The Ozark trilogy

by Suzette Haden Elgin

  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. Whatever 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 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 her. 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 nastier; 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 of Guthrie. 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 sorry 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.

  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 pairs of it came out right aerodynamically. Aerodynamicadamnably. 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, surrendering. 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 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 the 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 fly 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 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 train
ed, 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 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

  ... 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 stup
id, 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?”