Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years (15 page)

“Wel, it prefers its opinions, I see.” The mistress of Mockbeggar sighed. “Personaly I hate uppity books. Don’t you?”

“I never got to no book yet. Books is stil al secrets.” Disgruntled, the girl slumped in her seat and, forgetting her place, leaned against Glinda. “The mister says that letters are the key, but even when you know the whole family, there’s so many combinations you can make. And they break their word.”

“Yes. Wel. You’l get there.” Against her better judgment she couldn’t help putting her hand on the girl’s hip. “I don’t remember learning to read, but clearly I did, because I can.”

“What does that bit say?” Rain pointed.

“Wel, this is hard, even for me.” She couldn’t serve winter on a bed of water to Cherrystone, however often the Grimmerie recommended it. She closed the book, and it slid back into the casing of its casual disguise.

“Secrets. Pfaaah.” The girl was vexed. “Look at that Oz, what I showed you previous.” She traced her finger against the inlay of the table, along the
Z
whose termini and angles met the encircling
O
at four points of the oval:

. “It looks like a person trapped in an egg. Bent back, on her knees. Can’t stand up straight. Can’t get out. Why don’t the
O
let her out?”

“That’s Oz for you,” said Glinda. “Al about crimping. And I don’t mean piecrust.” Perhaps a lambkin pie with a summer salad of peas and potatoes?

Glinda with Miss Murth, later in the day. “Please take down this message. Eighteenth Highsummer four hours beyond noon. Zackers colon: I need the folowing colon: four little thingies of lamb eight potatoes the yelow jacket kind blue peppercorn four ripe pears peeled two cloves a dish of clover mayonnaise about sixty peas al the same size and a sharp smal knife stop. Oh, and some bickory root. Read that back to me.”

Murth did. “How shal I sign it for you?”

“I realy need these things. Sign it
Mum
.”

“I’l do no such thing.”

Murth took so long writing out the signature that Glinda knew she was adding a paragraph of specifics she’d cribbed from Cranston’s
Encyclopedium of Gentry
. The honorary degrees, the citations of merit in the cause of charities from Madame Teastane’s Female Academy to Crage Hal at Shiz. The whole nine yards of it. “Oh, Miss Murth. Are you so jealous as al that?”

“My job is to protect you, Lady Glinda, even if you are losing your mind.”

The kitchen, next day. Zackers served as sous chef and personal bodyguard. Twice he saved Glinda from immolation. His pimples hadn’t improved, but he wasn’t a bad sort. His grandparents had been Munchkinlanders from Far Applerue, he told her, but they’d migrated to Tenniken in Gilikin after the Wicked Witch of the East had risen to be the de facto governor. They had smelt secession in the winds, he told Glinda, and they didn’t like it.

“Oh, who would,” agreed Glinda absently. “Especialy if it smels like this poaching liqueur.”

“You might try removing the trotters. Here’s a pincers. Or shal I?”

That seemed to help. “But aren’t you conflicted, Zackers? A soldier of Loyal Oz, going to war against Munchkinlanders who might have been friends and neighbors of your grandparents?”

“If they were friends and neighbors of the wrinklies, they won’t be up to throwing pitchforks at me. They’l be belted into their rockers like my old kin.”

“The principle of it, I mean.”

“Munchkinland belongs to Oz.” Adamant. “A lot of Munchkins remain Loyal Ozians despite that Mombey, arriviste Eminence in Colwen Grounds. A fair lot of Munchkins quietly think Oz isn’t Oz when it’s severed like this.”

“What is it then? If it’s not realy Oz without Munchkinland?”

He replied, “It’s spoiled. Like this reduction. I think we better start over.” He would say no more about himself, and became curt. But the second batch turned out less disagreeable.

In the late afternoon, she directed Puggles to set up a table for two in the rose garden.

“I’m not alowed in the rose garden, Mum.”

“But who wil serve? I can’t be expected to cook a meal and then haul it to the table like a milkmaid.”

“Were I you, I should take it up with that buttery-boy Zackers. You seem to be chummy enough with him. Lady Glinda.” Puggles didn’t know she had a strategy, but she didn’t dare whisper about it. She only said, “This is intolerable. You can’t be tethered like a cow, Puggles. I shal protest. Meantime, give Zackers instruction in the correct layout of a summer table.” But she didn’t protest; she had to whip up the cream and egg yolk for the crawberry fool. And she had to study the Grimmerie.

