I Shall Wear Midnight (24 page)

Tiffany was aware of somebody climbing up her dress. This was not the problem it might have been; a witch would not, of course, dream of not wearing a dress, but if you were going to ride on a broomstick you definitely invested in some really tough pants, if possible with some padding. It made your bum look bigger but it also made it warmer, and at a hundred feet above the ground, fashion rather took second place to comfort. She glanced down. There was a Feegle there, wearing a watchman’s helmet, which appeared to have been hammered out of the top of an old salt cellar, an equally small breastplate and, amazingly, trousers and boots. You never normally saw boots on a Feegle.

‘You’re Wee Mad Arthur, aren’t you? I saw you at the King’s Head! You’re a policeman!’

‘Oh aye.’ Wee Mad Arthur grinned a grin that was pure Feegle. ‘It’s a grand life in the Watch, and the money is good. A penny goes a lot further when it buys you food for a week!’

‘So are you coming over here to keep our lads in order? Are you planning to stay?’

‘Oh no, I dinnae believe so. I like the city, ye ken. I like coffee that is nae made from them wee acorns and I goes to the theatre and the opera and the ballet.’ The broomstick wobbled a little. Tiffany had heard of ballet, and had even seen pictures in a book, but it was a word that somehow did not fit in any sentence which included the word ‘Feegle’.

‘Ballet?’ she managed.

‘Oh aye, it’s grand! Last week I saw
Swan on a Hot Tin Lake
, a reworking of a traditional theme by one of our up-and-coming young performance artists; and the day after that, of course, there was a reinterpretation of
Die Flabbergast
at the Opera House; and ye ken, they had a whole week of porcelain at the Royal Art Museum, with a free thimble of sherry. Oh aye, it’s the city of culture, right enough.’

‘Are you
sure
that you are a Feegle?’ said Tiffany in a fascinated voice.

‘That’s what they tell me, miss. There is nae law says I cannot be interested in culture, is there? I told the lads that when I go back I will take them along to see the ballet for themselves.’

The stick seemed to fly itself for a while as Tiffany stared at nothing, or rather at a mental picture of Feegles in a theatre. She had never been inside one herself, but she had seen pictures and the thought of Feegles among ballerinas was so unthinkable that it was better to just let her mind boggle and then forget about it. She remembered in time that she had a broomstick to land, and brought it down very neatly near the mound.

To her shock there were guards outside it. Human guards.

She stared in disbelief. The Baron’s guards never came up onto the downland. Never! It was unheard of! And … she felt the anger rising –
one of them was holding a shovel
.

She jumped off the stick so fast that it was left to skim over the turf, scattering Feegles until it fetched up against an obstruction, shaking off the last few Feegles that had managed to hang on.

‘You hold onto that shovel, Brian Roberts!’ she screamed at the sergeant of the guard. ‘If you let it cut the turf there will be a reckoning! How dare you! Why are you here? And
nobody
is to cut
anybody
into pieces, do you all understand?’

This last order was to the Feegles, who had surrounded the men with a ring of small, but ever so sharp, swords. A Feegle claymore was so sharp that a human might not know his legs had been cut off until he tried to walk. The guards themselves suddenly had the look of men who knew they were supposed to be big and strong but were now faced with the realization that ‘big’ or ‘strong’ wouldn’t be nearly enough. They’d heard the stories, of course – oh yes, everyone on the Chalk had heard the stories about Tiffany Aching and her little … helpers. But they had only been stories, hadn’t they? Until now. And they were threatening to run up their trousers.

In a shocked silence, Tiffany looked around, panting for breath. Everyone was watching her now, which was better than everyone fighting, wasn’t it?

‘Very well,’ she said like a schoolteacher who is only just satisfied with the naughty class. She added a sniff, which would usually be translated to mean: I’m only
just
satisfied, mark you. She sniffed again. ‘Very well, then. Is anybody going to tell me what’s going on here?’

