Part 21 (1/2)
EGG-ROTTEN BIRD DUNG.
FISTFULS OF MEALY WORMS.
NIGHT OF THE DEAD.
POTCHAMBER.
POLEBED.
a.s.s.
I was flabbergasted. As nasty a Charm as I'd heard anywhere, and bold as bra.s.s about it, terrified as she was. But no elegance. No style! And put together all c.o.c.keyed to boot. I'd seen six-year-old girls do a sight better than that, and without anything nasty in it to help them along, either. I said:
AIR.
BALSAM.
CINNAMON.
DENY ME NAUGHT.
EVERMORE WEEPING.
FOLLOW ME EVERYWHERE.
EVERMORE SLEEPING.
DOUBLE MY WORTH.
CINDERMAN.
BELLTONGUE.
AIR.
”And,” I added, ”if you'd like to go on to twelve syllables and back, in twelve sets of rhymed pairs, I'm ready. But do hurry, Una of Clark, because I intend to be in my bed before breakfast.”
By that time, when she began to sob hopelessly, choking and sputtering, I wasn't surprised. I wondered what her life was going to be like, from this night on; she wasn't built for a burden like this, and her husband had chosen a poor instrument to break to his evil.
”See where foolish love will lead you?” I said to her sorrowfully. ”See where it will lead you, woman? Into folly, into shame, into disgrace... Why didn't you tell him to do his own dirt? What would your father and mother say of you, Una of Clark, if they only knew what you have done?”
She only blubbered harder, and I was sick of watching her.
”I'll tell you what I'm going to do,” I said, ”and I suggest you listen to me more carefully than you've been listening to your Reverend these last few years. For I'm not playing with you, and I warn you-
I'm no Granny, to just put toads in your bed and rashes under your armpits and keep your cakes from rising. You do understand that?””What are you, really?” she hissed at me. ”What are you?””Nor am I a witch,” I went right on, ignoring that, ”for if I were, you would have been at the bottom of that ocean long before this, and you know it very well. If I were a witch, Una of Clark, I'd set a Subst.i.tution Transformation. And another woman that looked just like you and talked just like you and walked just like you and moaned in the loving arms of Gabriel Laddercane Traveller just like you would go home from here-but she would not be you. You would be feeding the fishes and she would be only a Subst.i.tute, and n.o.body would ever know.”
”Go ahead, then-you can do it, why don't you, and leave off torturing me?””Because I'm not a witch, I'm a law-abiding well-brought-up woman, that you've caused a lot more trouble than there's any excusing you for, that's why!”
”Then what are you going to do?” she whispered. ”Make me ugly? Make me crippled? Oh dear saints, Responsible of Bright.w.a.ter, what is it going to be?”
”Your mind is a cesspool,” I said, staring at her. ”A cesspool. Make you ugly and cripple you indeed!”
”Tell me!” ”What I am going to do is set a Binding Spell on you,” I said. ”That and nothing more. Seven years, Una of Clark, you'll say no word about this night or about what you know of me, or about what you've done. And seven years, you'll do no magic you haven't earned the rank for. You not even a Granny or any chance of ever being one... I'll bind you seven years; and then you're free to do your worst.”
She went limp against the rock; I was glad there wasn't any place for her to fall to. ”The reason I'm stopping there,” I went on as I made my preparations, ”is because I am not a witch! And because I have no desire to go beyond what's decent. You're a woman-and you're a Clark by birth. I am willing to wager that in seven years you'll achieve enough wisdom, that when the Spell is at its end you'll guard your own mouth out of shame and simple decency. I'm willing to take a chance on that.”
And if I was wrong, I could bind her then again, of course; I'd be on the watch. She just huddled there and bawled, every other word some stuff about what was she going to tell Gabriel Laddercane, more shame to her, and I got on with my work.
It took me only a little while, and then I Moved her carefully back to Castle Clark, to the bed where-might could be-her husband had not yet even missed her. If he had, that was her problem, and it was up to her to figure out some way to get out of it. I'd done all I was willing to do, and more than she deserved, out of regard for her Family, and pity for her folly, and out of the kind of distaste that comes from dealing with an enemy that's really no match for your skills. There's a game called shooting ducks in a barrel-I don't play it. Never have.
And before the servingmaid tapped on my door with my pot of morning tea, everything was put away. Every sign of the wards and the pentacles swept clear, not a speck of sand from my shammybags on the Airy floor. And I lay there in my plain nightgown with the covers tucked up around my chin, and a smile on my face that suited my pose, like I'd not lifted a finger all that weary night.
Now I could go home.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
I don't mind saying that it went well, though it's bragging, for it's no more than the plain truth. My leavetaking may have had an unseemly abruptness due to my hightailing out of there before my common sense (or somebody else's) could stop me, but my homecoming went off as slick as I could possibly have desired it. And the rough edges I well knew were there didn't so much as show their shadows on the surface that was available for examination to others.
I timed it so as to fly in to Castle Bright.w.a.ter right at the end of breakfast on a sunny April morning. And the last ten miles I rode Sterling along the winding roads of the Kingdom, between the hedges of b.u.t.ter-yellow forsythia newly in bloom, and the fields of fruit trees covered with blossoms thick as snowflakes. Every blade of gra.s.s and every new leaf and bud was that perfect green that comes only in April, and that was what the Bright.w.a.ter green was meant to stand for (and never quite matched). And although the people didn't cheer me-we didn't hold with such display on Marktwain, and hadn't for hundreds of years-I knew they were glad to see me coming back. I knew by the smiles on their faces and the fact that they were out in the fields working in their Sundy best, and this not Sundy. I kept my own face straight and pretended not to notice... in fact, I worked at really not noticing, seeing as how if I arrived at Castle Bright.w.a.ter puffed up with anything that a sharp eye could spot as pride the family would be on me hike carrion birds on a new-dead squawker, and I'd come out of it blistered.
n.o.body came out to meet me, which was reasonable enough. I wasn't company here, I lived here, and I had to whistle for a stablemaid to come take Sterling off my hands. Then I stopped and indulged myself, just for a minute, since n.o.body seemed to be looking. I never would of imagined I could be so glad just to be home.
Ours was the first Castle built, and the Castle proper is not one of the shelters the Twelve Families set up when The s.h.i.+p landed and they were new to this planet. The one the Bright.w.a.ters built was made of logs that can't match Tinaseeh ironwood even halfway for durability, but have kept well enough under cover; and it sits within the front courtyard of the Castle as a constant reminder- lest we should ever forget-of our humble beginnings here. It had seven bedrooms round a common room; and forty-four Bright.w.a.ters- men, women, and children, and one fine hound that had quickly died -slept and ate and pa.s.sed their very limited leisure time under that wooden roof.