Gregory Maguire_Wicked Years_02

by Son of a Witch

  “Yes. Indeed. Quite.”

  “You may go.”

  They stood there. “Go!” repeated the Superior Maunt wearily.

  She closed her eyes again, but this time not in prayer. The new winter was approaching. Another winter in the mauntery of Saint Glinda. Fires that would not warm her papery skin. Fruit that would grow mealy in the larder. Increased agitation among the maunts, for when there was less work in the gardens there was more gossip and bitchery in the sewing compound. There would be new leaks to repair, and ague would knock a few of the old ones into the grave. She wondered if it would be her turn.

  She couldn’t hope for this. She didn’t hope for it. But the rewards of the winter season seemed richer in her childhood memories, back before she had these tiresome women to govern—the silly affectations of Lurlinemas, which even professed maunts in their strictness remembered with pleasure—the spectacle of sunlight staining birch shadows into the snow like laundry blueing—the way snow fell up as well as down, if the wind had its way—of course, the way birds returned, stitching the spring back into place by virtue of melody.

  It was the gardens of her girlhood she remembered most, the earliest blossoms. Jonquils and fillarettes and snowdrops, perfect as the Dixxi House porcelain bibelots that had adorned her mother’s dressing table. She had not seen a fillarette in years, except in her mind. How sweet it was to regard!

  She prayed for strength to last the winter out. These days, though, she rarely got into the fourth line of a beloved old epiphody before her mind skipped back through some pasture or garden walk of her youth.

  Attend, she barked at herself, and stood with difficulty. The cold was already at work in her joints. She creaked as she readied herself for the morning conversation. Noting the raggedness of the face flannel with which she wiped her brow, she hoped that the mauntery’s guest might have come to propose a sizeable donation. Or even a little one. But this was beyond what the Superior Maunt thought it was proper to pray for, so she didn’t spend her prayer in that direction.

  Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery, she said to herself, not for the first time. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That’s what makes it mystery.

  THE FELLOWS WERE NEARLY KEELING OVER into their coffee cups. “You’ve had no sleep, you’ve been riding all night,” said Sister Doctor, disapprovingly. “It’s a dangerous track at best, and foolhardy to venture upon if you don’t know your way. Have you come from the Emerald City?”

  “We’ve been round and about,” said Liir.

  Sister Doctor explained that she and Sister Apothecaire had briefly tended to Liir when he’d been brought in by Oatsie Manglehand, the captain of the Grasstrail Train. “Have you any recollection of that?” she pressed.

  “I know very little about anything,” he said. “I’m useless, pretty much.”

  “Any more cheese, d’you think?” asked Trism, draining his noggin of ale.

  “You were here for weeks, I’m afraid,” Sister Doctor remarked to Liir. “Without the ministrations of our community you should certainly have died.”

  “Perish the thought. I’m alive, for what it’s worth.”

  “What Sister Doctor is trying to ascertain, in her skittery way, is how Candle did it,” interrupted Sister Apothecaire. “She was mute as a lilac, and seemed not overly canny. Yet she managed a miracle with you.”

  “Professional curiosity requires us to ask how,” inserted Sister Doctor.

  “Professional jealousy requires it, too,” admitted Sister Apothecaire.

  “I don’t know.” The boy had a private look. “In any event, I wasn’t consulted.”

  “Oh, she leached him, she took a lancet and bled him, she sucked his poison out, and a good thing, too,” said a biddy on a bench nearby. They hadn’t noticed her there.

  “Why, Mother Yackle!” bellowed Sister Doctor in a matronizing manner. “Aren’t you the chatty one today!” She shared a wrinkled expression with Sister Apothecaire. The dotty old thing. Ought to be in the solarium with the other silly dears.

  “She’s got a good instinct, that Candle,” said Yackle. “The oafs are pleasant enough to bed, in their way, but it takes a daughter of Lurlina to draw out the milk only boys can make…”

  “Shame and scandal on the house,” said Sister Apothecaire. “Gentleboys, forgive her. You know, their minds wander at that age, and the sense of propriety wobbles ferociously.”

