The Buttoned Sky

  CHAPTER VII

  The haughty maid has left the Mink, She finds her father's place; The squire has looked her in the eye: "Now what a fox to chase!"

  He's called in all his friends and kin, And dealt out guns and shells; He's sworn an oath to catch the Mink By all the seven hells!

  --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

  Lady Nirea was puffing and blowing and clawing her way through endlessmiles of creepers, thorns, and brushwood. She wished Revel were carryingher now, even if it meant the loss of her clothing again. Now sheappreciated what a job he'd done, for naked though she'd been, not halfas many scratches had marred her skin on their first journey.

  Ahead of her, the giant called Rack was doing his best to break trailfor her; and in front of him, with a rope under his arms which thered-bearded man held tightly, went Dawvys, her father's servant.

  As she understood the tale from Rack's few sentences, growled out in avoice that reeked with hatred of somebody, whether herself or Revel orwhom she couldn't tell, he had caught Dawvys just emerging from theforest and made him lead the way back to the domed glade. Ewyo thesquire had sent Rack out for her, and Rack was evidently all a ruckershould be--faithful, reverent, and obedient to the least command of thegentry.

  She remembered waking, Revel's strong hand still clamped on her wrist,and seeing this walleyed brute just aiming a swing of a pick at hisbrother's head. She had screamed, and Rack had missed. She wonderedwhether he had meant to hit at all. There was already a bloody gash onRevel's scalp, and the little yellow man, Jerran, lay quite still withred trickling out of his head.

  Then Rack had picked up Revel's pick and disengaged the grip of his hand(was it as cold and lifeless as she'd thought? could the Mink be dead?)from her wrist, and booted Dawvys out on the trail.

  That had been hours ago. They were still bumbling through the forest,although the sun was high.

  "He's leading us wrong," she panted. "Don't trust him. He's an importantrebel."

  "He wants to live as badly as we do, Lady. He'll take us home."

  And sure enough, they had come shortly to the rim of the woodland. Sheswayed and nearly collapsed. "Give me your arm, rucker," she said. "Igive you permission to touch me."

  His arm was like stone, supporting her along the road to Dolfya'soutskirts where her father's mansion lay. After a few minutes he droppedthe rope that held Dawvys. "Damn," he said loudly, "he will get away!"and bent to retrieve it. Dawvys leaped off like a pinched frog, and Racksaid grimly, "No use to chase that one, he can sprint faster than adozen hulks like me."

  "You let him go," said Nirea.

  He turned his blue eye on her. "That is as you see fit to believe,Lady."

  She would turn him over to her father's huntsman, she thought. Or wouldshe? He'd saved her ... was this gratitude in her mind? It was a foreignemotion. Wait and see, she told herself; don't fret now. She was verytired.

  They came to the house of Ewyo, a sprawling erection of field stone andancient brick dug from distant ruins of another time. No one could makebricks like that now. She touched the gate in the wall and instantly adozen hounds, gaunt and savage, came leaping from the lawns. Recognizingher, they fawned, and she opened the gate. "Come in," she said. Hegrunted and obeyed, eyeing the dogs.

  In the library of the house, which contained more than twenty pricelessbooks allowed her ancestors by the gods, she met her father, the squireEwyo. He scowled up at Rack.

  "You bring this rucker, this miner, into the library, Nirea?"

  Not a word of greeting, she thought, not a single expression of reliefat her safety. For the first time she began to contrast the manners ofthe gentry with those of Revel. He was rough, true, and crude andinclined to glory in his animal strength, and he had made love to her,to boot; but if he had found her after thinking her dead, by the Orbs!he wouldn't have snarled out something about an unimportant convention!

  "The man saved me at great risk, and killed his own brother doing it,"she said coldly. She would not mention Dawvys at all. Not now! "Hedeserves a reward, Ewyo, and not harsh words from you."

