The Shepherd's Crown (31 page)

‘So cry “Crivens” and let loose the clan Mac Feegle!’ Tiffany commanded as a small group of Feegles scrambled out from under the bed, from where they had been watching over her. One of them appeared to have been hiding in her boots . . . he was
now punching at the laces with a cry of ‘Tak’ tha’, yer nasty wrigglin’ little bogles!’

Boots, Tiffany thought. I wish I had brought Granny Weatherwax’s boots to wear for this fight. They would have given me strength. And then she stopped this thought. No. This is
my
land.
My
turf.
My
feet.
My
boots.
My way . . .

But she still scolded herself as she struggled into her dress and thought that
she should have slept with her day clothes on: What kind of leader are you?

As she stumbled to pull on her boots she felt a weight in the deep pocket of her fine black dress . . . and she pulled out the shepherd’s crown, which she thought she had put on the shelf. Had she put it there herself earlier that night? Ready for this moment?

And to the moon she said, ‘What is the shepherd’s crown?
Whom does the shepherd’s crown serve?’

And the answer dropped into her head. ‘Tiffany Aching, Land under Wave.’

She twisted a thong of leather rapidly around the flint and hung it around her neck. She would go into battle with its power at her heart, she thought. The power of generations of Achings. Of Granny Aching. Of the shepherds of all time.

Then she ran down the darkened stairs and out
of the door, locking it behind her, and was not surprised to see You the cat perched on the front of her broomstick, purring and looking smug, while Nightshade was stumbling from the barn, Wee Mad Arthur at her side.

Then she was flying through the silvery night, the elf Nightshade clutching at her waist, Feegles hanging on to the bristles, and the owls following behind her, a squadron of feathered
allies . . .

Over in Lancre, Nanny Ogg was sleeping and her snores could have cut timber. Suddenly there was a mild explosion which might be called a
grumph!
and the cat, Greebo, woke up and sniffed the air.

Nanny
had
been sleeping in her day clothes. After all, she thought, who knew for sure when the elves would come.

She shouted, ‘Greebo, ring the castle bell.’

The cat was suddenly not there,
but there was a blur of cat travelling at speed up to the castle, Greebo’s unmistakable smell lingering in the air behind him, and when the guard saw him coming towards him he ran after him into the bell tower.

And as the great castle bell tolled, light blossomed throughout the castle as candles were lit in every window, followed very shortly by the rest of Lancre Town. The bell! What danger
was this?

In the royal bedchamber, Queen Magrat nudged her husband, who was still rubbing his eyes, and said, ‘Verence, help me buckle my escutcheon, will you, my dear?’

The King sighed. ‘Look, why can’t I go with you? It’s going to be dangerous.’

Magrat smiled. The smile that you gave loving but occasionally annoying husbands. This was old ground. ‘Well, someone has to be left at home,’ she
said. ‘It’s like chess, you know. The Queen saves the King.’

‘Yes, dear,’ said the King and opened the cupboard that contained the armour of Queen Ynci. Ynci had been the most fearsome warrior queen Lancre had ever seen. Well, so the stories said, as she hadn’t
actually
existed. But the people of Lancre hadn’t let a tiny thing like that stop them adding her to their history, and so a set of armour
had been made to go along with a portrait. Magrat had worn the armour the last time she faced the elves, and it seemed only right to wear it again.

As the door opened, Magrat thought she heard a subtle little sound of a call to arms. Queen Ynci’s armour had a life of its own and it always shone, even in the dark. Verence helped her buckle on the mail armour – which she secretly thought of as
fe
-mail – then she slipped her feet into the heavy-soled spiked sandals, and topped it all off with the winged helmet. The last piece to go on was the leather baldric.

Verence wanted to embrace her, but he thought, I won’t. There were too many spikes, in any case. But he loved his wife to distraction, so he tried again to volunteer himself to be somewhere in the coming fray.

‘Magrat, my love,’
he murmured, ‘it seems so shaming if the King can’t fight.’

‘You are a very good king, Verence,’ his wife said firmly, ‘but this is witches’ work. And someone has to look after the people and our children.’ The Queen – Magrat, as was – staggered under the weight of the armour, and under her breath she whispered a little magic. ‘Queen Ynci, Queen of Queens, make your armour light.’ And suddenly
she felt strong, stronger than she had ever been before.

