Someone farted. It was soft and eructating and rippling. Before anyone could crack a chortle, Naon Engineer whirled.
“Who was that?” His finger was a claw of accusation. “Who emitted that…noise? Whose nether trumpet sounded?”
“Husband,” Child’a’grace said.
“I mean it,” he said, remembering just in time to sign to his wife, “I shall…”
“Naon…”
“Sle shall succeed. He shall inherit the starter rod.” But he was failing. His pride was tobogganing toward a fatal precipice. Damn them. Damn his always reasonable wife, damn that underwearless tramp of a daughter, damn that loose-sphinctered hellion of a Bassareeni, he suspected.
“Naon, enough,” Child’a’grace said gently, and he was utterly defeated.
“Just get us out of this with our dignity intact,” Marya Stuard sighed. At the far end of the long table, Grandmother Taal ruffled her skirts and shawls like a prize chanticleer at a canton fair.
“We have forgotten someone here,” she said. Her voice was small and soft, like a desert bird, but the air made room for every word. “We are all full of our shame and our disgrace and the stains on our wheels and our name, and even our money…” She stood up, fumbled open her black old-woman’s bag, which had infinite dimensions folded up inside it. She flung a green something down the table. It slid to a halt in front of Naon Engineer: a wad of Bank of Tharsis bills. “Are you satisfied, son?”
Naon Engineer meanly flicked through the wad.
“It all seems to be here.”
Grandmother Taal remained standing.
“Yes, we are all full of shame and disgrace but I say humiliation is a family that happily gives up a daughter to save its name. I say shame is a family that thinks of social betterment over a child’s happiness. I say disgrace is a nearly-nine-year-old girl most probably at this very moment standing in the cold by the trackside back in Deuteronomy, looking for a train that wouldn’t wait for her because its Chief Engineer—her own father—thinks too much of his own good name to even look for her. Let alone disrupt his timetables to wait to see if she might come back. That is shame. That is disgrace. That is what makes a Domiety’s name small along the tracksides. If you are to die from anything, die for shame of that, father Naon Engineer 11th!”
In a flurry of black that seemed to go out from the old lady into other states and dimensions, Grandmother Taal whirled out of the council room.
In the wee hours, Child’a’grace came tippy-tapping at Grandmother Taal’s cabin door. As she had expected, the matriarch was awake. The old sleep little but their dreams are mighty.
“Grandmother.”
As she entered, she saw Grandmother Taal hastily tug down the hem of her black nightrobe. Drops of crimson on the floor. Child’a’grace looked for needles and thread: they were on the dressing table next to a patch of tabletop polished to mirror-sheen.
“Taal.”
“It didn’t work anyway.”
“Could you not get a high enough gloss?”
Child’a’grace traced a finger across the wooden scrying-mirror as she sat down on the dressing stool. Grandmother Taal shook her head.
“Something is fogging me.”
“Out of range?”
“It has no range. Something is muddying the scry-lines.”
“What did you write?”
Grandmother Taal sat on the side of the bed. Her feet did not touch the ground. Blood was a crusty red rivulet in the contours of her ankle. She pulled up her skirt. SWEETNESS, her thin calf said.
“He’s not a bad man,” Child’a’grace said.
“He tries hard,” Grandmother Taal said. “And you are defending him? How long since he last spoke to you?”
“Four years, sixteen months, twenty-seven days.”
“If he does this over a folly of cards, you expect any less for a daughter who runs out on her own betrothal?”
“Ach, you are too right.”
“Yes. So, do you think he will go ahead and shame himself to death?”
“He is embarrassed enough.”
“Embarrassment is good for the soul. Especially his soul. Ah, if his father…I tell you, one good thing, if he did go and die of shame, at least it would give that girl the chance to do what she’s always wanted.”
There was no reasonable reply to this. Child’a’grace pursed her lips, then said, “I hope she has enough clean underwear.” She looked at the circle of sheened wood, tried to catch her own reflection in the dressing tabletop. “Did you see anything?”
“It was muddy.”
“But did you see anything?”
“I saw mirrors. Muddy mirrors. I saw the girl, reflected in many many mirrors. She was looking for something. She was looking very hard.”
“Was it real? Or was it a sign?”
“How should I know?” Grandmother Taal said, testily. “I’m only a domestic magician. But I know one thing, she did not look happy. She looked scared.”
Child’a’grace glanced away to hide the sudden emotion swelling in the corners of her eyes.
“I should…”
“No. They need you. Someone must keep the train on track, and the men are useless.”
Child’a’grace nodded. From her bag she produced a thin, rectangular, oil-paper-wrapped packet. She presented it to Grandmother Taal. The old woman sniffed the yellow, greasy, thick paper carefully. Her eyes widened a sliver.
“This is most fine stuff.”
“It is Etzvan Canton Black Loess.”
In that ancient division of Deuteronomy, Grandmother Taal recalled, the soil was so dark and rich a teaspoon was stirred into the local hot chocolate to promote long life and fertility.
“It was in my dowry,” Child’a’grace said simply. “I never really got the taste for it.”
Grandmother Taal sniffed the packet again.
“Yes, I can smell bottom-drawer cottons and mothballs,” she said.
“It’s for your journey,” Child’a’grace added hastily, “not your own use.”
“I gathered that.” The crow-corners of Grandmother Taal’s eyes wrinkled.
“If I’d had any money…”
“Etzvan Canton Black Loess is better than money, especially a bar of this fine a vintage.” Grandmother Taal slid the neat little wad into one of her many skirt pockets. “So, how did you know I was going?”
Again, Child’a’grace stroked fingertips against the wooden mirror.
“I’ve got my own domestic magic.”
“Yes,” Grandmother Taal said. “All women do.”