Gregory Maguire_Wicked Years_02 by Son of a Witch Page B

domestic impedimenta, needing only a few pack animals to carry their belongings. Generally they sheltered in Kumbricia’s Pass or the forested slopes of the Kells south of there. What were they doing out in open country?
    Sister Doctor, who never liked to go slumming as a veterinarian, felt she could sniff out an Animal tendency: the Yunamata looked as if they might all have one giant, docile Frog among their ancestors. Way, way back. Nothing like webbing between their digits, no long flickering tongues, no, no; they were human through and through. But an amphibian sort of human, with leathery skin, narrow ridiculous limbs, and thin lips that seemed partly withdrawn into their mouths.
    One could laugh at the silliness of them. Laugh—and then be carved to shreds, for when aroused they could be a formidable enemy. The Yunamata had skill with knives. Mostly they used their serrated tools—lethal curved blades set in handles of the hardest mahogany—for aid in the construction of their tree nests, where they harbored at night. Those same knives could carve a pig or eviscerate a minor canon with equal efficiency.
    Sister Apothecaire set out to convince the Yunamata that the maunts were abroad neither to betray the clan nor to convert them. Just in case, like the Water Buffalo, they’d previously been targeted as a population ripe for conversion. As a group, they listened, promoting no spokesperson among them. By turns they mouthed small neat phrases. Sister Apothecaire took pains to translate these remarks to her colleague carefully, and to question her own understanding if she had any doubt. She didn’t want to assent to human martyrdom merely because she’d forgotten some nicety of Yumish grammar. Was there a retractional pluperfect subjunctive in Yumish?
    “You are going on quite a while,” said Sister Doctor after an hour or so.
    “I am doing my job and trying to see if we’re going to be invited to stay for supper,” said Sister Apothecaire. “Leave me be.”
    “I hope they aren’t teetotalers. I think I’m getting a sniffle.”
    When the conversation had concluded at last, and the Yunamata retreated to prepare a meal, Sister Doctor said, “Well? Well? I deduce from your smug expression that they’re not about to sharpen their blades to scrape our faces from us. Though I’d like to hear it put directly, to ease my mind.”
    “They speak by indirection. They know about the scrapings. They have seen evidence of it. They say it must be the Scrow. The Scrow have a tradition of royalty, and their queen is an old woman named Nastoya who has been in declining health for a decade. Were we to fulfill the mission assigned us, we would next have to hunt for this Princess Nastoya and reprove her about these infractions. The Yunamata insist that the Scrow must be in allegiance with the Emperor.”
    “Ridiculous. If the Scrow were in allegiance with the Emperor, would they be scraping his emissaries? Or are the Yunamata lying?”
    “Look at them. Could they lie?”
    “Don’t be soft. Of course they could. The most purring of cats can still kill a bird within half a purr.”
    “I suppose I believe them,” said Sister Apothecaire, “because they admit to their capacity for vengeance. But they also have told me that this is the season of the jackal, and out of wariness of the moon’s opinion, they take a vow of gentility. Babies born under the jackal moon are considered lucky. Babies born in Restwater are luckier still.”
    “Are you sure you’ve understood correctly? Throughout Oz the season of the jackal is considered dangerous.”
    “Perhaps it’s a kind of propitiation,” said Sister Apothecaire. “They mentioned the Old Dowager, a kind of deity who harvests souls. She sounded a bit like Kumbricia. Do you remember Kumbricia, from your schoolgirl lessons in antique lore? Kumbricia, the oldest witch from the time of creation? Source of all venom and malice?”
    “I turned my back on such things when I