She picked up a crossbow in one hand, her broomstick in the other, and almost flew down the stairs to the Great Hall where the other witches, who were for the most part en déshabille, stared at her with wild surmise. Wild surmises take on many shapes and every witch, some still in their underwear, stared at the Queen and the surmise each
gave her hung there in the rafters.

In the voice of Queen Ynci, Magrat shouted, ‘Up, girls, and at ’em. It’s started, ladies, so get your heavy-duty knickers on and your sticks ready!’ She glared at the only witch to be fully dressed, spick and span in three minutes, to the surprise of all. ‘That means you too, Mrs Earwig.’

There was a little commotion at the back of the hall, then a sudden
crash
and a group of witches ground to a halt.

‘What’s happening?’ Magrat cried, still in the voice of Queen Ynci.

‘It’s only Long Tall Short Fat Sally: she’s got two feet down one knicker!’ said Mrs Proust. Surrounded by witches, Long Tall Short Fat Sally – small and squat right then, like a low-lying thunderstorm – was swiftly put back on her feet.

Mrs Earwig looked rather smug and said, ‘I’ve
been looking at my charts. The omens are good.’

‘Well, omens are ten a penny,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘I’ve got lots of them. After all, we are all witches.’

And the ghost of Queen Ynci filled Magrat, who said, ‘Let us fly.’

In Mr Sideways’s old barn, Mephistopheles laid a hoof gently on Geoffrey’s sleeping form. Geoffrey jumped out of the straw and discovered that the old boys who had readied themselves
for the coming battle by bivouacking in the barn with him were already up and about, creaking a bit, and making their toilet in a bucket.

Geoffrey looked at the old men. They had spent most of the evening carousing and telling stories of the days when they were all young and handsome and healthy and didn’t have to pass water far too often.

They had managed to make their wives give them a ticket
of leave, and said wives had been given to believe that their husbands were just in the barn for a few drinks and reminiscences. The wives, as wives do, had festooned their menfolk with big scarves, mittens on strings and woolly hats with, alas, pompoms on the top.

Captain Makepeace – the old boys’ acknowledged military leader – said, ‘It’s time to go and get out Laughing Boy’s confounded contraption.’

Geoffrey looked at the captain’s warriors and sighed internally. Could they do it? They were old men. And then he thought, Yes, they are old men. They have been old men for a long time, which means they have learned many things. Like lying, and being crafty and, most importantly, dissembling.

‘We shall fight them on the mountains. We shall fight them on the rocks. We shall fight them over the
hills and down in the valleys.
^fn1
We shall never surrender!’ Captain Makepeace roared, and there was an answering cheer.

‘They will not like it up and over ’em!’ Smack Tremble called out, waving what looked like a rusty bayonet in the air and, worryingly, living up to his name. ‘They will not like it, oh no they won’t!’

Mephistopheles grunted as Geoffrey hitched him to his little cart, which
the old boys had filled with mysterious bags before drinking the night away, and the two of them followed the old men out of the barn.

Captain Makepeace didn’t need to tell his men to be stealthy. They already were. It was running fast that would be a problem. And stealthily they made their way into the wood and further on to where they had hidden Mr Sideways’s contraption, camouflaging it with
branches.

Geoffrey watched them pull Mr Sideways’s project out into the clearing. It stood there looking ominous. Surrounded by the bushes. Waiting its moment. Like a huge insect.

One with a nasty sting . . .

Up by the circle of stones called the Dancers, Lord Lankin was exulting. His elves were dancing around the stones, flitting in and out and metaphorically tweaking the noses of the Piper,
the Drummer, the Leaper – the best-known stones. The power of the gate was weak, and the glamour of the elves was . . .
fearsome
.

‘They are not even here, waiting for us!’ Lord Lankin gloated. ‘Stupid humans. If we go down through those woods, we could be out into the centre of Lancre in one great charge. And the moon is full and on our side.’

And in the silver moonlight, the elves, some on
horseback, bells jingling and harness tinkling, made their way down the hill towards the woods.

But as they neared the edge of the trees, Lankin saw a young human boy step out onto the path with an animal by his side. It was a goat.

‘Who are you, boy?’ he demanded. ‘Move aside. I am a prince of the elves and you are in my way. Move lest I show you my displeasure.’

‘Well,’ said Geoffrey, ‘I
don’t see why I should. My advice to you is to turn round, sir, and go the other way or else it will be all the worse for you.’

