The Ozark trilogy (10 page)

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 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 hour. 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
I
flew, quite independently, off her back, was that at 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 embroidered Guthrie crest, not to mention more clouds of Guthrie hair, 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 of Brightwater,” 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 floor; 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 becoming 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 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 Brightwater; 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
what
soever,” 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

 
... and then down and up, and then I looked him over once more in both directions.

“Twelve roses,” I said, “twelve sugarpies, and twelve turtles! You are for
sure
the comeliest man ever my eyes have had the pleasure to behold, my 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 her, 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 grandmother; 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 under, or I’ll call him back.”

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.

“Grandmother;” 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 hour, young lady. With your ribs set right, of course.”

“Not possible,” I said firmly.

“Responsible,” she said, “you exasperate me!”

“Myrrh 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 the 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 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 Grandmother;” 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
latter
is the truth of it!”