Strandpiel 26
Catching Up
As I write and the focus of the story shifts a little, the film currently playing on TV is "Invictus", about the last days of apartheid in South Africa and the transition of power to Nelson Mandela. Set in SA in the early 1990's; useful background! (To this AU "South Africa" where apartheid is still a going concern and I hope shows up the casual everyday insanity and incivility of the system as was)
V0.3 - a short, to advance a few more bits of plot
Early March. The City of the Ingomyamazi, the Zulu Empire.
Ruth N'Kweze settled behind her desk, ready to start the working day. Her assistant Chakki N'Golate stood attentively by with the inevitable clipboard. From outside came the soundtrack of a busy City going about its business, a city that was also inevitably becoming a military base. These days, not all the street conversation was in isiZulu; the clattering of walking horses reached them, of horses not in that great a hurry to get where they were going, and a snatch of song from riders who sounded happy enough to be there.
На горе стоял казак. Он Богу молился,
За свободу, за народ низко поклонился.
Ойся, ты ойся, ты меня не бойся,
Я тебя не трону, ты не беспокойся.
They listened to the riders' voices and clattering hooves diminishing into the distance.
"Wish I knew what that actually meant." Ruth observed. "Sounds heartfelt."
Chakki, a woman paid to answer questions like these, grinned.
"It's called the Cossack Prayer." She replied, brightly. "I asked Zoya and Dimitri and some of the others. It means something like "we want to live in peace, and this is why we carry these big sharp swords, and if you disturb the peace, we will be forced, with exceeding reluctance, as we are a peace-loving people, to draw them and use them."
She paused.
"That's paraphrasing a bit, but you get the general idea. Free translation."
"Funny sort of a prayer." Ruth said. "Unless it's something like "If I have to draw this sword, may the Gods guide my arm."
Chakki grinned.
"That's the second verse, apparently."
"Ah." Ruth said.
"If it helps, the third and fourth verses cover things such as fighting like Hell, but in a spirit of passionate defence of Cossack freedom and freely given loyalty to the Tsar, sort of thing."
Chakki grinned.
"I wouldn't knock it." she advised. "You're the Tsar around here as far as they're concerned. Well, the Tsarina, anyway."
Ruth reflected. She grinned.
"So what have you got for me today, Chakki?" she asked.
"More cavalry expected to arrive at Sagalo soon. We're waiting on the latest update from the City, but it appears Marianne and Sissi have persuaded the right people and the building of the new transport ships is on schedule. We should be getting a Pegasus link flight coming in later this morning."
Chakki frowned and consulted her clipboard.
"Don't want to alarm you, but we could be running into a problem soon." she remarked.
"Go on." Ruth said, attentively.
"Paying for the expanded army isn't a problem." Chakki said. "All that stuff coming on stream from the mines. These, what do you call them, rare earth metals that Ankh-Morpork can't get enough of for technomancy and technology. You know, weird names like molybdenum and neodymium and so forth. Sissi was looking down the small print on the commodities pages, if you recall, and said "did you know these things are worth twenty times more than gold and there's a market for them?" Those and the platinum, of course. And the first diamonds, now the Dwarfs are getting really deep."
Ruth, a woman to whom mere money was not at the moment a problem, smiled happily.
"Chakki, I can see a "but" coming." she said.
Her assistant looked grave.
"Getting the bloody Dwarfs to stop being so fixated on just gold, and to look for these other things. We kind of solved that. But the growing problem is, Ruth, we're getting lots and lots of cavalry. And each Cossack we're getting is demanding the right to bring a string of remount horses with him, or her. We're running into a bottleneck with regard to fodder for the horses. Logistics. We're getting a cavalry army, we need to feed them. Bottom line. I'm worried our available grasslands might not be enough. Too many horses. We've also got to let cattle and sheep graze."
Ruth and Chakki considered this problem and brainstormed possible solutions.
"So we're going to have to send cavalry units further afield to forage." Ruth remarked. "And at this time of year the best grass is near rivers."
"Rivers." Chakki said. There was an edge of doubt in her voice.
"We need scouts out there." Ruth reminded her. "The horses can pasture, and if my dear brother is planning anything, we get fast reports. Two objectives ticked off. But of course we also need to get messages to sensible people on the other side. Keep them informed and reassure them they are in no danger."
Ruth paused and looked grim.
