Commander Cherrystone
Commander Cherrystone is the leader of a Gale Force reconnaissance unit that occupies Kiamo Ko in the Vinkus, and he is the officer who orchestrates the kidnapping of Sarima and her entire family, an act that defines the Wizard's campaign of terror in the region and becomes a permanent wound in Elphaba's life.
Identity and Arrival
Commander Cherrystone is a strapping Gillikinese man of about thirty who leads a detachment of soldiers into the Vinkus under the Emperor's orders to requisition a house large enough to shelter his party while they conduct a survey of the passes to the Thousand Year Grasslands. He produces a sweat-stained document from inside his shirt to authorize his mission. When Nor, Fiyero's daughter, encounters his unit marching through the valley and delivers them to the castle keep of Kiamo Ko, Cherrystone presents himself as a professional soldier on a routine assignment. Elphaba immediately recognizes the threat and orders the men to leave, but Sarima invokes the mountain code of hospitality and overrules her, allowing the soldiers to stay.
Occupation of Kiamo Ko
Cherrystone and his men settle into Kiamo Ko, and the Commander proves a master of parlor manners, deflecting every one of Elphaba's attempts to ferret out the true nature of his mission with icy politeness. He allows Liir to tag along on reconnaissance missions, fetching water and polishing boots, and the boy thrives under the indifferent approval of the soldiers. The sisters of Sarima, desperate for any change in their isolated lives, attempt to throw Cherrystone and Sarima together in a romantic campaign, but their efforts meet with no success. Elphaba and the Commander have words every day, but she cannot break through his polished facade. She searches the soldiers' empty barracks and finds only documents related to mapping and geological survey, with no hidden agenda of threat to the Arjikis or other Vinkus tribes.
The Kidnapping
When Elphaba leaves Kiamo Ko to attend Nessarose's memorial service in Munchkinland, Cherrystone seizes the opportunity. The soldiers come to the front door and announce that they need to escort the entire family—Sarima, her sisters, Nor, and Irji—back to their base camp for their own protection, in case a fighting battalion comes through. The sisters resist fiercely: they barricade the dining room, set fire to the chapel wing, and Three slams a sharpening stone on Cherrystone's hand, breaking every bone in his wrist. Five and Six ring the bell for help, but the shepherds are too far away. Two writes messages and tries to tie them to the crows, but the birds refuse to leave the windowsills. Four attempts to boil oil but cannot get the flame high enough. The soldiers win, as men always do. Cherrystone leaves Nanny behind, being too old to march down a mountain, and also leaves Liir, since he is no threat and the soldiers have become fond of him. The Commander, out of kindness, has Liir tied up and left in a sack in someone's barn to prevent their having to incarcerate him with the others.
Consequences and Significance
The kidnapping of Sarima's family becomes the defining catastrophe of Elphaba's later life. She spends seven years trying to discover their fate, bribing people, spying, hiring agents, and writing to Princess Nastoya for advice, but she can find out nothing. The Wizard later reveals to Elphaba that Sarima and her sisters are all dead, that Irji had to die because he was next in line to be Prince, and that Nor is kept as a political prisoner, chained and bent over, her hair cut short with welts visible beneath her patchy tresses. Cherrystone's unit remains stationed at Red Windmill below Kiamo Ko for years, serving as watchdogs to report signs of invasion or trouble from the mountain clans, and as a constant reminder of Elphaba's failure to protect those she had come to love. The Commander himself never reappears in the narrative after the kidnapping, but his act reverberates through the rest of the story, cementing Elphaba's hatred of the Wizard's regime and her sense of helplessness against its organized cruelty.
