I Shall Wear Midnight Page 8

  ‘Upset me? Good gracious no, I’m not upset.’ He tried to pull himself upright in the chair and pointed towards the fire with a trembling finger. ‘I am, in fact, set up! I feel alive! I am young, my dear Miss Tiffany Aching! I remember that perfect day! Can you not see me? Down in the valley? A perfect, crisp September day. A little boy in the tweed jacket that was far too itchy, as I recall, yes, was far too itchy and smelled of wee! And my father was singing “The Larks They Sang Melodious”, and I was trying to harmonize, which of course I couldn’t do then because I had about as much voice as a rabbit, and we were watching them burn the stubbles. There was smoke everywhere, and as the fire swept along, mice, rats, rabbits and even foxes were running towards us away from the flames. Pheasants and partridges were taking off like rockets at the last minute, as they do, and suddenly there was no sound at all and I saw this hare. Oh, she was a big one – did you know that country people used to think all hares were female? – and she just stood there, looking at me, with bits of burning grass falling around us, and the flames behind her, and she was looking directly at me, and I will swear that when she knew that she had caught my eye, she flicked herself into the air and jumped straight into the fire. And of course I cried like anything, because she was so fine. And my father picked me up and said he’d tell me a little secret, and he taught me the hare song, so that I would know the truth of it, and stop crying. And then later on, we walked over the ashes and there was no dead hare.’ The old man turned his head awkwardly towards her, and beamed, really beamed. He shone.

  Where is that coming from? Tiffany wondered. It’s too yellow for firelight, but the curtains are shut. It’s always too gloomy in here, but now it is the light of a crisp September day …

  ‘I remember doing a crayon picture of it when we got home, and my father was so proud of it he took it all around the castle so that everybody could admire it,’ the old man went on, as enthusiastic as a boy. ‘A child’s scrawl, of course, but he talked about it as if it were a work of genius. Parents do such things. I found it among his documents after he died, and in fact, if you are interested, you will find it in a leather folder within the money chest. It is, after all, a precious thing. I’ve never told anyone else that,’ said the Baron. ‘People and days and memories come and go but that memory has always been there. No money that I could give you, Miss Tiffany Aching, who is the witch, could ever repay you for bringing back to me that wonderful vision. Which I shall remember until the day I—’

  For a moment the flames on the fire stood still and the air was cold. Tiffany was never actually sure that she ever saw Death, not actually saw; perhaps in some strange way it had all happened inside her head. Though wherever he was, well, he was there.

  WASN’T THAT APPROPRIATE? Death said.

  Tiffany didn’t step back. There was no point. ‘Did you arrange that?’ she asked.

  MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THE CREDIT, OTHER FORCES ARE AT WORK. GOOD MORNING TO YOU, MISS ACHING.

  Death left, and the Baron followed, a little boy in his new tweed jacket, which was terribly itchy and sometimes smelled of wee,10 following his father across the smoking field.

  Then Tiffany placed her hand on the dead man’s face and, with respect, closed his eyes, where the light of burning fields was dimming.

  9 Whatever sex a hare is, to the true countryman, all hares are referred to as ‘her’.

  10 The old cloth-makers used urine as a mordant for the dyes used in making woollen clothes, so that the colours would be fixed and not run; as a result, they can be a bit smelly for years. Not even Miss Tick could have explained it better and stayed so calm, although she would probably have used the term ‘evacuated bodily juices’.

  Chapter 5

  THE MOTHER OF TONGUES

  THERE SHOULD HAVE been a moment of peace; in fact there was a moment of metal. Some of the castle guard were approaching, their armour making even more noise than armour usually does because none of it fitted properly. There hadn’t been any battles here for hundreds of years, but they still wore armour, because it seldom needed mending and didn’t wear out.

  The door was pushed open by Brian, the sergeant. He wore a complicated expression. It was the expression of a man who has just been told that an evil witch, whom he has known since she was a kid, has killed the boss, and the boss’s son is away, and the witch is still in the room, and a nurse, whom he does not like very much, is prodding him in the bottom and shouting, ‘What are you waiting for, man? Do your duty!’

