified, parade.

Three times round the Castle, three times round the town, with

Responsible riding between me and Rozasham. That satisfac-

tory, Responsible of Brightwater?"

 

"Quite satisfactory," I said. "But I'd like to put in a word."

 

"Go right to it."

 

"I understand your feeling about what happened just now,

but I'm not at all sure that it's got anything to do with

wickedness."

 

What I meant was that I was a lot more convinced that I

could lay all this to Granny Golightly and her Magician of

Rank hotting up my Quest for me than to the traitor behind the

misuse of magic on Brightwatec But Salem Sheridan Lewis

was not interested in my opinions.

 

"Magic," he said, looking at me like a bug on a pin beneath

his gaze, "is for certain purposes. Crops. Healing. Weather

Dire peril. Naming. It is not for the usage we saw it given at

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             113

 

this table, and I'll have in the Reverend and the Granny both as

soon as you're gone to clean out the last trace of it. I have no

trouble atall recognizing sin when I see it, young woman."

 

I held my tongue.

 

"Now," he went on, "this parade. We'll begin at seven

sharp, and anybody not there on the mark will be left behind. Is

that clear? Not to mention what will happen to any such person

when we get back—I want our support set out unmistakable for

all to see, and be done with it."

 

"You stand for the Confederation, then?" I asked, while the

berry pie was being handed round. It might not of been

necessary, but I liked my knots well tied, and this was a man of

strong opinions.

 

"Responsible'of Brightwalei," said the Master of Castle

Lewis, in a voice like the thud of an iron bell-clappel; "if every

last tumtail Kingdom on this planet votes against us, Castle

Lewis stands for the Confederation. We'll be at the Jubilee,

never you feai. and our votes where they belong."

 

"Hurrah!" shouted Boy Salem. Unfortunately. An Atten-

dant scooped him out of his chair like a sea creature out of its

shell, and off he went—reasonably quietly—under the young

man's sturdy arm. There was apparently a standard procedure

in these cases.

 

I rested easy that night at Castle Lewis. Granny Twinsorrel

warded my room double, and my nose had grown dulled to the

garlic by the time I finally found myself in one of the high hard

narrow beds the Lewises considered regulation. Not even a

dream to disturb me. But the sun that came flooding through

my windows in the morning woke me early enough; and when

Tambrey of Motley knocked at my door with my wake-up tea

she found me already in my traveling dress, sitting sedately in

a cedar rocker waiting for hei, and only my bare feet to show

I'd not been up long.

 

I drank the tea slowly, enjoying the peacefulness of the

morning, and the well-run propriety—a tad constraining, but

well-run—of this Castle, and gave over my thinking to how I'd

doll Sterling up for this parade. It had to be elegant, and it

needed to be memorable, but I must not overdo it or I'd offend

my host. It was a neat little problem, and the kind of thing I

liked to ponder ovei, a good way to begin a morning.

 

114 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

I settled finally on something a bit beyond what Salem

Sheridan Lewis would of liked, and a bit less than what

Sterling would have—she was vain, even for a Mule. Rosettes

in her ears in the Brightwater colors, and streamers braided in

her tail—which I could triple-loop, for good measure—and me

in my splendiferous traveling garb.'

 

We went three times round the Castle, and three times round

the town, as specified, the people lining the streets in Sundy

best and cheering us on our way, holding up the babies to gawk

at the glitter going by. Salem Sheridan even unbent so far as to

put a single Attendant at the head of the parade with a silver

hom, and allowed him to blow one long note at every third

comec

 

But I did not get to hear Rozasham of McDaniels sing even

one ballad, not even one hymn. though I asked politely enough

as we returned from our three times round. That would have

been too much like frivolity to suit either Rozasham's husband,

or Granny Twinsorrel, 01; for that manei; Eben Nathaniel Lewis

the 17th.

 

"She sings in church," said Salem Sheridan, "and does a

very good job of it. And that's sufficient."

 

It was days like this that I could see the advantages of the

single state most clearly.

 

CHAPTER 9

 

THE PARTY THE PURDYS gave for roe went very well—I

threw in a little something here and there, of my own, to make

sure it would. The pies that would of gotten salt in place of

sugaring didn't after all—that got noticed in time. And the beer

mat had gone fiat because somebody left it sitting out overnight

acquired some new bubbles in a way that wasn't strictly

natural. And when Donovan Hihu Purdy me 40th got his boot

toe under a rough spot in the rug and was headed for a broken

hip sure as an egg's got no right angles, he managed to land—

without doing her any harm, and in fact she looked as if she

rather enjoyed it—in the lap of a woman of fine substantial

size. Instead of flat out on the floor

 

What I was doing was known as meddling, and it was not

looked on with any special favor One of the first things a girl

teamed in Granny School, right there at the beginning with

keeping your legs crossed and how not to scorch milk, was

"Mind your own business and leave other people be." I hadn't

forgotten.

 

Howsomevci; I was fed up to here by that time with listening

to every clattering tongue on Ozark meanmouthing the Purdys.

 

115

 

116 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

My tolerance had been first reached and then exceeded. I had

even realized, a lot more belatedly than did me any credit, that

I was guilty of the same thing myself. Taking that silly Ivy of

Wommack for a Purdy, for instance, for no other reason than

that she was silly and looked like she didn't eat right. There

was a name for it all, and not a very nice name either—

Prejudice, that was its ugly name.

 

And I'd had time to muse some on the essential meanness of

human beings. Isolated as they were, the Twelve Families had

had no people of black skin among them, nor any of brown or

yellow, either Probably there was a smidgen of Cherokee

blood someplace, from the long-ago days, but it had hundreds

of years since disappeared in the inundation of Scotch, Welsh,

and Irish genes that the Ozarkers carried. Only the brown eyes

here and there had survived our outrageous whiteness. And so,

lacking anybody colored differently than ourselves to make our

scapegoat, we'd picked the Purdys out for the role.

 

And of course they filled it, once elected, which encouraged

everybody to go on with it. Naturally they did. Nothing is more

sure to make you spill the tray you're carrying than knowing

for certain and certain that everybody's just watching you and

waiting for you to do that. Waiting so they can look at each

other; and all of them be thinking, even if they scruple to say it:

 

"Purdys! Really, they beat all!"

 

As I say, I'd gotten a bellyful of that, and it was on my list of

things to be tackled when I got some leisure again. High time

we took some Purdy daughters in hand and taught them what a

self-fulfilling prophecy was, and how to go about canceling

one.

 

We had a fine party, therefore. The food was good, including

those pies, and the drink was good, and the bouquet presented

to me with a nice rhyme on the Castle bandstand by three little

girls of just the sort I had in mind was fresh and beautiful. The

one sprig of blisterweed I saw behind a red daisy I threw over

the bandstand railing without anybody seeing me, and I had my

leather gloves on at the time. No harm done, and an easy job

later getting the poisonous oil off the glove.

 

The Purdys were plainly worried about how much the

Parsons and the Guthries had seen fit to tell me of then recent

doings, and I saw no harm in that. I dropped hints; and one by

one they took me aside to confess some piece of foolishness

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             117

 

and tell me how much they regretted it. Which is good for the

soul, the stomach, and the disposition.

 

By the time it was all over, and me tucked up in my bed—an

ample bed, for a welcome change, that a person could stretch

out in it without falling off on the floor—the Purdys were fairly

glowing. They'd done themselves proud, and done me honoi;

 

and nothing had Gone Wrong. And you could see what a new

and delightsome feeling that was for them.

 

I lay there and reviewed it in my mind as I fell asleep, and I

was well satisfied. It was a start, and I'd carry it further when I

got home. As for treason . . . not the Purdys. They were

doing well to just get through the ordinary day, without

introducing any magical complications.

 

And then the Gentle came to me in the night, and woke me

with full formality. I was not expecting that.

 

"Responsible of Brightwatec," it said at my bedside, "you

who bear the keys and keystones, daughter of all the Grannys

and mother of all the Magicians and all the Magicians of

Rank—awaken and speak with me!"

 

I can't say I was addressed like that often. It brought me bolt

upright instantly, clutching the bedclothes. There'd been a

Responsible of Brightwater hundreds of years ago who'd

perhaps been called all those things, and may have deserved

them, for all I knew, but it was a new experience for me, and

my teeth needed brushing, and I had not the first faintest notion

what I was supposed to say. This constituted a kind of

diplomatic exchange between two humanoid races, and for

sure required all the formality there was going, but how exactly

did you be formal in your nightgown and all mussed and

grubby from sleep, and taken wholly and entirely by surprise?

 

I'm ashamed to say that I settled for, "Dear goodness, just a

minute, please!" and added, "I shall return at once," for good

measure, hoping that at least sounded hifalutin, and bolted for

the dressingroom that went with my guestchamber in Castle

Purdy. There wasn't time to change the nightdress, but I did

add my shawl and tend to my hair and teeth and face, and I was

back in my bed propped up on the pillows for audience before

the Gentle could of counted to twenty-four Nervous, but I was

there.

 

This was a real Gentle, no baby trick like the Skerry on the

 

118 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

well curb; and it was waiting for me patiently, standing there

beside my bed in silence, till I should collect myself and

respond in some sensible fashion. I saw that it was a female—

she, then, was waiting for me patiently. I searched my memory

for the old phrases, and prayed they'd be the right ones.

 

"I am happy to see you, dear friend of the'Twelve

Families," I began, "more happy than I can say." Was that

right? I hoped so. "And may I know how you are called?"

 

She told me, and I found I could say it competently enough.

Her name was Tan K*ib; not too difficult for an Ozarker

tongue. It was for the sake of our rare speech with the Gentles

that we had added the glottal stop to our Naming alphabet all

those many years ago; for all the sounds of their language

except that one the alphabet of Old Earth served well enough.

(Not that the Gentles were interested in their name-totals,

despising all magic and anything to do with magic as they did.

But it delighted First Granny to put a twenty-seventh letter in

the alphabet. Three nines, nine threes—much improved over

the twenty-six we'd always had to make do with previously.)

 

"Greetings, Tan K'ib," I said slowly, "and I beg your

pardon if my words don't come easily . . . your people visit

us rarely, and we have little chance for converse. You honor

me; I thank you for coming and welcome you in the name of

Castle Brightwatet"

 

It was an honor, and no mistake. The Gentles were a people

so ancient we could scarcely bring the numbers to mind; their

history was said to be a matter of formal record for more than

thirty thousand years. By their reckoning we Ozarkers had only

just popped up on this planet like mushrooms in a badly

drained yard, and we merited about the same degree of

attention. They considered us a backward and primitive race—'

and were probably right, from their perspective—and they saw

us only when absolute necessity demanded. I had never seen a

Gentle before, nor my mother either; I believe that Charity of

Guthrie's mother claimed to have.

 

T'an K'ib wore only a hooded cloak, and wore that out of

deference to Ozarker morals, I assumed. A being that is

covered head to foot with soft white fur has little need for

clothing. She was not quite three feet tall, if my guess was

right (and I was good at judging such things), and I knew she

was female because she had no beard or neckiuff. Her eyes, the

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             119

 

pupils vertical like a cat's, were thick-lashed and the color of

wood violets, the deepest purple I had ever seen in a living

creature.

 

We understood the Gentles, after a fashion; they were

physically quite reasonable for the planet. The Skerrys, that

were the only other intelligent species native to Ozark—unless

you counted the Mules, and perhaps you'd better—we didn't

understand at all. Not how their skeletons supported their

height; not how their metabolisms functioned; not anything

about them. No one had ever found or seen or (praise the

Twelve Comers) stolen a Skerry bone, but whatever its

substance was it had to be something different from what held

us Ozarkers upright in our skins. The Gentles, on the other

hand, could be looked upon as roughly equivalent to furred

Little People without wings; and we'd been well acquainted

with several Little Peoples before we ever left Old Earth. The

Gentles did not alarm us; we alarmed them.

 

"And I greet you in the name of all the Gentles," she said to

roe- "We are troubled, Responsible of Brightwalei; sorely

troubled. I come to you on behalf of all my people to ask that

you put an end to that trouble."

 

I wondered what sort of power she thought I had, to word

her request like that, and doubted she would of known what to

make of me peeling pans of potatoes at Brightwater because

me Granny needed all me servingmaids to gather herbs, and

had set me to make certain of that day's mashed potatoes. We

had myths aplenty of the Gentles, and tales among the

Teaching Stories; it looked as though they might also have

myths of us. The idea that I figured in those myths, and maybe

prominently, made me uneasy.

 

"I will do whatever I can do," I said.

 

"You can do whatever is necessary," she said at once. "And

whatever is dyst'al."

 

Dyst'al. One of the few words of the Gentle speech that we

understood, and fortunate for us that they had not had the same

trouble learning our Panglish. Dyst'al meant something like

"unforbidden and permitted and not beyond the bounds," and

something like "good for all the people," and something like

"characteristic of the actions of a reasonable and wholesome

person having power," and something like "well mannered."

 

120 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

She was telling me, clear enough, what she expected. Whether

I could fulfill those expectations remained to be seen.

 

There was only a sliver of moonlight; she stood in the feeble

ray that fell through the near window. I would have liked some

light myself, because it was hard enough to judge the voice of a

non-Terran even when you could see the features of the face

clearly. 1 had learned that early, watching the threedy films

again and again. But the Gentle preferred the dark, would not

care for the exposure, and would be greatly offended if I were

to set a glow about her; I would have to strain my ears and hope

for the best.

 

"Be comfortable, friend Tan K'ib," I said, "and tell me

what it is you want of me. Will you sit here near me. so that I

may hear you more easily?"

 

She went to the foot of my bed and stepped handily up to sit

on its turned rail, using me blanket chest placed there as a kind

of step to climb on. She settled her cloak around her and let the

hood fall back, and by the feeble moonlight I saw that her ears

had been pierced five times—in each there hung five separate

tiny crystals. Five crystals; mis was no mere messenger, and I

bowed my head slightly to acknowledge her rank.

 

"May I begin?" she asked.

 

"Please do."

 

"We are the Gentles," she said, "or so you call us; we are

the Ltlancanithf'al. We have been on this planet for fifty

thousand years. In our caves the inscriptions name our

anscestors for more than thirty thousand of those years

. . . we go far, far back into time. My people, daughter of

Brightwatci; were here long before yours."

 

"That is certainly true," I said carefully.

 

"Our claims are prior"

 

"That, too," I said. "Of course."

 

"And when your people came here, and your vessel fell into

the Outward Deeps, and only by the grace of the Goddess did

any one of you escape to set foot on our land, your people

made treaties, Responsible of Brightwater Solemn treaties.

We ask that they be honored."