Lord Lankin laughed out loud. ‘We will take you away, boy, and the things we will use on you when we get you back home will be incredibly nasty. Your torment, for naysaying a prince of the elves.’

‘But why, sir? I mean no harm to you. I have no weapons. Can we be calm
about this? It would appear that I have made you unhappy, and for this I am sorry.’ Geoffrey paused – he was trying to weave a peace between them, but it was like trying to get a rock to agree with a hard place. ‘Surely both of us are civilized people,’ he finished.

Lord Lankin screeched, ‘Now, young man, you have trodden on the tail of the snake.’

Geoffrey calmly said, ‘I believe this is not
the case. I know you, mister. I know what kind of thing you are. You are a bully. I know about bullies, oh yes I do! I have known them all my life. And believe me, you aren’t the worst.’

‘You are nothing, boy. We’ll kill you anyway. And why a goat, may I ask? They are stupid creatures.’

Geoffrey found his calmness floating away. He was worthless. A maggot. A ne’er-do-well. He felt powerless,
a baby again . . . And as the elf spoke, in Geoffrey’s mind an echo came.
Even if I let you live, you will amount to nothing
. This time it was the voice of his father, and he stood there, frozen.

The elf prince said silkily, ‘Are you crying, you little baby?’

‘No,’ said Geoffrey, ‘but you might be.’ For now his eyes had caught the flash of red fox fur swinging on its leather thong across the
lord’s chest, and he felt a rage beginning to build. ‘We are not here for your . . .
sport
,’ he stated, throwing the glamour from his mind with a huge effort of will.

He clicked his teeth and Mephistopheles was on the elf.

It was a ballet with speed. The Mince of Darkness pirouetted to dangerous effect. He used his teeth first, then kicked hard with his legs, and ended by using his horns. Lord
Lankin was spinning, kicked and tossed into the air from all directions, and the other elves drew back to keep out of the range of the maelstrom.

And Geoffrey said to the battered prince, ‘You are just a trickster. And I have found your trick.’ He shouted, ‘He’s down, gentlemen. Time to put him
out
.’

The branches parted and there was a
twang
as Mr Sideways yelled, ‘Keep your hats on, boys, cover
your eyes,’ and the contraption sang, swinging up into the air, filling it with a twinkle of swarf and terrible death that came from nowhere to shower over the elves.

Smack Tremble cheered. ‘They don’t like it up and over ’em! Oh no, they don’t!’

‘Swarf,’ said Nanny Ogg approvingly, from one side of the woods, where she and some of the other witches were waiting – prepared for what Captain Makepeace
had called a
pincer
movement, with Mrs Earwig and more witches on the other side. ‘Pieces of iron,’ Nanny told the witches with her. ‘Very small. Very clever. Throw it down on elves, and they’re in a world of hurt. Tiny bits of iron ev’rywhere. And, I stress, ev’rywhere.’

The Lancre Stick and Bucket machine sang again. And again. And each
twang
was followed by the war cries of ancient battles,
rivalling those of the Feegles. On this day of days, the old boys were younger than they thought.

And the elves were, indeed, down and out, screaming from the pain of the terrible metal that stripped their glamour away from them, leaving them writhing. Many dragged themselves away back up the hill towards the Dancers, while any who had escaped the rain of swarf now found themselves sandwiched
by the witches.

From one side, Magrat piled in to make life unlivable for those remaining, her armour shielding her from their glamour while her crossbow shot deadly arrows at them, and fire flew from her fingertips, forcing those who had ridden into battle on yarrow stalks to fall from the sky as flame destroyed the stems.

From the other side, the elves were assaulted by Mrs Earwig. And they
really didn’t know how to deal with her. She was shouting at them like some horrible headmistress – and they couldn’t get through to her; she was impervious to their glamour. She also had an umbrella which she had opened, and it was amazing how much of a problem it was for the elves, its metal spokes poking at them, hitting tender spots.

‘This lady is
not
for turning,’ Mrs Earwig boomed. She
rose among them like a whirlwind, and as they were floored, Long Tall Short Fat Sally became very fat and heavy and sat on them, bouncing up and down. While Mrs Proust hurled her novelties – novelties that now worked as advertised – over the elves, trapping them in curls of spells that seized their glamour and took it for their own.