  All this was getting on his nerves.

  He gave Tiffany a sheepish look. ‘Morning, miss, is everything all right?’ Then he stared at the Baron in his chair. ‘He’s dead then, is he?’

  Tiffany said, ‘Yes, Brian, he is. He died only a couple of minutes ago, and I have reason to believe that he was happy.’

  ‘Well, that’s good then, I suppose,’ said the sergeant, and then his face twisted into tears so that the next words were gulped and damp. ‘You know, he was really very good to us when my nan was ill; he had hot meals sent over to her every day, right up until the end.’

  She held his unprotesting hand and looked over his shoulder. The other guards were crying too, and crying all the more because they knew they were big strong men, or so they hoped, and shouldn’t cry at all. But the Baron had always been there, part of life, like the sunrise. All right, maybe he’d give you a dressing-down if you were asleep on duty or had a blunt sword (despite the fact that no guard in living memory had needed to use his sword for anything more than levering the lid off a tin of jam), but when all was said and done, he was the Baron and they were his men and now he was gone.

  ‘Ask her about the poker!’ screamed the nurse behind Brian. ‘Go on, ask her about the money!’

  The nurse could not see Brian’s face. Tiffany could. He had probably been prodded in the bottom again, and was suddenly livid.

  ‘Sorry, Tiff … I mean, miss, but this lady here says she thinks you done a murder and a robbery,’ he said, and his face added that its owner right now was not thinking the same thing and didn’t want to get into trouble with anyone, especially Tiffany.

  Tiffany rewarded him with a little smile. Always remember you are a witch, she told herself. Don’t start shouting your innocence. You know you are innocent. You don’t have to shout anything. ‘The Baron was kind enough to give me some money for … looking after him,’ she said, ‘and I suppose Miss Spruce must have inadvertently heard him doing so and formed a wrong impression.’

  ‘It was a lot of money!’ Miss Spruce insisted, red in the face. ‘The big chest under the Baron’s bed was open!’

  ‘All that is true,’ said Tiffany, ‘and it would appear that Miss Spruce was accidentally hearing for quite some time.’

  Some of the guards sniggered, which made Miss Spruce even more angry, if that were possible. She pushed her way forward.

  ‘Do you deny that you were standing there with a poker and your hand on fire?’ she demanded, her face as red as a turkey.

  ‘I would like to say something, please,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s rather important.’ She could feel the impatient pain now, fighting to get free. Her hands felt clammy.

  ‘You were doing black magic, admit it!’

  Tiffany took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what that is,’ she said, ‘but I know I am holding just above my shoulder the last pain that the Baron will ever know, and I have to get rid of it soon, and I can’t get rid of it in here, what with all these people. Please? I need an open space right now!’ She pushed Miss Spruce out of the way and the guards swiftly stood aside for her, to the nurse’s extreme annoyance.

  ‘Don’t let her go! She will fly away! That’s what they do!’

  Tiffany knew the layout of the castle very well; everybody did. There was a courtyard down some steps, and she headed there rapidly, feeling the pain stirring and unfolding. You had to think of it as a kind of animal that you could keep at bay, but that only worked for so long. About as long as … well, n
ow, in fact.

  The sergeant appeared beside her, and she grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t ask me why,’ she managed to say through gritted teeth, ‘but throw your helmet in the air!’

  He was bright enough to follow orders, and spun the helmet into the air like a soup plate. Tiffany hurled the pain after it, feeling its dreadful silkiness as it found its freedom. The helmet stopped in midair as if it had hit an invisible wall, and dropped onto the cobblestones in a cloud of steam and bent almost in half.

  The sergeant picked it up and immediately dropped it again. ‘It’s bloody hot!’ He stared at Tiffany, who was leaning against the wall and trying to catch her breath. ‘And you’ve been taking away pain like that every day?’

  She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, but I normally get plenty of time to find somewhere to dump it. Water and rock aren’t very good, but metal is quite reliable. Don’t ask me why. If I try to think about how it works, it doesn’t work.’

