A Lion Among Men Part 13

He couldn't tell why they stood back and let her pa.s.s unrestrained. Perhaps they realized she was still spitting mad. Perhaps they saw that Brrr was calming her.

Muhlama led the way. She had a seriously keen sense of smell and followed a track through sweeping cl.u.s.ters of vine until, after a few minutes, she had reached the edge of a pool. Here she laid herself down, reclining her hindquarters fully, her chest torquing into an elegant curve, so her head reared back upon her neck. Nacreous shadow behind her, blue and lavender and mauve. Her eyes lowered. Her ears lowered. "There is no one trailing us," she said. "I would hear them if they were."

He sat down close. Not too close. Close enough that he could feel the heat from her pelt. Musk of a rare sort; he'd never apprehended such a naked barb of invitation. A scorched-pecan, apricoty, humid sort of appeal.

"You are so royal, you can bring on estrus at will?" A bold thing to say and would have been crude said to anyone but a princess; and indeed he meant it as a compliment.

"I am am talented," she replied, lifting her tail another parabolic sweep higher, "but you give me too much credit." talented," she replied, lifting her tail another parabolic sweep higher, "but you give me too much credit."

They didn't speak for a while, as the evening birds exchanged their bulletins, as the bullfrogs dove into the water out of a surfeit of modesty. A hummingbird, a whipping blossom, came along and perched on Muhlama's ear, until it realized its mistake and fled.

"You can't be so kind to me," said Brrr after a while. "It isn't possible. No one ever has. I don't fit in."

"It's I who don't fit," she said, "I with my strong-minded ways, my temper, my appet.i.te to leave the very home that I am tethered to. I look a princess, I know; but I am a slave here, no less than the tree elves, no less than you are. I don't belong."

She angled her rump, and the movement of her tail changed. It became the pendulum on a metronome, counting the slow moments until she pushed her pelvis higher and threw her head back, nipping at Brrr's throat as he covered her beautiful coat with his own.

When he could think in words-was it then, was it later, he didn't know-it was simply this: Now I fit in.

His reverie was delicious. Eyes closed. He was partly conscious of the floating strings of the world, its selvages rest.i.tching themselves into a prettier apprehension. Some might call it afterglow. For Brrr it was as if a new appet.i.te was just beginning to stir out of his dreamy slumber. But it was interrupted by hissing alarums. He hardly knew what was closing in on him until it was over and done with.

The discovery in flagrante by Ivory Tiger scouts. The forced return to the camp. The accusation of Uyodor, his recitation of Brrr's offenses against the n.o.ble line of the Ghullim camp. Was this an attempt to thwart Uyodor's regime? Was Brrr a stooge of the Wizard of Oz, working his way in here, seducing the daughter of the chieftain of the Ghullim?

"There was no seduction, sir!" Brrr was aghast. He glared at Muhlama, looking for testimony. Muhlama neither concurred with her father nor protested his accusations. She couldn't speak. For anger, for regret? Then he saw what they had seen already. She had begun to bleed. The iron stench of it, a wound too large to hide. A rivulet of orangish blood that wouldn't stop.

It seemed he hadn't quite fit in, but she'd let him try anyway.

With a cold resolve, she hectored him, too. "Go. Don't you see? Don't you get it? Go, before they have your head on a trophy backboard. You've done quite enough."

Perhaps because she was still Uyodor's daughter, they let him go. Though Uyodor declared, as Brrr backed away, "You are no creature of the wilderness, Lion; you do not belong here. Should we come across you again, or should our allies, you are fair game for the predator. A marked beast. You have ten minutes before we enact our promise to seek vengeance."

So he pelted away, but ever after he wondered why. Was it just to preserve his own life? His life had a tinny cast to it, an artificial quality, hardly worth preserving. Or had he left not so much to save his own skin as to avoid having to see Muhlama's life bleed out of hers?

In any case, he was gone. Not for the first time, nor the last: an ign.o.ble retreat from a fray that had grown too hot for him.

