Terry Pratchett - I Shall Wear Midnight

The two dwarfs looked at one another. ‘About three hundred, I should say,’ said the second dwarf.

‘That many?’ said Tiffany. ‘Then I don’t expect they’ll come looking for me for at least half an hour.’

And suddenly the first dwarf was all frantic good humour. ‘Well, where are our manners?’ he said. ‘Anything for a friend of Mrs Proust! Tell you what: it will be our pleasure to give you our express service gratis and for nothing, including free bristles and creosote at no charge whatsoever!’

‘Express service meaning you leave straight away afterwards,’ said the second dwarf flatly. He took off his iron helmet, wiped the sweat off the inside with his handkerchief and put it back on his head quickly.

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ said the first dwarf. ‘Right away; that’s what express means.’

‘Friends with the Feegles, are you?’ said Mrs Proust as the dwarfs hurried to deal with Tiffany’s broomstick. ‘They don’t have many, I understand. But talking of friends,’ she continued in a suddenly chatty tone, ‘you did meet Derek, didn’t you? He’s my son, you know. I met his father in a dance hall with very bad lighting. Mr Proust was a very kind man who was always gracious enough to say that kissing a lady without warts was like eating an egg without salt. He passed on twenty-five years ago, of the crisms. I am very sorry I couldn’t help him.’ Her face brightened. ‘But I’m glad to say that young Derek is the joy of my’ – she hesitated – ‘middle age. A wonderful lad, my dear. It’s going to be some lucky girl who takes her chance on young Derek, I can tell you. He’s totally devoted to his work and pays such attention to detail. Do you know, he tunes all the whoopee cushions every morning and frets if any of them are wrong. And conscientious? When we were developing our forth-coming “Pearls of the Pavement” hilarious artificial dog poo collection, he must have spent weeks following just about every type of dog in the city with a notebook, a scoop and a colour chart, just to get everything exactly right. A very meticulous lad, clean in his ways, with all his own teeth. And very careful about his company …’ She gave Tiffany a hopeful but rather sheepish look. ‘This isn’t working, is it?’

‘Oh dear, did it show?’ said Tiffany.

‘I heard the spill words,’ said Mrs Proust.

‘What’s a spill word?’

‘You don’t know? A spill word is a word that somebody almost says, but doesn’t. For a moment they hover in the conversation but aren’t spoken – and may I say that in the case of my son Derek, it is as well that you didn’t say them aloud.’

‘I’m really very sorry,’ said Tiffany.

‘Yes, well, be told,’ said Mrs Proust.

Five minutes later, they walked out of the workshop with Tiffany towing a fully functional broomstick behind her.

‘Actually,’ said Mrs Proust as they walked, ‘now I come to think about it, your Feegles remind me a lot of Wee Mad Arthur. Tough as nails and about the same size. Haven’t heard him say “Crivens”, though. He’s a policeman in the Watch.’

‘Oh dear, the Feegles really don’t like policemen,’ said Tiffany, but she felt she ought to balance this somewhat, so she added, ‘But they are very loyal, mostly helpful, good-natured in the absence of alcohol, honourable for a given value of honour and, after all, they did introduce the deep-fried stoat to the world.’

‘What’s a stoat?’ said Mrs Proust.

‘Well, er … you know a weasel? It’s very much like a weasel.’

Mrs Proust raised her eyebrows. ‘My dear, I treasure my ignorance of stoats and weasels. Sounds like countryside stuff to me. Can’t abide countryside. Too much green makes me feel bilious,’ she said, giving Tiffany’s dress a shuddering glance.

At which point, on some celestial cue, there was a distant cry of ‘Crivens!’ followed by the ever-popular sound, at least to a Feegle, of breaking glass.

17 A message from the author: not all cauldrons are metal. You can boil water in a leather cauldron, if you know what you are doing. You can even make tea in a paper bag if you are careful and know how to do it. But please don’t, or if you do, don’t tell anyone I told you.

18 Jeannie, a modern kelda, had encouraged literacy among her sons and brothers. With Rob Anybody’s example to follow, they had found the experience very worthwhile, because now they could read the labels on bottles before they drank them, although this didn’t make too much of a difference, because unless there was a skull and crossbones on it, a Feegle would probably drink it anyway, and even then it would have to be a very scary skull and crossbones.

