《I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT》vernon

4、THE REAL SHILLING

　　TIFFANY WOKE HUNGRY and to the sound of laughter. Amber was awake and, against all probability, happy.
　　Tiffany found out why when she managed to squeeze most of herself into the tunnel that led to the mound. The girl was still lying curled up on one side, but a group of young Feegles were entertaining her with somersaults and handsprings and occasionally tripping one another up in humorous ways.
　　The laughter was younger than Amber was; it sounded like the chuckle a baby makes when it sees shiny things in pretty colours. Tiffany did not know how the soothings worked, but they were better than anything a witch could do; they seemed to settle people down and make them better from inside their head outwards. They made you well and, best of all, they made you

　　forget. Sometimes, it seemed to Tiffany, the kelda talked about them as if they were alive –
　　living thoughts perhaps, or kindly living creatures that somehow took away the bad things.
　　‘She’s doing well,’ said the kelda, appearing out of nowhere. ‘She will bide fine. There will be nightmares as the darkness comes out. The soothings can’t do everything. She’s coming back into herself now, right from the start, and that’s the best thing.’
　　It was still dark but dawn edged the horizon. Tiffany had a dirty job to do before daylight.
　　‘Can I leave her here with you for a little while?’ she said. ‘There’s a small task that needs doing.’
　　I shouldn’t have gone to sleep, she thought as she climbed out of the pit. I should have gone right back! I shouldn’t have left the poor little thing there!
　　She tugged the broomstick out of the thorn bushes around the mound, and stopped dead. Someone was watching her; she could feel it on the back of her neck. She turned sharply, and saw an old woman all in black, quite tall, but leaning on a walkingstick. Even as Tiffany looked, the woman vanished, slowly, as if evaporating into the scenery.
　　‘Mistress Weatherwax?’ Tiffany said to the empty air, but that was silly. Granny Weatherwax would not be seen dead with a walkingstick, and certainly wouldn’t be seen alive with one. And there was movement in the corner of her eye. When she spun round again there was a hare, right up on her9 hind legs, watching her with interest and no sign of fear.
　　It was what they did, of course. The Feegles didn’t hunt them, and the average sheepdog would run out of legs before a hare ran out of breath. The hare had no stuffy burrow to be trapped in; speed was where a hare lived, shooting across the landscape like a dream of the wind
　　– she could afford to sit and watch the slow world go by.
　　This one burst into flames. She blazed for a moment and then, entirely unharmed, sped away in a blur.
　　All right, thought Tiffany as the broomstick came free, let’s approach this from the point of view of common sense. The turf isn’t scorched and hares are not known for bursting into flames, so–She stopped as a tiny trapdoor flicked open in her memory.
　　The hare runs into the fire.
　　Had she seen that written down anywhere? Had she heard it as part of a song? A nursery rhyme? What had the hare got to do with anything? But she was a witch, after all, and there was a job to do. Mysterious omens could wait. Witches knew that mysterious omens were around all
　　the time. The world was always very nearly drowning in mysterious omens. You just had to pick the one that was convenient.
　　Bats and owls steered effortlessly out of Tiffany’s way as she sped over the sleeping village. The Petty house was on the very edge. It had a garden. Every house in the village had a garden. Most of them had a garden full of vegetables or, if the wife had the upper hand, half vegetables and half flowers. The Petty house was fronted by a quarter of an acre of stinging nettles.
　　That had always annoyed Tiffany right down to her country boots. How hard would it have been to grub up the weeds and put in a decent crop of potatoes? All they needed was muck, and there was plenty of that in a farming village; the trick was to stop it getting into the house. Mr Petty could have made an effort.
　　He had been back to the barn, or at least somebody had. The baby was now on top of the heap of straw. Tiffany had come prepared with some old, but still serviceable linen, which was at least better than sacking and straw. But somebody had disturbed the little body, and put flowers around it, except that the flowers were, in fact, stinging nettles. They had also lit a candle in one

　　of the tin-plate candlesticks that every house in the village owned. A candlestick. A light. On a pile of loose straw. In a barn full of tinder-dry hay and more straw. Tiffany stared in horror, and then heard the grunt overhead. A man was hanging from the barn’s rafters.
　　They creaked. A little dust and some shreds of hay floated down. Tiffany caught them quickly and picked up the candle before the next fall of wisps set the whole barn alight. She was about to blow it out when it struck her that this would leave her in the dark with the gently spinning figure that may or may not be a corpse. She put it down ever so carefully by the door and scrabbled around to find something sharp. But this was Petty’s barn, and everything was blunt, except a saw.
　　It had to be him up there! Who else could it be? ‘Mr Petty?’ she said, clambering into the dusty rafters.
　　There was something like a wheeze. Was this good?
　　Tiffany managed to hook one leg round a beam, leaving one hand free to wield the saw. The trouble was that she needed two more hands. The rope was tight round the man’s neck, and the blunt teeth of the saw bounced on it, making the man swing even more. And he was beginning to struggle too, the fool, so that the rope not only swung, but twisted as well. In a moment, she would fall down.
　　There was a movement in the air, a flash of iron, and Petty dropped like a rock. Tiffany
　　managed to hold her balance long enough to grab a dusty rafter and half climb and half slither after him.
　　Her fingernails clawed at the rope round his neck but it was as tight as a drum … and there should have been a flourish of music because suddenly Rob Anybody was there, right in front of her; he held up a tiny, shiny claymore and looked at her questioningly.
　　She groaned inwardly. What good are you, Mr Petty? What good have you been? You can’t even hang yourself properly. What good will you ever do? Wouldn’t I be doing the world and you a favour by letting you finish what you began?
　　That was the thing about thoughts. They thought themselves, and then dropped into your head in the hope that you would think so too. You had to slap them down, thoughts like that; they would take a witch over if she let them. And then it would all break down, and nothing would be left but the cackling.
　　She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody,you needed to walk a mile in their shoes, which did not make a whole lot of sense because, probably after you had walked a mile in their shoes you would understand that they were chasing you and accusing you of the theft of a pair of shoes – although, of course,you could probably outrun them owing to their lack of footwear. But she understood what the proverb actually meant, and here was a man one breath away from death. She had no option, no option at all. She had to give him that breath, for the sake of a handful of nettles; something inside the wretched hulk had still managed to be good. It was a tiny spark, but it was there. And there was no argument.
　　Hating herself deep down for being so soppy, she nodded at the Big Man of the Feegle clan. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Try not to hurt him too much.’
　　The sword sparkled; and the cut was made with the delicacy of a surgeon, although the surgeon would have washed his hands first.
　　The rope actually sprang out as the Feegle severed it, and shot away as though it was a serpent. Petty gasped air so hard that the candle flame by the door seemed to flatten for a moment.
　　Tiffany got up off her knees and brushed herself down. ‘What did you come back for?’