Back into the wild, back into woods, back into exile. And this time he would endure a loneliness made more cutting by the recent experience of consanguinity. Or call it love, if you must.

Exiled, even unto himself, until and unless something came along to redeem him.

What came along some time later-days, or was it weeks?-near where the Wend Fallows petered out into the Corn Basket, was that toothsome morsel known as Dorothy. Another rare and delicate human, a girl this time, improbably making her way along the stretch of Yellow Brick Road that originated in central Munchkinland.

- 4 -

IT WAS an accident of the light, nothing more, that caused the little girl and her pair of noodnik companions to leap in terror at the sight of him. Or had it been too long since his most recent wash-and-set? In any case, he steeled himself for the inevitable interview, and wondered how much of his sorry history he could gloss over. Maybe they had some provisions to share. an accident of the light, nothing more, that caused the little girl and her pair of noodnik companions to leap in terror at the sight of him. Or had it been too long since his most recent wash-and-set? In any case, he steeled himself for the inevitable interview, and wondered how much of his sorry history he could gloss over. Maybe they had some provisions to share.

Dorothy, though, was not riven with wild curiosity. She seemed to take his bowdlerized biography at face value. She asked no probing questions. She just smoothed the edges of her ap.r.o.n and consoled her quivering little pup. "Oh, Toto, have you ever imagined imagined a Cat so big in your wildest nightmares? I hope you don't lose your lunch." She nuzzled her face against her dog's in a way that might cause some citizens of Oz to question her sanity. a Cat so big in your wildest nightmares? I hope you don't lose your lunch." She nuzzled her face against her dog's in a way that might cause some citizens of Oz to question her sanity.

Still, he found to his surprise that he felt some small measure of sympathy for Dorothy. He was no longer inclined to consider human beings warmly, but maybe he was able to make an exception because she was so clearly a foreigner. Brrr imagined she was an orphan like himself, as humans didn't usually leave their young to wander the high road alone. And no half-decent parent of any species would hire a Scarecrow and a Tin Woodman as chaperones and aides-de-guerre. aides-de-guerre.

"Come with us," said the girl. "We're headed for the Emerald City."

Propitious words.

One doesn't know, necessarily, when one meets the trip-action person in one's life. A good teacher, a flirt behind the dry-goods counter, a petty thief wielding a knife. Any one of a thousand chance encounters might be the chance of a lifetime. Or a deathtime. A lost girl in a blue gingham skirt and a white pinafore hardly seemed a likely amba.s.sador to a rosier future: still, stranger things had happened.

He considered joining them. What else did he have scheduled? He couldn't risk running into the Ghullim again. Neither the nabobs of s.h.i.+z, nor the Bears nor the Ozmists, nor the Glikkuns with their dirks, nor any affectionate soldier boys astray in the Great Gillikin Forest.

It seemed there was nothing in the wild for him; it was civilization itself that must be tamed. Perhaps this was his lucky break. It sure was about time.

And who better to serve as his escort back into society but this Dorothy? She possessed a writ of safe pa.s.sage from Lady Glinda, who had met the foreign girl when investigating the sudden death of Nessarose, the most recent Eminent Thropp and governor of Munchkinland. It took Brrr several weeks to pry the whole story out of Dorothy, about the tornado, the plummeting house, the glittering shoes. By then he deduced that Glinda was moving the girl out of harm's way, because Munchkinland was up for grabs now that its governor was dead. Would Nessarose's sister, Elphaba, come back to Colwen Grounds and rule the seceded nation?

Every step away from Munchkinland would be a step away from the Wicked Witch of the West, Brrr figured. Accurately or not, his name had been linked to her before; he wanted no reunion, thank you very much.

And once in the Emerald City-well, there was the famously reclusive Wizard of Oz to meet! The WOO! If Lady Glinda's offices were as well connected as she had attested to Dorothy.