 

Oh, dear Never mind the slight conflict in the myths of the

Landing, this was no time to compare tales and quibble over

the identity of rescuers. The question was, what did she

mean—they asked that the treaties be honored? That any

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             121

 

Ozaricer would have violated the treaties was beyond concep-

tion, I would have staked my life on that. We do not break our

word.

 

"My friend T'an K'ib," I asked, "do you come here to tell

me that my people have violated their sworn oaths? A Gentle

does not lie—but I find that hard to believe."

 

And if I was wrong, and they had? 1 thought of blustering

Delldon Mallard Smith, the ugly man of the ugly

name . . . and I thought of the easy malicious ways of

Michael Stepforth Guthrie, and I cast around in my mind for

other possibilities. No Granny would of tampered, but the men

were another matter And if they had—what was I to do? I felt

four years old on the outside and four hundred years old on the

inside, and I hoped my brain was not as cold as the rest of me. I

longed for a pentacle, and my own Granny Hazelbide, and the

safe walls of my own Castle around me. And here I was, of all

unhandy places, at Castle Purdy.

 

"Responsible of Brightwater," she said, "I would not tell

you that we are certain; I would not go so far It may be mat

there has as yet been no violation. It is to forestall such a thing

that I am come to you this night."

 

"Tell me, then," I said. "I will listen until you have told me

everything that disturbs you; and I will not interrupt."

 

And she began to talk, in the faintly foreign archaic Panglish

me First Granny had taught her people, and that I had learned

from many boring hours listening to the microtapes while I

begged to be let go out and play instead. I blessed every one of

those hours now, seeing as I understood her with ease, and I

supposed she'd spent fully as many hours herself listening to

me Teachers of her people, who passed down the knowledge of

Panglish without benefit of tapes or any other thing but their

wondrous memories and their supple throats.

 

There was trouble, she told me. Much trouble on Arkansaw,

where the Guthries and the Parsons were even more openly

feuding than had been admitted to me, by her account. Where

me Purdys were frantic, trying desperately to play both sides of

me feud, but faced with an eventual choice made under great

pressure. There were, she told me, strange comings and goings

in the nights.

 

"There was a meeting in what you choose to call the

WUdemess Lands of Arkansaw," she said, "not three nights

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

122

 

ago. The men there were not all of Arkansaw, some had come

very far ... some wore the crests of Kintucky and Tmaseeh,

the Families known as Wommack and Traveller It went on all

the night long—our children had no sleep—and then, as

thieves comport themselves, all stole away at first light. A

Gentle does'not spy, I remind you; thus, I cannot tell you what

they spoke of. What we heard we heard only because a loud

voice in the night carries far in an ill-mannered throat

. . . but they were not telling each other pleasant tales to

while away the hours. That much was clear"

 

She stopped for a moment, and I waited, and then she went

on.

 

"It was sworn, Responsible of Brightwalei; sworn and

sealed—the Gentles were to be left alone. And none of your

magic was to touch our people, for all of time. Nor were we

ever to be part of your . . . feuding. If you have forgotten, I

am here to remind you—so read the treaties."

 

I let my breath out, slowly, wondering where in me the

knowledge was that I supposedly could put to use in circum-

stances such as these. I felt no revelations bubbling within me,

no sealed-off memories with their locks dropping away.

 

"Has a hand been raised against you?" I asked T'an K'ib.

"Any hand? Any weapon?"

 

"Not as of this night."

 

"Has any sharp word been spoken? Any threat made? Has

any Ozarker actually breached the privacy of your homes, T'an

K'ib?"

 

"Not as of this night."

 

"None?"

 

"You must understand," she said, no edge to her voice, but

firm, "that what you consider a hand raised, or a sharp word,

or privacy breached, may not be the same as what a Gentle

would so judge. There are many, many thousands of us in the

caves of the Wilderness Lands of Ozark, daughter of Brightwa-

tei; and we live in peace, and our lives are not tainted by

sorcery. We have made adjustments unasked, when the mines

of your people cut well beyond the limits given them, and we

have not begrudged those adjustments, though no law held us

to them."

 

I could imagine, thinking of the Parsons and Guthries and

Purdys, always wanting to cut just a little deeper into a vein,

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             123

 

probably shaking the Gentles in their sleep and filling their

homes with gemdust, or worse. And I was ashamed.

 

"When I return to Castle Brightwater," I said, my voice

harsh in my throat, "I will see that that is put right. That I can

do- There will be no more encroachments on your territory, and

where such has taken place, your 'adjustments' will be

readjusted. My word on it, and my apologies."

 

She made an easy gesture with her head, as if to show how

little this mattered; I, the Ozarkec, felt bigger and greedier, as I

was no doubt meant to feel.

 

"If it can be done. so be it," she said, "if not—what is past

is past. But if the three Families of the continent of Arkansaw

go to open war among themselves, and if the Families of

Kintucky and Tinaseeh join them, blood will flow in the

Wildernesses and it may well be our blood. That we cannot

allow, daughter of Brightwatec That would be in violation of

all treaties."

 

"Wat T'an K'ib? Your people fear war?"

 

I suppose I sounded foolish; she sounded indulgent.

 

"It is not an exotic word," she said. "Think of guns and

lasers and bombs and gases and missiles. All very small and

simple Panglish words, and well known to you."

 

"Dear friend, dear T'an K'ib," I protested, "Ozarkers do

not go to war—it was the violence of one human hand raised

against another much of it part of war and much of it without

any explanation but madness, that drove us here in The Ship

one thousand years ago. As a Gentle does not lie, T'an K'ib—

an Ozarker does not war.111

 

"You yourself," she pointed out, "have let pass the word

*fcud' without protest. Our Teachers are quite clear on me

meaning of that word, and it is violent."

 

"Ah, T'an K'ib," I said, almost weak with relief, "it is not

what it appears to be atall. This is a misunderstanding."

 

"Explain, please."

 

"You know of the Confederation of Continents of Ozark?"

 

"Your government," she said flatly.

 

"As much government as we have," I said, "and hard won.

Wi are at a tricky political crossroads, we of the Confedera-

tion. And the Families you name, the ones that have so

disgracefully disturbed the harmony of your homes, they are

not plotting violence. They are plotting against the Con-

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

124

 

federation . . . they are plotting the casting of votes, not the

launching of missiles! Nothing more. Tan K'ib; nothing less.

There is not even a question of dominance among them."

 

"That makes no sense," she said. "I beg your pardon if I

speak sharply, but it makes no sense."

 

"If." I said, "one thinks carefully of the Ozarkers—and no

reason, the Twelve Corners granted, why your people should

ever do anything of the kind—it does make sense. And no

offense taken. First, no Ozarker lifts a hand against another, not

since we left Earth; the only exception would be the occasional

child, that must be taught it can't hit its playmate because

there's a toy they both want at the same time, and the

occasional drunken fool, that is promptly seen to and differs

little from die child. I'd hazard that even among your people

the young and foolish must leam."

"Granted," she said.

 

"But what the dissenting Families want is not that one

should be superior to the rest, but that all should be equal, and

no dominance. What they want, Tan K'ib. is isolation."

"It is an absurdity."

 

"No doubt," I said reluctantly, my loyalty giving me a bit of

trouble around the edges. "Nevertheless—it is so."

 

"There must be community," she said, "and this is a small

planet. What you describe is anarchy."

 

I was reminded, a moment only, of Sharon of dark

. . . but there was a difference. This was no child who faced

me, prattling memorized cant from Granny School. This was a

diplomat, high in the ranks of a people whose sophistication

surpassed ours as Granny Gableframe's surpassed a babe's. She

knew quite well what anarchy was, and she knew what went

with it. No doubt her people had seen its effects a time or two

in their long history. No doubt it meant, to her and to them,

rape and pillage and murder, barbarian hordes pouring through

me cavehomes and tearing out the ancient tunnels as they went.

She had no reason to believe an Ozarker ungovemed would

behave any differently.

 

"They want to go back to boones." I said, wishing sadly

that there was some way to make her understand us—us aliens.

 

"It is not a concept that I know," said T'ah K'ib, "The

Teachers do not mention it."

 

"Nor is it a concept that will burden you unduly," I told her

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

125

 

"A very long time ago—by Earth reckoning—on the planet

from which my people came, there was a man whose name was

Daniel Boone. If he had a middle name, we have no record of

it—I'm sorry. And it is written that whenever the time came

that Daniel Boone could see the smoke of a neighbor's chimney

from his own homeplace, those neighbors were too near, and

he moved on."

 

The Gentles lived in chambers carved beneath the earth, and

it was said that they observed a stringent privacy of manneL

But they lived crowded close as twin babes in a womb, and

their families were not small. I doubted she would see much

sense to the story of Daniel Boone.

 

She was silent and small, sitting there thinking over what I

had said, and possessed of a kind of presence that much larger

creatures might have envied. I wished that we could have been

friends. I wished that I could have visited her—but the Gentles

saw to it that none but a very small Ozarker child could enter

die doors they set up. I would never know, unless 1 looked in a

way that the treaties forbid me, what it was like inside the

caves of the Gentles. And, I reminded myself sternly, it was

none of my business to know.

 

"Responsible of Brightwater?" she asked, finally.

 

"Yes, dear friend?"

 

"It may be that what you say is true, though it does not seem

reasonable."

 

"To the best of my knowledge, it is true, however it sounds.

And 1 believe my knowledge on this matter is reliable."

 

"I see ... I think I see."

 

I thought she would leave me then, but she sal quietly, not

even a shape any longer since the moonlight had waned.

Evidently whatever this was, it was not over

 

"Friend Tan K'ib," t hazarded, "do you want something

eke of me? You have only to ask."

 

"Your guarantee."

 

"Of no war? Consider it given. Of an end to mining beneath

your bedchambers and your streets? Of course, I guarantee it;

 

that it ever'happened was due only to carelessness, not to

malice. When I speak to the Families guilty of that, they will

be deeply ashamed."

 

"No," she said. She shook her head, and I heard the crystals

 

126 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

in her ears sound, softly. Little bells in the darkness. "That is

not all."

 

"What, then?"

 

"Whatever it is that your people are about," she said,

"however it may be, whether this desire to be a boons that you

describe to me, or a feud, or a greater evil . . . Your

guarantee, daughter of Brightwater, that we Gentles will take

no part in any of it! No part, however small! Not even by

accident ... as you say, by carelessness."

 

Well, I never liked lying. I liked lying to a Gentle even less

than I liked ordinary lying, since they did not lie, they were as

vulnerable to it as they would have been to the kick of a boot.

More so; the kick they could at least have seen coming.

However, there are times when a person does what she must. I

gave her her guarantee, all solemn and sealed and packaged in

phrases that made me fee) silly even to use them, and she went

away as unheralded as she had come, leaving me to toss

fretfully through the rest of that night. My conscience was raw

in me.

 

What I hadn't dared tell her was that there was only one way

that I could make my guarantees real. What her myths said I

had in the way of power I did not know; her people had royalty,

and perhaps the ancient rights that went with that. I had none.

 

I could do what she asked of me, yes. But only in one way.

Only by setting wards of the strongest (and from her point of

view, the foulest and most barbaric) magic known to me,

around every cave and every burrow and every smallest scrap

of Wilderness her people inhabited. It was a flagrant violation

of the treaties she had mentioned with every other breath; it

was also the only way that what had to be done could be done.

And at that it would have to wait till I was back at Castle

Brightwater and had all my laboratories and my Magicians at

my disposal—and I had not told her that, either I supposed she

would tell her people there was to be no delay.

 

I knew perfectly well that she would rather have died, and

all her kin with her, than be protected by the magic they so

abhorred—by "sorceries." For sure, it would nor be judged

dyst'al. And I did not intend to be the person that shattered

illusions that had lasted tens of thousands of years, or the

person that ended up with the lives of such a people and their

 

Tivelve Fair Kingdoms             n?

 

Mood on her hands. It might be there was some other way out

something I should have thought of, but it did not come to my

mind, and I was colder than I had ever been in my life; and I

gathered what little of my wits I had left about me. and I lied

 

CHAPTER 10

 

CASTLE WOMMACK sat high at the northwest comer of

Kintucky, in a landscape of tangled trees and thick ground

covci; steep hills and ragged cliffs and crags; only Tinaseeh

was wilder, and not by much. The Castle was bigger than it

needed to be, rambling along the edge of a bluff above a ravine

at the bottom of which there surely flowed a rivel; though I

couldn't see it from the air. I would of guessed it to be at least

twice the size of Castle Brightwatci; and larger than any castle

on Arkansaw, the Parsons' included. And I could understand

why, though I might privately question the use of so much time

and energy for a single structure. The natural stone it was built

of was abundant—if they hadn't used it to build the Castle

they'd of had to cart the stuff away and fill up ravines with it,

after all. Every time I flew low to get a look at the land I saw

stretches where boulders big as squawker coops were strewn

around like so much carelessly flung salt, leaving the vegeta-

tion to grow over and around and in between the jutting stones

as best it could . . . and I was not looking at the

Wilderness Lands, mind you. This was the "cleared" area of

Kintucky.

 

129

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

130

 

Furthermore, even the size it was, Capde Wommack was

dwarfed by the country round it, and looked like a doll's castle

more than a proper human dwelling. No doubt they drew some

comfort from its size through the long winters when the winds

howled down those ravines and ripped up huge trees by the

roots, to pile them in heaps against the bald faces of the bluffs.

I could see the point to it.

 

It was four days' hard flying at regulation speed from Castle

Purdy to Castle Wommack, and except for a brief stretch over

the Ocean of Storms between the two continents I had not done

any distance by SNAPPING. I was running out of anything to

read, for one thing. And then this country was new to me, the

Twelve Comers only knew when I might get back this way

again, and I felt it behooved me to see all I could and note it

 

well.

 

Once I left the coast of Arkansaw and was beyond the

shipping lanes, all the way over that vast country up almost to

the edge of the town built around Castle Wommack, I saw nary

a soul. There were farms—clearly very large farms, and why

not?—spread out over the surface of the land. And every now

and again I would see the telltale white line of a fence built of

that same stone, running along the edge of a cleared field, or

catch sight maybe of light glancing off solar collectors on a

roof. But not until I actually neared Booneville, the capital

(and only) city of Kintucky, not till I saw the Castle ahead of

me, did I begin to see people. Kintucky had only been settled

in 2339, just ten years before Tinaseeh, and the latest figures I

had for the whole kingdom showed under seven thousand

citizens living here. More than a third of those lived in or near

Booneville itself.