19 Most people who cook with cauldrons use them as a kind of double boiler, with small saucepans filled with water around the edge, picking up the heat of the big cauldron into which perhaps you might put a leg of pork weighted down, and possibly a few dumplings in a bag. This way, quite a large meal for several people can be cooked quite cheaply all in one go, including the pudding. Of course, it meant you had to stomach a lot of boiled food – but eat it up, it’s good for you!

Chapter 7

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

WHEN TIFFANY AND Mrs Proust got to the source of the shouting, the street was already covered with a rather spectacular layer of broken glass, and worried-looking men with armour and the kind of helmet that you could eat your soup out of in an emergency. One of them was putting up barricades. Other watchmen were clearly unhappy about being on the wrong side of the barricades, especially since at that moment an extremely large watchman came flying out of one of the pubs that occupied almost all of one side of the street. The sign on it proclaimed it to be the King’s Head, but by the look of it, the King’s Head now had a headache.

The watchman took what remained of the glass with him, and when he landed on the pavement, his helmet, which could have held enough soup for a large family and all their friends, rolled off down the street making a gloing! gloing! noise.

Tiffany heard another watchman shout, ‘They got Sarge!’

As more watchmen came running from both ends of the street, Mrs Proust tapped Tiffany on the shoulder and said sweetly, ‘Tell me again about their good points, will you?’

I’m here to find a boy and tell him that his father is dead, said Tiffany to herself. Not to pull the Feegles out of yet another scrape!

‘Their hearts are in the right place,’ she said.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Mrs Proust, who looked as though she was enjoying herself no end, ‘but their arses are on a pile of broken glass. Oh, here come the reinforcements.’

‘I don’t think they will do much good,’ said Tiffany – and to her surprise turned out to be wrong.

The guards were fanning out now, leaving a clear path to the pub entrance; Tiffany had to look hard to see a small figure walking purposely along it. It looked like a Feegle, but it was wearing … She stopped and stared … Yes, it was wearing a watchman’s helmet slightly bigger than the top of a salt cellar, which was unthinkable. A legal Feegle? How could there be such a thing?

Nevertheless, it reached the doorway of the pub and shouted, ‘You scunners are all under arrest! Now this is how it’s going to go, ye ken: ye can hae it the hard way, or …’ He paused for a moment. ‘No, that’s about it, aye,’ he finished. ‘I don’t know any other way!’ And with that he sprang through the doorway.

Feegles fought all the time. For them, fighting was a hobby, exercise and entertainment all combined.

Tiffany had read in Professor Chaffinch’s famous book on mythology that many ancient peoples thought that when heroes died they went to some kind of feasting hall, where they would spend all eternity fighting, eating and boozing.

Tiffany thought that this would be rather boring by about day three, but the Feegles would love it, and probably even the legendary heroes would throw them out before eternity was half done, having first shaken them down to get all the cutlery back. The Nac Mac Feegle were indeed ferocious and fearsome fighters, with the minor drawback – from their point of view – that seconds into any fight, sheer enjoyment took over, and they tended to attack one another, nearby trees and, if no other target presented itself, themselves.

The watchmen, after reviving their sergeant and finding his helmet for him, sat down to wait for the noise to die away, and it seemed that it was after only a minute or two that the tiny watchman came back out of the stricken building, dragging by one leg Big Yan, a giant among Feegles and now, it appeared, fast asleep. He was dropped, the policeman went back in again and came out with an unconscious Rob Anybody over one shoulder, and Daft Wullie over the other.

Tiffany stared, with her mouth open. This could not be happening. The Feegles always won! Nothing beats a Feegle! They were unstoppable! But there they were: stopped, and stopped by a creature so small that he looked like one half of a salt and pepper set.

When he had run out of Feegles, the little man ran back into the building and came out very quickly, carrying a turkey-necked woman who was trying to hit him with her umbrella, a fruitless endeavour since he was balancing her carefully over his head. She was followed by a trembling young maidservant, clutching a voluminous carpet bag. The little man put the woman down neatly alongside the pile of Feegles, and while she screamed at the watchmen to arrest him, went back inside and came out again, balancing three heavy suitcases and two hat boxes.

Tiffany recognized the woman, but not with any pleasure. She was the Duchess, the mother of Letitia, and fairly fearsome. Did Roland really understand what he was letting himself in for? Letitia herself was all right, if you liked that kind of thing, but her mother apparently had so much blue blood in her veins that she ought to explode, and right now looked as if that was going to happen. And how appropriate that the Feegles should have trashed the very building that the nasty old baggage was staying in. How lucky could one witch get? And what would the Duchess think about Roland and his watercolour-painting wife-to-be being left in the building unchaperoned?

