Page 98 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“What’s your name so I can call it out during wild sex?” asked Mr. Boss. Grumpiness made him come to life.

“You won’t need my name. I’m in business only until the troubles are over. I don’t leave the establishment untended. Now I’ll thank you to avoid monkey business while in this hostel.”

“I’ll call you Dame Hostile,” said Mr. Boss, grinning to show his tobacco-stained smile.

“I’ll be happy to help you sweep up. I can remove splinters, bake a little,” said Little Daffy hastily. “We’ll be ideal guests, believe me.”

“You,” said the chatelaine to the Lion, “your room is out back. Down the alley. Don’t brush your mane in the public rooms, I have allergies.”

Ah, little has changed for the Animals, thought Brrr. His room, though separate and sparely fitted, was clean enough.

The next day, market day in Bright Lettins. The central district was packed dense with stalls and shoppers. Plenty indeed—mounds of baby squash, punnets of spring berries like pucklegem and queen’s beads. Lettuces so new and tender you could hold the leaves up to the light and see through them. Despite the abundance, however, the haggling was fierce. Voices raised on both sides, vendor and housewife. “No spare coin to be had in this crowd,” murmured Little Daffy. One furious merchant upended a cart of his own pricey white asparagus tips and let his pig eat them rather than sell them for the pittance that had been proferred. The pig sported the only satisfied smirk Brrr saw all morning.

The newcomers settled for elevenses at a café, hoping to overhear something useful. Farmers muttered over the weather, the prices, the progress of the war. Words were said about General Jinjuria, the peasant warrior, and about Mombey, the head of the government. Little Daffy ordered tea and beer and river prawns in tarragon. They ate in silence, listening for all they were worth.

“They’ll never starve us out,” said one old bearded fellow with a prosthetic ear made of tin. “They can siphon all the water they want from our precious Restwater, but as long as our farms are upstream of the lake, we’ll not go short of water and so we won’t go short of food.”

“We should dam the Munchkin River and dry out the lake,” said the waitress, settling down with her own beer.

“We couldn’t drain that lake any way shy of a miracle. It’s fed by runoff of the Great Kells,” someone argued. “That’s part of the rationale for the EC requisitioning the water in the first place.”

“How is this Jinjuria holding the EC forces at Haugaard’s Keep?” asked Brrr. The Munchkinlander locals glanced at one another. Maybe, thought Brrr, Animals don’t talk across café tables to humans they didn’t know socially.

“The Lion asked you a question,” said Little Daffy. “Nicely.”

The old man looked suspicious of their ignorance. He stroked his taffycolored beard, combing it with his fingers. “Jinjuria, she could have held on to Haugaard’s Keep, you know that. It’s almost impregnable. Slitted windows high up, and a pair of moated entrances. With their superior numbers the EC Messiars swarmed up the lakeside of the keep, see, and General Jinjuria’s forces put on a handsome show of repelling them—but only as a lure. Soon as the assailants had gained the ramparts on ladders and arrow-slung ropes, Jinjuria set in motion the quick retreat she’d planned. The bulk of our forces that had held Haugaard’s Keep retreated on the land side, burning the wooden decking on the moat entrance as they went. Not everyone made it out, of course, and the heads of our patriot martyrs were bowled down into the moat for several weeks afterward and bobbed there like muskmelons. But Jinjuria’s strategy worked. She boxed up the Emerald City high command, General Cherrystone as they call him, and the cream of his forces too. She can’t starve him out, as she can’t prevent supplies from arriving on the lakeside, by flotillas of this sort or that. But she can prevent him from leaving by land. And if he left by lake—well, that would be a retreat, pure and simple. No, she’s got him cornered, like a cat playing with a larder mouse.”

“Brilliant.” Little Daffy’s eyes glowed with pride.

“It’s a stalemate, no pretending otherwise,” said the garrulous one among the locals. “Where have you lot been, that this is all news to you?”

“Doing missionary work,” said Little Daffy quickly, before Brrr could falter or fudge. “Is Mombey here?”

“Said to be in residence at Colwen Grounds.”

“And Dorothy?” asked Brrr. “Is she expected soon?”

They didn’t know what Brrr was talking about. “Dorothy? Her? We won’t see the likes of Dorothy again. Not in this lifetime.”

“She shows up here for a pint, I charge her triple,” promised the waitress, and bit the farthing Little Daffy was paying with. “She has a lot to answer for, knocking off our lady governor like she did.”

The old farmer chided the waitress. “You’re not old enough to remember Nessarose Thropp. That Dorothy may have played fast and loose with government figures, but there was quite a bit of singing and dancing back in the day. Folks fell to their knees in thanksgiving for their release from bondage.”

“Munchkinlanders don’t have too far to fall,” said the waitress, swishing a rag at a table. “Who can even tell when we’re on our knees?”

“Well, she fell from a great distance, that girl,” insisted the farmer.

“Wearing a wooden house around her as some sort of defense. A weird cleverness in that child.”

“She wasn’t all that clever,” said Brrr, realizing too late that neither was he.

“You have a point of view? Listen—you’re not that Lion? The Cowardly Lion, they called him? One of Dorothy’s lackeys? Say it en’t so.”

“Not so, I’m afraid,” said Brrr.

“You have no right to any opinion then.” The other farmers dropped their chins over their steins and frowned across the froth. The atmosphere had a tang to it, like saltpetre. “I think it was you. Wasn’t it? Got her out of here safely before she could be asked to account for herself?”

“That would be my brother,” said Brrr. “My twin brother, I’m afraid. A luckless sort, but there you have it.” For the first and perhaps the last time in his life, he was glad to have an identical twin he’d never met. “Finish that prawn, Mr. Boss, and we’ll be on our way.”

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