Prim was bruised about her bottom, and for that reason I did not bruise her bottom myself. That night she was delivered of twins, a boy and a girl. At dawn, half of you were outside her door waiting to see the babies.
“There. You see there was nothing to worry about,” I said to Prim.
“It is because of the pregnancy doll Annakey made for us,” Deen said in his joy. He held it up for me to see. Some of you villagers were peering in the door.
“This is your contest doll?” I asked.
“No,” Annakey said, “I have not had time yet to make my contest doll.”
“Dollmage, Annakey made us a doll and now all is well. Is she not your successor then?” Prim asked weakly.
“It was not her pregnancy doll but mine that made everything well,” Renoa said.
She stood in the doorway, having elbowed her way through to the front. The new day’s light was behind her so that her face was in shadow. “You said the contest would be over in the morning, Dollmage. It is morning. This is the contest doll I made. It is a pregnancy doll for Prim.”
I looked at the doll. It, too, was good.
I looked at the curious faces of the villagers in the door and windows, and those behind craning their necks to see. “How can I tell whose doll is responsible for delivering Prim safely?” I said aloud.
“Judge you, Dollmage,” Renoa said. “Look inside my pregnancy doll.”
I took the baby out of her pregnancy doll, and then in delight saw that there was another baby inside. “Twins, Renoa.You promised her twins!”
The whispers of the crowd grew to murmurs.
Renoa smiled in triumph at Annakey. “How many babies are there in Annakey’s doll?”
I looked. “Only one,” I said. “A boy. There is the contest. Renoa, you are my successor.”
“But ... but that was not meant to be my contest doll,” Annakey stammered. “I only made it to help Prim—”
“What does it matter?” Renoa said. “Finally we have seen that I am the true Dollmage.”
I faced the crowd.
“There will be a feast. Annakey, at the feast you must promise that from now on you will not make any dolls.”
Annakey glanced up at the mountains.
“What about the robber people?” she asked.“I have a plan. If you will only let me do one more thing.”
“I have proof enough, now, Annakey,” I said gently. “Be humbled. Come, and serve your new Dollmage.”
What was in Annakey’s eyes at that moment? I told myself she was merely sad to lose.
“I see now that this is why God gave you a frowning promise doll — because you were going to be sad to lose.”
“Dollmage,” she said, “if only you will let me make the dolls necessary to chase the robber people away.”
“Come, Renoa,” I said, going out the door.
Renoa followed, and so also did Annakey. I did not stop to hear her, but she followed me, protesting all the time. It was shameful that she would degrade herself so, and I said as much. “Remember your promise to be happy—”
I stopped short. A wail was coming from the house of Deen and Prim Highchimney. A wail, oh, the wail of unspeakable pain, and it did not stop, no, it did not stop, not even when I rushed back into the house to see what was the trouble.
This was the trouble: Prims baby girl had died.
Chapter 11
Inscription on the Mercy dolclass="underline"
Wherever possible, the people will try to extend mercy to the wrongdoer.
Now who was the Dollmage? I ask you. Was it the one who made twin babies in the pregnancy doll? Twins were born. Or was it the one who made a baby boy? The boy lived. Now, some of you already feared Annakey. Had she, in her carelessness, caused the baby girl to die? Had she drowned Roily the cow and burned Follownot the sheep? Why was it something bad happened every time Annakey made a doll? And were the rumors true that she was a promise breaker? While Prim wailed her voice into a whimper and a whisper, the villagers conferred with me. They wanted me to name Renoa as Dollmage.
“Have I not been telling you all along?” I asked, but I said it without conviction. I said it, remembering the rubber boots and the bees in Wifebury’s potting shed. I said it, remembering the sheepcote. I said it, remembering that I had created your fear of Annakey.
“Dollmage,” said Annakey, “please. I have a plan. Only give me a little longer and I will chase away the robber people.” Her face was pale. She swallowed over and over.
“Hush,” I said. She thought I meant her, but I meant everyone. “Hush.The full moon is not until tonight. Annakey will have until moonrise to make her contest doll.”
There was a silence and then an outcry. I held up a hand and pointed to a high, treeless ridge. There stood a party of robber people, at least fifty strong. When the robber people organize enough to gather themselves, it is grave danger. The outcry ceased. A few women ran for their children. Wifebury put his finger and thumb into the sockets of his eyes, then looked again, blinking.
I spoke urgently to Annakey, in the hearing of all of you. “Until dusk I give you to make your contest doll.” I could hear muffled weeping somewhere in the village, and then more. It grew until it was a chorus of weeping.
“Tell them to be silent and brave, or they shall have my wrath,” I hissed to the men.
The crowd dispersed. Annakey ran away on silent feet.
“Stupid woman,” Renoa said to me. “Why cannot you make up your mind?”
It broke my heart to have her say so. I had let her be proud and venomous to others, and now she was spending her venom on me. “You speak to me so, Renoa?” I said haughtily-
“You know I am your successor,” she said.
“You are. So, do you have a plan, as Annakey does, to save the village from the robber people?”
“I have a plan. It is for you to give me all the relics of your power. I will move into your house, and it will be my house, and the dolls will be mine, and you will go away from me, where you cannot suck the magic out of me like an old leech. You are old, Dollmage. That is why the village is not safe. It is because you are old, and your powers are gone.”
Then I knew. It was as she was speaking to me that I knew how it was the robber people could find us, even when the village doll was hidden from them.
“The village doll is no longer making the story,” I said, more to myself than to Renoa. “I see it now. Annakey must have her own village doll somewhere. That is where she is going, even now.”
“She could not do it. She is not the Dollmage. I am.”
Annakey was indeed running to her secret place. If she made her contest doll and it did not win, she knew that she would be made to promise not to fashion any doll ever again. She touched the clay bear and the clay wildcat she had made. Perhaps an apronful of wild animal dolls could not win the contest. She decided then that if only she had time to do one thing, she would keep her second promise to save her people. As soon as she decided that, she found she had kept her first promise to her mother: that she would be happy.
Why did she desire above all to save you? I told you once it was because she loved you as a people for keeping your promises. That is only part of it. It was also because she saw that she must—that no one else could do it for you, that I was old and Renoa was careless, and all of you depended upon her ability to devise a plan. She wanted to save you because she could, and because her own life depended upon it.
Ail afternoon Annakey worked with clay and other things that her secret bower provided. This was her plan: Around her village doll on the large, flat rock, she would place dolls of the robber people. Then, around each of the dolls of the robber people, she would place clay bears and wildcats and wolves also. She would summon the wild animals with her dolls to chase away the robber people from our village. She would warn the villagers to stay in their houses for a few days, and when she was sure the robber people were all gone, she would remove the wild animals from around the village model.