I Shall Wear Midnight

hearing. And that means evidence. And that means witnesses, and that means that the people who say have to say it in front of everybody. And that means a jury of my peers, which means people like me, and that means habeas corpus , thank you very much.’ She stood up and turned towards the doorway, which was blocked by a struggling crowd of guards. Now she looked at Roland, and bobbed a little curtsy. ‘Unless you feel entirely confident enough to have me arrested, my lord, I am leaving.’
    They watched with open mouths as she walked up to the guards.
    ‘Good evening, Sergeant, good evening, Preston, good evening, gentlemen. This won’t take a minute. If you would just excuse me, I am leaving.’ She saw Preston wink at her as she pushed past his sword, and then she heard the guards suddenly collapse in a heap.
    She walked along the corridor to the hall. There was a huge fire in the even bigger fireplace, which was large enough to be a room all by itself. The fire was peat. It couldn’t do much to heat most of the hall, which never got warm even in the heart of summer, but it was cosy to be close to, and if you have to breathe smoke, then you can’t do better than peat smoke, which rose up to the chimney and drifted like a warm mist around the sides of bacon, which were hung up there to smoke.
    It was all going to get complicated again, but for the moment Tiffany sat there simply for a rest and, while she was about it, to shout at herself for being so stupid. How much poison can he seep into their heads? How much does he need to?
    That was the problem with witchcraft: it was as if everybody needed the witches, but hated the fact that they did, and somehow the hatred of the fact could become the hatred of the person. People then started thinking: Who are you to have these skills? Who are you to know these things? Who are you to think you’re better than us? But Tiffany didn’t think she was better than them. She was better than them at witchcraft, that was true, but she couldn’t knit a sock, she didn’t know how to shoe a horse, and while she was pretty good at making cheese, she had to have three tries to bake a loaf that you could actually bite into with your teeth. Everybody was good at something. The only wicked thing was not finding out in time.
    There was fine dust on the floor of the fireplace, because there is nothing like peat for dust, and as Tiffany watched, tiny little footprints appeared in it.
    ‘All right,’ she said, ‘what did you do to the guards?’
    A shower of Feegles landed lightly on the seat beside her.
    ‘Weel,’ Rob Anybody said, ‘personally I would have liked to take them to the cleaners, the mound-digging Cromwells that they are, but I could see where that might make it a wee bit difficult for ye, so we just tied their bootlaces together. Maybe they’ll blame it on the wee mice.’
    ‘Look, you’re not to hurt anybody, all right? The guards have to do what they are told.’
    ‘Nae, they didnae,’ said Rob scornfully. ‘That’s nae errand for a warrior, doing what you’re told. And what would they have done to ye, doing what they were told? That old carlin of a mother-in-law was glaring claymores at ye the whole time, bad cess to her! Hah! Let’s see how she likes her bathwater tonight!’
    The edge to his voice put Tiffany on the alert. ‘You are not to hurt anybody, do you understand? Nobody at all, Rob.’
    The Big Man grumbled. ‘Och yes, miss, I’ve taken what you said on board!’
    ‘And you promise on your honour as a Feegle not to throw it over the side as soon as my back is turned, do you?’
    Rob Anybody started grumbling again, using crackling Feegle words that she had never heard before. They sounded like curses, and once or twice, when he spat them out, smoke and sparks came out with them. He was stamping his feet too, always a sign of a Feegle at the end of his tether. ‘They came arrayed with sharp steel to dig up me home, dig up me clan and dig up me family,’ he said, and his words were all the more menacing because they were so level and quiet. Then he spat a short sentence towards the fire, which burned green for a moment when the words hit the flames.
    ‘I’ll no’ disobey the hag o’ the hills, ye ken, but I put ye on firm notice that if I can see a shovel near my mound again, the owner will find it shoved up his kilt blunt end first, so that he hurts his hands trying to pull it out. And that will only be the start of his problems!