"In no danger from me, anyway. Chakki, are there any updates on my dear brother and what he might be plotting?"
Chakki became serious.
"The latest whispers from our sources aren't good, but so far they're only whispers." she said. "There's talk in his kraal that he's looking at what our neighbours call the Blood River Salient, and asking why it should be tolerated. That the whites still hold on to a small part of the widdershins side of the Ulunghi. Talk of his sending scouting parties out to spy on how well the Boers defend this place, what's it called, Bronkhuitspruit. Big talk among the hotheads of wiping it off the map, as an insult to the Empire."
Ruth considered this.
"So long as Father is still alive, he'll never permit it." Ruth said. "Damn, I don't know as much as I should about this place. Find out, can you, Chakki, and brief me? All I know, and this is certain, is that if anyone on our side attacks the Salient, that's it. Point of pride to those bloody-minded Boers that they keep a foothold on our side of the River. We attack it. Then that's it. All-out war. The reason why nobody has ever seriously tried, since the last all-out war."
She paused, and considered the awful prospect.
"So talk in his camp is of a move along the Ulunghi. Get cavalry out there, Chakki. In fact. Get me Zoya and this new man, what's his name, Nikolai Ivanovich. His people have had a good six weeks to acclimatise. We can brief them, issue orders, and get them down there."
"Which in itself can alarm the neighbours." Chakki observed.
"Also a risk." Ruth conceded.
Abstractly, she picked up the rock she was using as a paperweight. The Dwarfs running her mines had obligingly cut and sanded one side of it absolutely flat, and polished it. The rock was attractively patterned, It was the size of two fists and was largely the milky-white of marble, streaked with veins of red-brown and blue-grey, blossoming with the organic fluidity of oil paint allowed to spread on water. Even without the blossoming of dull yellow metal, in flowers and veins everywhere, it was beautiful in its own right.
"Should we get a discreet message to the usual people?" Chakki asked. "Advise them our best intelligence is that Simbothwe is considering an attack in the Ulunghi country?"
Ruth considered this.
"Sooner or later, this gets official." she pointed out. "Which means the whites start mobilising their own troops. Which makes a war more rather than less likely. Even for somebody as sensible as Johanna Smith-Rhodes, it's still her home patch, where her family are. And Pieter van der Graaf has, quite properly, advised me via the usual channels that sooner or later, he will be duty-bound to disclose any concrete information to the Cabinet. He can't do anything else. Or he goes down in history as the Foreign Minister who knew in advance a war was about to start, and kept the information to himself."
Ruth sighed, heavily.
"Irena Politek's here later, isn't she? We'll brief her. Fully. Get her opinion. This way, Vetinari gets briefed and it's in his interests to avoid all-out war in Howondaland."
"But we're still sending our cavalry to operate on the Ulunghi border." Chakki said. "In full view of the Whites."
Ruth sighed.
"I know. It's a risk. But Olga Romanoff is keeping Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes fully informed, and she says he's understanding. Doesn't like it much, but he understands the need, and that I'm not going to be the Zulu who attacks him."
Chakki and Ruth paused and considered this.
"Ruth." Chakki said, thoughtfully. "Isn't it more likely somebody like Nikolai Ivanovich is more likely to see somebody on the other side who looks like a Boer Cossack, or next best thing to, and they'll end up slapping each other on the back, and challenging each other to an arm-wrestle, or something? You never know, that might be good for on-the-spot diplomacy."
They considered this together and grinned. The idea lightened the morning for them.
It was just another day in the City of the Ingomyamazi, or as many of the newcomers referred to it now, Lvitsgrad.
The Guild Of Assassins, Filigree Street.
Professor Sir Ponder Stibbons accepted an extraordinarily good cup of coffee from the senior Raven House girl who had been tasked with making it. He thanked her and she stood back, attentively.
"Thank you, Sophia". Miss Ethylene Glynnie said. "That will be all, for now."
Sophia acknowledged this and left the Housemistress's office.
Ponder Stibbons took in his surroundings with interest, reflecting that things had changed here a little since Johanna had been Housemistress. It was still the same ambience of well-lit sober wood-panelling and a big imposing desk, suggesting a place where you would find a dedicated professional like a lawyer, or perhaps an accountant, a professional who would put their skills at your disposal to resolve life's little problems, for the requisite professional fee.
