She ignored the muddy boots lined up on the floor, just plowed through the banquet hal and the kitchens as if she’d been used to taking charge there for years. “Zackers. Hat off in the presence of a lady,” she barked at him, who whirled around from where he was rooting through a bin of biscuits. Feeling a warm breeze from an open door, she continued on through a larder and a maze of pantries, and found an exit into an herb garden. How useful, now that she knew what herbs were for. But she had no time to pause and take notes.

From the ground the four ships were even larger than they’d looked from her windows. Bowl-belied wooden narwhals. Men with their shirts off were swarming up ladders on al sides, caulking and scraping and wielding brushes to apply some sort of gleaming oil. It made the fresh wood glow like skin.

She located Cherrystone near a commissaire or clerk who was taking notes. She bearded the General. “Traper, you are to be congratulated. This is an instalation of most magnificent hue and heft. I can’t think where you got al the lumber.”

“There’s a mil or two in the Pine Barrens. You pay enough, you can find the help you need.”

“Pay with cash, or with threat of violence?” But she smiled as she said it, and he grinned back, replying, “Oh, the coin of the realm appears to be good cheer, as I understand it. We imported white oak for the ribbing, but the local fir stock is suitable for cladding and masts. Amazing how generous the locals are, if you put it to them persuasively enough.”

“I don’t know sail-lacing, so this is deepest arcana to me. However, Restwater being Oz’s largest lake, I believe I’d have noticed vessels of such magnificent profile if they’d ever sailed by me before. They don’t look like riverboats, yet the masts are lower than I would imagine useful to help propel such a capacious hold.”

“Oh, it’s a manly art, is shipbuilding,” said the General. “I can’t pretend to folow a word of it. I have a hard time lacing my own boots.” Glinda caught herself from making a remark about not lacing her own stays. “We al know the EC wants to divert the lake for its private use, in the capital and in the mil towns and factory hamlets springing

up between the Emerald City and Shiz. And so I realize these ships are intended to attack Haugaard’s Keep. But I can’t understand why you’d take four weeks and some to build them, giving the local farmers a chance to plan their resistance and fortify the lake, when you could’ve marched your army along through the vilages and circled Restwater six times over by now.”

“Straight through a gauntlet of pint-size guerrilas? No, thanks. But too terribly dry, this business of strategy,” he said, as if in agreement. “I’d love to chat more. Shal we dine again? I can wax hysterical about the cost of labor in wartime, and you can catch me up on your successes in the field of cuisine.”