The Igors had a motto: What goes around, comes around. You didn't have to pay them back. You had to pay them forward, and that, frankly, was the bit where people got worried. When you were dying, an Igor would mysteriously arrive on the doorstep and request that he be allowed to take away any bits urgently needed by others on his "little litht". He'd be quite happy to wait until the priest had gone and, it was said, when the time came he'd do very neat work. However, it happened quite often that when an Igor turned up the prospective donor took fright and turned to Nuggan, who liked whole people. In which case the Igor would quietly and politely leave, and never come back. He'd never come back to the whole village, or the whole lumber camp. Nor would other Igors. What goes around comes around - or stops.
As far as Polly could tell, Igors believed that the body was nothing more than a more complicated kind of clothing. Oddly enough, that's what Nugganites thought, too.
"Glad you joined, Igor?" said Polly, as they jogged along.
"Yeth, Ozz."
"Could you take a look at the rupert's hand next time we stop, please? He's cut it badly."
"Yeth, Ozz."
"Can I ask you something, Igor?"
"Yeth, Ozz."
"What're female Igors called, Igor?"
Igor stumbled and kept moving. He was silent for a while, and then said: "All right, what did I do wrong?"
"Sometimes you forget to lisp," said Polly. "But mostly... it's just a feeling. Little things about the way you move, maybe."
"The word you're looking for is 'Igorina'," said Igorina. "We don't lisp as much as the boys."
They continued in more silence until Polly said, "I thought it was bad enough cutting my hair - "
"The stitches?" said Igorina. "I can have them out in five minuteth. They're just for show."
Polly hesitated. But, after all, Igors had to be trustworthy, didn't they? "You didn't cut your hair?"
"Actually, I just removed it," said Igorina.
"I put mine in my pack," Polly went on, trying not to look at the stitches around Igorina's head.
"So did I," said Igorina. "In a jar. It's thtill growing."
Polly swallowed. You needed a lack of graphic imagination to talk about personal issues with an Igor. "Mine was stolen back at the barracks. I'm sure it was Strappi," she said.
"Oh dear."
"I hate to think of him with it!"
"Why did you bring it?"
And that was the question. She'd planned, and she'd been good at planning. She'd fooled the rest of them, even. She'd been cool and sensible and she hadn't felt more than a faint pang at cutting off her hair -
¨Cand she'd brought it with her. Why? She could have thrown it away. It wasn't magic. It was just hair. She could have thrown it away, just like that. Easily. But... but... ah, right, the maids could have found it. That was it. She had to get it out of the house quickly. Right. And then she could bury it somewhere when she was a long way away. Right.
But she hadn't, had she...
She'd been very busy. Right, said the little voice in inner treachery. She had been very busy fooling everyone but herself, right?
"What could Strappi do?" said Igorina. "Jackrum'd knock him over the moment he thaw him. He's a deserter, and a thief!"
"Yes, but he could tell someone," said Polly.
"Okay, then say it's a lock of hair from the sweetheart you left behind you. Lots of soldiers carry a locket or something like that. You know: 'Her golden hair in ringletth fair', like the song says."
"It was all my hair! A locket? You couldn't hold it all in your hat!"