The Wee Free Men (11 page)

She’d thrown the ring any old how, and it had been the one in a million. The stall holder hadn’t been very happy about it landing over the shepherdess rather than the gimcrack rubbish in the rest of the stall. He
handed it over when her father spoke sharply to him, though, and she’d hugged it all the way home on the cart, while the stars came out.

Next morning she’d proudly presented it to Granny Aching. The old woman had taken it very carefully in her wrinkled hands and stared at it for some time.

Tiffany was sure, now, that it had been a cruel thing to do.

Granny Aching had probably never heard of shepherdesses. People who cared for sheep on the Chalk were all called shepherds, and that was all there was to it. And this beautiful creature was as much unlike Granny Aching as anything could be.

The china shepherdess had an old-fashioned long dress, with the bulgy bits at the side that made it look as though she had saddlebags in her knickers. There were blue ribbons all over the dress, and all over the rather showy straw bonnet, and on the shepherd’s crook, which was a lot more curly than any crook Tiffany had ever seen.

There were even blue bows on the dainty foot poking out from the frilly hem of her dress.

This wasn’t a shepherdess who’d ever worn big old boots stuffed with wool and tramped the hills in the howling wind with the sleet being driven along like nails. She’d never tried in that dress to pull out a ram who’d got his horns tangled in a thorn patch. This wasn’t a shepherdess who’d kept up with the champion shearer for seven hours, sheep for sheep, until the air was hazy with grease and wool and blue with cussing, and the champion gave up because he couldn’t cuss sheep as well as Granny Aching. No self-respecting sheepdog would ever “come by” or “walk up” for a simpering girl with saddlebags in her pants. It was a lovely thing but it was a joke of a shepherdess, made by someone who’d probably never seen a sheep up close.

What had Granny Aching thought about it? Tiffany couldn’t guess. She’d seemed happy, because it’s the job of grandmothers to be happy when grandchildren give them things. She’d put it up on her shelf and then taken
Tiffany on her knee and called her “my little jiggit” in a nervous sort of way, which she did when she was trying to be grandmotherly.

Sometimes, in the rare times Granny was down at the farm, Tiffany would see her take down the statue and stare at it. But if she saw Tiffany watching, she’d put it back quickly and pretend she’d meant to pick up the sheep book.

Perhaps, Tiffany thought wretchedly, the old lady had seen it as a sort of insult. Perhaps she thought she was being told that this was what a shepherdess should look like. She shouldn’t be an old lady in a muddy dress and big boots, with an old sack around her shoulders to keep the rain off. A shepherdess should sparkle like a starry night. Tiffany hadn’t meant to, she’d never meant to, but perhaps she had been telling Granny that she wasn’t…
right.

And then a few months after that Granny had died, and in the years since then everything had gone wrong. Wentworth had been born, and then the Baron’s son had vanished, and then there had been that bad winter when Mrs. Snapperly died in the snow.

Tiffany kept worrying about the statue. She couldn’t talk about it. Everyone else was busy, or not interested. Everyone was edgy. They’d have said that worrying about a silly statue was…silly.

Several times she nearly smashed the shepherdess, but she didn’t because people would notice.

She wouldn’t have given something as wrong as that to Granny Aching now, of course. She’d grown up.

She remembered that the old lady would smile oddly, sometimes, when she looked at the statue. If only she’d said something. But Granny liked silence.

And now it turned out that she made friends with a lot of little blue men, who walked the hills looking after the sheep, because
they liked her, too. Tiffany blinked.

It made a kind of sense. In memory of Granny Aching, the men left the tobacco. And in memory of Granny Aching, the Nac Mac Feegle minded the sheep. It all worked, even if it wasn’t magic. But it took Granny away.

“Daft Wullie?” she said, staring hard at the struggling pictsie and trying not to cry.

“Mmph?”

“Is it true what Rob Anybody told me?”

“Mmph!” Daft Wullie’s eyebrows went up and down furiously.

“Mr. Feegle, you can please take your hand away from his mouth,” said Tiffany. Daft Wullie was released. Rob Anybody had looked worried, but Daft Wullie was terrified. He dragged his hat off and stood holding it in his hands, as if it was some kind of shield.

