Page 34 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“No? I’ll 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 prettibells, 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 all in black like a maître d’ in a midrange lunchery in Bankers’ Court in Shiz. His pimples matched the roses nicely too.

He pulled 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’ll 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 Kells in the Eastern Vinkus makes plowing impossible. Quadling Country is a stew of mud and marshgrass. My own dear Gillikin Country—though forested, lightly hilled, 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 all require annually 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 bow

l, 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 Kells 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 Gillikin River. Munchkin River. More or less. Do you see?”

“Yes, and that little woggle-bug on the radish is the emperor of all 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 Gillikin River, though long, is shallow. The river water leaches easily into the landscape. Gillikin is the Oz of which the poet speaks—‘land of green abandon, land of endless leaf.’ The river makes Gillikin into the kind of pretty picture of Oz that I expect to think of on my deathbed.”

“How absurd. I shall 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 call it.”

He raised an eyebrow. Score for her. “The point is, Munchkinlanders use their water wisely—upstream. They bleed it all along its length. So the Munchkin River, like the Gillikin, gives little more than lip service to Restwater as it debouches therein. And the EC to the north long ago overwhelmed the United Gillikin Canal Company’s capacity to supply it. Here’s my main point, Glinda. Your lovely lake called Restwater is replenished daily by the water that courses down from the snowy peaks and wintry ice packs of the Great Kells. 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 sullen, 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, all that runoff of the Great Kells, 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 call 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.”

“Well, she used to be allowed to run in the meadows leading up to the Pine Barrens when she was released from duties. You’ve cut down the range of all 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. Really. We can’t tolerate this abuse. Will 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.”

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