The wee man's tiny eyes lit up. 'Las' Tuesda?'
'Right. Agnes, open that sewing box and pass me a thimble, will you? Come away here, man,' said Nanny, uncorking the bottle well away from the fire and filling up the thimble. 'Ladies, this here's... let's see them tattoos... yeah, this here's one of the Nac mac Feegle. The little bastards comes down and raids my still about once a year. I reckon I recognize the pattern.'
'Pings, yow graley yinl Suz ae rikt dheu,' said the blue man, taking the thimble.
'What is he?' said Magrat.
'They're gnomes,' said Nanny.
The man lowered the thimble. 'Pictsies!'
'Pixies, if you insist,' said Nanny. 'They live up on the high moors over towards Uberwald-'
'Ach! Bae, yon snae rikt speel, y'ol behennit! Feggersl Yon ken sweal boggin bludsuckers owl dhu tae-'
Nanny nodded while she listened. Halfway through the little man's rant she topped up his thimble.
'Ah, right,' she said, when he seemed to have finished. 'Well, he says the Nac mac Feegle have been forced out by the vampires, see? They've been driving out all the...' her lips
moved as she tried out various translations '... old people...'
'That's very cruel!' said Magrat.
'No... I mean... old races. The people that live in... the corners. You know, the ones you don't see around a lot... centaurs, bogeys, gnomes-'
'Pictsies!'
'Yeah, right... driving 'em out of the country.'
'Why should they do that?'
'Probably not fashionable any more,' said Nanny.
Agnes looked hard at the pixie. On a scale of ethereal from one to ten he looked as if he was on some other scale, probably one buried in deep ocean sludge. The blueness of his skin, she could see now, was made up of tattoos and paint. His red hair stuck out at all angles. His sole concession to the temperature was a leather loincloth. He saw her looking at him.
'Yist, awa' fra' yeeks, ye stawking gowt that'ya! Bigjobs!'
'Er, sorry,' said Agnes.
'Good language, ain't it?' said Nanny. 'A hint o' heather and midden. But when you've got the Nac mac Feegle on your side you're doing okay.'
The pixie waved the empty thimble at Nanny.
'Ghail o' bludy "lemonade", callyake I'
'Ah, no foolin' you, you want the real stuff,' said Nanny. She pulled back a chair cushion, and produced a black glass bottle with its cork held on by wire.
'You're not giving him that, are you?' said Magrat. 'That's your medicinal whisky!'
'And you always tell people it's strictly for extemal use only,' said Agnes.
'Ah, the Nac mac Feegle are a hard-headed race,' said Nanny, handing it down to the tiny man. To Agnes's amazement, he grasped a bottle bigger than himself with insolent ease. 'There you go, man. Share it with your mates, 'cos I know they're around here somewhere.'
There was a clink from the dresser. The witches looked up. Hundreds of pixies had simply appeared among the ornaments. Most of them wore pointed hats that curved so that the point was practically pointing down, and they all carried swords.
'Amazin' how they can just fade into the foreground like that,' said Nanny. 'That's what's kept 'em so safe all these years. That and killin' most people who saw 'em, of course.'
Greebo, very quietly, went and sat under her chair.