　　she said. ‘What were you looking for? What did you expect to find?’
　　Mr Petty lay there. There wasn’t even a grunt in reply. It was hard to hate him now, wheezing on the floor.
　　Being a witch meant you had to make choices, usually the choices that ordinary people did not want to make or even to know about. So she washed his face with a bit of torn cloth moistened from the pump outside and wrapped the dead child in the rather larger and cleaner bit of cloth that she had brought for the purpose. It wasn’t the best of shrouds, but it was honest and civilized. She reminded herself, in a dreamy kind of way, that she needed to build up her store of makeshift bandages and realized how grateful she should be. ‘Thank you, Rob,’ she said. ‘I don’t I think I could have managed by myself.’
　　‘I reckon that maybe ye could,’ said Rob Anybody, while they both knew that she couldn’t. ‘It just so happened that I was passing by,ye ken, and not following ye at all. One of them coincidences.’
　　‘There have been a lot of those coincidences lately,’ said Tiffany.
　　‘Aye,’ said Rob, grinning, ‘it must be another coincidence.’
　　It was impossible to embarrass a Feegle. They just couldn’t grasp the idea. He was watching her. ‘What happens now?’ he said.
　　That was the question, wasn’t it. A witch needed to make people believe she knew what
　　to do next, even if she didn’t. Petty was going to live, and the poor child was not going to stop being dead. ‘I’ll take care of things,’ she said. ‘It’s what we do.’
　　Only it’s just me; there is no ‘us’, she thought as she flew through the mists of morning to the place of flowers. I wish, I wish there was.
　　In the hazel woods there was a clearing of flowers from early spring to late autumn. There was meadowsweet and foxglove and old man’s trousers and Jack-jump-into-bed and ladies’ bonnets and three-times-Charlie and sage and southernwood and pink yarrow and ladies’ bedstraw and cowslips and primroses and two types of orchid.
　　It was where the old lady that they had called the witch was buried. If you knew where to look,you could see what little was left of her cottage underneath all that greenery, and if you really knew where to look,you could see the place where she had been buried. If you really and truly knew where to look,you could find the spot where Tiffany had buried the old lady’s cat
　　too; there was catnip growing on it.
　　Once upon a time, the rough music had come for the old woman and her cat, oh yes it had, and the people walking to its drumming had dragged her out into the snow and pulled down the rickety cottage and burned her books because they had pictures of stars in them.
　　And why? Because the Baron’s son had gone missing and Mrs Snapperly had no family and no teeth and, to be honest, cackled a bit as well. And that made her a witch, and the people of the Chalk didn’t trust witches, so she was pulled out into the snow, and while the fire ate up the thatch of the cottage, page after page of stars crackled and crinkled into the night sky while
　　the men stoned the cat to death. And that winter, after she had hammered on doors that remained closed to her, the old woman died in the snow, and because she had to be buried somewhere, there was a shallow grave where the old cottage used to be.
　　But the old woman had nothing to do with the loss of the Baron’s son, had she? And soon after, Tiffany had gone all the way to a strange fairyland to bring him back, hadn’t she? And nobody talked about the old lady these days, did they? But when they walked past the place in
　　the summer, the flowers filled the air with delight and bees filled it with the colours of honey.
　　No one talked about it. After all, what would you say? Rare flowers growing on the grave

