Wintersmith (18 page)

“Dese scunners are total loonies!” said a new voice. It appeared to come from somewhere on the person of the dark book
borrower, but much lower than the head.

“Pardon?” said Mr. Swinsley.

“Ach, nae problemo,” said the figure quickly. “Ah’m sufferin’ from a grumblin’ knee, ’tis an old trouble—”

“Why don’t they be burnin’ all dem books, eh?” the unseen knee grumbled.

“Sorry aboot this, ye know how knees can let a man doon in public, I’m a martyr to dis one,” said the stranger.

“I know how it is. My elbow acts up in wet weather,” said Mr. Swinsley. There was some sort of fight going on in the nether regions of the stranger, who was shaking like a puppet.

“That will be one penny,” Miss Jenkins said. “And I will need your name and address.”

The dark figure shuddered. “Oh, I—we ne’er give out oor name an’ address!” it said quickly. “It is against oor religion, ye ken. Er…I dinna wanta be a knee aboot this, but why is ye all here freezin’ tae death?”

“Our oxen wandered off, and alas, the snow’s too deep to walk through,” said Mr. Swinsley.

“Aye. But youse got a stove an’ all them dry ol’ books,” said the dark figure.

“Yes, we know,” said the librarian, looking puzzled.

There was the kind of wretched pause you get when two people aren’t going to understand each other’s point of view at all. Then:

“Tell ye what, me an’—ma knee—will go an’ fetch yer cows for ye, eh?” said the mysterious figure. “Got tae be worth a penny, eh? Big Yan, you’ll feel the rough side o’ my hand in a minit!”

The figure dropped out of sight. Snow flew up in the moonlight. For a moment it sounded as if a scuffle were going on, and
then a sound like “Crivens!” disappearing into the distance.

The librarians were about to shut the door when they heard the terrified bellows of the oxen, getting louder very quickly.

Two curling waves of snow came across the glittering moors. The creatures rode them like surfers, yelling at the moon. The snow settled down a few feet away from the wagon. There was a blue-and-red blur in the air, and the romantic book was whisked away.

But what was really odd, the librarians agreed, was that when the oxen had come speeding toward them, they had appeared to be traveling
backward
.

It was hard to be embarrassed by Nanny Ogg, because her laugh drove embarrassment away.
She
wasn’t embarrassed about anything.

Today Tiffany, with extra pairs of socks on to avoid unfortunate floral incidents, went with her “around the houses,” as it was known to witches.

“You did this for Miss Treason?” asked Nanny as they stepped out. There were big fat clouds massing around the mountains; there would be a lot more snow tonight.

“Oh yes. And for Miss Level and Miss Pullunder.”

“Enjoyed it, did you?” said Nanny, wrapping her cloak around her.

“Sometimes. I mean, I know why we do it, but sometimes you get fed up with people being stupid. I quite like doing the medicine stuff.”

“Good with the herbs, are you?”

“No. I’m very good with the herbs.”

“Oh, there’s a bit of swank, eh?” said Nanny.

“If I didn’t know I was good with herbs, I’d be stupid, Mrs. Ogg.”

“That’s right. Good. It’s good to be good at something.
Now, our next little favor is—”

—giving an old lady a bath, as much as was possible with a couple of tin basins and some washcloths. And that was witchcraft. Then they looked in on a woman who’d just had a baby, and that was witchcraft, and a man with a very nasty leg injury that Nanny Ogg said was doing very well, and that was witchcraft too, and then in an out-of-the-way group of huddled little cottages, they climbed the cramped wooden stairs to a tiny little bedroom where an old man shot at them with a crossbow.

“You old devil, ain’t you dead yet?” said Nanny. “You’re looking well! I swear, the man with the scythe must’ve forgotten where you live!”

“I’m a-waitin’ for him, Mrs. Ogg!” said the old man cheerfully. “If I’m gonna go, I’ll take ’im with me!”

“This is my girl Tiff. She’s learnin’ the witchin’,” said Nanny, raising her voice. “This is Mr. Hogparsley, Tiff…Tiff?” She snapped her fingers in front of Tiffany’s eyes.

“Huh?” said Tiffany. She was still staring in horror.

The twang of the bow as Nanny opened the door had been bad enough, but for a fraction of a second, she would have sworn that an arrow had gone right through Nanny Ogg and stuck in the door frame.

