Wintersmith (27 page)

C
lang-clonk!

Tiffany sat bolt upright, straw tumbling off her. But it was only the sound of a handle clanging on the side of a metal pail.

Mrs. Umbridge was milking her cows. Pale daylight shone through the cracks in the walls. She looked up when she heard Tiffany.

“Ah, I thought one of my ladies must’ve arrived in the night,” she said. “Want some breakfast, dear?”

“Please!”

Tiffany helped the old woman with her buckets, helped make some butter, patted her very old dog, had beans on toast, and then—

“I think I’ve got something here for you,” said Mrs. Umbridge, heading for the little counter that was Twoshirts’s entire post office. “Now where did I—oh yes….”

She handed Tiffany a small bundle of letters and a flat parcel, all held together by an elastic band and covered with dog hairs. She went on talking, but Tiffany barely noticed. There was something about how the carter had broken his leg, poor man, or maybe it was his horse that had broken a leg, poor creature, and one of the
blizzards had brought down a lot of trees onto the track, and then the snow had set in so cruelly, dear, that not even a man on foot could get through, and so what with one thing and another the mail to and from the Chalk had been delayed and really there was hardly any of it anyway—

All this was a kind of background buzzing to Tiffany, because the letters were all addressed to her—three from Roland and one from her mother—and so was the parcel. It had a businesslike air, and when opened revealed a sleek black box, which itself opened to reveal—

Tiffany had never seen a box of watercolor paints before. She hadn’t known that so many colors existed in one place.

“Oh, a paint box,” said Mrs. Umbridge, looking over her shoulder. “That’s nice. I had one when I was a girl. Ah, and it’s got turquoise in it. That’s very expensive, turquoise. That’s from your young man, is it?” she added, because old women like to know everything, or a little bit more.

Tiffany cleared her throat. In her letters she’d kept right off the whole painful subject of painting. He must have thought she’d like to try it.

The colors in her hands gleamed like a trapped rainbow.

“It’s a lovely morning,” she said, “and I think I’d better go home….”

On the chilly river just above the thundering Lancre Falls, a tree trunk was moored. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg stood on a huge, water-worn stone in the middle of the torrent and watched it.

The log was covered in Feegles. They all looked cheerful. Admittedly, certain death awaited them, but it did not involve—and this is important—having to spell anything.

“You know, no man has ever gone over these falls and lived to tell the tale,” said Nanny.

“Mr. Parkinson did,” said Granny. “Don’t you remember? Three years ago?”

“Ah, yes, he lived, certainly, but he was left with a very bad stutter,” said Nanny Ogg.

“But he wrote it down,” said Granny. “He called it ‘My Fall Over the Falls.’ It was quite interestin’.”

“No one actually told a tale,” said Nanny. “That is my point.”

“Aye, weel, we’re as light as wee feathers,” said Big Yan. “An’ the wind blowin’ through the kilt keeps a man well aloft, ye ken.”

“I’m sure that’s a sight to see,” said Nanny Ogg.

“Are ye all ready?” said Rob Anybody. “Fine! Would ye be so good as to untie yon rope, Mrs. Ogg?”

Nanny Ogg undid the knot and gave the log a shove with her foot. It drifted a little way and then got caught by the current.

“‘Row, Row, Row Yer Boat’?” Daft Wullie suggested.

“Whut aboot it?” said Rob Anybody as the log began to speed up.

“Why don’t we all sing it?” said Daft Wullie. The walls of the canyon were closing in fast now.

“Okay,” said Rob. “After all, it is a pleasin’ naut-ickal ditty. And Wullie, ye’re tae keep yon cheese away fra’ me. I dinna like the way it’s lookin’ at me.”

“It hasna got any eyes, Rob,” said Wullie meekly, holding on to Horace.

“Aye, that’s whut I mean,” said Rob sourly.

“Horace didna
mean
tae try an’ eat ye, Rob,” said Daft Wullie meekly. “An’ ye wuz sae nice an’
clean
when he spat ye oot.”

“An’ hoo come ye ken whut name a cheese has?” Rob
demanded, as white water began to splash over the log.

