The Shepherd's Crown Read online

  And when the witch wasn’t there, well, what harm was there in trying out a few things for yourself? Most people knew about using plants to cure things. They were certain about that. But the thing about plants is that many of them look like all the others, and so Mistress Holland, wife of the miller of the Chalk, had treated her husband’s unfortunate skin condition with Love Lies Oozing rather than with Merryday Root and now his skin had turned purple.

  Tiffany had treated the man, but then it had been time for her to go back to Lancre, and she was up, up and away again on her stick, hoping that they had both learned their lesson.

  She was very thankful that Nanny Ogg was not too far away from Granny’s . . . no, her cottage. There were a lot of things that Tiffany was good at, but cookery wasn’t one of them, and so just as she relied on her mum and dad for meals in the Chalk, in Lancre she relied on Nanny. Strictly speaking, this meant she was relying on Nanny’s army of daughters-in-law, who couldn’t do enough for their old Nanny.fn4

  But wherever the pair of them took their meals – either in Tiffany’s little cottage in the woods, or at Tir Nani Ogg, the overcrowded but very comfortable home where Nanny Ogg ruled the roost – it seemed that You was there too. No cat could move as fast as her, but you never saw her move fast, she just arrived. It was baffling. What was also baffling was how Greebo – Nanny’s ancient tomcat who treated a bit of eyeball scratching as a friendly hello – slunk away when You appeared.

  The white cat had clearly made her decision and was a constant presence in Tiffany’s life in Lancre. Now, when Tiffany got ready for an afternoon of going round the houses, You would jump on the broomstick before Tiffany had even looked at it, which made Nanny laugh, saying, ‘She’s got you down pat, my girl. Maybe she could go round the houses by herself!’

  Nanny Ogg was actually rather impressed by Tiffany. But also worried. ‘Really,’ she said to her one day as they shared a quick meal, ‘you know you’re good, Tiff. I know you’re good. Granny, wherever she is now, knew you was good, but you don’t have to keep tryin’ to do it all on your own, my girl. Let some of them young girls around here – the apprentices – take some of the strain.’ She paused as she chewed on a big mouthful of stew, then added, ‘That young lumberjack up in the mountains what Esme sewed up just the day afore she died? Well, young Harrieta Bilk’s been goin’ on up there to see to him, an’ doin’ a good job too. Tiff, you have to do it your own way, I know, but you ain’t the only witch in Lancre. Sometimes you needs to put your feet up and let the parade go by.’

  Tiffany had barely had time to listen before she was back on her stick and heading down to the Chalk again. No rest for the busy witch with two steadings! But as the ear-numbing wind whistled by, she considered what Nanny had said. It was true that there were other witches in Lancre, but in the Chalk – unless Letitia decided to stop being just a baroness – Tiffany was the only witch. And if her forebodings were right, if Jeannie’s words came true, then one witch for the Chalk might not be anywhere near enough.

  She shivered. She was looking forward to getting out of the icy wind and into the warmth of her mother’s kitchen. But there was one person she needed to see first . . .

  It took Tiffany a long time to find Miss Tick, but eventually she landed in a little wood just outside Ham-on-Rye where the travelling witch, the witchfinder, had stopped her caravan for tea. A small mule was tethered nearby enjoying the contents of its feed bag. It looked at Tiffany as she approached and neighed.

  ‘He’s called Joseph,’ said Miss Tick. ‘A real witch’s mule.’

  It had started to rain again and Miss Tick quickly waved Tiffany up the wooden caravan steps. Tiffany was glad to see that there was a kettle bubbling on a little stove. She perched herself on the edge of a bench seat fitted just inside the door, facing the stove, and gratefully took the offered cup of tea.

  Inside the caravan, it was just as Tiffany expected. Miss Tick had everything ship-shape without needing a ship. On the walls were lots of little racks, neatly filled with many things, and all annotated in Miss Tick’s careful teacher-y hand. Tiffany looked closer and, yes, they were in alphabetical order. Elsewhere were little pots without labels, so you would never know what was inside them, and by the side of her bed there was a chart showing a variety of knots – escapology was a useful hobby for a witch.

  ‘I’ll be grateful if you don’t touch my little jars,’ said Miss Tick. ‘Some of those concoctions might not work properly and the results are often unpredictable. But, you know, one should keep on experimenting.’