　　of the old woman and catnip growing where the Aching girl had buried the cat? It was a mystery, and maybe a judgement, although whose judgement it was, on whom, for what and why, was
　　best not thought about, let alone discussed. Nevertheless, wonderful flowers growing over the
　　remains of the possible witch – how could that happen?
　　Tiffany didn’t ask that question. The seeds had been expensive to buy and she had had to go all the way to Twoshirts to get them, but she had vowed that every summer the brilliance in the wood would remind people that there had been an old lady they had hounded to death and been buried there. She did not quite know why she thought that was important, but she was certain to the centre of her soul that it was.
　　When she had finished digging the deep but sad little hole in a patch of love-in-a-hurry, Tiffany looked around to make certain that no early-morning traveller was watching and used both hands to fill the hole with dirt, moving dead leaves and transplanting some forget-me-lots. They weren’t really right here, but they grew fast and that was important because … someone was watching her. It was important not to look round. She knew she couldn’t be seen. In all her life she had met only one person who was better than her at not being seen, and that was Granny
　　Weatherwax. It was still misty too, and she would have heard if anyone had come along the path. It wasn’t a bird or animal, either. They always felt different.
　　A witch should never have to look around because they should know who was behind
　　them. Usually she could work it out, but every sense she had told her that no one but Tiffany
　　Aching was there, and somehow, in some strange way, it felt wrong.
　　‘Too much to do, not enough sleep,’ she said aloud, and thought she heard a faint voice say, ‘Yes.’ It was like an echo except there was nothing for it to echo from. She flew away as fast as she could make the broomstick go, which, not being very fast at all, at least served to prevent it looking as though she was running away.
　　Going nuts. Witches didn’t often talk about it, but they were aware of it all the time. Going nuts; or, rather not going nuts, was the soul and centre of witchcraft, and this was
　　how it worked. After a while, a witch, who almost always worked by herself in the tradition of witches, had a tendency to go … strange. Of course, it depended on the length of time and the strength of mind of the witch, but sooner or later they tended to get confused about things like right and wrong and good and bad and truth and consequences. That could be very dangerous. So witches had to keep one another normal, or at least what was normal for witches. It didn’t take very much: a tea party, a singsong, a stroll in the woods, and somehow everything balanced up, and they could look at adverts for gingerbread cottages in the builder’s brochure without putting
　　a deposit on one.
　　On top of everything else Tiffany was worried about going nuts. It was two months since she had last been up into the mountains and three months since she had last seen Miss Tick, the only other witch you ever saw down here. There wasn’t time to go visiting. There was always
　　too much to do. Perhaps that was the trick of it, Tiffany thought. If you kept yourself busyyou wouldn’t have time to go nuts.
　　The sun was well up when she got back to the Feegle mound and she was shocked to see Amber sitting out on the side of the mound, surrounded by Feegles and laughing. The kelda was waiting for Tiffany by the time she had garaged the broomstick in the thorn bushes.
　　‘I hope ye do not mind,’ she said when she saw Tiffany’s face. ‘The sunshine is a great healer.’
　　‘Jeannie, it was wonderful of you to put the soothings on her, but I don’t want her to see too much of you. She might tell people.’

　　‘Oh, it will all seem like a dream tae her, the soothings will see to that,’ said Jeannie calmly, ‘and who will take much heed of a wee girl prattling about the fairies?’
　　‘She is thirteen!’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s not supposed to happen!’
　　‘Is she no’ happy?’
　　‘Well,yes, but …’
　　There was a steely look in Jeannie’s eye. She had always been very respectful to Tiffany, but respect requires respect in its turn. It was Jeannie’s mound, after all, and probably her land as well.
　　Tiffany settled for saying, ‘Her mother will be worrying.’
　　‘Is that so?’ said Jeannie. ‘And did her mam worry when she left the poor thing taking a beating?’
　　Tiffany wished the kelda wasn’t so astute. People used to tell Tiffany that she was so sharp she would cut herself, but the kelda’s steady grey gaze could chop iron nails.
　　‘Well, Amber’s mother is … she’s not very … clever.’
　　‘So I hear,’ said Jeannie, ‘but most beasts is short on brains, and yet still the doe will stand her ground to defend her fawn, and a fox for her cub will face down the dog.’
　　‘Humans are more complicated,’ said Tiffany.
　　‘So it seems,’ said the kelda, her voice chilly just for that moment.
　　‘Well, the soothings is working fine, so maybe the girl needs to be back in your complicated world?’
　　Where her father is still alive, Tiffany reminded herself. I know he is. He was bruised, but he was breathing, and I hope to goodness he sobers up. And is this problem ever going to end? It has to be sorted out! I’ve got other things to do! And I’ve got to go and see the Baron this afternoon!
　　Tiffany’s father met them when they walked into the farmyard; Tiffany generally left the broomstick tied to a tree just outside, in theory because flying overhead frightened the chickens, but mostly because she was never able to land very gracefully and certainly didn’t want an audience.
　　He looked from Amber to his daughter. ‘Is she all right? She looks a bit … dreamy.’
　　‘She’s had something to calm her down and make her feel better,’ said Tiffany, ‘and she shouldn’t run around.’
　　‘Her mum has been in a dreadful state,you know,’ Tiffany’s father went on reproachfully, ‘but I told her you were looking after Amber in a very safe place.’
　　There was more than a hint of ‘You are sure about that, aren’t you?’ in the way he spoke, and Tiffany was careful to ignore it, and simply said, ‘I was.’ She tried to imagine Mrs Petty in a dreadful state, and it didn’t work. Every time she had ever seen the woman she had a look of baffled apprehension, as if life had too many puzzles and you just had to wait until the next one hit you.
　　Tiffany’s father pulled his daughter to one side and lowered his voice. ‘Petty came back in the night,’ he hissed, ‘and they say that someone tried to kill him!’
　　‘What?’
　　‘True as I’m standing here.’
　　Tiffany turned to Amber. The girl was staring at the sky as if hoping patiently for something interesting to happen.
　　‘Amber,’ she said carefully, ‘you know how to feed chickens, don’t you?’
　　‘Oh yes, miss.’