 

They met me properly at the Castle, and made me welcome;

 

Jacob Donahue Wommack the 23rd, a widower these past two

years, and his five sons and seven daughters, and numerous

wives and husbands. There was a band playing as I brought

Sterling down on the roadway winding up to the Castle gates,

and people lining both sides throwing flowers and waving

bright banners. Seven Attendants in green and silver Wom-

mack livery followed me up the ramp and through the gates.

And where I could catch glimpses of the streets and buildings

of the town I saw that they'd hung garlands everywhere mere

was something to hang a garland on. Booneville was decked

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

131

 

out for full festival in my honoi; and I was surprised; I

supposed it must come of the loneliness out here, and so few

occasions for any kind of partying. Considering the hasty

excuses for celebrations thrown together along my way so' far,

it made me smile; I tried, without any success, to imagine my

cousin Anne at Castle McDaniels going to all this trouble for

me, or the stern Lewises even countenancing such a fuss.

 

The inner court of Castle Wommack, inside the gates, was

the size of a respectable playing field; you could have raced

Mules there without much inconvenience. And they had it set

up for a fair; with long tables of food and drink, and strolling

singers and dancers, and a whole play being put on on a stage

that fit neatly into a far comer, and crowds of young people

nulling in their Sundy best. They led Sterling away to their

stables and then turned their energies to entertaining me, with a

dogged determination that was at first highly flattering. And

then, after a while, it began to make me uneasy.

 

I was sitting on a low bench with Jacob Donahue and three

of his daughters, watching twelve couples move through an

elaborate circle dance done to the tune of dulcimer; guitar, and

fiddle, finishing my fourth mug of excellent dark ale and much

too full from the food they'd been plying me with, when I

finally realized that things were genuinely odd. True—they

were celebrating my visit as no other Castle had even

considered celebrating it, so far as I could tell. True—the

sounds in the inner court, and those that floated in over the

walls from the town, were all laughter and song and merry-

making and pleasure. But there was something

strange . . . and then, all at once, I knew what it was.

 

The broad front of Castle Wommack, five stories high of

pearly white stone, forming a great muleshoe shape around that

court, had windows everywhere. I took time to count those on

the first story alone, and there were forty of them; multiply that

by five and you got roughly two hundred windows facing on

mis court, give or take a dozen for variations.

 

And every last blessed one of them was not only empty of

the people I would of expected to see looking down on the fair

and taking part from above us; it was closed tight as a tick, and

shuttered.

 

I clapped politely for me circle dance as it drew to its close,

and clapped again for the musicians, and took time to smile at a

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

small boy that had decided he was a juggler and was doing

three pieces of fruit considerable harm right under my nose.

And then I stood up, brushed off my skirts, and said: "I'll be

going in now, ladies; Jacob Donahue Wommack."

 

A daughter named Gilead, freckled and slender and twenty-

odd, stood up with me. "It's much pleasanter out here," she

said, "and 1 can recommend the cake they're setting out down

beside the stage; it's extra good lightcake, and you haven't had

any of it yet, I don't believe."

 

"The reason it's pleasanter out here," I said, measuring my

words to make them fall with proper force, "is because

whoever is in there"—I pointed to the front of the Castle

proper—"is suffocating."

 

"Daddy," said Gilead of Wommack, "1 believe she's

 

noticed."

 

"That I have," I snapped.

 

"My dear young woman," Jacob Donahue began, but I cut

him off short.

 

"I'll be going in now," I said. "If you care to come with me,

you're welcome; if you prefer to stay out here while your faces

crack, pretending to be having fun, that's your privilege.

Youall do just as you like—but / am going inside and see

what's back of your shutters."

 

I looked at them again, row on row of heavy wooden eyes all

shut tight and black against the stone, and I shuddered. A good

job they'd done of keeping me distracted, that I'd sat out here

for near two hours and not seen that!

 

"We'll go with you, Responsible," said Gilead, and the

other two stood to join us. "But roost of these people are

having fun, and I'm pleased that they are. It's a hard life here,

and not much in the way of party times—don't let's spoil it for

 

them."

 

The false cheer dropped off Jacob Donahue like a scarf off a

sloped shoulder as he stood up, slowly, and I could see that he

was in fact wholly miserable.

 

"Like Gilead says," he told me, "we'll come along

. . . but I'd be grateful if we do it without drawing any

attention. I've no more mind to spoil the others' day than my

daughters have. You, girls, you see to it that Responsible is

sort of tucked away among the rest of you, and don't act as if

we were in any hurry to get anywhere."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

133

 

We strolled, therefore, over to the Castle and in through its

front door My feet were itching to run, as much from

annoyance at my own thick head as anything else, but I did as

Jacob Donahue bid, and—eventually—we were inside.

 

Inside, and the door closed behind us, and the silence of an

empty church. Not one laugh, not one note of music, came

through those shutters, which was no doubt the intention. The

fair might as well of been back on Marktwain; it did not exist

inside this Castle.

 

"Well, well, well," I said, "this is a pretty pass! What's

happening here at Castle Wommack to account for this?"

 

From the top of a stairway ahead of me a woman's voice

called down, and I peered up in the dimness to see if I knew the

face that went with it, but it was a strangec She wore plain

enough dress to suit even the Lewises, her hair was pulled back

and tucked into a kerchief, and she carried a basin of steaming

liquid in her hands.

 

"We've sickness here, young miss of Brightwatec," she said

in a bitter voice. "That's what's 'happening* here! Me

Wommack, there's another three taken with it just since you

went out this morning, and I'm truly scared at the way Granny

Goodweather looks. ... I don't know what to do for hei;

 

and the Magician says he doesn't either—what next, I ask you,

Me Wommack? I'm at the end of my wits!"

 

"Your Granny is sick?" I asked. I was astonished. A Granny

was human, of course, but it was their job to tern/the sick, not

lie among them. It was obligatory for a Granny to suffer from

"rheumatism," that went with the territory, but I couldn't

remember any Granny ever being really sick for more than an

hour or two, or dying any other way than peacefully in her bed

at an age well beyond one hundred years.

 

"Both of them, miss," said the woman on the stairs.

"Granny Goodweather was taken first two days ago; and then

yesterday Granny Copperdell as well . . . and they'd both

been poorly, I'd remarked on that."

 

I turned on the Wommacks behind me to demand of them

exactly what they'd been doing about this—sick Grannys,

indeed!—but one look was enough to close my mouth. They

were Wommacks, that was all that was wrong with them;

 

they'd of done nothing, or as near to nothing as couldn't be

noticed.

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

134

 

The Purdys, now, were forever in some sort of mess, and

usually by their own stupidity. But they did put some effort into

their actions. (They would in fact have been better off if they'd

learned to put in less; usually they got themselves so entangled

and benastied that it took more effort to extricate them than it

would of just keeping them out of it all from the beginning.)

 

With the Wommacks, it was different. They were capable

people, and intelligent, and sensible. About most things, that

is. So long as whatever obstacle faced the Wommacks couldn't

be laid at the door of the famous Wommack bad luck, they just

turned to and took care of things. Bad luck, though, the

Wommack curse, the long burden of paying and paying for the

Granny that had laid out the Improper Name . . . anything

that seemed due to that, they just gave up on, on the principle

that it was no use trying in such a situation. This, I gathered,

was one of those situations.

 

I tucked up my skirts then and ran up the stairs toward the

woman that still stood there, the water in her basin getting

colder by the passing minute, if it was water, and paid the

family behind me no more mind.

 

"You're Castle staff?" I asked the laggard nurse, and she

nodded.

 

"Your name, please."

 

"Violet," she said. "Violet of Smith."

 

"Very well. Violet of Smith—take me this instant to the

sickroom, and let me see how bad things are in this place!"

 

"Which sickroom, miss?" she asked me. "We've nothing

but sickrooms on this whole second floor,"

 

"How many are down?" I demanded, but she only

 

shrugged.

 

"I've lost count, miss . . . might could be thirty, might

could be twice that."

 

"And both your Grannys."

 

"And both our Grannys."

 

"Well, take me to Granny Copperdell, then," I said, "and

set down that basin—whatever it is, it's no use to anybody

 

now."

 

She turned without a word, but I had to take the useless

basin from her hands myself, and I followed where she led me.

I could smell the sickness now, and I wanted those windows

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             I3S

 

open at the front of the Castle, and fresh air in here as fast as it

could decently be accomplished.

 

"Are many people sick in the town?" I asked her, wishing

she'd hurry.

 

"Oh no, miss," she said. "Not in the town. Only in the

Castle."

 

Hmmmph. That would be fuel for the dratted Wommack

curse, of course.

 

She knocked twice at a doorway, and then opened it and

stood aside to let me pass, saying, "That's Granny Copperdell

there in the bed, miss, and I hope you can do something for net;

 

for I surely can't. And I'm too busy to stay with you, so you'll

excuse me, please." And she was gone.

 

"Well, Granny Copperdell!" I said, making it a cautious]

challenge. "So this is how you run things!"              :

 

Hers was the only bed in the room, and she was tiny in it;

 

three featherbeds under her, I was willing to wager, and half a

dozen pillows propping her up in them.

 

"Land, who is it bothering me now?" came from the depths

of the bedclothes, and I saw an encouraging flurry. "Can't

leave an old woman to die in peace, can you? Come near me

and torment me again with one of your so-called Magicians

and you'll find out if I'm sick, I warn you, and me that's sick

and tired of warning youall! Magicians! Phaugh—what's a

Magician know about healing? No more use than— Well, who

be you?"

 

It did my heart good. She might be sick, but she surely was

not dying- She was behaving absolutely as a Granny ought to

behave, and that meant I'd get useful information here at least.

 

"It's only me, Granny Copperdell, Responsible of Bright-

water," I said. "And sony to see you so poorly. May I come sit

by you there?"

 

"Come ahead," she ranted, "come right ahead! Why ask? If

it's not one sort of meanness, it'll toe another . . . why can't

you stay home where you belong, 'stead of meddling in our

affairs, and tormenting an old woman as is about to draw her

last breath?"

 

I tried the bed, but it was impossible; you sank into the

featherbeds and disappeared from sight unless you weighed no

more than a Granny, and that did not apply to me.

 

136 SUZETTE HADEN EU3IN

 

"You get a chair and get yourself off my bed!" she ordered

me, whacking at me with a handkerchief like I was a gerdafly;

 

and I did so gladly, pulling the chair up close beside her head.

 

"Now, Granny Copperdell," I said firmly, "there's no need

for you to keep on with your carry-on. It doesn't impress me,

and I'll be no use here if I don't hear some sense and hear it

quick."

 

"Likely," she said. "Likely!"

 

"Granny, you know I'm right," 1 said, "you a Brightwater

by birth; and every Castle on this planet knows quite well why

I'm traveling round it. You're in a wild place here for sure, but

this high up the reception on your comsets is certain to be

perfect. You know why I'm here!"

 

"Took you long enough," she muttered.

 

"No comset on my Mule, Granny," I said. "I've been four

days, and all of them hng days, flying here, and I've landed

only to make my camp and sleep; I've had no news. If I'd

known there was trouble here I'd not of stopped for anything."

 

She sighed then, and settled back, and I plumped up her

pillows for her,

 

"Speak up. Granny Copperdell," I said. "For I've had not

one sensible word out of anybody else in this house—what am

 

I up against?"

 

"Three days ago, it began," she said. "You'd already oneft

Castle Purdy, I reckon."

 

"Started sudden?"

 

"A child's sitting on a windowsill, playing with a pretty and

eating a biscuit, happy and fit as a bird," she told me. "And

then in two breaths that child is burning alive with fever, and

racked head to foot with misery, and writhing like a birthing

,woman, fit to break your heart. I've never seen anything, not

anything, so quick."

 

I touched her forehead, though she pulled away from my

hand; it was blazing hot.

 

"What kind of sickness is it?" I asked her

 

"Well. I wish I knew that!" she said, fretting, and turned her

head side to side on the pillows. "Think I'd be lying here like

an old fool if I knew that? If I knew even the name, it might

could be I'd know what to tell the idiot females in this Castle to

do ... what's its name, that'shalf the battle wonany time."

 

"And the Magician doesn't know either"

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             137

 

I said that under my breath, thinking out loud, and regretted

it immediately. A Magician could set bones, and take out sick

and useless organs such as an appendix, and deal with cancers.

If it had been any of those, the Magician would already have

taken care of the matter And there was no Magician of Rank

on Kintucky.

 

"I'm sorry, Granny Copperdell," I said, before she could

start on me, "I wasn't thinking straight; just forget I said it. But

you help me . . . tell me the symptoms of this stuff. Even the

little things that you don't really think matter"

 

"High fever," she said, reciting it like a lesson. "Racking

pain in every joint and bone and muscle. That's likely the worst

of it, that pain. All the lymph glands swollen and tender,

especially in the armpits. A bloody flux, and pain high on the

right of the belly. Rash around the ankles and the hands, and a

flaming red patch over both cheeks. Sores in the mouth, sores

in the privates. . . . Hurts to breathe, hurts to swallow, hurts

to hear any noise much over a whisper—that's why the

windows are shuttered, child."

 

"What have you tried for it?"

 

"Everything a Granny knows, and some made up new," she

said. "And none of it any use." She was in no danger but she

was exhausted, and I was wearying her more. "I'm not a good

patient for you to be observing," she said accurately, "I'm

hardly touched with it yet, and tough as I am I doubt it'll get

much worse. You go look at the others and you'll see what it's

like."

 

"Can I get you anything, Granny, before I do that?"

"You can get on with it, and leave off pestering me!"

I plumped the pillows up again, and checked to see that the

water was easy to her reach, and I went on out and closed the

door behind me. She'd keep a long while yet.

 

Ah, but the others; they were another matter altogether I

counted fifty-one, and they were truly sick. Even Granny

Goodweathec She didn't so much as ask me my name when I

leaned over her, and that frightened me.

 

They lay in their beds and they twisted, slowly—I can think

of no other way to describe it. As if they hung from intolerable

bonds. One arm would stretch, the fingers spread like claws,

pushing, pushing till I thought the fingerioints would crack,

and then the other arm, pushing against some unseen wall. And

 

SUZ&ITE HADEN ELGIN

 

138

 

then the legs, one at a time, stretching till the soles of the bent

feet lay flat against the mattress. And no more would the foot

reach its terrible extension than it began to move back upon

itself . . . and then the arms would start. It was like a

horrible, endless, solemn, tortured, dance of death; and it was

very clear that it hurt them like raw flames. There were women

from the town trying to tend them, but I could see that they

weren't accomplishing much. Changing the bedlinens and

bathing flesh, bringing them water to drink and soothing the

little ones . . . that seemed to be it.

