The Wee Free Men d(-2 Read online

  They were all about six inches tall and mostly coloured blue, although it was hard to know if that was the actual colour of their skins or just the dye from their tattoos, which covered every inch that wasn’t covered with red hair. They wore short kilts, and some wore other bits of clothing too, like skinny waistcoats. A few of them wore rabbit or rat skulls on their heads, as a sort of helmet. And every single one of them carried, slung across his back, a sword nearly as big as he was.

  However, what Tiffany noticed more than anything else was that they were scared of her. Mostly they were looking at their own feet, which was no errand for the faint-hearted because their feet were large, dirty and half tied up with animal skins to make very bad shoes. None of them wanted to look her in the eye.

  ‘You were the people who filled the water buckets?’ she said.

  There was a lot of foot shuffling and coughing and a chorus of ‘Ayes’.

  ‘And the wood box?’

  There were more ‘Ayes’.

  Tiffany glared at them.

  ‘And what about the sheep?’

  This time they all looked down.

  ‘Why did you steal the sheep?’

  There was a lot of muttering and nudging and then one of the tiny men removed his rabbit skull helmet and twiddled it nervously in his hands.

  ‘We wuz hungerin’, mistress,’ he muttered. ‘But when we kenned it was thine, we did put the beastie back in the fold.’

  They looked so crestfallen that Tiffany took pity on them.

  ‘I expect you wouldn’t have stolen it if you weren’t so hungry, then,’ she said.

  There were several hundred astonished looks.

  ‘Oh, we would, mistress,’ said the helmet-twiddler.

  ‘You would?’

  Tiffany sounded so surprised that the twiddler looked around at his colleagues for support. They all nodded.

  ‘Yes, mistress. We have tae. We are a famously stealin’ folk. Aren’t we, lads? Whut’s it we’re famous for?’

  ‘Stealin’!’ shouted the blue men.

  ‘And what else, lads?’

  ‘Fightin’!’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Drinkin’!’

  ‘And what else?’

  There was a certain amount of thought about this, but they all reached the same conclusion.

  ‘Drinkin’ and fightin’!’

  ‘And there was summat else,’ muttered the twiddler. ‘Ach, yes. Tell the hag, lads!’

  ‘Stealin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ fightin’!’ shouted the blue men cheerfully.

  ‘Tell the wee hag who we are, lads,’ said the helmet-twiddler.

  There was the scrape of many small swords being drawn and thrust into the air.

  ‘Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna’ be fooled again!’

  Tiffany stared at them. They were all watching her to see what she was going to do next, and the longer she said nothing, the more worried they became. They lowered their swords, looking embarrassed.

  ‘But we wouldna’ dare deny a powerful hag, except mebbe for strong drink,’ said the twiddler, his helmet spinning desperately in his hands and his eyes on the bottle of Special Sheep Liniment. ‘Will ye no’ help us?’

  ‘Help you?’ said Tiffany. ‘I want you to help me! Someone has taken my brother in broad daylight.’

  ‘Oh waily, waily waily!’ said the helmet-twiddler. ‘She’s come, then. She’s come a-fetchin’. We’re too late! It’s the Quin!’

  ‘There was only one of them!’ said Tiffany.

  ‘They mean the Queen,’ said the toad. ‘The Queen of the—’

  ‘Hush yer gob!’ shouted the helmet-twiddler, but his voice was lost in the wails and groans of the Nac Mac Feegles. They were pulling at their hair and stamping on the ground and shouting ‘Alackaday!’ and ‘Waily waily waily!’ and the toad was arguing with the helmet-twiddler and everyone was getting louder to make themselves heard—

  Tiffany stood up. ‘Everybody shut up right now!’ she said.

  Silence fell, except for a few sniffs and faint ‘wailys’ from the back.

  ‘We wuz only dreeing our weird, mistress,’ said the helmet-twiddler, almost crouching in fear.

  ‘But not in here!’ snapped Tiffany, shaking with anger. This is a dairy! I have to keep it clean!’

  ‘Er… dreeing your weird means “facing your fate”,’ said the toad.