　　‘Well, go and feed ours, will you? There’s grain in the barn.’
　　‘Your mum fed them hours ago—’ her father began, but Tiffany dragged him away quickly.
　　‘When did this happen?’ she asked, watching Amber walking obediently into the barn.
　　‘Some time last night. Mrs Petty told me. He was beaten badly. In that rackety old barn. Right where we were sitting last night.’
　　‘Mrs Petty went back? After everything that happened? What does she see in him?’ Mr Aching gave a shrug. ‘He is her husband.’
　　‘But everyone knows he beats her up!’
　　Her father looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose to some women any husband is better than none.’
　　Tiffany opened her mouth to reply, looked into her father’s eyes and saw the truth of what he had said. She had seen some of them up in the mountains, worn out by too many children and not enough money. Of course, if they knew Nanny Ogg, something could be done about the children at least, but you still found the families who sometimes, in order to put food on the table, had to sell the chairs. And there was never anything you could do about it.
　　‘Mr Petty wasn’t beaten up, Dad, although it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he was. I
　　found him trying to hang himself, and I cut him down.’
　　‘He’s got two broken ribs, and bruises all over him.’
　　‘It was a long way down, Dad – he was choking to death! What should I have done? Let him swing? He has lived to see another day, whether he deserves to or not! It’s not my job to be an executioner! There was a bouquet, Dad! Weeds and nettles! His hands were swollen with nettle stings! There’s at least some part of him that deserves to live, do you see?’
　　‘But you did steal the baby away.’
　　‘No, Dad, I stole away with the baby. Listen, Dad, do get it right. I buried the child, which was dead. I saved the man who was dying. I did those things, Dad. People might not understand – might make up stories. I don’t care. You do the job that is in front of you.’
　　There was a clucking, and Amber walked across the yard with the chickens following her in a line. The clucking was being done by Amber, and as Tiffany and her father watched, the chickens marched back and forth as if under the command of a drill sergeant. The girl was giggling to herself in between clucks, and after managing to get the chickens to walk solemnly in a circle she looked up at Tiffany and her father as if nothing had happened and led the fowls
　　back into the barn.
　　After a pause Tiffany’s father said, ‘That did just happen, didn’t it?’
　　‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘I have no idea why.’
　　‘I’ve been talking to some of the other lads,’ said her father, ‘and your mother has been talking to the women. We’ll keep an eye on the Pettys. Things have been let go that shouldn’t have. People can’t expect to leave everything to you. People mustn’t think that you can fix everything, and if you’ll take my advice, neither will you. There are some things a whole village has to do.’
　　‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Tiffany, ‘but I think I had better go and see to the Baron now.’ Tiffany could only just remember ever seeing the Baron as a well man. Nor did anyone
　　seem to know what was wrong with him. But, like many other invalids she had seen, he somehow kept on going, living in a holding pattern and waiting to die.
　　She had heard one of the villagers call him a creaking door which never slammed; he was getting worse now, and in her opinion it was not going to be very long before his life slammed

　　shut.

　　But she could take away the pain, and even frighten it a little so it wouldn’t come back

　　for a while.
　　Tiffany hurried to the castle. The nurse, Miss Spruce, was waiting when she arrived, and her face was pale.
　　‘It’s not one of his good days,’ she said, then added with a modest little smile, ‘I have been praying for him all morning.’
　　‘I’m sure that was very kind of you,’ said Tiffany. She had taken care to keep any sarcasm out of her voice, but she got a frown from the nurse anyway.
　　The room Tiffany was ushered into smelled like sickrooms everywhere: all too much of people, and not enough air. The nurse stood in the doorway as if she was on guard. Tiffany could feel her permanently suspicious gaze on the back of her neck. There was more and more of that sort of attitude about. Sometimes you got wandering preachers around who didn’t like witches, and people would listen to them. It seemed to Tiffany that people lived in a very strange world sometimes. Everybody knew, in some mysterious way, that witches ran away with babies and blighted crops, and all the other nonsense. And at the same time, they would come running to the witch when they needed help.
　　The Baron lay in a tangle of sheets, his face grey, his hair totally white now, with little
　　pink patches where it had all gone. He looked neat, though. He had always been a neat man, and every morning one of the guards would come and give him a shave. It cheered him up, as far as anyone could tell, but right now he looked straight through Tiffany. She was used to this; the Baron was what they called ‘a man of the old school’. He was proud and did not have the best of tempers, but he would stand up for himself at all times. To him, the pain was a bully, and what
　　do you do to bullies? You stood up to them, because they always ran away in the end. But the pain didn’t know about that rule. It just bullied even more. And the Baron lay with thin white lips; Tiffany could hear him not screaming.
　　Now, she sat down on a stool beside him, flexed her fingers, took a deep breath, and then received the pain, calling it out of the wasted body and putting it into the invisible ball just above her shoulder.
　　‘I don’t hold with magic,you know,’ said the nurse from the doorway.
　　Tiffany winced like a tightrope walker who has just felt someone hit the other end of the rope with a big stick. Carefully, she let the flow of pain settle down, a little bit at a time.
　　‘I mean,’ said the nurse, ‘I know it makes him feel better, but where does all this healing
　　power come from, that’s what I’d like to know?’
　　‘Perhaps it comes from all your praying, Miss Spruce,’ said Tiffany sweetly, and was glad to see the moment of fury on the woman’s face.
　　But Miss Spruce had the hide of an elephant. ‘We must be sure that we don’t get involved with dark and demonic forces. Better a little pain in this world than an eternity of suffering in the next!’
　　Up in the mountains there were sawmills driven by water, and they had big circular saws that spun so fast they were nothing but a silver blur in the air … until an absent-minded man forgot to pay attention, when it became a red disc and the air was raining fingers.
　　Tiffany felt like that now. She needed to concentrate and the woman was determined to go on talking, while the pain was waiting for just one moment’s lack of attention. Oh well, nothing for it … she threw the pain at a candlestick beside the bed. It shattered instantly, and the candle flashed into flame; she stamped on it until it went out. Then she turned to the astonished

　　nurse.

