AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But there were a few steps to endure first, the joke of applying for an appeal in the Emerald City, the punishment of having to wait for a hearing until the meanest magistrate was free of social obligations. The usual foul skirmishes.
By dint of the judgment against him his assets were frozen pending appropriation. (Someone had to pay for his incarceration in Southstairs, and better the accused than the state.) He wasn’t a lamb thrown to the lions—he knew that—he was a Lion thrown to the lethal but dominant Lambs of the Unnamed God.
Then, if you could call it that, a stroke of luck at last. Someone serving as a Friend of the Court had recognized him in chambers; it was the Margreave of Tenmeadows, a Gillikinese noble named Avaric. For his own amusement if nothing else, Avaric worked in Secret Affairs, an arm of the Palace defense team. Before Brrr’s final appeal review could be canceled due to insufficient cause, and before he could be led off to prison, Avaric arranged a meeting between the criminal and the sentencing judge, a professional scold named Miss Eldersdotter. At the Court’s discretion the Margreave was allowed to attend.
“You are a Namory, as I understand it,” said Miss Eldersdotter. Her shiny jaw bristled with so many ugly hairs she could have knitted herself a chin wipe out of them.
“Sir Brrr, Low Plenipotentiary of Traum,” he replied.
“The first Animal so honored,” interjected Lord Avaric.
“All the more reason to set an example,” snapped Miss Eldersdotter. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Brrr.” Her refusal to use the honorific was nothing less than a taunt. He governed his temper.
“I am mightily ashamed of what has happened,” he said coolly.
“And well you might be.” Her eye was trained on documents. He expected if he kept replying she would keep answering his assertions so as to have the last word. I remain deeply ashamed, Your Honor. As it should be, Brrr. And as it is, Your Honor. I would expect it to be so, Brrr. And on. And on.
Then she looked up and said, “Not the Cowardly Lion of the incident out West? That little contretemps with the dainty Dorothy? You do get around.”
“The same, Your Honor, though I don’t include the sobriquet on my letterhead.”
Lord Avaric snorted. Even Miss Eldersdotter had to twitch a smile into submission.
“So you had doings with the Wicked Witch of the West and her witch-boy.”
“Doings would be putting a mighty fine gloss upon it. I accompanied Dorothy to the West and spent the evening in question mostly locked in a kitchen storeroom.”
“You know the lad called Liir. Her son, some say.”
“He won’t be a lad anymore if he is still alive. I knew him for a few weeks, and that was the end of it.”
“Have you an opinion as to whether he really was her son? Did he ever show signs of any particular talent at spells?”
“He showed little initiative in the time I knew him, and no promise of any sort.”
“Still,” she said noncommittally. “Still. And even so.”
“We may have an opportunity here,” said the Margreave.
“I begin to see what you are on about, Lord Avaric. Would you like to present your proposal to the Court? Since we are about to be off-record, Miss Saucerly, you may break for an early tea.”
Miss Saucerly fled. Miss Eldersdotter took off her magistrate’s wig to reveal a flattened little steel-blond hairdo, spare and dispirited. She fluffed her hair with Miss Saucerly’s pencil as Lord Avaric spoke.
Brrr looked out the window, his future in the hands of others. He listened, but not too closely at first, afraid to become hopeful about whatever Lord Avaric was proposing. Miss Eldersdotter asked a few questions and made a few notes. At one point she dispatched a pigeon to the Palace, requesting information from someone, and the pigeon returned twenty minutes later, the reply scribbled on the back of the same scroll.
Thus was the plot hatched to transpose Brrr’s punishment from incarceration in the highest security prison in Oz to a civic alternative: government service. By virtue of his experience with the Wicked Witch of the West and her putative son, Liir, Brrr would be engaged to do some research for the Courts and for Secret Affairs.
He would find out what happened to Liir after he was last seen some eight years ago, suspected of having holed up for sanctuary in this very mauntery of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows. He would poke around for this and that among the Witch’s effects. Interview a few witnesses.
To what end? Brrr insisted on following the point. Not because he would take it into account—just—because. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but he was a big Cat and had a higher tolerance for curiosity than some.
“Lord Avaric will explain. Case retired.” Miss Eldersdotter closed the file and rubbed her temples. “Before you take up your new assignment, Brrr, I wonder if you could illuminate me about that aspect of your career involving the assessment of antique prints. I inherited a set of moldy old things from my widowed aunt in Tenniken, and I suspect they are worth a pretty bundle.”
All kinds of possibilities emerged. He held his tongue until his thoughts settled in his mind. Then he said evenly, “I am afraid the market has changed so much since I was professionally involved, Your Honor, that I would no longer be qualified to offer a judgment.”
“Well,” she said, “so few of us are.” And she all but leaned back in her chair and kicked up her heels, laughing at her own little self-coronation.
Suppose Miss Eldersdotter’s widowed aunt had been the mother of Jemmsy the foot soldier. That would make the magistrate and Jemmsy first cousins. But if she were so related, Brrr didn’t want to know. Poetic justice could be just that ironic, but why allow