  ‘ ‘Cuz if the Quin is here then it means our kelda is weakenin’ fast,’ said the helmet-twiddler. ‘An’ we’ll ha’ naeone tae look after us.’

  To look after us, thought Tiffany. Hundreds of tough little men who could each win the Worst Broken Nose Contest need someone to look after them?

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘My mother’s in the house crying,’ she said, ‘and…’ I don’t know how to comfort her, she added to herself. I’m no good at this sort of thing, I never know what I should be saying. Out loud she said: ‘And she wants him back. Er. A lot.’ She added, hating to say it: ‘He’s her favourite.’

  She pointed to the helmet-twiddler, who backed away.

  ‘First of all,’ she said, ‘I can’t keep thinking of you as the helmet-twiddler, so what is your name?’

  A gasp went up from the Nac Mac Feegles, and Tiffany heard one of them murmur, ‘Aye, she’s the hag, sure enough. That’s a hag’s question!’

  The helmet-twiddler looked around at them as if seeking help.

  ‘We dinnae give oor names,’ he muttered. But another Feegle, somewhere safe at the back, said, ‘Wheest! You cannae refuse a hag!’

  The little man looked up, very worried.

  ‘I’m the Big Man o’ the clan, mistress,’ he said. ‘An’ my name it is…’ he swallowed, ‘Rob Anybody Feegle, mistress. But I beg ye not to use it agin me!’

  The toad was ready for this.

  ‘They think names have magic in them,’ he murmured. ‘They don’t tell them to people in case they are written down.’

  ‘Aye, an’ put upon comp-li-cated documents,’ said a Feegle.

  ‘An’ summonses and such things,’ said another.

  ‘Or “Wanted” posters!’ said another.

  ‘Aye, an’ bills an’ affidavits,’ said another.

  ‘Writs of distrainment, even!’ The Feegles looked around in panic at the very thought of written-down things.

  ‘They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tiffany. ‘We’re getting somewhere. I promise not to write his name down. Now tell me about this Queen who’s taken Wentworth. Queen of what?’

  ‘Canna say it aloud, mistress,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘She hears her name wherever it’s said, and she comes callin’.’

  ‘Actually, that’s true,’ said the toad. ‘You do not want to meet her, ever.’

  ‘She’s bad?’

  ‘Worse. Just call her the Queen.’

  ‘Aye, the Quin,’ said Rob Anybody. He looked at Tiffany with bright, worried eyes. ‘Ye dinnae ken o’ the Quin? An’ you the wean o’ Granny Aching, who had these hills in her bones? Ye dinnae ken the ways? She did not show ye the ways? Ye’re no’ a hag? How can this be? Ye slammered Jenny Green-Teeth and stared the Heidless Horseman in the eyes he hasnae got, and you dinnae ken?’

  Tiffany gave him a brittle smile, and then whispered to the toad, ‘Who’s Ken? And what about his dinner? And what’s a wean of Granny Aching?’

  ‘As far as I can make out,’ said the toad, ‘they’re amazed that you don’t know about the Queen and… er, the magical ways, what with you being a child of Granny Aching and standing up to the monsters. “Ken” means “know”.’

  ‘And his dinner?’

  ‘Forget about his dinner for now,’ said the toad. ‘They thought Granny Aching told you her magic. Hold me up to your ear, will you?’ Tiffany did
so, and the toad whispered, ‘Best not to disappoint them, eh?’

  She swallowed. ‘But she never told me about any magic—’ she began. And stopped. It was true. Granny Aching hadn’t told her about any magic. But she showed people magic every day.

  …There was the time when the Baron’s champion hound was caught killing sheep. It was a hunting dog, after all, but it had got out onto the downs and, because sheep run, it had chased…

  The Baron knew the penalty for sheep-worrying. There were laws on the Chalk, so old that no one remembered who made them, and everyone knew this one: Sheep-killing dogs were killed.

  But this dog was worth five hundred gold dollars, and so—the story went—the Baron sent his servant up onto the downs to Granny’s hut on wheels. She was sitting on the step, smoking her pipe and watching the flocks.

  The man rode up on his horse and didn’t bother to dismount. That was not a good thing to do if you wanted Granny Aching to be your friend. Iron-shod hooves cut the turf. She didn’t like that.

