THE NEXT DAY I was able to be a little more sensible. Leaving, I still wore my spectacular traveling outfit, but the minute I was well over the water and out of sight of the fishing boats I brought Sterling to a full stop in midair and changed into something that didn’t make what was already misery doubly so. Balancing on Muleback for that kind of thing takes practice, and properly fastened straps and backups, but I was more than up to it—I’d had lots of practice. Mostly it requires pretending you are flat on the ground, while at the same time not exactly forgetting that it’s a good ways down.
I took the Ocean of Remembrances at a leisurely pace; it was a three-day flight from Castle McDaniels to the first landfall on Oklahomah, and since I’d done Castle to coast in about fourteen minutes flat I had time to make up over the ocean.
I cut the Mule back to half her regulation speed, and I balanced a very small dulcimer—all I’d been able to fit in my saddlebags, but not all that bad—over her broad neck, and I sang my way dry through a steady wind and plenty of rain by way of a Weather Transformation that it was fully illegal for me to know. Sterling disliked the dulcimer, and she probably disliked my voice even more; it was a good deal like her own. Just as I was never called upon to dance at parties, I was never called upon to sing (anywhere), and I reveled in my opportunity here at a height where there was nobody to clap hands over their ears and beg me to leave off tormenting them. I do know a lot of ballads, not to mention every hymn in the hymnal, and I enjoyed myself tremendously.
There is some inconvenience, of course, to making any lengthy ocean voyage by Mule, our oceans being almost completely empty of islands or reefs. A person could get through one day without too much hassle, provided you neither ate nor drank the day before nor during the flight itself. But once you went beyond that single day the inevitable happened, and considerable gymnastics were required of both rider and Mule. (This was not the least of the reasons why Ozarkers for the most part went by boat from continent to continent, and it made it unlikely that I would meet any other citizen on Muleback as I went along, which was all to the good in the interests of modesty.) Only for the sake of a symbol would anything so unhandy be undertaken by a reasonable person, and few had that sort of symbol to deal with.
I had ample time to think about the distances and times of flight that would be expected of me, when my throat and my fingers got tired. Brightwater to McDaniels, one very long day, and then three more to Oklahomah. Three days roughly for each leg of the triangle from Castle Clark to Castle Smith, Castle Smith to Castle Airy, and back again almost to Clark for the best take-off across the channel to Arkansaw—that a day’s flight only, and a short day. Three days’ travel for Castles Farson and Guthrie, a day’s flight to Mizzurah; two days there and two to Castle Puroy Four days across the Ocean of Storms to Kintucky, provided the ocean didn’t do too much living up to its name and force me to put in an extra day for the benefit of the population. Ten days from Kintucky to Tinaseeh. Then the longest leg over water ... the McDaniels children had not been too far off in their estimate of the flight time from Tinaseeh’s southeast tip back to Oklahomah; it was a good five days, even with fair weather and a tailwind. And then four days home. Fifteen days, even cutting it very close, I’d be expected to spend flying over water. And far more than that for the land distances, with stops at the same intervals expected of anyone else.
Since I was all alone I indulged myself, and turned the air blue to match the stripe between Sterling’s ears, which were still laid back in protest against my concert. I could of done the whole trip, the actual flying time, in about an hour total, just the amount of realtime involved in take-offs and landings, and there was no time to spare with the Jubilee coming in May, and February almost over. But whereas a Magician of Rank could have done it that way and nobody would of done more than maybe fuss mildly about people that felt obliged to show off, having a woman do such a thing would cause about the same amount of commotion as a good-sized groundquake. And the damage would not be repairable by stone and timber: I could shave an hour here and half an hour there and get away with it, but not much more, not without causing more trouble than I could conveniently put an end to. The word would be well out by now, and people in the towns and farms—and on the water along me coasts, too—would be expecting to look up and see me fly by all in emerald and black and gold and silver and scarlet, at reasonable points of time. Aeronautically reasonable.
