The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [49]
They were all silent for awhile, staring into the fire as those not possessing tires and spokes have done since the dawn of the world. The Wyverary drifted helplessly to sleep, sitting up. He snored lightly. It sounded like pages turning. Calpurnia scratched under her hat.
“Where are you lot off to, then? You’ll pardon, you don’t seem like the lifestyle type. Short-term transport, am I right?”
“The Autumn Provinces,” answered Saturday, his voice echoing low among the snorting, snuffling highwheels as they teemed around their watering hole and spun their spokes in antique mating dances.
September found she did not want to say why they were going. She wrapped the sash of the smoking jacket around her recovered Spoon delicately. Calpurnia whistled.
“Ayup, that’s a respectable haul! We ought to make that in a week or two. Hope you brought comestibles of your own!”
“A week or two!” cried September. “But that’s not fast enough! We need to get there and back in seven days.”
Penny laughed. “Can’t do it!” she giggled.
But Calpurnia was thinking. She scratched her chin with three long brown fingers, then licked them and held them up to the wind. “Aye but we might…if you think you can handle your alpha. I don’t like to do it, but I’m not so dense as to miss that you’re running hard, and that almost always means there’s a beast behind you.”
September nodded miserably.
“Well, a velo is a lazy thing, in the end. They don’t like to go as fast as they can go. It suits them just as well to roll along leisurely-like. This is the Great Migration--they’re all homebound, to the spoke-nests, to mate and die. Some of them feel the mating drive stronger than others. Some only feel the dying drive. Makes them lag. But if you and I apply a bit of encouragement, they’ll bear down on the road like it’s dinner. And by encouragement I mean whipping of course and I know it’s not civilized and I cringe to think of it but sometimes with steeds it’s all you can do.”
“Don’t want to whip my velos,” Penny whimpered.
“They forget, chickie. They’ll all forget.”
“No they won’t! They’ll whisper: that Penny, she’s naughty and nasty!”
“Penny, you don’t have to do a thing,” said Saturday gently, who knew a thing or two about whipping.
“But Saturday, we’ve so little time…”
Saturday looked at September for a moment, his expression, as always, unreadable. Then he leaned over and rubbed his cheek against her forehead just as she had done to him. The Marid got up and walked away from the fire, into the dark and the wavering grass and the volery of snorting, spinning. velocipedes.
“Is he yours, then?” Calpurnia asked, draining her wooden flask with relish. She spat into her goggles and rubbed them clean with her fingers.
“Mine? No, he’s his own. “
Calpurnia grunted doubtfully and squinted at the dark.
“Miss Farthing, may I ask you a question?”
“How can a deny such a nicely-wrapped request?”
“Are you helping us because you want to? Because you like us, because you’re friendly and good-hearted? Or because the Marquess wants you to be nice? Because she’ll Greenlist you if you don’t?”
Calpurnia Farthing looked long and deep into September’s eyes. The young girl felt as though she was naked again, in the bath-house. Her golden gaze seemed heavy and hot.
“What makes you think I’m not already Greenlisted, girl? Do you think taking a changeling out of the orchestra comes at no price at all?” She tugged on the flaps of her hat. “If it will make you feel better I can lead you to a pit in the forest or steal your breath or whatever it is I might--and I’m not admitting to anything--have done in my profligate youth. These days, I have my highwheels and my girl to look after. Hardly time to go spoiling the barley for beer. Maybe when I retire, I’ll go back to it. But if it pleases the Marquess to think that her hoofing List is all that’s keeping me in my place, then let her think it. Mainly, I’ll help you because lost little human girls are