The Shepherd's Crown Read online

  And now he did have their attention. Especially when he hailed the landlord with a ‘Let’s drink to that, gentlemen! Another pint all round, please!’

  The ladies in the villages had taken Geoffrey to their hearts, too. It was astonishing. There was something about his willingness to stop and talk, his gentle smile and pleasant manner, that made them immediately warm to him.

  ‘Mister Geoffrey is so calm, all the time. He never gets in a tizz, oh no, and he speaks wonderful! A real educated man,’ old Betsy Hopper said to Tiffany one day.

  ‘And that goat of his!’ Mrs Whistler added, folding her impressive arms under her even more impressive chest. ‘Looks a testy animal to me, but that Geoffrey has him trotting along all peaceful like.’

  ‘Wish he could do the same to my Joe!’ Betsy cackled, and she and Mrs Whistler chortled together as they headed off down the street.

  Tiffany watched them go, and began thinking about her backhouse boy, wondering how he made things settle down so well, and she thought, I’ve seen those people before – the ones who seem to know everybody. They hold the ring, stop the fighting. I think I shall let him go round the houses with me now, and see what he does.

  And so Geoffrey went out the next day with Tiffany, hanging on behind her on the broomstick, his face lighting up with sheer joy as Tiffany awkwardly steered the much heavier stick into the mountains; and the houses lit up as soon as he came in, so cheerfully alive. He could be funny, he could sing songs, and somehow he made everything . . . a bit better. Crying babies began to gurgle instead of howl, grown-ups stopped arguing, and the mothers became more peaceful and took his advice.

  He was good with animals too. A young heifer would stand for him, rather than skitter off in fright at a stranger, while cats would stroll in and immediately decide that Geoffrey’s lap was the place to be. Tiffany once saw him leaning up against a woodland cottage wall with a family of rabbits resting at his feet – at the same time as the farm dog was by his side.

  Nanny Ogg, after seeing Geoffrey with Tiffany one day, said, ‘His heart’s in the right place, I c’n smell it. I knows men, you know.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve seen a great many in my time in all kinds of circumstances, believe you me. I won’t say as he’s rich material right now, and some of the other witches might not like a boy comin’ into the business, but, Tiff, never let no one tell you as Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t like it. Remember, she chose you to be her successor, not none of them. An’ you got to do it your way too. Not hers. So if’n you wants to train up this lad, well, you go ’n’ do it.’

  Tiffany herself was becoming fascinated by Geoffrey’s goat. Mephistopheles came and went, but unless she and Geoffrey were off on the broomstick he would usually be somewhere near Geoffrey and it seemed to Tiffany that the goat watched over the boy. They had a code. It was as if the goat could talk just by tapping a hoof, and occasionally there would be a staccato of complicated hoof taps. If Mephistopheles had been a dog, he would have been a pointer, she thought. His master was his friend, and woe betide anyone who took advantage of Geoffrey’s good nature – the hooves of Mephistopheles were exceedingly sharp.

  When Geoffrey was away, the goat often took himself off. He had soon got the goats at Granny’s cottage doing his bidding, and Nanny Ogg said once that she had seen what she called ‘that devil goat’ sitting in the middle of a circle of feral goats up in the hills. She named him ‘The Mince of Darkness’ because of his small and twinkling hooves, and added, ‘Not that I don’t like him, stinky as he is. I’ve always been one for the horns, as you might say. Goats is clever. Sheep ain’t. No offence, my dear.’

  The triumph of Mephistopheles – proving Nanny right on both counts – happened at the edge of the woods surrounding the cottage, near the foothills of the nearest mountain, when Geoffrey had taken the cart over to look at a small boy who needed medicine.

  On this homestead, on this particular day, the mother was watching Geoffrey. In the flurry of worry about her son she had left the gate to the sheep pen open. And the sheep, like all sheep, got hysterical and were getting out and running away before she looked out of the window and noticed.

  ‘My husband isn’t going to like this. It takes ages to get them settled down,’ the young mother wailed. ‘Look at them, running everywhere!’

  Geoffrey put his head out of the window and made a clicking sound to Mephistopheles, whom he had unhitched from the cart and allowed to graze. The goat stopped eating the herbage – and then what happened next went all round Lancre. To hear it, the goat Mephistopheles rounded up those sheep like the best of shepherds. The sheep outnumbered him, of course, but carefully – one after the other – he herded them neatly back through the gate.