  He said: ‘The Baron commands that you find a way to save his dog, Mistress Aching. In return, he will give you a hundred silver dollars.’

  Granny had smiled at the horizon, puffed at her pipe for a while, and replied: ‘A man who takes arms against his lord, that man is hanged. A starving man who steals his lord’s sheep, that man is hanged. A dog that kills sheep, that dog is put to death. Those laws are on these hills and these hills are in my bones. What is a baron, that the law be brake for him?’

  She went back to staring at the sheep.

  ‘The Baron owns this country,’ said the servant. ‘It is his law.’

  The look Granny Aching gave him turned the man’s hair white. That was the story, anyway. But all stories about Granny Aching had a bit of fairy tale about them.

  ‘If it is, as ye say, his law, then let him break it and see how things may then be,’ she said.

  A few hours later the Baron sent his bailiff, who was far more important but had known Granny Aching for longer. He said: ‘Mrs Aching, the Baron requests that you use your influence to save his dog. He will happily give you fifty gold dollars to help ease this difficult situation. I am sure you can see how this will benefit everyone concerned.’

  Granny smoked her pipe and stared at the new lambs and said: ‘Ye speak for your master, your master speaks for his dog. Who speaks for the hills? Where is the Baron, that the law be brake for him?’

  They said that when the Baron was told this he went very quiet. But although he was pompous, and often unreasonable, and far too haughty, he was not stupid. In the evening he walked up to the hut and sat down on the turf nearby. After a while, Granny Aching said: ‘Can I help you, my lord?’

  ‘Granny Aching, I plead for the life of my dog,’ said the Baron.

  ‘Bring ye siller? Bring ye gilt?’ said Granny Aching.

  ‘No silver. No gold,’ said the Baron.

  ‘Good. A law that is brake by siller or gilt is no worthwhile law. And so, my lord?’

  ‘I plead. Granny Aching.’

  ‘Ye try to break the law with a word?’

  ‘That’s right, Granny Aching.’

  Granny Aching, the story went, stared at the sunset for a while and then said: ‘Then be down at the little old stone barn at dawn tomorrow and we‘ll see if an old dog can learn new tricks. There will be a reckoning. Good night to ye.’

  Most of the village was hanging around the old stone barn the next morning. Granny arrived with one of the smaller farm wagons. It held a ewe with her newborn lamb. She put them in the barn.

  Some of the men turned up with the dog. It was nervy and snappy, having spent the night chained up in a shed, and kept trying to bite the men who were holding it by two leather straps. It was hairy. It had fangs.

  The Baron rode up with the bailiff. Granny Aching nodded at them and opened the barn door.

  ‘You’re putting the dog into the barn with a sheep, Mrs Aching?’ said the bailiff. ‘Do you want it to choke to death on lamb?’

  This didn’t get much of a laugh. No one really liked the bailiff.

  ‘We shall see,’ said Granny. The men dragged the dog to the doorway, threw it inside the barn and slammed the door quickly. People rushed to the little windows.

  There was the bleating of the lamb, a growl from the dog, and then a baa from the lamb’s mother. But this wasn’t the normal baa of a sheep. It had an edge to it.

  Something hit the door and it bounced on its hinges. Inside, the dog yelped.

  Granny Aching picked up Tiffany and held her up to a window.

  The shaken dog was trying to get to its feet, but it didn‘t manage it before the ewe charged it again, seventy pounds of enraged sheep slamming into it like a battering ram.

  Granny lowered Tiffany again and lit her pipe. She puffed it peacefully as the building behind her shook and the dog yelped and whimpered.

  After a couple of minutes she nodded at the men. They opened the door.

  The dog came out limping on three legs, but it hadn’t managed to get more than a few feet before the ewe shot out behind it and butted it so hard that it rolled over.

  It lay still. Perhaps it had learned what would happen if it tried to get up again.

  Granny Aching had nodded to the men, who grabbed the sheep and dragged it back into the barn.

  The Baron had been watching with his mouth open.

  ‘He killed a wild boar last year!’ he said. ‘What did you do to him?’

