A Hat Full Of Sky

bad case o’ the thinkin’ he’s caught, missus. When a man starts messin’ wi’ the readin’ and the writin’, then he’ll come doon with a dose o’ the thinkin’ soon enough. I’ll fetch some o’ the lads and we’ll hold his heid under water until he stops doin’ it—’tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin’.”
    “I’ll wallop ye and ten like ye!” yelled Rob Anybody in Big Yan’s face, raising his fists. “I’m the Big Man in this clan and—”
    “And I am the kelda,” said their kelda, and one of the hiddlins of keldaring is to use your voice like that: hard, cold, sharp, cutting the air like a dagger of ice. “And I tell you men to go back doon the hole and dinna show your faces back up here until I say. Not you, Rob Anybody Feegle! You stay here until I tell ye!”
    “Oh waily waily—” Daft Wullie began, but Big Yan clapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him away quickly.
    When they were alone, and scraps of cloud were beginning to mass around the moon, Rob Anybody hung his head.
    “I willna go, Jeannie, if you say,” he said.
    “Ach, Rob, Rob ,” said Jeannie, beginning to cry. “Ye dinna understand . I want no harm to come to the big wee girl, truly I don’t. But I canna face thinkin’ o’ you out there fightin’ this monster that canna be killed! It’s you I’m worried aboot, can ye no’ see ?”
    Rob put his arm around her. “Aye, I see,” he said.
    “I’m your wife, Rob, askin’ ye not to go!”
    “Aye, aye. I’ll stay,” said Rob.
    Jeannie looked up to him. Tears shone in the moonlight. “Ye mean it?”
    “I never braked my word yet,” said Rob. “Except to polis’men and other o’ that kidney, ye ken, and they dinna count.”
    “Ye’ll stay? Ye’ll abide by my word?” said Jeannie, sniffing.
    Rob sighed. “Aye. I will.”
    Jeannie was quiet for a while and then said, in the sharp cold voice of a kelda: “Rob Anybody Feegle, I’m tellin’ ye now to go and save the big wee hag.”
    “Whut?” said Rob Anybody, amazed. “Jus’ noo ye said I was tae stay—”
    “That was as your wife, Rob. Now I’m telling you as your kelda.” Jeannie stood up, chin out and looking determined. “If ye dinna heed the world o’ yer kelda, Rob Anybody Feegle, ye can be banished fra’ the clan. Ye ken that. So you’ll listen t’ me guid. Tak’ what men you need afore it’s too late, and go to the mountains, and see that the big wee girl comes tae nae harm. And come back safe yoursel’. That is an order! Nay, ’tis more’n an order. ’Tis a geas I’m laying on ye! That cannae be brake!”
    “But I—” Rob began, completely bewildered.
    “I’m the kelda , Rob,” said Jeannie. “I canna run a clan with the Big Man pinin’. And the hills of our children need their hag. Everyone knows the land needs someone tae tell it whut it is.”
    There was something about the way Jeannie had said “children.” Rob Anybody was not the fastest of thinkers, but he always got there in the end.
    “Aye, Rob,” said Jeannie, seeing his expression. “Soon I’ll be birthing seven sons.”
    “Oh,” said Rob Anybody. He didn’t ask how she knew the number. Keldas just knew.
    “That’s great !” he said.
    “And one daughter, Rob.”
    Rob blinked.
    “A daughter? This soon?”
    “Aye,” said Jeannie.
    “That’s wonderful good luck for a clan!” said Rob.
    “Aye. So you’ve got something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody. An’ I beg ye to use your heid for somethin’ other than nuttin’ folk.”
    “I thank ye, Kelda,” said Rob Anybody. “I’ll do as ye bid. I’ll tak’ some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o’ the hills. It canna be a good life for the puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra’ home, among strangers.”
    “Aye,” said Jeannie, turning her face away. “I ken that, too.”

CHAPTER 4
    The PLN
    A t dawn Rob Anybody, watched with awe by his many brothers, wrote the word:
    PLN
    …on a scrap of paper bag. Then he held it up.
    “Plan, ye ken,” he said to the assembled Feegles. “Now we have a Plan, all we got tae do is work out what tae do . Yes, Wullie?”
    “Whut was that about this geese Jeannie hit ye with?” said Daft Wullie, lowering his hand.
    “Not geese, geas,” said Rob Anybody. He sighed. “I told yez. That means it’s serious. It means I got tae bring back the big wee hag, an’ no excuses, otherwise my soul gaes slam-bang intae the big cludgie in the sky. It’s