"Oh, do join us. Lady Glinda is so good," said Dorothy. "I'm sure the Wizard will honor her request and see us. After I've come all this way-and through that dreadful storm, no less. A thousand miles from any outhouse. I won't tell you what I had to do while aloft; it was revolting."

Laboriously Brrr figured the dates backward and concluded that the great twister carrying Dorothy to Oz was the same storm that had given Uyodor H'aekeem nightmares and begun the sequence of events leading to Brrr's expulsion from the Ghullim. He spent a few moments over a dark fantasy of revenge against Dorothy. But she hadn't orchestrated that storm into being; she was a victim of fate as much as he was. So he let it go.

"I'll come with you," he told Dorothy and the others.

At this point-the moment when Brrr stepped into the limelight of history-he was perhaps twenty, though of course as a Lion that meant he was middle-aged. Twenty, and he'd conducted his sordid affairs and peccadilloes only in Gillikin and Munchkinland. But he'd spent his life within earshot of Oz's great capital city, which pulsed with so much power it was almost a nation unto itself-a state on its own. Perhaps what was scandalous elsewhere, in hidebound provincial centers like s.h.i.+z, would seem penny-candy stuff in a capital city. Perhaps the EC was large enough, urbane enough, to consider Brrr's trials and shames not only incidental but unremarkable.

He had little to lose now. If Dorothy's stamp of approval from Lady Glinda proved genuine, he might be traveling with diplomatic immunity. After all, Dorothy had shown him a writ on a scroll, though he couldn't read it well enough to pa.r.s.e its curlicued grandiosity.

The Kiss of Lady Glinda, it was called: a pa.s.sport requiring its bearer safe pa.s.sage to the Emerald City under penalty of prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, et cetera, et cetera. it was called: a pa.s.sport requiring its bearer safe pa.s.sage to the Emerald City under penalty of prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, et cetera, et cetera.

It was signed with a flourish and a little scribble of a heart with a smile inside it, which looked to Brrr like a picture of an extracted tooth delighted to be liberated from some foul mouth.

A good deal of what happened next-the Matter of Dorothy-was a story he didn't choose to dwell upon. How decla.s.se, to arrive with a crippled human decked out with tin prophylactics and with a Scarecrow, sweet enough but clueless as to his own origins-though who wasn't? Brrr liked Dorothy, though. One evening he found himself imagining her as Jemmsy in a dress and pigtails, which seemed too weird, if fun, so he steered his attentions elsewhere.

The Emerald City lifted itself onto the horizon, more pomp and glory than Brrr had imagined possible. Emerald overdrive. Even the loo paper was green, which Brrr considered a sort of design error. But The Kiss of Glinda The Kiss of Glinda worked its magic, as it were. The magnificent and dreadful Wizard of Oz agreed to meet them, though in separate interviews. Brrr's was last, and he was expecting a great Head, like the one that had shown itself to Dorothy, but perhaps the wine had been more toxic than he'd realized, for all he could see was light s.h.i.+ning from the throne. worked its magic, as it were. The magnificent and dreadful Wizard of Oz agreed to meet them, though in separate interviews. Brrr's was last, and he was expecting a great Head, like the one that had shown itself to Dorothy, but perhaps the wine had been more toxic than he'd realized, for all he could see was light s.h.i.+ning from the throne.

Steeling himself, Brrr remembered the Ozmists, and thought: Barter! Barter! He would negotiate for some government sinecure in exchange for having escorted this foreign dignitary to the palace. "I have a request of you," he began, "O great-and-powerful-and-all-knowing Oz." He would negotiate for some government sinecure in exchange for having escorted this foreign dignitary to the palace. "I have a request of you," he began, "O great-and-powerful-and-all-knowing Oz."

"Courage," said the Wizard.

"No, not courage," said the Lion. "I mean, well, courage would would be nice. But I was thinking of something more in the line of a job." be nice. But I was thinking of something more in the line of a job."