“Shame on you for firing at a young lady, Bill,” said Nanny severely, plumping up his pillows. “And Mrs. Dowser says you’ve been shootin’ at her when she comes up to see you,” she added, putting her basket down by the bed. “That’s no way to treat a respectable woman who brings you your meals, is it? For shame!”

“Sorry, Nanny,” muttered Mr. Hogparsley. “It’s just that she’s skinny as a rake and wears black. ’Tis an easy mistake to make in poor light.”

“Mr. Hogparsley here is lying in wait for Death, Tiff,” said Nanny. “Mistress Weatherwax helped you make the special traps and arrows, ain’t that right, Bill?”

“Traps?” whispered Tiffany. Nanny just nudged her and pointed down. The floorboards were covered in ferociously spiked mantraps.

They were all drawn in charcoal.

“I said isn’t that right, Bill?” Nanny repeated, raising her voice. “She helped you with the traps!”

“She did that!” said Mr. Hogparsley. “Hah! I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side o’ her!”

“Right, so no shootin’ arrows at anyone except Death, right? Otherwise Mistress Weatherwax won’t make you any more,” said Nanny, putting a bottle on the old wooden box that was Mr. Hogparsley’s bedside table. “Here’s some of your jollop, freshly mixed up. Where did she tell you to keep the pain?”

“It’s sitting up here on my shoulder, missus, being no trouble.”

Nanny touched the shoulder, and seemed to think for a moment. “It’s a brown and white squiggle? Sort of oblong?”

“That’s right, missus,” said Mr. Hogparsley, pulling at the cork on the bottle. “It wiggles away there and I laughs at it.” The cork popped out. Suddenly, the room smelled of apples.

“It’s gettin’ big,” said Nanny. “Mistress Weatherwax will be along tonight to take it away.”

“Right you are, missus,” said the old man, filling a mug to the brim.

“Try not to shoot her, all right? It only makes her mad.”

It was snowing again when they stepped out of the cottage, big feathery flakes that meant business.

“I reckon that’s it for today,” Nanny announced. “I’ve got things
to see to over in Slice, but we’ll take the stick tomorrow.”

“That arrow he fired at us—” said Tiffany.

“Imaginary,” said Nanny Ogg, smiling.

“It looked real for a moment!”

Nanny Ogg chuckled. “It’s amazing what Esme Weatherwax can make people imagine!”

“Like traps for Death?”

“Oh, yes. Well, it gives the old boy an interest in life. He’s on his way to the Door. But at least Esme’s seen to it that there’s no pain.”

“Because it’s floating over his shoulder?” said Tiffany.

“Yep. She put it just outside his body for him, so it don’t hurt,” said Nanny, the snow crunching under her feet.

“I didn’t know you could do that!”

“I can do it for small stuff, toothaches and the like. Esme’s the champion for it, though. We’re none of us too proud to call her in. Y’know, she’s very good at people. Funny, really, ’cuz she doesn’t like ’em much.”

Tiffany glanced at the sky, and Nanny was the kind of inconvenient person who notices
everything
.

“Wondering if lover boy is goin’ to drop in?” she said with a big grin.

“Nanny! Really!”

“But you are, aren’t you?” said Nanny, who knew no shame. “O’ course, he’s
always
around, when you think about it. You’re walking through him, you feel him on your skin, you stamp him off your boots when you go indoors—”

“Just don’t talk like that, please?” said Tiffany.

“Besides, what’s time to an elemental?” Nanny chattered. “And I suppose snowflakes don’t just make themselves, especially when you’ve got to get the arms and legs right….”

She’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye to see if I’m going red, Tiffany thought. I know it.

Then Nanny nudged her in the ribs and laughed one of her laughs that would make a rock blush.

“Good for you!” she said. “I’ve had a few boyfriends myself that I’d have
loved
to stamp off my boots!”

Tiffany was just getting ready for bed that night when she found a book under her pillow.

The title, in fiery red letters, was
Passion’s Plaything
by Marjory J. Boddice, and in smaller print were the words:
Gods and Men said their love was not to be, but they would not listen!! A tortured tale of a tempestuous romance by the author of
Sundered Hearts
!!!

The cover showed, up close, a young woman with dark hair and clothes that were a bit on the skimpy side in Tiffany’s opinion, both hair and clothes blowing in the wind. She looked desperately determined, and also a bit chilly. A young man on a horse was watching her some distance away. It appeared that a thunderstorm was blowing up.