　　‘Miss Spruce, I am sure that what you have to say is very interesting, but on the whole,

　　Miss Spruce, I don’t really care what you think about anything. I don’t mind you staying in here, Miss Spruce, but what I do mind, Miss Spruce, is that this is very difficult and can be dangerous for me if it goes wrong. Go away, Miss Spruce, or stay, Miss Spruce, but most of all, shut up, Miss Spruce, because I’ve only just started and there is still a lot of pain to shift.’
　　Miss Spruce gave her another look. It was fearsome.
　　Tiffany returned this with a look of her own, and if there is one thing that a witch learns how to do, it is how to look.
　　The door shut behind the enraged nurse.
　　‘Talk quietly– she listens at doors.’
　　The voice came from the Baron, but it was hardly a voice at all; you could just hear in it the tones of someone used to command, but now it was cracked and failing, every word pleading for enough time to say the next word.
　　‘I’m sorry, sir, but I must concentrate,’ said Tiffany. ‘I would hate for this to go wrong.’
　　‘Of course. I shall remain silent.’
　　Taking away pain was dangerous, difficult and very tiring, but there was, well, a wonderful compensation in seeing the grey face of the old man come back to life. There was already some pinkness to his skin, and it was fleshing out as more and more pain flowed out of him and through Tiffany and into the new little invisible ball floating above her right shoulder.
　　Balance. It was all about balance. That had been one of the first things that she had learned: the centre of the seesaw has neither up nor down, but upness and downness flow through it while it remains unmoved. You had to be the centre of the seesaw so that pain flowed through you, not into you. It was very hard. But she could do it! She prided herself on it; even Granny Weatherwax had grunted when Tiffany had showed her one day how she had mastered
　　the trick. And a grunt from Granny Weatherwax was like a round of applause from anybody else.
　　But the Baron was smiling. ‘Thank you, Miss Tiffany Aching. And now, I would like to sit in my chair.’
　　This was unusual, and Tiffany had to think about it. ‘Are you sure, sir? You are still very

　　weak.’

　　‘Yes, everybody tells me that,’ said the Baron, waving a hand. ‘I can’t imagine why they

　　think I don’t know. Help me up, Miss Tiffany Aching, for I must speak to you.’
　　It wasn’t very difficult. A girl who could heave Mr Petty out of his bed had little problem with the Baron, whom she handled like a piece of fine china, which he resembled.
　　‘I do not think that you and I, Miss Tiffany Aching, have had more than the simplest and most practical of conversations in all the time you have been seeing to me,yes?’ he said when
　　she had him settled with his walking-stick in his hands so that he could lean on it. The Baron was not a man to lounge in a chair if he could sit on the edge of it.
　　‘Well,yes, sir, I think you are right,’ said Tiffany carefully.
　　‘I dreamed I had a visitor here last night,’ said the Baron, giving her a wicked little grin.
　　‘What do you think of that then, Miss Tiffany Aching?’
　　‘At the moment I have no idea, sir,’ said Tiffany, thinking, Not the Feegles! Let it not be the Feegles!
　　‘It was your grandmother, Miss Tiffany Aching. She was a fine woman, and extremely handsome. Oh yes. I was rather upset when she married your grandfather, but I suppose it was for the best. I miss her,you know.’

