Page 101 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

3.

DOROTHY: ASSASSIN OF PATRIOTS read one broadside.

INCOMING! said another. SHE’S BACK.

THE TRIAL OF OUR TIMES read a third.

“Tell me about it,” said Mister Mikko. He summarized for the Lion. “The proceedings will start in five days. That gives magistrates for the defense and for the prosecution a chance to prepare their cases. It looks like Mombey herself picked the barristers.”

Brrr had had his brushes in court before, and always on the wrong end of the law. But that was back in the Emerald City. Were things done differently in whatever passed for Munchkin justice? Mister Mikko set Brrr straight.

“Generally disputes in Munchkinland are settled on a case-by-case basis. The tradition of reliance on precedent isn’t deeply rooted in Munchkinland, given the rural and piecemeal settlement of the county. Most cases are decided behind closed doors, the traveling magistrate serving as confessor and adjudicator both. I’ll wager he pockets the fine, too. It’s my belief that jurisprudence in Munchkinland doesn’t exist at all except to reinforce the prejudices of the top dog. Which despite the metaphor is never an Animal, at least in Munchkinland.”

“I didn’t know you had a Dog in this fight,” said Brrr.

“Ha-ha. Well, pay attention. This trial will be more formal. No executive sessions here, this one will be open to the public—you can’t be surprised at that.”

“Are there jurors? Witnesses?”

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p; Mister Mikko elaborated. For a so-called open trial, a five-member jury was usually empaneled at its own cost. In this instance, it seemed Mombey was going to present the case herself, in an initial declamation, and then turn the proceedings over to a celebrity magistrate appointed to the position for this trial only. The barristers pleading the cases for the prosecution and for the defense would post their requests for witnesses on a billboard on the door of the Grange Central. Potential witnesses only had to show up in time to get a seat. Generally they could nominate themselves of their own free will, or refuse to testify if they weren’t in the mood. But rules could vary case by case, so who knew.

“Nipp,” Brrr told Little Daffy back at the inn. “He’s the appointed magistrate. Does that name ring a bell?”

“Not to me,” said Little Daffy. “But don’t forget I was cloistered for all those years.”

“I know of him,” said Mr. Boss. “He was the first governor of Munchkinland after Nessarose Thropp was murdered in cold blood by that prim little Miss Dorothy, bless her little soul.” He was in a good mood.

“You’re not opinionated, I see,” said Brrr, though he was glad Mr. Boss seemed to be coming back around some.

The trial was designated for Densloe Den, a little salon theater, but for fears of crowding was soon shifted to a venue called Neale House. A former armory now used for the spring cattle fair. Above its arches on three sides ran a gallery. The Neale could sit a large number of visitors, but on the first day the interest seemed slim, so Little Daffy, Mr. Boss, and Brrr easily got tickets to attend the instructions to the jury. The room wasn’t a quarter full. They could have had front row seats, though Brrr by dint of his size was required to recline on the floor to one side. He couldn’t have fit a single thigh in a folding chair scaled for Munchkinlanders, not for money nor love.

The day’s newsfolds, left on the seats of chairs, presented potted biographies of the trial’s dramatis personae. Brrr only had time to read about the magistrate. Nipp had begun his career as a kind of concierge at Colwen Grounds, serving Nessarose Thropp up until the day she was squished. Apparently because he’d held the keys to the actual house, Nipp had stepped in as emergency Prime Minister until the Munchkinlanders’ appetite to be governed by an Eminence reasserted itself. Mombey had emerged from a prior anonymity—the argument for her elevation wasn’t rehearsed here. Whereupon Nipp had retired with honors that included a fancy cake, a sash, and a lifetime supply of ammonia salts, which apparently had some symbolic significance no one at the city desk of the press had bothered to identify.