"I will give you what you most need," said the Wizard, "if you bring down the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Bring her down? I had hoped she wouldn't even come up," murmured Brrr. The Wizard was better at bartering than he was.

Later, Brrr said to his new companions, "I'm all for engaging in a little cut-and-run action here. Why should we do the Wizard's dirty work? He has his own military presence. The EC is crawling with soldiers."

Some of those middle-aged military personnel might once have known Jemmsy. But Brrr let that thought pa.s.s.

"Yes," said Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman. "And any one of those soldiers could take you into custody for refusing the request of the Wizard."

"He didn't order order us out to the West," said Brrr. "We're volunteering. Aren't we? Aren't we?" us out to the West," said Brrr. "We're volunteering. Aren't we? Aren't we?"

They looked at him.

"We're not drafted against our will, surely."

"De facto, we are," said the Scarecrow. "It's only our having a commission from the Throne of Oz that keeps those soldiers from picking you up, anyway. The Animal Adverse laws haven't been lifted, p.u.s.s.ycat. You don't see many Animals in the streets of this fair city, do you?"

"Besides," said Dorothy, "I want to go home. I'm sick of this place. Not of you, dear friends, never of you. But all this rigamarole, all this kowtowing. It's exhausting. Let's just consider this little military action something we have to go through. In any event, I'm I'm going, on my own if I have to." going, on my own if I have to."

"You'd kill a witch, just like that, at someone's suggestion?" asked the Tin Woodman. "How unfeeling. You're a monster."

"I didn't say I was going to kill her," said Dorothy. "Perhaps we can make a private arrangement with her. Broker a peace deal, a compromise of some sort. Who knows. In any event, my house did sort of smush her sister, and I haven't had a chance to deal with the trauma of that, what with all the festivities and so on. I mean, I need some closure here."

The Wizard of Oz, it seemed, had them all by the short hairs. So against his better judgment, Brrr signed on to the mission. Maybe Dorothy's preternatural innocence would call good luck upon them, and he could be a partial beneficiary. And the Wizard had had promised Brrr a suitable reward should the mission succeed. promised Brrr a suitable reward should the mission succeed.

Now, was it forward to victory? Or was it out of the frying pan into the fire? The stakes were never higher. Whatever happened, it would be impossible to retire anonymously after all this. Perhaps Brrr should have roared that tiny little Toto into an early grave and gotten out while he could.

The trip to the West was taxing in every sense. Eventually the Witch's Winged Monkeys showed up to give them a lift up the steepest of the slopes of k.n.o.bblehead Pike to the Witch's castle, known as Kiamo Ko. The Tin Man and the Scarecrow were left below, but the Lion and Dorothy and Toto were deposited in the courtyard to meet the Witch and her little entourage: the other monkeys, that lad named Liir, and the old Nanny whom Yackle, it seemed, had met all those years earlier.

Liir was the least of creatures on the scene, a scrambling aide-desorciere aide-desorciere as the Lion remembered. Fumbling, earnest: a knockabout kid who looked as if he could fall out a tower window without much surprise. The Lion had paid little attention to him: Who knew that Liir's whereabouts would come to intrigue the high and mighty in the Emerald City one day? as the Lion remembered. Fumbling, earnest: a knockabout kid who looked as if he could fall out a tower window without much surprise. The Lion had paid little attention to him: Who knew that Liir's whereabouts would come to intrigue the high and mighty in the Emerald City one day?

And of the so-called Witch, what could Brrr now recall? His whole life had seemed to lead up to this fatal event: the instruction to murder the Wicked Witch of the West. So you would think he'd have a better grasp of that Elphaba Thropp.

Yet he had only seen her the once, really, and there she remained, stamped in his mind's eye in a kind of bas-relief, like a figure on a commemorative medal. If she really was a Witch, beneath all that witchy drag, she was an erratic one. Her body made a zigzaggy shape at the top of those castle steps, like a W W fallen on its side. She was all angles, contorted like a cripple, twisted with rage and fear, but not with paralysis. She was anything but paralyzed. fallen on its side. She was all angles, contorted like a cripple, twisted with rage and fear, but not with paralysis. She was anything but paralyzed.

