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Tiffany swallowed. ‘Yes, your majesty. You will let me leave.’
‘You are so sure?’
‘Yes.’ Tiffany wrapped her hand around the shepherd’s crown once again, and felt the flint at its centre give her strength, draw her back to her own land, to her land above the wave. She stepped backwards slowly.
And nearly tripped over something on the floor behind her.
The King was staring too. It was a white cat and she heard the King’s voice, surprised for the first time: ‘You!’
And then there was an end to it, and Tiffany and You spiralled back the way they had come, and the Feegles were outside, patrolling up and down and enjoying the happy opportunity of fighting a tree or two, since no elves had turned up, but these trees were still right scunners, stickin’ their barbs as they did into Feegle heads and beards. They deserved a guid kickin’.
‘Well, I’m not sure that did any good,’ Tiffany said to Rob as she emerged from the tunnel.
‘Weel,’ said Rob Anybody, ‘let t
hem come. Ye will always have your Feegles. We Feegles are everlasting.’
‘Everlasting if there is enough to drink!’ Wee Dangerous Spike added.
‘Rob,’ said Tiffany firmly. ‘Right now, not one of you needs a drink. We need a plan.’ She thought for a moment. ‘The King will not help – yet. But he is looking for new entertainments. Perhaps if we offer him something of that ilk, then he will think more kindly upon us and at least leave us alone?’ Leave us to kill his elves, she thought to herself. He did say he wouldn’t mind. Would he change his mind?
‘Ach, nae problem,’ said Rob proudly, confident of his ability to find a PLN. ‘That King of the Elves, he needs some-thin’ tae do, ye say.’
‘Like the men of Lancre!’ Tiffany said suddenly. ‘Rob, you know how Geoffrey has them all building sheds . . . Well, you built a pub once. How difficult would a shed be?’
‘Nae trouble at all, right, lads?’ said Rob, happy now. For he had his PLN. ‘Let’s offski.’ He looked down at You. ‘How come your pussycat follows you around, mistress?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tiffany. ‘She’s a cat. They can go anywhere. And after all, she was Granny Weatherwax’s cat and that means quite a lot.’
But Rob wasn’t listening. Not now. He was thinking of his PLN. And the following day, at the mouth of the Long Man there was a shed replete with everything a gentleman could require, including fishing line and every tool you can think of, all made of wood or stone. Tiffany thought that might make the King of the Elves happy. But she did not feel it would get his help . . .
Lord Peaseblossom lounged on a velvet-covered couch in Fairyland, idly fingering the ruff of feathers around his neck, swigging from a goblet of rich wine.
Lord Lankin had just entered the chamber. He bowed before his new king, a glorious red broom of a tail slung casually round his neck, a memento of a recent raid. ‘I believe, my lord,’ he said lazily, silkily, ‘that our warriors will soon wish for . . . greater enjoyments in the human world. The barriers seem weak, and those of us who slip through to hunt are finding no real opposition.’
Peaseblossom smiled. He knew that his elves had been testing the gates, some skipping through the red stones of Lancre whilst others had gambolled near the villages of the Chalk, wary only of the little red-haired men who liked nothing more than a fight with an elf. The elves were like the Feegles in one respect – if there was nobody to fight, they would fight amongst themselves. And squabbling was de rigueur in Fairyland – not even cats were as bad.fn3
And elves could take umbrage. They loved umbrage, and as for sulking, that was a top entertainment. But everywhere they had been, they had stirred up little pockets of trouble, being nuisances, causing damage for damage’s sake. Stealing sheep, cows, even the occasional dog. Only yesterday Mustardseed had gleefully snatched a ram from its flock on the hills and then loosed it in a small china shop, laughing as it had lowered its horns and – yes – rammed the shelves.
But there was no rhyme nor reason to it. They needed to show what they could really do. Perhaps, Peaseblossom mused, the time was afoot to lead his elves on a raid that all elves would sing about for a long time to come.
A smile flickered across his thin, sharp face, and he waved a hand in the air, changing his tunic instantly to one of leather and fur, a crossbow tucked into his belt.
‘We will put a girdle of glamour around their world,’ he laughed. ‘Go, my elves, go make your mischief. But when this still-bent moon swells to her full glory, we will go together in force. That land will be ours once more!’
In her father’s barn, Tiffany was watching Nightshade wake up. She had mixed up a new tonic for her yesterday: a good strong dose of reciprocal greensfn4 which had made the elf sleep deeply for a whole day, giving her body a chance to regain its strength.
And, incidentally, giving Tiffany a chance to go round the houses without worrying about what the Feegles might do in her absence. I might even have time to fly to Lancre and check on Geoffrey if I do it once more, she thought. She knew the Feegles would never hurt a sleeping elf, but one awake? Well, their instincts might just take over if Nightshade should put a single dainty finger wrong. And, of course, she didn’t trust the elf either . . .
‘Time for a walk,’ she said as Nightshade stretched her limbs and looked around her as she woke. ‘I think it is time you saw a few more humans.’ For how else could she teach Nightshade about how this world worked if Nightshade mostly only saw the inside of the barn and a few ready-to-boil-over Feegles?
So she took Nightshade down into the village, past the pub where the men were sitting looking glumly at their beer, fishing the occasional barrel gushie out of it, past the small shops, picking her way carefully over the debris outside Mrs Tumble’s Plates for All Seasons, down the road and back up into the downs. Tiffany had asked her dad to let people know she was trying out a girl to help mix her medicines, so nobody really looked directly at her, but Tiffany had no doubt that they would all have taken in every single detail as she passed. It was why she had insisted on Nightshade’s dairymaid’s dress being toned down, so there were now no bows, no ribbons, no buckles, and a decent pair of boots rather than dainty slippers.
‘I have been watching humans,’ said Nightshade as they were clumping back up the road. ‘And I can’t understand them. I saw a woman giving an old tramp a couple of pennies. He was nothing to do with her, so why would she do that? How does it help her? I don’t understand.’
‘It’s what we do,’ said Tiffany. ‘The wizards call it empathy. That means putting yourself in the place of the other person and seeing the world from their point of view. I suppose it’s because in the very olden days, when humans had to fight for themselves every day, they needed to find people who would fight with them too, and together we lived – yes, and prospered. Humans need other humans – it’s as simple as that.’
‘Yes, but what good would the old lady get from giving away her money?’