  ‘And I’ve heard that you can do all kinds of tricks with fire too?’ said Sergeant Brian admiringly.

  ‘Fire is easy to work with if you keep your mind clear, but pain … pain fights back. Pain is alive. Pain is the enemy.’

  The sergeant gingerly attempted to reclaim his helmet, hoping that by now it was cool enough to hold. ‘I will have to make certain I knock the dent out of it before the boss sees it,’ he began. ‘You know what a stickler he is for smartness … Oh.’ He stared down at the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tiffany, as kindly as she could. ‘It’s going to take a bit of getting used to, isn’t it?’ Wordlessly, she handed him her hand-kerchief, and he blew his nose.

  ‘But you can take away pain,’ he began, ‘so does that mean you can …?’

  Tiffany held up a hand. ‘Stop right there,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no. If you chopped your hand off I could probably make you forget about it until you tried to eat your dinner, but things like loss, grief and sadness? I can’t do that. I wouldn’t dare meddle with them. There is something called “the soothings”, and I know only one person in the world who can do that, and I’m not even going to ask her to teach me. It’s too deep.’

  ‘Tiff …’ Brian hesitated and looked around as though he expected the nurse to appear and prod him from behind again.

  Tiffany waited. Please don’t ask, she thought. You’ve known me all your life. You can’t possibly think …

  Brian looked at her pleadingly. ‘Did you … take anything?’ His voice tailed off.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Tiffany said. ‘What maggot’s got into your head? How could you think such a thing?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Brian, flushing with embarrassment.

  ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

  ‘I suppose I had better make sure the young master knows,’ said Brian after another good nose-blow, ‘but all I know is that he’s gone to the big city with his—’ He stopped again, embarrassed.

  ‘With his fiancée,’ said Tiffany determinedly. ‘You can say it out loud, you know.’

  Brian coughed. ‘Well, you see, we thought … well, we all thought that you and him were, well, you know …’

  ‘We have always been friends,’ said Tiffany, ‘and that’s all there is to it.’

  She felt sorry for Brian, even though he too often opened his mouth before he got it attached to his brain, so she patted him on the shoulder. ‘Look, why don’t I fly down to the big city and find him?’

  He almost melted with relief. ‘Would you do that?’

  ‘Of course. I can see you have a lot to do here, and it will take a load off your mind.’

  Admittedly it will put the load on mine, she thought as she hurried away through the castle. The news had spread. People were standing around, crying or just looking bewildered. The cook ran up to her just as she was leaving. ‘What am I to do? I’ve got the poor soul’s dinner on the stove!’

  ‘Then take it off and give it to someone who needs a good dinner,’ said Tiffany briskly. It was important to keep her tone cool and busy. The people were in shock. She would be too, when she had the time, but right at this moment it was important to bounce people back into the world of the here and now.

  ‘Listen to me, all of you,’ and her voice echoed around the big hall. ‘Yes, your baron is dead but you still have a baron! He will be here soon with his … lady, and you must have this place spotless for them! You all know your jobs! Get on with them! And remember him kindly and clean the place up for his sake.’

  It worked. It always did. A voice that sounded as if its owner knew what she was doing could get things done, especially if its owner was wearing a pointy black hat. There was a sudden rush of activity.

  ‘I suppose you think you’ve got away with it, do you?’ said a voice behind her.

  Tiffany waited a moment before turning round, and when she did turn round, she was smiling. ‘Why, Miss Spruce,’ she said, ‘are you still here? Well, perhaps there are some floors that need scrubbing?’

  The nurse was a vision of fury. ‘I do not scrub floors, you arrogant little—’

  ‘No, you don’t scrub anything, do you, Miss Spruce? I’ve noticed that! Now, Miss Flowerdew, who was here before you, now she could scrub a floor. She could scrub a floor so that you could see your face in it, although in your case, Miss Spruce, I can imagine why that would not appeal. Miss Jumper, who we had before her, would even scrub floors with sand, white sand! She chased dirt like a terrier chasing a fox!’