Brrr had hardly finished the bio when Nipp entered the chamber. Among the taller of Munchkinlanders, he wore a conical hat whose brim was sprightly with felt balls. He flung the hat onto the top of a coat stand, to a spatter of applause. That he could land it like a horseshoe, Brrr deduced, was proof of his capacity to serve with a steady hand. Then Nipp took the bench. It was supplied with the traditional gavel, the bell, a slate on which messages could be scrawled for private viewing in case the magistrate didn’t want to be overheard, and a small pile of ham sandwiches under a net to keep off the flies. Behind him two grammar school students were ready with fans made of blue ostrich plumes in case it became too warm.

“Citizens of Munchkinland,” Nipp began, in a voice quavery with age but strengthening by the sentence, “we are here to keep our big mouths shut and to listen. To listen to what is presented. Anyone in Neale House who makes a fuss or disrupts our attention to the proceedings shall be taken out and fined, or shot, or put in the stocks. Which this time of year are very uncomfortable what with mosquito season just beginning. Are there any questions?—then let us continue. I predict this trial will last a week—perhaps two. Those who can’t tolerate the heat should stay at home. Babies are not allowed. If there is a fire don’t everyone scream ‘Fire!’ all at once—it’s terribly muddling and only makes people nervous. Should I feel the need to call additional witnesses I shall do so and I hereforth declare that for this trial there is no right of resistance—if you’re in the room, you’re considered fair game for service. Furthermore if you’re not in the room and you are required you shall be apprehended by deputized mobs and escorted here whether you like it or not. Tell your friends and neighbors. If you are wanted and you’re on holiday up at Mossmere or someplace, you shall be sent to prison when you return for taking a holiday thoughtlessly. Are there any questions—speak up—no questions—I see—then let us begin by my presenting the barristers and the jurors.”

“This isn’t going to take two weeks,” whispered Brrr to Little Daffy, who was sitting in a chair on the end of her aisle.

Nipp introduced the envoy for the prosecution, a part-time barrister whose regular job was being a professional mourner. Dame Fegg. She emerged from a curtained doorway dressed in something that looked to Brrr as if it had been cut down from a choir robe—about five minutes earlier, without benefit of a seamstress. She was still putting pins in her hair as she came through. A no-nonsense middle-aged farm frau with pockets beneath her eyes deep enough to hold tokens for an EC omnibus. “Yoiks,” muttered Brrr.

The envoy for the defense was introduced next, a certain Temper Bailey, who turned out to be a brown Fever Owl. “They couldn’t spring for a human?” muttered Little Daffy. “Guess this is what is called an open-and-shut case.”

“Animals still draw lower salaries, I bet,” replied Brrr.

The Owl flew to a perch and rotated his head on his neck, all the way round. Not an unusual gesture for an Owl, but unsettling in a court of law; accusatory, somehow, of them all, even the spectators. Temper Bailey then nodded to Dame Fegg, but she was applying some sort of liquid paint to her nails and didn’t return the obeisance.

Only when the jurors had been seated did the magistrate seem to notice that the room was sparsely populated. He stood on his toes and regarded the audience with disdain, as if it were they who were skiving off. “The Eminence suggests this is a trial of interest to all Munchkinlanders,” said Nipp. “I need hardly mention that without the unprovoked invasion by Dorothy a generation ago, we wouldn’t be in the position of defending Restwater from the Emerald City. The Eminence of that day, Miss Nessarose Thropp, would likely still be ensconced in Colwen Grounds. Or else she and her consort would have brought forth a new Eminence to take her place.”

A rude titter, quickly suppressed. Enough of the crowd was old enough to recall that Nessarose had not been thronged with suitors. She had died without benefit of spouse or spawn.

“When are we going to see Dorothy?” asked Temper Bailey. Brrr would have guessed that the defense might have had a chance to question his client before opening ceremonies, but it seemed the government was running this trial on the cheap.

Nipp made his first ruling, not with a gavel but with a bell. “I am dismissing all parties until tomorrow morning. Come back with your relatives and friends. Tell them that La Mombey herself will be here to introduce the accused. If this hall isn’t filled to capacity word will get back to the Emerald City that Munchkinlanders have lost all public spirit. Do as I say, in the name of justice.”

“I should think he meant ‘in the name of public relations,’ ” said Brrr.

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