“Is all that true, Daft Wullie?” said Tiffany.

“Oh waily waily—”

“Just a simple yes or—a simple aye or nay, please.”

“Aye! It is!” blurted out Daft Wullie. “Oh waily waily—”

“Yes, thank you,” said Tiffany, sniffing and trying to blink the tears away. “All right. I understand.”

The Feegles eyed her cautiously.

“Ye’re nae gonna get nasty aboot it?” said Rob Anybody.

“No. It all…works.”

She heard it echo around the cavern, the sound of hundreds of little men sighing with relief.

“She didna turn me intae a pismire!” said Daft Wullie, grinning happily at the rest of the pictsies. “Hey, lads, I talked wi’ the hag and she didna e’en look at me crosswise! She
smiled
at me!” He beamed at Tiffany and went on: “An’ d’ye ken, mistress, that if’n
you hold the baccy label upside-doon, then part o’ the sailor’s bonnet and his ear became a lady wi’ nae mmph mmph…”

“Ach, there I goes again, accidentally nearly throttlin’ ye,” said Rob Anybody, his hand clamping over Wullie’s mouth.

Tiffany opened her mouth, but stopped when her ears tickled strangely.

In the roof of the cave, several bats woke up and hastily flew out of the smoke hole.

Some of the Feegles were busy on the far side of the chamber. What Tiffany had thought was a strange round stone was being rolled aside, revealing a large hole.

Now her ears squelched and felt as though all the wax was running out. The Feegles were forming up in two rows, leading to the hole.

Tiffany prodded the toad. “Do I want to know what a pismire is?” she whispered.

“It’s an ant,” said the toad.

“Oh? I’m…slightly surprised. And this sort of high-pitched noise?”

“I’m a toad. We’re not good at ears. But it’s probably him over there.”

There was a Feegle walking out of the hole from which came, now that Tiffany’s eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, a faint golden light.

The newcomer’s hair was white instead of red, and while he was tall for a pictsie, he was as skinny as a twig. He was holding some sort of fat skin bag, bristling with pipes.

“Now there’s a sight I don’t reckon many humans have seen and lived,” said the toad. “He’s playing the mousepipes!”

“They make my ears tingle!” Tiffany tried to ignore the two
little ears still on the bag of pipes.

“High-pitched, see?” said the toad. “Of course, the pictsies hear sounds differently than humans do. He’s probably their battle poet, too.”

“You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles?”

“No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy. Remember how important words are to the Nac Mac Feegle? Well, when a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy’s ears explode. Ah, it looks as though they’re ready for you.”

In fact Rob Anybody was tapping politely on Tiffany’s toecap. “The kelda will see you now, mistress,” he said.

The piper had stopped playing and was standing respectfully beside the hole. Tiffany felt hundreds of bright little eyes watching her.

“Special Sheep Liniment,” whispered the toad.

“Pardon?”

“Take it in with us,” the toad said insistently. “It’d be a good gift!”

The pictsies watched her carefully as she lay down again and crawled through the hole behind the stone, the toad hanging on tightly. As she got closer, she realized that what she’d thought was a stone was an old round shield, green-blue and corroded with age. The hole it had covered was indeed wide enough for her to go through, but she had to leave her legs outside because it was impossible to get all of her into the room beyond. One reason was the bed, small though it was, which held the kelda. The other reason was that what the room was mostly full of, piled up around the walls and spilling across the floor, was gold.

G
lint, glisten, glitter, gleam…

Tiffany thought a lot about words, in the long hours of churning butter. “Onomatopoeic,” she’d discovered in the dictionary, meant words that sounded like the noise of the thing they were describing, like
cuckoo
. But
she
thought there should be a word meaning a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn’t, but would if it did.

Glint
, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it’d go
glint!
And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like
glitterglitter
.
Gleam
was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And
glisten
was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily.

The little cave contained all of these at once. There was only one candle, which smelled of sheep fat, but gold plates and cups gleamed, glistened, glinted, and glittered the light back and forth until the one little flame filled the air with a light that even
smelled
expensive.