 

As for treason, the thought was indecent. The Wommacks

were so grimly convinced their whole household was cursed

that they considered the most absolute neutrality no more than

their duty toward their fellows. Even when they were without

other troubles to distract them, no Wommack took sides, for

fear their bad luck would rub off on the side they'd chosen.

With things as they were here right now, 1 could put all else out

of my mind and consider only this sickness.

 

As it happened, I did know what it was. But I wasn't that

surprised the Grannys hadn't recognized it, especially since

they'd come down with it almost immediately themselves.

They'd not really had time to think before their own fever set

in, and it was not a common disease.

 

I went down the stairs and found the Wommacks stift

gathered there silently, waiting for me, and I had a strong

suspicion looking at them that most—including the Master of

this Castle—would be in their beds themselves before the day

was out. Considering the number sick upstairs, they'd made a

brave showing, and I credited them for that; but not a one that

wasn't white around the mouth, and the red tinge coming up on

their cheeks, hectic, and a line of beads of moisture at the edge

of the coppery hair to betray them further. All that time out in

the sun with me had surely done them no good, and I'd of bet

the party food they'd put down lay heavy in their stomachs this

minute like Kintucky stone.

 

"I know what it is," I said to them, not bothering to dawdle

 

and back and fill.

 

"But neither of the Grannys had any idea, nor the Magician

either!" objected a thin boy by the name of Thomas Lincoln

 

Wommack the 9th.

 

"Well, I do," I said, "whoever does or doesn't, and the

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             139

 

Grannys would of known, too, if they hadn't been taken

themselves before they could run it down. What you have

upstairs, by my count, is fifty-one cases of something called

Andersen's Disease. Or, if you prefer less formality, some call

it deathdance fever—which does describe it. And looking at

youall, I see a few more cases to add to the count—you'd

better every one of you get to your beds."

 

"And those upstairs?" asked Gilead.

 

"You need capable people up there, taking care of your

lick," I said. "Not townswomen wandering around wondering

where to fling water next. It's no trifle, this disease, people can

die of it! Why haven't you sent for help?"

 

They looked at me, and I looked back, and I said a broad

word, not caring particularly if I did shock their sensibilities.

They. hadn't sent for help because, being the Wommacks, they

figured it would be no use anyway. Bad luck was bad luck, and

those as were marked for death would die, and a lot of

similarly superstitious nonsense. And I was very grateful that

none of them knew something I wasn't going to take time to

flunk about right now, which was that Andersen's Disease was

Hot contagious. If they'd known that, and it running through

their castle like wildfire, I daresay they'd of just given up and

died on me on the spot; I had no plans of telling them.

 

"Shame on you'" I said. It was uppity of me, and not kind,

especially toward Jacob Donahue, who was a good fifty years

my senior; But I was thoroughly disgusted. The idea of half a

hundred people stretched on the rack for the last three days

while helpless hands were wrung and mournful moans were

made about the Wommack curse ... it turned my stomach.

Eventually I would have to face the problem of just who among

the Magicians of Rank was behind this monstrous cruelty, but

not now. Now what mattered was putting an end to that cruelty,

and without delay.

 

"You need a Magician of Rank here," I said, "and you need

him at once. There's two good ones on Arkansaw—"

 

"We'll have nobody from Arkansaw," said Jacob Donahue

Wommack.

 

"I beg your pardon?"

 

"I say, we'll have nobody. Magician of Rank or anybody

else, from Arkansaw. Not in this Castle."

 

"In the name of the Twelve Gates and the Twelve Corners.

 

SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN

 

140

 

Jacob Donahue Wommack, why ever not?" I shouted at him. •

"Have you seen those people upstairs?"

 

"I've seen them- I live here."

 

"Then—"

 

"They're feuding on Arkansaw," he said doggedly, "and

have been these past six months. No talking them out of it,

either—we've had good men trying. And we want no part of

 

it."

 

"At a time like this, you—"

 

I was so furious it's likely just as well that Gilead cut me off.

 

"Responsible of Brightwater," she said, "since distance

makes no difference to a Magician of Rank, then it also makes

no difference where he comes from. Do think of that."

 

True enough. Since a Magician of Rank was not only

allowed, but expected to take his Mule by SNAPS instead of

trundling along at sixty miles an hour, and since there was.

strictly speaking, no time taken up by that process except

leaving and landing, she was quite right.

 

"What will you accept, then?" I asked them, trying to sound

a tad less arrogant.

 

"Anywhere but Arkansaw," said the Master of Wommack.

 

" Anywhere atall."

 

"From Castle Motley, men." 1 said. "I don't know the man

well, I've only seen him once or twice, but they say he's highly

skilled. To go on with, he's a Lewis by birth, and that means he

cuts no corners—everything done strictly by rule, and strictly

by me book. And we'll have Diamond of Motley send a

Granny along as well, to give him a hand."

 

"You think it's worth a try?" asked Gilead.

 

"I do." Worth a try . . . I had no stomach left for arguing

with these people. If and when I ever got back home, and the

Jubilee over and done with, and could put my mind to

something new in the way of planning, I would tackle the

problem of superstition gotten out of hand in far comers. We

for sure wanted the people accepting the system of magic by

which this planet functioned; to lose that would be roughly

comparable to losing photosynthesis, or gravity, or two and

two coming up five. But this was 3012, not 1400 of Old Earth,

Some balancing needed doing, clearly, or this crew would be

throwing entrails and dunking for witches.

 

Somewhere in the back of my mind a kind of icy voice spoke

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

141

 

up to point out that the list of things to be seen to in some

vaporous unspecified "later" was getting longer and longer;

 

and I told it to shut up. Now was not the moment for either

accounting or reform.

 

"Jacob Donahue," I said, "will you show me where your

comset room is, so that I can send for help? Or do you plan to

stand there like that till everybody upstairs is dead in their

beds?"

 

That brought him out of it, as I had expected it would.

"I'm not helpless, young woman," he said, "nor yet

crippled. I'll send the message myself." And he spun on his

heel—staggering only a little at the turn with his fever—and

left us, with his children staring at me accusingly. I'd made

their daddy unhappy, and they didn't care for that.

 

;     There was a low bench against the wall beside the Castle

door at the foot of the stairs; I went on down and sat there,

 

;   leaning my head gratefully back against the chilly stone. I was

.  trembling all over And young Thomas Lincoln came over to

 

^.  stand in front of me.

 

';'..    "Will the Magician of Rank be able to fix everybody?" he

 

^ wanted to know.

 

^    "Well," I said wearily, "those as aren't too far gone, yes—

 

^' he'll be able to fix them about as fast as you can say 'Magician

 

;;   of Rank.' He won't be able to help anyone that's really near to

 

•   death—that's interfering with the taws of things, Thomas

 

•   Lincoln. I'm sorry, but that's the straight of it."

 

^    "We should of sent for him 'Soonei," said me boy.

 

;    "That you should."

 

"Wommacks don't care to be beholden," he told me stiffly.

 

^     "Then Wommacks must live with the consequences of their

 

;   doings," I said right back.

 

"Responsible of Brightwater, don't be hard on the boy," one

 

J of the daughters pleaded, but I wasn't interested. If they'd

called for a Magician of Rank the instant their Grannys had

said they didn't know what sickness they were dealing with,

nobody would have been in any danger Not one person.

Now ... a lot of time had passed, and a lot of suffering

 

••'•- endured. Now, they'd be losing some of their own, to their own

.1 stupidity.

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

142

 

The time had come for another Judicious lie, and I mustered

 

up the strength to provide it.

 

"It will spread to the town unless it's seen to," I said, "and

on beyond—it's stuff that spreads like wildfire. Only two

things have kept that from happening before this, you hear me

there? One is the size of this place, with you able to keep

everybody in a room of their own; that's helped. But primarily,

my good Wommacks, what's kept your illness inside this

Castle is nothing but good luck. Plain old miraculous twelve-

square common garden variety good luck. Now you think on

 

that."

 

A drop in the bucket, but mine own drop.

"And if your father should happen to forget, because he's

got the stuff himself and I'd judge his fever's headed for this

roof, the name of it is Anderson's Disease, and the access code'

for the computers is somewhere in the 441's. If—'*

 

And there sat a Magician of Rank, in full regalia, with

Granny Scrabble of Castle Motley seated before him on his

Mule, right in the front hall on the clean-scrubbed flagstone

 

floor

 

"Mercy!" I said, and decided to stay where I was. They

could get down off that animal's back, and call for an Attendant

to take it away, all by themselves- I was duly impressed.

 

"Shawn Menyweather Lewis the 7th," said the man, "and

Granny Scrabble. Both of Castle Motley, at your service."

 

"It's all upstairs," I told him, "and there's enough of it to

last you. Fifty-odd sick of Anderson's Disease. And two of

them Grannys—you might see to those two first, so they can

 

help,"

 

I watched them up the stairs with a feeling of relief as wide

as the Castle front; it was a pure pleasure to put some of this in

other hands and know they were capable. I could tell by the set

of his shoulders, and the way he wasted not one second—-not to

mention me fact that the Granny had not opened her mouth

either to fuss or to oppose him—that Shawn Menyweather

Lewis the 7th could handle all of this without any further

 

attention from me.

 

"Responsible of Brightwatel;" Gilead's voice came softly,

men, "let me see you to your room. We're not completely

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             143

 

without breeding here, though it may look some like it at this

moment."

 

"No," I said, "you've shown breeding and to spare, Gilead

ofWommack. I give you my word—nowhere on Ozark, in no

Kingdom of the Twelve Families, have I been treated with the

ceremony I was treated with here. And I can't really say as I

expect Castle Traveller to top you. It just wasn't the best way to

handlethings ... us down here celebrating while your peo-

ple were in that pitiful state upstairs."

 

"We weren't thinking clearly ... or maybe we don't

know how to think clearly," she said in a voice both dull and

bitter

 

"Gilead," I said, "it's not lack of breeding you've shown

this day, but lack of proportion. Lack of balance, Gilead. And I

lay it to just one place—you are sick yourself; of course you

can't think clearly. Now I'll take you up on the offer of the

room, because I'm worn out, and I intend to sleep the rest of

the day, unless I'm needed. But you'll take me nowhere—I

want every one of you to your own beds, and that right

smartly—and I'll see to myself. Just give me instructions. So

many flights of stairs, so many halls, so many doors—I'll find

it, you just number them off."

 

Gilead ofWommack stood there, rubbing the end of her nose

with one finger and frowning, all of them looking like they'd

drop around her, and me doing my best to be patient. And then

she said, "I know!" and put her arm around Thomas Lincoln.

"Thomas Lincoln? You go holler at your uncle to see Miss

Responsible to her room! Move, now!"

 

His uncle. I thought a bit; who would that be? I kept good

enough reckoning of the Families near Marktwain, and could

give you the names of all direct lines on Ozark, but I hadn't

every aunt, uncle, and cousin at the tip of my tongue.

 

And I had forgotten this one. I had forgotten all about him,

or I would have run like a baby that's pulled a Mule's tail by

mistake. I'd heard about him, more than enough to warn me off

and make me careful, especially since my experience with

Michael Stepforth Guthrie'd provided me with some new data

on my current state of vulnerability to manly charms . . . but

I had purely forgotten all about him.

 

When he stood before me, 1 looked into his eyes, and him

 

144 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

smiling, and knowing: and I saw that I could fall forever into

those eyes, and drown for all of time, and still not get to the

bottom of what lay behind them. I was not ready for that yet,

not by any number of long shots.

 

CHAPTER 11

 

I HAD BEEN warned about him, most certainly—I'd been

properly raised—but I had only been five years and one month

old. Me and fourteen other little girls, all at Granny School

together All listening to the Teaching Stories and getting them

by heart, like any other little girls. And my own beloved

Granny Hazelbide, holding me tight between her bony knees,

and pinching my chin between her first finger and her thumb

until it hurt, so I couldn't look away.

 

"Pay heed, now," she had said, scaring me as well as the

others sitting in a circle on the floor of the schoolroom

watching. "This has come to Responsible of Brightwaiei; as it

happens, but it might of been any of you, any one of you!

Might could be it still will . . . you pay heed."

 

He had been there in my five-year-old palm, which was

already hard from climbing trees and weeding with an Oldtime

Hoe, and already quick with every kind of needle (some of

them not very nice). And in the leaves at the bottom of seven

cups of tea, made seven times on seven consecutive days. And

in the swing of the golden ring on its long chain. They'd tried

 

145

 

146 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

again and again to read a fartime that hadn't him in it, but all in

vain; he was always there.

 

It was called a Timecomer

 

"I can't see round it," said Granny Hazelbide. "Nor can any

Magician, or even Magician of Rank. Can't anybody see round

it, for it's purely and wholly sealed off from this time."

 

You see I had not exactly forgotten it. More accurately, I had

just shut it away in that corner of my head where things that

didn't bear thinking about were stored. But I couldn't recall it

coming to my mind the past five years at least, which was

doing a pretty good job of keeping it at the bottom of the heap.

I had no trouble getting to it, when the time came. It had these

parts:

 

FIRST;

 

For a Destroyer shall come out of the West; and he will

know you, and you will know him, and we cannot see

how that knowledge passes between you, but it is not of

the body.

 

SECOND:

 

And if you stand against him, there will be great Trouble.

And if you cannot stand against him, there will be great

Trouble. But the two Troubles will be of different kinds.

And we cannot see what either Trouble is, nor which

course you should or will take, but only that both will be

terrible and perhaps more than you can bear

 

THIRD:

 

And if you fail. Responsible of Brightwatci; the penalty

for your failure falls on the Twelve Families; and if you

stand, it is the Twelve Families that you spare.

 

FOURTH:

 

And no matter what happens, it will be a long, hard dme.

 

Well, you talk of your curses' I recall suggesting to Granny

Hazelbide that the whole thing would be more suitable for my

sister, Troublesome, and no doubt that was true. And I

remember being told that things were far more often wisuit-

able, and for sure that was true. And then I had put it away, and

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             147

 

I believe I had expected it to be something I had to face along

around the age of forty-nine or so. That would of seemed like

giving me at least a running start.

 

Since it was thirty years and more before I had planned for

it, and since I was certainly not ready either to stand or fall,

and since I was in the middle of a Quest at the time, not to

mention a Grand Jubilee dangling just ahead of me, I chose the

most prudent course I saw before me. This was no time for

theatrics. This was no time for flinging myself in the teeth of

me winds to see what was at the very bottom of that teacup. I

was busy!

