“Where does you want ’em,” she said, forgetting to make it sound like a question.

“Oh, how about one on the table and then one on that stone ledge between the windows,” said Glinda. “Then if Miss Murth comes at the General with a crossbow we shal spy her before any damage is done. Miss Murth has many hidden talents.”

“Lady Glinda!” hissed Murth from inside. But Cherrystone was laughing.

“Stay, little Rain,” said Glinda. “We might need something else, and you’re better at getting over window ledges than we are. You can rest with your head against the wal there.” In the lamplight, squatting with her back against the stone, the girl looked like a beggar outside a train station in the Pertha Hils, back in the day. Frottica, Wittica, Settica, Wiccasand Turning…

The light of the oil lamps glazed Cherrystone; he became a more fixed target. Glinda had reached the end of that part of the strategy she’d been able to plan ahead, and she was improvising now. But how formidable he looked. Patient, wary, courteous, buckled up inside himself. He did have utterly lovely eyes for a marauder. A sort of faded cobalt. “I sense that these are early days, Traper. Stil, I would be irresponsible to the memory of Sir Chuffrey if I didn’t ask what your ultimate intentions are toward Mockbeggar. I do hope you have no plans to raze it.”

“That wouldn’t be a decision of mine, though I think no one in the Emerald City would bother this place much. I see that it is a jewel. In these few days I’ve come to appreciate why you love it so.”

“Were I at the helm of strategy, I should think that securing Restwater as a permanent source of potable water for the Emerald City would be enough. I’m wondering, should that happen, if you intend Mockbeggar to serve as a satelite capital of the EC, and might decide to leave the rest of the Free State of Munchkinland alone? Munchkinland covers a vast territory, and though decidedly rural, it’s more evenly populated than the rest of Oz, which by comparison is either urban or hardscrabble and too remote to be habitable. The attempt to subdue al of Munchkinland would be punishing.”

“You have a good head for strategy, Lady Glinda, as befits a former Throne Minister. But you retired to seek other pleasures. Like gentlewoman farming, and flower arranging. So I shouldn’t fret about the future. What wil happen wil happen.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m too selfish to care primarily about Munchkinland. What happens to the stucco wals of Mockbeggar and to its staff also happens to me. What happens to Mockbeggar’s irises and prettibels happens to me. You think me shalow, but I have been breeding prettibels for eighteen summers now. It is my passion. I have a new variety that was even written about in our local newssheet, Restwater Dew Tell.” This was partly true. The gardener had been doing something with that ugly little orange flower. “Rain, can you slip into my library and find a copy of the newsfold with the article on prettibels?”