“He told me, Rob.”

“Aye?” said Rob, and shrugged. “Oh, okay. I wouldna argue wi’ a cheese.”

Bits of ice were bobbing on the river. Nanny Ogg pointed them out to Granny Weatherwax.

“All this snow is making the ice rivers move again,” she said.

“I know.”

“I hope you can trust the stories, Esme,” said Nanny.

“They are ancient stories. They have a life of their own. They long to be repeated. Summer rescued from a cave? Very old,” said Granny Weatherwax.

“The Wintersmith will chase our girl, though.”

Granny watched the Feegles’ log drift around the bend.

“Yes, he will,” she said. “And, you know, I almost feel sorry for him.”

And so the Feegles sailed home. Apart from Billy Bigchin they couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but that minor problem was dwarfed by the major problem, which was that they didn’t bother with the idea of singing at the same pitch, or speed, or even with the same words. Also, minor fights soon broke out, as always happened even when Feegles were having fun, and so the sound that echoed among the rocks as the log sped toward the lip of the waterfall went something like:

“Rowaarghgently boat ouchgentlydoon boat boat boatiddley boat stream boatlymerrily boatarrgh…CRIV
E
N
n
n
n
n
n
s
!
”

And with its cargo of Feegles, the log tipped and disappeared, along with the accompanying song, into the mists.

Tiffany flew over the long whaleback of the Chalk. It was a white whale now, but the snow didn’t look too deep here. The bitter winds that blew the snow onto the downs also blew it away. There were no trees and few walls to make it drift.

As she drew nearer to home, she looked down onto the lower, sheltered fields. The lambing pens were already being set up. There was a lot of snow for this time of year—and whose fault was that?—but the ewes were on their own timetable, snow or not. Shepherds knew how bitter the weather could be at lambing; winter never gave in without a fight.

She landed in the farmyard and said a few words to the broomstick. It wasn’t hers, after all. It rose again and shot off back to the mountains. A stick can always find its way home, if you know the trick.

There were reunions, lots of laughter, a few tears, a general claiming that she had grown like a beanstalk and was already as tall as her mother and all the other things that get said at a time like this.

Apart from the tiny Cornucopia in her pocket, she’d left everything behind—her diary, her clothes, everything. It didn’t matter. She hadn’t run away, she’d run to, and here she was, waiting for herself. She could feel her own ground under her boots again.

She hung the pointy hat behind the door and went and helped the men setting up the pens.

It was a good day. A bit of sun had managed to leak through the murk. Against the whiteness of the snow all colors seemed bright, as if the fact that they were here gave them some special brilliance. Old harnesses on the stable wall gleamed like silver; even the browns and grays that might once have appeared so drab seemed, now, to have a life of their own.

She got out the box of paints and some precious paper and tried to paint what she was seeing, and there was a kind of magic there, too. It was all about light and dark. If you could get down on paper the shadow and the shine, the shape that any creature left in the world, then you could get the thing itself.

She’d only ever drawn with colored chalks before. Paint was so much better.

It was a good day. It was a day just for her. She could feel bits of herself opening up and coming out of hiding again. Tomorrow there would be the chores, and people very nervously coming up to the farm for the help of a witch. If the pain was strong enough, no one worried that the witch who was making it go away was someone you last remembered being two years old and running around with only her undershirt on.

Tomorrow…might become anything. But today the winter world was full of color.

T
here was talk of strangeness all across the plains. There was the rowing boat belonging to the old man who lived in a shack just below the waterfall. It rowed itself away so fast, people said, that it skipped over the water like a dragonfly—but there was no one inside it. It was found tied up at Twoshirts, where the river ran under the coach road. But then the overnight mail coach that had been waiting outside the inn ran away by itself, with all the mailbags left behind. The coachman borrowed a horse to give chase and found the coach in the shadow of the Chalk with all the doors open and one horse missing.

The horse was returned a couple of days later by a well-dressed young man who said he’d found it wandering. Surprisingly, then, it looked well fed and groomed.

