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Show Gundarholt be dead!" screamed the girl in front of the running children. "Janni's father be dead!" "Look ye!" cried Leland, and he darted forward to catch Dr'Anya who was in the process of falling from the chair-in a limp faint. "Great leaping Isaac!" muttered Dr'Igor. "A fair birthday, indeed!" Janni nodded her head. "Saw I the thing entire, for hark ye, I doubled myself back-thou seest?-o'er ill with guilt after I'd come to myself. I'd scrambled up a tree roundly and into the turret work above all this clamor and uproar. When my good mother fainted, I thought she'd died, and I was in a fair state because of it. So I hurled myself back into the tree, scrambled down, and ran over to her. What a commotion! Folk were running and fetching. My wise Uncle Leland had taken charge of the melee and sent wights chasing hither and thither for this and that on purpose so that my poor mother had some space wherewith to breathe." "Aye, and when I revived," Dr'Anya put in, "there was Janni hanging over me, wailing, with her hands clasped in front of her. "Marry, and on the instant, my good Mother said, 'Child, be still!'" "And added I that she should say naught another word, that all would be righted, and then sent I to her a good blast on the Other Level to keep quiet about everything or we would most assuredly be cloistered. And by Saint Isaac, now that I think on it, most of the Doctors around us must needs have heard that, mayhap without knowing full well my meaning." "And sayest thou true, thou hast done that thing never again?" Dr'Igor was looking at the maid keenly and stroking his beard. 234 |