Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee (17 page)

“Granny,” Lincoln Parradyne objected, “you’re frightening the women.”

“Am I? Am I? I should surely
hope
I am! They know their duties in this world, and well they know what they’ve done-oh, Dorothy of Smith, don’t you shake your head at me, your crown’ll fall off; and I raised you my own self, don’t you
dare
tell me you don’t know what you’ve done. Shame on you!”

“Granny, please listen for-”

“Silence!” she thundered, and struck the floor with her cane so hard she dented the planking; and they made not another sound. “You think you’re a sovereign Kingdom now, do you, with a royal court, and a King and a Queen, and a Crown Prince and a Royal Princess and a passel of Royal Whatnots and Flumdiddles , . , and all of it blamed on First Granny, bless her soul as is whirling somewhere, I can tell you! And here you sit, on the southwest corner of Oklahomah, sharing this continent with Castle Clark and Castle Airy, neither one of which’d give you a crossclover leaf to play at casting Spells with. It’s many a long and weary mile to Kintucky and Tinaseeh, clear across the Ocean of Storms-and there’ll be no help for you from either Traveller or Wommack, they’ll have their hands full and running over with their own troubles.”

“Granny Gableframe,” put in Marygold of Purdy-and then waited a minute, till she was sure the Granny planned on letting her speak-”that makes no special difference. It’s no more than a step over to Arkansaw, no more than half a day’s flight by Mule from here to Castle Guthrie. We’ve near neighbors, and near friends.”

Granny Gableframe sniffed. “Marygold, you pay as much attention to what goes on in this world as the squawkers do, you know that? You needn’t expect help from Castle Guthrie, nor yet the Farsons . . . Might could be the Purdys would be willing to help, seeing as you’re their close kin, but they won’t dare. Guthrie and Farson are feuding, and Purdy’s caught in the middle playing looby-loo and trying to keep their skirts out of both puddles. They’ll have nothing to spare for you for a very long time. I think you’re about to find yourselves mighty lonely, you Smiths-thank the Gates, Lincoln Parradyne, I am a Brightwater by birth and not one of this line. Envy me that, don’t you?”

“Granny Gableframe,” said Delldon Mallard, brushing ginger crumbs off his smocked velvet trousers, “I know you feel obligated to granny at us, and I ... uh ... must admit you’re doing a right fine job of it. But there are things you don’t know-things we
men
know. There’s nothing that the other Kingdoms ever did for us we can’t do for ourselves, and I’m not all that willing to humor you any longer in your tirade at these innocent women. It’s not . . . uh . .
          
. called for.”

His brothers the Dukes allowed as how they agreed, and the women looked at the floor, and the Granny just looked amazed. “Part of that, the part about humoring me, I’ll ignore,” she said disgustedly. “It’s not worth my time. But I suggest you think again about your claims to being so sufficient.
True
-you’d be hard put to it to remember calling on most of the other Families for anything. You’ve never had to. Never been any need, so long as youall had Castle Brightwater for a sugartit to do everything for every last soul on Ozark-all the rest of you, you’ve just hung there, hundreds of years now. You’ve forgotten all about what Brightwater’s been doing for you, same way you don’t think on what the sun does for you, nor the air . . . Well, Brightwater’ll do for you
no
more, pretty ladies, fine gentlemen.
No
more!”

Lincoln Parradyne could see by their faces that not a one of them knew what the old woman was talking about. Possibly Dorothy might of had a glimmer, since as eldest daughter she had more to do with the Castle accounts than any of the others, but she was so wrapped up in her own hysterics he doubted she’d even heard the Granny’s words, much less understood them.

“Granny Gableframe,” he said at last, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms, “you’re wasting your breath on this group. They don’t follow you, my dear lady.”

“I am not your dear lady, nor never was, nor never will be,” she informed him, and he begged her pardon.

“Nevertheless,” he said calmly, “
I
am here. And what this Castle can’t obtain by trade agreements from the other Kingdoms, I can produce for them myself.”

The Granny stared at him, flabbergasted, and shook her head slowly from side to side.