"You!" she'd cried at him. Had she recognized him as the Lion cub in the laboratory back at s.h.i.+z? He didn't know. He hadn't the temerity to ask for clarification. "You!" "You!" she'd cried again, and this time he quailed more deeply, thinking she meant she'd cried again, and this time he quailed more deeply, thinking she meant You traitor! How can you, a Lion, come against me, when I have fought for your weal since before you were born! You traitor! How can you, a Lion, come against me, when I have fought for your weal since before you were born!

He wanted to reply, Show me some respect. Some of your detractors have tarred me as your familiar. Show me some respect. Some of your detractors have tarred me as your familiar. And he would have said that, and more. If he only had the nerve. And he would have said that, and more. If he only had the nerve.

But her gaze had turned to Dorothy, and Elphaba had whipped down those steps like an oversize, bewitched eggbeater whirling on its own. What happened next, the famous dissolution of the Witch, had happened offstage, as the flying monkeys had crowded Brrr and the Witch's help-boy, Liir, into a larder and locked the door. By the time Brrr had broken the door off its hinges, the damage was done. The Witch was gone. And Brrr's reputation would be tarnished forever by dint of his presence at the castle.

Guilt by a.s.sociation-or a hero by popular clamor, depending on which political hack was retailing the events.

One way or the other, the Witch was gone.

After a couple of skirmishes with barbaric tribes of the Vinkus, the Lion and Dorothy-together with young Liir, and soon reunited with Nick Chopper and the Scarecrow-made their way overland back to the Emerald City. Their hopes were high but soon daunted. By an accident of the sort one might see on the stage, Dorothy's little yapper, Toto, took a grip on a closet curtain and gave a tug. Only useful thing the fool animal ever did. The Wizard was revealed as a mere mortal, and a bit of a charlatan at that. As clever with his hands-all those tiktok inventions, those terrifying images he projected-as he was with his diktats and fiats and fatwahs. Oh my.

In the confusion that followed, the Emerald City Irregulars were showered with junk. Tchotchkes you could pick up at a five-and-farthing store.

As the Wizard rummaged through a drawer, he spoke over his shoulder. "My research a.s.sociates are thorough when they need to prepare the case for honorifics. You, my friend, are known as the Cowardly Lion-oh, don't be bashful! Your history precedes you! I shall give you just what you deserve: a token of esteem suitable for wearing at Court." He came up with a tin medal on a sash of green and gold. It wasn't suitable for wearing to the church rummage sale, unless you intended to dump it in the hand-me-down box. The sash was stained with creepy beige spots (don't want to know what that that was) and the medal said was) and the medal said COURAGE! COURAGE! It had been so clumsily produced that the first three letters were afflicted with bloat. The only legible part read It had been so clumsily produced that the first three letters were afflicted with bloat. The only legible part read RAGE! RAGE!

"Thank you, your Ozness," said Brrr, hoping it was a joke, hoping if he played along he'd end up happy. The WOO placed the medal around his neck. Had Jemmsy's medal for courage been as cheaply manufactured, as odious? Brrr lifted the medal to sniff it, to bring back Jemmsy. A pin mounted on the back cut the softer part of the pad of his paw.

"I can't accept this-" he began to say, but the Wizard had moved on to address Dorothy, and the little girl was beaming in such high hopes of an exit visa from Oz that the Lion didn't have the nerve to interrupt.

Still, as they were dismissed and ushered away, Brrr continued to imagine that he might somehow parry the dubious honor into a rehabilitation, perhaps even a position in the Wizard's court. He was mistaken, though. His timing couldn't have been worse. The Wizard's long reign had come to an end at last. Oscar Zoroaster Diggs, the great and powerful WOO, abdicated the throne and departed the Emerald City by a hot-air balloon, said to be the way he had arrived four decades earlier. Why, why leave now, when his adversary, the Wicked Witch, was finally done for? No one was certain. Perhaps the crafty old geezer could hear that palace knives were being sharpened for a use more sinister than the carving of rump roast.