  * * * * *

  He slapped his high sleek boots with a hunting crop. He was a burly,beefy-looking man, nothing like the lean tough Mink. She felt a sense ofrevulsion. She turned to Rack and stared at the big face, scarred bywhipping branches, firm and fearless, as hard as the heart of amountain. "Go home and get some sleep, Rack," she said kindly. "You'llhear from me later."

  "I have no home, Lady," he answered. "The gods destroyed our part of thetown yesterday."

  Ewyo snorted, "Dawvys can give him a bed for now in the servants' huts.Dawvys!"

  It was on her tongue to say that Dawvys wouldn't be likely to answer hisbawl, but the man appeared in the doorway, spruce and clean, with only afew scratches to tell of his activities. "Yes, Lord Ewyo?"

  "Take this rucker and find a bed for him. Jump!"

  "Yessir." Dawvys, a plump fellow with no hint of his enormous endurancein his look, motioned Rack out of the library.

  Ewyo said, "Well! How are you, Nirea? Your sister Jann and I have beenworrying."

  "I'm all right."

  "Did you suffer indignities at the hands of that crazy miner?"

  He looked like a damned red-faced bear, she thought, and surprisedherself by saying, "Revel treated me with--with much consideration."

  "Huh! Wouldn't have thought it. You want to sleep?"

  "Don't bother about me," she said, turning. "Get on with your pressingbusiness, father." She went to her room and lay down on thesatin-sheeted bed without even removing the tattered rucker's clothes.For a long while she lay there, thinking. Then she did a thing that noone could ever have convinced her she'd do till that day. She changedinto a sheer black gown, after bathing of course, and slipped downstairsto her father's private room.

  She had never been in it, no one but Ewyo had; she had no clear notionof what she was looking for. But an army of questions warred in hermind, and it seemed to her that there were secrets she must discover:answers which she had never looked for, explanations for things she hadalways taken for granted.

  For instance, she thought, turning the handle slowly and without noise,why were the gentry the gentry? Why did the gods allow almost anythingto her kind, when the ruck had no rights? She shook her head. All herbreeding said she was mad, yet she opened the door of the private roomand walked in.

  Dawvys whirled from where he had been bending over a huge leather-boundbook on a table. His face was white, but it cleared of panic when he sawher.

  "The Lady Nirea moves silently."

  "What are you doing here?" she asked sharply.

  "The same thing you mean to do, Lady. I'm seeking the answers to certainproblems."

  "Can a rucker read minds like a globe?"

  He laughed. "It was an obvious guess, Lady."

  "And have you found answers, Dawvys?"

  He sighed. "I cannot read, as the Lady knows. No rucker reads."

  She watched his face a moment. "Stay here," she said. "_I_ can read."

  "The Lady of the Mink is kind," he said, bowing. The title did not shockher. Strangeness on strangeness!

  * * * * *

  The book was full of queer writing, like none she had ever seen. Insteadof letters that each stood alone, the letters were joined, each wordbeing a unit without a break; and they seemed to stand up a little fromthe page, not being sunken into the paper as all printing was that shehad seen.

  With difficulty she read a few sentences.

  "This day the third in the month of Orbuary I did feed the gods, morethan forty of them in the morning and twenty after eating. I am so weakI can hardly hold this pen."

  "What does it mean?" asked Dawvys.

  "I don't know." She flipped a page. "This day did hunt the fox, he beinga strong untiring trapper who was found with forbidden ale cached in hishouse, and chased him over eight mile before he went to earth in a
spinney, where the dogs found him and tore him to bits. Afterwards didfeed nine gods, who have drained me so I cannot see but in a fog," sheread aloud.

  "That's your father speaking," whispered Dawvys, "He hunted a trapperlast month."

  "But how is it down here, if it was Ewyo? The books were made many yearsbefore my grandfather was born. No one makes books now. The art islost."

  "Nevertheless, I think Ewyo made this one himself. Unless it's aprophecy of the gods." He turned the book over. "What does it say on theoutside?"

