Ozark Fantasy - Twelve Fair Kingdoms Part 4

few people here down with fevers... nothing serious, but fevers all the same."

"I was thinking more on the order of a plague," I said flatly.

More silence.

"All right," I said, "is there marrying trouble there? Or birthing

trouble? Or naming trouble?"

"If there is," said Granny Golightly, "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.

"Trite, Granny Golightly," 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 offended. 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 dosuspect them, since you've never done such a thing before- you'll put their backs up," said Nathan Terfelix. "They're stiff-necked and over proud. 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 embarra.s.sed, 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 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, I 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 Bright.w.a.ter 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 n.o.body here is against the Jubilee!" said Zoe, looking both outraged and puzzled.

"Of course not" I agreed, "but do think, Zoe of Clark!"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 Golightly, 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 Clark were none of my business, as long as they remained allies of Bright.w.a.ter."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 fas.h.i.+on, or it is not a symbol. A Quest is one thing, done under rigid constraints, one step at a time-"

"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 Bright.w.a.ter gallivanting around the planet uninvited and unexplained. That would be something quite different, Zoe. Bright.w.a.ter 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 Clark daughters pa.s.sed along the babies in their laps to the staff to be carried in. High time, too, to mymind.

"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 Bright.w.a.ter?" he asked; and there was no banter in his voice. "I take no insult on the part of my wife-the Farsons 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 Bright.w.a.ter, 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 Farsons... all of them want the Confederation 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 its own self the rest of the time. Every meeting, Sharon of Clark, the Travellers move to go back to that one day a year, the Farsons second that, it goes to a vote, and it goes down seven to five or eight to four, depending. Everymeeting... 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 Clark 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 Confederation 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, and I gave the Granny credit for that; Sharon of Clark 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 Farson 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 Clark 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 Bright.w.a.ter," said Granny Go-lightly then, "and look in my eyes when you speak. Do you suspect treason here?"

I 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 sc.r.a.p of paper from Castle Smith, did I suspect it on all of Oklahomah. It was my idea that I'd stop quickly at each of the three Castles here, where I knew the loyalty to the Confederation 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 I 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 Bright.w.a.ter 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 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 pa.s.sing year. I can just see him thinking himself fit to be an exception and sitting around his supper table bragging that he's shown Bright.w.a.ter a thing or two! But he's a poor, 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 pa.s.s the Smiths by. Or I'll say the rest, to convince you-and I know a pa.s.sel more, young woman."

I was sure she did, and it was clear that she was prepared to lay it all