  When the mother told her husband later that the goat had not only got the sheep into the pen but had also shut the gate after them, he thought that was a bit far-fetched, but it still made a good story down the pub, and the legend of Mephistopheles spread rapidly.

  Geoffrey and Nanny Ogg told Tiffany the tale. Along with Geoffrey’s work for the little boy, that made it a day well done. But Tiffany couldn’t help looking at the slot-eyed Mephistopheles. She knew goats. But this goat had a purpose, she was sure. And it was watching her, she noticed, and watching You, who was watching the goat whilst, of course, pretending to look anywhere else. Everybody was watching everybody else, it seemed. She smiled.

  And made a decision.

  The following morning she took Geoffrey to one side, and told him that she had something special to say to him.

  ‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘Some . . . little friends I want to introduce you to.’ She paused. ‘Rob,’ she called. ‘I know ye is there, and I ask ye to come out now.’ She paused. ‘There’s a wee drop o’ scumble here for ye.’ She placed a cup with a few drops of the liquor in it on the floor.

  There was a movement in the air, a flash of red hair, and Rob Anybody was there, a shiny claymore in his hand.

  ‘Rob, I want you to meet . . . Geoffrey,’ Tiffany said slowly, carefully, turning to see how Geoffrey was taking the sight of his first Feegle, but Rob took her by surprise.

  ‘Ach, the wee laddie, we kens him already,’ he announced.

  Geoffrey coloured up. ‘Well, I have been sleeping in the old lean-to,’ he said. ‘These gentlemen were kind enough to allow me to share their sleeping space.’

  Tiffany was astounded. Geoffrey had met the Feegles already! How had she not known! She was the witch. She should have known.

  ‘But—’ she began, as other Feegles began to appear, one swinging down on string from the ceiling beams, another sidling out from behind a handy bucket, a group edging over to form a semicircle around the scumble on the floor.

  ‘Nae trouble,’ said Rob, waving a hand in the air. ‘We has had the most interrresting discussions, ye ken, when ye are in your nightie and asleep.’

  ‘But we still watch over ye— mmpfh, mmpfh.’ Rob had his hand clamped over Daft Wullie’s mouth.

  ‘In my nightie?’ Tiffany began, but then gave up. Oh, what was the use. The Feegles would always be watching over her, and if she had to choose between having Feegles or no Feegles in her life, well, it was an easy decision.

  ‘Ye don’t mind, mistress?’ Rob added, shuffling his feet as he always did when he found himself having to do the Explainin’. ‘Jeannie sez as ye ha’ this yon laddie here, and he is a treasure. And ye knows how we Feegles are with treasure – we just ha’ to pick it up.’

  As one, the Nac Mac Feegles sighed in happiness.

  And Tiffany pushed the cup towards them, saying, ‘Well, you aren’t goin’ to steal this treasure. But I ken – I think – it may be time for me to take Geoffrey along to meet the kelda.’

  It was raining hard and they dried off sitting in front of the great fire in the mound. Geoffrey was elated after the trip, and seemed completely unfazed by having to squeeze through the bushes and wriggle down into the Feegle mound.

  Involuntarily he squirmed a little,fn1 fo
r every Feegle eye was upon him. Especially that of Maggie, Jeannie’s eldest daughter, who had just bravely squeezed in to see the big wee hag and her friend. She ran her hands through her fiery hair now, and put on her best pout.

  Jeannie sighed. It would soon be time for her daughter to leave. There could only be one kelda.

  Just as she thought this, Rob held out his arms and Maggie scrambled across the chamber to sit by his side. ‘My daughter, Maggie,’ Rob said proudly to Geoffrey. ‘Soon to be off to her ain clan, ye ken, now she is a big grown-up lassie.’

  Maggie bridled. ‘But can’t I stay here?’ she wheedled, putting on her best little-lassie voice for her father. ‘I like it here, ye ken, and I dinnae want to ha’ a husband’ – she said the word like it was an abomination to her – ‘and babbies. I want to be a warrior.’

  Rob laughed. ‘But ye is a lassie, Maggie,’ he said, with a worried look at Jeannie. Had she not taught the hiddlins to Maggie? Taught her what she needed to know to be kelda herself in her own clan?

