The Shepherd's Crown (24 page)

‘What?’ said the Queen. ‘Goblins? But you humans hate goblins – and their stink! I thought the one we captured was lying!’

‘Well, maybe they do stink a bit, but so do their masters, because for some of them a stink
is money,’ said Tiffany, ‘and a goblin who can repair a locomotive can stink as much as he likes. What do you elves have to offer us? You are just . . . folklore now. You’ve missed the train, in fact, and you have only mischief left, and silly tricks.’

‘I could kill you with a thought,’ said Nightshade with a sly look.

‘Oh dear,’ said Tiffany, holding up a hand to halt the Feegles, each of whom
wanted to be the one to get the first fist in. ‘I hope you don’t do so. It would be your last.’ She looked at the elf, whose sharp little face was quivering with upset as she found herself surrounded by those she did not understand. ‘Oh, please don’t cry. An elf who has been a queen – an elf who wants to be a queen again – surely shouldn’t cry.’

‘A queen shouldn’t, but I am a remnant of a queen,
lost in the wilderness.’

‘No, you are in a hay barn. Do you understand the meaning of manual labour, lady?’

Nightshade looked puzzled. ‘No. What does it mean?’

‘It means earning a living by working. How are you with a shovel?’

‘I don’t know. What is a shovel?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Tiffany again. ‘Look, you can stay here until you are better, but you must work hard at something. You could try.’

A boot bounced off the ground beside her, one of her father’s, a hole at the toe, and another trying out of sympathy to join in at the heel. ‘I cannae abide boots on my feet, ye ken,’ said Wee Mad Arthur, ‘but if ye recall I wuz raised by shoemakers, and they tol’ me a tale o’ the elves. Yon scunner ye ha’ there might ha’ a talent for it, ye ken.’

Nightshade turned the boot gingerly over in her
hands. ‘What is this?’ she said.

‘A boot,’ said Tiffany.

‘An’ ye’ll get one reet noo up yer backside if I ha’ anythin’ tae dae wi’ it,’ Big Yan growled.

Tiffany took the boot from the elf and put it down. ‘We’ll talk later, Nightshade,’ she said. ‘Thank you for your suggestion, Wee Mad Arthur, and yes, I do know the story
^fn1
but I think it is just that, a story.’

‘Weel, I tol’ ye, Wee Mad
Arthur, you shouldnae have listened to that load o’ old cobblers,’ said Rob.

It was a day of old sheets and old boots and ‘make do and mend’. And oh dear, Tiffany thought, she had to check on baby Tiffany, and drop in on Becky Pardon and Nancy Upright – Miss Tick felt that both girls might be of use if she wanted to take on a trainee in the Chalk. But she couldn’t ask the girls to move in while
she had Nightshade at the farm, not unless she gave them each a horseshoe necklace so they would be protected by the iron. It would have to wait . . .

She was back and forth to the farm all day, in between visits. Her last call of the afternoon was to Mr Holland the miller. There were only a few purple blotches on his skin now, and she left Mistress Holland with a second pot of the Merryday Root
lotion, biting her tongue at the good lady’s clear message of ‘If only you had been here, I wouldn’t have used the wrong herb.’

When she got back, she found Nightshade perched in the corner of the barn, her merciless eyes pinned on You, who had stalked in and was arching her back and hissing at the elf. The Feegles were egging You on, with cries of ‘Ach, see you, pussycat, gi’ the scunner a wee
giftie for the Nac Mac Feegle’, interrupted by a sudden, ‘Crivens, lads, the big wee hag is back!’

Tiffany stood in the doorway tapping her foot, and Rob shrank back.

‘Ach no,’ he wailed. ‘Nae the Tappin’ of the Feets, mistress.’

Tiffany folded her arms.

‘Ach, mistress, ’tis a heavy thing to be under a geas,’ Rob moaned.

And Tiffany laughed.

But Nightshade had questions for her. She had
seen people coming to the farm during the day, coming for medicines, for advice, for an ear to listen and, sadly, sometimes for an eye to see the bruises.

‘Why do you help these strangers?’ she asked Tiffany now. ‘They are not of your clan. You owe them nothing.’

‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘although they are strangers, I simply think of them as people. All of them. And you help other people – that’s
how we do it.’

‘Does every person do it?’ said Nightshade.

‘No,’ said Tiffany. ‘Sadly, that is true. But many people will help other people, just because, well, because they
are
other people. That’s how it goes. Do you elves not understand this?’

