The Shepherd's Crown (2 page)

Mutton, Tiffany thought with just a tinge of annoyance. She was well aware of the agreement with the Feegles that they could have the occasional old ewe in exchange for the fun of fightin’ off the corbies that would otherwise swoop down on
the young lambs, who were doing their best to do what lambs did best: get lost, and get dead. The lost lambs up on the Chalk had a new trick now – heading at speed across the downs, sometimes
backwards
, with a Feegle under each tiny foot, as they were returned to the flock.

A kelda needed a big appetite, for there was only one kelda in a Nac Mac Feegle clan, and she had a lot of sons, plus the
occasional lucky daughter popping out.
^fn2
Each time Tiffany saw Jeannie, the little kelda was a bit wider and a bit rounder. Those hips took
work
, and Jeannie was certainly working hard at getting them bigger right now as she tackled what looked like half a sheep’s leg between two bits of bread. No mean feat for a Feegle only six inches high, and as Jeannie grew to become a wise old kelda, the
word ‘belt’ would no longer signify something to hold up her kilt but just something to mark her equator.

Young Feegles were herding snails and wrestling. They were bouncing off each other, off the walls, and sometimes off their own boots. They were in awe of Tiffany, seeing in her a kind of kelda, and they stopped brawling and looked at her nervously as she approached.

‘Line up, lads, show
oor hag how hard ye ha’ been workin’,’ their mother said with pride in her voice, wiping a smear of mutton fat off her lips.

Oh no, Tiffany thought. What am I going to see? I hope it doesn’t involve snails . . .

But Jeannie said, ‘Let yon hag hear your ABC now. Come on, you start, Slightly-more-wee-than-wee-Jock-Jock.’

The first Feegle in the line scratched at his spog and flicked a small beetle
out. It seems to be a fact of life that a Feegle’s spog will always be itchy, Tiffany thought, possibly because what is kept in it might still be alive. Slightly-more-wee-than-wee-Jock-Jock swallowed. ‘A is for . . .
axe
,’ he bellowed. ‘To cut yer heid off, ye ken,’ he added with a proud boast.

‘B is for
boot
!’ shouted the next Feegle, wiping something that looked like snail slime down the front
of his kilt. ‘So as to
stamp
on yer heid.’

‘An’ C is for
claymore
 . . . and crivens, I’ll gi’e ye sich a guid kickin’ if’n you stick that sword intae me one muir time,’ shouted the third, turning and hurling himself at one of his brothers.

A yellowing crescent-shaped object fell to the ground as the brawl spun off into the brambles, and Rob snatched it up and tried to hide it behind his back.

Tiffany narrowed her eyes. That had looked suspiciously like . . . yes, a bit of old toenail!

‘Weel,’ said Rob, shuffling his feet, ‘ye is always cuttin’ these little chunks off’n them old gentl’men you goes to visit most days. They fly out o’ the winders, jus’ waitin’ for a body to pick ’em up. An’ they is hard as nails, ye ken.’

‘Yes, that’s because they
are
nails—’ Tiffany began, then stopped.
After all, maybe someone like old Mr Nimlet would like to know that parts of his body were still ready for a scrap. Even if he himself couldn’t get out of a chair without help these days.

The kelda drew her to one side now, and said, ‘Weel, hen, your name is in the soil. It talks to you, Tir-far-thóinn, Land Under Wave. Do you talk to it?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘Only sometimes though. But I do
listen
, Jeannie.’

‘Not every day?’ said the kelda.

‘No, not every day. So much to do, so much to do.’

‘I ken that,’ said the kelda. ‘Ye know that I watch over you. I watch ye in my heid, but I also see ye whizzing aboot
over
me heid. And ye must remember ye are a long time deid.’

Tiffany sighed, weary to her bones. Going around the houses – that was what you did if you were a compassionate
witch, what she and all the other witches did to fill in the gaps in the world, doing things that had to be done: carrying logs in for an old lady or popping on a pot of stew for a dinner, bringing a herbal remedy for a sore leg or a troublesome ache, fetching a basket of ‘spare’ eggs or second-hand clothes for a new baby in a house where money was scarce, and listening, oh yes, always listening to
people’s troubles and worries. And the toenails . . . those toenails, they seemed to be as hard as flint, and sometimes an old boy without friends or family would have his toenails twisting inside his boots.

