T HOSE DAYS,” she asserted. “You wouldn’t remember. You weren’t whelped yet.”

“Tell me. I’m all ears.” He listened like a doe just noticing a leopard on a limb.

“You want the three historic segments of my earthly life? I’ve lived through a good deal of these modern times, if you can call it living. I’d arrived, preaged and preshrunk, a crone at birth, just at the end of the Ozma regency, before Pastorius was deposed by the Wizard and the infant Ozma was secreted away, probably murdered.

“Then came the Wizardic reign. Nearly four decades of the Great Head, as power consolidated in the Emerald City. Animals were disenfranchised of their rights; and the green shrike of a witch, Elphaba Thropp, flew the skies in agitation. Her sister, Nessarose, presided over the breakaway state of Munchkinland.

“Following the Wizard’s abdication of the Throne, the brief and blameless twin interregnums-first of Lady Glinda, that bottle blonde, and then of the so-called Scarecrow, who came to power and left it again faster than a pile of autumn kindling responds to a winter torch.

“The torch of piety, that is, as wielded by Shell, the Apostle Emperor. Younger brother of Elphaba and Nessarose. He swore he was divinely positioned by the Unnamed God. For all I know he is his, he is his-” She nearly gagged at the thought, and rotated her hand in the air, a forward roll. “He is history.”

Brrr didn’t want to lead her on, to give her anything to work with, if she was indeed an oracle. Let her show facility with those unholy talents. Yet he was curious, too; he couldn’t help saying, “The Emperor Shell is still on the Throne in the Emerald City. No opposition to his royal prerogatives allowed.”

“But of course. Who can gainsay a prince personally chosen by the Unnamed God?”

He nodded: go on.

I HEARD ABOUT current events, naturally. Shiz is a university town from way back, and undergraduates reading history do blather so.

I minded my own business on the pavement-well, begging a little, picking pockets, too, for I saw that was how common folk fed themselves. I figured out that inventing little prophecies-doling out appealing lies-brought in some cash.

I bought my bread and beer from the small change I could earn by pretending to be a seer. I was persuasive enough, a competent liar, and I looked the part, so I developed a clientele. I wore a shawl, like Yackle Snarling. I had fun worrying my hair into a nest of scowls. When I had put a small purse aside I took a room above a tonsorial parlor and I invested in a line of herbal comforts. Limited-liability curses, bogus love charms and the like. I traded only in minor hexes, for I wanted no trouble with the constabulary.

It was fun for a while. I examined tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. I studied the crow’s feet on either side of a spinster’s face and I made up some nonsense about strangers and romance. I never could figure out why romance is so desirable, having felt nothing of the sort myself. Maybe because I was desiccated in that department. With no eggs to hatch, I had no reason to kiss and canoodle, and no appetite for it, either. But those with an experience of canoodling seem reluctant to leave the possibility behind, even when their romantic prospects are limited due to the insults of aging. Onset of severe personal ugliness.