Subtle little signs advertised the sort of professional who worked from here. The stack of exercise books on the table awaiting marking(1) said Teacher. But a certain sharp-edged motif in the ambience and the tasteful black of the décor also told you the professional who worked here was an Assassin. That part of it was unchanging. But each successive occupant of this office had subtly changed it to reflect her own personality. In Johanna's time, the dominant motifs had been weaponry and wildlife. She had needed somewhere to store and display a burgeoning collection of interesting weapons, and this office had housed them. They had since been transferred to the walls of the marital abode on Spa Lane. Johanna's framed prints of interesting wildlife and Howondalandian art had also travelled with her when she moved out.
Gillian Lansbury had redecorated with Art in general, interesting examples of painting and sculpture. And some weapons, but a lot less than Johanna's personal armoury. She too had married and moved on.
Today, the motif was music. Various percussion instruments were ranged and on display, and the framed pictures on the walls were of great classical musicians. And their music; Ethylene had invested in original scores and notation from the great composers, which she had assured Ponder were of as much value as some of the great classical paintings. For instance, this is a first draft of the Just After Ten Past Six Overture, and is of real value in following the thought-processes of the composer as he rescored and redrafted the piece.
"According to Miss Garianova, the Cyrillic notations in the margin, in the composer's own hand, read "Mogu li ya ispol'zovat' nastoyashchiye pushki?" and "nedostatochno gromko!" she informed him.
Ponder had looked politely blank.
The third person in the room had cheerfully said
"Dad, the first one means something like "I wonder if I can get real cannons for this bit?" and the second one definitely means "Not loud enough!"
"Thank you, Famke." Miss Glynnie said, after a short pause. She shook her head. "The Just After Ten Past Six is of special interest to percussionists." she remarked. She turned to Famke.
"Unusually, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, you're in my office, and you're not in trouble." she remarked. "You're here to play an active part in this discussion with your father, and you will have a valuable contribution to make. I require you to focus and concentrate."
Famke was studying the portraits on the wall, formal iconographs of the two previous Housemistresses of Raven House. Ponder had been drawn to them too. He had the uneasy feeling that the picture of a far younger Johanna might just as well be of an older Famke. Seeing them together was a little bit unsettling.
"I'd agree there's a strong likeness." Miss Glynnie agreed. "Unavoidable, really. Now, shall we begin? Professor Stibbons, you're curious about the Sensory Deprivation Chamber."
She nodded to Famke.
"Your daughter has been in there more than once. We have explored ideas in there together. I regard her as an exceptionally able student."
Ponder felt a warm stab of pride.
"Please understand I have no objections." he said. "Neither does Johanna. Famke's training as an Assassin. You've got complete freedom to train her as you see fit. I completely understand you take care with your pupils."
Ethylene Glynnie smiled, enigmatically.
"As my colleague Miss Band often remarks, you have to. The paperwork you have to complete if a student gets killed or damaged takes hours to complete. Or so she says."
Ponder thought for a second. Assassin humour. He'd been around it for as long as he'd known Johanna.
"It's bad for the health." Famke said. "Matron Igorina talks about repetitive strain injury in the wrist on your writing hand."
"Then learn to be ambidextrous." Miss Glynnie said. "That is a very good Assassin skill to learn."
Ponder grinned. He appreciated relaxed informal conversations like this. They helped get things done quickly.
"Forgive me, it took a long time for the penny to drop." he said. "I know Johanna had a session in the Tank. You don't mind me calling it that? She came back, sort of thoughtful and not quite herself. When she was ready to talk, she explained what it was, and how everything sort of stilled. And that she ended up reviewing a lot of things she'd done when she was younger."
He looked at Famke, realising he'd better keep this general and not specific. Miss Glynnie nodded, understanding.
"Johanna said she felt there was no choice. With everything else temporarily shut down, the only input was coming from inside. Not from outside. You end up confronting your memories. Confronting yourself."
Miss Glynnie considered this.
"That is indeed a common strand in everybody's experience of the Chamber." she said. "With no outer world, the inner world takes over. Famke also experienced prompts and memories from her inner world. Famke?"
Famke grinned. She began describing her own experiences in sensory deprivation and how after a while she started to get these really cool pictures forming, like her memories playing out, and then getting freaky when they took on an active life, sort of, in pictures and sounds and stuff like that.
Her father listened attentively. He was getting a good conceptual picture of what was going on and could happen in the Tank. He was especially interested when Famke got to the bit that, he realised, was of particular professional interest to him, as a Wizard.