  ‘But I kens how to fight,’ Maggie said sulkily. ‘Ask Wee Duggie Bignose – I gave him such a kickin’ when we las’ had a wee brawl, ye ken.’

  Wee Duggie Bignose – one of Rob’s scrawnier teenage sons – scuffled his feet awkwardly in the corner and hung his head so that only his nose was visible as the beads in his plaits smacked him on the chin.

  ‘An’ I talked to the Toad,’fn2 Maggie went on. ‘He said I dinna ha’ to follow tradition, ye ken. He says it’s my Yuman Rites.’

  ‘Well, ye ain’t a human,’ Jeannie snapped. ‘An’ we’ll ha’ nae more o’ that nonsense. Gae and fetch oor guest a nice bit of mutton now, with some of oor special relish.’

  Tiffany knew of the Feegles’ relish. Snail was one of the key ingredients.

  ‘Snails,’ she murmured to Geoffrey under her breath as Maggie flounced off. To Tiffany’s amazement, the young Feegle lassie flounced in exactly the same way Mrs Earwig flounced. Except, of course, for the obvious fact that Maggie was only five inches tall, whilst Mrs Earwig was as tall as Tiffany’s father.

  Jeannie had sharp ears for a little woman. ‘Aye, it’s amazin’ what my boys can do with snails, ye ken,’ she said. ‘They can even make snail whisky.’

  Geoffrey smiled politely. ‘I thank you kindly, Kelda,’ he said softly, ‘but I do not eat anything that has been running, swimming or crawling around. And that includes snails. I prefer to let them live.’

  ‘Actually the Feegles cultivate snails,’ said Tiffany. ‘Everyone has to have a living, Geoffrey, there’s no getting away from that.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Geoffrey. ‘But not at the expense of others.’

  Jeannie leaned forward, her eyes bright, and laid a small nut-brown hand on his arm. The air stilled, and now Geoffrey and Jeannie were looking into each other’s eyes.

  ‘There were many like you once,’ Jeannie said quietly at last. ‘I was right. I sees ye in my cauldron and I sees that ye are one of those who can stop a fight, bring peace . . .’ She turned to Tiffany. ‘Treasure him, Tir-far-thóinn.’

  As they left to head back to the farm for tea, Tiffany pondered on the kelda’s words. Stop a fight. Bring peace. She might have need of just those very skills. And as she thought this, a shiver ran down her spine, one of those nasty little shivers that are like a message that something dreadful might be about to happen, hard to ignore. On the other hand, she thought, perhaps it was just her body telling her that if it was all right by her, next time perhaps she should say no to the snail relish . . . She did her best to shake the unsettling feeling off, focusing instead on Geoffrey. Treasure him. Jeannie is right about him, she decided. There might just be some things that a boy like this can do best.

  And right there and then, she made a decision. She would go to Ankh-Morpork – and take Geoffrey with her. It was time anyway, as a sort of head witch, to make a trip to the city. What if all the city witches had heard of her and were talking about her like she was some little upstart? She ought to know. And, a little voice whispered in her head, I can maybe see Preston too. She tried to push the thought away. This trip was not about her. It was about being a witch, about doing what she ought to do, and that was what she would inform Nanny Ogg when she told her she’d be away for a few days. But the thought of seeing Preston again still crept back into her mind and made her feel a bit . . . tingly.

  Geoffrey had got some way ahead down the path, but when Tiffany called him, he came back with a question in his eyes.

  ‘Geoffrey,’ she said, ‘tomorrow we will go to get you your first broomstick.’

  fn1 It was a brave man indeed who could look upon a clan of Feegles and not want to tie the bottoms of his trousers tight around his ankles.

  fn2 The Toad was the Feegles’ lawyer, his toad body the result of a misunderstanding with a fairy godmother.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Big City

  IT WAS A long journey to Ankh-Morpork. Tiffany and Geoffrey had to stay over on the way, one night at a local witch’s cottage and the other in a barn where the farmer had been delighted at Geoffrey’s ability to help him with a troublesome goat. But now they were there – at the great city – and Tiffany watched Geoffrey’s mouth drop open as they flew carefully along the route of the river Ankh and into the heart of the capital. Well, she thought to herself, Geoffrey had said he wanted to see the world. Ankh-Morpork would be a very good start.

  But she herself was amazed too when she went to the site of the old broomstick workshop, and they were directed to a new site. The railway was still in its infancy – and already there were these arches.