“The
depths
of your ignorance!” she breathed. “It’s a bottomless well, a pit with no end to it! You see yourself, do you, using Insertion Transformations to feed and clothe and heal and otherwise provide for the needs of every man jack of this Kingdom? Is that what you mean, Lincoln Parradyne Smith? You that it takes half an hour’s preparation and an hour’s restup to come up with one little old peachapple for a demonstration, when the Tutors call you in to show the little boys what a Magician of Rank can do? You see yourself materializing tons of grain, and bales of herbs, and . . .”

Her voice trailed off into silence, and then what was clearly a snicker, and Lincoln Parradyne felt a small twinge of uneasiness. It was true, he’d be busy, but he’d had no doubts of his ability to handle whatever the ordinary economic processes wouldn’t be adequate for, no doubts of his ability to bring the Kingdom through this brief period of adjustment. And he had no doubts now, really. It was just the way the Granny was looking at him, as if she knew something he didn’t and had no mind to tell him what it was. He turned his back on her and stared at a painting of some ancient Smith, hanging on the wall; he’d had all he chose to take from the old crone. Let her rail and rant at the rest of them; he was through listening.

She had one question left for him, however, and she didn’t mind directing it to his backside.

“Think on
this,
Lincoln Parradyne!” she said. “You plan on taking a great deal out; what do you plan on putting back
in
?”

Dorothy stopped her blubbering for a moment, and spoke to her father.

“Daddy,” she started out, and then when he cleared his throat and frowned at her, she began again with,
“Sire, I
mean to say-”

The Granny clapped her hands. “Sire, is it?” she cackled. “Sire? Such as the goats have, and the Mules? And you plan on addressing your mother as `Dam,’ do you?”

Dorothy could be stubborn, too; she ignored Granny Gableframe and put her question. “Sire,” she said doggedly, “you heard what Granny Gableframe just said to Lincoln Parradyne. I would like to know what it
meant.”

The Granny snorted.

“While he tells you, Your . . . uh . . . Highness,” she said, “while he tells you all the marvelous things the
men
know that are going to be such a comfort to you, I’ll be getting my Mule saddled and bridled-I’ve earned that much for my services here-and I’ll be on my way. I don’t want ary thing else from this Family, thank you very much-give it away, or burn it, or better still, keep it. When you run out of everything you can divide it up among you.”

Marygold’s voice was not much more than a whisper, but it was honest. “Granny,” she said, “please don’t you leave us. If I’d of known it would end this way, you leaving us, I never would of gone along with it all.”

“And if you’d suspected the sun came up in the morning, no doubt you’d of pulled your windowblinds, Marygold of Purdy,” answered the Granny. “What precisely did you
expect
I would do after this shameful carryon?”

“Well, the men were sure you’d see it their way after it was all over; even Lincoln Parradyne there, with his back to us all like he’d had nothing to do with it, he was positive you’d be pleased when you saw us be a true Kingdom, the way First Granny wanted it done. . .”

And Delldon Mallard ran it past her one more time, all about what First Granny had said, and how it had been a Proper Naming, and how now that the Kingdom was taking that road it couldn’t help but prosper. “And so you see, dear Granny Gableframe,” he wound it up finally, “there’s no call for you to be going anywhere, and no call for you to be breaking Marygold’s heart the cruel way you’re doing. Your place is here, with your Liege Lord.”

Lincoln Parradyne turned around at that; if the Granny burst, which seemed to him likely, he didn’t want to miss it. And he bit his lip to keep his face straight; it wouldn’t do to undermine the Liege Lord’s confidence by laughing at it. It was going to be useful, having a King with no more sense than Delldon Mallard, but it was going to have its embarrassing moments.

“My place,” said the Granny in a voice of silver needles and icicles, “is at Brightwater. And that’s where I’m going, this minute.”

The King leaped to his feet and struck the table with his scepter, making all the dishes rattle and dance and splattering coffee far and wide.

“You’ll do no such thing!” he roared. “It’s treason! I
forbid
it!” The Granny looked him up and she looked him down, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes or her ears, and Lincoln Parradyne rather expected she couldn’t, when it came right down to it. He wondered when anybody had last forbidden Granny Gableframe, that was Bethany of Brightwater by birth, and a McDaniels by marriage, any least thing she chose to do. Eighty years or more, he supposed; he much doubted her husband had dared cross her, even before she was a Granny.

