Out of Oz, Page 4

4.

  She was standing at a weir. Though later she realized someone must have built it, at the time it seemed just another caprice of nature. An S-shaped curve of broad flat stones, to channel the water, slow it, creating a deep pool on the upstream edge. Along that side a fretwork of bentlebranch fronds had been twisted and laced together laterally, further helping to slow the water that coursed through—when water coursed, that is. Today it was frozen.

  Probably she’d been wearing boots, but she didn’t remember boots, or mittens, or even a coat. What the mind chooses to collect, and what it throws away!

  She leaned from the walkway over the top of the artificial thicket. She could see that the whole affair guided the stream through a channel. Good for fishing.

  The surface of the stream was glassy, here and there dusted with snow. Beneath the surface of the ice some hardy reed still waved underwater with the slowed-down motion of a dream. She could almost see her face there beneath all this cold, among the hints of green, of spring.

  Never one for studying herself, though, her eye had caught a flick of movement a few feet on. In a pocket in the ice of the stream, a little coppery fish was turning round and round, as if trapped. How had it gotten separated from the members of its school, who were probably all buried in the mud, lost in cold dreams till spring? Though she couldn’t have known about hibernation yet.

  One hand on the unstable balustrade, she ventured onto the ice. The trapped fish needed to be released. It would die in its little natural bowl. Die of loneliness if nothing else. She knew about loneliness.

  A stick came to her unmittened hand somehow. She must have dropped her mittens, the better to grasp the stick. Or she’d been out without protection. It didn’t matter. She bashed at the ice for some time, never thinking that the floor could capsize and she might go in the drink. Drown, or freeze, or become mighty uncomfortable some other way.

  Little by little she hacked away a channel. The fish heard the vibrations and circled more vigorously, but there was no place for it to go. Finally she had opened a hole big enough for her finger.

  The fish came up and nestled against her, as if her forefinger were a mother fish. The scrap of brilliance leaned there, at a slight tilt.

  That’s what she remembered, anyway.

  She had gone on to release the fish. What had she done with it? With the stream frozen over? The rest was lost, lost to time. Like so much.

  But she remembered the way the fish bellied against her finger.

  This must be another very early memory. Was no one looking after her? Why was she always out alone?

  And where had this taken place? Where in the world did childhood happen, anyway?

  5.

  Glinda finished her morning tisane and waited, but no one came to take away the tray. Oh, right, she remembered. But where was Murth when you needed her? The woman was useless. Useless and pathetic.

  A light rain pattered, just strong enough to make the idea of Glinda’s giving an audience in the forecourt something of a mistake. She’d rather send remarks through a factotum, but that was the problem: the factotums were getting the boot. The least she could do was give her good-byes in person.

  There was nothing for it but that Glinda must poke about the wardrobe herself and locate some sort of bumbershoot.

  Puggles saw her struggling with the front door and rescued her. “Let me help, Mum,” he said, relieving her of the umbrella. It had a handle carved to look like a flying monkey; she hadn’t noticed that. Probably Cherrystone would decide that the umbrella was grounds for her execution. Well, stuff him with a rippled rutabaga.

  “Everyone’s assembled, Mum,” said Puggles. “As you requested. Too bad about the weather, but there you are.”

  She’d written some notes all by herself, but raindrops smeared the ink when she took them out of her purse. “Goodness, Puggles,” she said in a low voice. “Do so many work here?”

  “Until today.”

  “I never quite realized. Well, one rarely assembles the staff all at once.”

  “Once a year. The below-stairs staff party at Lurlinemas. But you don’t attend.”

  “I send the ale and those funny little baskets from the Fairy Preenella, one for everybody.”

  “Yes, Mum. I know. I order them and arrange for their delivery myself.”

  Was he being uppity? She couldn’t blame him. She should have realized the household staff was this large. There must be seventy people gathered here. “If this is the number on which we normally rely, how are we to get along with only a skeletal crew, Puggles?”

  But he’d stepped back to join the paltry retinue that would not be dismissed, which had lined up behind her.