I could think of no cover story that would get me out of any of that time, except that (the Twelve Comers be praised) I would be able to do most of my make-up time in the Wilderness instead of over the oceans. The likelihood of anybody observing me in mid-ocean once I got away from the coasts was too small to be worth considering; I would do a decorous few miles in sight of land, SNAP to a suitably remote spot in the nearest Wilderness, and camp there to wait out the time it “should” of taken me to fly that far. Enough was enough. Muleflight was fine for formal occasions, for short- time travel, and for racing and hunting, but it was one of the most boring ways ever devised for going long distances. Sterling, like any other Mule with a sense of self-respect, refused to go through the completely superfluous leg movements in the air that travel over ground or in the water would of required ... it was a lot like sitting on a log (a small log) floating through the air, and if it hadn’t been for the wind moving past you it would of been easy to believe that you weren’t moving at all. Over the water even the wind wasn’t all that much diversion. It wasn’t tiring, and twelve full hours of it was no great strain on either Mule or rider, but, law, it was boring. I intended to keep it to a minimum.
The coast of Oklahomah is peaceful land. Pale golden sand sloping gently down to the water on one side and gently up into low green hills on the oher; and the weather always easy there. There were boats out, farther from the land than I had really expected them to be, and I made my arm tired waving at their passengers before I began my descent. And managed to drop my poor dulcimer into the Ocean of Remembrances in the process. New motto: never try to balance a dulcimer across a Mule’s neck, keep from falling off the Mule, and wave to a boat captain below you at the same time.
Sterling and I settled down toward the land, and I saw that my expectations were correct; the word had gone out. Although Castle Clark was no more than three miles up from the shore, where it had a view that melted both heart and mind as it faced out toward the sea, there was a delegation of some sort waiting to meet me. I wouldn’t have to hammer on the gates of Castle Clark as I had had to do at Castle McDaniels; we were going in in a small, and I hoped a tasteful, procession.
The Clarks’ Castle staff wore dark brown livery, trimmed at cuff and hem with yellow and white. Four of the staff were there on Muleback (all, by their insignia, Senior Attendants), the dark crest embroidered on their right shoulders. I had always liked that crest; two stalks of wheat, crossed, yellow on a field of brown, and a single white star above the wheat— nothing more. It pleasured the eye and was a credit to the Granny that’d devised it when the Castle was built.
“Good morning, miss,” they said, which was a great relief, and I good-morninged them back again. And then they told me that dinner was waiting for us at the Castle, which pleasured me even more. I hope to outgrow my appetite one of these years, but I was hungry again.
“And a message from Castle Smith waiting, miss,” said one.
“What sort of message. Attendant?”
“Don’t know, miss. I was told to greet you, ask you to dinner; and say the message was waiting. That’s all.” We turned the Mules, and they followed me, four abreast and a mannerly four Mule-lengths behind, across the sand and up the hill ahead of us. The Mules had no objection to the hard- packed beach, but floundered once we were above the tideline;
I was pleased to see that none of the animals following me took the all too common Mulish tactic of stopping dead and refusing to move, sinking deeper all the while into the sand. They were well trained, and they struggled through the powdery stuff without hesitation, though I’d no doubt they’d of said a good deal if they’d had the chance. Not one brayed, a sure sign of good management in the stables, and once we reached the road their hoofs tapped smartly along the white pavement. Very orderly, and I liked order. I was in a good mood, and prepared to be in a better one, as we went through the gates and dismounted in the courtyard, and I was led straight on to a long balcony on the second floor that looked out over the hills to the sea.
There sat the Clarks. Nathan Terfelix Clark the 17th, with a beard like a white bush trimming up his burly chest, and not a hair on his head, in compensation. His wife, Amanda of Farson, the one with the chins. Their three daughters, Una, Zoe, and Sharon, and the husbands of the two eldest at their sides. Let me see ...it was Una that had scandalized her parents by marrying a Traveller; and gone on to scandalize the Families nearby by loving him far beyond what was either decent or expected, and that would be him, Gabriel Laddercane Traveller the 34th, in the suit of black. The Travellers were unwilling to give up any of their ancient trappings, and they dressed still as they had the day they stepped off The Ship in 2021. Zoe’s husband was a kinsman, Joseph Frederick Brightwater the 11th, and looked pleased to see me. And an assortment of babies, all of them beautiful. I’ve never seen an ugly baby—but then I’ve never seen a genuinely new one, either—I’m told that might dent my convictions.
And there sat Granny Golightly.
She gave me the shivers, and it pleased me not to have her where I had to see her oftener. She stood not quite five feet tall, she weighed about as much as a Mule colt, and she was an Airy by birth, which had been an astonishing long time ago. If my reckoning was right, Granny Golightly had passed her one hundred and twenty-ninth birthday recently; next to her I was a flyspeck on the windowpane of time. I intended to go lightly near her; for sweet prudence’ sake, and as befit her name.