But the reward for lots of work seemed to be lots more. If you dug the biggest hole, they just gave you a bigger shovel . . .

‘Today, Jeannie,’ she said slowly, ‘I
did
listen to the land.
It told me to go to the circle . . .?’ There was a question hanging in the air.

The kelda sighed. ‘I dinnae see it clear yet, but there is . . . something not right, Tiffan,’ she said. ‘The veil between oor worlds is thin and can be easily brake, ye ken. The stones stand, so the gateway is nae open – and the Quin of the Elves will nae be strong after ye sent her back to Fairyland afore. She will
nae be in a hurry to get past ye agin, but . . . I am still a-feared. I can feel it noo, like a fog driftin’ oor way.’

Tiffany bit her lip. If the kelda was worried, she knew she should be too.

‘Dinnae fash yesel’,’ Jeannie said softly, watching Tiffany closely. ‘Whin ye need the Feegles, we will be there. And until that time, we will keep a watch for ye.’ She took a last bite of her sandwich,
and then gave Tiffany a different sort of look as she changed the subject. ‘Ye ha’ a young man – Preston, I think you call him. Do ye see him much?’ Her gaze was suddenly as sharp as an axe.

‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘he works hard, just like I do. Him in the hospital and me in the Chalk.’ To her horror, she felt herself begin to blush, the kind of blush that begins in your toes and works its way
up to your face until you look like a tomato. She couldn’t blush! Not like a young country girl with a beau. She was a witch! ‘We write to each other,’ she added in a small voice.

‘And is that enough? Letters?’

Tiffany swallowed. She had once thought – everyone had thought – that she and Preston might have an Understanding, him being an educated boy, running the new school at the barn on the
Achings’ farm until he had enough saved to go study in the big city to be a doctor. Now everyone
still
thought they had an Understanding, including Tiffany and Preston. Except . . . did she have to do what everyone expected her to do? ‘He is very nice and tells wonderful jokes and is great with words,’ she tried to explain. ‘But . . . we like our work, both of us, in fact you might say we
are
our work. Preston is working so hard at the Lady Sybil Free Hospital. And I can’t help thinking about Granny Aching and how much she liked her life, up on the downs, just her and the sheep and her two dogs, Thunder and Lightning, and . . .’ She tailed off and Jeannie laid a small nut-brown hand on her arm.

‘Do ye think this is the way to live, my girl?’

‘Well, I do like what I am doing and it
helps people.’

‘But who helps you? That broomstick of yours flies everywhere and I think sometimes it might burst into flames. Ye look after everybody – but who looks after ye? If Preston is away, weel, there’s your friend the Baron and his new wife. Surely they care about their people. Care enough to help.’

‘They do care,’ said Tiffany, remembering with a shudder how everyone had once also
thought that she and Roland, now the Baron, had an Understanding. Why were they so keen to try and find her a husband? Were husbands
that
difficult to find if she wanted one? ‘Roland is a decent man, although not yet as good as his father became. And Letitia . . .’

Letitia, she thought. Both she and Letitia knew that Letitia could do magic but right now was just playing the role of the young
Baroness. And she was good at it – so good that Tiffany wondered if the Being a Baroness might come to win over Being a Witch in the end. It certainly involved a lot less mess.

‘Already ye have done such things other folk wouldnae credit,’ Jeannie continued.

‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘there’s too much to be done and not enough people to do it.’

The smile that the kelda gave her was a strange one.
The little woman said, ‘Do ye let them try? Ye mustn’t be afraid to ask for help. Pride is a good thing, my girl, but it will kill you in time.’

Tiffany laughed. ‘Jeannie, you are always right. But I am a witch so pride is in the bones.’ That brought to mind Granny Weatherwax – the witch all the other witches thought of as the wisest and most senior of them all. When Granny Weatherwax said things,
she never
sounded
proud – but she didn’t need to. It was just there, built right into her essence. In fact, whatever a witch needed in her bones, Granny Weatherwax had it in great big shovelfuls. Tiffany hoped, one day, that she might be that strong a witch herself.

‘Weel, that’s guid, so it is,’ said the kelda. ‘Ye’re oor hag o’ the hills and we need oor hag to ha’ some pride. But we’d also
like ye to have a life of your ain.’ Her solemn little gaze was fixed on Tiffany now. ‘So off ye gae and follow where the wind blows ye.’