　　‘You do?’ said Tiffany.
　　The old man smiled. ‘After my dear wife passed on, she was the only person left who would dare to argue with me. A man of power and responsibility nevertheless needs somebody to tell him when he is being a bloody fool. Granny Aching fulfilled that task with commendable enthusiasm, I must say. And she needed to, because I was often a bloody fool who needed a kick up the arse, metaphorically speaking. It is my hope, Miss Tiffany Aching, that when I am in my grave you will perform the same service to my son Roland who, as you know, is inclined to be a bit too full of himself at times. He will need somebody to kick him up the arse, metaphorically speaking, or indeed in real life if he gets altogether all too snotty.’
　　Tiffany tried to hide a smile, then took a moment to adjust the spin of the ball of pain as it hovered companionably by her shoulder. ‘Thank you for your trust in me, sir. I shall do my best.’ The Baron gave a polite little cough and said, ‘Indeed, at one point I harboured hopes that
　　you and the boy might make a more … intimate arrangement?’
　　‘We are good friends,’ said Tiffany carefully. ‘We were good friends and I trust that we will continue to be … good friends.’ She hurriedly had to stop the pain wobbling dangerously.
　　The Baron nodded. ‘Jolly good, Miss Tiffany Aching, but please don’t let the bond of friendship prevent you from giving him a righteous kick up the arse if he needs one.’
　　‘I will take some pleasure in doing so, sir,’ said Tiffany.
　　‘Well done,young lady,’ said the Baron, ‘and thank you for not chiding me for using the word “arse” or asking me the meaning of the word “metaphorical”.’
　　‘No, sir. I know what “metaphorical” means, and “arse” is a traditional usage – nothing to be ashamed of.’
　　The Baron nodded. ‘It has a commendable grown-up sharpness to it. “Ass”, on the other hand, is quite frankly for spinsters and little children.’
　　Tiffany turned the words on her tongue for a moment, and said, ‘Yes, sir. I think that is probably the long and the short of it.’
　　‘Very good. Incidentally, Miss Tiffany Aching, I cannot conceal my interest in the fact that you do not curtsy in my presence these days. Why not?’
　　‘I am a witch now, sir. We don’t do that sort of thing.’
　　‘But I am your baron,young lady.’
　　‘Yes. And I am your witch.’
　　‘But I have soldiers out there who will come running if I call. And I am sure you know, too, that people around here do not always respect witches.’
　　‘Yes, sir. I know that, sir. And I am your witch.’
　　Tiffany watched the Baron’s eyes. They were a pale blue, but right now there was a foxy glint of mischief in them.
　　The worst thing you could possibly do right now, she told herself, would be to show any kind of weakness at all. He’s like Granny Weatherwax: he tests people.
　　As if he was reading her mind exactly at that point, the Baron laughed. ‘Then you are your own person, Miss Tiffany Aching?’
　　‘I don’t know about that, sir. Just lately I feel as if I belong to everybody.’
　　‘Hah,’ said the Baron. ‘You work very hard and conscientiously, I’m told.’
　　‘I am a witch.’
　　‘Yes,’ said the Baron. ‘So you have said, clearly and consistently and with some considerable repetition.’ He leaned both skinny hands on his walking-stick and looked at her over the top of them. ‘It is true then, is it?’ he said. ‘That some seven years ago you took an iron

　　skillet and went into some sort of fairyland, where you rescued my son from the Queen of the
　　Elves – a most objectionable woman, I have been given to understand?’ Tiffany hesitated about this. ‘Do you want it to be so?’ she said.
　　The Baron chuckled and pointed a skinny finger at her. ‘Do I want it to be? Indeed! A good question, Miss Tiffany Aching, who is a witch. Let me think … let us say … I want to know the truth.’
　　‘Well, the bit about the frying pan is true, I must admit, and well, Roland had been pretty well knocked about so I, well, had to take charge. A bit.’
　　‘A … bit?’ said the old man, smiling.
　　‘Not an unreasonably large bit,’ said Tiffany quickly.
　　‘And why didn’t anybody tell me this at the time, pray?’ said the Baron.
　　‘Because you are the Baron,’ said Tiffany simply, ‘and boys with swords rescue girls. That’s how the stories go. That’s how stories work. No one really wanted to think the other way round.’
　　‘Didn’t you mind?’ He wasn’t taking his eyes off her, and he hardly seemed to blink. There was no point in lying.
　　‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A bit.’
　　‘Was it a reasonably large bit?’
　　‘I would say so,yes. But then I went off to learn to be a witch, and it didn’t seem to matter any more. That’s the truth of it, sir. Excuse me, sir, who told you this?’
　　‘Your father,’ said the Baron. ‘And I am grateful to him for telling me. He came to see me yesterday, to pay his respects, seeing as I am, as you know, dying. Which is, in fact, another truth. And don’t you dare tell him off,young lady, witch or otherwise. Promise me?’
　　Tiffany knew that the long lie had hurt her father. She’d never really worried about it, but it had worried him.
　　‘Yes, sir, I promise.’
　　The Baron was silent for a moment, staring at her. ‘You know, Miss Tiffany Aching, who is, by regular repetition, a witch, I am at a time when my eyes are cloudy, but my mind,
　　somehow, sees further than you think. But perhaps it is not too late for me to make amends. Under my bed is a chest bound with brass. Go and open it. Go on! Do that now.’
　　Tiffany pulled out the chest, which felt as if it was full of lead.
　　‘You will find some leather bags,’ said the old man behind her.
　　‘Take one of them out. It will contain fifteen dollars.’ The Baron coughed. ‘Thank you for saving my son.’
　　‘Look, I can’t take—’ Tiffany began, but the Baron banged his stick on the floor.
　　‘Shut up and listen, please, Miss Tiffany Aching. When you fought the Queen of the Elves,you were not a witch and therefore the tradition against witches taking money does not apply,’ he said sharply, his eyes glittering like sapphires. ‘With regard to your personal services to myself, I believe you have been paid in food and clean used linen, second-hand footwear and firewood. I trust my housekeeper has been generous? I told her not to stint.’
　　‘What? Oh, oh yes, sir.’ And that was true enough. Witches lived in a world of
　　second-hand clothes, old sheets (good for making bandages), boots with some life left in them and, of course, hand-me-downs, hand-me-outs, hands-me-ups, hand-me-rounds and
　　hand-me-overs. In such a world, the pickings to be had from a working castle were like being given the key to a mint. As for the money … she turned the leather bag over and over in her hands. It was very heavy.

