“Fight it?”
“Speak against it. Every commander in Scotland will be at a banquet after the circus tonight with nearly a hundred foreign champions. As guest of honour I’ll be expected to make a speech. What if I tell the world that there is a conspiracy against the safety of our homes?”
“You will sound like a quotation from a history book,” mused Kittock, “At first the whole audience will think you a fearmongering maniac from the worst period of human history. Then your sincerity will move folk who like you, and others who also fear the effect of the bigger armies, to start a crusade, a witch hunt, a police force to denounce or arrest plotters. The folk any such force arrested or threatened to arrest would mostly be innocent, of course. The new police force, like previous ones, would become the evil it was created to prevent and would provoke a resistance exactly like it. That would delight the puddock you met in the wood.”
“Shall I kill her and then myself, Kittock?”
“I believe she would like that too, Wattie. Finish your tea while I think.”
He sipped lukewarm tea, watched her ponder and relaxed into the comfort of the high-backed armchair. Since explaining his problem to her he was enjoying a pleasant drowsiness. The colour of a winking light on his wristcom showed three people had left urgent messages and a fourth wanted to talk to him at once. He let the winking light hypnotize him into shallow sleep which suddenly deepened and banquet, Wat,” said Kittock loudly. He yawned and muttered, “I didnae catch that.”
“Don’t go to that circus and banquet. Don’t even speak to these people, let Jenny do it for you. Tell him you’ve a viral infection, but don’t say you cannae go. Say you won’t go, and mean it.”
He took the ticket from his pocket, re-read the message, sighed and said, “All right mother, though it will be hard. Every bit of me but my common sense hungers for that woman.”
“Stand firm. Hold on to your common sense and she’ll come to you,” said Kittock grimly,
“I won’t let you out of my sight today, tonight or tomorrow, Wat. Stop looking excited! She can only harm ye.”
“I told you I’m corrupted, mother,” said Wat with a despairing smile, “I know she can only harm me so my only hope is she needs me to do it to. Why are ye sure she’ll come?”
“I’ll tell you when we’ve seen the great-grannies of Dryhope,” said Kittock, standing, “Come! We must tell them everything.”
“Why?” asked Wat, perplexed, “What use are a wheen of old housewives to anybody but the bairns they care for? I ken they like knowing all about everything but gossip won’t save the world — or save me either.”
“Sometimes you have fewer brains than a headless hen Wat Dryhope! You always thought too little of the women who bred and nursed you because you wanted danger, not safety — that’s why you fell in love with me, and history books, and going to the stars, and warfare, and with Delilah Puddock. I wish I could have made you a gangrel, Wat. That life has all the healthy danger a sane man needs and no time for communal crazes and elite conspiracies. Among settled people it’s the great-grannies who stop these things becoming dangerous. Their gossip has been the only government and police the world has needed for more than a century — if you’re ignorant of that then you don’t know what keeps modern society stable. If she is as ignorant as you in that respect (and she may be, you and she were very alike) we can stop her doing much damage.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“The bonny, merciless puddock you met in the woods, Lulu Dancy, who was sweet on you when you were wee.” Wat jumped up and walked to and fro saying,
“That scrawny, lanky thing? She wasnae a Lulu — they cried her … What was it …?”
“Meg Mountbenger. You paid her no attention so she came to me, asked all about you and read the books you read. I got her hooked on books. She borrowed more than anyone I ever knew, history, art, poetry and novels. A very clever lass she became and a good looker with it, but she was scunnered by the Ettrick lads after you and didnae care much for her aunts and grannies either. She became an artist and went to the stars. She was one of the team designing the hollow world, K20, but she loved sounds and appearances more than solid forms so changed her name to what it is now, returned to earth and joined Cellini’s Cloud Circus last year — what’s suddenly right with ye, Wattie?” With tears on his cheeks he said hoarsely, “I’ve never been happier. She needs me like I need her! There was hatred in what she did with me last night but nothing calculating, nothing political! It’s a miracle that she’s needed me all these years. I’ll go to her.”
Kittock grasped his hands and tried to keep him seated saying, “And she wasnae false when she said she wanted to restore poverty and greedy governments! Does her brand of nooky mean more to ye than the proper feeding of the world’s bairns? The safety of our sisters, aunts and grannies? The happiness of Annie, Nan and your other kind sweethearts?”
“She cannae hurt them,” said Wat impatiently pulling his hands free, getting up and going toward the door, “And I’ll stop her if she tries to, that’s a promise Kittock.”
On an agonized note Kittock cried, “She’s a neo-sapience Wat!”
He stared then asked how she knew.
“Guess,” she said, smiling mournfully.
“You’re one too?”
She nodded.
After a moment he spoke casually, like a man prepared to spend a few more minutes with a stranger. He was pleased to see this hurt her.
“When I was wee you told me the earth is the seed bed of the universe — that folk who choose immortality must leave the earth to prevent overcrowding. Immortals break that rule?”
“I’m no immortal now,” said Kittock humbly, “I shogged off the insanity of rejuvenation when I returned to earth. I was sixty years abroad in the universe before admitting how much I hated eternity and infinity, how much I needed the world’s wonderful big smallness. The Dryhope grannies (some of them my daughters) let me sneak back to this outhouse where I crowd nobody and take nothing from the powerplant but poultry food and books for the gangrels. But Meg Mountbenger is another kind of woman altogether. She’s also your …”
A rushing noise like distant wind had been coming nearer and suddenly surrounded the tower with a deafening, steady roar. The door at the foot of the spiral stairs burst open, a blast of warm air came out carrying a cloud of dust, feathers and four pigeons who tumbled and fluttered overhead before settling in window slits and book shelves. Wat and Kittock, partly blinded by dust, rushed to push the door shut but before they reached it the pressure of the blast eased and the roaring, though still continuous, lessened enough for the noise of hearty male voices and descending footsteps to be heard from above.
The first to enter was a young lad in Boys’ Brigade uniform who cried, “Wattie, Wattie, we got the standard, we got the standard!”
It was Sandy, Wat’s brother. Behind him a bulky, magnificent figure in the full dress uniform of a Northumbrian commander stooped to get his plumed helmet under the lintel. It was General Shafto looking so robustly, serenely cheerful that Wat felt happier at the mere sight of him. Shafto turned his grin from Wat onto Kittock, saluted her and said, “Forgive the rude intrusion, madam, but we have come here on urgent warrior business, having failed to contact the Ettrick commander by any other method. Colonel Dryhope! My good friend and best enemy! Your carriage awaits upstairs with Archie Crook Cot in full control. Since the entire Northumbrian command were coming north for the shinding at Selkirk tonight (yes, even old Dodds — he’s quite got over his huffs with you) I decided to return with your standard bearers, so here we are to collect the guest of honour and man of the moment.”