"So." he said, thinking hard. "Famke, you started revisiting nice things that happened, and watching them play out around you. Then after a while, bad memories started intruding, starting with those arguments with your mother, and looking at them again wasn't pleasant at all."
Famke nodded, emphatically.
"And then the frightening things."
Ponder Stibbons tried not to shudder at the awful thought.
"That fight you had with the Zulu boys. In Lancre. Your grandfather frankly telling you what an idiot you were to go charging at them without back-up."
Miss Glynnie smiled gnomically. Famke winced.
"Mr Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes." she said. "A man to take notice of when he speaks to you."
"He'll be over here later in the year." Ponder said, reflecting his father-in-law was one of a small select group of people Famke always listened to and did as she was told by them. "I should introduce you."
"I should like that." Miss Glynnie said. "Thank you."
Ponder smiled at Famke. I'm only your father, I realise that. But I have back-up.
"And at this point the visions, perhaps the hallucinations, became extremely frightening. You realised your grandfather was completely right when you saw three Zulus, this time adult male warriors, running at you and stabbing you."
Ponder tried to shut out the awful idea of this happening, for real, to his daughter.
"So the pattern emerges. A person in sensory deprivation, with nothing coming in that the accepted senses can work on, discovers the focus becomes internal. The senses are still active. So they somehow, and I'm aware this may be almost completely wrong, start to work in reverse. They take a stored memory, and project it outwards."
Miss Glynnie nodded understanding.
"Matron Igorina is working on this." she said. "Thinking about the specific processes involved. The complex interplay between the body and the mind. This fascinates her. But that picture is a good one, Professor Stibbons. It will serve, for now."
Ponder smiled. This fascinated him.
"There is a progression. Pleasant pictures become progressively less pleasant, disquieting. Then they tip a threshold and become frightening, even terrifying. Johanna said this happened to her, too."
"This appears to be universal." Ethylene agreed. "I have had to take more than one student to the infirmary afterwards for treatment and sedation. The terror at this point has been too much for some. But Famke challenged it and mastered it. She fought past that point. As, indeed, did her mother."
"But if you master the challenge." Ponder said, thinking furiously. "It is possible that something else happens. And this is what I'm interested in, as a Wizard. Miss Glynnie, you know I supervise the screening tests for students. Every new intake of possible Assassin students needs to be tested for magical ability, by order of the Patrician. I know the tests work. There are also follow-up tests at the age of puberty, which is a key time for the onset of Magic. And spot tests, if any Assassin teacher suspects a pupil is developing Magic spontaneously."
"And you know they work." Ethylene said. "You tested them on your own daughters. You've just retested Famke, in fact. Just to make sure."
"And she still has less magical ability than Professor Rincewind." Ponder said. "You know, Rebecka went nearly off the scale for magical ability. Famke goes off the scale too, but at the other end. No magical ability whatsoever." (2)
Ethylene Glynnie nodded, thoughtfully.
"Yet, inside the Chamber, after confronting and mastering her fear, something strange then happens to Famke. And this is what interests you."
Famke had asked her sister Rebecka. These Ancestors who appear to you. You know, great-great grandmothers and stuff. Does one of them look like this, with some really gross scars on her face as if she got hit by a mincing machine…
Bekki had listened and then taken her to Mum, who had shown Famke some family pictures. Then they'd all spoken to Dad. Bekki had also spoken to her deceased ancestor Johanna Cornelia, who in life had taken an assegai to the face in a battle with Zulus. Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes had then confirmed, to Bekki and Ponder, that she had, briefly and unsteadily, managed to make Famke aware of her presence, in that dark place. However, Famke's teacher had shown up, and the connection had been broken.
And now Ponder and Miss Glynnie were discussing the strong possibility that if you spent long enough in sensory deprivation, with all other sensory input shut down, it could open even the least magical of people to what were normally magic-user-only experiences. Like interacting with ghosts.
"Yours is a family that has a long history and some remarkable people who were a part of that history." Miss Glynnie said, thoughtfully. "Rebecka has both the bloodline and the magical ability to allow them a channel to manifest. You can independently verify their existence. Other magic users are aware of them. Non-magical members of the family, such as Johanna and Famke, are not directly able to see or interact with them, but are accepting of their presence. And Famke, once in deep sensory deprivation, begins to interact with them herself, despite having absolutely no magic whatsoever. This is interesting."