　　‘What do you do with all that stuff, Miss Tiffany Aching?’
　　‘What?’ she said absentmindedly, still looking at the bag. ‘Oh, er, trade it, pass it on to people who need it … that sort of thing.’
　　‘Miss Tiffany Aching,you are suddenly vague. I believe that you were engrossed in thinking that fifteen dollars isn’t much, is it, for saving the life of the Baron’s son?’
　　‘No!’
　　‘I’ll take that as a “yes” then, shall I?’
　　‘You will take it from me as a no, sir! I am your witch!’ She glared at him, panting. ‘And
　　I am trying to balance a rather difficult ball of pain, sir.’
　　‘Ah, Granny Aching’s granddaughter. I humbly beg your forgiveness, as I occasionally should have asked for hers. But nevertheless, will you please do me the favour and honour of taking that bag, Miss Tiffany Aching, and putting its contents to such use as you may determine in memory of me. I’m sure it’s more money than you have ever seen before.’
　　‘I don’t often see any money at all,’ she protested, stunned by this.
　　The Baron banged his stick on the floor again, as if applauding. ‘I doubt very much if you have ever seen money like this,’ he said merrily. ‘You see, although there are fifteen dollars in
　　the bag, they are not the dollars that you are used to, or would be if you were used to them at all. They are old dollars, from before they started mucking about with the currency. The modern dollar is mostly brass, in my opinion, and contains as much gold as sea water. These, however, are the real shilling, if you’ll excuse my little joke.’
　　Tiffany excused his little joke, because she didn’t get it. He smiled at her puzzlement. ‘In short, Miss Tiffany Aching, if you take these coins to the right dealer, he should payyou, oh, I would estimate somewhere in the region of five thousand Ankh-Morpork dollars. I don’t know what that would be in terms of old boots, but quite possibly it could buyyou an old boot the size of this castle.’
　　And Tiffany thought: I can’t take this. Apart from anything else the bag had become
　　extremely heavy. Instead, she said, ‘That’s far too much for a witch.’
　　‘But not too much for a son,’ said the Baron. ‘Not too much for an heir, not too much for continuity down the generations. Not too much for removing a lie from the world.’
　　‘But it can’t buy me another pair of hands,’ said Tiffany, ‘or change one second of the

　　past.’

　　‘Nevertheless, I must insist that you take it,’ said the Baron, ‘if not for your sake, then for

　　mine. It will take a burden off my soul and, believe me, it could do with a bit of shining up at this time, don’t you agree? I am going to die soon, am I not?’
　　‘Yes, sir. Very soon, I think, sir.’
　　Tiffany was beginning to understand something about the Baron by now, and she wasn’t surprised when he laughed.
　　‘You know,’ he said, ‘most people would have said, “Oh, no, old chap,you’ve got ages yet,you will be up and out of here in no time, lots of life left in you!”’
　　‘Yes, sir. I’m a witch, sir.’
　　‘And in this context that means …?’
　　‘I try very hard not to have to tell lies, sir.’
　　The old man shifted in his chair, and was suddenly solemn. ‘When the time comes …’ he began, and hesitated.
　　‘I will keep you company, sir, if you wish,’ said Tiffany. The Baron looked relieved. ‘Have you ever seen Death?’

　　She had been expecting this and was ready. ‘Usuallyyou just feel him passing, sir, but I have seen him twice, in what would have been the flesh, if he had any. He’s a skeleton with a scythe, just like in the books – in fact, I think it’s because that’s what he looks like in the books. He was polite but firm, sir.’
　　‘I’ll bet he is!’ The old man was silent for a little while and then went on. ‘Did he … drop any hints about the afterlife?’
　　‘Yes, sir. Apparently it contains no mustard, and I got the impression that it contains no pickles either.’
　　‘Really? Bit of a blow, that. I suppose that chutney is out of the question?’
　　‘I did not go into the subject of pickled condiments in any depth, sir. He had a big scythe.’
　　There was a loud knocking at the door, and Miss Spruce called loudly, ‘Are you all right,

　　sir?’

　　‘In tip-top condition, dear Miss Spruce,’ said the Baron loudly, then lowered his voice to

　　say conspiratorially, ‘I believe our Miss Spruce does not like you very much, my dear.’
　　‘She thinks I’m unhygienic,’ said Tiffany.
　　‘Never really understood about all that nonsense,’ said the Baron.
　　‘It’s quite easy,’ said Tiffany. ‘I have to stick my hands in the fire at every opportunity.’
　　‘What? You put your hands in the fire?’
　　Now she was sorry she had mentioned it, but she knew the old man would not now be satisfied until she had shown him. She sighed and crossed over to the fireplace, pulling a large iron poker out of its stand. She admitted to herself that she liked showing off this trick occasionally, and the Baron would be an appreciative audience. But should she do it? Well, the fire trick was not that complicated and the balance of the pain was fine, and it wasn’t as if the Baron had much time left.
　　She drew a bucket of water from the little well at the far end of the room. The well had frogs in it, and therefore so did the bucket, but she was kind and dropped them back into their well. No one likes boiling a frog. The bucket of water was not strictly necessary, but it did have a part to play. Tiffany coughed theatrically. ‘Do you see, sir? I have one poker and one bucket of cold water. Cold metal poker, cold bucket of water. And now … I hold in my left hand the poker, and I stick my right hand into the hottest part of the fire, like this.’
　　The Baron gasped as flames burst around her hand and the tip of the poker in her other hand suddenly glowed red hot.
　　With the Baron suitably impressed, Tiffany dowsed the poker in the bucket of water, from which erupted a cloud of steam. Then she stood in front of the Baron, holding up both hands, quite unscathed.
　　‘But I saw flames come up!’ said the Baron, his eyes wide. ‘Well done! Very well done! Some sort of trick,yes?’
　　‘More of a skill, sir. I put my hand in the fire and sent the heat into the poker. I just moved the heat around. The flame you saw was caused by the burning of bits of dead skin, dirt, and all those nasty, invisible little biting things that unhygienic people might have on their hands
　　…’ She paused. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ The Baron was staring at her. ‘Sir? Sir?’
　　The old man spoke as if he was reading from an invisible book: ‘The hare runs into the fire. The hare runs into the fire. The fire, it takes her, she is not burned. The fire, it loves her, she is not burned. The hare runs into the fire. The fire, it loves her, she is free … It all comes back to me! How did I ever forget it! How did I dare to forget it? I told myself I would remember it for

