A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [9]
Then it, too, disappeared down the hill….
After a while a voice, low down in the long grass, said: “Ach, crivens! And it’s on her trail, right enough!”
A second voice said: “Surely the old hag will spot it?”
“Whut? The teachin’ hag? She’s nae a proper hag!”
“She’s got the pointy hat under all them flowers, Big Yan,” said the second voice a bit reproachfully. “I seen it. She presses a wee spring an’ the point comes up!”
“Oh, aye, Hamish, an’ I daresay she does the readin’ and the writin’ well enough, but she disna ken aboot stuff that’s no’ in books. An’ I’m no’ showin’ meself while she’s aroond. She’s the kind of a body that’d write things doon about a man! C’mon, let’s go and find the kelda!”
The Nac Mac Feegle of the Chalk hated writing for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one was this: Writing stays. It fastens words down. A man can speak his mind and some nasty wee scuggan will write it down and who knows what he’ll do with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man’s shadow tae the wall!
But now they had a new kelda, and a new kelda brings new ideas. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It stopped a clan getting too set in its ways. Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the mountains—and they did write things down.
She didn’t see why her husband shouldn’t too. And Rob Anybody was finding out that Jeannie was definitely a kelda.
Sweat was dripping off his forehead. He’d once fought a wolf all by himself, and he’d cheerfully do it again with his eyes shut and one hand tied behind him rather than do what he was doing now.
He had mastered the first two rules of writing, as he understood them.
1. STEAL SOME PAPER
2. STEAL A PENCIL.
Unfortunately there was more to it than that.
Now he held the stump of pencil in front of him in both hands and leaned backward as two of his brothers pushed him toward the piece of paper pinned up on the chamber wall (it was an old bill for sheep bells, stolen from the farm). The rest of the clan watched, in fascinated horror, from the galleries around the walls.
“Mebbe I could kind o’ ease my way inta it gently,” he protested as his heels left little grooves in the packed-earth floor of the mound. “Mebbe I could just do one o’ they commeras or full stoppies—”
“You’re the Big Man, Rob Anybody, so it’s fittin’ ye should be the first tae do the writin’,” said Jeannie. “I canna hae a husband who canna even write his ain name. I showed you the letters, did I not?”
“Aye, wumman, the nasty, loopy, bendy things!” growled Rob. “I dinna trust that Q, that’s a letter than has it in for a man. That’s a letter with a sting, that one!”
“You just hold the pencil on the paper and I’ll tell ye what marks to make,” said Jeannie, folding her arms.
“Aye, but ’tis a bushel of trouble, writin’,” said Rob. “A word writ doon can hang a man!”
“Wheest, now, stop that! ’Tis easy!” snapped Jeannie. “Bigjob babies can do it, and you’re a full-growed Feegle!”
“An’ writin’ even goes on sayin’ a man’s wurds after he’s deid!” said Rob Anybody, waving the pencil as if trying to ward off evil spirits. “Ye canna tell me that’s right!”
“Oh, so you’re afeared o’ the letters, is that it?” said Jeannie artfully. “Ach, that’s fine. All big men fear something. Take the pencil off ’f him, Wullie. Ye canna ask a man to face his fears.”
There was silence in the mound as Daft Wullie nervously took the pencil stub from his brother. Every beady eye was turned to Rob Anybody. His hands opened and shut. He started to breathe heavily, still glaring at the blank paper. He stuck out his chin.
“Ach, ye’re a harrrrd wumman, Jeannie Mac Feegle!” he said at last. He spat on his hands and snatched back the pencil stub from Daft Wullie. “Gimme that tool o’ perdition! Them letters won’t know whut’s hit them!”
“There’s my brave lad!” said Jeannie, as Rob squared up to the paper. “Right, then. The first letter is an R. That’s the one that looks like a fat man walking, remember?”
The assembled pictsies watched as Rob Anybody,