Very, very thick would be the best way to describe the walls of the castle. There were no guards at night, because they locked up at eight o’clock and went home. Instead, there was Old Robbins, who’d once been a guard and was now officially the night watchman, but everyone knew he fell asleep in front of the fire by nine. He had an old trumpet that he was supposed to blow if there was
an attack, although no one was entirely sure what this would achieve.

Roland slept in the Heron Tower because it was up a long flight of steps that his aunts didn’t much like climbing. It also had very, very thick walls, and this is just as well, because at eleven o’clock someone stuck a trumpet against his ear and blew on it hard.

He leaped out of bed, got caught in the eiderdown, slipped on a mat that covered the freezing stone floor, banged his head on a cupboard, and managed to light a candle with the third desperately struck match.

On the little table by his bed was a pair of huge bellows with Old Robbins’s trumpet stuck in the business end. The room was empty, except for the shadows.

“I’ve got a sword, you know,” he said. “And I know how to use it!”

“Ach, ye’re deid already,” said a voice from the ceiling. “Chopped tae tiny wee pieces in yer bed while ye snored like a hog. Only jokin’, ye ken. None of us mean ye any harm.” There was some hurried whispering in the darkness of the rafters, and then the voice continued: “Wee correction there,
most
o’ us dinna mean ye any harm. But dinna fash yersel’ aboot Big Yan, he disna like anybody verra much.”

“Who are you?”

“Aye, there ye go again, gettin’ it all wrong,” said the voice conversationally. “I’m up here an’ heavily armed, ye ken, while ye’re doon there in yer wee nightie, makin’ a bonny target, an’ ye think ye are the one who asks the questions. So ye know how to fight, do ye?”

“Yes!”

“So you’ll fight monsters tae save the big wee hag? Will ye?”

“The big wee hag?”

“That’s Tiffany tae ye.”

“You mean Tiffany Aching? What’s happened to her?”

“You’ll be ready for when she needs ye?”

“Yes! Of course! Who
are
you?”

“And ye know how tae fight?”

“I’ve read the
Manual of Swordsmanship
all the way through!”

After a few seconds the voice from the high shadows said: “Ah, I think I’ve put ma finger on a wee flaw in this plan….”

There was an armory across the castle courtyard. It wasn’t much of one. There was a suit of armor made of various nonmatching pieces, a few swords, a battle-axe that no one had ever been able to lift, and a chain-mail suit that appeared to have been attacked by extremely strong moths. And there were some wooden dummies on big springs for sword practice. Right now the Feegles were watching Roland attack one with a great deal of enthusiasm.

“Ach weel,” said Big Yan despondently as Roland leaped about. “If he never meets anythin’ other than bits o’wood that dinna fight back, he might be okay.”

“He’s willin’,” Rob Anybody pointed out as Roland put his foot against the dummy and tried to tug the sword point out of it.

“Oh, aye.” Big Yan looked glum.

“He’s got a bonny action, ye must admit,” said Rob.

Roland succeeded in pulling the sword out of the dummy, which sprang back on its ancient spring and hit him on the head.

Blinking a little, the boy looked down at the Feegles. He remembered them from the time he was rescued from the Queen of the Elves. No one who met the Nac Mac Feegles ever forgot them, even if they tried hard. But it was all vague. He’d been near
crazy part of the time, and unconscious, and had seen so many strange things that it was hard to know what was real and what wasn’t.

Now he knew: They were real. Who’d make up a thing like this? Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord, but nobody was perfect.

“What am I going to have to do, Mr. Anybody?” he asked.

Rob Anybody had been worried about this bit. Words like “Underworld” can give people the wrong idea.

“Ye must rescue a…lady,” he said. “Not the big wee hag. Another…lady. We can take ye to the place where she bides. It’s like…undergroound, ye ken. She’s like…sleepin’. An’ all ye ha’ tae do is bring her up tae the surface, kind o’ thing.”

“Oh, you mean like Orpheo rescuing Euniphon from the Underworld?” said Roland.

Rob Anybody just stared.

“It’s a myth from Ephebe,” Roland went on. “It’s supposed to be a love story, but it’s really a metaphor for the annual return of summer. There’s a lot of versions of
that
story.”

