Page 8 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“Only kidding, Miss Murth! Though I turn serious if you shriek again.”

“That’s six,” said Cherrystone. “More than enough. Though in actual fact you won’t need an ostler or a driver.”

“Surely you don’t plan to confine me? To keep me from making my rounds among the poor of the parish?”

He snorted. “You’re doing charity?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s bundles of fun.”

“When you wish to dispense largesse, you can rely on me to supply you a driver and a chaperone. We’ll subtract two from your list of six. No ostler, no driver. That leaves you four. That sounds quite enough.”

“Oh, and yes, I shall need a girl to help me bathe.”

“You’ve forgotten how to bathe?”

“The powders, dear Sir. The unguents. The gentle persuasion of peroxide. You need study me more closely, or do you think such beauty as I pretend to is wholly of the natural order?”

He colored slightly. She had him, and carried on. “Unless you want to dispatch a young foot soldier to do the work? In the interest of military economies? Very well, if I must. Provided I get to interview the nominees and make the choice myself. I pride myself on being able to tell a healthy—”

“Five retainers, then. Submit to me their names and their points of origin. You will not be allowed to maintain Munchkinlanders, I am afraid.”

“Well, we stand in agreement on that matter, for I always found oldstock Munchkins too petite to reach the sideboard. In any event one is wise to keep the sherry on an upper shelf, don’t you know.”

He ticked on the fingers of one hand. “A companion, a butler, a chef, a sommelier, a private maid. You may take the afternoon to write out their references. But we’ll drop the sommelier, I think. I know a bit about wine. I’ll take pleasure in making recommendations myself.”

“I don’t supply supporting documents, General Cherrystone. I am Lady Glinda.” She stood up so suddenly she felt light-headed. “Your horses are eating my roses. Miss Murth, would you see the General out?”

When he’d gone, she remained at the window. Restwater, the largest of Oz’s lakes, glowed keenly white in the high sun. A few storks waded in the rushes of the nearer cove. She could glimpse little sign of the fishing fleet out on the water. The fishermen had tucked their vessels up tightly somewhere, and were hoping to sit out the invasion without starving.

There was no safe place in Oz for Glinda. She knew this. The government administrators in the Emerald City—the Emperor’s men—were just waiting for her to emerge. She was too popular a figurehead to be allowed to swan about freely in the EC. Her longtime sponsorship of an institute of maunts latterly accused of printing seditious broadsides was enough reason to lock her away. Risky business, offering patronage. No, her bread was buttered good and hard on the wrong side. Better to tough it out here and manage her private obligations as best she might, for as long as she could.

3.

By noontime the next day the soldiers’ horses had drunk the fountain dry. The forecourt of crushed lake abalone reeked with horse manure. “Do bring a message to the General,” said Glinda, “and inform him that there’s a whole lake forty feet beyond the lawns. Since this invasion is all about the appropriation of water, perhaps he’d be so kind as to lead his cavalry down to the water’s edge?”

“I do not think, Lady Glinda, that he listens to me overmuch,” said Miss Murth unhappily. “I would not command his attention.”

“Try. We are all under pressure, Miss Murth. We must do our best. And we may be confined for some time, so I suppose I should convene a colloquy among the help. Propose a common attitude toward this intrusion, and so on. What do you think?”

“I was never good at current affairs. I preferred the arts of needlework and correspondence.”

“Correspondence? To whomever would you write?”

“Well. The papers.”

“So you took the papers. You never read the papers, surely?”

“I found news somewhat sullying.” Miss Murth fluffed the feathers on Lady Glinda’s afternoon hat; they remained droopy. But Lady Glinda wasn’t going anywhere. “It wasn’t a wise choice, I now see,” said Miss Murth. “I might have followed politics, but I preferred the society columns. When you were in them.”

“Surely I’m in them still.”

Miss Murth sighed. “It’s a shame about the horse droppings.”

“Miss Murth. Are you listening?”

Miss Murth straightened her shoulders to indicate that she was indeed listening, damn it.

“You ought to follow events, Miss Murth. You remember that skirmish by Munchkinlanders into Loyal Oz last fall? Oh, don’t look at me like that, it was west of here, near that strip of land that divides Kellswater and Restwater. You remember. Near the mauntery of Saint Glinda, where I sometimes like to go and consider my soul, my debts, my diet, and so on? Yes?”

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