Mrs Proust raised her eyebrows. ‘My dear, I treasure my ignorance of stoats and weasels. Sounds like countryside stuff to me. Can’t abide countryside. Too much green makes me feel bilious,’ she said, giving Tiffany’s dress a shuddering glance.
At which point, on some celestial cue, there was a distant cry of ‘Crivens!’ followed by the ever-popular sound, at least to a Feegle, of breaking glass.
17 A message from the author: not all cauldrons are metal. You can boil water in a leather cauldron, if you know what you are doing. You can even make tea in a paper bag if you are careful and know how to do it. But please don’t, or if you do, don’t tell anyone I told you.
18 Jeannie, a modern kelda, had encouraged literacy among her sons and brothers. With Rob Anybody’s example to follow, they had found the experience very worthwhile, because now they could read the labels on bottles before they drank them, although this didn’t make too much of a difference, because unless there was a skull and crossbones on it, a Feegle would probably drink it anyway, and even then it would have to be a very scary skull and crossbones.
19 Most people who cook with cauldrons use them as a kind of double boiler, with small saucepans filled with water around the edge, picking up the heat of the big cauldron into which perhaps you might put a leg of pork weighted down, and possibly a few dumplings in a bag. This way, quite a large meal for several people can be cooked quite cheaply all in one go, including the pudding. Of course, it meant you had to stomach a lot of boiled food – but eat it up, it’s good for you!
Chapter 7
SONGS IN THE NIGHT
WHEN TIFFANY AND Mrs Proust got to the source of the shouting, the street was already covered with a rather spectacular layer of broken glass, and worried-looking men with armour and the kind of helmet that you could eat your soup out of in an emergency. One of them was putting up barricades. Other watchmen were clearly unhappy about being on the wrong side of the barricades, especially since at that moment an extremely large watchman came flying out of one of the pubs that occupied almost all of one side of the street. The sign on it proclaimed it to be the King’s Head, but by the look of it, the King’s Head now had a headache.
The watchman took what remained of the glass with him, and when he landed on the pavement, his helmet, which could have held enough soup for a large family and all their friends, rolled off down the street making a gloing! gloing! noise.
Tiffany heard another watchman shout, ‘They got Sarge!’
As more watchmen came running from both ends of the street, Mrs Proust tapped Tiffany on the shoulder and said sweetly, ‘Tell me again about their good points, will you?’
I’m here to find a boy and tell him that his father is dead, said Tiffany to herself. Not to pull the Feegles out of yet another scrape!
‘Their hearts are in the right place,’ she said.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Mrs Proust, who looked as though she was enjoying herself no end, ‘but their arses are on a pile of broken glass. Oh, here come the reinforcements.’
‘I don’t think they will do much good,’ said Tiffany – and to her surprise turned out to be wrong.
The guards were fanning out now, leaving a clear path to the pub entrance; Tiffany had to look hard to see a small figure walking purposely along it. It looked like a Feegle, but it was wearing … She stopped and stared … Yes, it was wearing a watchman’s helmet slightly bigger than the top of a salt cellar, which was unthinkable. A legal Feegle? How could there be such a thing?
Nevertheless, it reached the doorway of the pub and shouted, ‘You scunners are all under arrest! Now this is how it’s going to go, ye ken: ye can hae it the hard way, or …’ He paused for a moment. ‘No, that’s about it, aye,’ he finished. ‘I don’t know any other way!’ And with that he sprang through the doorway.
Feegles fought all the time. For them, fighting was a hobby, exercise and entertainment all combined.
Tiffany had read in Professor Chaffinch’s famous book on mythology that many ancient peoples thought that when heroes died they went to some kind of feasting hall, where they would spend all eternity fighting, eating and boozing.
Tiffany thought that this would be rather boring by about day three, but the Feegles would love it, and probably even the legendary heroes would throw them out before eternity was half done, having first shaken them down to get all the cutlery back. The Nac Mac Feegle were indeed ferocious and fearsome fighters, with the minor drawback – from their point of view – that seconds into any fight, sheer enjoyment took over, and they tended to attack one another, nearby trees and, if no other target presented itself, themselves.
The watchmen, after reviving their sergeant and finding his helmet for him, sat down to wait for the noise to die away, and it seemed that it was after only a minute or two that the tiny watchman came back out of the stricken building, dragging by one leg Big Yan, a giant among Feegles and now, it appeared, fast asleep. He was dropped, the policeman went back in again and came out with an unconscious Rob Anybody over one shoulder, and Daft Wullie over the other.
Tiffany stared, with her mouth open. This could not be happening. The Feegles always won! Nothing beats a Feegle! They were unstoppable! But there they were: stopped, and stopped by a creature so small that he looked like one half of a salt and pepper set.
When he had run out of Feegles, the little man ran back into the building and came out very quickly, carrying a turkey-necked woman who was trying to hit him with her umbrella, a fruitless endeavour since he was balancing her carefully over his head. She was followed by a trembling young maidservant, clutching a voluminous carpet bag. The little man put the woman down neatly alongside the pile of Feegles, and while she screamed at the watchmen to arrest him, went back inside and came out again, balancing three heavy suitcases and two hat boxes.
Tiffany recognized the woman, but not with any pleasure. She was the Duchess, the mother of Letitia, and fairly fearsome. Did Roland really understand what he was letting himself in for? Letitia herself was all right, if you liked that kind of thing, but her mother apparently had so much blue blood in
her veins that she ought to explode, and right now looked as if that was going to happen. And how appropriate that the Feegles should have trashed the very building that the nasty old baggage was staying in. How lucky could one witch get? And what would the Duchess think about Roland and his watercolour-painting wife-to-be being left in the building unchaperoned?
This question was answered by the sight of the little man dragging both of them out of the building by some very expensive clothing. Roland was wearing a dinner jacket slightly too big for him, while Letitia’s apparel was simply a mass of flimsy frills upon frills, in Tiffany’s mind not the clothing of anyone who was any use whatsoever. Hah.
Still more watchmen were turning up, presumably because they had dealt with Feegles before and had had the sense to walk, not run, to the scene of the crime. But there was a tall one – more than six feet in height – with red hair and wearing armour so polished that it blinded, who was taking a witness statement from the owner; it sounded like a long-drawn-out scream to the effect that the watchmen should make this terrible nightmare not have happened.
Tiffany turned away and found herself staring directly into the face of Roland.
‘You? Here?’ he managed. In the background, Letitia was bursting into tears. Hah, just like her!
‘Look, I have to tell you something very—’