"From a Wizard point of view, this is of great interest." Ponder said. "The idea that when you shut down all the senses and leave nothing, then even the least magical person might sense a magical phenomenon. Such as a nearby ghost or a disembodied spirit."
"I get it, dad." Famke said. "I'm your guinea-pig. Just get a big hamster wheel for me to run around in."
"Or you can just write down a short report for me whenever it happens. When you're training in there with Miss Glynnie." Ponder replied.
Miss Glynnie smiled.
"It's as if the mental state is highly amplified, but has nothing everyday to work with. Therefore senses working overtime, with no distractions, pick up on anything psychic that's going on. I'll certainly ask my experimental subjects to look out for this, Professor. Ensure they make their reports as full and accurate as possible."
Miss Glynnie looked thoughtful. She considered Ponder Stibbons.
"I wonder what might happen if a magic-user entered the Sensory Deprivation Chamber?" she mused. "If somebody who already has magic passed into a state where the five regular senses are effectively disabled?"
For some reason, Ponder felt a chilly sensation. As a sensation, it was akin to the feelings of impending doom, alarm and apprehension he got when a Faculty member proposed to do something that sounded like a good idea at the time. He also realised that if he entered the Tank and got this far, he was likely to find out things about himself that he wasn't entirely sure he'd want to know. Very deep Wizard senses were screaming at him "Do not do this!"
He sighed.
"Miss Glynnie? I really wouldn't. Get a Wizard panicked or frightened. He'll start throwing spells around. Serious ones, if he feels he's under threat. It's fundamental. You might do better with a Witch, perhaps. Although…."
Miss Glynnie took this on board. She agreed it was a good idea that her research and training premises, eight floors underground, were not subjected to random magical destruction.
"Come on, dad." Famke said. "I've done it. Mum's done it. Maybe you could, I don't know, turn the magic off, or something?"
Ponder Stibbons realised he was also listening to a very small slight voice of an inner Ponder Stibbons, that actually wanted to do this. The same little voice was pointing out that there were things he needed to know about himself and the fact he was frightened of the possible answers should be telling him something, quite apart from the fact he didn't know what the right questions were. (3)
"We'll have to think about this." he said to Miss Glynnie. "Evolve a research protocol and build in a lot of fail-safes, or something. Maybe a variant on the nullification spell, that cancels out any sort of magic in a given area. The Dean used it once, when he had to referee an eleven-a-side match.(4) So that any Wizard or Witch, who goes into the Tank, is temporarily unable to do any magic at all. It doesn't mean you can't sense it when it's around you, it's just that you cannot use any kind of a spell yourself. Nullification just prevents you from doing any active spell-casting. I'll talk to people."
Wes Sandrift, Bitterfontein, in the Turnwise Caarp.
Bekki had spent a morning very carefully supervising the movement of pigs to a second sub-colony, a long way downwind of the huis and carefully selected to be a long way from the growing vines. The multiplication of pigs was proving to be an ongoing embarrassment to Aunt Mariella and something of an unspoken strain in the easy friendship between her and Mevrou Hendricka. It was a problem. The elephant in the room between Hendricka and Mariella was proving to be one that oinked and, well, smelt of pig.
As a second and then a third litter of piglets had emerged, Bekki, as the nearest thing to an expert in porcine husbandry, had been attempting to manage the situation and make the best of it until a permanent solution could be arrived at. The headache had been the moving of surplus pigs to a new location. This had called for Organisation and a lot of liaison with Baas Ricus van Linden, the labour manager. Together they had identified an area of Lensen family land that was currently not in use, deemed unsuitable for growing, and meeting the essential criteria of being a long way downwind, easily defensible against animal escapes, and nowhere near the vines, the crucial core of the business.
As Bekki had pointed out, free-range pigs forage freely. Believe me, you do not want them foraging among the grapevines.
Van Linden had got this, and together they'd staked out a suitable area, large enough to allow the animals free movement, and supervised a labour force in setting up poles and sturdy fences. Aunt Mariella, with an uncharacteristic air of sheepish embarrassment, had helped out.
"Jislaaik". said van Linden, shaking his head. "Ag. Well, nobody is going to be short of bacon come Hogswatch."