The gold surrounded the bed of the kelda, who was sitting up
against a pile of pillows. She was much, much fatter than the male pictsies; she looked as if she’d been made of round balls of slightly squashy dough, and was the color of chestnuts.

Her eyes were closed as Tiffany slid in, but they flicked open the moment she’d stopped pulling herself forward. They were the sharpest eyes she’d ever seen, much sharper even than Miss Tick’s.

“Soo…you’ll be Sarah Aching’s wee girl?” said the kelda.

“Yes. I mean, aye,” said Tiffany. It wasn’t very comfortable lying on her stomach. “And you’re the kelda?”

“Aye. I mean, yes,” said the kelda, and the round face became a mass of lines as the kelda smiled. “What was your name, now?”

“Tiffany, er, kelda.” Fion had turned up from some other part of the cave and was sitting down on a stool by the bed, watching Tiffany intently with a disapproving expression.

“A good name. In our tongue you’d be Tir-far-thóinn, Land Under Wave,” said the kelda. It sounded like “Tiffan.”

“I don’t think anyone
meant
to name—”

“Ach, what people mean to do and what is done are two different things,” said the kelda. Her little eyes shone. “Your wee brother is…safe, child. Ye could say he’s safer where he is noo than he has ever been. No mortal ills can touch him. The Quin wouldna harm a hair o’ his heid. And there’s the evil o’ it. Help me up here, girl.”

Fion leaped up immediately and helped the kelda struggle up higher among her cushions.

“Where wuz I?” the kelda continued. “Ah, the wee laddie. Aye, ye could say he bides well where he is, in the Quin’s own country. But I daresay there’s a mother grievin’?”

“And our father, too,” said Tiffany.

“An’ his wee sister?” said the kelda.

Tiffany felt the words
yes, of course
trot automatically onto her tongue. She also knew that it would be very stupid to let them go any further. The little old woman’s dark eyes were seeing right into her head.

“Aye, you’re a born hag, right enough,” said the kelda, holding her gaze. “Ye got that little bitty bit inside o’ you that holds on, right? The bitty bit that watches the rest o’ ye. ’Tis the First Sight and Second Thoughts ye have, and ’tis a wee gift an’ a big curse to ye. You see and hear what others canna, the world opens up its secrets to ye, but ye’re always like the person at the party with the wee drink in the corner who canna join in. There’s a little bitty bit inside ye that willna melt and flow. Ye’re Sarah Aching’s line, right enough. The lads fetched the right one.”

Tiffany didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. The kelda watched her, eyes twinkling, until Tiffany felt awkward.

“Why would the Queen take my brother?” she asked eventually. “And why is she after me?”

“Ye think she is?”

“Well, yes, actually! I mean, Jenny might have been a coincidence, but the horseman? And the grimhounds? And taking Wentworth?”

“She’s bending her mind to ye,” said the kelda. “When she does, something of her world passes into this one. Mebbe she just wants to test you.”

“
Test
me?”

“To see how good you are. Ye’re the hag noo, the witch who guards the edges and the gateways. So wuz yer granny, although she wouldna ever call hersel’ one. And so wuz I until noo, and I’ll pass the duty to ye. She’ll ha’ to get past ye, if she wants this land.
Ye have the First Sight and the Second Thoughts, just like yer granny. That’s rare in a bigjob.”

“Don’t you mean second sight?” Tiffany asked. “Like people who can see ghosts and stuff?”

“Ach, no. That’s typical bigjob thinking.
First Sight
is when you can see what’s really there, not what your heid tells you
ought
to be there. Ye saw Jenny, ye saw the horseman, ye saw them as real thingies. Second sight is dull sight, it’s seeing only what you expect to see. Most bigjobs ha’ that. Listen to me, because I’m fadin’ noo and there’s a lot you dinna ken. Ye think this is the whole world? That is a good thought for sheep and mortals who dinna open their eyes. Because in truth there are more worlds than stars in the sky. Understand? They are everywhere, big and small, close as your skin. They are
everywhere
. Some ye can see an’ some ye canna, but there are doors, Tiffan. They might be a hill or a tree or a stone or a turn in the road, or they might e’en be a thought in yer heid, but they are there, all aroound ye. You’ll have to learn to see ’em, because you walk among them and dinna know it. And some of them…is poisonous.”

