V

Elphaba could only get Nessarose’s attention for small snatches of time. However dismissive of the demands of leadership, Nessarose was clearheaded about her schedule, and spent hours preparing for meetings.

And at first the discussion was frivolous—family memories, school days. Elphie was impatient to get around to the meat of the matter here. But Nessarose wouldn’t be rushed. Sometimes she let Elphie sit in when she held audiences with citizens. Elphie wasn’t entirely pleased with what she saw.

One afternoon an old woman from some hamlet in the Corn Basket came in. She made obeisance in a most disgusting and obsequious manner, and Nessarose seemed to shine back at her with glory. The woman complained that she had a maid who, having fallen in love with a woodcutter, wanted to leave her service to get married. But the old woman had already given three sons to the new local militia for defense, and she and the maid were all the labor available to bring in the crops. If the maid ran off with her woodcutter, the crops would spoil and she would be ruined. “And all for the sake of liberty,” she concluded bitterly.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” said the Eminence of the East.

“I can give you two Sheep and a Cow,” said the woman.

“I have livestock—” said Nessarose, but Elphaba interrupted and said, “Did you say Sheep? A Cow? You mean Animals?”

“My very own Animals,” the woman replied proudly.

“How do you come to own Animals?” Elphaba asked, her teeth clenched. “Are Animals no more than chattel now in Munchkinland?”

“Elphie, please,” said Nessarose quietly.

“What will you take to release them?” demanded Elphie, in a passion.

“I already said. Do something about this woodcutter.”

“What do you have in mind?” interrupted Nessarose, displeased that her sister was usurping her role as arbiter of justice.

“I brought you his axe. I thought you might bewitch it and cause it to kill him.”

“Fie,” said Elphaba, but Nessarose said, “Oh well, that wouldn’t be very nice.”

“Very nice?” Elphie said. “No indeed it wouldn’t be very nice, Nessie.”

“Well, you’re the legal answer around here,” said the old woman stoutly. “What do you suggest?”

“I might bewitch his axe and let it slip,” said Nessarose thoughtfully, “just enough perhaps to cut off his arm. I know from experience that a person without an arm isn’t as desirable to the opposite sex as one fully armed.”

“Fair enough,” said the woman, “but if it doesn’t work I’ll come back and you’ll do more, for the same price. Sheep and a Cow don’t come cheap around here, you know.”

“Nessarose, you’re not a witch, no, I don’t believe it,” said Elphie. “You don’t do spells, of all things!”

“The righteous person can work miracles in the honor of the Unnamed God,” said Nessarose calmly. “Show me that axe, if you’ve brought it.”

The old woman held forward a woodcutter’s axe, and Nessarose knelt down near it, as if she were praying. It was an odd, even a frightening thing, to see that narrow armless body able to lean forward, unaided and off balance, and then, when the spell was through, able to right itself. Those are some shoes, thought Elphie soberly, bitterly. Glinda has got some power in her, for all her social dazzle, or maybe the power comes from the love of our father for his Nessie. Or some combination. And if Nessarose isn’t pulling the wool over this old biddy’s eyes, she’s become a sorceress too, by whatever name she chooses to call it.

“You are a witch,” said Elphaba again; she couldn’t help it. This perhaps was a mistake, as the old woman was just thanking Nessarose for her efforts. “I’ll bring the Animals by the barn out back,” she said. “They’re tethered in town.”

“Animals! Tethered!” exclaimed Elphie, seething.

“Thank you, Miss Eminence,” said the old woman. “The Eminence of the East. Or should I call you the Witch of the East?” She grinned toothily, having gotten her way, and went out the door carrying the enchanted axe over her shoulder the way a strapping young lumberjack would do.

They weren’t to be alone again for a while. Elphaba went prowling around the stable and sheds until she found an attendant who could point her toward the two Sheep and the Cow. They were in a pen with clean straw, each one facing a different corner, chewing in abstraction.

“You’re the new Animals, brought here by that old vengeful fiend,” said Elphaba. The Cow looked over as if unaccustomed to being addressed. The Sheep made no sign of having understood.

“What’s your beef?” said the Cow, in a dark humor.

“I’ve been living in the Vinkus,” said Elphie. “There aren’t many Animals there. At one time I was an agitator in the Animal Rights grassroots sweep—I don’t really know how things stand for Munchkinlander Animals now. What can you tell me?”

“I can tell you to mind your own business,” said the Cow.

“And the Sheep?”

“These Sheep can tell you nothing, they’ve gone dumb.”

“Are they—sheep? Does that happen?”