The new enclosure had risen quickly, with sturdy fences and what for now was a rudimentary shelter against the elements. The next problem had been moving several adult pigs and a lot of piglets there without losing any. Bekki had solved this one by judicious use of sedatives and some discreet Pig Boring. She had then supervised the labour force in moving semi-comatose pigs and piglets into a high-sided cart to prevent any bids for freedom. Bekki herself had taken a deep breath, then wished she hadn't, and travelled in the cart with them, topping up the pig-boring on the route to prevent them from waking up too much and getting lively.
"So what's next?" Aunt Mariella had asked. She had taken a step back. "Remember to give those clothes to Sanna for laundering, by the way."
Bekki grinned.
"Those new piglets are getting to the right age for cutting." she said. "I'll do that."
She noted, with satisfaction, how the ebullient Baas van Linden unconsciously closed his legs and covered himself up, as if for protection. Hearing women talking about castrating surplus male animals always seemed to have this effect on men.
"When we do the cutting." Bekki said, noting van Linden wincing again, "I'll show you how it's done on pigs. New skill for you to learn. When it's done, it means the numbers won't grow as fast and you'll be spared a population explosion."
"Cutting." Aunt Mariella said, thoughtfully. Van Linden winced again.
"Easily done on pigs." Bekki reassured her. "When you cut a pig it's easiest of all, as even on a young boar piglet, the bits you have to cut out are so big, a blind person could do it by feel."
"Is that everything, mev'Mariella?" van Linden asked, hastily. "Work to do on the os-side."
Mariella grinned.
"Sure you don't want to learn how to cut pigs, Ricus?" she asked, in a friendly voice. "I'm sure Bekki knows how to do it quickly and humanely. Nevermind. I'm sure you've got a million things to do."
The two of them watched Ricus van Linden's hastily retreating back.
After a while Mariella burst into spluttering laughter.
"It's cruel." she said. "But the expression on his face!"
"I didn't even get to describe the working tool to him." Bekki said, shaking her head. "Reckon I've got one in the working kit."
Mariella patted her shoulder.
"Just bring it out sometime." she said. "Just to show him. Explain it adjusts according to the size of the animal you're dealing with."
"Practical demonstration." Bekki said.
"You've got it." Mariella agreed.
She turned to the black labourers who were awaiting instructions. They had a look of stolid expressionless patience about them, tinged with an indefinable aura of job satisfaction. Bekki reflected that they'd just witnessed their Baas getting uncomfortable and making a hasty retreat. She suspected it had brightened their day.
"Okay. Let's get a feeding station set up." she said. "To welcome these bros to their new home."
She briskly supervised the unloading of sacks and containers and the filling of feeding troughs. Bekki watched the unappealing mess being slopped from the large bins into the troughs. It looked as if it might have had some sort of vegetation in its ancestry, maybe grain? It was being supplemented with the contents of a sack. Bekki recognised the grain that had been bought at Viani's the previous week.
Mariella grinned.
"New venture in the distillery." she explained. "Something to keep us running at pretty near capacity, when there aren't any grapes, and the stuff maturing in the vaults isn't nearly right for turning into klipdrift. The distillery creates draff and lees. May as well dispose of it usefully."
Bekki asked what draff was. Aunt Mariella explained it's the leavings after creating a mash and running off the liquid. It's done then for distilling, and you get the headache of what to do with the waste product. So you may as well use pigs as your waste disposal. Turn the draff into bacon rather than landfill.
"And the fresh grain?" Bekki asked.
Mariella looked sheepish.
"Ag, well. Hendricka made it clear if I keep pigs, I'm feeding them out of my own pocket." she said. "And the kitchen waste from the huis wasn't nearly enough, and I'm not sure if there'll be enough draff for this number of pigs. So I'm financing the shortfall."
Bekki patted her aunt on the back.
"I know a woman. In Lancre." she said.
She looked up and frowned. Overhead a large bird was circling, just a dot in the higher sky.
"You need overhead protection." she said, practically. "One of those could take a piglet when they're this small."
Mariella looked up and saw the eagle. She got the point. She also looked at Bekki, appraisingly.
"Air Watch skill?" she asked. "I had to strain to spot that. You just glanced up."
"Good training." Bekki replied, thinking of Hanna von Strafenberg, Godsmother Irena, Olga and the others. Always watch the sky and never for an instant think you're alone up there had been one of the first lessons about flying. Watching for possible predators was a primary Air Watch skill. She recalled one of her very first flights with Godsmother Irena instructing her. Challenged to identify other air users, Bekki had not seen a thing. Irena had then meticulously counted five other broomsticks and two magic carpets that Bekki had genuinely not spotted. It had been a lesson.