The wind down in the Shires was angry, blowing everywhere as if it was upset, howling around the chimneys of Lord Swivel’s mansion, which stood surrounded by acres of parkland and could only be reached by a long drive – ruling out visits by anyone not in possession
of at least a decent horse.

That put paid to the majority of the ordinary people thereabouts, who were mostly farmers, and who were too busy to do any such thing anyway. Any horse they had was generally large and hairy-legged and usually seen attached to carts. The skinny, half-mad horses that pranced up the drive or pulled coaches up it were normally conveying a very different class of man:
one who always had land and money, but often very little chin. And whose wife sometimes resembled his horse.

Lord Swivel’s father had inherited money and the title from his father, a great master builder, but he had been a drunkard and had wasted almost all of it.
^fn3
Nevertheless young Harold Swivel had wheeled and dealed, and yes, swivelled and swindled, until he had restored the family fortune,
and had added two wings to the family mansion which he filled with expensively ugly objects.

He had three sons, which pleased him greatly in that his wife had produced one extra over and above the usual ‘heir and spare’. Lord Swivel liked to be one up on everyone else, even if the one up was only in the form of a son he didn’t overly care for.

Harry, the eldest, didn’t go to school much because
he was now dealing with the estate, helping his father and learning who was worth talking to and who wasn’t.

Number two was Hugh, who had suggested to his father that he would like to go into the church. His father had said, ‘Only if it’s the Church of Om, but none of the others. I’m not having no son of mine fooling around with cultic activities!’
^fn4
Om was handily silent, thereby enabling his
priests to interpret his wishes how they chose. Amazingly, Om’s wishes rarely translated into instructions like ‘Feed the poor’ or ‘Help the elderly’ but more along the lines of ‘You need a splendid residence’ or ‘Why not have seven courses for dinner?’ So Lord Swivel felt that a clergyman in the family could in fact be useful.

His third son was Geoffrey. And nobody quite knew what to make of
Geoffrey. Not least, Geoffrey himself.

The tutor Lord Swivel employed for his boys was named Mr Wiggall. Geoffrey’s older brothers called him ‘Wiggler’, sometimes even to his face. But for Geoffrey Mr Wiggall was a godsend. The tutor had arrived with a huge crate of his own books, only too aware that some great houses barely had a single book in them, unless the books were about battles of the
past in which a member of the family had been spectacularly and stupidly heroic. Mr Wiggall and his wonderful books taught Geoffrey about the great philosophers Ly Tin Weedle, Orinjcrates, Xeno and Ibid, and the celebrated inventors Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos and Leonard of Quirm, and Geoffrey started to discover what he might make of himself.

When they weren’t reading and studying, Mr Wiggall
took Geoffrey to dig up things – old bones and old places – around the Shires, and told him about the universe, which he previously had not thought about. The more he learned the more he thirsted for knowledge and longed to know all about the Great Turtle A’Tuin, and the lands beyond the Shires.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said to his tutor one day. ‘How did you become a teacher?’

Mr Wiggall laughed
and said, ‘Someone taught me, that’s how it goes. And he gave me a book, and after that I would read any book that I could find. Just like you do, young sir. I see you reading all the time, not just in lessons.’

Geoffrey knew that his father sneered at the teacher, but his mother had intervened, saying that Geoffrey had a star in his hand.

His father scoffed at that. ‘All he’s got in his hand
is mud, and dead people, and who cares where Fourecks is? No one ever goes there!’
^fn5

His mother looked tired, but took his side, saying, ‘He’s very good at reading and Mr Wiggall has taught him three languages. He can even speak a bit of Offleran!’

Again his father sneered. ‘Only handy if he wants to be a dentist! Ha, why waste time on learning languages. After all, everyone speaks Ankh-Morpork
these days.’

But Geoffrey’s mother said to him, ‘You read, my boy. Reading is the way up. Knowledge is the key to everything.’

Shortly afterwards, the tutor was sent away by Lord Swivel, who said, ‘Too much nonsense around here. It’s not as if the boy will amount to much. Not like his brothers.’

The walls of the manor could pick up voices a long way away and Geoffrey had heard that and thought,
Well, whatever I do choose to become, I am
not
going to be like my father!