Hogfather

thinking with something other than her head, methodically tore some strips from her petticoat to bandage the more unpleasant wounds.
    Capability, said the small part of her mind. A rational head in emergencies.
    Rational something, anyway.
    It’s probably some kind of character flaw .
    The man was tattooed. Blue whorls and spirals haunted his skin, under the blood.
    He opened his eyes and stared at the sky.
    “Can you get up?”
    His gaze flicked to her. He tried moving and then fell back.
    Eventually she managed to pull the man up into a sitting position. He swayed as she put one of his arms across her shoulders and then heaved him to his feet. She did her best to ignore the stink, which had an almost physical force.
    Downhill seemed the best option. Even if his brain wasn’t working yet, his feet seemed to get the idea.
    They lurched down through the freezing woods, the snow glowing orange in the risen sun. Cold blue gloom lurked in hollows like little cups of winter.
    Beside her, the tattooed man made a gurgling sound. He slipped out of her grasp and landed on his knees in the snow, clutching at his throat and choking. His breath sounded like a saw.
    “What now ? What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
    He rolled his eyes at her and pawed at his throat again.
    “Something stuck?” She slapped him as hard as she could on the back, but now he was on his hands and knees, fighting for breath.
    She put her hands under his shoulders and pulled him upright, and put her arms around his waist. Oh, gods, how was it supposed to go, she’d gone to classes about it, now, didn’t you have to bunch up one fist and then put the other hand around it and then pull up and in like this —
    The man coughed and something bounced off a tree and landed in the snow.
    She knelt down to have a look.
    It was a small black bean.
    A bird trilled, high on a branch. She looked up. A wren bobbed at her and fluttered to another twig.
    When she looked back, the man was different. He had clothes now, heavy furs, with a fur hood and fur boots. He was supporting himself on a stone-tipped spear, and looked a lot stronger.
    Something hurried through the wood, barely visible except by its shadow. For a moment she glimpsed a white hare before it sprang away on a new path.
    She looked back. Now the furs had gone and the man looked older, although he had the same eyes. He was wearing thick white robes, and looked very much like a priest.
    When a bird called again she didn’t look away. And she realized that she’d been mistaken in thinking that the man changed like the turning of pages. All the images were there at once, and many others, too. What you saw depended on how you looked.
    Yes. It’s a good job I’m cool and totally used to this sort of thing, she thought. Otherwise I’d be rather worried…
    Now they were at the edge of the forest.
    A little way off, four huge boars stood and steamed, in front of a sleigh that looked as if it had been put together out of crudely trimmed trees. There were faces in the blackened wood, possibly carved by stone, possibly carved by rain and wind.
    The Hogfather climbed aboard and sat down. He’d put on weight in the last few yards and now it was almost impossible to see anything other than the huge, red-robed man, ice crystals settling here and there on the cloth. Only in the occasional sparkle of frost was there a hint of hair or tusk.
    He shifted on the seat and then reached down to extricate a false beard, which he held up questioningly.
    S ORRY , said a voice behind Susan. T HAT WAS MINE .
    The Hogfather nodded at Death, as one craftsman to another, and then at Susan. She wasn’t sure if she was being thanked—it was more a gesture of recognition, of acknowledgment that something that needed doing had indeed been done. But it felt like thanks.
    Then he shook the reins and clicked his teeth and the sleigh slid away.
    They watched it go.
    “I remember hearing,” said Susan distantly, “that the idea of the Hogfather wearing a red and white outfit was invented quite recently.”
    N O . I T WAS REMEMBERED .
    Now the Hogfather was a red dot on the other side of the valley.
    “Well, that about wraps it up for this dress,” said Susan. “I’d just like to ask, just out of academic interest…you were sure I was going to survive, were you?”
    I WAS QUITE CONFIDENT .
    “Oh, good .”
    I WILL GIVE YOU A LIFT BACK , said Death, after a while.
    “Thank you. Now…tell me…”
    W HAT WOULD