Strange. There was a library stamp inside, and Nanny didn’t use the library. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to read a bit before blowing the candle out.

Tiffany turned to page one. And then to page two. When she got to page nineteen she went and fetched the Unexpurgated Dictionary.

She had older sisters and she knew some of this, she told herself. But Marjory J. Boddice had got some things laughably wrong. Girls on the Chalk didn’t often run away from a young man who was rich enough to own his own horse—or not for long and not without giving him a chance to catch up. And Megs, the heroine
of the book, clearly didn’t know a thing about farming. No young man would be interested in a woman who couldn’t dose a cow or carry a piglet. What kind of help would she be around the place? Standing around with lips like cherries wouldn’t get the cows milked or the sheep sheared!

And that was another thing. Did Marjory J. Boddice know
anything
about sheep? This was a sheep farm in the summertime, wasn’t it? So when did they shear the sheep? The second most important occasion in a sheep farm’s year and it wasn’t worth mentioning?

Of course, they might have a breed like Habbakuk Polls or Lowland Cobbleworths that didn’t need shearing, but these were rare and any sensible author would surely have mentioned it.

And the scene in chapter five, where Megs left the sheep to fend for themselves while she went gathering nuts with Roger…well, how stupid was that? They could have wandered anywhere, and they were really stupid to think they’d find nuts in June.

She read on a bit further, and thought: Oh. I see. Hmm. Hah. Not nuts at all, then. On the Chalk, that sort of thing was called “looking for cuckoo nests.”

She stopped there to go downstairs to fetch a fresh candle, got back into bed, let her feet warm up again, and went on reading.

Should Megs marry sulky dark-eyed William, who already owned two and a half cows, or should she be swayed by Roger, who called her “my proud beauty” but was clearly a bad man because he rode a black stallion and had a mustache?

Why did she think she had to marry either of them? Tiffany wondered. Anyway, she spent too much time leaning meaningfully against things and pouting. Wasn’t anyone doing any work? And if she always dressed like that, she’d catch a chill.

It was amazing what those men put up with. But it made you think.

She blew out the candle and sank gently under the eiderdown, which was as white as snow.

Snow covered the Chalk. It fell around the sheep, making them look a dirty yellow. It covered the stars but glowed by its own light. It stuck to the windows of the cottages, blotting out the orange candlelight. But it would never cover the castle. The castle stood on a mound a little way from the village, a tower of stone ruling all those thatched homes. They looked as if they had grown from the land, but the castle nailed it down. It said: I Own.

In his room, Roland wrote carefully. He ignored the hammering from outside.

Annagramma, Petulia, Miss Treason—Tiffany’s letters were full of faraway people with strange-sounding names. Sometimes he tried to imagine them, and wondered if she was making them up. The whole witchcraft business seemed…well, not as advertised. It seemed like—

“Do you hear this, you wicked boy?” Aunt Danuta sounded triumphant. “Now it’s barred from this side too! Hah! This is for your own good, you know. You will stay in there until you are ready to apologize!”

—like hard work, to be honest. Worthy, though, visiting the sick and everything, but very busy and not very magical. He’d heard of “dancing around without your drawers on” and tried his best not to imagine it, but in any case there didn’t seem to be anything like that. Even broomstick rides sounded—

“And we know about your secret passage now, oh yes! It’s being walled up! No more thumbing your nose at people who are
doing their very best for you!”

—dull. He paused for a moment, staring blankly at the carefully stacked piles of loaves and sausages beside his bed. I ought to get some onions tonight, he thought. General Tacticus says they are unsurpassable for the proper operation of the digestive system if you can’t find fresh fruit.

What to write, what to write…yes! He’d tell her about the party. He’d only gone because his father, in one of his good moments, had asked him to. It was important to keep in with the neighbors
but not with the relatives!
It’d been quite nice to get out, and he’d been able to leave his horse at Mr. Gamely’s stable, where the aunts wouldn’t think of looking for it. Yes…she’d enjoy hearing about the party.

The aunts were shouting again, about locking the door to his father’s room. And they were blocking the secret passage. That meant that all he was left with was the loose stone that came out behind the tapestry in the next room, the wobbly flagstone that could let him drop down into the room below, and, of course, the chain outside the window that let him climb all the way down to the ground. And on his desk, on top of General Tacticus’s book, was a complete set of shiny new castle keys. He’d got Mr. Gamely to make them for him. The blacksmith was a thoughtful man who could see the sense in being friendly to the next Baron.