Free Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee by Suzette Haden Elgin

Granny Leeward, like a stone falling. “It was sin, what you did.”
    “No,” said Responsible. “it was illegal. The two things are not the same.”
    “Only a Magician of Rank has the authority to do what you did that day,” said the Granny, chopping off every word, “and that’s the illegal part. The sinful part is a woman even knowing what you obviously know, and having no more decency than to use that knowledge, and in full daylight before a dozen respectable people on top of that. And it was an ugly trick, missy, a purely ugly trick!”
    “If there was sin-which I don’t admit to-it was in losing my temper and falling into the trap you and your kin set for me. I’d say that was more stupidity than wickedness.”
    Granny Leeward gave her a narrow look, and as Responsible had expected, there came   a sudden look of understanding in her eyes. She’d be seeing that look a lot oftener than she cared to today.
    “I see you’ve added a new wickedness to your inventory,” said the old woman, “You’re a bold hussy, I’ll grant you that.” Responsible sighed, and set her tray on the night table by her bed.
    “Granny Leeward,” she said, “you’ve come to chastise me for my foolishness at Castle Traveller-call it sin if you please, I’ll not waste my breath arguing theology with you before breakfast. Well and good; I’m not proud of it. There you sat, leading me on and fanning yourself with that black fan; and all I had to do was heat up its handle a tad to advise you I intended to be treated with respect. There was no call for me to turn that fan into a handful of mushrooms-”
    “Black and rotting mushrooms, wi t h the smell of death on ‘em!” interrupted L eeward and Responsible, nodded.
    “Quite right,” she said. “The black was appropriate, seeing as how y ou Travellers find it the only fit color for human use, but there was no call to make them rot in your hand. You caught me with a child’s trick, and I’m well and thoroughly ashamed that I took that bait. But it seems to me you made me pay for that already, Granny Leeward. How greedy for revenge are you? ”
    The old woman snorted, and her face was stiff with contempt. “I wouldn’t want any misunderstanding between you and me,” she said, leaning back in the rocker and steepling her fingers. “Not any misunderstanding whatsoever. Might could be I should clarify this for you.”
    “I’d be grateful,” said Responsible,
    Granny Leeward counted the points off one at a time. “What you did to me ,” she said, “practicing an illegal act of magic, and a foul one, on my person-that goes unpunished still. You lay for a day with deathdance fever, that the Magicians call Anderson’s Disease, as payment for carrying out your ugliness before the Family-that’s paid. Your offense to me still stands, and I’ll call that in when I choose; I don’t choose just yet, Responsible of Brightwater, not just yet. And that’s not why I’m here.”
    “You’re not clarifying much, Granny Leeward, but your narrowness of spirit. Perhaps you could try a little harder?”
    “There are six delegates from Castle Traveller as will sit in the Independence Room this day, and as saw what you did,” hissed Granny Leeward, “and they’re ready and willing to denounce you before the entire convention of delegates, the audience in the balcony, and those watching on their comsets. That make it clearer?”
    “Mighty gallant, your men,” said Responsible. “It must make you proud.”
    “A female such as you, missy, ought not to have the gall to ask for gallantry. Well on the way to being a witch, and clear the other side of being a fornicator, and you talk about gallantry? That’s for decent women, not for your kind.”
    “You’re plain-spoken,” said Responsible. “‘That’s useful in a Granny.”
    “Didn’t I say I’d take no sass from you? Your memory gone with your maidenhead?”
    “A compliment is not sass,” said Responsible, with as