The sergeant actually raised his hand. ‘Can I have a word in private, miss?’ Tiffany was impressed that he had even been able to speak, given that his mind was trying to suddenly make sense of what his eyes were telling him.

‘Very well, follow me.’ She spun round suddenly, causing both guards and Feegles to jump. ‘And nobody, and I mean
nobody
, is to dig up anybody’s home or cut off anybody’s legs while we are gone, is that understood? I
said
, is that understood?’ There was a mumbled chorus of yeses and oh ayes, but it didn’t include one from the face
she was looking down at. Rob Anybody was trembling with rage and crouching ready to spring. ‘Did you hear me, Rob Anybody?’

He glared at her, eyes ablaze. ‘I will give ye nae promise on that score, miss, hag though you may be! Where is my Jeannie? Where are the others? These scunners hae swords! What were they going to do with them? I will have an answer!’

‘Listen to me, Rob,’ Tiffany began, but stopped. Rob Anybody’s face was dripping tears, and he was pulling desperately at his beard as he fought the horrors of his own imagination. They were an inch from a war, Tiffany reckoned.

‘Rob Anybody! I am the hag o’ these hills and I put an oath on you not to kill these men until I tell you to! Understand?’

There was a crash as one of the guards fell over backwards in a faint. Now the girl was talking to the creatures! And about killing them! They weren’t used to this sort of thing. Usually the most exciting thing that happened was that the pigs got into the vegetable garden.

The Big Man of the Feegles hesitated as his spinning brain digested Tiffany’s order. True, it wasn’t an order to kill anybody right now, but at least it held out the possibility that he might be able to do so very soon, so he could free his head from the terrible pictures in his mind. It was like holding a hungry dog on a leash of cobweb, but at least it bought her time.

‘You will see that the mound has not been touched,’ said Tiffany, ‘so whatever may have been intended has not yet been achieved.’ She turned back to the sergeant, who had gone white, and said, ‘Brian, if you want your men to live with all their arms and legs, you will tell them right now, and very carefully, to put down their weapons. Your lives depend on the honour of one Feegle and he is driving himself mad with horror. Do it now!’

To Tiffany’s relief he gave the command, and the guards – glad to have their sergeant ordering them to do something that every atom
in their bodies was telling them was
exactly
what they should be doing – dropped their weapons from their shaking hands. One even raised his arms in the universal sign of surrender. Tiffany pulled the sergeant a little way away from the glowering Feegles and whispered, ‘What do you think you are doing, you stupid idiot?’

‘Orders from the Baron, Tiff.’

‘The Baron? But the Baron is—’

‘Alive, miss. He’s been back for three hours. Drove through the night, they say. And people have been talking.’ He looked down at his boots. ‘We were … we were, well, we were sent up here to find the girl that you gave to the fairies. Sorry, Tiff.’

‘Gave?
Gave?
’

‘I didn’t say it, Tiff,’ said the sergeant, backing away, ‘but, well, you hear stories. I mean, no smoke without fire, right?’

Stories, thought Tiffany. Oh yes, once upon a time there was a wicked old witch … ‘And you think they apply to me, do you? Am I on fire or just smoking?’

The sergeant shifted uneasily and sat down. ‘Look, I’m just a sergeant, OK? The young Baron’s given me orders, yes? And his word is law, right?’

‘He may be the law down there. Up here, it’s me. Look over there. Yes, there! What do you see?’

The man looked where she pointed and his face paled. The old cast-iron wheels and stove with its short chimney were clearly visible, even though a flock of sheep was happily grazing around them as usual. He leaped to his feet as if he had been sitting on an ant’s nest.

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany with some satisfaction. ‘Granny Aching’s grave. Remember her? People said she was a wise woman, but at least they had the decency to make up better stories about her! Proposing to cut the turf? I’m amazed that Granny doesn’t rise up through the turf and bite your bum! Now take your men down the hill a little
way and I will sort this out, you understand? We don’t want anyone to get jumpy.’

The sergeant nodded. It was not as if he had any other option.