They still stared. Feegles have very worrying stares. They’re even worse than chickens in that respect.
*

“A metaphor is a kind o’ lie to help people understand what’s true,” said Billy Bigchin, but this didn’t help much.

“And he won her freedom by playing beautiful music,” Roland added. “I think he played a lute. Or maybe it was a lyre.”

“Ach, weel, that’ll suit us fine,” said Daft Wullie. “We’re experts at lootin’ an’ then lyin’ aboot it.”

“They’re musical instruments,” said Billy Bigchin. He looked up at Roland. “Can ye play one, mister?”

“My aunts have a piano,” said Roland doubtfully. “But I’ll get into real trouble if anything happens to it. They’ll tear the walls down.”

“Swords it is, then,” said Rob Anybody reluctantly. “Ha’ ye never fought against a real person, mister?”

“No. I wanted to practice with the guards, but my aunts won’t let them.”

“But ye have used a sword before?”

Roland looked embarrassed. “Not lately. Not as such. Er…not at all, in fact. My aunts say—”

“So how d’ye practice?” asked Rob in horror.

“Well, there’s a big mirror in my room, you see, and I can practice…the…actual…” Roland began, stopping when he saw their expressions. “Sorry,” he added. “I don’t think I’m the type you’re looking for….”

“Oh, I wouldna say that,” said Rob Anybody wearily. “Accordin’ tae the hag o’ hags, ye’re just the laddie. Ye just need someone tae fight with….”

Big Yan, always suspicious, looked at his brother and followed his gaze to the battered suit of armor.

“Oh aye?” he growled. “Weel, Ah’m no’ gonna be a knee!”

The next day was a good day, right up to the point where it became a tight little bowl of terror.

Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.

“Er…aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.

“No, Mum, I’m supposed not to,” said Tiffany, still scrubbing.

“But can’t you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?”

“The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is,” said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. “I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe.”

Mrs. Aching backed away. “I thought you just had to wave your hands about,” she mumbled nervously.

“That works,” said Tiffany, “but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush.”

She finished the floor. She cleaned under the sink. She opened all the cupboards, cleaned them out, and put everything back. She cleaned the table, and then turned it over and cleaned it underneath. She even washed the bottoms of the legs, where they touched the floor. It was then that Mrs. Aching went and found things to do somewhere, because this was clearly not just about good housekeeping.

It wasn’t. As Granny Weatherwax once said, if you wanted to walk around with your head in the air, then you needed to have both feet on the ground. Scrubbing floors, cutting wood, washing clothes, making cheese—these things grounded you, taught you what was real. You could set a small part of your mind to them, giving your thoughts time to line up and settle down.

Was she safe here from the Wintersmith? Was
here
safe from the Wintersmith?

Sooner or later she’d have to face him again—a snowman who thought he was human and had the power of the avalanche. Magic could only slow him down for a while, and make him angry. No ordinary weapon would work, and she didn’t have many extraordinary ones.

Annagramma had gone for him in a rage! Tiffany wished she could be that angry. She’d have to go back and thank her, too. Annagramma was going to be all right, at least. People had seen her turn into a screaming, green-skinned monster. They could respect a witch like that. Once you got respect, you’d got everything.

She’d have to try to see Roland, too. She didn’t know what to say. That was kind of all right, because he wouldn’t know what to say, either. They could spend whole afternoons together, not knowing what to say. He was probably in the castle right now. As she cleaned under the seat of a chair, she wondered what he was doing.

There was a hammering on the door of the armory. That was the aunts for you. The door was four thicknesses of oak and iron, but they banged on it anyway.

“We will not tolerate this waywardness!” said Aunt Danuta. There was a crash from the other side of the door. “Are you fighting in there?”

“No, I’m writing a flute sonata!” shouted Roland. Something heavy hit the door.

Aunt Danuta pulled herself together. She looked like Miss Tick in general outline, but with the eyes of the perpetually offended and the mouth of an instant complainer.

“If you don’t do as you’re told, I will tell your father—” she began, and stopped when the door was yanked open.