“Hello there, Responsible of Brightwater;” they said to me, and waved me to an empty chair in the sunshine. Dinner was chowder—I counted eleven kinds of fish!—and dark ale, and cornbread property prepared and so hot the butter disappeared when it touched it, and a fine pair of salads, one fruit and one vegetables. And a berry cobbler that I knew nobody at Castle Brightwater could of brought off, including my own self.
Finishing that cobbler, and thinking back on the rest of the meal, I understood fully how the Clarks acquired their bulk, and I forgave Amanda her chins. What I did not understand was the trim waists of the daughters, especially Una, who accounted for five of the children. Perhaps since they had grown up eating this way they had developed a natural immunity. Or perhaps this was a company meal and they usually ate like the rest of us at noon; I had, after all, been expected here.
“Responsible of Brightwater,” said Nathan Terfelix, “there’s a message here for you from Castle Smith. Man arrived with it this morning almost before we had the gates unlocked, and what he was in such a hurry for I have no idea. Or interest. Knew you couldn’t get here before noontime.”
“Took off as fast as he arrived, too,” Amanda added. “He wouldn’t even stop for a cup of coffee.”
She raised her head and nodded at a young Attendant standing near the door, and he brought me an envelope and laid it in my hand without a word. He looked to be about eleven, and if I was any judge his livery collar itched him; this must be his first year in service.
“Amanda,” I said as he backed away, “the young man’s collar is badly fit. Someone should see to it.”
Granny Golightly cackled, which was trite.
“Not going to miss a trick, are you. Responsible of Brightwater?” she demanded. “Going to see that our livery fits the servants right, are you? You plan to inspect the stables while you’re here, and run your little white fingers up and down the banisters?”
“I beg your pardon, Granny Golightly,” I said. “I did not mean to criticize.”
“Lie to me, young missy, and you’ll rue it,” she snapped. “Criticism you gave, and criticism we got, and I’ll see to the tadung’s collar myself, this afternoon! And to the careless seamstress that made it too tight in the first place, whoever she may be! All we need is sloppy staff giving Responsible of Brightwater bits to add to her long list!”
This was ordinary behavior for a Granny, and I paid it no mind; it had been years since I’d made the mistake of getting into a wrangle with a Granny bent on public performance. She went on like that for quite some time, under her breath, while I turned the envelope from Castle Smith over in my hands, and the young husbands disappeared one at a time on mumbled errands.
Creamy white paper; thick as linen, and an envelope that ought to of held something of importance—which it had to hold, if it could not of been sent by comset in the ordinary way but had to be carried here by human hand. Seven inches square if it was one, and the Smith crest stamped on it both front and back, and an official seal! And inside it, all alone in the middle of a sheet of matched paper like lonely raisins in a pudding, the following words:
We regret that Castle Smith will be unable to entertain you at this time, due to a family crisis. Any questions you might have can be asked there at Castle Clark, and well answered.
In cordial haste, Dorothy of Smith
The eldest daughter of the Castle, Dorothy of Smith ... carrying out a minor social duty? Or what? Dorothy was a pincher; I remembered her as a child at playparties and picnics, always quick with her wicked little fingers, and running before you could get a fair chance to pinch her back. She would be fourteen now, just about three months older than I was. And since she’d bid me ask questions, I asked one.
“Begging your pardon. Granny Golightly,” I said, and the Granny stopped her nattering and looked up from her cobbler. “Amanda, do you or Nathan either of you know of any ‘crisis’ at Castle Smith?”
Amanda looked blank, and Nathan frowned, and Granny Golightly forgot her pose long enough to give me a sharp look between bites.
“Crisis,” said Nathan.
“What kind of crisis?” asked Amanda.
I waved the note. “Doesn’t say,” I said. “Just disinvites me.”
“Now that won’t do, young lady,” Granny Golightly jumped in, “for you invited your own self on this particular traipse-about! There was no call sent out from the Twelve Castles, demanding the drop-in of Responsible of Brightwater at her earliest convenience, not as I know of—and I would know.”
“Gently, Granny,” said Zoe of Clark, and leaned over to pick up a baby. For ballast perhaps. “Gently!”
“Flumdiddle,” said the Granny.
“I withdraw the accusation,” I said, “and you are quite right—I had no invitation. Not here, either, but you’ve seen fit to be hospitable and I thank you for it. I will remember it.”