  Awkward. In what degree of affection or distance ought she to address them? The situation was grave; many of them were in tears. She was glad she had worn the watered-silk moss luncheon gown with the peek-a-boo calf flare and the carmine collar; she’d be stunning against Mockbeggar’s rose-colored stucco and ivory entablatures. A comfort to the staff, she hoped, her ability to maintain her style. An example.

  She plunged ahead. “Dear friends. Dear laborers in the field, dear dusters of the furniture, and whoever uses the loppers to keep the topiary in check. Dear all of you. What a dreary day this is.”

  She was reaching for a hankie already. How revolting, how mawkish. She didn’t know most of their names. But they looked so respectable and kind, in their common clothes. Men with hats in their hands, women in mobcaps and aprons. Surely they were going to leave their aprons behind? Aprons marked with House of Chuffrey crests? Well, better not to make a fuss over it.

  “I know some of you have lodged here, lovingly tending Mockbeggar Hall, since long before I met Lord Chuffrey, rest his soul. For many of you—perhaps all of you, I’m a bit wobbly on the details—this has been your only home. Where you go to now, and what life awaits you there, is beyond my comprehension.”

  One or two of the young women straightened up and put their hankies away. Perhaps, thought Glinda, this hasn’t started well.

  “I have arranged for your safe passage off the estate. The General has promised you will not be accosted, nor will your allegiance to my welfare all these years be held against you. Indeed, I have not supplied him a list of your names or your destinations.” This much was true. Cherrystone hadn’t asked for that. He was irritatingly fair from time to time, which made resenting him a tricky business.

  “Nothing should have pleased me more than to provide you with lodging and work here until the end of my days,” she said. “In the absence of that, I have had the seamstresses work overtime, hand stitching on some cotton geppling serviettes the lovely old-fashioned blessing OZSPEED. By the way, thank you, seamstresses; you must have had to stay up past midnight to manage supplying all this lot.”

  “Actually, we’re a few short,” muttered Puggles.

  She paid him no mind. Having been Throne Minister for that brief period had taught her several useful skills.

  “Mum,” called someone; Glinda couldn’t tell who it was. “Will you have us back, in time?”

  “Oh, if I have my say,” she replied cheerily. “Though I doubt you’ll recognize me when that day comes! I’ll be sun-bronzed and wizened and my elbows will be raw from the dishwater! You’ll think I’m the bootblack’s grandmother!”

  They liked this. They laughed with unseemly vigor. Though perhaps commoners have a different sense of humor, she thought.

  “Dear friends,” she continued. “I cherish the dedication to your tasks, your love of Mockbeggar, your sunny good natures at least whenever I came in the room. And next? None of us knows what waits down the lane for us.” She was about to refer to her own power as compromised, what with the house arrest, but caught herself. Surely they knew about it, and they wanted to remember her as being strong. She threw her shoulders back and pinched a nerve in her scapula. Ow. “As to whomever was in the habit of filching the leftover pearlfruit jelly from the sideboard in the morning room, you are
forgiven. You are all forgiven any such lapses. I shall miss you. I shall miss every one of you. I hardly knew there were so many … so many”—but that sounded lame—“so many brave and dedicated friends. Bless you. Ozspeed indeed. And on your way out, don’t hesitate to snub the new sentries at the gatehouse. Don’t give them the benefit of a single word. This is your home, still. Not theirs. Never theirs.”

  “Burn the place down!” cried someone in the crowd, but he was hushed, as the emotion seemed misguided at best.

  “Don’t forget to write,” she said, before she remembered that quite likely some of them couldn’t write. She’d better get off the top step before she did more harm than good. “Farewell, and may we meet again when Ozma returns!”

  The bawling began. She had ended as poorly as she’d begun. Of course, the common people believed that Ozma was a deity, and they must have concluded that Lady Glinda was referring to the Afterlife. Well, so be it, she thought grimly, hoisting her skirts to clear the puddle by the front door. The Afterlife will have to do for a rendezvous destination. Though I suspect I shall be lodged in separate quarters, a private suite, probably. “Puggles,” she murmured, “get the yard boy to pick up the mobcaps some of that lot were trampling into the mud as they left.”

