The Wee Free Men

‘I am not going to marry a Feegle! I can’t have hundreds of babies! Tell me what to do!’

‘Me? Tell the kelda what to do? I wouldn’t dare,’ said the toad. ‘And I don’t like being shouted at. Even toads have their pride, you know.’ It crawled back into the leaves.

Tiffany took a deep breath, ready to shout, and then closed her mouth.

The old kelda must’ve known about this, she thought. So… she must have thought I’d be able to deal with it. It’s just the rules, and they didn’t know what to do about them. None of them wanted to marry a big girl like her, even if none of them would admit it. It was just the rules.

There must be a way round it. There had to be. But she had to accept a husband and she had to name the day. They’d told her that.

She stared at the thorn trees for a moment. Hmm, she thought.

She slid back down the hole.

The pictsies were waiting nervously, every scarred and bearded face watching hers.

‘I accept you, Rob Anybody,’ she said.

Rob Anybody’s face became a mask of terror. She heard him mutter, ‘Aw crivens!’ in a tiny voice.

‘But of course, it’s the bride who names the day, isn’t it?’ said Tiffany cheerfully. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘Aye,’ Rob Anybody quavered. That’s the tradition, right enough.’

‘Then I shall.’ Tiffany took a deep breath. ‘At the end of the world is a great big mountain of granite rock a mile high,’ she said. ‘And every year, a tiny bird flies all the way to the rock and wipes its beak on it. Well, when the little bird has worn the mountain down to the size of a grain of sand… that’s the day I’ll marry you, Rob Anybody Feegle!’

Rob Anybody’s terror turned to outright panic, but then he hesitated and, very slowly, started to grin.

‘Aye, guid idea,’ he said slowly. ‘It doesnae do tae rush these things.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Tiffany.

‘And that’d gi’ us time tae sort oout the guest list an a’ that,’ the pictsie went on.

‘That’s right.’

‘Plus there’s a’ that business wi’ the wedding dress and buckets o’ flowers and a’ that kind of stuff,’ said Rob Anybody, looking more cheerful by the second. ‘That sort o’ thing can tak’ for ever, ye ken.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Tiffany.

‘But she’s really just said no!’ Fion burst out. ‘It’d take millions of years for the bird to—’

‘She said aye!’ Rob Anybody shouted. ‘Ye al’ heard her, lads! An’ she’s named the day! That’s the rules!’

‘Nae problem aboot the mountain, neither,’ said Daft Wullie, still holding out the flowers. ‘Just ye tell us where it is and I reckon we could ha’ it doon a lot faster than any wee burdie—’

‘It’s got to be the bird!’ yelled Rob Anybody desperately. ‘OK? The wee burdie! Nae more arguin’! Anyone feelin’ like arguin’ will feel ma boot! Some o’ us ha’ got a wee laddie to steal back fra’ the Quin!’ He drew his sword and waved it in the air. ‘Who’s coming wi’ me?’

That seemed to work. The Nac Mac Feegle liked clear goals. Hundreds of swords and battleaxes, and one bunch of battered flowers in the case of Daft Wullie, were thrust into the air and the war cry of the Nac Mac Feegle echoed around the chamber. The period of time it takes a pictsie to go from normal to mad fighting mood is so tiny it can’t be measured on the smallest clock.

Unfortunately, since the pictsies were very individualistic, each one had his own cry and Tiffany could only make out a few over the din:

‘They can tak’ oour lives but they cannae tak’ oour troousers!’

‘Bang went saxpence!’

‘Ye’ll tak’ the high road an’ I’ll tak’yer wallet!’

‘There can only be one t’ousand!’

‘Ach, stick it up yer trakkans!’

…but the voices gradually came together in one roar that shook the walls:

‘Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!’

This died away, a cloud of dust dropped from the roof, and there was silence.

‘Let’s gae!’ cried Rob Anybody.

As one Feegle, the pictsies swarmed down the galleries and across the floor and up the slope to the hole. In a few seconds the chamber was empty, except for the gonnagle and Fion.

‘Where have they gone?’ said Tiffany.

‘Ach, they just go,’ said Fion, shrugging. ‘I’m going tae stay here and look after the fire. Someone ought to act like a proper kelda.’ She glared at Tiffany.

‘I do hope you find a clan for yourself soon, Fion,’ said Tiffany, sweetly. The pictsie scowled at her.

‘They’ll run arroound for a while, mebbe stun a few bunnies and fall over a few times,’ said William. ‘They’ll slow down when they find oout they don’t ken what they’re supposed to do yet.’

‘Do they always just run off like this?’ said Tiffany.

‘Ach, well, Rob Anybody disnae want too much talk about marryin’,’ said William, grinning.

‘Yes, we have a lot in common in that respect,’ said Tiffany.

She pulled herself out of the hole, and found the toad waiting for her.

‘I listened in,’ it said. ‘Well done. Very clever. Very diplomatic.’

Tiffany looked around. There were a few hours to sunset, but the shadows were already lengthening.

‘We’d better be going,’ she said, tying on her apron. ‘And you’re coming, toad.’

‘Well, I don’t know much about how to get into—’ the toad began, trying to back away. But toads can’t back up easily, and Tiffany grabbed it and put it in her apron pocket.

She headed for the mounds and stones. My brother will never grow up, she thought, as she ran across the turf. That’s what the old lady said. How does that work? What kind of a place is it where you never grow up?

The mounds got nearer. She saw William and Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock- Jock running along beside her, but there was no sign of the rest of the Nac Mac Feegle.

And then she was among the mounds. Her sisters had told her that there were more dead kings buried under there, but it had never frightened her. Nothing on the downs had ever frightened her.

But it was cold here. She’d never noticed that before.

Find a place where the time doesn’t fit. Well, the mounds were history. So were the old stones. Did they fit here? Well, yes, they belonged to the past, but they’d ridden on the hills for thousands of years. They’d grown old here. They were part of the landscape.

The low sun made the shadows lengthen. That was when the Chalk revealed its secrets. At some places, when the light was right, you could see the edges of old fields and tracks. The shadows showed up what brilliant noonlight couldn’t see.

Tiffany had made up ‘noonlight’.

She couldn’t even see hoofprints. She wandered around the trilithons, which looked a bit like huge stone doorways, but even when she tried walking through them both ways nothing happened.

This wasn’t according to plan. There should have been a magic door. She was sure of that.