Wintersmith

It is all price and no profit. You are asking me to tell you how to put your hand in the lion’s mouth.”
    Crash!
    “I must know, to help the Baron. It’s bad. There is a lot I have to do.”
    “This you choose to do?” said Granny, still watching.
    “Yes!”
    Crash!
    “This is your Baron who doesn’t like witches?” said Granny, her gaze going from face to face in the crowd.
    “But who does like witches until they need one, Mistress Weatherwax?” said Tiffany sweetly.
    Crash!
    “This is a reckoning, Mistress Weatherwax,” Tiffany added. After all, once you’ve kissed the Wintersmith, you’re in the mood to dare. And Granny Weatherwax smiled, as if she’d done all that was expected of her.
    “Ha! Is it now?” she said. “Very well. Come and see me again before you go, and we’ll see what you may take back with you. And I hopes you can close the doors you are opening. Now watch the people! Sometimes you see her!”
    Tiffany paid attention to the dance. The Fool had turned up without her noticing, wandering around collecting money in his greasy top hat. If a girl looked as though she’d squeal if he kissed her, he gave her a kiss. And sometimes, without any warning, he’d spring off into the dance, spinning through the men with never a foot in the wrong place.
    Then Tiffany saw it. The eyes of a woman on the other side of the dance flashed gold, just for a moment. Once she’d seen it, she saw it again—in the eyes of a boy, a girl, the man holding the beer, moving around to watch the Fool—
    “Summer’s here!” said Tiffany, and realized that she was tapping her foot to the beat; she realized it because a heavier boot had just trodden on it and pinned it gently but firmly to the ground. Beside it, You looked up at her in blue-eyed innocence that became, for the briefest fragment of a second, the lazy golden eyes of a snake.
    “She’s meant to be,” said Granny Weatherwax, removing her boot.
    “A few coppers for luck, miss?” said a voice close by, and there was the sound of money being shaken in an ancient hat.
    Tiffany turned and looked into purple-gray eyes. The face around them was lined and tanned and grinning. He had a gold earring. “A copper or two from the lovely lady?” he wheedled. “Silver or gold, maybe?”
    Sometimes, Tiffany thought, you just know how it all should go….
    “Iron?” she said, taking the ring off her finger and dropping it into the hat.
    The Fool picked it out, delicately, and flipped it into the air. Tiffany’s eye followed it, but somehow it wasn’t in the air anymore but was glistening on the man’s finger.
    “Iron’s enough,” he said, and gave her a sudden kiss on the cheek.
    It was only slightly chilly.

    The galleries inside the Feegle mound were crowded but hushed. This was important. The honor of the clan was at stake here.
    In the middle was a large book, taller than Rob and filled with colorful pictures. It was quite muddy from its journey down into the mound. Rob had been challenged. For years he’d thought himself to be a hero, and then the hag o’ hags had said he wasna, no’ really. Weel, you couldn’t argue wi’ the hag o’ hags, but he wuz goin’ to rise tae the challenge, oh aye, so he wuz, or his name wasna Rob Anybody.
    “Where’s mah coo?” he read. “Is that mah coo? It gaes cluck ! It is a…a…chicken! It is no’ mah coo! An’ then there’s this wee paintin’ o’ a couple o’ chickens. That’s another page, right?”
    “It is indeed, Rob,” said Billy Bigchin.
    There was a cheer from the assembled Feegles as Rob ran around the book, waving his hands in the air.
    “An’ this one is a lot harder than Abker, right?” he said, when he’d done the circuit. “That one was easy! An’ a very predictable plot. Whoever writted that book didna stretch himself, in ma opinion.”
    “You mean The ABC ?” said Billy Bigchin.
    “Aye.” Rob Anybody jumped up and down and punched the air a few times. “Got somethin’ a wee bit tougher?”
    The gonnagle looked at the stack of battered books the Feegles had, in various ways, collected.
    “Somethin’ I can get ma teeth intae,” Rob added. “A big book.”
    “Well, this one’s called Principles of Modern Accountancy ,” said Billy doubtfully.
    “An’ is that a big heroic book to read?” said Rob, running on the spot.
    “Aye. Probably, but—”
    Rob Anybody held up a hand for silence and looked across at Jeannie, who had a crowd of little Feegles