  She read it with cold grue inching up her back. "Ewyo of Dolfya, HisLedger and Record Book."

  "Then he did make it."

  "How? How could he? The art is lost!"

  "Many things the ruck believed have been proved false in these lasthours," Dawvys said. "Perhaps the gentry's beliefs are equally wrong."

  She left the book and went to a desk by the oiled-paper window. A drawerwas partly open. Inside was a big heap of dandelions, thick grasses, andwild parsley. She remembered Jerran's taunt, "Your father eatsdandelions!"

  "Dawvys, why are these here?"

  "I don't know, Lady. I gather them and the squire eats them, but why, Ican't say."

  There was a sound at the door. Dawvys sprang toward the brocadedhangings, too late; Ewyo thrust in his head, black rage on his features.

  "What in the seven hells are you doing here, Nirea?"

  The habits of a lifetime couldn't be overcome by a day in the presenceof the Mink. She said quickly, "I saw Dawvys come in, father, andfollowed him."

  "Oh. Good for you. Dawvys, report yourself to the huntsman for a fox!"

  * * * * *

  Dawvys bowed and went out. She breathed freely; he would escape, andstill she'd saved herself. What Ewyo might have done to her, she didn'tknow, but she feared him when he was roused.

  She yearned to ask him about the book and the weeds, but didn't dare.She passed him and went to the resting room, where she occupied a chairfor an hour, blankly pondering the tottering of her universe.

  At last she stood up. She was a gentrywoman, she had guts in her belly.Why shouldn't she ask her father questions? Before she could think aboutit and grow scared, she went searching, and ran across her sister Jann.

  Jann was twenty-four, a tall ash-blonde woman with snaky amber eyes andpointed ears who lorded it over the household.

  "Have you seen Ewyo?"

  "He's in the private room."

  She headed for it, and Jann ran to catch at her arm. "You can't disturbhim there!"

  "I've been in it before."

  Jann clawed at her. "You haven't! Even I was only there once...."

  "Even you. My, my." Nirea walked on, Jann tugging at her futilely. "Ihave to talk to him."

  "Stop! Damn you, you whelp, you can't--"

  With precision and force, Nirea socked her sister in the left eye. Thenshe strode down the hall and knocked on the door of the private room andimmediately went in.

  The sight that greeted her, completely incomprehensible, was still asrevolting and horrifying a thing as she had ever seen. Her father layback in a big armchair, relaxed and half-asleep to judge from hishanging arms and barely open eyes. A curious sound, a kind of brrm-brrm,came from his chest.

  Resting on his throat was a golden globe. Two of its tentacles werepushed almost out of sight into his nostrils, two more dipped into hisgaping mouth. The remaining four waved slowly above the squire's face.

  Nirea screamed.

  The globe floated upward, slowly, grudgingly. Its tentacles withdrewfrom the squire. Ewyo stirred and opened his pale eyes to glare at her.A flush of hideous fury spread up his cheeks. He struggled to his feetand lurched over and slapped her face, so that she ceased to scream andfell against the wall, moaning. The squire stood over her.

  "You meddlesome bitch, I ought to have you cut up for the hounds!"

  "In the name of the Orbs," she said, whimpering, "what were you doing?"

  He grimaced at her like a madman. "You're not supposed to be told tillyou're twenty, and you don't do it yourself till you reachtwenty-eight."

  "_Do it myself._"

  "Certainly." He gave a humorless snort of laughter. "D'you think wedon't pay for the privilege of being gentry, you fool? Now leave mealone!" He lifted her and flung her at the door. The golden spherehovered motionless in the air. "Never speak of what you saw, and neverask another question of me till your twentieth birthday ... if you liveto reach it!"

  She fumbled the door open and staggered into the hall, and wept therewith awful tearing sobs, while her sister Jann looked at her and giggledhysterically.