At seven, as a half-moon appeared opposite the sunset and the lake went hazy and golden with midges, she dressed. Miss Murth saw to Glinda’s hair and perked into compliance the bows that ran from her peplum to the end of her diaphanous train. “The pearl pendants, I think, wil do. A jaunty little tiara would be putting on airs. This is alfresco, after al. If I’m in the mood I shal adorn my hair with a rose or two.”

“The thorns wil scrape your scalp and you’l bleed into the dessert.”

“It could only help. I’m ready to descend. Wil you carry my parasol?”

“You’ve not been paying attention,
Mum
. We’re not alowed out of the house anymore.”

“No? I’l take it up with Traper if the moment arrives. Don’t wait up, Miss Murth. I can see myself to bed.”

“I’m sure you can.” Miss Murth pursed her lips so hard they looked broken.

The General arrived on time in a suit of ivory sartorials Glinda hadn’t seen before. Crimson braid. He was as vain as she; he’d checked the colors of the prettibels, or he’d had Zackers check. She felt eclipsed in her ash satin with the double-backed sparstitch in chrome and salmon.

Zackers had done the job as Puggles had directed. The table was laid correctly enough, and an occasional table had been arranged to one side for the parking of domed serving dishes and beakers of wine.

Next to it, eyes trained forward, stood Zackers. He was al in black like a maître d’ in a midrange lunchery in Bankers’ Court in Shiz. His pimples matched the roses nicely too.

He puled out the chairs and poured the wine. He offered Lady Glinda a fan, as the humidity had risen during the day and there was no breeze off the water. She felt more gluey than dewy after her afternoon imprisoned in the furnace of ovens and hobs. But Cherrystone looked sticky, too, which was some comfort.

Betraying their convention, she plunged into a discussion of government policy. “Traper. With my staff ever more circumscribed—we’l get to that—I feel the need of understanding the larger picture. I’ve been thinking about this campaign of the Emperor to annex Restwater for Loyal Oz. It was being bruited about even during the Wizard’s time, don’t deny it, and my own ministers used to try to get me to consider military action. But in the years since I left off being Throne Minister—”

“—and took up cooking. Delicious,” he muttered, through a mouthful of penance. She knew it. The gum-rubber little cutlets lay drowned in puddles of grainy sauce that tasted, somehow, violent.

“—I have rather lost the thread of the rationale of this conquest. The western Vinkus isn’t arable due to the aridity of the plains, I know, and the slope of the Great Kels in the Eastern Vinkus makes plowing impossible. Quadling Country is a stew of mud and marshgrass. My own dear Gilikin Country—though forested, lightly hiled, with such a soft climate—features soil more conducive to manufacturing than to farming. So much iron in it. But three-quarters of the grain we al require annualy grows in Munchkinland. Why would Loyal Oz want to annex Restwater? Doesn’t it threaten the agricultural base of the source of Oz’s food supply? What if Munchkinland embargoes its sale of wheat and other crops? The EC would starve. And the rich farmers of Munchkinland might see their bank balances dip, but they wouldn’t go hungry. They have what they need. They can hold out.”

“Glinda, you’re the sweetest peach in the fruit bowl, but I don’t believe you understand the aquifers in Oz and their effect on riparian systems.” Cherrystone took several lettuce leaves with his fingers and dumped them on the tablecloth. He mounded up one leaf higher than the other. “Look. The Great Kels of the Vinkus over here, right? And the lower Madeleines over here. Emerald City between them.” (He put a radish, with its singlefringe dome, in the middle.) “And the three great rivers? Let’s see.” Several of the longer green beans. “The Vinkus, like so. The Gilikin River. Munchkin River. More or less. Do you see?”

“Yes, and that little woggle-bug on the radish is the emperor of al it can survey. Traper, I did attend primary school.” Did his knee touch hers under the table? In the act of leaning forward as if captivated, she grazed his knee glancingly and then shifted her leg away, just in case. “Go on.”

“The Gilikin River, though long, is shalow. The river water leaches easily into the landscape. Gilikin is the Oz of which the poet speaks—‘land of green abandon, land of endless leaf.’ The river makes Gilikin into the kind of pretty picture of Oz that I expect to think of on my deathbed.”

“How absurd. I shal be thinking of my portfolio, and if I’ve adequately kept dividends from grasping hands. Go on.”

“The Munchkin River is the longest, but the Munchkins have hundreds of years of experience in irrigation by canal and aqueduct. You’ve seen them?”