 

I knew him all right, and he knew me, and when I fled him

like a squawker hen flees a carrion bird he was laughing fit to

kill. I did not spend the night at Castle Wommack, nor so much

as go to the room where they'd put my belongings. My

weariness melted away like snow in the sun, a servingmaid

brought me my packed bags right there where I sat on that

bench against the wall, tapping my foot, and a stablemaid

brought round my Mule; and I flung the saddlebags over

Sterling's back and took off from the middle of the fair still

going on in me Castle court, while he stood on the steps with

his hands on his hips, laughing. What Gilead of Wommack or

any of the others thought, I had no idea, and I didn't wait to

see.

 

It was ten days' travel, regulation speed, from Castle

Wommack to Castle Traveller, most of it over Wilderness that

had never even been walked through, from the far northwest

tip of Kintucky to the far southern coast of Tinaseeh. And if

there was one person any ten flown miles I'd be mighty

surprised, which meant that I didn't have to be careful. There'd

be nobody around to appreciate it, and in my state just then that

was a blessing.

 

I SNAPPED straight from the edge of Kintucky's farming

country to the exact center of the Tmaseeh Wilderness—a five-

day journey in right on seven seconds—and headed Sterling

down toward the treetops I saw below me. I camped in a cave

that would have satisfied a human-size Gentle, and rested the

firil five days. I needed the rest. Then I waited two more days

for good measure, putting them to sensible use gathering herbs

'growing all around my camp; and I SNAPPED to the coast of

 

148 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

Tmaseeh's Midland Sea. I flew in to Castle Traveller in the

ordinary way, right on time.

 

By then I'd acquired a certain new respect for the Family

Traveller and a feeling that their name was a fitting one and

well earned. Tmaseeh made Kintucky look like a kitchen

garden.

 

"There it is, Sterling," I said as we came in. "Castle

Traveller, just as described.*' First, an outer keep of upright

Tinaseeh ironwood logs, standing side by side with their

wicked points an exact twelve feet tall—not an inch deviation

allowed anywhere. Then two inner keeps, made exactly the

same way, one within the other At the heart of the third keep,

the Castle itself, not much bigger than Castle Lewis. And there

was no town, though it had the name of one and one was

planned—Roebuck. The buildings of "Roebuck" hugged in

orderly rows to the walls of the Castle keeps. There'd been no

time yet on Tmaseeh for such a thing as a separate town.

 

According to the computers, there were exactly eleven

hundred and thirteen people on this continent, and all but a

half-dozen were Travellers, Farsons, Guthries, and a stray

Wommack or two. And every structure here was built of

Tinaseeh ironwood, which would not bum, and could only be

cut with a lasersaw, and which could—with sufficient pa-

tience—be tooled by laser to an edge that a person could shave

with. I had seen friendlier-looking places.

 

I was met at the gates of the outer keep by an Attendant, who

sent me under escort to the gate of the next keep beyond, where

they passed me on to a third to take me up to the Castle gates,

and not a word said the whole time beyond regulations.

 

"Greetings, Responsible of Brightwater; follow me."

 

I followed.

 

I had not expected parties here, or parades, or fairs. I knew

better A formal dinner—for twelve—I had expected. And I

was prepared for one Solemn Service after another; that would

strike the Travellers as entertainment enough. Ordinary Solemn

Service on Tinaseeh began on Sundy at 7:00 of the morning

and lasted past noon, to be followed by another session after a

two-hour break for dinner I had anticipated that a company

Solemn Service might well provide me with preaching enough

to fortify me against all the evil I'd have to contend with for the

 

7\velve Fair Kingdoms             149

 

next year or two. I'd expected a substantial edification of my

soul.

 

But I was not prepared for wh'at actually did take place,

which was that ten minutes after I'd freshened up—with an

Attendant standing in my door waiting with an eloquent back

to me, seeing that I didn't tarry over it—I was taken without

further ado to a formal Family Council. Hospitable, it wasn't.

and I felt a sudden steadying in my stomach. This—which was

glorified sass, by the look of it—was more in my line of

experience than what I'd just been through at Wommack. If it

turned out sufficiently extravagant it would even give me

something I needed badly . . . something to keep my unruly

mind in order yet a while.

 

The Meetingroom had walls of varnished ironwood, and it

held a group of people that appeared to be put together of the

same unappealing substance, seated in straight chairs around a

long narrow table. They reminded me of the side-by-side

upright logs mat fenced their keeps, and my traveling costume

stood out in the grim and me gloom like a carnival garb.

 

"Young woman," said the man at the head of the table, "I

am Jeremiah Thomas Traveller the 26th; be seated,"

 

I sat, and he named them off. His wife, Suzannah of Parson.

His three oldest sons: Jeremiah Thomas die 27th, Nahum

Micah the 4th, and Stephen Phillip the 30th . . . why he

wasn't Obadiah Jonas I couldn't imagine; perhaps Suzannah

had pleaded for some relief. His three oldest daughters still at

home—Rosemary, Chastity, and Miranda, every one of mem a

six. His brother, Valen Marion Traveller the 9th. And his own

mothec, now a Granny in this Castle, Granny Leeward. Not

another wife, not a husband, not a child; just the in-Family.

 

"And I," I said, "am Responsible of Brightwater As you

are aware."

 

"We are that," said Suzannah of Farson. "It could hardly be

missed." Her reference was to my outfit, which was in marked

contrast to her own dress of dark gray belted with black. I

smiled at her, sweet as cinnamon sugar, and waited the move.

 

"We have called mis Council in your honor," she said, "and

would like to begin. But you've had a long journey—are you

hungry? Or thirsty? We can have coffee brought, and some

food, if you need it."

 

"Thank you," I said, "I had breakfast before I left."

 

156 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"Considerate of you," said Suzannah- "We have little time

to waste here on Tinaseeh. It's a hard land, and not meant for

the shiftless."

 

"Proceed, then," I told her "You've no need to coddle me,

I assure you; I'm perfectly comfortable. And I've been in

Council a time or two before. I expect you'll find me able to

tolerate yours."

 

"Are you trying to be insolent, missy?" said the Granny, her

mouth tight. "Or does it just come natural to you?"

 

I considered the question, and I looked her up and down,

and no looking away from her pale blue eyes, either; and I

decided that her question was serious, not just grannying, and

deserved a serious answer

 

"It's a cold welcome you've offered me. Granny Leeward,"

I said, "and not the way an Ozarker's brought up to treat a

guest. As it conies natural to youall to be unpleasant, it comes

natural to me to be unpleasant in return. I'm told I'm good at

it."

 

"Guests," said Granny Leeward, "are invited. You were

not."

 

"True enough," I said. "And you're not the first to point it

out to me."

 

"There are those," she said, "as would of taken instruction

the first time they heard it—and not needed a second statement

of the obvious."

 

"There are those," I said, "as let every little thing put them

off their duty. I am not one of those."

 

Silence. And then the Granny, who appeared to have been

designated spokesperson for this collection of alleged living

beings, began in earnest.

 

"I call for Full Council," she said.

 

"Seconded." And the ayes went round.

 

"Explain your purpose here. Responsible of Brightwater,"

she continued- "And speak up plain. It's a long table."

 

"There's been magic used for mischief on Marktwain," I

said easily. "You know all about that. And a baby kidnapped

from out of a Solemn Service, which is not decent. And in Full

Council it was decided that it might be a good idea to spell out

the particulars to the Twelve Families, as well as find the maker

of the mischief. And it was agreed that I was best equipped to

do that—and here, therefore, I am."

 

"You're a girl of fourteen!" she declared.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             151

 

"You're a woman of eighty-six. Neither number is

significant."

 

"And what fits a girl of fourteen—it is of significance,

missy, for it means you've neither wisdom nor instruction nor

experience—what fits a girl of fourteen to go gallivanting

around the planet on a Mule, dressed like a whore, pestering

decent folk and creating trouble everywhere she goes?"

 

Well, she was a Granny of eighty-six, and I was a girl of

fourteen, as had just been stated. I took the bait she'd laid for

me as easy as if I'd never heard the word before.

 

Granny Leeward had been holding a black cloth fan, using it

to tap the table with to emphasize the ends of her phrases. By

the time she got to "everywhere she goes" she was holding as

pretty a nosegay of black mushrooms as you'd care to see

anywhere. And they had me.

 

Her hand didn't even quiver, though I knew the mushrooms

stung her—I'd made sure of that, while I was digging myself a

hole to fall in—and she laid them out before her on the table

and folded her arms.

 

"There's your answer," she said. "Just as I told you."

 

Jeremiah Thomas Traveller the 26th looked at his timepiece

and nodded with satisfaction.

 

"Well done, Granny Leeward," he said. "Three minutes

flat."

 

"Mighty sensitive to words, aren't you, child," said their

dear old Granny, "for someone who sets herself so high she

presumes to teach the Twelve Families their manners?"

 

Law, how it galled! I'd of given years off my life to have

back the last five minutes, and sense enough to do them over

right- But that's not how the world works, as I could hear

myself telling other people, and there was nothing I could do

but be silent and see where this would lead roe.

 

The Master of the Castle told roe.

 

"Personally," he said, "I was inclined to think Granny

Leeward was exaggerating some when she told us her estimate

of your abilities. I have daughters of my own, and they do

sometimes play about with Spells and the like, when they get

to be your age—it's a stage, and they grow out of it. But you

seem to have got somewhat beyond that. Responsible of

Brightwater"

 

152 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"I sincerely beg your pardon," I said sadly '*l*m afraid I

lost my temper—and I'd ask you to lay that to my age, too, if

you would. It won't happen again."

 

"How could it happen at all?"

 

I didn't answer but he wasn't about to drop it.

 

"How does it happen at all," he insisted, "that a girl of

fourteen, whatever special place she may have in the frame of

things, is able to set a Spell like that one you just set, and her

against a skilled Granny?"

 

I saw Granny Leeward's lips twitch at that; she knew very

well no Spell nor Charm would have turned her fan into those

mushrooms. That had required a Substitution Transformation,

and an illegal one, and it had been incredibly stupid of me. A

simple Spell would of been more than enough ... I could of

just heated up the fan a little bit, and had my temper fit that

way. But the Granny wouldn't betray me to a male; she lowered

her eyes, and she kept her silence.

 

"I've studied a good deal," I said carefully, "and I've had

good teachers. Nonetheless, it wasn't nice of me. As I said, I

regret I did it, and I apologize, most respectfully."

 

"Well, Granny Leeward told us you knew a few tricks,"

said her son, "and that she figured it wouldn't take her five

minutes to prove she was right—and it took her three. I don't

mind telling you, young woman, I don't approve of it atall. I'm

sorry my family had to see it happen."

 

"And so is Responsible of Brightwatel;" said the Granny,

twisting the knife. "Pride," she added, "goes along before a

fall."

 

"I'm afraid 'sorry' won't cut it," said Jeremiah Thomas.

"No; I'm afraid it will take more than just sorry to make me

easy with something like you under my roof."

 

Here it came again; I didn't bother to ask.

 

"I'll have your sworn word," he said. "And I'll have it

now,"

 

"Sworn to what?"

 

"That you'll use no magic—not any level. Responsible of

Brightwatel; not even Common Sense—so long as you are, as

you yourself point out, the guest of this Castle and this Family,

and under my roof. Since it's clear you've no sense of what's

decent, you'll make do on mother wit alone."

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

153

 

"Are you that afraid of a few tricks?" I taunted him- "From

a girl of fourteen?"

 

"Indeed I am," he said, "indeed I am! This is a respectable

household, and me people within it not accustomed to scandal.

We follow the old ways here, and we have a wholesome

respect for the power of such as you, no matter how you come

packaged. If you came into my house with a loaded gun, you'd

have to give it up while you stayed here, as would you a flask

of poison, or a lasei; or any other such truck. And I'm a lot

more afraid of magic unbridled than I am of any of those."

 

He turned away from me then and spoke to the son that bore

his name.

 

"I hope you see," he said gravely, "and I hope you will

spread the word among our people, that this is what can be

expected when the old ways are not observed. I'll count on you

to go over it with considerable care when you speak to our

households next—might could be that will tame a few of those

not thinking in the proper way of the Jubilee mis young

woman's been sent around to sponsor"

 

"As a matter of fact, sil," the answer came, "it seems to me

it might be an excellent idea to discuss this whole thing at the

Jubilee. It would perhaps be instructive for the other Families

to hear about."

 

My gown was drenched with my own cold salt sweat, and

my hair clung to my neck like wet weeds. I'd found my guilty,

no doubt about that; it could hardly have been clearer if they'd

had it branded on their foreheads. The venom from around that

table, where almost no one had spoken one word, or more than

stared at me, was as real as my two hands before me, and it

battered at me in waves. 1 admired me cool control of this

Granny—most would have been setting wards.

 

It was a tidy trap, grant diem all mat. If I accused them of

using magic to wreck the Jubilee, or of turning it against Castle

Brightwatel; as I surely could have, there were ten grown men

and women in this room prepared to swear that they'd seen me

carry out an illegal act of magic right before their eyes, under

their own roof, and against one of their own- And they would

be telling the truth. If I'd been against the Confederation my

own self, I could hardly have done it graver harm, and for sure

I'd of been better off listening to my uncles, staying home, and

ignoring the whole thing.

 

154 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

And if I gave them the oath they asked for—as I would have

to do, no question about it, and their Granny there to see that I

left no comers dangling—there'd be no passing this night in

undoing by magic the folly I'd wreaked. I'd lie in my bed and

I'd pray, and I would maybe ciy some; but I'd do no magic.

Not even to look ahead and see just how much chance there

was of any solution to the problem.

 

"Well, let's have your promise," said Jeremiah Thomas.

"Our Granny assures us that your wickedness doesn't extend to

violating your own word, and she's proved she knows yout"

measure. No magic, Responsible of Brightwatei; for so long as

you arc within the continental borders of Tinaseeh. None."

 

He was very sure of himself; we'd gone from "under my

roof" to the whole-continent at remarkable speed. But then, he

was in a position where he could afford to be sure of himself.

 

"I promise," I said. "Certainly."

 

"Put your hands on the table so we can see—"

 

"Oh, Jeremiah Thomas," said Granny Leeward pettishly,

"that's not needful! What do you think she's going to do, cross

her fingers? This one does not play games."

 

"That I do not," I agreed.

 

"Nor do we," said the Granny. "Bear that in mind."

 

"It does not seem to me," said Jeremiah Thomas slowly,

"that just saying she promises is enough, in this case. Have

another look at those mushrooms there, making the table nasty

with their rot, will you, Granny Leeward? She might-^"

 

"She gave her word," said the Granny. "That's all that's

required."

 

"Let her give it in full, then," said her stubborn offspring.

"And I'll be satisfied."