“They talk about humans becoming vegetables—or nuts—or even fruits,” said the Cow, “but they don’t mean it literally. Sheep don’t become sheep, they become mute Sheep. They don’t really need to be discussed here as if they’re not listening, by the way.”

“Of course. My apologies,” she said to the Sheep, one of whom blinked balefully. To the Cow she added, “I’d rather call you by your name.”

“I’ve given up using my name in public,” said the Cow. “It’s not afforded me any individual rights to have an individual name. I reserve it for my private use.”

“I understand that,” said Elphaba. “I feel the same. I’m just the Witch now.”

“Her Eminence herself?” A gummy rope of spittle dropped from the Cow’s jaw. “I’m flattered. I didn’t know you called yourself Witch, I thought that was just a nasty backfield nickname. The Witch of the East.”

“Well no. I’m her sister. I suppose I’m the Witch of the West, if you will.” She grinned. “In fact I didn’t know she was so disliked.”

The Cow had blundered. “Surely I meant no disregard to your family,” she said. “I should just keep my mouth closed and concentrate on my cud. The thing is, I’m in shock—to be sold in exchange for a witch’s spell! There’s nothing wrong with that woodcutter—oh I’ve got ears, I have, though they forget—and the thought of a warmhearted simpleton like Nick Chopper coming to harm through a witch’s spell—and I part of the barter cost—well, it’s hard to imagine how much lower one could sink in life.”

“I’ve come to free you,” Elphie said.

“By whose authority?” The Cow snorted suspiciously.

“I told you, I’m the sister of the Eminent Thropp—the Eminence of the East.” She amended herself: “The Witch of the East. It’s my prerogative here.”

“And free to go where? To do what?” said the Cow. “We’d get from here to Lower Muckslop and be roped in again. Subjected to slavery under the Wizard, and catechisms under the Eminent Thropp! We don’t exactly blend in with those creepy little Munchkinlander humans.”

“You’re gone a bit dour,” said Elphaba.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a mad Cow?” she answered. “Sweetheart, my udder is sore from their daily yanking. I am tapped for milk morning and night. I won’t even go into what it’s like to be mounted by a—well, just never mind. But worst, my children have been fattened on milk and slaughtered for veal. I could hear their cries from the abattoir, they didn’t even bother to move me out of hearing range!” Here she turned her head to the wall, and the Sheep came up on either side of her, pressing like a living pair of warm bookends against her lower sides and underbelly.

Elphaba said, “I can’t be sorrier or more ashamed. Look, I was working with Doctor Dillamond—have you heard of him?—in Shiz, years ago. I went to the Wizard himself to protest what was happening …”

“Oh, the Wizard doesn’t show himself to the likes of us,” said the Cow, after she had regained her composure. “I don’t feel like talking anymore. Everybody’s on your side until they want something from you. The Eminent Nessarose has probably brought us in order to impress us into some religious ceremonial procession. My silken flanks tarted up with garlands or the like. And we all know what happens next.”

“Now you must be wrong in that,” said the Witch. “I do object. Nessarose is a strict unionist. They don’t go in for—blood sacrifice—”

“Times change,” said the Cow. “And she’s got a population of ill-educated, nervous subjects to pacify. What, pray tell, works better than ritual slaughter?”

“But however could it come to this?” said the Witch. “Assuming you’re telling the truth? This is farming country. You ought to be well established here.”

“Animals in pens have lots of time to develop theories,” said the Cow. “I’ve heard more than one clever creature draw a connection between the rise of tiktokism and the erosion of traditional Animal labor. We weren’t beasts of burden, but we were good reliable laborers. If we were made redundant in the workforce, it was only a matter of time before we’d be socially redundant too. Anyway, that’s one theory. My own feeling is that there is real evil abroad in the land. The Wizard sets the standard for it, and the society follows suit like a bunch of sheep. Forgive the slanderous reference,” she said, nodding to her companions in the pen. “It was a slip.”

Elphaba threw open the gate of the pen. “Come on, you’re free,” she said. “What you make of it is your own affair. If you turn it down, it’s on your own heads.”

“It’s on our own heads if we walk out, too. Do you think a Witch who would charm an axe to dismember a human being would pause over a couple of Sheep and an annoying old Cow?”

“But this might be your only chance!” Elphaba cried.

The Cow moved out, and the Sheep followed. “We’ll be back,” she said. “This is an exercise in your education, not ours. Mark my words, my rump’ll be served up rare on your finest Dixxi House porcelain dinner plates before the year is out.” She mooed a last remark—“I hope you choke”—and, tail swishing the flies, she meandered away.