Ozark Trilogy 1: Twelve Fair Kingdoms (17 page)

“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 17
^th
, twelve years old and already with a rigid look to him like his father, 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 servingmaid 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.

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 the 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 squawker but dirtier—say, a carrion bird. Or it could go to
things
, and that left a wide latitude of choices.

“Responsible of Brightwater.” 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 14
^th
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 in the middle of a Solemn Service. And I am sorry 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 possibility—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 shoulder.

“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 Brightwater.”

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 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 then, 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 life. 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 from what 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.”

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 I’ll 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 a
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 satisfactory, 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 Brightwater. 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 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 Brightwater,” said the Master of Castle Lewis, in a voice like the thud of an iron bell-clappel; “if every last turntail Kingdom on this
planet
votes against us, Castle Lewis stands for the Confederation. We’ll be at the Jubilee, never you fear. And our votes where they belong.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Boy Salem. Unfortunately. An Attendant 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 her, 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
over
do it or I’d offend my host. It was a neat little problem, and the kind of thing I liked to ponder over, a good way to begin a morning.

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 horn, and allowed him to blow one long note at every third corner.

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, or for that matter; Eben Nathaniel Lewis the 17
^th
.

“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.