 

I knew the sort of thing that would appeal to him, and having

no choice whatsoever, I gave it to him.

 

"For so long as I am within the continental borders of

Tinaseeh," I intoned, "I will do no magic, of any sort or kind,

at any level, for any reason whatever, no matter what may

come to pass—not even to safeguard this house or those within

it, not even to safeguard myself. My word on it, given in full."

There.

 

I saw the Granny's eyebrows go up at the phrase about

safeguarding their house, but she didn't say a word. I knew

then that there must be at least a couple of Magicians of Rank

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             155

 

in this Castle at this moment—I knew of three that very well

could be—and if there were one or two I didn't know about

besides, it wouldn't be past believing. She was far too calm,

knowing what she knew, not to have quite a backup behind her

own legal skills.

 

"Well?" I asked him. "Will that do it?"

 

"If Granny Leeward approves."

 

"Oh, it's enough," said that one, "and a bit more."

 

"In that case," he said, "we can get on with me business of

this Council."

 

I had thought tricking me into my present position of total

helplessness was the business of his Council; but it was

apparently no more than item one on the agenda.

 

"My sons have a few questions to ask of you, young

woman," he said. "We'll need a bit more of your time."

 

They wanted to know a lot of things. What arrangements I

had made for seeing to it that the Families would be safe at

Brightwater during the Jubilee—from "malicious magic," to

use their term, and their using it struck me as astonishing gall

considering that they were its source. It amounted to saying,

"If we come in with fifty vials of deadly poison to spread

around, what have you got on hand that will be able to stop

us?" They wanted to know details of the schedule for the

Jubilee; if, presumably, I had ways to keep it going, then how

much time would have to be "wasted" on frivolity before we

could get down to the real purpose of the meeting? What the

real purpose of the meeting was. Why I felt such an outlay of

time and trouble and money was justified, when there were

Wildernesses to be cleared and roads to be laid and wells to be

dug and windmills and solar collectors to be built and crops to

be planted and fish to be caught, and game to be hunted, and

other serious work that went understaffed and underfunded and

would grow more so while we fooled away time at Brightwatei:

 

What did I assume would be accomplished by this "gaudy

display" that couldn't have been taken care of at an ordinary

meeting of the Confederation of Continents? How many were

being invited from each Family, and how many had accepted?

Where would they be staying, and who'd see to their comfort?

Did I give my guarantee that it would be not only safe for

children, but an edifying experience—and if not, how did I

propose to justify leaving them all behind? Would all the

 

1S6 SUZETTE HAOEN ELGIN

 

Magicians of Rank be present at the Jubilee, and all the

Magicians, and for that matter; all the Grannys? And if so,

why—who needed them there and for what? And if not, why

not, and what would they be doing behind our backs instead?

 

It went on and on, and it was thorougher than could be

excused by any motive except wearing me out and humiliating

me, and rubbing my nose some more in my sudden "position of

servility to their will. I had no trouble with any of the

questions; they set them in turn, each son asking three, and

then politely yielding to his brother Every word I said was

information already available to them in Ae proceedings and

proclamations of the Confederation over at least the last three

years, and there'd not been a single Confederation meeting

where one of those sons—and sometimes the father as well—

had not sat as delegate. My throat got raw, and my back got

tired, and they went on and on, learning nothing they didn't

already know.

 

"That's enough," said Suzannah of Parson at last, long after

I'd decided they intended to keep it up all night.

 

"Granny?" said Jeremiah Thomas.

 

"Been enough a long while,'* said Granny Leeward, "and

you've made your point. I've heard nothing that made my ears

stand up, and you'll not wear that one out Just prattling at

her—your sons are showing off, and they begin to irritate me

some. You forget your own position on moderation, Jeremiah

Thomas?"

 

He flushed, and the sons looked whiter and grimmer than

evci; but he didn't cross her He Just pointed at the mushrooms,

now, I'm happy to say, a really stinking mess of putrid black on

their tabletop, and said, "What about those?"

 

"I'll see to them," said me Granny. "Never you mind."

 

"You wouldn't dare touch them," I said coldly.

 

"You think not, missy?"

 

"1 know not!" As I did, I'd have handled them with a great

deal of care my own self.

 

"I'll have them seen to, then," she told her son. "Comes to

me same thing."

 

Jeremiah Thomas Traveller stood up, then, and adjourned

the Council, took his lady on his arm and led us all out of there,

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             257

 

and sent me on to my room with another of his silent

 

Attendants.

•

 

I was right about the Magicians of Rank. When I woke that

night and felt the heat of my skin, I cursed myself bitterly for

not taking precautions sooner before I'd had my hands tied by

my own oaths. I could take the search for the source of the

epidemic at Castle Wommack off my long list of postponed

duties—I'd found it. And anybody that could bring themselves

•    to lay innocent women and children low with Anderson's

Disease, just for display, was unlikely to scruple at providing

someone like me with the same unpleasant experience. And

knowing that, I'd surely ought to of taken some steps to

i    prevent it; like a lot of other things, it hadn't entered my mind.

^      I sent word to Granny Leeward by way of the guardmaid

j?.    outside my door, and the Granny sent back a full crew. Four of

^ •'   them, all in Traveller black, though two of them had no right to

^    wear it. They stood around my bed and smiled down on me,

;H'    hands behind their backs.

 

H      "Twenty-four hours from now. Responsible of Brightwater,"

||    said one, "you'll be fit as a fiddle."

||      I felt the terrible need to twist and writhe, and my breath

^    bumed in my chest as I drew it, but I'd encountered pain before

^   that matched this and surpassed it. and I'd had some practice in

H    dealing with the stuff. I'd not give them the satisfaction of

^    seeing one of my smallest toes move while they watched; and I

"•    lay still as a pond while the spasms moved over my muscles

like live snakes, and I smiled back.

 

"I didn't know you were all still in training," I said, forcing

the words through a throat that threatened to shut tight on me.

"A competent Magician of Rank could stop this in twenty-four

seconds."

 

They went right on smiling, and allowed as how Granny

Leeward had said that it would do my soul good to have the

deathdance fever for twenty-four hours.

 

"The Granny gives you orders, does she? You don't mind

that?"

 

I was looking for a weak spot, but they knew what I was up

to, of course, and they ignored me. A smugger quartet of

elegant males I'd never laid eyes on, and they reminded me of

my mushrooms—before the rot set m, of course. There I lay,

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

158

 

foibidden to so much as wish on a star till I left Tmaseeh; and

there they stood, able to add a notch or two to their accounts

with Responsible of Brightwalei; in perfect safety. It would

have been too much not to expect them to enjoy it.

 

CHAPTER 12

 

T.   Now IT'S TRUE that when I proposed a Quest as the way to

^   demonstrate Brightwater's status, symbol returned in kind for

^   symbol given, I was completely serious about the idea. I don't

 

want that misunderstood. No Ozarker takes any formal

^   construct of magic—and a Quest is one of the most rigorous of

those—lightly. Like I said, you go tampering and tinkering

with an equilibrium as delicate as the system of magic, you're

' _ going to cause radical distortions in places you never even

considered would be touched. I was absolutely serious in my

choice. And the choice I made had had solid motivations back

of it.

 

Those that wanted to undermine the Confederation could

have gone about their task in the most mundane way, you see.

They could of simply boycotted meetings, straight out and

without concern for who joined them at it. They could of

started banging heads in the straightforward physical sense,

though the public outrage at that would of backfired on them by

tile third blow landed—still, they could have. More reasonably,

they could of used economic strategies of one kind or another

though for those on the wilder continents where self-

 

159

 

160 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

sufficiency was a long way off yet that might of earned heavy

penalties for their populations. But they had not chosen any of

those measures, nor yet anything like them. They had made

their decision to go at it on the level of magic—and the

principle of fighting fire with fire is sufficiently venerable to

make the idea of going back at them the same way look

perfectly sound. Fighting magic with science has never been

handy.

 

But let's grant it now and be done with it, the Quest was not

all I had available to me, by a long shot. True, they'd flung a

gauntlet and made a planetary display of a very special kind;

 

not so much what they actually did—as had been made plain at

that first Brightwater Council—but their clear notice as to what

they thought they could do if they took the notion. We couldn't

of just let that pass, not and kept our place among the Families

as the informal—but only actual—seat of central government

for Ozark, It was a dare they'd made, and a contemptuous dare

at that, right up to the baby-snatching; and I'd figured that last

move was made not so much because they weren't sure how far

they should go, but because I kept dawdling around and not

responding, and time was a-wasting. They'd meant to shake

me loose from my dawdling, and hanging the baby up in the

cedar tree did accomplish that,

 

But looking back . . . looking back and feeling a lot more

than the six, seven weeks older I actually was when I at last left

Castle Traveller behind me, I could see that I had gone butting

my head where it was not necessarily called foe Now that it

was all over but the dirty work I began with, and the dirty work

I'd piled up along the way, I could see all the other alternatives

I had censored right out of my head at the time.

 

I could have assembled the Magicians, from all three levels,

by a full call-up at Brightwaiei, and made some kind of

spectacular display of my competence mere; and then sent

them all back home to think about that awhile. I could of

delegated the whole process to the Magicians of Rank from

Marktwain, Oklahomah, and Mizzurah, and let them demon-

strate our magical strength to the others, with whatever

judicious behind-the-scenes string-pulling that might of re-

quired on my part. I could, for the Twelve Corners' sakes, just

of used the comset for a display of our abilities, planet-wide.

Or I could of seen to it that one highborn baby in every

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             161

 

Kingdom popped into a tree during a Solemn Service at the

same identical instant—my Magicians of Rank could have

managed that easily, and it would of put the rest on adequate

notice that they'd best pull back.

 

I hadn't considered, hadn't even brought up, any of those

things.

 

It was clear to me, as I headed away from Tinaseeh with my

ego as bruised as my body, that what I had really wanted had in

far too many ways been just what the Grannys were claiming it

was as I made my rounds. I had, I guess, wanted to show off,

and to do it personally and get full credit; and I had been

champing at the bit for an excuse to get away from Brightwater

and all the dull routine of my duties there, not to mention the

preparations for the Jubilee that others had had to carry on with

while I took my vacation. The speed with which I'd gotten

underway was the speed of guilt—I had just grabbed at the

Quest concept, all loaded with tradition and symbolic signifi-

cance like it was, for an excuse.

 

If there'd been any of the Marktwain Grannys present at that

meeting in February, they might well have found a way to stop

me; I wished mightily now that someone had. But neither my

mother nor my grandmother had had a chance against my

willfulness, and it was not the way of Patience of dark to step

in and take action unasked.

 

No, I'd had a dandy idea for getting away from it all for a

while, and had gone about it pigheaded as you please, and how

it was all to be managed now or at the Jubilee. I surely did not

know.

 

"Sterling," I said, looking down on the Ocean of Remem-

brances just before we SNAPPED over all that boring endless

water, "I've been a blamed fool. And I only hope I've learned

enough from it to pay me back."

 

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

 

162 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

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 thinnei; 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 Brightwatel; 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 tiling to do

in the first place, and I'm worse off man 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 mis 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 dark and Thom of Guthrie.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

163

 

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 mat 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 stable-

man. "and you arrived a bit sudden. I sent a servingmaid as

soon as I saw you coming in over the walei; 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'11 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 comdoi. with Charity of Guthrie herself right

behind hec

 

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

 

164 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

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 girlcmid on short

notice. You're welcome here any time." And she hugged me

close again, bless hei; 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 mis 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

whatsoever," I said. Bedamned if I'd count mat 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," Iretorted. "Nearthirtyofyou

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

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             165

 

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 ... ad-

ventures aplenty required and supposed to be unpleasant, or it

doesn't count—and Granny Golightly herself reminded you of

mat in case it'd slipped your mind? And three—the best way

for any child to learn that a flame'll bum 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 undei, asked if that

couldn't wait dll I'd had some supper She was twelve years

old, and a lot like her mother

 

"No-sa," 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 mat 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

man one. 1 learned mat broken ribs are as inconvenient me

second time as me first, and that where everybody's trying to

keep the corks in their homebrew nobody has much time for

me 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 mat just about anything propped up in the

moonlight and painted me right color is sufficient to turn a

guilty bead. 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."

 

166 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

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, / 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!"

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             167

 

Caroline-Ann sat up straight and dropped her legs over the

sill, careful not to kick anybody. "Naturally 1 had to open my

mouth with three Grannys in the room! Botheration!"

 

I felt sorry for hei; 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-

mat 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

Brightwaiei;

 

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

Brightwatei.

 

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,

 

58            SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

keeps a family corked to its Hall and its yard!

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatei;

 

That's what I learned.

 

A Yallerhound's neither a hound nor a dog,

it's a bag full of water with a topcoat of hair;

 

it will drown you in slobber for the sake of pure love,

let the Yallerhound owner think well and beware!

 

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatei;

 

That's what I learned.

 

A chair in the moonlight all painted with gold

is easily taken for royalty's throne,

and a conscience that's guilty can easily see

a scepter and crown in a rock and a bone!

 

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatei;

 

That's what I learned.

 

Two little pretty birds sharing one nest,

hidden away in the littlest tree;

 

one has a leash on and sorrows to know it,

and envies the other that dares to fly free!

 

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatei;

 

That's what I learned.

 

A Granny should cackle and gabble and nag,

and twist her tongue round to the formspeech

 

and motions,

 

but garlic still wards if she knows her craft right,

and as she adds years she'll no doubt drop her notions'

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatei;

 

That's what I learned.

 

A Family as goes through its days set on gloom,

talking of curses and harping of fate,

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             169

 

eyes to the past and determined to suffer,

will get what it asks for served up on its plate!

 

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatec,

 

That's what I learned.

 

A person whose hands are tied tight at her back,

a person who's bound like a goat to a spit,

a person in such a predicament can't

neither gather nor sow, neither broider nor knit!

 

That's what I learned, said the daughter of

Brightwatei;

 

That's what I learned.

 

And there was a nice pre-verse to it, too, for times when

there might be those singing back and forth:

 

What did you learn as you flew out so fine,

splendid on Muleback, dressed like a queen?

What did you learn, daughter of Brightwater?

Tell us the wonderful things that you've seen!

 

I could see how, throwing that in every time a verse came

round, you could use up a good part of an evening with that

song. And I was especially impressed with Caroline-Ann's

solution to die fact that there's no way anybody can sing my

awkward name. It was a fine song, every syllable and note in

its proper place, and it added a certain respectability to my

Quest, which was why the Grannys had demanded it, of

course. I expected to hear a good deal in future of this daughter

of Airy.