‘Shall we say that I am trying to learn?’ said Nightshade.

‘And what do you find?’ said Tiffany, smiling.

‘You become a kind of servant.’ Nightshade
sniffed, her delicate nose wrinkling.

‘Well, yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘But it doesn’t matter, because one day I might need that person, and then they will very probably help me. It works for us; it always has.’

‘But you have battles,’ said Nightshade. ‘I know that.’

‘Yes, but not always. And we are getting better at the
not
.’

‘You are powerful, though.
You
could rule the world,’ said Nightshade.

‘Really?’ said Tiffany. ‘Why should I want to do that? I am a witch, I like being a witch, and I like people too. For every nasty person, there’s a nice one, mostly. There is a saying, “What goes around comes around,” and it means that sooner or later you will find yourself on top, at least for a while. And another time, the wheel turns and you will
not
be on top but you have to put up with it.’

She tried to look into Nightshade’s eyes, see what the elf was thinking, but she might as well have looked at a wall. The elf’s eyes were emotionless.

‘And I remember the darkness and the rain and the thunder and lightning,’ she added, ‘and what good has it done you? You, elf, found in a ditch?’

For once Nightshade seemed at a loss and looked carefully at Tiffany before saying, ‘Your way . .
 . would not work for elves. Every other elf is a challenge. We kill our queens – every other queen is a rival, and we fight over the hive.’ She paused as a new thought struck her. ‘Yet you have your queens of wisdom – and thus there was Granny Aching, and Granny Weatherwax, and yes indeed, Tiffany Aching. You grow older, wisdom flourishes and is passed on.’

‘And you never prosper, you live in
a cycle of decay,’ Tiffany said softly. ‘And you are not bees. They are productive but they die young and never, ever have a thought . . .’

There was a strange look on the elf’s face. She was having to think. Really think. Tiffany could see it. Nightshade had the face of someone who had already begun to think about a world that had changed, a world with iron that was less welcoming for the fairy
folk, a world that liked them well enough in
stories
but had no real
belief
in them, gave them no way in; now she was looking closer and she was finding a new world she had never thought about before, and she was trying to reconcile it with everything else she knew.

And Tiffany could see the battle in her face.

Over in Lancre, Queen Magrat had heard about the trouble up in the Ramtops – the
attack on the lumberjacks, the deaths and the lost timber.

Elves, she thought. They’d seen them off last time, but it hadn’t been easy, and it had been a long time since she’d posted guards – well, Shawn Ogg, anyway – up by the circle of stones known as the Dancers, or made sure the castle had plenty of horseshoes to hand.

She knew how the memory plays tricks, and the old stories had power,
and everyone forgot how ‘terrific’ really meant ‘brings terror’. Her people would only remember that the elves sang beautifully. They would have forgotten what their song was about.

Magrat was not only a queen, but also a witch, of course. And although she was mostly a queen these days, the witch part of her knew that the balance was off, that Granny Weatherwax had left a void behind her, and
no matter how hard Tiffany Aching was working to fill it – and that nice backhouse boy she now had – Granny Weatherwax was a hard act to follow; she had held the barrier, held it firm.

And if the barrier was no longer strong . . . Magrat shivered. Anyone who had ever met elvenkind knew that ‘terror’ was absolutely the right response – the
only
response. For the elves were a
plague
that could
spread rapidly, destroying and harming and hurting and poisoning all they touched. She wanted no elves in Lancre.

That evening, Queen Magrat went to her garderobe and took out her beloved broomstick, sat on it and very carefully tried a lift and, slightly against her expectations, it took off gently, rising slowly over the castle. She flew around happily for some minutes and told herself, It’s
true – once a witch, always a witch.

Being a dutiful wife, when she wanted to be, she mentioned her intentions to her husband late that evening, and to her surprise King Verence said, ‘Back on the old broomstick, my love? Very glad to hear it. I’ve seen your face when a witch flies by, and no man can keep a bird in chains.’

Magrat smiled and said, ‘I don’t feel like a bird in a cage, my dear,
but now we don’t have Granny, I feel I must help.’

‘Well done,’ said Verence. ‘We are all coming to terms with what’s happened, but I am sure Mistress Aching will follow in Granny’s footsteps.’