  The nurse opened her mouth to speak, but Tiffany didn’t allow the words any space. ‘The cook has told me that you are a very religious woman, always on your knees, and that is fine by me, absolutely fine, but didn’t it ever occur to you to take a mop and bucket down there with you? People don’t need prayers, Miss Spruce; they need you to do the job in front of you, Miss Spruce. And I have had enough of you, Miss Spruce, and especially of your lovely white coat. I think Roland was very impressed by your wonderful white coat, but I am not, Miss Spruce, because you never do anything that will get it dirty.’

  The nurse raised a hand. ‘I could slap you!’

  ‘No,’ said Tiffany firmly. ‘You couldn’t.’

  The hand stayed where it was. ‘I have never been so insulted before in my life!’ screamed the enraged nurse.

  ‘Really?’ said Tiffany. ‘I’m genuinely surprised.’ She turned on her heel, left the nurse standing and marched over to a young guard who had just come into the hall. ‘I’ve seen you around. I don’t think I know who you are. What’s your name, please?’

  The trainee guard gave what he probably thought was a salute. ‘Preston, miss.’

  ‘Has the Baron been taken down to the crypt, Preston?’

  ‘Yes, miss, and I’ve took down some lanterns and some cloths and a bucket of warm water, miss.’ He grinned when he saw her expression. ‘My grandma used to do the laying out when I was a little boy, miss. I could help, if you wanted.’

  ‘Did your grandma let you help?’

  ‘No, miss,’ said the young man. ‘She said men weren’t allowed to do that sort of thing unless they had a certificate in doctrine.’

  Tiffany looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Doctrine?’

  ‘You know, miss. Doctrine: pills and potions and sawing off legs and similar.’

  Light dawned. ‘Oh, you mean doctoring. I should hope not. This isn’t about making the poor soul better. I will do it by myself, but thank you for asking, anyway. This is women’s work.’

  Exactly why it is women’s work I don’t know, she said to herself as she arrived in the crypt and rolled up her sleeves. The young guard had even thought to bring down a dish of soil and a dish of salt.11 Well done, your granny, she thought. At last someone had taught a boy something useful!

  She cried as she made the old man ‘presentable’ as Granny Weatherwax called it. She always cried. It was a needful thing. But you didn’t do it where anyone else could see, not if you were a witch. People wouldn’t expect that. It would make them unea
sy.

  She stood back. Well, the old boy looked better than he had done yesterday, she had to admit. As a final touch, she took two pennies out of her pocket and laid them gently over his eyelids.

  Those were the old customs, taught to her by Nanny Ogg, but now there was a new custom, known only to her. She leaned on the edge of the marble slab with one hand and held the bucket of water in the other. She stayed there, motionless, until the water in the bucket began to boil and ice was forming on the slab. She took the bucket outside and tipped its contents down the drain.

  The castle was bustling when she had finished, and she left people to get on with things. She hesitated as she stepped out of the castle and stopped to think. People often didn’t stop to think. They thought as they went along. Sometimes it was a good idea. Just to stop moving, in case you moved the wrong way.

  Roland was the Baron’s only son and, as far as Tiffany knew, his only relative, or at least his only relative who was allowed to come anywhere near the castle; after some horrible and expensive legal fighting, Roland had succeeded in banishing the dreadful aunts, the Baron’s sisters who, frankly, even the old Baron thought were as nasty a pair of old ferrets as any man should find down the trousers of his life. But there was another person who should know, who was in no conceivable way at all kin to the Baron, but was nevertheless, well, someone who should know something as important as this, as soon as possible. Tiffany headed up to the Feegle mound to see the kelda.

  Amber was sitting outside when Tiffany arrived, doing some sewing in the sunlight.

  ‘Hello, miss,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll just go and tell Mrs Kelda that you’re here.’ And with that she disappeared down the hole as easily as a snake, just as Tiffany had once been able to do.

  Why had Amber gone back there? Tiffany wondered. She had taken her to the Aching farm to be safe. Why had the girl walked up the Chalk to the mound? How had she even remembered where it was?

  ‘Very interesting child, that,’ said a voice, and the Toad12 stuck his head out from under a leaf. ‘I must say you look extremely flustered, miss.’