This question was answered by the sight of the little man dragging both of them out of the building by some very expensive clothing. Roland was wearing a dinner jacket slightly too big for him, while Letitia’s apparel was simply a mass of flimsy frills upon frills, in Tiffany’s mind not the clothing of anyone who was any use whatsoever. Hah.

Still more watchmen were turning up, presumably because they had dealt with Feegles before and had had the sense to walk, not run, to the scene of the crime. But there was a tall one – more than six feet in height – with red hair and wearing armour so polished that it blinded, who was taking a witness statement from the owner; it sounded like a long-drawn-out scream to the effect that the watchmen should make this terrible nightmare not have happened.

Tiffany turned away and found herself staring directly into the face of Roland.

‘You? Here?’ he managed. In the background, Letitia was bursting into tears. Hah, just like her!

‘Look, I have to tell you something very—’

‘The floor fell in,’ said Roland before she could finish, like someone still in a dream. ‘The actual floor actually fell in!’

‘Look, I must—’ she began again, but this time Letitia’s mother was suddenly in front of Tiffany.

‘I know you! You’re his witch girl, yes? Don’t deny it! How dare you follow us here!’

‘How did they make the floor fall in?’ Roland demanded, his face white. ‘How did you make the floor fall in? Tell me!’

And then the smell came. It was like being hit, unexpectedly, with a hammer. Under her bewilderment and horror Tiffany sensed something else: a stink, a stench, a foulness in her mind, dreadful and unforgiving, a compost of horrible ideas and rotted thoughts that made her want to take out her brain and wash it.

That’s him: the man in black with no eyes! And the smell! A toilet for sick weasels couldn’t smell worse! I thought it was bad last time, but that was a bed of primroses! She looked around desperately, hoping against hope not to see what she was looking for.

Letitia’s sobs were getting louder, and mixing very badly with the sounds of the Feegles groaning and swearing as they started to wake up.

The mother-in-law-to-be grabbed Roland by his jacket. ‘Come away from her right now; she is nothing but a—’

‘Roland, your father is dead!’

That silenced everybody, and Tiffany was suddenly in a thicket of stares.

Oh dear, she thought. It shouldn’t have happened like this.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed in the accusing silence. ‘There was nothing I could do.’ She saw colour flow into his face.

‘But you were looking after him,’ said Roland, as if trying to work out a puzzle. ‘Why did you stop keeping him alive?’

‘All I could do was take the pain away. I’m so very sorry, but that’s all I could do. I’m sorry.’

‘But you’re a witch! I thought you were good at it, you’re a witch! Why did he die?’

What did the bitch do to him? Do not trust her! She is a witch! Do not suffer a witch to live!

Tiffany didn’t hear the words; they seemed to crawl across her mind like some kind of slug, leaving slime behind it, and later she wondered how many other minds it had crawled across, but now she felt Mrs Proust grip her by the arm. She saw Roland’s face contort into fury, and she remembered the screaming figure on the road, shadowless in full sunlight, delivering abuse as if it was vomit and leaving her with a sick feeling that she would never be able to get clean again.

And the people around her had a worried, hunted look, like rabbits who have smelled a fox.

Then she saw him. Hardly visible, at the edge of the crowd. There they were, or rather there they weren’t. The two holes in the air staring at her just for a moment, before vanishing. And not knowing where they had gone made them worse.

She turned to Mrs Proust. ‘What is that ?’

The woman opened her mouth to answer, but the tall watchman’s voice said, ‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, or rather just one gentleman in fact. I am Captain Carrot, and since I am the duty officer this evening, the doubtful pleasure of dealing with this incident falls to me, and so …’ He opened his notebook, pulled out a pencil, and gave them a confident smile. ‘Who is going to be the first to help me unravel this little conundrum? To begin with, I would very much like to know what a bunch of Nac Mac Feegle are doing in my city, apart from recovering?’

The glint off his armour hurt the eyes. And also he smelled strongly of soap, and that was good enough for Tiffany.

She began to raise her hand, but Mrs Proust grabbed it and held it firmly. This caused Tiffany to shake off Mrs Proust even more firmly and then say in a voice firmer than the grip, ‘That would be me, Captain.’