The kelda stared at Tiffany for a moment and then continued: “Ye asked why the Quin should take your boy. The Quin likes children. She has none o’ her own. She dotes on them. She’ll give the wee boy everything he wants, too.
Only
what he wants.”

“He only wants sweets!” said Tiffany.

“Is that so? An’ did ye gi’ them to him?” asked the kelda, as if she was looking into Tiffany’s mind. “But what he
needs
is love an’ care an’ teachin’ an’ people sayin’ no to him sometimes an’ things o’ that nature. He needs to be growed up strong. He willna get that fra’ the Quin. He willna grow up. He’ll get sweeties. Forever.”

Tiffany wished the kelda would stop looking at her like that.
“But I see he has a sister willin’ to take any pains to bring him back,” said the little old woman, taking her eyes away from Tiffany. “What a lucky wee boy he is, to be so fortunate. Ye ken how to be strong, do ye?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good. D’ye ken how to be weak? Can ye bow to the gale, can ye bend to the storm?” The kelda smiled again. “Nay, ye needna answer that. The wee burdie always has tae leap from the nest to see if it can fly. Anyway, ye have the feel o’ Sarah Aching about ye, and no word e’en o’ mine could turn her once she had set her mind to something. Ye’re no’a woman yet, and that’s no’ bad thing, because where ye’ll be goin’ is easy for children, hard for adults.”

“The world of the Queen?” ventured Tiffany, trying to keep up.

“Aye. I can feel it noo, lyin’ over this one like a fog, as far awa’ as the other side o’ a mirror. I’m weakenin’, Tiffan. I canna defend this place. So here is my bargain, child. I’ll point ye toward the Quin an’, in return, ye’ll tak’ over as kelda.”

That surprised Fion as much as Tiffany. Her head shot up sharply and her mouth opened, but the kelda had raised a wrinkled hand.

“When
ye
are a kelda somewhere, my girl, ye’ll expect people to do your biddin’. So dinna give me the argument. That’s my offer, Tiffan. Ye won’t get a better.”

“But she
canna—
” Fion began.

“Can she not?” said the kelda.

“She’s nae a
pictsie
, mother!”

“She’s a bit on the large side, aye,” said the kelda. “Dinna fret, Tiffan. It willna be for long. I just need ye to mind things for a wee while. Mind the land like yer granny did, and mind my boys. Then when yer wee boy is back home, Hamish’ll fly up to the
mountains and let it be known that the Chalk Hill clan has want o’ a kelda. We’ve got a good place here, and the girls’ll come flockin’. What d’ye say?”

“She disna know our ways!” Fion protested. “Ye’re overtired, mother!”

“Aye, I am,” said the kelda. “But a daughter canna run her mother’s clan, ye know that. Ye’re a dutiful girl, Fion, but it’s time ye were picking’ your bodyguard and going awa’ seeking a clan of your own. Ye canna stay here.” The kelda looked up at Tiffany again. “Will ye, Tiffan?” She held up a thumb the size of a match head and waited.

“What will I have to do?” said Tiffany.

“The thinkin’,” said the kelda, still holding up her thumb. “My lads are good lads, there’s none braver. But they think their heids is most useful as weapons. That’s lads for ye. We pictsies aren’t like you big folk, ye ken. Ye have many sisters? Fion here has none. She’s my only daughter. A kelda might be blessed wi’ only one daughter in her whole life, but she’ll have hundreds and hundreds o’ sons.”

“They are
all
your sons?” said Tiffany, aghast.

“Oh aye,” said the kelda, smiling. “Oh, dinna look so astonished. The bairns are really wee when they’re borned, like little peas in a pod. And they grow up fast.” She sighed. “But sometimes I think all the brains is saved for the daughters. They’re good boys, but they’re no’ great thinkers. You’ll have to help them help ye.”

