Once More With Footnotes

Cohen the Barbarian! What d'you think o' that, eh? On our bridge! We don't just have rich fat soft ole merchants like your uncle Pyrites gets," said the troll, still talking to his son but smirking past him to his wife, "we 'ave proper heroes like they used to in the old clays."
     
                  The troll's wife looked Cohen up and down.
     
                  "Rich, is he?" she said.
     
                  "Rich has got nothing to do with it," said the troll.
     
                  "Are you going to kill our dad?" said Scree suspiciously.
     
                  "Corse he is," said Mica severely . "It's his job. An' then I'll get famed in song an' story. This is Cohen the Barbarian, right, not some bugger from the village with a pitchfork. 'E's a famous hero come all this way to see us, so just you show 'im some respect.
     
                  "Sorry about that, sir," he said to Cohen. "Kids today. You know how it is."
     
                  The horse started to snigger. "Now look — " Cohen began.
     
                  "I remember my dad tellin' me about you when I was a pebble," said Mica. '"E bestrides the world like a clossus, he said."
     
                  There was silence. Cohen wondered what a clossus was, and felt Beryl's stony gaze fixed upon him.
     
                  "He's just a little old man," she said. "He don't look very heroic to me. If he's so good, why ain't he rich?"
     
                  "Now you listen to me — " Mica began.
     
                  "This is what we've been waiting for, is it?" said his wife. "Sitting under a leaky bridge the whole time? Waiting for people that never come? Waiting for little old bandy-legged old men? I should have listened to my mother! You want me to let our son sit under a bridge waiting f or some little old man to kill him? That's what being a troll is all about? Well, it ain't happening!"
     
                  "Now you just — "
     
                  "Hah! Pyrites doesn't get little old men! He gets big fat merchants! He's someone. You should have gone in with him when you had the chance! "
     
                  " I'd rather eat worms!"
     
                  "Worms? Hah? Since when could we afford to eat worms? "
     
                  " Can we have a word?" said Cohen.
     
                  He strolled towards the far end of the bridge, swinging his sword from one hand. The troll padded after him.
     
                  Cohen fumbled for h is tobacco pouch. He looked up at the troll, and held out the bag.
     
                  "Smoke?" he said.
     
                  "That stuff can kill you," said the troll. "Yes. But not today."
     
                  "Don't you hang about talking to your no-good friends!" bellowed Beryl, from her end of the bridge. "Today's your day for going down to the sawmill! You know Chert said he couldn't go on holding the job open if you weren't taking it seriously!"
     
                  Mica gave Cohen a sorrowful little smirk.
     
                  "She's very supportive," he said.
     
                  "I'm not climbing all the way down to the river to pull you out again!" Beryl roared. "You tell him about the billy goats, Mr. Big Troll! "
     
                  " Billy goats?" said Cohen.
     
                  "I don't know anything about billy goats," said Mica. "She's always going on about billy goats. I have no knowledge w hatsoever about billy goats." He winced.
     
                  They watched Beryl usher the young trolls down the bank and into the darkness under the bridge.
     
                  "The thing is," said Cohen, when they were alone, "I wasn't intending to kill you."
     
                  The troll's face fell.
     
                  "You weren't?"
     
                  "Just throw you over the bridge and steal whatever treasure you've got. "
     
                  " You were?"
     
                  Cohen patted him on the back. "Besides," he said, "I like to see people with ... good memories. That's what the land needs. Good memories." The troll stood to attention.
     
                  "I try to do my best, sir," it said. "My lad wants to go off to work in the city.