 

I passed two blissful days being mothered by Charity, and

teased by her Grannys, and generally catching my breath, and

by the end of the third day I felt able to face my role in this

world once again. I was grateful to Castle Airy for that,

because I had arrived in a sony condition. And I kept humming

Caroline-Ann's song.

 

And then on the third night, I set about catching myself a

serpent. Or serpents, as the case might be.

 

Jf     *     «I

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

m

 

I waited until all the Castle was sound asleep, and then I

took my three baths: one hot, one cold, and one of herbs. I

pulled my lawn gown through the small gold ring and saw that

it passed without wrinkle or raveling to show for the trip, and I

slipped it over my head. I put my black velvet ribbon around

my neck, and braided my hail. I set wards and double-wards,

which took some time; the guestchamber I was in had three

doors and eight windows, and there had to be a pentacle at

every one of them, and a double one at the corridor door where

the Grannys might pass in their night-prowls.

 

It was past midnight before I was finally able to climb up

into the center of my bed, set a pentacle round me with white

sand from my shammybag, and take what was needml out of

my pouch.

 

A bowl of clearest crystal, exactly the size of my closed fist,

crystal so clear you had to look twice to see it was there. A vial

of water from the desert spring on Marktwain that was holy to

Skerrys, Gentles, and Ozarkers, and exactly twelve drops of

that water poured into the bottom of the tiny bowl- My

shammybags—one full of sand, one of fresh herbs, one of

dried herbs, one of talismans. My gold chain, and my gold

ring. Everything else I needed was inside my head.

 

I laid them all out around me within easy reach, and I

crossed my legs and sat up straight, and realized that in no way

was I tired any longer Youth does have its compensations.

 

Now—we should see what we should see!

 

The needed Formalism was an Insertion Transformation; I

wanted a name where I had a null term now, and I wanted more

than just "Traveller" to fill that null.

 

I set down the Structural Index in a double row of herbs, and

the Structural Change I laid right underneath it. I set the bowl

of desert water in the space of the null term, and I made the

double-barred arrow with my hands above the water

 

"Let there be," I said over the whole, "a name, sub-N; and

let there be a filling of the null term, sub-T; and let there be no

alteration of the underlying structure, sub-S!"

 

The whole of it looked correct, but I checked it over one

more time, for rigor—

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

m

 

^  r^. ^ A ——

 

fy o^f - xvivs «^

 

^- ^

 

fV<Y ^ ^M«;iA\Ms

CX- \-v ^J

 

• •• •

^

 

—and then I closed it off with the symbol \y

 

I watched the water closely while it dimmed and clouded

and bubbled, and finally cleared again. And then I jumped like

a child stuck with a pin!

 

I'd expected a Traveller, naturally (and maybe half a dozen

more of them, one for every time I repeated the Transforma-

tion, since I could change only one term at a time); and I had

for sure expected to see a man! Despite the mention that

Silverweb of McDaniels was husky enough, if properly

clothed, to pass for a man and fly a Rent-a-Mule through a

church, I'd been convinced no female was behind any of this.

 

But the face that looked up at me from the water; no bigger

man my thumbnail but clear in every smallest detail, and

certainly clear in its utter terror; belonged to none of the

Travellers and to no man. ... It was Una of Clark.

 

Una, the silent domestic daughter of Clark, the doting

mother of five with the amazingly slim waist . . . whose

husband was a Travellei: Whose husband wore the Traveller

black despite all his years in his father-in-law's cheerful Castle.

 

I never, never would have suspected her Never! She had

seemed to me the dullest woman I'd come across on this

planet, up to and including the gawkiest and rawest serving-

maid Just decided to try her luck in a Castle and still not sure

where the doors were- And she had fooled me. Fooled me pure

and simple!

 

172 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"Una of dark'" I said over the walei; a couple of times,

"Una of Clark?" Had it been Sterling looking out at me, I

could not of been more astonished.

 

Then I tensed—fooling me that well, she might have other

skills equally foolsome. If the water began to boil in that

crystal bowl again, or cloud over, I wanted to be ready to set a

new Transformation on it before she got away from me. But the

minutes passed, with only the sound of my heart beating loud

in the room, and there was no change—only the tiny, so tiny,

shivering figure in the water; and very gradually I had all of

hei, not just her face.

 

You can't speak, of course, when you're trapped in blessed

springwater by a Transformation, nor can you move. I

appeared to have her at my mercy, and I had the rest of the

night to decide what to do about that. Which was not so much

time; the clock had just struck two.

 

I was not precisely free in this; I could go just so far and no

farther Murder's murdei; whether you do it with a hatchet or a

Transformation, and it's not allowed. It would have tidied

things up, and I will admit it even crossed my mind, though

that shocks me. because I was so put out; but it could not be

done. A Deletion Transformation to remove Una of Clark from

the matrix of this universe was certainly possible, but it would

violate the primary constraint on all magic: it is not allowed,

ever, to change the Meaning of things. To do that is the use of

magic for evil, and the moral penalties for evil by hatchet are a

good deal less severe. They, at least, are administered by

people. I'd come within a hair's breadth of violating that

constraint when I tampered with Granny Leeward's fan, and a

very good thing I'd watched the shaping of that nosegay when I

lost the rest of my mind; if she'd cared to, she still could of

fanned herself with me mushrooms.

 

Since my choices were pretty rigorously constrained, it

didn't take me long to select among them. At twenty minutes

of three I had finished a bounded Movement Transformation,

and I faced Una of Clark, dry now in the night wind and back

to her standard size, on a narrow rock ledge at the foot of the

cliffs where Castle Airy stood. The waves crashed over the

rock where we were, and I motioned her to move back into the

small cave I'd noted as I flew in that day.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             173

 

"Don't you come near me!" she screamed at me, and threw

up her hands before her face to shield it. "Don't you dare!"

 

"If you drown here, Una of Clark," I shouted back at hei;

 

tfae wind taking my words and making clattering skeletons out

of them, "if you fall into that sea that boils not ten inches from

the tip of your dainty white foot, it will be your own fault' And

I'll -not be mourning you, you'll have saved me a great deal of

trouble! Get back away from the edge, as I tell you now, and

into that cave—move! Get!"

 

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid," she whimpered, hunkering down

into the wind. "Oh, I don't dare move. . . . I'm so afraid!"

Drat the woman; I did not really want her to drown, and it

looked as though she might. The stone under our feet was like

glass, polished by the constant wind and water, and me wind

gusting high, and some of the waves were striking us to our

knees and more.

 

"Well, you ought to be afraid," I countered, "you surely

ought! That ocean is as near bottomless as makes no differ-

ence, woman, and you're going into it sure if you don't pull

back!"

 

I saw her sway as the spray was flung against her . . . and

fool that she was, she did move—closer to the rim of the ledge.

 

Law, I had no time for foolishness; I traced the double-

barred arrow in the air and Moved her myself, safe into the

narrow shelter cut by the water, and I followed her in just

inches ahead of a wave that would have had us both sure, not a

second to spare.

 

It was dark in there, and I set a glow around her and around

me, so that we could see one another The roar of the waves

was under us and all around us, too, it was everywhere, and

with each one the whole mountain seemed to shudder under

our feet; but we were safe enough there until the tide rose.

 

"Witch ..." she hissed at me ... a serpent she was,

right enough ... her teeth chattering, back pressed to the

cave wall and her bare feet curled to the curve of the hollowed

rock. And she said it once again, a good deal boldet "Witch!"

 

"Nonsense," I said- "I'm nothing of the kind."

 

"Oh," she said, "you're not a witch? Reckon you didn't

snatch me out of my bed and trap me first in some . . . some

noplace . . . where I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt noth-

ing, but your wicked face over me as big as all the sky, and

 

174 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

your eyes boring down on me, each of them big as a Castle

gate . . . and then you brought me here, you SNAPPED me

here! Think I don't know that's the only way you could drag a

decent woman halfway round a continent through the night

from her husband's side?"

 

"Oh, stop it," I said, and sat down on the bare rock in pure

disgust. I had been prepared to feel some challenge here,

maybe some respect for my opponent, but I was just plain

disgusted. She was the one responsible for what had been

happening to the milk and the mirrors and the streetsigns, all

right—the spring water does not lie, nor do the Transforma-

tions fail. But the interference with the flight of the Mules? Just

as I'd been too slow to see that when I should of seen it right

off, I'd misunderstood it completely when I finally got to it,

and gone to an awful lot of unnecessary trouble as a result of

my blindness.

 

"Here I thought the reason that everything was Just barely

over the bounds of half-done was cleverness," I said crossly,

wishing I dared smack her face and knowing the thought was

shameful. "Here I thought that just making the Mules wobble a

tad instead of making them crash was a way of showing your

finesse, and a way of hinting at what dread things you might do

if you chose to! You realize dial? And all along, all this

miserable long time, Una of dark, it was just that you aren't

very good at what you do! All along, with your piddling little

tricks, you've been doing the very bestyou could, haven't you?

Why, we had the whole damned thing clean backwards!

Damn!"

 

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" she spat at me, and she had me

there.

 

And then she hid her face against her shoulder and screamed

into the darkness, over and over that same foolish word—

"Witch! Witch! Witch!"—until I was nearly distracted. I

suppose that was what Gabriel Laddercane Traveller UK 34th

had used against hei; all through the nights of their marriage,

lying beside her in their bed, whispering while he stroked her

thighs and that slim waist, convincing her to tackle magic far

beyond what she was trained in or fit for or had any legal right

to even think of. If he'd truly convinced her that she was doing

battle against witchcraft when she raised her weak hand against

me . . . it did not excuse hei; but I could see how he might

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             175

 

have used that as a levee Especially with her far gone in the

sickness of Romantic Love; it would of served his needs well,

and paid him for his long exile from his father's house, and

explained why he'd put up with it over these long years instead

of taking her away. The threads that ran to this night were

sticky ones, and they clung.

 

"Well. now. what am I going to do with you?" I asked hei;

 

and myself, out loud. "What am I going to do about you, Una

of dark?"

 

I'd lost all taste for harming hei; she was only pathetic; but

she couldn't be allowed to go on with her mischief, bungling as

it was, all the same. Nor could she be allowed to go back and

talk about any of this, and I was by no means sure she had

brains enough to see that.

 

"Una?" I said sharply. "Una of dark? You look at me!"

 

"No! You'll turn me into something horrible if I do!"

 

Turn her into something horrible? What did she think she'd

done to herself?

 

"Look at me, you foolish, silly woman!"

 

She lifted her head then, and her eyes were like two huge flat

fish in her white face. Most unappealing.

 

"Una, what did you think you were trying to do?" I asked

her "Maybe if you tell me that I'll be able to see my way."

 

To my astonishment, she raised her hands beside her face,

spread her fingers wide as they would stretch, and recited

straight at me—

 

ASS.

 

BEDPOLE.

CHAMBERPOT-

DEAD OF THE NIGHT.

EGG-ROTTEN BIRD DUNG.

FISTFULS OF MEALY WORMS.

NIGHT OF THE DEAD.

POTCHAMBER.

POLEBED.

ASS.

 

I was flabbergasted. As nasty a Charm as I'd Tieard

anywhere, and bold as brass about it, terrified as she was. But

no elegance. No style! And put together all cockeyed to boot.

 

176 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

I'd seen six-year-old girls do a sight better than that, and

without anything nasty in it to help them along, either;

 

I said:

 

AIR.

 

BALSAM.

 

CINNAMON.

 

DENY ME NAUGHT.

 

EVERMORE WEEPING.

 

FOLLOW ME EVERYWHERE.

 

EVERMORE SLEEPING.

 

DOUBLE MY WORTH.

 

CINDERMAN.

 

BELLTONGUE.

 

AIR.

 

"And," I added, "if you'd like to go on to twelve syllables

and back, in twelve sets of rhymed pairs, I'm ready. But do

hurry, Una of Clark, because I intend to be in my bed before

breakfast."

 

By that dme, when she began to sob hopelessly, choking and

sputtering, I wasn't surprised. I wondered what her life was

going to be like, from this night on; she wasn't built for a

burden like this, and her husband had chosen a poor instrument

to break to his evil.

 

"See where foolish love will lead you?" I said to her

sorrowfully. "See where it will lead you, woman? bitofoUy,

into shame, into disgrace. . . . Why didn't you tell him to do

his own dirt? What would your father and mother say of you,

Una of Clark, if they only knew what you have done?'*

 

She only blubbered harder. and I was sick of watching her

 

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," I said, "and I suggest

you listen to me more carefully than you've been listening to

your Reverend these last few years. For I'm not playing with

you, and 1 warn you—I'm no Granny, to just put toads in your

bed and rashes under your armpits and keep your cakes from

rising. You do understand that?"

 

"What are you, really?" she hissed at me. "What are you?"

 

"Nor am I a witch," I went right on, ignoring that, "for if I

were, you would have been at the bottom of that ocean long

before mis, and you know it very well. If I were a witch, Una

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

177

 

of Clark, I'd set a Substitution Transformation. And another

woman that looked just like you and talked just like you and

walked just like you and moaned in the loving arms of Gabriel

Laddereane Traveller just like you would go home from here—

but she would not be you. You would be feeding the fishes and

she would be only a Substitute, and nobody would ever know."'

 

"Go ahead, then—you can do it, why don't you, and leave

off torturing me?"

 

"Because I'm not a witch, I'm a law-abiding well-brought-

up woman, that you've caused a lot more trouble than there's

any excusing you for, that's why!"

 

"Then what are you going to do?" she whispered. "Make

me ugly? Make me crippled? Oh dear saints. Responsible of

Brightwater, what is it going to be?"

 

"Your mind is a cesspool," I said, staring at her "A

cesspool. Make you ugly and cripple you indeed!"

 

"Tell me!"

 

"What I am going to do is set a Binding Spell on you," I

said. "That and nothing more. Seven years, Una of Clark,

you'll say no word about this night or about what you know of

roe, or about what you've done. And seven years, you'll do no

magic you haven't earned the rank for You not even a Granny

or any chance of ever being one. ... I'll bind you seven

years; and then you're free to do your worst."

 

She went limp against the rock; I was glad mere wasn't any

place for her to fall to.

 

"The reason I'm stopping there," I went on as I made my

preparations, "is because I am nof a witch! And because I have

no desire to go beyond what's decent. You're a woman—and

you're a Clark by birth. I am willing to wager that in seven

years you'll achieve enough wisdom, that when the Spell is at

its end you'll guard your own mouth out of shame and simple

decency. I'm willing to take' a chance on that."

 

And if I was wrong. I could bind her then again, of course;

 

I'd be on the watch.

 

She just huddled there and bawled, every other word some

stuff about what she was going to tell Gabriel Laddereane,

more shame to her, and I got on with my work.