Roland had a cut on his arm, his face was red, sweat was dripping off his chin, and he was panting. He raised his sword in a trembling hand. Behind him, on the other side of the gray room, was a suit of very battered armor. It turned its helmet to look at
the aunts. This made a squeaking noise.

“If you dare disturb my father,” Roland said as they stared at it, “I shall tell him about the money that’s being taken out of the big chest in the strong room. Don’t lie!”

For a moment—a blink would have missed it—Aunt Danuta’s face had guilt written on it, but it vanished with speed. “How dare you! Your dear mother—”

“Is dead!” shouted Roland, and slammed the door.

The helmet’s visor was pushed up and half a dozen Feegles peered out.

“Crivens, what a pair of ol’ corbies,” said Big Yan.

“My aunts,” said Roland darkly. “What’s a corbie?”

“It’s like a big ol’ crow that hangs around waitin’ for someone tae die,” said Billy Bigchin.

“Ah, then you’ve met them before,” said Roland with a glint in his eye. “Let’s have another go, shall we? I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

There was a grumble of protests from every part of the armor, but Rob Anybody shouted it down.

“All right! We’ll gi’e the lad one more chance,” he said. “Get tae yer posts!”

There were clangs and much swearing as the Feegles climbed around inside the suit, but after a few seconds the armor seemed to pull itself together. It picked up a sword and lumbered toward Roland, who could hear the muffled orders coming from inside.

The sword swung, but in one quick movement he deflected it, stepped sideways, swung his own sword in a blur, and chopped the suit in half with a clang that echoed around the castle.

The top part hit the wall. The bottom half just rocked, still standing.

After a few seconds, a lot of small heads slowly rose above the iron trousers.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Roland said. “Is everyone, er…whole?”

A quick count revealed that there were indeed no half Feegles, although there was a lot of bruising and Daft Wullie had lost his spog. A lot of Feegles were walking in circles and banging at their ears with their hands, though. It had been a very loud clang.

“No’ a bad effort, that time,” said Rob Anybody vaguely. “Ye seem tae be gettin’ the knowin’ o’ the fightin’.”

“It definitely seemed better, didn’t it,” said Roland, looking proud. “Shall I have another go?”

“No! I mean…no,” said Rob. “No, I reckon that’s enough for today, eh?”

Roland glanced up at the little barred window, high in the wall. “Yes, I’d better go and see my father,” he said, and the glow in his face faded. “It’s well past lunchtime. If I don’t see him every day, he forgets who I am.”

When the boy had gone, the Feegles looked at one another.

“That lad is no’ havin’ an easy life right noo,” said Rob Anybody.

“You’ve got tae admit he’s gettin’ better,” said Billy Bigchin.

“Oh, aye, I’ll warrant he’s no’ such a bunty as I thought, but that sword is far tae heavy for him, an’ it’ll take weeks tae get him any guid,” said Big Yan. “Ha’ we got weeks, Rob?”

Rob Anybody shrugged. “Who can tell?” he said. “He’s gonna be the Hero, come whut may. The big wee hag’ll meet the Wintersmith soon enough. She canna fight that. It’s like the hag o’ hags sez: Ye canna fight a story as old as that. It’ll find a way.” He cupped his hands. “C’mon lads, away tae the mound. We’ll come back tonight. Mebbe ye can’t make a Hero all in one go.”

Tiffany’s little brother was old enough to want to be considered older still, which is a dangerous ambition on a busy working farm, where there are big-hoofed horses and sheep dips and a hundred and one other places where a small person might not be noticed until it’s too late. But most of all he liked water. When you couldn’t find him, he was usually down by the river, fishing. He loved the river, which was a bit surprising since a huge green monster had once leaped out of it to eat him. However, Tiffany had hit it in the mouth with an iron frying pan. Since he’d been eating sweets at the time, Wentworth’s only comment afterward had been, “Tiffy hit fish go bang.” But he did seem to be growing up as a skilled angler. He was fishing this afternoon. He’d found the knack of knowing where the monsters were. The really big pike lurked in the deep, black holes, thinking slow hungry thoughts until Wentworth’s silver lure dropped almost into their mouths.