  There’s a kind of magic in the cavernous spaces under railway arches and a mystery known only to those who work there. There are always puddles, even if it hasn’t rained for weeks, and the puddles are glossy and slimy, the air above filled with the taint of oil and working man’s armpit.

  It is easy to recognize a habitué of the railway arch. He (it is rarely a woman) is the kind of man who keeps useful nails in old jam jars, and he might spend a considerable time talking about the merits of different kinds of grease or sprocket, and occasionally an onlooker might hear a proprietor saying quietly, ‘I can get them for you next week.’ Sometimes accompanied with a knowing look and a finger tap to the side of his nose.

  If anyone comes and asks for something, well, there will always be someone, often a dwarf, who knows where everything is, and almost always it’s right at the back of the arch in a darkness of stygian proportions. And when the right piece is found and brought out, well, some people would call it a piece of junk, but in the arch the junk has somehow metamorphosed into exactly the item that the buyer really, really wants – no one knows why. It is as if that piece had just been waiting for the right person to wander in.

  The dwarfs Shrucker and Dave had relocated their established broomstick business to the second arch in the row, just after an arch where a passer-by’s ears were assaulted by the weird noises of musical instruments, and before one where the tang of a harness-maker’s fresh leather made its own happy raid on the nose.

  It was Dave who rushed towards Tiffany when she came in with Geoffrey in tow. He recognized her immediately – he had had a bad moment when she’d called in a year or two back and let slip she knew the Feegles.fn1 Once a dwarf workshop gets the Feegles, well, they might as well just pack up and go back to the mountains. Taking a big axe with them.

  Tiffany noticed how Dave’s eyes were everywhere. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t got any Nac Mac Feegles with me,’ she said, though she knew that this might not be quite accurate, for although she had told Rob Anybody that this was hag’s business and he and the Feegles had a geas to stay behind, there was no knowing if one hadn’t crept into the bristles of her stick somehow and would suddenly pop up waving a big stick and shouting ‘Crivens!’ But when she said they weren’t with her, she heard a sigh, and the dwarf almost grinned. Tiffany dodged a drip that fell merrily from the top of the arch, and added, ‘This is Geoffrey
, and we’ve come to get him a stick.’ She looked along the row of arches. ‘Took a bit of finding you, actually. Your new workshop.’

  Dave was eyeing Geoffrey up and down. ‘Good for us here,’ he said. ‘We gets our supplies quicker. And it’s easier to go see my old mum. Long journey though.’ A belch of smoke from a train steaming over the arches almost enveloped both the dwarf and Geoffrey, and when Tiffany could see them again, Dave – who now had bits of smut sticking to his face – had decided exactly what the lad would need. ‘A number three, I think,’ he said. ‘Reckon we’ve got just the one in stock. Top-of-the-range, you know. Wood all the way from the Ramtops. Special wizard wood.’ He stroked his beard, flicked the cinders off his nose, and walked around Geoffrey. ‘Training to be a wizard then, lad?’

  Geoffrey didn’t quite know what to say. He looked over at Tiffany. Should he tell these men that he wanted to be a witch?

  ‘No,’ said Tiffany, the witch in her making her answer for Geoffrey. ‘My friend here is a calm-weaver.’

  The dwarf scratched his iron helmet, stared at Geoffrey and said, ‘Oh, and what do they do, miss?’

  Tiffany thought, then said, ‘At the moment, Geoffrey just helps me. And for that, gentlemen, he needs a broomstick.’ She had been holding two broomsticks, her own and one other, and now she held out the spare. ‘But we don’t want a new stick,’ she said. ‘You know how we witches hand our sticks down one to the other. Well, I’ve got this one, and I think it would do my friend very well with a bit of repair work on it.’

  At the word ‘repair’ Shrucker loomed out of the workshop. He looked almost affronted. ‘Repair?’ he groaned, as though anyone choosing to reject the new sticks on offer was missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. ‘You want the lad to begin his career on a used broomstick?’ And then he saw the stick, and reeled back on his heels, grimacing and clutching at his back. ‘That’s . . . Granny Weatherwax’s stick,’ he said. ‘That’s famous, that is.’

  ‘A challenge, then,’ said Tiffany smartly. ‘Or aren’t you gentlemen up to the task? I expect I can find someone else . . .’