‘It isn’t like that,’ said Queen Magrat. ‘I think she is walking in her own footsteps.’ She sighed. ‘But there are elves afoot,’ she said. ‘And I believe Tiffany will be at Granny’s cottage – no,
her
cottage – later today, so I must go and see her, offer my support.’ Her husband shivered at the mention of elves. ‘Of course,’ Magrat continued firmly, ‘I also intend to be a good role model for our children. Young Esme is growing up fast and I want her to see that there’s more to being a queen than waving hellos – we don’t want her to start kissing frogs, now, do we? We all know how
that
can
turn out!’
^fn2
She turned at the door, and tossed her husband a baby sling. ‘I am
quite
sure,’ she said sweetly, ‘that you can look after our children very well indeed on your own for a little while.’

Verence smiled weakly.

Magrat made a face that only a witch would see. He holds them upside down sometimes, she thought to herself. He is a very clever man, but give him a baby and he doesn’t really
know what to do. She smiled. He could learn. And when she asked him to change a nappy, when Millie was off helping in the kitchen, he pulled a face but he did try anyway.

‘I want to help,’ Magrat said firmly to Tiffany, landing her broomstick outside what they both still thought of as Granny’s cottage, less than an hour after Tiffany had arrived herself, the news quickly flashing up to the castle
since Magrat had made it known she wanted to be informed. ‘I am the Queen, but I am also a pretty good witch.’

Tiffany looked into Magrat’s eyes and saw her longing to be a witch once more, just for a little while, and then Magrat said, ‘We have had elves here, Tiffany.
Elves!
’ And Tiffany remembered Granny Weatherwax telling her how Magrat had fought the elves before – shot one right through
the eye with a crossbow indeed!

‘I have
experience
, Tiffany,’ Magrat continued. ‘And you are going to need everyone you can get if the elves start coming through.’ She paused to think. ‘Even novices. Have you spoken to Miss Tick?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘She says she has found one or two likely girls, but not everyone can be a witch, even if they want to be. And at the moment it’s not . . . possible
to take a girl on in my steading on the Chalk.’

‘Why not? And what about your friend Petulia, her with the piggery?’

‘Well, she has the skills,’ said Tiffany, ignoring the first of Magrat’s questions. ‘But Petulia helps her husband to run the farm – says she spends all her time among creatures who go “grunt”, and that sometimes includes the old pig farmers! And you have to admit that pig-boring
is good for everybody, even the pigs. It’s terrible to hear the squealing if she’s not there.’

‘Well, we may still need her up here, pigs or not. And heavy waterproof boots can take an arrow,’ said Magrat. ‘So, any sign of elves down on the Chalk?’

Tiffany coloured, uncertain how Magrat would take her news about Nightshade, but thinking a little guiltily that at least it would save her having
to tell Nanny Ogg herself. She told her about the beer first, then about Nightshade. How the elf was staying at her parents’ farm, watched over by Feegles. Making it impossible to take on any other help.

Magrat knew the Feegles would keep the elf from causing any trouble, but she was surprised by what Tiffany told her. ‘Are you telling me you think you can
trust
an elf?’ she said. Her face had
paled. ‘No elf is trustworthy,’ she added. ‘They wouldn’t even know the
meaning
of the word. Yet you trust this elf? Why?’

‘No,’ said Tiffany. ‘I don’t trust her. But I think this elf wants to live. Nightshade has already seen for herself that our world is changing. The iron, you know. And now she has encountered ideas unknown to her. We might just be making some progress, and I think it’s worth
a try. Perhaps she might then go back to Fairyland and . . . persuade other elves to think like her? To leave us alone.’ She paused. ‘The kelda of the Feegles warned me, Magrat. She said that Granny’s going would leave a . . . hole. That we needed to take great care. It’s the elves! It has to be. So if this elf can help, well, I must try . . .’

‘Hmm, but if those others do start coming, you’re
going to need help, Tiffany,’ said Magrat. She thought for a moment. ‘I understand the Baron on the Chalk has a wife who is a witch . . .?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘Letitia Keepsake. But she’s not trained and her husband is a bit – how should I say it? – snobby.’

Magrat said, ‘Well, my dear, if you want, I’ll fly down there and drop in for tea one day. And hint, in a subtle way, that the idea of
being a witch for the people at large might be a good idea. My Verence, you know, likes to be thought of as a king of the people, and in fact, I feel sure he thinks I am being a good example to the population by working as a witch now. He talks like that, sometimes, but I love him nevertheless. The idea of this Letitia being friends with a queen might stop her husband interfering.’