  “There’s no yard boy, Ma’am,” said Puggles gently. “He’s off with the others.”

  “It’s a new era, then. You do it. It looks a sight. And then join the rest of us in the grand foyer.”

  The others who were to remain had retreated inside and stood in a line with their hands clasped. Their uniforms dripped on the checkerboard marble. Glinda would fix each one with a dedicated personal beck. She could do this, she could. She’d been practicing all morning. This was important. “Miss Murth,” she began. “Ig Baernae…”

  “Chef’ll do, Mum. Even I can’t say it unless I’m soused.”

  “Ig Baernaeraenaesis.” She was glad to see his jaw drop. Puggles slid into place in the line; Glinda nodded at him. “Mister Understar. And—” She came to the chambermaid. “And you. Rain, I think it is? Very lovely name. Scrub your nails, child. Civil unrest is no excuse for lapses in personal hygiene. Dear friends…” But perhaps this was too familiar a note to strike now she was inside her own home. She had to live with these people.

  “I’m grateful for your loyalty,” she continued in a brisker tone. “As far as I know my funds have not been impounded, and you shall stay on salary as usual.”

  “We don’t gets salary, if you please, Mum,” said Chef. “We gets our home and our food.”

  “Yes. Well. Home and food are yours as long as I can manage it. I cannot pretend this is a pretty time for Mockbeggar Hall or for any of us. Murth, don’t scowl; it’s not too late to exchange you for someone out in the forecourt lingering over farewells.”

  Miss Murth slapped on an inauthentic expression of merriment.

  “A few remarks. I am still the lady of the house. You are my staff, and according to your stations you shall maintain your customary retiring ways in my presence.”

  “Yes, Mum,” they chorused.

  “And yet, and yet.” She wanted a conspiratorial chumminess without a breakdown in authority. She must step softly. “We are now bound together in some unprecedented manner, and we must come to rely on one another. So. I shall ask you all to refrain from fraternizing with the military who will be bunking in the servants’ quarters, in tents in the meadows, in the barns and stables. I shall ask you to be no more than minimally polite and responsive to the officers who have taken up lodging in the guest quarters. If they ask for food, you must procure it. You must cook it, Chef. You need not season it and you must not poison it. Do you understand?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Mum.”

  “I daresay. If they request their shirts and stockings done…” She looked about. She had forgotten about laundry. “Well, they will have to do it themselves, or hire a laundress. No doubt they will try to cozy up to some of you.” She took a dim view of cozying these days, though soldiers probably got lonely. She didn’t think Miss Murth was in danger of being meddled with, and as for the girl… “You, Rain,” she said, “how old are you?”

  Rain shrugged. “I believe she is eight, Lady Glinda,” said Miss Murth.

  “That should be safe enough, but even so, Rain, I’d like you to stick near to Miss Murth or to one of the rest of us. Chef, Puggles. No running about and getting into mischief. I’ve kept you here because you have work to do. Sweeping up. You’re the broomgirl. Remember that.”

  “Yes, Mum.” The girl’s gaze lowered to the polished floor. She wasn’t overly bright, to judge by appearances, thought Glinda, but then some had said that about her, in her day. And look where she’d ended up.

  In virtual prison, she concluded, sorry she’d begun the train of thought. “That’ll do. To your work, then. Hands to your task, eyes ever open, but keep custody of the lips. If you should hear anything useful, do tell me. Are there any questions?”

  “Are we under house arrest too?” asked Puggles.

  “Open up a bottle of something bubbly,” she replied. “When I figure out the answer to your question, I’ll let you know. You are dismissed.”

  She stood for a moment as the foyer emptied. Then, mounting the first flight of the broad fleckstone staircase to her apartments, her eye drifted through the doors of the banquet hall. Before she knew what she was doing she had turned and pitter-patted down the steps and marched into the room. “Officer!” she shouted. She had never raised her voice in her own home before. Ever.