  ‘He’ll mend,’ said Granny Aching, carefully ignoring the question. ‘ ‘Tis mostly his pride that’s hurt. But he won’t look at a sheep again, you have my thumb on that.’ And she licked her right thumb and held it out.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the Baron licked his thumb, reached down and pressed it against hers. Everyone knew what it meant. On the Chalk, a thumb bargain was unbreakable.

  ‘For you, at a word, the law was brake,’ said Granny Aching. ‘Will ye mind that, ye who sit in judgement? Will yer remember this day? Ye’ll have cause to.’

  The Baron nodded to her.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Granny Aching, and their thumbs parted.

  Next day the Baron technically did give Granny Aching gold, but it was only the gold-coloured foil on an ounce of Jolly Sailor, the cheap and horrible pipe tobacco that was the only one Granny Aching would ever smoke. She was always in a bad mood if the pedlars were late and she’d run out. You couldn’t bribe Granny Aching for all the gold in the world, but you could definitely attract her attention with an ounce of Jolly Sailor.

  Things were a lot easier after that, The bailiff was a little less unpleasant when rents were late, the Baron was a little more polite to people, and Tiffany’s father said one night after two beers that the Baron had been shown what happens when sheep rise up, and things might be different one day, and her mother hissed at him not to talk like that because you never knew who was listening.

  And, one day. Tiffany heard him telling her mother, quietly: ‘ ‘Twas an old shepherds’ trick, that’s all. An old ewe will fight like a lion for her lamb, we all know that.’

  That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done…

  The Nac Mac Feegles were watching Tiffany carefully, with occasional longing glances at the bottle of Special Sheep Liniment. I haven’t even found the witches’ school, she thought. I don’t know a single spell. I don’t even have a pointy hat. My talents are an instinct for making cheese and not running around panicking when things go wrong. Oh, and I’ve got a toad.

  And I don’t understand half of what these little men are saying. But they know who’s taken my brother.

  Somehow I don’t think the Baron would have a clue how to deal with this. I don’t, either, but I think I can be clueless in more sensible ways.

  ‘I… remember a lot of things about Granny Aching,’ she said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘The kel
da sent us,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘She sensed the Quin comin’. She kenned there wuz going to be trouble. She tole us, it’s gonna be bad, find the new hag who’s kin to Granny Aching, she’ll ken what to do.’

  Tiffany looked at the hundreds of expectant faces. Some of the Feegles had feathers in their hair, and necklaces of mole teeth. You couldn’t tell someone with half his face dyed dark blue and a sword as big as he was that you weren’t really a witch. You couldn’t disappoint someone like that.

  ‘And will you help me get my brother back?’ she said. The Feegles’ expressions didn’t change. She tried again. ‘Can you help me steal my brother back from the Quin?’

  Hundred of small yet ugly faces brightened up considerably.

  ‘Ach, noo yer talkin’ oour language,’ said Rob Anybody.

  ‘Not… quite,’ said Tiffany. ‘Can you all just wait a moment? I’ll just pack some things,’ she said, trying to sound as if she knew what she was doing. She put the cork back on the bottle of Special Sheep Liniment. The Nac Mac Feegles sighed.

  She darted back into the kitchen, found a sack, took some bandages and ointments out of the medicine box, added the bottle of Special Sheep Liniment because her father said it always did him good and, as an afterthought, added the book Diseases of the Sheep and picked up the frying pan. Both might come in useful.

  The little men were nowhere to be seen when she went back into the dairy.

  She knew she ought to tell her parents what was happening. But it wouldn’t work. It would be ‘telling stories’. Anyway, with any luck she could get Wentworth back before she was even missed. But, just in case…

  She kept a diary in the dairy. Cheese needed to be kept track of, and she always wrote down details of the amount of butter she’d made and how much milk she’d been using.

  She turned to a fresh page, picked up her pencil and, with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, began to write.

  The Nac Mac Feegles gradually reappeared. They didn’t obviously step out from behind things, and they certainly didn’t pop magically into existence. They appeared in the same way that faces appear in clouds and fires; they seemed to turn up if you just looked hard enough and wanted to see them.