Attack on Fiyero

The Attack on Fiyero is the brutal, off-stage climax of Fiyero's affair with Elphaba, in which Gale Force soldiers ambush him in her hideout on Lurlinemas Eve, beating him into unconsciousness and likely killing him, an event that shatters Elphaba, drives her into a seven-year retreat at a mauntery, and becomes the central, unhealed wound of her adult life.

Causes and Background

Fiyero, an Arjiki prince married to Sarima, had been conducting a passionate secret affair with Elphaba in her rented room above an abandoned corn exchange in the Emerald City. Their liaison had lasted for months, through the autumn and into the winter. Elphaba was deeply involved in an underground resistance network whose ultimate aim was to assassinate the Wizard of Oz. She had told Fiyero that she was part of a cell whose members did not know one another's real names; her own code name was Fae. She had warned him that the Gale Force was capable of torturing friends and family to extract information. On the night before the attack, she had urged him to leave town before Lurlinemas Eve, hinting that a major operation was planned. He refused, and instead, driven by love and fear for her, he stalked her through the city as she prepared for her mission. He followed her to the Lady's Mystique theatre, where she was poised to assassinate Madame Morrible, but the presence of schoolchildren caused her to falter and she fled. He then returned to her room to wait for her.

What Happens

When Fiyero arrived back at Elphaba's room atop the corn exchange, he was in a state of profound agitation. His bowels turned to water, and he had to use the chamber pot. The cat, Malky, glared at him from atop the wardrobe. He ate a couple of dried crackers, then pulled the chain to open the skylight to air the room. A couple of plops of snow fell in and did not melt, it was that cold. He went to build up a fire, pulling open the iron door of the stove. The fire caught and flared, and the shadows detached themselves and moved fast, across the room, at him before he could register what they were. There were three, or four, or five of them, wearing black clothes and black char on their faces, their heads wrapped in colored scarves like the ones he had bought for Elphaba and for Sarima. On the shoulder of one he saw the glint of a gilded epaulet: a senior member of the Gale Force. A club beat down on him, like the kick of a horse, like the falling limb of a tree hit by lightning. There must have been pain, but he was too surprised to notice. That must have been his blood, squirting a ruby stain on the white cat, making it flinch. He saw its eyes open, twin golden green moons, befitting of the season, and the cat then scarpered through the open skylight and was lost in the snowy night.

Consequences and Aftermath

The immediate consequence was that Fiyero's body was never found. The official story, as later relayed to his wife Sarima by an Arjiki trader, was that on Lurlinemas, an anonymous message had been received at a club, reporting that Fiyero had been murdered. The clansman hired brutes, broke down the door of the warehouse, and found a small apartment upstairs, a place of assignation, with evidence of struggle and massive quantities of blood, so thick in places that it was still tacky. The body had been removed and never recovered. Sarima, for years, refused to believe he was really dead. Elphaba herself, having fled the scene of her failed assassination attempt, found refuge at the Cloister of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows, where she was taken in by a novice and the ancient maunt Yackle. She spent the next seven years in the mauntery, first in a deathly sleep, then in silence and nursing, her spirit crushed by guilt and grief. The attack became the defining trauma of her life, the event that severed her from her former self and from all her friends. Years later, when she finally confronted Sarima at Kiamo Ko, she confessed that she believed she was the cause of Fiyero's death, but Sarima refused to hear the details. The mystery of his fate—whether he was killed outright, or taken for torture, or somehow survived—haunted Elphaba for the rest of her life, and she never received the forgiveness she sought.