  A soldier snapped to and saluted her. “Where is Cherrystone?” she barked.

  “Not here, Mum.”

  “You’re not in my staff. I’m not Mum to you. I am Lady Glinda. I can see he is not here. Where is he, I asked you.”

  “That’s privileged information, Mum.”

  She might have to throttle him. “Officer. I see charts and maps all over my banquet table. I am sure occupying armies need charts and maps. I am also sure they do not need to be held down flat by early Dixxi House spindle-thread vases. Do you know how rare these are? No more than thirty exist in all of Oz, I’ll wager.”

  “Do not approach the table, Mum.”

  She approached the table and she snatched up first one porcelain vase and then the second. They were almost four hundred years old. Handworked by artisans whose skill had been lost when Dixxi House went factory. “I will not have magnificent art used as … as paperweights. You put your boots on all the other furniture. Use your boots.”

  The maps had rolled up.

  “Begging your pardon, Mum, you’re striding in where you’ve no—”

  “I don’t stride, young man. I never stride. I glide. Now you heard what I told you to do. Take off your boots and put them on the stupid maps.”

  He did as he was told. She was impressed. She still had some little authority, then. She turned and left without addressing him again.

  She cradled the vases against her breast as if they were puppies, but she wasn’t thinking of the vases. She had seen that one map featured a detailed drawing of Restwater, all its coves and villages, its islands, the locations of its submerged rocks. She had seen a dotted line drawn from Mockbeggar Hall to Haugaard’s Keep, the garrison fortress at the east end. The marking didn’t run along the north shore of Restwater, but right through the middle of it. But what army could march through a lake?

  6.

  Of an afternoon, Glinda had been accustomed to the occasional carriage ride. She would set out for nearby villages and take a full cream tea in someone’s front parlor. She would drag along Miss Murth and a novel, and ignore one or the other, sometimes both. From favorite overlooks she sometimes watched the sun subside toward the horizon. Spring in Munchkinland usually lent a certain cheer to her days. Summer the same. She didn’t suffer pangs of longing for the house in Mennipin Square until after the first frost of the autumn. And by now she had learned to endure those pangs. For the time being, those lovely fall social
seasons in the Emerald City were a thing of the past.

  Like, it seemed, her excursions by carriage. It only took a few days after Cherrystone’s appropriation of Mockbeggar for a new pattern to set in: the carriages were always spoken for when she requested one.

  Unsettling, that the activities of the house were being determined by someone else’s needs instead of her own.

  And what a commotion! The army had set up a sizeable village of tents and built a pair of rude temporary structures—latrines, she expected. One for officers, one for enlisted men. The farm animals were turned out of the barns—no hardship, since the weather was good—and the barns became ad hoc mess halls and, perhaps, a wood shop of some sort, as the sound of hammering went on all day and half the night.

  Glinda had Puggles show her how to find the stairs to the parapet so they could peek from behind an ornamental urn and grasp something of the size of the operation.

  “I should think there are a full three hundred men on the demesne, Lady Glinda,” said Puggles. “Given the amount of food I hear is being conscripted from local granges and farms.”

  “Can that be enough force with which to prosecute an invasion?” she wondered.

  “You’d have a better sense of that than I. You managed the armies of Loyal Oz for a time,” he reminded her. “And word has it you yourself once hoped for reunification.”

  “Of course I did,” she snapped. “But not through military action. Too messy by half. I hoped if we put on a ball and went lavish with the refreshment budget, the Munchkinlanders would come back into the fold. I’m speaking figuratively, Puggles, don’t look at me like that.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. How could we humble Munchkinlanders refuse an invitation to dance with the overlords of the Emerald City? But when that rogue missile of a Dorothy-house came down on Nessarose’s holy head? The Munchkinlanders discovered that liberation from sniffy Nessarose didn’t provoke them into wanting a return to domination by the EC. Can you blame them? What population signs on willingly for slavery?”