As the guards moved away, dragging their unconscious colleague with them and trying not to look like, well, guards who were turning a walk away as closely into a
running
away as was possible, Tiffany knelt down by Rob Anybody and lowered her voice.

‘Look, Rob, I
know
about the secret tunnels.’

‘What scunner told ye about the secret tunnels?’

‘I am the hag o’ the hills, Rob,’ said Tiffany soothingly. ‘Shouldn’t I know about the tunnels? You are Feegles, and no Feegle will sleep in a house with only one entrance, right?’

The Feegle was calming down a bit now. ‘Oh aye, ye have a point there.’

‘Then can I please suggest you go and fetch young Amber? Nobody is going to touch the mound.’

After a little hesitation, Rob Anybody sprang into the entrance hole and was gone. It took some time for him to return – time Tiffany thankfully used by getting the sergeant to come back and help her gather up the guards’ dropped weapons – and when Rob did resurface he was accompanied by a great many more Feegles and the kelda. And also by a rather reluctant Amber, who blinked nervously in the daylight and said, ‘Oh, crivens!’

Tiffany knew that her own smile was false when she said, ‘I’ve come to take you home, Amber.’ Well, at least I’m not stupid enough to say something like ‘Won’t that be nice?’ she added to herself.

Amber glared at her. ‘Ye willnae get me back in that place,’ she announced, ‘and ye can stick it where the monkey put his jumper!’

And I don’t blame you, thought Tiffany, but now I can pass for being a grown-up and I have to say some stupid grown-up things …

‘But you do have a mother and father, Amber. I’m sure they miss you.’

She winced at the look of scorn the girl gave her.

‘Oh aye, and if the old scunner misses me he’ll aim another blow!’

‘Maybe we can go together, and help him change his ways?’ Tiffany volunteered, despising herself, but the image of those thick fingers heavy with nettle stings from that awful bouquet wouldn’t go away.

This time Amber actually laughed. ‘Sorry, mistress, but Jeannie told me you were clever.’

What was it that Granny Weatherwax had said once? ‘
Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things
.’ And right now it would happen if you thought there was a thing called a father, and a thing called a mother, and a thing called a daughter, and a thing called a cottage, and told yourself that if you put them all together you had a thing called a happy family.

Aloud, she said, ‘Amber, I want you to come with me to see the Baron, so that he knows you are safe. After that, you can do as you please. That’s a promise.’

Tiffany felt a knocking on her boot, and looked down at the kelda’s worried face. ‘Can I have a wee word with ye?’ said Jeannie. Beside her, Amber was crouching down so that she could hold the kelda’s other hand.

Then Jeannie spoke again, if it was speech, and not song. But what could you sing that stayed in the air, so that the next note twisted around it? What could be sung that seemed to be a living sound that sung itself right back to you?

And then the song was gone, leaving only a hole and a loss.

‘That’s a kelda song,’ said Jeannie. ‘Amber heard me singing it to the little ones. It’s part of the soothings, and she understood it, Tiffany! I gave her nae help but she understood it! I know the Toad has tol’ ye this. But do ye ken what I am telling ye now? She
recognizes meaning, and learns it. She is as close to being a kelda as any human could be.
She is a treasure not to be thrown away!
‘

The words came out with unusual force for the kelda, who was usually so softly spoken. And Tiffany recognized it as helpful information that, ever so nicely, was a kind of threat.

Even the journey off the downland and into the village had to be negotiated. Tiffany, holding Amber by the hand, walked past the waiting guards and continued on, much to the embarrassment of the sergeant. After all, if you have been sent to bring somebody in, then you are going to look pretty silly if they go and bring themselves in by, as it were, themselves. But on the other hand, if Tiffany and Amber walked behind the guards, it looked as though they were being driven; this was sheep country, after all, and everybody knew, didn’t they, that the sheep walked in front and a shepherd walked behind.

Finally they compromised on a rather awkward method where they all moved forward with a certain amount of revolving and shuffling that made it look as if they were travelling by square dance. Tiffany had to spend a lot of the time stopping Amber from giggling.