The Wee Free Men

There was a lot of muttering and nudging and then one of the tiny men removed his rabbit skull helmet and twiddled it nervously in his hands.

‘We wuz hungerin’, mistress,’ he muttered. ‘But when we kenned it was thine, we did put the beastie back in the fold.’

They looked so crestfallen that Tiffany took pity on them.

‘I expect you wouldn’t have stolen it if you weren’t so hungry, then,’ she said.

There were several hundred astonished looks.

‘Oh, we would, mistress,’ said the helmet-twiddler.

‘You would?’

Tiffany sounded so surprised that the twiddler looked around at his colleagues for support. They all nodded.

‘Yes, mistress. We have tae. We are a famously stealin’ folk. Aren’t we, lads? Whut’s it we’re famous for?’

‘Stealin’!’ shouted the blue men.

‘And what else, lads?’

‘Fightin’!’

‘And what else?’

‘Drinkin’!’

‘And what else?’

There was a certain amount of thought about this, but they all reached the same conclusion.

‘Drinkin’ and fightin’!’

‘And there was summat else,’ muttered the twiddler. ‘Ach, yes. Tell the hag, lads!’

‘Stealin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ fightin’!’ shouted the blue men cheerfully.

‘Tell the wee hag who we are, lads,’ said the helmet-twiddler.

There was the scrape of many small swords being drawn and thrust into the air.

‘Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna’ be fooled again!’

Tiffany stared at them. They were all watching her to see what she was going to do next, and the longer she said nothing, the more worried they became. They lowered their swords, looking embarrassed.

‘But we wouldna’ dare deny a powerful hag, except mebbe for strong drink,’ said the twiddler, his helmet spinning desperately in his hands and his eyes on the bottle of Special Sheep Liniment. ‘Will ye no’ help us?’

‘Help you?’ said Tiffany. ‘I want you to help me! Someone has taken my brother in broad daylight.’

‘Oh waily, waily waily!’ said the helmet-twiddler. ‘She’s come, then. She’s come a-fetchin’. We’re too late! It’s the Quin!’

‘There was only one of them!’ said Tiffany.

‘They mean the Queen,’ said the toad. ‘The Queen of the—’

‘Hush yer gob!’ shouted the helmet-twiddler, but his voice was lost in the wails and groans of the Nac Mac Feegles. They were pulling at their hair and stamping on the ground and shouting ‘Alackaday!’ and ‘Waily waily waily!’ and the toad was arguing with the helmet-twiddler and everyone was getting louder to make themselves heard—

Tiffany stood up. ‘Everybody shut up right now!’ she said.

Silence fell, except for a few sniffs and faint ‘wailys’ from the back.

‘We wuz only dreeing our weird, mistress,’ said the helmet-twiddler, almost crouching in fear.

‘But not in here!’ snapped Tiffany, shaking with anger. This is a dairy! I have to keep it clean!’

‘Er… dreeing your weird means “facing your fate”,’ said the toad.

‘ ‘Cuz if the Quin is here then it means our kelda is weakenin’ fast,’ said the helmet-twiddler. ‘An’ we’ll ha’ naeone tae look after us.’

To look after us, thought Tiffany. Hundreds of tough little men who could each win the Worst Broken Nose Contest need someone to look after them?

She took a deep breath.

‘My mother’s in the house crying,’ she said, ‘and…’ I don’t know how to comfort her, she added to herself. I’m no good at this sort of thing, I never know what I should be saying. Out loud she said: ‘And she wants him back. Er. A lot.’ She added, hating to say it: ‘He’s her favourite.’

She pointed to the helmet-twiddler, who backed away.

‘First of all,’ she said, ‘I can’t keep thinking of you as the helmet-twiddler, so what is your name?’

A gasp went up from the Nac Mac Feegles, and Tiffany heard one of them murmur, ‘Aye, she’s the hag, sure enough. That’s a hag’s question!’

The helmet-twiddler looked around at them as if seeking help.

‘We dinnae give oor names,’ he muttered. But another Feegle, somewhere safe at the back, said, ‘Wheest! You cannae refuse a hag!’

The little man looked up, very worried.

‘I’m the Big Man o’ the clan, mistress,’ he said. ‘An’ my name it is…’ he swallowed, ‘Rob Anybody Feegle, mistress. But I beg ye not to use it agin me!’

The toad was ready for this.

‘They think names have magic in them,’ he murmured. ‘They don’t tell them to people in case they are written down.’

‘Aye, an’ put upon comp-li-cated documents,’ said a Feegle.

‘An’ summonses and such things,’ said another.

‘Or “Wanted” posters!’ said another.

‘Aye, an’ bills an’ affidavits,’ said another.

‘Writs of distrainment, even!’ The Feegles looked around in panic at the very thought of written-down things.

‘They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.’

‘All right,’ said Tiffany. ‘We’re getting somewhere. I promise not to write his name down. Now tell me about this Queen who’s taken Wentworth. Queen of what?’

‘Canna say it aloud, mistress,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘She hears her name wherever it’s said, and she comes callin’.’

‘Actually, that’s true,’ said the toad. ‘You do not want to meet her, ever.’

‘She’s bad?’

‘Worse. Just call her the Queen.’

‘Aye, the Quin,’ said Rob Anybody. He looked at Tiffany with bright, worried eyes. ‘Ye dinnae ken o’ the Quin? An’ you the wean o’ Granny Aching, who had these hills in her bones? Ye dinnae ken the ways? She did not show ye the ways? Ye’re no’ a hag? How can this be? Ye slammered Jenny Green-Teeth and stared the Heidless Horseman in the eyes he hasnae got, and you dinnae ken?’

Tiffany gave him a brittle smile, and then whispered to the toad, ‘Who’s Ken? And what about his dinner? And what’s a wean of Granny Aching?’

‘As far as I can make out,’ said the toad, ‘they’re amazed that you don’t know about the Queen and… er, the magical ways, what with you being a child of Granny Aching and standing up to the monsters. “Ken” means “know”.’

‘And his dinner?’

‘Forget about his dinner for now,’ said the toad. ‘They thought Granny Aching told you her magic. Hold me up to your ear, will you?’ Tiffany did so, and the toad whispered, ‘Best not to disappoint them, eh?’

She swallowed. ‘But she never told me about any magic—’ she began. And stopped. It was true. Granny Aching hadn’t told her about any magic. But she showed people magic every day.

…There was the time when the Baron’s champion hound was caught killing sheep. It was a