‘Is that the mannie who balanced a thimble on his neb for a week and afterwards had a wonderful singing voice?’ asked Daft Wullie.
‘Nae, ye daftie.’
‘Why are you getting all het up about this? Dinnae fash yersel’. The first time yon elf touches a body, it will be a deid elf, an’ that’s the way to find out,’ said Wee Dangerous Spike.
‘Weel now,’ said Rob Anybody, ‘this is what the hag wants and I tell ye, that’s the end of it.’
‘And I tell you one more thing, Rob Anybody,’ Tiffany said. ‘I will take this elf away with me. I know that you will come with me, but I will need a Feegle or two to bide by her side and watch her for me. Wee Mad Arthur? You were in the Watch – I pick you for one.’ She looked around. ‘And ye, Big Yan. Don’t let this little elf get the better of ye. I want to say to you both, this elf is a captive. And captives have to be looked after. As a constable, you – Wee Mad Arthur – know that people don’t fall down wells unless they’ve been pushed. I suggest you think about this. And generally speaking, they don’t often fall downstairs either unless they’ve been pushed. There are to be no little things like, “Ach, weel, we let her out for a walk and she ran away and was knocked over by a rampaging stoat,” or, “She died resisting arrest by fifteen Feegles.” No great swarm of bees to sting her a lot. No great big bird dropping her in a pond. No great big wind which comes out of nowhere and blows everything away. No “She fell down a rabbit hole and no one ever saw her again.”’ She looked around sternly. ‘I am the hag o’ the hills and I will know how it happened. And then there would be a . . . reckoning. Do you understand me?’
‘Oh, waily, waily, there’s to be a reckoning,’ Daft Wullie moaned, and there was an embarrassed shuffling of feet as the Feegles reconsidered their plans. Big Yan absentmindedly poked his finger up his nose and closely examined what he found there before stuffing it into his spog for later inspection.
‘Right, well, that’s settled then,’ said Tiffany. ‘But I will not abide troublesome elves coming onto my turf, gentlemen.’
fn1 The Baron had given the Feegles their own land and the promise that no sharp metal beyond a knife would go near them, but the Feegles lied all the time themselves, so liked to be ready with boot and heid and fist should any other liar come calling.
fn2 Hamish’s trained buzzard Morag did the actual flying, of course. Mastering the art of flying wasn’t a problem for Hamish. Landings were another matter.
CHAPTER 13
Mischief . . . and Worse
THE ELVES LIKED being troublesome. When elves come, they hunt with stealth. There are little changes in the world, at first just mischief.
As in the cellar in the Baron’s Arms, where something had happened to the beer. No matter how often or how thoroughly John Parsley cleaned and changed spigots and barrels, the beer was suddenly full of floaties, barrel gushies, skunkies and the like, and the publican was tearing out his hair – of which he had little enough to start with.
And then, in the bar, someone said, ‘It’s the elves again. It’s their sort of joke.’
‘Well, it doesn’t make me laugh,’ said Thomas Greengrass, while John Parsley was almost crying. And as happens in a pub, everyone else joined in, and there was talk of elves, but no one believed it – though later, at home, more than one new horseshoe was suddenly nailed up on the doorframe.
People laughed and said, ‘Anyway, we’ve got our own witch here.’
‘Well,’ said Jack Tumble, ‘no offence, but she’s never here these days. It seems she’s spending more of her time over in Lancre.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Joe. ‘My Tiffany is doing a man’s work every day.’ He thought for a moment (especially since he knew that what he said might easily get back to his wife via Mrs Parsley). ‘Better than that, she’s doing a woman’s work,’ he added.
‘Well, how do you explain the beer?’
‘Bad management?’ said Jack Tumble. ‘No offence meant, John. It’s difficult stuff, beer.’
‘What? My pipes are as clean as the rain and I wash my hands when I change a barrel.’
‘What is it, then?’
Someone had to say it again, voice their conclusion, and it was said: ‘Then it can only be the fairies.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Joe. ‘My Tiffany would have dealt with them in a brace of shakes.’
But the beer was still sour . . .
While over in Lancre, high up in the forests of the Ramtop mountains, Martin Snack and Frank Sawyer were anxious. They had trudged for days from the last town, Hot Dang, to get this far and had left the main cart track hours before. Their empty stomachs and the late afternoon shadows were hurrying them up but it was hard going along the faint tracks on the steep hillside. If they didn’t find the logging camp soon, this was likely to be their second night without shelter. They had heard wolves howling in the distance the night before. And now, as the temperature dropped, it began to snow.
‘I reckon as we are lost, Frank,’ said Martin anxiously.
But Frank was listening carefully, and now he heard a roaring sound in the distance. ‘This way,’ he said confidently.
And indeed, within no more than another five minutes they were close enough to hear the sound of people talking, and soon after, the aroma of something cooking, which seemed a good sign. Then, in a break between trees, they could see the camp. There were a number of large hairy men moving about, while others sat on tree stumps and one was stirring something bubbling over on an almost red-hot portable stove.
As the boys emerged from the trees, the men looked up. One or two laid a hand on their large and serviceable axes which were never far from their sides, and then relaxed when they saw how young the boys were. An elderly lumberjack in a big checked jacket with a fur-lined hood – the kind of man that you wouldn’t talk to unless you heard him talk first – walked over to meet them.