 

It took me only a little while, and then I Moved her carefully

back to Castle Clark, to the bed where—might could be—her

 

178 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

husband had not yet even missed her If he had, that was her

problem, and it was up to her to figure out some way to get out

of it. I'd done all I was willing to do, and more than she

deserved, out of regard for her Family, and pity for her folly,

and out of the kind of distaste that comes from dealing with an

enemy that's really no match for your skills. There's a game

called shooting ducks in a barrel—I don't play it. Never have.

 

And before the servingmaid tapped on my door with my pot

of morning tea, everything was put away. Every sign of the

wards and the pentacles swept deal; not a speck of sand from

my shammybags on the Airy floor And I lay there in my plain

nightgown with the covers tucked up around my chin, and a

smile on my face that suited my pose, like I'd not lifted a finger

all that weary night.

 

Now I could go home.

 

CHAPTER!?

 

I DON'T MIND saying that it went well, though it's bragging, for

it's no more than the plain truth. My leavetaking may have had

an unseemly abruptness due to my hightailing out of there

before my common sense (or somebody else's) could stop me,

but my homecoming went off as slick as I could possibly have

desired it. And the rough edges I well knew were there didn't

so much as show their shadows on the surface that was

available for examination to others.

 

I timed it so as to fly in to Castle Brightwater right at the end

of breakfast on a sunny April morning. And the last ten miles I

rode Sterling along me winding roads of the Kingdom,

between the hedges of butter-yellow forsythia newly in bloom,

and the fields of fruit trees covered with blossoms thick as

snowflakes. Every blade of grass and every new leaf and bud

was that perfect green mat comes only in April, and that was

what the Brightwater green was meant to stand for (and never

quite matched). And although the people didn't cheer me—we

didn't hold with such display on Marktwain, and hadn't for

hundreds of years—I knew they were glad to see me coming

back. I knew by the smiles on their faces and the fact that they

 

179

 

180 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

were out in the fields working in their Sundy best, and this not

Sundy. I kept my own face straight and pretended not to

notice ... in fact, I worked at really not noticing, seeing as

how if I arrived at Castle Brightwater puffed up with anything

that a sharp eye could spot as pride the family would be on me

like carrion birds on a new-dead squawkci; and I'd come out of

it blistered.

 

Nobody came out to meet me, which was reasonable

enough. I wasn't company here, I lived here, and I had to

whistle for a stablemaid to come take Sterling off my hands.

Then I stopped and indulged myself, just for a minute, since

nobody seemed to be looking. I never would of imagined I

could be so glad just to be home.

 

Ours was the first Castle built, and the Castle proper is not

one of the shelters the Twelve Families set up when The Ship

landed and they were new to this planet. The one the

Brightwaters built was made of logs that can't match Tmaseeh

iroowood even halfway for durability, but have kept well

enough under cover, and it sits within the front courtyard of the

Castle as a constant reminder—lest we should ever forget—of

our humble beginnings here. It had seven bedrooms round a

common room; and forty-four Brightwaters—men, women,

and children, and one fine hound that had quickly died—slept

and ate and passed their very limited leisure time under that

wooden roof.

 

When I was at home I hardly saw the loghouse, I was so

accustomed to it, but it was new to my eyes this morning, and I

let them linger on it, glad it was still there for the children of all

the Twelve Families to visit and play at living in.

 

And then I turned my eyes to the Castle itself, and it

pleasured me, too. It was perfectly square, and a modest but

satisfactory two stories high. It had twelve towers; one at each

cornei, one at the center of each wall, one on either side of the

front doors, and two extra in the front wall for fancy. The

Brightwater flag flew from every one of the tower roofs, and I

noticed that someone had polished the brass weathervane (an

Old Earth rooster that was one of the few material things

granted space in The Ship that could only be called a luxury),

and that it turned briskly in the wind at the top of the tower

spire where it had been fastened more than nine hundred years

ago. I smiled; they'd claim that was done for spring cleaning,

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             fSl

 

but I knew better—we were a good week away from spring

cleaning time. It was done to welcome me home.

 

I knocked at the Castle doors, and they slid apart without a

sound to let me in; someone had oiled them, too, for there'd

been a grating scrape to them when I rode out in February. The

Castle Housekeeper stood there casually watching three serv-

ingmaids polish the same banister over and over again, and she

looked up as I stepped under the doorbeam and pretended to be

surprised.

 

"Well, if it's not Miss Responsible," she said. "Good

morning to you, miss'"

 

"Good morning to you. Sally of Lewis," I said, and I

greeted each of the servingmaids by name as well, including

the one whose apron had a grease spot, for which there was no

excuse in my front Hall. "I'm home," I said.

 

"We see you are," said Sally of Lewis. "And we're glad—

it's been a long time."

 

It had been that; nearly eight weeks, and at that I'd made a

bit better time than I'd deserved.

 

"The Family's still having breakfast, miss," said Sally of

Lewis. "They're just finishing the coffee and there's still hot

combread on me table. The cooks happened to make extra this

morning."

 

It was amazing. I found mat not only was I anxious for some

Brightwater combread and butter, I was even anxious to see my

mother I believed I was even anxious to see Emmalyn of

dark, and I couldn't remember that idea ever passing through

my mind before. I had cleariy been away too long and was

.going weak in the head.

 

I went down the corridors to the room at the back of the

Castle where we liked to have breakfast and supper both. It

looked out on a wide field mat was a riot of wildfiowers in the

spring and a riot of scarlet and golden leaves in the fall, and

through which there flowed a quite respectable creek that you

could catch glimpses of from the windows- That creek had

been First Granny's only condition for choice of the Brightwa-

ter land. "I don't care what else it has or hasn't," she'd

declared. "Volcanoes, canyons, banana trees, swamps, any-

thing you fancy—but it has got to have a creek or I won't build

even an ourtmilding on it. Keep that in mind!"

 

"Well, Responsible," they all said as I went in the door And

 

182 SUZ&TTE HADEN ELGIN

 

various other equally original greetings. Gnumy Hazelbide

settled for "Decided to come back, did you?" and a full-scale

Granny glare.

 

"Sit down. Responsible," said Patience of dark, "and help

yourself to the combread. Unless you want to change first, of

course,"

 

I looked down at myself, at the black velvet corselet and the

silver-and-gold embroidery and the scariet leather gloves, and

all the rest of it. "No," I said, "I'll have my breakfast first.

And then I plan to take all this off, and bum it."

 

"You'U 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 dark 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 combread and the buttel; "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.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

183

 

"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, Grandmothel," I reminded

hei; "they went with the choice of measure to be taken, all duly

 

184 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

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 dark 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 guestchambci; 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.

 

m 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 34th there'd

 

 

 

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

S8S

 

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

mat, 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, 1 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 ovci; we all walked down to the churchyard.

 

Vine of Motley and Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th 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 4th, 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

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

186

 

man with his Formalisms & Transformations, and he made no

fuss whatever over bringing Terrence Merryweather

McDaniels the 6th 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 mat 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 me

land we still had to give away was almost gone—this was a

time that justified parting with it, even beyond me 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

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

 

187

 

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—carefully, under the sharp eyes of Granny Hazel-

bide—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

mat 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.

 

]88

 

SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

"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.

 

END OF BOOK ONE

 

WHY WE ARE HERE

 

(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

 

1S9

 

190 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

done for the pleasure of hurting. And the things that were done

in those days, we are told, one human hand against anotnei; 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

togethei. 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.

 

HOW WE CAME TO LOSE THE BIBLE

 

(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

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             191

 

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—/itf/ as they saw it!—and The Ship went

crippled into what we now call the Outward Deeps.

* * *

 

SUZETTEHADEN ELGIN

 

192

 

Well, what's meant to be will be, they say, and that appears

to be true. For even as the water closed over the dying Ship and

First Granny told the children to stop their caterwauling and

prepare to meet their Maker with their mouths shut and their

eyes open, a wonderful thing happened. Just a wonderful

thing!

 

Forty of them there were, shaped like the great whales of

Earth, but that their tails split three ways instead of two. And

their color was the royal purple, the purple of majestic

sovereignty.

 

They met The Ship as it fell, rising up in a circle as it sank

toward the bottom. And they bore it up on their backs as easy

as a man packs a baby, and laid it out in the shallows, where the

Captain and the crew could get The Ship's door open, and

everybody could wade right out of there to safety.

 

They were the Wise Ones, so named by First Granny; and it

may be that they live there still in the Outward Deeps. Nobody

knows, and nobody needs to know.

 

And it was during that glad wading to shore just before First

Granny set her foot on the land and cried, "Well, the

Kingdom's come at last. praise be!" that the ancient holy

book—its name was BIBLE—was lost to the Twelve Families.

First Granny, she thought the Captain had it, it seems. And the

Captain, he thought First Granny had it. Naturally. And there

was a child of three that claimed he'd seen a Wise One swallow

it—waterproof, radiationproof, fireproof, crashproof box and

all. And for all we know that may be true. For sure it's never

washed up on any coast of Ozark, all these many hundred

years.

 

"Botheration," First Granny said when they realized it was

gone. And the Captain allowed as how he was deeply sorry.

 

"Well," said First Granny, "I suppose we'll just have to

Make Do."

 

And so we have, ever since.

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms          193

THE FLYING DULCIMER

 

(A TEACHING STORY)

 

A very long time ago, and much further away than you might

think, when the Twelve Families were preparing to leave Earth,

there was a young woman named Rozasharn- Now Rozasham

was a Purdy by birth, and it happened that the Purdys had a fine

and famous dulcimer It was of the sweetest fruitwood, and it

was cut slim-waisted and curled, and it had inlays of mother-

of-pearl in the shapes of hearts and roses and twining vines and

little mourning doves. It was purely beautiful, and when they

told Rozasharn it had to be left behind, she was outraged. Just

o»Jraged!

 

"Rozasharn," said First Granny, "we have on The Ship two

guitars, two banjos, two dulcimers, two autoharps, two

fiddles—which is one too many, if you ask me—two mouth-

harps, two mandolins, and a dobro. Each was chosen because

die man or woman that played it was the finest player we knew,

and it will serve to while away the time, and to be a model for

building more such when we land. But that's enough." And

men she gave Rozasham a curied-lip look and said, "You can't

even cany a tune, Rozasham, let alone play that dulcimer!"

 

Rozasham yes-ma'amed, but she went away bitter and she

wasn't about to give in. The Purdy dulcimer was the prettiest

she'd ever seen, and she intended it to go on The Ship no

matter what First Granny said.

 

So Rozasharn began to plan her magic. There was a Spell of

Invisibility, of course, but that took a lot of work to get going

and even more to maintain, and Rozasharn wasn't sure she was

up to it. A Spell of Distraction, on the other hand, was a

simpler mattel; and she decided to set one of those on the

dulcimer, to make it appear it was only her shawl. Rozasham

went through her motions and cast the Spell, and found herself

a bit embarrassed; she had in her hands a truly splendid shawl,

covered with hearts and roses and twining vines and little

mourning doves, and that was never going to get past First

Granny. "Back up a bit, Rozasharn," Rozasham told herself,

"or you'll come out of this blistered."

 

What she settled on at last was three Spells. The first was to

 

194 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN

 

turn the dulcimer itself plain, and that one worked all right.

The second was to make the plain dulcimer appear to be a

shawl, and that one seemed to be in good shape to the eye,

although it was uncomfortable to her shoulders, since she

could still feel the pegs and the strings and the edges of the

wood; but she considered it her family duty to put up with it.

And the third was to take off the other two, and she tried that

out, and it worked. Nothing was left but to calculate the weight

she had to leave behind so no one would suspect, and that

meant leaving buried in her back yard two pairs of shoes and a

half-slip she'd never liked anyway, and she made it onto The

Ship right under First Granny's nose, the dulcimer draped

round her shoulders and looking for all the world like a plain

old shawl- Just like it!

 

Well, she would of been all right, would Rozasham—if

she'd had a little self-control. But when landing time came she

just could not resist letting everyone know the trick she'd

played, and as she stepped onto the land of Ozark she cast the

third Spell and stood there before everybody, holding the

famous Purdy dulcimer and looking like butter wouldn't melt

in her mouth.

 

First Granny looked her up and she looked her down, and

then she looked her up once more to be certain her eyes didn't

deceive hei; but she said nary a word. The Captain looked

sorrowful, but he didn't speak either And as the days passed,

and the Purdy s settled in and built themselves a homeplace,

Rozasham began to feel comfortable.

 

And then came the morning when the last stick was in place,

and the last curtain hung, and the last dish on die shelf, and

Rozasharn looked out her front door and there stood First

Granny with Macon Desirard Guthrie the 3rd at her right hand;

 

and young Rozasham's heart very nearly stopped. Macon

Desirard Guthrie was no common person, but a man skilled in

Formalisms & Transformations. If mere was a more handy

Magician on Ozark, Rozasham didn't know who it might be.

 

"Stand aside, Rozasham," said First Granny, "and let us

come in."

 

And Rozasham did that, most promptly, and there she stood

while Macon Desirard Guthrie went through his Structural

Descriptions and his Structural Indexes and his Rigorous

Specifications of Coreference and his Global Constraints and a

 

Twelve Fair Kingdoms             195

 

lot of other things of that kind and caliber; and when he got

through there were just three things that a person could do with

die Purdys* fancy dulcimer

 

You could hang it on a peg on the back wall of a dark closet.

You could put it in the bottom of a tight and heavy sack long

 

enough to cany it to some similar peg, should you be required

 

to move.

 

And you could dust if off, from time to time.

 

If you tried to do anything else widi that dulcirnei; such as

showing it off to the neighbors, or playing a tune, or even

moving it off its peg to peek at it your own self, it came flying

out at you like a hunting hawk; and starting in the center of die

room it would swoop in bigger and bigger circles, faster and

faster . . . Wheeeyeeew! Let me tell you, all you could do

then was dirow yourself on die flooi. roll under whatever you'd

fit undei; and pray it would miss you.

 

And nobody could put that diing back on its peg but another

Magician trained in Formalisms & Transformations.

 

And diat is the tale of die Hying Dulcimer of Casde Purdy,

and has someming to tell us about being proud of things.

 

The jump-rope rhyme goes like mis;

 

The Purdys have a dulcirnei;

 

it cannot make a sound;

 

and if you take it off its peg,

it flies around and round!

 

It'll hit you in die back of die neck,

as it goes flying by'

 

It'll hit you in die crook of die back,

it'll poke you in die eye!

 

It'll chase you round die bedroom,

it'll chase you down die stairs'

And all 'cause of Rozasham of Purdy

as tried to put on airs!