“Of course I have. Don’t patronize me. Cross-ditching, they cal it.”

He raised an eyebrow. Score for her. “The point is, Munchkinlanders use their water wisely—upstream. They bleed it al along its length. So the Munchkin River, like the Gilikin, gives little more than lip service to Restwater as it debouches therein. And the EC to the north long ago overwhelmed the United Gilikin Canal Company’s capacity to supply it. Here’s my main point, Glinda. Your lovely lake caled Restwater is replenished daily by the water that courses down from the snowy peaks and wintry ice packs of the Great Kels. Every single peak of which looms solidly in Loyal Oz. The shortest but the healthiest, the fiercest, the
wettest
of the rivers of Oz is the Vinkus. And as it runs between banks of hard fleckstone ten thousand years old, it doesn’t leach into and make fertile the parched land. Indeed, the flat through which it passes is known as the Disappointments. The land is poor and affords farmers little more than a sulen, resentful crop of whatever is planted.”

“I always thought the Disappointments was the name of some sort of old-age hostelry.”

He wasn’t amused. “No, the mighty Vinkus River, al that runoff of the Great Kels, pours without subtraction into Restwater. I’m sure you’ve circumnavigated this broad lake and seen the Vinkus tumbling over those rounded stones—the Giant’s Toes, they cal it—delivering Oz’s best water to the Free State of Munchkinland. Our enemy.” He picked up the Vinkus River and took a chomp. “We have every reason to claim Restwater. For one thing, the Munchkins don’t use it for their farming. For another, the water in it is ours. Damn, this is a good meal, Glinda. You’re going to qualify as a chef before I get your parlor maid to crack the code of the written language, I fear.”

“I meant to ask. How is she doing?”

“She’s a spiky little thing, she is. I don’t know how much she has upstairs, frankly. She’s too quiet for me to guess. But she does attend. Maybe it’s just lack of other diversion.”

“Wel, she used to be alowed to run in the meadows leading up to the Pine Barrens when she was released from duties. You’ve cut down the range of al of us, Traper.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to be cutting it some more.”

“Have another cutlet. How do you like the wine?”

“I’m going to have to move a few men into part of your suite.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. I’m afraid they’re up there shifting furniture as we speak.”

“Traper. Realy. We can’t tolerate this abuse. Wil you have me snuggling in the same bed with Puggles and Miss Murth?”

“You could release one of them. You may have to.”

“You haven’t tried the mashed bickory root.”

He took a long sip of his wine. “I wish we didn’t have to fuss over this, Glinda. It isn’t to my liking, you know. The mission has other ambitions that take priority over mine and yours. But I had accepted the assignment hoping that our paths might cross, and in an agreeable way.”

“You have a wife and children.”

“Grown children,” he said.

As if that made a difference. But then how would she know? “By crowding me into tenement conditions in my own home, you expect to win my affection? I fear the bickory root is overmashed, by the way; I’d avoid it. Or oversomething.”

“Oversalted,” he proposed. “Wel, winning hearts comes second. My commission from the Emperor comes first, and I’m required to carry out his instructions completely.”

“How is Shel, anyway? And
who
is he, these days. Do you know, I’ve rarely met him? Elphaba didn’t mention him much when we were together at Shiz—he’s four or five years her junior, I believe, and who remembers their families when they go up to colege? As a former Throne Minister I did attend his instalation, as was only fitting. But Chuffrey had a spoiled spleen or something, and I had to rush off, so in fact we didn’t speak. Shel hasn’t been one to come seeking advice of former Throne Ministers. Doesn’t so much as send me a greeting card at Lurlinemas.”

“Oh, he’s a deeply devout unionist. Lurlinism and paganism are as one to him. Do you know there’s almost no public celebration of Lurlinemas in the Emerald City anymore?”

“Another reason to keep to my country vila. Is the wine too warm?”

“Ah, it’s nice.” He drained his glass. “But yes, it’s a little warm.”

“Would you like some ice in your refil?”

“If you don’t mind.”

She got up. “Zackers, alow me. And if you don’t mind, I have some private business with the General. If you would repair to the portico, I’l signal when we need you.” Zackers stood his ground. “I don’t think I can see you from there, Lady Glinda. The rosebushes are too high.”

“I know, aren’t they wonderful? A banner year for roses.”

She raised an eyebrow at Cherrystone, who dismissed Zackers with a flutter of fingers. “And how are your prettibels faring in this lush warm weather?” the General continued.