  Liir turned to look at the woman. Her veil was pulled forward, but the splayed nostrils of her long rude nose showed. “Are you the one who directed us to the farm in the overgrown orchard?” he said.

  “She never!” said Sister Apothecaire. “Liir, she’s yesterday’s potatoes, and mashed at that. Don’t pay her any mind.”

  In a low voice, almost masculine in gruffness, Mother Yackle replied slowly, “I mind my own business.”

  “Of course you do,” said Sister Doctor.

  “But if I were you, I’d send those soldiers’ horses packing,” continued Mother Yackle. “You don’t want them found on the premises, I’d warrant.”

  Liir shrugged, then nodded.

  “Look,” said Sister Doctor, “this isn’t the place to talk. Finish up, lads; we need to have a heart-to-heart.”

  But Trism had fallen asleep against the back of his chair, and Liir’s eyelids were lowering as they watched. There was nothing for the maunts to do but show them to the cots in the guest quarters, and find blankets, and retreat.

  2

  LIIR, NEARLY ASLEEP, tossed his body back and forth on the lumpy straw of the bedding. It was as if he had been here before.

  Well, he had, but in a feeble enough way. In childhood he’d been more aware of the hems of Elphaba’s skirts, of the food in the wooden bowls. An awful lot of oatmeal mush. And more recently, he’d been broken and mindless, wandering his past in a feverish state. Even the night he and Candle had left the mauntery, and she had helped him move, as good as carried him on her back down the stairs, nearly, the halls had been dark. He’d collapsed into the donkey cart and slipped almost immediately into a real sleep, a sleep of fatigue and not one of voyage.

  That was his first apprehension of Candle, he remembered. A slip of a thing with the strength and willpower of a pack horse. She’d been mostly naked, and Mother Yackle had thrown a cloak over her shoulders. Here in the mauntery again, Liir tried to lean into that recent memory, the way he had learned to steep himself in other memories. Maybe there was something yet to be understood about whether he’d actually slept with her, impregnated her…even more, whether and in what ways he might love her.

  Now—a thousand difficult lonely miles away from Trism, who snored a yard to the east—Liir turned over, facing the wall. Candle was a cipher to him, sweet and elusive, and the memory was frail. There was nothing more he could unpack from it, nothing useful. To distract himself, in his heart and memory he walked about and examined the hull of the mauntery, doing a kind of spectral surveillance.

  The place betrayed its origins as a gardkeep. It was a fortified house, here on a slight wooded rise, an oasis of trees in the Shale Shallows. The ground floor had no windows, and the front door was reinforced with iron bracing. Behind, the kitchen looked out on a greasy moat crossed by a simple drawbridge. The vegetable plots and cow barn were beyond.

  The mauntery would afford little protection in a siege. The place was tall and, at this stage in its history, unsecurable for very long. In any effort to gain unlawful access, a modern police force might be slowed, but it wouldn’t be stayed.

  Still, at least a few cows could be swept into the parlor, and hay stacked up under the stairs. The fruits of the harvest crowded the shelves and larders, and the garde-manger was bulbous with blood sausage, dried muttock, and nine varieties of salami, to say nothing of cheeses. There was a mushroom cellar and a bin of desiccated fish fragments. And plenty of wine, and that wonderful rarity in a rural establishment, an indoor well.

  In his dreams he checked the
cupboards for rifles, he blew through each room to look for wardrobes that could be pushed against windows. He did not see the Superior Maunt asking questions of her esteemed guest about the payout schedule of a proposed beneficial annuity. He didn’t see Mother Yackle nodding in her own morning nap in the sunlight. He didn’t see nor overhear Sister Doctor and Sister Apothecaire squabbling gently in their shared cubicle about how they ought to proceed. The rooms were empty of novices, maunts, guests, spiders, mice, bedbugs, and any presence of the Unnamed God that he could determine.

  What he saw, in the topmost room where he had lain, was a figure on a rush-bottomed chair, sitting away from the light, twisting her hands. Her dark hair was looped up on her head with no regard for neatness or propriety, just to get it out of the way. Her eyes were closed, but he didn’t think she could be praying. He didn’t know what she was doing. At her feet was a largish basket woven of twigs. He didn’t look into it; he couldn’t. Every now and then her shoeless foot would nip out from beneath the dark hem of her skirt and give the basket a little push, and because of its rounded bottom, the basket rocked for a time. Then the green foot would appear again, and start the rocking over.

  HE WOKE WITH A START. It was sharp noon, and the house smelled of warm leek-and-cabbage eggery for lunch. Trism was still asleep, his hair rucked back against the pillow. The sound of cantering horse hoofs grew louder. Liir wanted to kiss Trism awake, but had the notion that the time for that was already over.

  He did it anyway. Trism groaned, and made room, and after a while said, “We don’t do this sort of thing in our circle.”

  Did he mean his class at St. Prowd’s? His family? The Home Guard? Didn’t matter. Liir replied, “Well, your circle seems to have widened, hasn’t it.”

  “Or shrunk,” said Trism, reaching for his boots.

  3

  “THEY’RE LOOKING FOR TWO men,” said Sister Doctor.

  “Indeed,” said the Superior Maunt.

  “One is said to have kidnapped the other.”

  “Our guests appear to be on a more familiar footing than hostage and abductor, don’t you think?”

  “Well—yes.”

  “So tell the soldiers we haven’t seen the men they’re seeking, and bid them good day.”

  “The thing is,” said Sister Doctor, “they’re said to be quite dangerous, these fellows. In an act of desecration, they imploded the Emerald City basilica of the Emperor by causing combustible dragons to—combust.”

  “How dreadful. I don’t think our two look very dangerous, though. Underfed, if you ask me, and perhaps undecided in their emotions, but not dangerous.”

  Sister Doctor came back. “I’ve been told that one of the two they’re seeking is named Liir.”

  “I see. Well, tell them he’s not here.”

  “Mother Maunt. I question your—propriety. Is that not a lie?”

  “Well, if one of the two that they seek is named Liir, one is not named Liir. So answer in reference to that one, and say he’s not here.”

  “That is devious, Mother Maunt.”

  “I’m old and muddled. Put it down to that, if you must comfort yourself,” she replied sharply. “But I’m still in charge, Sister, so do as I say.”

  Sister Doctor came back a third time. “They are more explicit. The Commander says that they are seeking Liir Thropp, the son of the Wicked Witch of the West.”

  “As I live and breathe, Sister Doctor! You extend more respect for my authority than is useful. Need I come up with every rejoinder? Are you never to think for yourself? To the best of my knowledge it hasn’t been conclusively determined that Liir is the son of the witch. So, again, since we cannot answer for certain that the person they seek is here, they must conduct their searches elsewhere. Give them my blessing and tell them to hurry, or do I have to come and do it myself?”

  Sister Doctor yelled the message out the windows of the scriptorium. The Commander called back, “If you’re not harboring felons, why are your doors blocked?”

  “Spring cleaning.”

  “It’s early winter, Sister Thudhead.”

  “We’re behind schedule. We’ve been dreadfully busy.”

  “Busy harboring criminals?”

  “I hate to be rude, but I’ve work to do. Good-bye.”

  By late afternoon the thud of stones against the door had become intolerable, and the Superior Maunt herself came to the window. The armed contingent had to interrupt the attack in order to hear her quavery voice.

  “It’s an inconvenient time to come calling,” she said. “For one thing, ladies in community tending to have their menses together, you find an entire household of terribly cross and uncompromising people. We’re not up to housing a garrison of soldiers, however rudely they pound on our doors. Please go away at once.”

  “Mother Maunt,” said the Commander. “This household received its original charter from the Palace, and it is with the authority of the Palace that I come and demand access. Your studied resistance proves you are harboring criminals. We know they stayed at an inn last night, and they cannot have come much farther than here today.”

  “Matters of authority are perplexing, I agree,” replied the old woman, “and I would love to stand here in the icy wind and discuss them fully, but my ancient lungs won’t stand it. Our original charter, by way of our motherchapel in the Emerald City, does comes from the Palace, I’ll concede. But I’ll remind you that the Palace in question was the Palace of the crown of Ozma, many generations back, and in any instance we have earned the right to self-governance.”

  “The Palace of Ozma is long over, and it’s the Palace of the Emperor that comes calling now. He is favored by unionist acclaim, and by dint of his apostleship you are under his bidding.”

  “He is a parvenu Emperor, and he does not speak for the Unnamed God to me,” she cried. “And unless he asked for it, no more would I speak of the Unnamed God to him. I reject his expedient and proprietary faith. We stand here on our own chilblained feet, without apology and without genuflection.”

  “Is this an indication that the Mauntery of Saint Glinda has endorsed and even overseen the publication of recent treasonous broadsheets attacking the spiritual legitimacy of the Emperor?”

  The Superior Maunt made a most uncharacteristic gesture.

  “That’s hardly an answer the courts would recognize. Good Mother Maunt,” came the reply, “let us not distract ourselves with the luxury of theology—”

  “For me it is no luxury, believe me—”

  “I know the boy you are harboring. I met him when he was only a boy, at the castle of Kiamo Ko in the Kells. When fate brought him in my path again, not once but twice, I suspected he had the makings of a firebrand in him. I made it my business to convince him of the rightness of the Emerald City cause. He might have knowledge of Elphaba, or of her missing Grimmerie. I named him my secretary in Qhoyre. I promoted him. I fathered him as best I could. Now listen: he was not Elphaba’s match. He could not be her son—too docile and biddable. But he should give himself up regardless. He has kidnapped a soldier of the Emperor and destroyed the basilica of the army.”

  “Commander,” replied the Superior Maunt, “you can save your breath. And you can put down those archaic crossbows or whatever you’re readying. We’ve got company that it would be unseemly for you to disturb.”

  She turned and beckoned. A figure appeared at the window and lowered a shawl off her forehead. The glitter in the eyebrows stood out in the falling light. Commander Cherrystone made a gesture and the men dropped their weapons as the Superior Maunt intoned, “The widow of Lord Chuffrey, Oz’s former throne minister, making a religious retreat to the mauntery that bears the same name that she does. Lady Glinda.”

  4

  A NOVICE OPENED THE DOOR for Liir and pointed him into the simple paneled parlor, and closed the door behind him without a sound.

  “I was told you were in the country,” said Liir.

  “But I was,” answered Glinda. “I am. I had
intended to travel from Mockbeggar Hall, our—well, my—country house to come make a bequest to this mauntery. Lord Chuffrey has left me quite wealthy, you know, and I thought it time to help the women in their good works.

  “But when my under-butler arrived last night on horseback with news of the attack on the basilica, I decided to change my schedule and come here straightaway. I have a commitment to this house, and I wanted my new bequest registered before there was any move toward disestablishment.”

  Her glamour was all the more ridiculous and appealing in this setting. “It’s good to see a familiar face,” said Liir.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here. After all, Elphaba was here for a while, you know. It’s one of the reasons I like to support it.”

  “I know she was.”

  “She tended the dying.”

  “And the living,” he said, remembering his dream of the basket. “I’m sorry about your husband.”

  “Oh, well.” She waved her hand dismissively but then dabbed at her nostril with a scrap of lacy roundel. “We largely went our own ways; it was that kind of a marriage. Now he’s gone his own way for good. I miss him more than I would ever have let on while he was alive. I suppose I’ll get over it.”

  She cheered up almost instantly. “Now tell me about you. Last I remember, you were marching off to Southstairs to find some little friend or other. I lost track of what happened. Well, there was the court to manage, and various putsches to suppress.” She regarded him. “No, I suppose it was ruthless of me to forget about you as soon as you left. I’ve never been good at keeping up with people. I’m sorry.”

  Liir remembered that he had momentarily hoped for Glinda as a mother. He pushed the thought aside. “You know the Emperor,” he said. “None other than Shell. Elphaba’s younger brother.”

  “Wouldn’t she be surprised to know her brother had succeeded the Wizard!” She looked rueful.

  “Surprised,” said Liir. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Well, yes. She’d be outraged. Piety as the new political aphrodisiac. I suppose that’s what you mean.”