  That’s what’s in all the pots, thought Tiffany, taking a sip of her tea. Experiments.

  ‘Glad to see you,’ Miss Tick continued. ‘I am hearing about you all the time. You know, almost every girl I meet wants to be you. They see you whizzing about all over the place on your broomstick and they all want to be you, Mistress Aching. Suddenly it’s become a career choice to be a witch!’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘That’s how it starts out, and then you tell them exactly what they would spend their life doing, and quite a few of them decide to go to the big city and be a hairdresser or something.’

  ‘Well, I make no bones about it,’ said Miss Tick firmly. ‘I tell them to think hard; it’s not all magic and waving wands and all that silly business. It’s dirt and grime.’

  Tiffany sighed. ‘Being a witch is a man’s job: that’s why it needs women to do it.’

  Miss Tick laughed and continued, ‘Well, I remember a little girl who was unsure of herself and I told her that I would give her lessons that she would never forget in a hurry.’

  Tiffany smiled. ‘I remember. And now I am in a hurry everywhere these days. But Miss Tick’ – she paused and her voice went a bit quiet – ‘I have a feeling that some of the older witches are beginning to think I might not be able to cope . . .’ She swallowed. ‘Up in Lancre, mostly. But it means I do have to be there a lot.’ She bit her lip – she hated asking for help. Was she saying that she wasn’t really up to the job? Letting Granny Weatherwax down, since Granny had been the one to put her name up for it. She couldn’t remember Granny ever asking for help. ‘Down here, on the Chalk,’ she said, ‘I think I maybe need to . . . er . . . train an apprentice. Have some help.’

  The heavens didn’t open. There was no gasp of horror from the other witch at this request. Miss Tick simply crossed her arms sternly. ‘It’s Letice Earwig, I suppose, who’s put those doubts into people’s heads. She thinks things always have to be done the same way, so that means she would take over, I suppose? She’s a senior witch who believes she knows every blessed thing, but it’s all just tinkly-winkly stuff. The stupid woman who wrote My Fairy Friends should be ashamed to call herself a witch, and certainly shouldn’t hope to walk in the footsteps of Granny Weatherwax. Hah, Letice Earwig certainly couldn’t manage two steadings at once. She can’t really even cope with one.’ She snorted derisively. ‘Do not forget, Tiffany, that I am a teacher.fn5 And we teachers can be really nasty when it comes to it. Ten Steps to Witchcraft and The Romance of the Broomstick are not what I would call proper books. Oh, I’ll certainly look out for a girl or two for you – it’s a very good idea. But you don’t need to worry about what Mrs Earwig might say, oh no . . .’

  fn1 There was the usual man-who-puts-weasels-down-his-trousers in action too. Hence the need for a doctor.

  fn2 It gets awfully cold up there, and no sensible witch ever took to the skies without several layers of flannelette between her and the stick.

  fn3 Another tiny clue.

  fn4 ‘Enough’ wasn’t really a long enough word to describe the numerous little tasks any young woman marrying into the Ogg family found were expected of her.

  fn5 Said in a way that made anyone listening know this instantly.

  CHAPTER 7

  A Force of Nature

  LETICE EARWIG WAS not someone who would take being balked lying down. Or standing up, come to that. In truth, she was a force of nature and she hated to back dow
n on anything.

  It hadn’t taken her long to hear that there had been a queue one day outside Nanny Ogg’s home. Tiffany Aching, Mrs Earwig decided, was Not Coping. And it needed a witch of senior stature to Do Something about it. In Letice Earwig’s opinion – never a small thing – she was in fact the only witch who had the stature to act, especially as that old baggage Nanny Ogg wouldn’t do a thing.

  Mrs Earwig had married an elderly retired wizard many years before. ‘Wizards ain’t allowed to get married,’ Nanny Ogg had told Tiffany scornfully. ‘But the silly man got what was comin’ to him. Talk about hen-pecked, he was earwig-pecked. She got through all his money, so they says!’

  Tiffany wisely didn’t rise to that; it was quite probable that ‘they’ were actually Nanny Ogg, who hated Mrs Earwig with an unrelenting determination.

  But that was why she was relieved when Nanny Ogg wasn’t there when Mrs Earwig arrived at Granny’s cottage one morning a week or so later, for what she called ‘one of her little chats’. It would have been better, on reflection, if Mrs Earwig hadn’t found Tiffany out in the garden up to her elbows in suds in the middle of doing some washing for old Mr Price.

