Tiffany cleared her throat. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose Rob Anybody would tell you that there are times when promises should be kept and times when promises should be broken, and it takes a Feegle to know the difference.’
Mrs Proust grinned hugely. ‘You could almost be from the city, Miss Tiffany Aching.’
If you needed to guard something that didn’t need guarding, possibly because no one in their right mind would want to steal it, then Corporal Nobbs of the City Watch was, for want of a better way of describing him, and in the absence of any hard biological evidence to the contrary, your man. And now he stood in the dark and crunching ruins of the King’s Head, smoking a horrible cigarette made by rolling up all the stinking butts of previously smoked cigarettes into some fresh cigarette paper and sucking the horrible mess until some kind of smoke appeared.
He never noticed the hand that lifted his helmet off, hardly even felt the forensic blow to the head, and certainly did not feel the calloused little hands that placed the helmet back on his head as they lowered his sleeping body to the ground.
‘OK,’ said Rob Anybody in a hoarse whisper, looking around at the blackened timbers. ‘Now, we don’t have much time, ye ken, so—’
‘Well, well, I just knew that you wee scunners would come back here if I waited long enough for ye,’ said a voice in the dark. ‘As a dog returneth to his vomit and a fool to his folly, so the criminal returns to the scene of his crime.’
The watchman known as Wee Mad Arthur struck a match, which was, for a Feegle, a pretty good torch. There was a clink as something that was the size of a shield for a Feegle, but would have been a badge for a human policeman, landed on the floor in front of him. ‘That’s tae show you wee fools that I’m nae on duty, OK? Cannae be a policeman withoot a badge, ain’t that so? I just wanted tae see why ye wee deadbeats talks properly, like what I do, because ye ken, I’m no’ a Feegle.’
The Feegles looked at Rob Anybody, who shrugged and said, ‘What the heel do you think ye are, then?’
Wee Mad Arthur ran his hands through his hair, and nothing fell out. ‘Well, my ma an’ poppa told me I was a gnome, like them—’
He stopped talking because the Feegles were hooting and slapping their legs with mirth, which tends to go on for a long time.
Wee Mad Arthur watched for a little while before shouting, ‘I do not find this funny!’
‘Will ye no’ listen to yourself?’ said Rob Anybody, wiping his eyes. ‘Ye are speaking Feegle, sure enough! Did yer mammy and yer pappy nae tell ye? We Feegles are born knowing how to speak! Crivens! It’s just like a dog knowing how to bark! Ye cannae tell me ye are a gnome! Ye’ll be telling me ye are a pixie next!’
Wee Mad Arthur looked down at his boots. ‘My dad made me these boots,’ he said. ‘I couldnae bring mesel’ to tell him I didnae like boots on my feet. The whole family had been making and repairing shoes for hundreds of years, ye ken, and I wasnae good at the cobbling at all, and then one day all the elders of the tribe called me together and told me I was a lost foundling. They was moving to a new camp, and they ha’ found me, a tiny wee bairn, greeting by the road, right next to a sparrowhawk that I had strangled to death after it had snatched me from me cradle; they reckoned it was taking me home to feed me tae its chicks. And the old gnomes put their hats together, and said that while they were very happy to let me stay, what with being able to bite foxes to death and everything, it might be time for me to go out into the big world and find out who
my people were.’
‘Well, laddie, ye have found them,’ said Rob Anybody, slapping him on the back. ‘Ye did well to listen to a load of old cobblers. That was wisdom they told you, sure enough.’
He hesitated for a moment, and then went on, ‘However, it’s a wee bitty difficult that ye are – no offence meant – a policeman.’ He jumped back slightly, just in case.
‘Granted,’ said Wee Mad Arthur with satisfaction. ‘Whereas ye are a bunch of thieving drunken reprobates and scoff-laws with no respect for the law whatsoever!’
The Feegles nodded happily, although Rob Anybody said, ‘Would you no’ mind adding the words drunk and disorderly? We wouldnae want to be sold short here.’
‘And what about the snail-rustling, Rob?’ said Daft Wullie happily.
‘Weel,’ said Rob Anybody, ‘in actual point of fact, the snailrustling is still in the early stages of development at this time.’
‘Have you no good points?’ said Wee Mad Arthur desperately.
Rob Anybody looked puzzled. ‘We kind of thought them is our good points, but if you want to get picky, we never steal from them as has nae money, we has hearts of gold, although maybe – OK, mostly – somebody else’s gold, and we did invent the deep-fried stoat. That must count for something.’
‘How is that a good point?’ said Arthur.
‘Weel, it saves some other poor devil having tae do it. It’s what ye might call a taste explosion; ye take a mouthful, taste it, and then there is an explosion.’
Despite himself, Wee Mad Arthur was grinning. ‘Have you boys got no shame?’
Rob Anybody matched him grin for grin. ‘I couldnae say,’ he replied, ‘but if we have, it probably belonged tae somebody else.’
‘And what about the poor wee big lassie locked up and down in the Watch House?’ said Wee Mad Arthur.
‘Oh, she’ll bide fine till the morning,’ said Rob Anybody, as loftily as he could in the circumstances. ‘She is a hag o’ considerable resource.’
‘Ye think so? You wee scunners punched an entire pub to death! How can anyone put that right?’
This time Rob Anybody gave him a longer, more thoughtful look before saying, ‘Well, Mr Policeman, it seems ye are a Feegle and a copper. Well, that’s the way the world spins. But the big question for the pair of ye is: are you a sneak and a snitch?’