Page 7 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“When one has become famous, one finds it harder to go out to the shops without being pestered by well-wishers and rabble. And really: Where would I go? The Emerald City? Please. I couldn’t step foot outside the front door in Mennipin Square without people flocking to me. It’s tiresome to have to … beam so. My face hurts.”

He looked as if he thought her quite the incapable liar.

Doggedly she went on. “I prefer the quiet life now. I look after my garden… I train the climbing roses, deadhead the pansies.” This was sounding feeble. “I like to arrange flowers.”

Their eyes both drifted to a milk jug on the table between them where a fistful of listing tulips, papery and translucent with age, had dropped a few browned petals. Sad, really. Condemning. She tried again. “In truth, I’ve been composing my memoirs, and the country is conducive to reflection, don’t you see.”

“But why have you parked yourself in a country home abroad instead of in Loyal Oz, from where the Arduennas and the Uplands hail?”

“Darling Cherrystone. Lord Chuffrey’s family had this house long before Munchkinland seceded—what, is it thirty years ago by now? And when I became Throne Minister, and this place remained accessible via the east-leading branch of the Yellow Brick Road, why shouldn’t I repair here? I could get back and forth to the capital with ease and safety.”

“You could have relocated. There are other great houses within a few days’ ride of the Palace.”

“But this house. It’s the real thing. Pallantine Revival, don’t you know. Without any of those tacky so-called improvements affixed with sticky tape and safety pins … no, it’s simply the best of its kind. You must have noticed the twice-etched pillars inlaid with strabbous onyx on either side of the south porch? In ranks of three? Genuine Parrith’s, I tell you, verified by the Parrith Society. He didn’t work in onyx anywhere else, not even in the Emerald City.”

“In fidelity to the nation, a patriot would pick up and move house…” His tone was ominous, as if he had forgotten to notice the south porch. The oaf.

“This house doesn’t move. Most don’t. Or are you referring to Dorothy?” she said coldly. “She moved house rather capably, as we all remember. Mercy, could she move house.”

“Always clever. But, Lady Glinda, you align yourself with the wrong sort if you do not step in line.”

“I didn’t draw this line, or any others. And if by ‘the wrong sort’ you are referring to the departed Thropp sisters, Nessarose and Elphaba, well, that’s tired business. They’ve been dead and gone, what, fifteen, sixteen years now.”

“I have little time for this; I’ve heard what I need. You have not declared yourself unequivocally patriotic. That’s now a matter of public record. But I warn you, Lady Glinda. There are borders one should not cross.”

“If Elphaba observed any border, she’d go out of her way to trespass against it. Or are we talking, obliquely, about social class? Have a brandy, it’s nearly noonday. Miss Murth, are you composed enough to decant something for us?”

Cherrystone said, “I must decline. There is much to arrange. You have been served notice of detention at home. I am taking over Mockbeggar Hall as my headquarters.”

Glinda sat forward and gripped the arms of her chair, though her voice remained casual. “I would do the same were I you, I suppose. It isn’t often that a boy of your humble beginnings gets to lodge in a jewel box like this. Will you be a honey, though, and do mind your bloody boots when it comes to the sofas?”

His boots

shone like ice, of course.

“And where will you expect me to lodge?” she continued in a stiffer voice. “Do you intend to plunge me and my staff into some oubliette?”

“You may maintain your private apartments and you won’t be disturbed. I am afraid we shall have to dismiss your staff.”

She gave a laugh. “I don’t do without staff. Sir.” Her refusing to use his military title was intended as an insult, and she watched it land.

“A skeletal company then. Two, three.”

“A dozen. And the departing staff will need guarantee of safe passage through the armies that seem”—she indicated the window—“to be wreaking havoc in the hydrangeas.”

“Please submit a list of those who will remain so we can have them vetted.”

He crossed his long legs, as if making bivouac in some forest glade. The nerve.

“I mean now,” he added.

“Oh, my goodness, military life is so brusque. I had quite forgotten. Have you forgotten, Commander Cherrystone, that in my station—”

“General. General Cherrystone, not Commander.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon.” Could he tell she was having him on? “Nonetheless, though I wish I’d maintained a private army to turf you out, I shall do as you request in return for your promise not to molest those staff who must be made redundant. I shall require, let’s see. A chef, a sommelier, a butler. That’s three. An ostler and a driver. That’s five. And a lady-in-waiting as chaperone at home…” She gestured toward the woman nearby. “Not you, Miss Murth, you are too dour.”

Miss Murth wailed.

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