  Tiffany’s heart sank when she saw the woman coming,fn1 but she wiped her hands on a towel and welcomed her visitor into the cottage with as much politeness as she could muster. Mrs Earwig had a tendency to treat Tiffany like a child, and also she had bad manners, such as sitting down without being asked. Mrs Earwig did, indeed, sit down in Granny’s old rocking chair, and she gave Tiffany a smile of blatant insincerity, then made it worse by saying, ‘My dear girl!’

  ‘Woman,’ said Tiffany quietly as Mrs Earwig looked her up and down. She was acutely conscious of the suds still clinging to her apron and her dishevelled hair.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ said Mrs Earwig, as if it didn’t matter. ‘Now, I thought I should come, as a friend and as one of the oldest witches in this area, to see how things were going and to offer some constructive advice.’ She looked around the kitchen with a superior air, with a particularly sharp glare at the dust that was happily playing little games with itself over the stone flagstones, and Tiffany was suddenly very aware of the spiders which had remained in residence in the scullery, with lots of little ones adding to the colony – she hadn’t the heart to move them.

  ‘Don’t you think you are overstretched trying to look after two steadings, my dear?’ Mrs Earwig added with a saccharine smile.

  ‘Yes, my dear Mrs Earwig,’ Tiffany said back, rather sharply. ‘I am stretched because there is a lot to do in both places and not much time.’ Which you are taking up, she thought. But two can play at your game. ‘If you have some advice,’ she added with a smile to match Mrs Earwig’s, ‘I’ll be glad to hear it.’

  Mrs Earwig was never one to ignore an invitation. Not that she had needed one, anyway, since she immediately launched into a prepared speech.

  ‘I’m not saying you are a bad person, my dear. It’s just that you can’t cope, and people are talking about it.’

  ‘Perhaps they do,’ said Tiffany. ‘And often they thank me, but I am just one woman – that is woman, not girl – so I can’t do everything at once. It’s just a shame that there aren’t more elder witches around . . .’ Her voice trailed off, the memory of Granny Weatherwax lying in her willow casket still too fresh in her mind.

  ‘I understand,’ said Mrs Earwig. ‘It isn’t your fault.’ Now her voice was silky smooth, but just a shade beyond patronizing and moving towards out and out rudeness. ‘You have indeed been flung into areas you can’t manage, and you are in fact far too young, dear Tiffany. To take the right steps on the path of Magick, you surely need the counsel of an elder witch.’ She sniffed. ‘A serious elder witch with the right . . . approach. No . . . family ties.’ And it was clear that she did not consider Nanny Ogg to be a candidate for this task.

  Tiffany bridled. If there was one thing she hated more than ‘my dear girl’, it was ‘dear Tiffany’. And she well remembered the ‘counsel’ Mrs Earwig had given to her protégée Annagramma Hawkin, who had taken over a witch’s cottage knowing everything possible about runes and tinkly spells but nothing at all useful. She had needed Tiffany’s help. As for implying that Nanny Ogg would not be a good mentor . . .

  ‘Well, my dear,’ Mrs Earwig continued, ‘as one of the most senior witches in this area, I therefore feel I should take the place of Granny Weatherwax. It’s the way it has always been done, and for a good reason – people need a senior witch to be a person whom they can respect, someone they can look up to. After all, my dear girl, a witch of high standing would never be seen doing the washing.’

  ‘Really?’ said Tiffany, gritting her teeth. A second ‘my dear girl’? One more and she would want not only to thrust Mrs Earwig into the suds but also to hold her head under for quite some time. ‘Granny Weatherwax always said, “You do the good that is in front of you,” and I don’t care who sees me doing an old man’s washing. There’s lots to do and a lot of it is dirty, Mrs Earwig.’

  Mrs Earwig flamed at that and said, ‘Ah-wij, my dear girl.’

  ‘Not my dear girl,’ Tiffany snapped. ‘Mrs Earwig’ – not a trace of Ah-wij – ‘your last book was called To Ride a Golden Broomstick. Can you tell me, Mrs Earwig, how does it fly? Gold is rather heavy. You might say, in fact, that it is extremely heavy.’