“Mother, she canna carry oot the
duties
o’ a kelda!” Fion protested.

“I don’t see why not, if they’re explained to me,” said Tiffany.

“Oh, do you not?” said Fion sharply. “Weel, that’s gonna be most
interesting
!”

“I recall Sarah Aching talkin’ aboot ye,” said the kelda. “She said ye were a strange wee one, always watchin’ and listenin’. She said ye had a heid full o’words that ye ne’er spoke aloud. She wondered what’d become o’ ye. Time for ye to find oot, aye?”

Aware of Fion glaring at her, and maybe
because
of Fion glaring at her, Tiffany licked her thumb and touched it gently against the kelda’s tiny thumb.

“It is done, then,” said the kelda. She lay back suddenly, and just as suddenly seemed to shrink. There were more lines in her face now. “Never let it be said I left my sons wi’oot a kelda to mind them,” she muttered. “Now I can go back to the Last World. Tiffan is the kelda for now, Fion. In her hoose, ye’ll do what she says.”

Fion looked down at her feet. Tiffany could see that she was angry.

The kelda lay back. She beckoned Tiffany closer, and in a weaker voice said: “There. ’Tis done. And now for my part o’ the bargain. Listen. Find…the place where the time disna fit. There’s the way in. It’ll shine out to ye. Bring him back to ease yer puir mother’s heart and mebbe also your ain head—”

Her voice faltered, and Fion leaned quickly toward the bed.

The kelda sniffed.

She opened one eye.

“Not quite yet,” she murmured to Fion. “Do I smell a wee drop of Special Sheep Liniment on ye, kelda?”

Tiffany looked puzzled for a moment and then said: “Oh, me. Oh. Yes. Er…here….”

The kelda struggled to sit up again. “The best thing humans ever made,” she said. “I’ll just have a large wee drop, Fion.”

“It puts hairs on your chest,” Tiffany warned.

“Ach, weel, for a drop of Sarah Aching’s Special Sheep Liniment
I’ll risk a curl or two,” said the old kelda. She took from Fion a leather cup about the size of a thimble and held it up.

“I dinna think it would be good for ye, mother,” said Fion.

“I’ll be the judge o’ that at this time,” said the kelda. “One drop afore I go, please, Kelda Tiffan.”

Tiffany tipped the bottle slightly. The kelda shook the cup irritably.

“It was a larger drop I had in mind, kelda,” she said. “A kelda has a generous heart.”

She took something too small to be a gulp but too large to be a sip.

“Aye, it’s a lang time since I tasted this brose,” she said. “Your granny and I used to ha’ a sip or two in front o’ the fire on cold nights….”

Tiffany saw it clearly in her head, Granny Aching and this little fat woman, sitting around the pot-bellied stove in the hut on wheels, while the sheep grazed under the stars.

“Ah, ye can see it,” said the kelda. “I can feel yer eyes on me. That’s the First Sight workin’.” She lowered the cup. “Fion, go and fetch Rob Anybody and William the gonnagle.”

“The bigjob is blockin’ the hole,” said Fion sulkily.

“I daresay there’s room to wriggle past,” said the old kelda in the kind of calm voice that said a stormy voice could follow if people didn’t do what they were told.

With a smoldering glance at Tiffany, Fion squeezed past.

“Ye ken anyone who keeps bees?” said the kelda. When Tiffany nodded, the little old woman went on, “Then you’ll know why we dinna have many daughters. You canna ha’ two quins in one hive wi’oot a big fight. Fion must take her pick o’ them that will follow her and seek a clan that needs a kelda. That is our way. She thinks
there’s another way, as gels sometimes do. Be careful o’ her.”

Tiffany felt something move past her, and Rob Anybody and the bard came into the room. There was more rustling and whispering, too. An unofficial audience was gathering outside.

When things had settled down a little, the old kelda said: “It is a bad thing for a clan to left wi’oot a kelda to watch o’er it e’en for an hour. So Tiffan will be your kelda until a new one can be fetched.”

There was a murmur beside and behind Tiffany. The old kelda looked at William the gonnagle.

“Am I right that this has been done before?” she said.