“On your list!” said Granny. “See there?”
“And,” I added, “I will remember the way the Smiths set their hands to the same plow—what to do with Responsible of Brightwater, all inconvenient and uninvited. Unless—unless there truly is trouble at Castle Smith to back this up.”
Silence, all around the table. Mules braying in the stables, and seabirds crying out as they whirled above us, but no words, nor did I really expect many. Ozarkers do not talk behind one another’s backs, excepting always the Grannys, who do it only as part of their ritual and are careful that it leans to harmless nonsense.
“Anybody sick there?” I asked finally.
“Might could be,” said Zoe. “It’s that time of the year. We have a 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 Gotightly, “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 Gotightly,” 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 do suspect them, since you’ve never done such a thing before—you’ll put their backs up,” said Nathan Terfelix. “They’re stiffnecked and overproud. 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 embarrassed, 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 Brightwater 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 nobody 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 Brightwater.
“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 fashion, 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 Brightwater gallivanting around the planet uninvited and unexplained. That would be something quite different, Zoe. Brightwater 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 passed along the babies in their laps to the staff to be carried in. High time, too, to my mind.
“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 Brightwater?” he asked; and there was no banter in his voice. “I take no insult on the part of my wife—the Parsons 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 Brightwater; 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 Parsons ... 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 Parsons second that, it goes to a vote, and it goes down seven to five or eight to four depending. Every meeting ... 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 Parson 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 Brightwater” said Granny Golightly 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 scrap 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 Brightwater 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 passing year. I can just see him thinking himself fit to be an exception and sitting around his supper table bragging that he’s shown Brightwater a thing or two! But he’s a pool; 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 pass the Smiths by. Or I’ll say the rest, to convince you—and I know a passel more, young woman.”
I was sure she did, and it was clear that she was prepared to lay it all before us, and the devil take the consequences.
“Granny Golightly,” I said, “I’ll make a bargain with you, if you’ll hush now.”
“State it!”
“You spread the word for me,” I said, “with a suitable story ... some good reason why I did not go to Castle Smith. You know the conditions on a Quest—mere refusal of admittance to a location is no excuse. I need a plague, or a dragon, or a bomb, or whatever you like, I leave it to you. But something that will be sufficient to make by-passing that Castle not a spoiling of my Quest! Something clearly and wholly beyond my control, you understand me?”
“I do,” she said. “And I’ll see to it.”
“Your word on it? And nobody else harmed, mind!”
“My word, given already,” she said impatiently, “and done as it should be. I’ll spread the story and it will be ample, and no edges lopping over. My promise on it, Responsible of Brightwater!”
I stood up then, too, and it was like a congregation following the choir; they all followed the Granny and me and stood along with us, and the servingmaids moved in to clear away the tablestuff.
“Then I’ll stay the night here, if you’ll have me for supper; too,” I said, “and then go on sometime tomorrow to Castle Airy. The matter of Castle Smith I’ll leave to Granny Golightly, with my thanks.”
“Make it good, Granny,” said Una—the first time she’d spoken all that time except to chide or cosset a child.
“Never you mind,” said the old woman. “I’ve been a Granny a very long time now, I know my doings.”
Maybe.
Since she would cover my tracks for me, it made no difference if the guilty one was at Castle Smith; as had been plainly stated, I had not even needed to leave home to find out who that was. But the Smiths now ... I’d seen Delldon Mallard Smith at meetings, and for sure had always found him a pompous bore, with an “uh ... uh ... uh ... “ for every other word out of his mouth. But I didn’t know there was dry rot in his brain, which was how the Granny made it sound, and it was of course a credit to the Smith women that I didn’t. If the men at the Castle were as foolish as Granny Golightly had said them to be, plain out and aloud in front of one and all, then there might be one or more of them fool enough to be mixed up in this somewhere, or to prove a weak link at an inconvenient moment.
It didn’t matter; I decided. I felt quite confident about Granny Golightly’s powers of invention. By the time I landed Sterling at Castle Airy some truly wondrous tale would have spread from one end of Ozark to the other to explain why I had not favored Castle Smith with a visit, and that was all that was of any present importance. The rest of it could wait rill a later time.
I followed them into the Castle, looking forward to my room and a rest and a proper bathroom, and as a show of solidarity I scooped up a random baby from a low bench in the hall under a round window.
When in Clark ...