Page 31 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

“I have training in surgery, and my colleague in applications—”

Lord Ottokos spoke over Sister Doctor. “I have entrusted the boy Liir with a task, and I have been waiting his return these ten years. Ten years is a decade to a woman, marking the difference between maiden and matron, matron and crone, crone and harpy—but to an Elephant it is only a breath. A long, foul breath, but only a breath. I know the loyalty of Animals, I know the fickle allegiances of men. Because Liir was possibly a flitch of Elphaba, I had placed my trust in him all these years. I have hoped he might discover or invent a solution for my dilemma. And I have been patient—an Elephant is patient. And you come to tell me you have found him. Bless you, my daughters. Is he coming back to me at last?”

“He is not well,” said Sister Doctor.

“He was not well,” corrected Sister Apothecaire. “Perhaps he’s improving. We’ve been traveling, so we can’t report developments in his state.”

“Why does he not arrive?”

“Something happened to him,” said Sister Doctor. “We don’t know what. Perhaps what attacked our sister maunts attacked him, too. He is sunk in a strange sleep from which he may not awake. If we knew what had attacked him, we might better invent how to treat him. Lord Ottokos, ask her my question!” she said suddenly. “It is pertinent!”

Lord Ottokos obliged this time, and muttered something to Princess Nastoya.

The reply. “We do not scrape the faces of maunts, nor of mice, nor sheep. We do not treat others as we have been treated. You must hunt the barbaric Yunamata and find out from them why they have taken against travelers.”

“It isn’t the Yunamata,” said Sister Doctor, and in making the remark out loud she suddenly felt certain about this for the first time; she had been dubious up until now. “They wouldn’t do such a thing. Can you be sure your people are not forgetting their traditions under the burden of sorrow they feel at your condition?”

“My people, as you call them, are not even my people,” said Princess Nastoya. “They honored me years ago and made me their princess, and even in my decay they will not allow me to abdicate. They are a nation that has elevated charity beyond what is possible even in the precincts of your religious order. If out of fealty to me

they would rather be governed by a Princess who is partly a corpse, how could they raise a hand against defenseless travelers?”

“The young maunts who ventured this way were intent on conversion,” admitted Sister Doctor. “They were sent by the Emperor himself, we hear.”

“None of us admires the Emperor’s zealotry. But intention to convert is hardly a reason to kill people and defile their bodies. The murderers you seek aren’t among the Scrow. Don’t waste your time considering the matter. It is the Yunamata or it is someone else. Or something else. Perhaps they had a disease.”

“No disease makes one’s face fall off,” said Sister Apothecaire firmly.

“If you know so much, what is my disease?” said Princess Nastoya.

“We should have to examine Your Highness,” said Sister Doctor.

“Enough,” interrupted Lord Ottokos. “I won’t translate such a barbaric notion. The Princess has dismissed you. You may leave.”

But the Princess spoke over her interpreter, and he was bound to listen. He bowed his head and continued, “She says again—and she has too few words left to spend in life to say it a third time—where is the boy Liir?”

“But he is not a boy any longer. We have told you what we know.” Sister Doctor put her sleeve to her nose; in her line of work she knew the smell of putrescence all too well. “He is in a comatose state not six or eight days’ journey from here, though perhaps nearer to the Emerald City than you would like to venture.”

Lord Ottokos snapped, “We are not imbeciles. We know where his body is. You have told us. That is not the question.”

The maunts blinked at him.

“Where is he?” Lord Ottokos repeated. “Where is he?”

“We don’t know where he is,” said Sister Apothecaire. “Our talents are not that fine.”

Princess Nastoya shivered. Handmaidens came forward to withdraw shawls drenched with sweat and other seepage. “Let me help,” said Sister Apothecaire suddenly.

“Don’t you dare,” said Lord Ottokos.

“I do dare. What are you going to do, have me scraped? Sister Doctor, a vessel of water and some essence of citron—lemons, limoncelli, parsleyfruit, anything. And some vinegar reduced to the usual.”

Princess Nastoya began to weep then, full tears of a nasty vintage. They fell on Sister Apothecaire’s bare hands and burned them; she was not halted in her work. “What has she said just then, in that low murmur?” she asked Lord Ottokos, who stood sputtering and clutching his beard in rage and disbelief.

Finally he submitted to this dotty, disobedient woman. “She said she wishes she could be scraped,” he finally allowed.

“We can’t do that,” said Sister Apothecaire. “Vows of gentility and all that. But she can be made more comfortable. Sister Doctor, that pillow. The head. Watch the neck. What a weight upon this spine! Where is the dratted vinegar reduction?”

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