She didn’t bother replying to the King’s forbidding; she turned her back and walked right out the door into the hall, down the corridor and out the side doors that led to the stables, and they all heard the braying of the Mules not five minutes later. It seemed to Lincoln Parradyne that it would not be far off to say that the Mules were laughing.

After she was gone, he found himself facing a solid wall of glares; and a man that had been only one of the Smith brothers yesterday morning but was a Duke Hazeltine Everett of Castle Smith this afternoon stated it for all of them.

“You told us,” said the Duke, “that the Granny would get over it. You allowed as how she’d be
mad
-and that’s reasonable-but you never told us she’d leave.”

The Magician of Rank bowed elegantly. “My apologies, Your Grace. The Granny has proved me mistaken-and given her temper, I’d say we’re well rid of her.”

“Would you, now?” The Duke did not seem soothed. He nodded toward his wife’s swollen stomach, and asked: “What do you propose for us to do, Lincoln Parradyne, if my Duchess has a girlbaby? Who’s to name her, now the Granny’s gone? I never heard that anybody but the Grannys knew the ways of safe and Proper Naming, and Granny Gableframe was the one and the only Granny in this Kingdom!”

“I can’t see either Castle Airy or Castle Clark,” said his wife, her hands folded protectively over the shape of the possible girlbaby, “seeing fit to loan us a Granny when my time comes.”

“Well, I can,” said Lincoln Parradyne. “Charity of Airy would send aid to the Devil himself if she thought he needed it. Put it out of your mind, and should it prove necessary we’ll send to her for help.”

“I don’t much like being beholden to Airy,” said the King. “They’re Confederationists to the last . . . uh . . . servingmaid, over there.”

“You like the idea of an Improper Naming any better?” demanded his brother Hazeltine. “You like the idea of a curse such as hangs over Castle Wommack, and I don’t know how many generations since the babe there was Improperly Named?”

“Allow me to point out,” said the Magician of Rank, “now that you’ve brought it up, that that particular error was made by a Granny. Are you quite sure, all of you, that the rule which says only Grannys can name female children is anything more than a superstition?”

Too far, too fast. Their shocked gasps and the thud of his Liege Lord’s scepter falling right out of his hand onto the floor told him that.

“That Granny,” said Dorothy of Smith,
“that
Granny, she was at her very first Naming, and it’s known she was poorly at the time besides, with a woman in the Castle using illegal Spells against her and not caught until nearly two weeks after it all happened! Everybody knows that!”

“All the same,” he shot back at her, “the Wommack Curse has lasted over four hundred years. The Granny’s circumstances at the time do not seem to have been taken into consideration by the Powers-which makes very little sense. If even you can see that the Granny ought to have had allowances made for her, it does seem that the Holy One could have mustered up the same amount of wisdom!”

“Oh, Lincoln Parradyne,” said the Duchess Linden of Lewis, wife of Duke Whitney Crawford Smith and undoubtedly the most capable of the women there-which was saying very little-”you walk a narrow and perilous line!”

Which he most assuredly did. He was aware of that, and the beads of sweat stood clammy on his forehead. But he’d risked far too much to see it all go sour now for lack of courage to stay on that same dangerous line she referred to; it was the path he’d chosen, and the point of no return had gone by some time ago-he had no intentions of looking back. The biggest problem in this Castle for the next few months, he was willing to wager, would be morale; as the Granny had said, the Smiths were going to be mighty lonely in their pomp. And it was by no means certain that the people of this Kingdom, that for quite a while would find their new rulers as ridiculous as Granny Gableframe had, could be easily controlled. It would not take many crowds of laughing townspeople and farmers to drive the Royal Family to a shaky condition.

He wanted that, of course; it was his intention that
he
should rule this Kingdom, and that required a shaky King and a vaporish Queen, and all the rest to match, and the Gates knew he had promising raw material to work with. But they had to be able to at least put up some kind of front.