  Mrs Earwig growled. Tiffany had never heard her growl before but this one was a heavy-duty growl. ‘It’s a metaphor,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Really?’ said Tiffany. Now she was angry. ‘What’s it a metaphor for, Mrs Earwig? I’m on the sharp end of witchcraft, which means doing what should be done as best you can. It’s all about the people, Mrs Earwig, not about the books. Have you ever gone round the houses, Mrs Earwig? Helped a kid with his arse halfway out of his trousers? Do you even see the little children with no shoes? The cupboards with no food in them? The wives with a baby every year and a man down the pub? You have been kind enough to offer some advice. If I may offer you some advice in return, you will impress me if you too go round the houses – and not before. I am the acknowledged successor of Granny Weatherwax, who was brought up as a witch by Nanny Gripes, who learned it from witches going all the way back to Black Aliss, and that doesn’t change, whatever you might think.’ She stood up and opened the front door. ‘Thank you for taking the time to come and see me. Now, as you have pointed out, I have lots to do. In my own way. And clearly you haven’t.’

  One thing about Mrs Earwig, Tiffany thought, was that she could flounce. She flounced so much that it almost hurt. Things jingled a merry farewell around her, and one charm even made a spirited attempt to stay by hooking itself around the doorknob as Mrs Earwig turned at the threshold.

  The last thing she said to Tiffany as she untangled the little pendant was, ‘I tried, I really tried. I invited you to take advantage of all I know about witchcraft. But no. You flung my good will right in my face. You know, we could really have been friends, if you weren’t so stubborn. Farewell, my dear girl.’ Having got the last word in, Mrs Earwig slammed the door behind her as she left.

  Tiffany looked at it and said to herself, I do what is needful, Mrs Earwig, not what I want to do.

  But the banging of the door as punctuation caused Tiffany to think and she thought suddenly, I want to do it my way. Not how the other witches think it should be done. I can’t be Granny Weatherwax for them. I can only be me, Tiffany Aching. But she realized something else too. ‘Mrs Earwig was right about at least one thing,’ she said aloud. ‘I am trying to do too much. And if Jeannie is right and there is something awful coming’ – she shuddered – ‘which I will have to deal with, well, I really hope Miss Tick can find me a girl who might be some use. I do need some help.’

  ‘Aye, would seem so,’ said the voice of Rob Anybody.

  Tiffany almost exploded. ‘Are you always looking after me, Rob Anybody?’

  ‘Och aye. Remember, there’s a geas upon us tae look after ye day and nicht and it’s
a greet geas.’

  A geas. Backed up by tradition and magic, Tiffany knew that a geas was an obligation no Feegle would ever fail to meet. Except Daft Wullie, of course, who often mixed up his ‘geas’ with a flock of big burdies. She understood all this, but it still rankled. ‘You watch me all the time? Even when I’m bathing?’ she said wearily. It was a familiar argument. Tiffany – for no reason Rob could understand – seemed to take exception to the Feegles being around her everywhere. They had already come to an agreement about the privy.fn2

  ‘Och aye, that we do. Not lookin’, ye ken.’

  ‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘could you do me a favour?’

  ‘Och aye,’ said Rob. ‘Would you like yon Earwig wifie dropped in a pond or something?’

  Tiffany sighed. ‘Alas, no. I’m not that kind of person.’

  ‘Ah, but we is,’ said Rob Anybody cheerfully. ‘And anyway, ’tis traditional, ye ken. And we are guid at tradition, bein’ as we are part of folklore . . .’ He smiled hopefully.

  ‘A very nice thought,’ said Tiffany. ‘But no, once again, no. Mrs Earwig is not really a bad soul.’ That is true, she thought. Stupid, sometimes overbearing, unfeeling, and not really, if you get down to it, a very good witch. But there is a steel there at the core.

  Tiffany knew Nanny Ogg rarely did any washing – what were daughters-in-law for? – but she realized suddenly that she had never seen Granny Weatherwax doing any laundry for the old gentlemen either, and that thought stopped her for a moment. I need time to work this out, she thought, looking at the Big Man of the Nac Mac Feegles standing in front of her, ready for anything. This would be a tough task for them, she knew.

  ‘I’ve a wee geas tae lay on ye,’ she said.

  ‘Och aye?’

  ‘Rob, have you heard of washing clothes?’

  ‘Och aye, we ken it happens,’ said Rob Anybody. He scratched at his spog and a mixture of dead insects, half-gnawed chicken’s foot bones and the like showered out.