"Cowardly Lion," said Dorothy to him, snapping her fingers in his face to get his attention. "With any luck my visit is drawing to a close, and I need to talk to you before I go."

He roused himself from the lethargy of resentment. Dorothy shut the door to the chamber of the shabby guesthouse in which he was lodged. There was no direct light, given that to the north a government bureau loomed six stories above them. "Sadly in need of redecoration," said Dorothy, smoothing her skirt over her behind and sitting down on the chenille bedspread, "but nothing compared to what Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are faced with, given that I set out from home bringing the whole house with me."

"Are you making the rounds, dispensing last little bromides? You can save your breath."

"Don't be like that. When the time comes for me to leave, I know you won't want to make a public fuss over me. So I've come to say something in private."

Brrr hadn't actually planned to attend Dorothy's valedictory session. He just nodded at her: Go on.

"I love your pals, you know; the Scarecrow and the Woodman. But I love them for their quaintness, while I love you for the animal in you."

In most Animal circles referring to one's animal instinct would be considered a ferocious insult. But Brrr thought it best not to challenge Dorothy to a duel at this stage. He'd probably lose.

"You see, I grew up on a farm. I had a little pet hen once. She followed me around, in and out of the kitchen, into the farmyard. She couldn't speak, of course. We're talking Kansas, where free speech in general is not highly prized."

"Is there a moral to this story?"

"One day she crossed the road. Do you know why the chicken crossed the road?"

"Is this a joke?"

Nothing was a joke to Dorothy. "Because I was on the other side," she finished. "I was standing on one foot and singing a little song about, oh, I don't know what. And that brave little hen crossed the dangerous road to be with me."

"What happened to her?"

"One Sat.u.r.day night Uncle Henry wrung her neck and Auntie Em made chicken stew. I cried and cried but actually she tasted pretty good."

Brrr shook his head. "I'm not getting the point of this, Dorothy. I think you've been away from your own kind too long."

"That is exactly my point!" she exclaimed. "You see, I lost my parents, too. Auntie Em and Uncle Henry aren't even relatives. They wrote away to an orphanage in Independence, Missouri, requesting someone because Auntie Em needed some help around the house, what with her sciatica. I'm who they got." She chewed her pigtail. "Perhaps they regret it now, or maybe not. Hard to say." is exactly my point!" she exclaimed. "You see, I lost my parents, too. Auntie Em and Uncle Henry aren't even relatives. They wrote away to an orphanage in Independence, Missouri, requesting someone because Auntie Em needed some help around the house, what with her sciatica. I'm who they got." She chewed her pigtail. "Perhaps they regret it now, or maybe not. Hard to say."

"Dorothy," said Brrr, "I was about to take a nap."

"Sorry. The point is: You and I are more alike than you think. And ornery as Auntie Em could be, and pigheaded as Uncle Henry is, they are my own family now, and I miss them and love them. I would cross the road for them, like my pet hen did for me. You must feel no different about your own family."

"With all due respect, I have no family, Dorothy."

She put her arms around him, which was an odd comfort.

"Take care of Liir," she whispered. "Okay? He has no family either. And he's a little...well, dim."

"I don't have any obligations to that boy." Brrr was all too aware how he had failed Jemmsy and Cubbins. Better that Liir should get on in his life without being shackled with a big burly Lion for a sidekick.

"For me?" she said. "If the Witch was his mother, my word: it's my fault he's an orphan now, too. Like me and you both. I can't bring him home with me, and I daren't leave him alone. He needs someone, Brrr, and so do you."

He pulled away from her, uncomfortable with this consultation. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, gravely. She was waiting for a promise. There was something eerie about her gentle manner and her steely patience. Winds would wear a cliff down to a stony strand before she would change her mind about the goodness of the world.