　　ever, but time goes on and the world fills up with things to remember, things to do, calls on your time, calls on your memory. And you forget the things that were important, the real things.’
　　Tiffany was shocked to see tears streaming down his face.
　　‘I remember it all,’ he whispered, his voice punctuated with sobs. ‘I remember the heat! I
　　remember the hare!’
　　At which point the door banged open and Miss Spruce stepped into the room. What happened next took a moment, but seemed to Tiffany to go on for an hour. The nurse looked at her holding the poker, and then at the old man in tears, then at the cloud of steam, then back to Tiffany as she let the poker go, and then back to the old man, and then back to Tiffany as the poker landed in the hearth with a clang that echoed around the world. And then Miss Spruce took a deep breath like a whale preparing to dive to the bottom of the ocean and screamed, ‘What do you think you are doing to him? Get out of here,you brazen hussy!’
　　Tiffany’s ability to speak came back quickly, and then grew into an ability to shout. ‘I am not brazen and I don’t huss!’
　　‘I’m going to fetch the guards,you black and midnight hag!’ the nurse screamed, heading for the door.
　　‘It’s only eleven thirty!’ Tiffany shouted after her and hurried back to the Baron, totally at a loss as to what to do next. The pain shifted. She could feel it. She wasn’t keeping her mind straight. Things were getting out of balance. She concentrated for a moment and then, trying to smile, turned to the Baron.
　　‘I’m very sorry if I have upset you, sir,’ she began, and then realized that he was smiling through his tears and his whole face seemed full of sunlight.
　　‘Upset me? Good gracious no, I’m not upset.’ He tried to pull himself upright in the chair and pointed towards the fire with a trembling finger. ‘I am, in fact, set up! I feel alive! I am young, my dear Miss Tiffany Aching! I remember that perfect day! Can you not see me? Down
　　in the valley? A perfect, crisp September day. A little boy in the tweed jacket that was far too itchy, as I recall,yes, was far too itchy and smelled of wee! And my father was singing “The Larks They Sang Melodious”, and I was trying to harmonize, which of course I couldn’t do then because I had about as much voice as a rabbit, and we were watching them burn the stubbles. There was smoke everywhere, and as the fire swept along, mice, rats, rabbits and even foxes were running towards us away from the flames. Pheasants and partridges were taking off like rockets at the last minute, as they do, and suddenly there was no sound at all and I saw this hare. Oh, she was a big one – did you know that country people used to think all hares were female? – and she just stood there, looking at me, with bits of burning grass falling around us, and the flames behind her, and she was looking directly at me, and I will swear that when she knew that she had caught my eye, she flicked herself into the air and jumped straight into the fire. And of course I cried like anything, because she was so fine. And my father picked me up and said he’d tell me a little secret, and he taught me the hare song, so that I would know the truth of it, and stop crying. And then later on, we walked over the ashes and there was no dead hare.’ The old man turned his head awkwardly towards her, and beamed, really beamed. He shone.
　　Where is that coming from? Tiffany wondered. It’s too yellow for firelight, but the curtains are shut. It’s always too gloomy in here, but now it is the light of a crisp September day
　　…
　　‘I remember doing a crayon picture of it when we got home, and my father was so proud of it he took it all around the castle so that everybody could admire it,’ the old man went on, as enthusiastic as a boy. ‘A child’s scrawl, of course, but he talked about it as if it were a work of

　　genius. Parents do such things. I found it among his documents after he died, and in fact, if you are interested,you will find it in a leather folder within the money chest. It is, after all, a precious thing. I’ve never told anyone else that,’ said the Baron. ‘People and days and memories come
　　and go but that memory has always been there. No money that I could give you, Miss Tiffany Aching, who is the witch, could ever repayyou for bringing back to me that wonderful vision. Which I shall remember until the day I—’
　　For a moment the flames on the fire stood still and the air was cold. Tiffany was never actually sure that she ever saw Death, not actually saw; perhaps in some strange way it had all happened inside her head. Though wherever he was, well, he was there.
　　WASN’T THAT APPROPRIATE? Death said.
　　Tiffany didn’t step back. There was no point. ‘Did you arrange that?’ she asked. MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THE CREDIT, OTHER FORCES ARE AT
　　WORK. GOOD MORNING TO YOU, MISS ACHING.
　　Death left, and the Baron followed, a little boy in his new tweed jacket, which was terribly itchy and sometimes smelled of wee,10 following his father across the smoking field.
　　Then Tiffany placed her hand on the dead man’s face and, with respect, closed his eyes, where the light of burning fields was dimming.
　　9 Whatever sex a hare is, to the true countryman, all hares are referred to as ‘her’.

　　10 The old cloth-makers used urine as a mordant for the dyes used in making woollen clothes, so that the colours would be fixed and not run; as a result, they can be a bit smelly for years. Not even Miss Tick could have explained it better and stayed so calm, although she would probably have used the term ‘evacuated bodily juices’.