"That reminds me." Bekki said. "Olga said she wants to drop by sometime early next week. Chances are Irena's coming over too. She wants to talk about Haartebeeste. The van Jaasveld thing."
"Needs it." Mariella said. "And you can show them the surgery. And justnow, if we're done here for the moment, might be a good idea for you to have a quick sluice and change clothes. Can't have you going to any human customers stinking of pig."
Mariella grinned.
"Make sure you dump the dirty clothes on Sanna." she said. "Good for her soul and reminds her she's still only a housemaid, not the bloody butler."
Bekki took a moment to put a quick discreet protection spell on the new piggery, one specifically aimed to deter eagles. She wasn't sure if it would still work if the eagle was hungry enough, but it might help. She assessed; it was too far away to Borrow, a state where she could leave a direct suggestion for it to avoid piglets, however yummy-looking they were. Besides, she wasn't good at Borrowing flying things. Godsmother Irena could. She was renowned for it. But every young witch was cautioned about Borrowing birds. You could stay there too long, enthralled with flight. It was an occupational hazard.
They walked back to the huis together.
"Got a job for you on Saturday afternoon, if you're willing." Mariella said. "Horst can explain more. It's really his ask."
Bekki washed, changed, and presented more pig-soiled clothing to Sanna the housemaid, who put on a slightly hurt look. Then she had lunch with Aunt Mariella and Uncle Horst.
"Henderson." Aunt Mariella reminded him. Uncle Horst nodded acknowledgement. He didn't explain, at least not straight away.
"We, err, need a medic on hand on Saturday afternoon." he said, exploring her willingness to take on another job.
"Go on." she said. She had an intuition this would be different.
"Doctor Henderson." Aunt Mariella said, prompting him.
"Big fifteen-a-side match on at the Hendrick Verwoerd." her uncle explained. "We're playing Kirstenbosch. Big fixture. As home side we have to provide a medic. You know, the odd bump or knock."
Bekki sighed.
"Uncle Horst, I do know Uncle Danie turns out for the Springboeks." she reminded him. "I've been to games. I know what people who play fifteen-a-side mean by the odd bump or knock. What you really mean is, broken bones and gashes that need stitching."
Her uncle grinned embarrassedly.
"Well… maybe not that bad."
Aunt Mariella made a disbelieving snort.
"Anyway, you mentioned a Doctor Henderson? Can't he do it? He'd be more qualified than me."
"Ah…" Uncle Horst said, looking shifty.
Aunt Mariella took over.
"He's unreliable." she said, curtly. "Doctor, yes. But nearer seventy than sixty and he's been doing it for too long. Considers an essential medication in his black bag is a hip-flask full of klipdrift."
Bekki got the point.
"That sort of doctor." she said.
Mariella nodded, emphatically.
"That sort of doctor." she agreed. "Hendricka and I have been working on getting him to consider retirement. And relax, we're not proposing you. We need another doctor in Bitterfontein. Somebody younger and with more energy who isn't burnt out. Problem is, attracting the right person here."
Bekki got it.
"And until then, you need a first-aid person you can rely on, for fifteen-a-side games."
Uncle Horst nodded.
"Got it. We could just go ahead and play without one, but…"
Bekki understood. Fifteen-a-side was almost a religion in Rimwards Howondaland. You didn't cancel a game just because you couldn't get an officiating medical officer. You took the view everybody playing was a big boy who could take a knock or two. But just in case somebody got so donnered he couldn't easily stand up again, you needed a medic on call.
And Aunt Mariella was quietly making sure a medically able person would be present.
Bekki sighed.
"I'll do it." she said, wondering what she was letting herself in for this time.
"Dankie." Uncle Horst said.
To be continued
(1) Larger than usual student notebooks, with musical notation staves on one page and regular lined paper on the other.
(2) Ponder and Johanna agreed that if Famke ever manifested any late-onset magic, she would not be able to do a Natasha Romanoff and hide it. She simply would not be able to resist the urge to throw fireballs. She would out herself within seconds of realising. Both her parents agreed that this was highly unlikely and that any universe in which Famke developed magic would be one that required serious reconfiguration.
(3) Wizards get Second Thoughts too. It's just that most of the time, they don't bother listening.
(4) go to Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett.