Gregory Maguire_Wicked Years_02 by Son of a Witch Page A

frozen, and he and his companions would walk away safely. But this was beyond him—like everything else.
    The Scrow scouts tossed the travelers hanks of repugnant dried meat and smoked corn. It was clear Dorothy and company were to wait here. A day and a half later, the leader of the Scrow arrived, traveling in a slow-moving caravansary that with considerable care negotiated the path to this low-lying western ridge of Knobblehead Pike.
    The party included a translator, so Liir found himself requesting an audience with the Highness behind the shabby drapes of the palanquin. He wasn’t skilled at bargaining. “The only thing I request is that we, uh, hurry,” he said. “My friend Dorothy wants to get safely to the Emerald City; she has an appointment with the Wizard. Then she intends to travel abroad somewhere.”
    And I with her, he thought to add, but didn’t. Would she have me? And if not—what else am I going to do?
    The translator was an old, gnarled Scrow gentleman who, despite his tribal appurtenances, had been trained in the university environs of Shiz. “Very well,” he said. “I don’t see why we should dally. It is in all of our interests, after all. Give her Highness a chance to compose herself, and we shall let you know when she’s ready.”
    Dorothy said, “We don’t think much of crowned heads where I come from. Who is this Highness?” The interpreter left without answering.
    “How rude,” said Dorothy. “Well, who is she, this Highness? Might it be the Ozma everybody goes on about?”
    Liir explained. “The last Ozma disappeared many years ago, kidnapped as a young girl when the Wizard came to power. Nanny believed the child had been bewitched in a trance, never to grow older by a day until the moment she was released from the charm, like a fairy-tale princess. Then she would rise up and smash the mighty in their comfort, and return the monarchy to its rightful place. But Auntie Witch always pooh-poohed that. She said the child had probably been murdered long ago. The remains of the Ozma Tippetarius would be found deep in the bone bins of the Palace, along with her ancestors, if anyone were allowed to look there.”
    “I believe in Ozma,” said the Scarecrow staunchly.
    Mindless fool, thought Liir, but said nothing more.
    The court of the Scrow didn’t keep them waiting for long. When the sun had reached its zenith, attendants unrolled a green carpet with a puckered selvage. Shapeless pillows, sour with mildew, were placed about. “Stand until her Highness is seated,” the translator said, arranging in a kind of lattice pattern the remaining hairs on his pale domed head. “Then you may be seated, too.”
    She was helped out of her compartment by six retainers. Her muscles were of little use in holding up her bulk, and her large, sagging face twisted into seams of overlapping skin. She grimaced at the pain of every step. An old woman, a monolith of an ancient Scrow matron, easily the size of all her retainers standing together. Like a queen bee among drones.
    Her face was scored with green and purple smudges, some sort of ceremonial marking. The waft of vetiver and lily water, pleasant enough, couldn’t entirely disguise an animal odor.
    “Princess Nastoya,” said the translator in comprehensible Ozish, “may I present Dorothy Gale, of parts unknown, and her companions, a Lion, a Scarecrow, a gentleman clad in Tin, and the boy about whom you’ve been told.” He then repeated the lines in Scrow, to indicate how he would go on.
    “How do you do?” said Dorothy, curtseying.
    Princess Nastoya was lowered to the ground so she could regard them while reclining on her side. Her spine was preternaturally long, as if she possessed extra vertebrae. The servants propped her knees on a yellow cushion, and her elbow on another, and they arranged a small mountain of cushions behind her so she wouldn’t roll backward.
    The interpreter began a flowery biography, but the Princess cut him off. Her